by Selah March
He shrugged and said, "Whatever." Then he turned to the trucker. "I suggest you don't try to move your rig while the cops are on-site. They'll want to question anyone on the premises." With that, he pivoted on his heel and headed toward his cubicle.
Rising panic made the sirens sound deafening in her ears. The trucker—dammit, what was his name?—closed a hand around the back of her neck and exerted just enough pressure to move her off the curb. "Let's go."
He hustled her toward the pair of semis still idling at the far end of the lot. When they reached the nearer of the two, he opened the passenger-side door and boosted her inside just as the ambulance made the turn into the entrance, followed by a cop's cruiser.
"Slide down in the seat, and don't move around too much. I'll be back in a minute."
She dumped her backpack on the floor and did as she was told. Music blared from the radio—an oldies station, stuff from the fifties and sixties, she thought. She was reaching to turn it off when the driver's door opened and the trucker hoisted himself inside.
"Don't touch that." His voice was hard and growly. She snatched her hand back and looked up at him. He was holding a can of cola, already opened. "I brought you something to drink. Just lie low for a while, okay? I'm gonna play nice with the pigs, be all helpful and shit—see if I can't get us out of here a little quicker." He leaned over and turned down the volume on the radio. Then he was gone again, slamming the door behind him, before she could thank him for the soda. Outside, the sirens cut off abruptly, replaced by men's voices and quick footsteps on asphalt.
"That was Del Shannon with his nineteen-sixty-one hit, 'Runaway.' When we return, we'll hear a little something from the Big Bopper. But first, a few words from our sponsors..."
She lifted the can to her lips and let the sweet liquid roll over her tongue as she listened and waited in silence.
* * *
Johnny finished giving his statement to the officer, then watched as the same cop interrogated Mr. Louis Philip Homme, supposedly of Champlain, New York—though he'd wager the license the trucker flashed was a fake.
"French Canadian, the bastard's fuzzy yellow ass," he muttered as he walked back to his cubicle. Homme—surely not his real name—was too tall and fair to be French anything. If John's best guess was right, he was straight out of that Norwegian pack that had settled outside Wolf Pond, some fifty miles to the west.
But why lie about it? What was this guy's game? And why did it make him so angry when he thought about the redhead...Zoey Ryder, that's what her license had said...driving off into the night with him?
So she liked underwear models posing as truckers better than glorified night watchmen. That shouldn't have been even a little bit surprising, never mind rage-inducing. And she'd be the one in for the surprise, if she hung around Blondie past the time when the moon reached its zenith in the sky...
"She made her choice. And he probably won't hurt her." He said it out loud to nobody in particular, but it felt good to hear the words. Now, if he could just make himself believe it. "Maybe she likes it doggy-style."
He took a seat behind the desk and flicked the switch on the radio. The Big Bopper's jolly growl filled the small space, broadcast by an oldies station out of Plattsburgh—the only clear signal available. As if on its own, his hand reached for the bottom drawer of the desk, where he kept the bottle of Jim Beam. The two quick swallows he'd tossed back before leaving the cubicle to check the restrooms were no longer doing much for him. But no...if there was any night to stay sharp and on top of his game, this was the one.
He shut his eyes and right away the redhead was there, smiling at him. Not like she'd smiled at Homme. Softer than that, more tremulous. A smile that said 'take me back to your place, make me feel safe, make me feel loved.' A smile that promised long, sweet evenings with her perched in his lap in front of the fire. Naked. Writhing. Crying out as he kneaded the flesh at her hips and pumped—
"And here come The Five Satins with their nineteen-fifty-six hit 'In the Still of the Night'..."
He scrubbed at his face with a calloused hand, washing away the vision. Then he rested his elbows on the desk and looked out through the hazy glass. The cop—a square, burly guy in his mid-fifties, with a no-nonsense attitude—had finished questioning Homme and was leaning against his cruiser, scribbling in his pad. The EMTs were busy loading the girl from the bathroom into the back of the ambulance. From their conversation, John had gleaned that she was likely going to be fine, once she'd slept off whatever she'd ingested.
