by Ivy Oliver
“What about staying in the car?” I say.
“Not with the windows up.”
I go around and turn on the accessory switch and try the windows. Electrically, the car is dead. The window buttons are useless.
Lucas checks the survival kit. There's a tent, but he frowns at it.
“We don't want to insulate our body heat.”
“So what do we do?” Sandy says, an edge of panic to her voice.
Lucas keeps the hood propped up, and the back glass as well. He pulls his white undershirt off and tucks it between one of the doors and the body, making a distress flag, and rummages through the survival kit.
Then he climbs on top of the car and stands on the roof, trying all our phones, one by one. None of them get any service.
“We have to stick it out here until nightfall,” he says. “From the last sign we passed, I figure if we start walking at sunset we'll be close enough to flag down help by sunup. If we try it now, it's practically suicide.”
“So what do we do?”
Under Lucas’s instruction, the three of us take the tent and, using the pieces, erect a lean-to, tied off and staked against the side of the car. It casts shade on the ground, and the difference is immediate. There must be thirty degrees’ difference between the open air and the shade. Lucas, shirtless, actually shivers a little once we're sitting under it.
“So we just sit here,” Sandy says.
“I'd say sleep, if you can,” Lucas says.
I lock my eyes on the horizon and watch, hoping that a truck or car will drive by, see our distress, and offer aid, or at least give one of us a ride back to ask for help. Or better, someone from the production will come looking for us.
“If this were the road west from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, we'd have been found already,” Lucas says, resigned. “Not much traffic this way. There isn't much between Vegas and the far north of the state on this road. Just about the only thing out there is Area 51.”
Sandy's head droops after a while. Somehow, she manages to sleep. Lucas remains awake, one arm propped on his upraised knee. He looks like a Greek statue, a heroic nude in repose. Except he's wearing jeans.
“I'm kind of sorry I got you into this,” I say.
Lucas is looking at our shoes. He grimaces at the sneakers that Sandy and I wear. His own shoes are worn, comfortable sand-colored military boots. He looks like he's put a lot of miles on them.
“This is going to be a rough walk,” he says.
Sandy snores lightly.
“Yeah,” I say.
“If you want, I can go and you two can stay,” he says. “I can move pretty fast on foot.”
I swallow. “Yeah, I'd rather not be out here with just the two of us.”
Somehow, impossibly, I nod off. The next thing I know, the sun is getting low and Lucas is shaking us awake.
“Okay,” he says, “leave everything you don't absolutely need.”
For me, that's not much. I stick my wallet and phone in my back pockets. Sandy tucks her purse in the car, bringing only some cash, her ID's, and her gun, a little revolver that she clips into the front of her jeans, under her shirt. Lucas shifts around and pulls out one of the two guns he's carrying, handing it in its holster to me.
“What's that for?” I say.
“Insurance,” he says, tucking and clipping it into my pants.
“I have no idea how to use that.”
“Rule number one, don't shoot me,” he says. “You won't need it. I'm just being paranoid.”
From there, he divvies out the supplies. We each take a water jug, and stuff some food and supplies in our pockets.
As dark falls, we start walking, each carrying a flashlight with a lit glow stick hanging from a string around each of our necks. Hopefully, when someone finally passes this desolate stretch, they'll see us.
“You know,” Sandy says, laughing softly. “When we get reception on our phones, we can just get an Uber.”
That prompts a laugh from Lucas.
The longer we walk, the darker it gets. It gets very dark. Without the flashlights, we'd be blind, and the orange glow from the sticks hanging around our necks makes us all look like aliens, or kids pretending to be ghosts around a campfire.
Above, the sky is such a profound profusion of stars that I can't help but stare at it, more than once prompting Lucas to snap his fingers to draw my attention to the ground.
“If you break an ankle, I have to carry you,” he says, scuffing a loose rock away from the road for emphasis.
“The sky is pretty, though,” Sandy says. “Why couldn't we see it before?”
“Light pollution,” Lucas explains. “Lights on the ground drown it out.”
“I wonder what would happen if there was a blackout in Las Vegas?” I say, staring up. “Would everyone just go look at the sky?”
Lucas shrugs. He pays more attention to the ground and the world around us, occasionally flashing out his light into the dark to the right or left.
“Are there animals out here?” I ask.
“Of course,” Sandy says.
“Nothing too dangerous. Worst thing we'd see is a pack of coyotes.”
“Pack?” I say, swallowing. “Are they dangerous?”
“They're wolves. So yes. Attacks are rare, though. Three of us with lights? Unlikely.”
