Out in the Dark

by Nicola Adams

  “Oh, Shelley, right, sure.” James fumbled for the right words. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’re coasting and need to find a gas station quick. It’s getting dark and it’ll snow soon and we need to keep going,” Shelley rattled off breathlessly, holding on to the side door for dear life. Jake let the car coast as fast as possible and it made for a pretty wild ride.

  “Everything okay?” James asked, wondering at the panic he detected in the girl’s voice.

  “Yeah, sure. How about that gas station?” Shelley almost yelled in the phone.

  “Can do, but I need to know where you are.”

  “Jake, where are we?”

  “Um.” He pressed his lips together and thought. A road sign loomed up ahead, and he strained to read it. “We just crested Midvale Hill Summit and are getting close to Winnemucca, I think. That’s what the sign said. Did you see how many miles?”

  “I think it said fifteen miles to Winnemucca. Is that about right?” Shelley said to both Jake and James.

  “You’ll never coast all the way there, no matter the momentum you’ve built up. What with the friction of the road, the temperature, the weight of the car…” Shelley could hear the tapping of keys in the background. James was calculating how far they could coast, which though interesting, was not helpful. Or so she thought.

  “You should be able to coast to within a mile of a speck on the map where they should have a gas station, or at least a pump where they can get you a jerrycan of gas,” James said, triumphantly.

  Shelley relayed the information to Jake who raised an eyebrow but kept a firm handle on the car. “Name of said speck?”

  “Name of said speck?” Shelley repeated into the phone.

  “Ah, doesn’t look to have a name, and now that I zoom in I’m not so sure it has a gas pump either. From what I can see from this height it might actually be nothing much. I’ll keep looking and I’ll call you back.”

  Shelley looked at the phone but there seemed to be nothing more it expected of her, so she pulled out the ashtray and put it in there and waited for James’s call. She explained what James had said but that did not seem to bother Jake.

  “He’ll come through for us,” he said, though it seemed unlikely even James, for all his technological prowess, could magically make a gas station appear in the middle of nowhere.

  The slope started to level off and the curves straighten out. The car started to lose speed. Soon they would be stuck by the side of the road. The first flakes of snow already floated down. Without the engine on, the heater wouldn’t work either and it was starting to get quite cold inside. Jake wished again he had packed warmer clothes, but earlier he had been so sure that his father was somewhere closer to Las Vegas, not Reno, so he hadn’t thought he would need them.

  If James didn’t come through they would be in for a cold night. That one little blanket would never do.

  The car slowed down more and more and after a while Jake was forced to pull onto the shoulder and let the car roll to a stop.

  In the rearview mirror, Jake spotted a car behind them that seemed to be keeping pace and slowing as they did. When Jake pulled onto the shoulder, it did so as well. It made him uneasy.

  “Shelley, do you recognize that car behind us?” Jake asked, in the hope that perhaps it might be good guys and not bad guys following them.

  Shelley turned around and squinted into the headlights the other car switched on, as if they deliberately wanted to obscure her view of them.

  “Don’t think so. It could be anyone. Why do you ask?” She turned back to face Jake. Her internal radar told her the car behind them was trouble, but she didn’t want to look like a hysterical girl.

  “We may need to make a run for it. Those guys are trouble, I can feel it.”

  “Run? Where?” Shelley asked and looked at the deserted road bordered on both sides by low shrubs, with a gently sloping hillock on their side, spreading to empty grassland with a few scattered clusters of trees; not many places to hide.

  “I don’t know, down that way. There’s some cover there, see? Where that stand of trees is.” Jake pointed toward her right.

  She saw the trees in the distance, but getting there would be a real challenge on the exposed and uneven terrain.

  “Are you sure we’ll need to run?” Shelley asked, but she already knew the answer. A very uncomfortable feeling settled in her stomach and it wasn’t indigestion. It didn’t take much talent to sense the danger coming from that car.

  Jake nodded and put on the handbrake, checking his pockets for important things, like his pocket knife.

  “Ready?” he asked, grabbing his phone.

  “Ready.”

  “Run as fast as you can and we’ll meet up again by those trees.” He looked deeply into Shelley’s eyes and wished with all his heart that she was not with him. He knew he had put her in danger and she did not deserve that.

  Shelley nodded as if she understood what he was thinking.

  “They’re getting out the car, let’s go!” And with that both of them jumped out of the Pontiac and ran, sliding down the embankment, scrambling to their feet at the bottom. The ground underfoot was hard and frozen, making running more difficult. They stumbled and tripped and ankles threatened to twist, but not once did they stop. Not even when they heard their names being called out by an unfamiliar man’s voice, and certainly not when they heard the rifle shot. They did not wait to see where the bullet landed, and were grateful it had missed its target.

  They did not look back, but kept running.

  Their lungs burned from the effort and the thin, cold air. Their hearts beat like drums in their chests and their legs began to ache, and the stand of trees seemed ever farther away, but they did not give in or give up. They kept running, side by side; running for their lives.