He passed his hand over his face again, unconsciously tracing his scar with the tips of his fingers, and thought about how it was none of his business if the red-head got herself mixed up with a rogue canine. A bad dog. A cur.
"Fuck it." He stood up and slapped the glass wall with an open palm. It made a sound not unlike a muffled gunshot. The cop looked up from his notes.
John stepped out of the cubicle just as the ambulance shifted into drive and turned toward the exit. Its siren lifted in a shriek, then faded fast as the vehicle hit the highway and took off in the direction of the nearest hospital.
He looked around. Where was Homme? He'd been watching closely, and the trucker hadn't gone back to his rig. Something felt hinky...fucked up. Wrong. He headed for the cop, ready to spill all he knew about the girl hiding in the cab of the rig on the other side of the parking lot. He was maybe fifteen feet away when the radio inside the cruiser gave off a burst of static.
"Bravo-niner, Bravo-niner, we've got a code ten-fifty-four out on Grissom Drive. Acknowledge?"
The officer snapped shut his pad and reached in to grab the mike. "Dispatch, this is Bravo-niner. Go ahead."
John moved a little faster. Now was the time to catch the cop's attention—before he took off in pursuit of whatever the hell a 'code ten-fifty-four' represented.
The radio squawked again. "Chuck, we've got a report of a female, deceased, in a ditch at the east end of Grissom. Individual who found her says the deceased looks as if she was attacked by some kind of animal. Significant damage to the body. Coroner and back-up are en route, but you're closest."
"Roger that, Dispatch. On my way."
"Extreme caution on this one, Chuck. Whatever it was might still be out there." There came another burst of static and then..."Dispatch out."
"Officer? If I could get a second—"
The cop was already swinging his large frame into the cruiser. "Sorry, son. No time. You can call the hospital in the morning and check on the girl's condition." He threw the car into gear and leaned over to peer at John through the open passenger-side window. "You might want to keep a sharp eye till we find out what kind of mess we're dealing with over on Grissom. Might be a pack of feral dogs gone rabid, might be something worse."
Worse. Than feral dogs gone rabid? John's hand moved to his tool belt, as if on auto-pilot. "Officer, if you could just wait one second, I—" Something dropped hard on his shoulder. He turned. Homme stood just behind him, smiling wide, his fist resting six inches to the right of John's ear.
"Don't worry, Officer. We'll be careful." Homme's grin deepened, and his eyes rolled up and to the left, toward where the moon hung halfway between the horizon and the apex of its path. His painter's cap was gone, and his hair looked to have grown an inch or two in the past ten minutes. It appeared less angelically fine and golden beneath the harsh arc lights, more mustard-yellow and coarse. The scent of wet dog rose from his clothing.
The cruiser pulled away, gaining speed as it approached the exit. For the second time in just over a minute, a siren let go with a howl that faded as the car disappeared over the hill.
"You and me, we've got some business to attend to. Don't we?" Homme's voice was a burbly growl in his ear.
John pivoted to face him. "Yeah. I believe we do." He dropped into a crouch, his hand still covering his tool belt.
"Not here, man." Homme reached up and pawed at his own face. "Out in back of the building, by the woods, where it's dark."
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John snorted. "Now why would I wanna do something stupid like that?"
Homme gestured toward his rig. "Because if the girl sees what I'm gonna do to you..." His lips twitched around his teeth, which were all at once looking a little big for his pretty-boy mouth."...let's just say, that would be a bad thing."
John froze as Homme's meaning sunk in. He weighed his options. If he was right about the dead chick out on Grissom Drive, then Zoey Ryder was in deep shit either way. But if he was wrong...
Tough call. His every instinct screamed that Homme was a puppy of the sickest sort. He had no doubt their battle would be to the death, whether it took place in the parking lot or in the shadows near the woods. If there was a chance Homme would let the redhead live if she didn't witness the carnage—
"All right. Let's go." He kept his hand on what appeared to be the handle of a retractable screwdriver clipped to his belt as he moved in the direction of the building.
Homme walked next to him, his stride casual. When he spoke, John heard a whistling lisp of air around his big, sharp teeth. "I could tell you were a reasonable guy. We could've been buddies, under different circumstances."
