“Who was chasing you?” Ramona asked, checking the side mirrors.
“I don’t know; some men,” Huck replied, searching for the same thing she was. “They were dressed in black and seemed like they’d done this before.”
Johnny scooted to the edge of the bed in back and rested his elbows on his knees. “They tasted our blood,” he said, bangs hanging in his eyes.
“They what?” It was evident by Ramona’s warped expression she was beginning to second-guess picking them up.
Nina bounced with a bump in the road. “They wanted to make sure we were clean before…selling us to whoever. But we’re fine now. We’re going to meet the police and call your parents. Okay?”
Johnny stared up at her. “But clean for what?”
Huck imagined a line of rich, old people forking over big bucks for their own personal sex-slave and it broke his heart. It just as easily could’ve been his daughter as it was Johnny and he thanked God RaeAnn was safe with Tess and her family in Colorado. He cringed when Jenny and her blond pigtails dragged through his mind. She should have run. He should’ve carried her.
“Labor camps,” Nina replied, trying to ease the tension in the boy’s face. “That’s what they do; they sell people to work in strawberry fields and diamond mines. They’re human traffickers.”
Johnny turned to the front windshield, the snow streaking through the headlights luring his eyes from focus. “There’s nothing human about these human traffickers.”
Grunting, Ramona shook her head and white-knuckled the wheel. “This is the last time I come through here, I swear to God.”
Massaging the wrinkles from his forehead, Huck tried connecting dots that didn’t connect. Much like the first pass at a new novel, there were hints of coherency that would, eventually, lead to something bigger. But it was playing hard to get. “Why would a human trafficking ring kidnap a thirty-two-year-old man?” he asked no one in particular, dropping his hand into his lap. “Some of those people were in their sixties or seventies.”
When Nina didn’t respond with a perfectly rational explanation, he twisted around in the front seat and wondered how many like her had gone through this before. How many women had been lured into a vehicle and drugged with something along the way? She was beautiful, with coffee-colored skin and long silky hair, and God knows what they did to her. “How old are you?”
She tucked a dark strand of bangs behind an ear. “Twenty-five, not that it’s any of your business.”
He sighed. Something was amiss and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Human trafficking rings targeted children and teenage girls, yet back at the car wash people of all ages lined those cold white walls: Men, women, children. Black, white, and brown. “How about you, Johnny?” he said. “How old are you, buddy?”
“I turned twelve last month; I’m in seventh grade at Indian Hills.” He paused. “We’re going to miss Christmas, aren’t we?”
Hanging his head, Huck nearly laughed. None of it made any sense. “This is the realest dream I’ve ever had.”
“This isn’t a dream,” Nina coldly replied. “It’s a nightmare.”
Ramona focused on the snow-covered road. “Pardon my French, but I’m shitting my britches right now. Nothing exciting ever happens to me and when it does… Bam! All hell breaks loose.”
“What’d that Ambrose guy mean when he said your biggest fan can’t wait to meet you?”
Huck’s eyes snapped to Nina and thinned. “I’m a writer.”
“Of what?”
“Horror novels.
“So wait…” Nina tapped a finger against her lips. “If they wanted you specifically, how did they know you would answer an ad for that old car?”
He blinked at her, a storm swirling inside and outside his head. “That’s a good question. How could they know I would answer that ad?”
“How long have you been searching for a car like that?”
He shrugged. “A few weeks.”
“Look out!” Johnny cried, thrusting a finger out.
Ramona let off the gas but didn’t hit the brakes or swerve, knowing she’d lose control if she did. Huck braced for impact, jerking against the seatbelt as warm blood sprayed the front windshield.
Chapter Four
Baby Maker
Ramona did a textbook job maintaining control after striking the big buck, but that didn’t stop the smoke pouring out from beneath the hood.
“Double doggonit!” she said, easing onto the side of the road you could no longer see.
“What is it?” Huck asked, body tensing as the truck trembled to a stop.