  Chapter 17

  “What do we do now?” Shelley asked, gasping for breath between words. They were standing in the shelter of pine trees.

  Jake stood with his back to her, breathing heavily, a steadying hand on a tree trunk, staring out across the field they had just crossed. In the twilight and in-between the snowflakes he could just make out his father’s car, illuminated by the headlights of the other car. Shadowy figures moved back and forth through the headlights’ beam. Jake counted three people, but wasn’t sure if there might not be a fourth.

  So far they had not tried to follow them, but they were shining flashlights in Jake and Shelley’s direction. The beams of light did not reach far enough, but it did not stop them from firing off a few more shots, equally out of range.

  “I guess we wait. We had better build shelter for the night. It’s going to be dark soon.” Jake pulled his pocket knife out and felt the weight of it in his hand. It was the only tool they had for survival. Jake hoped he could remember all his father had taught him about this kind of survival.

  Shelley wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm and followed Jake. One last glance over her shoulder told her they were not being followed.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” she asked, tripping on a dead branch and nearly falling.

  The ground was covered with pine needles, which felt soft underfoot after the frozen soil surrounding the trees.

  “I’m going to build a nest for us, so we can survive the cold,” Jake said, with more confidence than he felt.

  “Great, and you know how to do that?” Shelley was skeptical.

  “Yes, I do,” he said, matching her testy tone. “Help me look for a young pine tree, maybe two.”

  “To climb and sleep in?” she snapped back.

  Jake ignored her.

  “What about wolves, or bears?” she asked, genuinely worried.

  “We’ll have to take our chances. There’s no way we climb these trees and stay warm through the night. Our best bet is a nest or a den.”

  “If you say so, Mr. Boy Scout.” The cold was making her very testy, and after all the running the sweat made her feel even colder. She
shivered every time a gust of wind blew over her.

  Some way into the trees, they came upon a small clearing that held several young pine trees. On the far side, Jake spotted a fallen tree that had come out, roots and all, creating a small crater in the soil. It would make a perfect spot for them to spend the night.

  Determined to get their nest built before total darkness, Jake set to work stripping the branches off the pine saplings. He told Shelley to place them first in a layer in the hole by the uprooted tree and after that to gather them in a stack near the hole.

  “Now what?” Shelley said through chattering teeth. Her jacket was not very thick and the wind whipped icy snowflakes all around. But she had to give Jake credit for choosing a spot that was out of the wind.

  “Go lie down,” Jake told her and indicated the layer of pine branches.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” She struggled to make her voice heard over the wind, which howled through the trees.

  “No, I’m not! Now go lie down or freeze to death where you stand,” Jake ordered.

  “Fine, I’ll get in the grave. My mother will never know where I died or how, and wolves can gnaw on my frozen bones through the winter. This is all your fault!” She would have cried if she thought tears would flow in that cold.

  Jake ignored her and kept on gathering pine boughs. With his foot he moved pine needles from the forest floor into the nest.

  Shelley crawled in and lay curled up in a fetal position, with her head near the exposed root system. She had to admit that at least she was out of the icy wind, but the snow still landed on her and was anything but warm.

  Jake joined her and started spreading the pine branches over both of them, layering them as best he could until he had a fairly thick covering over them.

  He extended the blanket over their heads; they were now completely covered by a blanket of green and slowly he could feel the shivering stop as he warmed up. He hoped the layer of snow falling on them would not melt through but would form an extra protective blanket to shelter them for the night.

  “You warming up at all?” he asked Shelley. He couldn’t hear her teeth chattering anymore.

  “Sort of. And you?”

  “Sort of,” Jake said and hesitated. He drew a deep breath and added, “I think we should snuggle close together for extra warmth.” He’d only ever been that close to a girl with Jessica, and then raging hormones had been in control. This was different, this was survival.

  He heard Shelley sigh in resignation and then felt her move closer toward him. She was skinnier than he had imagined. He was used to Jess’s curves, not this skinny girl. He felt suddenly protective of her. She seemed so tiny and vulnerable and it was up to him to keep her safe. He put a protective arm around her and was rudely brought back to reality.

  “Don’t even think about it!” Her voice was forceful and firm in the darkness.

  “I…I wasn’t. I just wanted to keep you warm. Sheesh, that’s the thanks I get for saving your life out here? You think I’m going to try something?” Jake sounded indignant.

  “Fine, as long as that’s all. I warn you, I bite.”

  Jake got all sorts of unpleasant images on that last comment and removed his arm. Instead he just lay against her to share body heat.

  Just as he got comfortable, his phone rang.

  “Now what?” He carefully slipped his phone out of his pocket, trying not to disturb the covers.

  “Jimmy-J, this had better be important,” he hissed into the phone.

  “I found you a gas station and it should only be a mile or so from where I calculated you’d stop.”

  “Great, just great, but we can’t get there because some goons with guns chased us into the fields.”

  “Oh. So where are you then?”

  “In a hole with pine branches, huddled down for the night. And it’s snowing,” Jake snapped.

  “Sorry, man. I’ll text you the location for when you can get out.” James disconnected and a few moments later the chime for a text sounded.