They turned the corner and moved behind the building to a space where only the cold gleam of the moon shed any light.
"I doubt that. I've met your kind before." John's hand moved instinctively to touch the scar on his face as he backed away from Homme and assumed his crouched stance once again. "But at least when I call you a son-of-a-bitch, I know I'm being accurate."
* * *
Zoey scrunched lower into the seat and listened. She'd already noted the double thunk of what had to be the back doors of the ambulance slamming shut, and the painful sob of its siren, followed by a second siren she assumed belonged to the cop's cruiser. Then came the muffled sounds of male voices and fading footsteps.
Then silence...except for the radio, which kept pumping out songs that had first hit the airwaves before her parents were born—hell, before her grandparents were even married.
"And that was Bobby Vee with 'Devil or Angel,' a song that zoomed to the top of the Billboard charts around Christmastime, nineteen-sixty..."
Where was the trucker...and what was his name? It wasn't like her to be so scatterbrained. And why was it so quiet? She peeked over the bottom edge of the door and out the window. The parking lot looked deserted.
"Next up, the Chiffons with their top-ten hit, 'Sweet Talkin' Guy'."
Sweet talking...her blond trucker seemed pretty sweet, mostly. A little touchy about changing his radio station, and not so nice to that night manager. But it was hard to be civil to some people, and that guy had been asking for it, with his nosy questions and pushy...pushy...
She closed her eyes. Once again, the manager was right there, waiting for her in the shadows of her imagination, and yeah, he was pushy. Lifting her skirt, yanking at her underwear, shoving her back against the glass wall of his cubicle, and never saying a word or breaking eye contact. She felt like a rag doll in his arms as he reached for her leg, wrapping it around his hip so he could settle her sweet spot against his cock and grind...and slide...and finally ease himself inside...
She wriggled further down into the seat, feeling her dampened panties stick to the vinyl, and ran a hand over her face to wipe away a light film of perspiration. Talk about hot and bothered—and over the wrong guy. What was up with her, anyway? Here she was, waiting for what had to be the best-looking man she'd ever met, and all she could do was think about fucking some scar-faced creep with an attitude problem.
"It makes no sense. You're just being stupid again. You need to—" A sudden yawn caught her off-guard, interrupting her self-directed scolding. The mellow old tunes were making her sleepy. Her eyelids grew heavy as the saccharine harmonies filled the cab of the truck. And what was that weird buzzing in her ears? It intensified, threatening to drown out the music.
Clearly, she needed more caffeine. She lifted the can of cola to her lips to drink and froze.
"Stupid. You stupid, stupid little—" The words felt too big for her suddenly thick, lazy tongue to form.
"And now a few more words from our sponsors..."
"No." She enunciated it clearly. Then she set the can down on the floor of the cab, reached up and slapped herself, hard, on each cheek. She peered out the window again. The parking lot remained empty, along with the manager's cubicle.
Carefully, she slid her hand beneath the door handle and pulled, half-expecting it to be locked, even though she could see it wasn't. The door released with a thud that seemed to echo, and she cringed. She waited a second, then pushed it open just enough to swing her legs out and slide down to the pavement. She stood there a moment as a wave of dizziness splashed over her. The building on the other side of the lot swam in and out of focus. It looked a mile away, at least.
Still no one came. No blond trucker with his handsome, treacherous, cola-spiking face. No night manager whose surly attitude she'd welcome with sloppy kisses at this point. She pushed against the door until the latch caught with a quiet click. And then she ran.
But the painted white lines that marked the parking spaces kept reaching up to trip her. She stumbled twice, tearing her skirt and scuffing the skin off her knees. The second time, she had trouble finding her feet again. She wasn't going to make it—not all the way to the payphone. No way, no how. Panic rose tight and cold in her throat, and she struggled against the urge to scream.
As she knelt there on the asphalt, the breeze changed direction and a familiar voice drifted over the parking lot.
"...here's Skeeter Davis with 'The End of the World,' which peaked at number two on both the country and pop charts in nineteen-sixty-three."