Throwing it in gear, she turned off the engine and watched smoke billow. “Probably just a radiator hose,” she said, hitting the hazards and sinking into the oversized seat.
“Probably?” Huck searched the mirrors. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Only one way to find out,” she breathed, slipping into a pair of heavy work gloves.
“How far have we gone since you picked us up?”
“A mile or two,” she answered, popping the door open and letting in the cold.
Huck squinted against the multiple dome lights illuminating the tidy cab. Outside, orange lights flashed against the pure white canvas, an unfortunate beacon in the churning night. “Wait,” he shouted. “Don’t go out there!”
Stepping out onto the top step, snow stuck in Ramona’s curls. “Don’t worry, honey, no one’s been following us. I’ve been watching.”
He searched the windows, looking for something to change her mind because this is usually when the shit hits the fan in one of his books. It always starts with the first mistake. He could see the diner’s lights from here but they were small, easily over a mile away – which would feel like ten in this mess.
“He’s right,” Nina said, pulling the blanket tighter around Johnny. “We should lock the doors and call the police again. Have them meet us right here at this mile-marker.”
Mouth gaping, Ramona turned to the smoke seeping from the hood. It had subsided some and wasn’t on fire, but something was clearly wrong. “Okay,” she simply replied, climbing back inside and shutting the door. The dome lights flipped off, dropping them back into the darkness.
“Turn off the hazards and lock your door.”
She frowned at Huck before understanding flared in her eyes. Removing her gloves, she hit the locks and doused the flashing orange lights. The truck settled into the white, the wind rocking the cab and whistling through the cracks. Huck waited for his night vision to return and didn’t like what he saw when it did. They were sitting ducks out in the open. Unlocking a visible breath, he wrapped his arms around his chest. Nina was right; the drugs were wearing off quickly and he could feel the cold sinking its teeth into his wet toes.
“There’re more blankets in the back,” Ramona said, wiping condensation from her glasses. “Water and cookies, too. Help yourselves.” Slipping them back on, she blew in her hands and rubbed them together. “We may be here for a while.”
Johnny passed Huck a green blanket that smelled of cigarettes and feet. Throwing it around his shoulders, he watched the snow pile up on the wiper blades. It was impossible not to think about the men back at the car wash. Were they still coming? Or did they cut their losses and give up? Huck tried calculating how long it would take them to run back to the car wash on foot, grab a vehicle, and make their way back to Highway 59 in the snow.
Groaning, Ramona dropped her cellphone back in the cupholder. “Shoot! Still no signal,” she announced, flipping a switch on a CB mounted above. Two rows of red and yellow lights lit up her face in an eerie glow. She brought the handset to her mouth, stretching its curly cord, and clicked the side button. “Breaker, breaker, anyone got your ears on out there?” Releasing, she traded an uncertain look with Huck and tried again. “Breaker, breaker, this is Baby Maker with a 10-33 about twenty clicks south of Cottage Grove on five-niner, yardstick two-seventeen.” She let up on the button and sighed before hitting it again. �
��Is everyone out walkin the dog? Over.”
Their eyes met through the suffocating silence pouring from the CB, the wind whistling through a crack in Huck’s door.
“That’s odd,” she murmured.
His eyebrows dipped in the faint light. “Baby maker?”
She smiled at him. “I’ve got seven kids with nineteen grandkids and one more on the way.” Trying different channels, she fielded the same soundless results. A heavy sigh deflated her chest. “Squirrel-tits,” she muttered, racking the handset.
“Now what?” Nina zipped her coat up higher and searched the windows beginning to fog over. “We can’t just sit here.”
“I can run for it,” Johnny suggested, studying the distant neon lights. “I’ll send help back to get you.”
Huck couldn’t resist giving him a tightlipped smile. The fact that the kid was dead serious made his heart swell in his chest. Thing was, it wasn’t a half bad idea. The diner probably had a landline and if…
“I can make it! Trust me, I’m on the track team at school.”