Sandy looks around.
“I can see why people think they see aliens out here,” she says.
“Are aliens real?” I ask, looking at Lucas.
He glances back. “Why are you asking me?”
“Aren't you elite special ops or something?”
“That's above my pay grade,” he says with a shrug. “If they're real I never met one.”
“Would you want to?” I ask.
“Just walk,” he grumbles. “Keep pace.”
I swear he's moving faster. After a couple of hours—I think, we've turned off the phones to save battery—we stop and take short sips of water until our parched throats aren't so dry, careful not to spill any drops.
After walking a while longer, my stomach is rumbling. Lucas breaks a power bar into thirds and orders us to eat it slowly, while moving. I nibble at it a crumb at a time. I don't feel full by any means, but the hunger doesn't stab at me.
“How much further, do you think?”
There's no moon out, so it's pitch black. Beyond the beams of our lights and the orange haloes that surround us is a solid ebon wall. It feels like we're walking across the bottom of the ocean, looking up at moonlight catching the peaks of waves on the distant surface.
Again, Lucas catches me staring. The Milky Way is a solid wall of light out here. It's amazing.
“Why do you keep staring?” he asks.
“I've never seen it before,” I say softly.
Lucas gives me an odd look.
“Never been camping?”
“Staying in that trailer was the closest I've ever gotten,” I say. “You?”
“All the time,” he says. “We'd ‘camp out’ in the back yard, of course, but when I was younger and my grandfather was around and we could afford it, we took a few camping trips in the summer and in the fall, around the end of the season.”
“Where to?”
“The Poconos,” he says. “Sometimes further north, or south. New Hampshire, once, several times down in Delaware in the cypress swamps.”
“Aww,” Sandy says.
We both glance at her, but she doesn't add anything else.
“You miss it?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I slept on rocks enough for one life. Slept in a lot of holes, too.”
“What exactly did you do in the army, anyway?” I ask.
“Marines. Intelligence.”
“So, like a spy?”
“Like a grunt,” he says. “Don't let the title fool you. I guess I might have gone that way after I was discharged, but I knew a guy who knew a guy who got me a private security interview. Safer work, pays a lot more. I'm a glorified securit
y guard, most of the time.”
“Most of the time,” I say. “What happens when it's not most of the time?”
He smiles thinly. “If I told you, I'd have to kill you.”
“Is that your deep, dark, brooding secret?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“It's not that. I probably should be proud of a few things, but I never feel prideful. Got a lot to make up for.”
“Like what?” I ask.
We walk for a while. Lucas glances at Sandy a few times.
She finally says, “If you're holding back because I'm here, don't. There's a lot that I've done that I am especially not proud of. Trust me on that.”
“I'll bet you don't feel any more comfortable than I do,” he says.
“Yeah,” she says.
“Everybody knows all my dirty laundry,” I say. “My mom puts it in a file folder and passes it around.”
Lucas snorts.
“It's nothing I did in the service that bothers me. There's no drama there. It's what I did before that eats at…eats at my soul.”
I perk up, and Sandy looks interested, too.
“I did something horrible.”
“What?” I ask.
“My mother. She wanted me to stay on, care for my brothers. I told her I'd had enough—I started work at fourteen, and every penny went to the family. I never had a car, or went on dates, or any of that. Not that I really could have. You both know what I mean.”
We nod.
“When I turned eighteen, off I went. I insisted, crashed with a buddy from school who was joining up too, and went into the service. While I was there, the terminal illness that Mom didn't tell us about took her from us. I never saw her again. Last memory of her is seeing her crying in the window as I walked away, all hot shit and full of myself.”
Everyone is quiet for a time. I start to say something but close my mouth.
“I left them behind. Five siblings—four brothers and a sister. They're twins, you see, Aiden and Larissa.”
“Have you talked to them?”
He frowns.
Out here in the deep dark, miles and miles from the houses of men, he says, “I'm afraid to. Afraid they'll blame me. They'd be right.”
He looks down at his feet as he walks.
“I keep an eye on them. My youngest brother is in college. Another lives in Seattle now, he moved out there with a friend from school and freelances. The twins moved to Philadelphia, I think to open a bakery.” He snorts. “That was a dream my mom had. She ran a little side business out of her kitchen, making cakes for weddings and birthdays. It kept us from getting foreclosed on a few times. The other is a photographer. The last I heard directly from any of them was for the probate, after Mom died. The only way to pay off the estate was to sell the house. It's probably been bulldozed and new houses built there. The land was worth too much.”
“Why didn't she sell when she was alive?” I ask.