What the hell...? She looked over her shoulder to see if the door on the trucker's rig had fallen open. It hadn't. She swiveled her head in the other direction, and her stomach lurched. As she waited for the nausea to pass, her gaze fell on the manager's glass cubicle. Its sliding door stood gaping in the night air. As she watched, the wind made a mess of the newspaper someone had left on the desk.
The payphone was two hundred yards or more away, but the little glass shack...which would have a phone, too, wouldn't it? Yeah, it would, and it was only half that distance from where she kneeled, alone and exposed, in the center of the lot.
So she crawled, whimpering each time her abraded knees made contact with the asphalt, but grateful to the pain for keeping her conscious by the end. She pulled herself up into the cubicle, hand over hand, and curled into a ball on the tiny area of the floor not occupied by the metal desk, the rolling, cushioned chair, and the space-heater.
"Just for a minute. Not for too long. Just a minute..."
She listened to the music coming from the radio on the desk. Skeeter what's-her-name had quit moaning about the end of the world, and now some guy was telling everybody how his girl had lied to him, but not sounding real broken up about it. The kicky tune bounced along and she drifted with it, her sense of urgency fading now that she felt hidden and protected.
"That was Ricky Nelson, with his number on hit, 'Poor Little Fool.' Next up, the Everly Brothers, with 'All I Have To Do Is Dream'."
Poor little fool. That pretty much covered it. She let her eyes fall shut against the glare of the arc lights. The gentle harmonies twined themselves around her...smoothed away the rough edges of her terror...lulled her...lulled her...
"Mademoiselle Ryder!" The sharp, thickly accented voice sent a jolt through her that nearly knocked her off her...chair? Her sore knees struck the underside of the wooden desk at which she sat, and she squeaked in pain.
"Mademoiselle Ryder," repeated the voice, which seemed to be coming from somewhere in front of her. "Do try and stay conscious, s'il vous plait?
She shook her head to clear it and tried to focus. Several questions rushed immediately to the forefront, along with another surge of panic. Why was she sitting at a desk when a second ago she'd been on the floor? Why was the tiny glass cubicle now
a large, windowless room, filled with other desks just like hers? And was that...no, it couldn't be. She scrubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes, feeling the last of her eyeliner smear across her cheeks.
At the front of the classroom stood her high school French teacher, Monsieur DuBois. He looked just as she recalled him: short, round, balding, with a thin mustache and the same funny, foreign-looking black suit he'd worn every day of her junior year. In his hands, he held a pointer and a sheaf of papers. Behind him stretched a freshly washed blackboard.
"Mademoiselle Ryder? We have your full attention, oui?"
"Y-yes. Sorry." The latent habit of a willing-to-please student pulled her upright in her chair even as she gave the space a second, closer inspection. The seats near her were empty. In fact, the classroom appeared to be deserted, save for herself and DuBois.
"And Monsieur Chasseur?" asked the instructor, in his bordering-on-phony accent. "Has anyone encountered him today?"
Chasseur? Did she know that name?
The door banged open, making her jump a second time, and the rest area night manager stepped into the room. He looked different under the warmer glow of the old-fashioned incandescent lights, though the nasty scar and the surly expression hadn't changed. But the way he was dressed could only be an elaborate joke. Dark blue jeans cuffed over motorcycle boots? Ratty leather jacket covering a white tee-shirt? Carefully groomed pompadour? Even she recognized a poor man's James Dean when she saw one.
She lifted a hand to her face to hide a smirk. The shock of seeing her arm covered in cotton candy pink made her bite her tongue, hard. The metal feet on the legs of her chair shrieked against the parquet floor as she scrambled to her feet.
Yes. A pink sweater set—cashmere, if she wasn't mistaken—over a black wool circle skirt utterly unlike the one she'd been wearing...when?
Before. Before she'd gotten trapped inside whatever part of hell mandated short white socks and saddle shoes.
"Monsieur Chasseur, so glad you could join us," said DuBois. "If everyone will be seated, today we will define commonly used phrases." He picked up a piece of yellow chalk and, using a dusty and ancient-looking stepstool to enhance his height, proceeded to scrawl across the blackboard.