  “Useful,” Jake grumbled. He knew he should be thankful, but right now he felt anything but.

  “Can’t you, you know, remote view it?” Shelley asked. She was warm and wide awake now. The fear adrenalin was still coursing through her system and she was too keyed up to think about sleep.

  “What?” Jake asked.

  “The gas station,” she said, as if that should have been obvious. “That was James, right?”

  “Yeah. Well I can if I know the coordinates on the map. Then I can see what might be there on the ground. But it’s not always very clear what it is I’m looking at. It’s not like it’s some magical way of seeing anything I want to see.” Jake sounded irritable, but hadn’t meant to. “Sorry. I just don’t like getting shot at.”

  “Who does?” Shelley said, flippantly. “Can you ‘see’ who they are and what they want?”

  Jake thought about it and wondered if perhaps in her naïveté she hadn’t stumbled on something.

  “Beats me,” Jake said, and thought again that he felt like there were too many puzzle pieces floating just out of his reach. Almost like when an ice sheet breaks up and the various pieces float off in opposite directions.

  “Are they after your dad, or do they want to make sure you don’t find him?” Shelley pondered out loud. “Or are they after that Paul Thomson guy, who’s starting to sound suspect to me?” Jake didn’t answer, but thought about what she was saying. They were all thoughts he’d had himself now that he had quiet time to think. Whoever they were after, they were very dangerous.

  He nudged Shelley and said, “I can try to read them, those guys, I mean. I have an image in my mind and that should be enough to get a reading of sorts.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I can try, right?” Jake said, trying to sound confident, though he felt some trepidation at what he might learn.

  “I’ll try too,” Shelley said, sounding very determined in the dark.

  “Right, you? How?”

  “I’ve been practicing on your duffel bag,” Shelley said, undaunted by his lack of confidence in her abilities. “Three pairs of underwear, Jockeys with red waistband. One pair of jeans, a computer with a red sticker with the numbers 8, 2 and 7 on it. What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.” Jake was astonished at how quickly she had picked up the basics. If he was honest with himself he would admit that she had already gone beyond the basics. The fact that she could see numbers really blew him away. Very few could do that, he remembered Paul saying just yesterday.

  “What me to go on?”

  “No!” Jake said rather more forcefully than was necessary. “No, I guess you must have some talent for this.”

  “I think it was all those games Melvin played with me. I didn’t realize it at the time though.” Her voice sounded far away and dreamy as she went back in her mind to the time when Melvin was alive. He was the kindest man she had ever known, and suddenly she ached for him. How had she ended up here? Literally in a hole in the ground, in the middle of nowhere, with this boy. She fought back the tears of grief she did not want to face. If she allowed herself to cry over Melvin then he would really be dead. She wanted desperately to believe that he was just somewhere else, that someday she would turn around and find him standing behind her, with his arms ready to catch her as she let herself fall back. That was one of their games.

  Jake let himself open up to Shelley’s thoughts, out of curiosity and also to make sure she was all right. He was not prepared for the love and pain she held inside for Melvin. He caught glimpses of her life with him and her mother and he quickly withdrew his mind. He felt he had intruded on something very private and it confused him. How could she have done the things she’d done for money when her life before had been so sweet?

  He took a deep, steadying breath and gave her a few more moments to compose herself before he grabbed her hand.

  “Ready?”

  Chapter 18

  The images came in
quick succession. It was overwhelming and made Jake’s head pound. He had never done anything this intense before. He was swimming upstream in a maelstrom of violence and hatred. Bodies, blood, images of combat and heart-wrenching sadness all mingled in a roiling flood. The undertow of buried emotions threatened to pull him under and only with a great effort was he able to disconnect from it.

  “Shelley! Shelley, you OK? Let them go. Come back out of it.” Jake shook her hand and tried to free his from her tight grip. Using his other hand he reached over and shook her. She lay frozen, not from cold, as it was warm in their nest, but from the sensation of being stuck in the images of others. He knew what that was like because it had happened to him when his dad was first teaching him.

  “Shelley!” he cried, but quickly stopped and listened. He thought he’d heard a branch crack underfoot outside their nest.

  A deep gasp sounded next to him and he knew she was back. The hand he was holding started to shake and he could hear her teeth chattering again.

  “Shelley, it’s OK, I’m here. You’re safe,” he lied, wondering what was out there stalking them. Would they be safe inside their nest or would they be discovered and gunned down without mercy, their bodies never to be found again? “Shhh, it’s all right,” he whispered, trying to keep her from making noise.

  There! That cracking sound again, as if someone had stepped on a twig. Jake strained his ears to try and guess by the sound how heavy that someone was. He might be able to scare off a hungry wolf, if that was all that was out there.

  A louder crack reverberated through the nest and dislodged bits of the blanket of snow covering them, sending little icy globs falling into their shelter.

  Shelley tightened her grip on Jake’s hand. They lay there listening, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. Shelley’s heart beat furiously as she tried to calm her fears and recover from her bad viewing experience.