“We should stick together,” Ramona said, snatching her phone up and tapping at the screen again.
“She’s right,” Huck agreed. “Now is definitely not the time to split up.”
Nina blew hair from her face. “Maybe we should all make a run for it.”
Pressing her lips together, Ramona looked up from her phone. “Still nothing. Try yours.”
“They took our phones,” Huck told her, jumping when something banged against his door. He stared out the side window, using a palm to wipe away the condensation. “What the hell was that?” he whispered against the glass.
“They’re messing with us,” Johnny replied, craning his neck to see. “Kids mess with me at school all the time. Trust me, I know when someone is messing with you.”
“Wait!” Ramona stuck a finger into the air, eyes growing round behind her glasses. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.
“Hear what?”
“I heard it,” Nina said, grabbing a long screwdriver that rolled out when they hit the deer.
“I didn’t hear anything.” Johnny looked at Huck.
“Me neither. What was it?”
“It sounded like…” Ramona stared vacantly out the front windshield, chest rising and falling.
“A whisper,” Nina said, drawing the trucker’s wide eyes.
“Yeah, it sounded like a whisper.”
“What’d it say?” Johnny asked, looking between them.
Ramona straightened her glasses. “Something like God forgives…”
“We don’t,” Nina finished for her.
The trucker snapped her fingers. “That’s it!” Her wide eyes flitted to Huck. “You didn’t hear that?”
“Okay, fuck this shit. Try the engine,” he told her, adjusting his seatbelt. “We have to get out of here and I don’t care if it blows in the process. If we don’t make it to that diner, they will kill us.” He turned to Ramona. “All of us!”
She examined the pink and blue lights off to the right, computing time and distance inside her head. “Pop the glovebox.”
The light came on inside and relief soothed Huck’s throbbing pulse. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“Because I’ve been kinda busy,” she grunted. “You know how to use it?”
Reaching past some napkins and ketchup packets, he pulled a compact handgun out and held it up to the light before turning a twisted face to her. “Pink?”
Ramona shrugged. “They were all out of purple.”
He sighed. The Beretta Nano was smaller than the Glock he normally carried and, pink or not, would do in a pinch. He popped the magazine to ensure it was loaded and slapped it back in with an open palm, pulling the slide back and racking a load. For research, Huck sometimes worked with members of law enforcement, learning to shoot correctly and riding along on calls. It was important the characters in his books be credible, especially when it came to weaponry and police tactics. And there were always weaponry and police tactics in his books.
“There’s some extra magazines in there too,” Ramona told him. “Just enough to get out of a sticky situation.”
Grabbing three full mags, he slipped them into his jeans and shut the glovebox, killing the light. “Let’s do this!”
“Well, here goes nothin.” Grasping the ignition key, Ramona held her breath and twisted. The engine block turned over and over, rocking the cab and straining the starter. Just when Huck thought they were doomed, the motor caught and the cab jiggled faster. After a few seconds, it evened out and smoke began seeping from the hood again, floating up into the night like rising apparitions.
“Leave the lights off.”
Ramona pulled on her shoulder belt. “Ten-four.” Grinding gears and her teeth at the same time, she got the beast moving. Dead trees stood as darkened silhouettes against the white, watching them slowly creep past. The big rig smoked and hitched, vehemently protesting this exercise in futility.
“What’d we hit anyway?” Johnny asked, squinting through the smoke.
“A deer,” Huck replied.
“It was bigger than a deer.” Tipping her double chin down into her neck, Ramona grinded into the next gear. “We’ve got company.”
Her words hammered a bolt of fear through Huck’s windpipe, blocking his breath. Yanking his gaze to the side mirror, he saw headlights break through the storm behind them. “Can this thing go any faster?”
“We’re about to find out,” she replied, stomping on the gas pedal.
Smoke poured out from under the hood, mixing with the snow to form a blinding curtain that couldn’t be happening at a worse time. Even if the engine was in perfect working order, it would be slow going in this whiteout. The vehicle behind, however, seemed unfazed by the weather, closing the gap at an unsettling clip.
Huck tightened his grip on the gun. “How much farther?”
“Maybe a mile,” Ramona answered, checking mirrors and finding another gear. “Give or take.”
Leaning forward, Nina stuck her head between them. “We’re going to make this right?”
“If I have anything to say about it.”
“There!” Johnny pointed to an exit sign barely visible up ahead.
“Floor it,” Huck shouted, watching the SUV grow larger in the mirror.
“I am!” Ramona white-knuckled the wheel and bounced in the seat. “She’s gonna blow!”
Something punctured the side of the sleeper and Huck’s ears popped with a change in cabin pressure. Cold air whistled through a tiny hole just above Johnny’s head, adding to the symphony of chaos filling the cab. An explosion threw the hood back in a deafening crash and the wind pinned it against the front windshield, blocking Ramona’s view. The truck hit a bump and the hood tore free of its hinges, somersaulting up and over the cab. Huck watched the SUV swerve to miss the flying debris, narrowly sliding into the ditch on the left-hand side.
Hugging the wheel, Ramona looked over at him. “I planned that,” she said, taking the exit and heading for the neon stripes cutting through the storm. Grunting and swearing, she fought the wheel for control. “Hang on! Power steering’s out!” she announced, taking a hard right and plowing into a snowy field. The rig crashed through a barbwire fence that wrapped around the bloodstained grill like braces. Shaking violently in their seats, the undercarriage dug through the snow and banged against the frozen earth. “Brakes are gone, too!” She pumped the pedal and set her jaw, manhandling the wheel with sheer grit and determination.
Huck hit the brakes on his side of the cab that didn’t exist, watching a small patch of pine trees lit by white lights grow uncomfortably closer. “Oh shit,” he muttered, bracing for impact.
The semi bounced into a parking lot, blowing past Bud’s Diner in a neon blur and crashing into a Christmas tree stand on the far side. Pine trees pounded the windshield and the spine-chilling sound of twisting metal filled the cab when it t-boned an old green pickup parked on the other sid
e. Everyone jerked forward, the noise thunderous, the view obstructed. The eighteen-wheeler pushed the old-fashioned pickup sideways another thirty yards before coming to a jerky halt. Pine trees rolled from the front window, getting caught against the crumpled pickup with smoke billowing through the branches.
The abrupt quiet rang in Huck’s ears, heart pounding in his chest. Unclicking the seatbelt, he turned in the seat. “Is everyone okay?”
Johnny and Nina looked themselves over through uncertain eyes. “I think so,” she panted, glancing at the parking lot light coming through a hole just above Johnny’s head.
Ramona peeled her fingers from the wheel and blew out a longwinded breath. “Well, there goes two hundred flat screens.”
Nina stuck a finger through the hole in the cab. “Is that a…bullet hole?”
“Stay here!” Huck threw off the blanket and opened the door, diving into a headwind that fought him tooth and nail. The snow came down hard and fast, turning his hair white and shackling his vision. Stepping over a hemp wrapped Christmas tree, he ordered his wet Pumas to the back of the long trailer, a pink fucking gun clutched in both hands. He took a deep breath and held it before peeking around the back. The semi’s tire tracks faded into the white field on the other side of the parking lot and when headlights suddenly swept into view, Huck had to remind himself to breathe. The SUV stopped at the end of the exit ramp and there was no doubt who was riding inside.
Pressing up against the filthy trailer, he turned off the safety and shivered in the cold. Inside the brightly lit diner, a slack jawed waitress watched him through the glass with a telephone pressed to an ear. Huck peered around the back of the trailer again, waiting for the SUV to take a right and head this way. Instead, it just sat there, idling at the end of the ramp with snowflakes streaking through the headlights.
Vampire Nation Page 3