Lucas shrugs. “The farm used to be eighty acres or something like that. Then a great grandfather was a drunk and had to sell it off, and so on, and so on, until it was just a big house with a big yard we couldn't afford to keep up. Had to double up in some bedrooms and board up others. Too expensive to heat the whole thing, you know?”
“I have no idea what living like that would be like,” I say.
“Be glad,” Lucas says. “I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It didn't make me a better person or build character. I'm still an asshole.”
I touch his arm.
“No, you're not.”
“Look,” Sandy says.
My first thought is flying saucers. Of course, on top of all this, we're going to get abducted by aliens.
It's not, though. A streak across the sky, then another, and another, then dozens, then hundreds, lasting a full five minutes. The streaks tear across the void in a profusion of flaring colors. A meteor shower.
It's over almost as soon as it starts, but it leaves the three of us standing there in awe.
“Come on,” Lucas says. “Many miles to go before we rest.”
14
Lucas
I don't have to ask to tell that Sandy and Matt have bloody feet. It's obvious from the way they're walking. Despite that, their spirits begin to lift, as Las Vegas comes into view, shimmering into being like a mirage.
Sandy is the first to switch her phone on, and she quickly gets reception. “Come on, come on,” she snarls, giving it a bit of percussive maintenance with the heel of her hand.
“We're almost there,” Matt says.
“Guys,” Sandy says, stopping in relief, “I can get us a ride.”
“Do it,” I say.
I'd rather not stop. Their feet will hurt worse. Still, it's almost sunup, and I estimate we have at least ten miles to go before we reach shelter. I could have left them behind and made it back in time to get help even before sunup, but that would mean abandoning Matt. Not going to happen.
After Sandy calls for the ride, the driver rings her.
“Yes, I'm really here. No, it isn't a joke. Our car broke down. Yes, that's right.”
She hangs up and looks at us.
“Half an hour,” she says.
The others shift from foot to foot, desperate to sit down. I'm not bothered; my feet are like boot leather at this point, and I could stand a post for two days without sleep if I had to. Sandy and Matt end up leaning on each other. I finally lower them to the ground and they sit by the side of the road while we wait.
The driver pulls up in a Toyota Prius about half an hour later, as promised. I help the others inside and climb into the front seat.
He looks at me and swallows.
“So, uh,” he says, gripping the wheel.
“You have the destination,” Sandy says.
As he drives, I give them the nod and they finish off the water bottles. I'm parched, but I let them have it. The two of them are asleep, heads knocking together by the time we reach the city.
The driver lets us off at a hotel on Freemont, downtown. Using my ID and Matt's credit card, we check in.
Despite my exhaustion, I walk across the street to the drug store and grab some more first aid supplies. When I reach the room, I find them splayed out on the double beds, chewed up feet hanging off the ends.
One at a time, I clean and bandage them up. Matt winces and hisses as I do, glowering at me.
“Do you want to get an infection?” I ask.
“What the hell do we do now?” Sandy says.
“Sleep,” I say, crawling onto the bed next to Matt. “Worry about everything else later.”
“I want a cheeseburger,” Matt mumbles, but he's soon off to sleep, snoring softly.
I join him and I'm out like a light, drifting through the deep peace of rest from exhaustion until the buzzing sound of a cell phone wakes me up. Matt is sitting up groggily on the bed, staring at his phone.
“Fuck,” he mutters, “Guess who.”
“Don't answer,” I say.
Matt does it anyway.
“Hi, Mom.”
I hear Margot's lovely voice screeching at him through the handset, but I can't make out the words.
“Yeah, I left the set. Yeah, Sandy is with me, and Lucas. Lucas? The bodyguard you hired? Yes, you did.”
I groan.
“No,” he says firmly. “I'm not coming back. I know what you're up to, Ma, and I'm not going to be a part of it. I almost got killed yesterday, and my freaking trailer was full of scorpions. Yes, the stinky kind. No, they're not harmless. I don't care if you watch The Discovery Channel!”
I take the phone from Matt's hand and put it to my ear.
“Ma'am,” I say.
“Who is this?” she snaps.
“I'm Matt's bodyguard. You hired me.”
“Why did you let him leave?”
“You are aware what the task of a bodyguard entails,” I say smoothly. “The situation wasn't safe, so I got him out of the situation and brought him somewhere secure.”
“Where?”
I look at Matt.
“A hotel in Las Vegas.”
“Put him on.”
I give Matt another look. Matt shrugs and reaches for the phone, but it's Sandy who takes it.
“Margot,” she says, “it's me.”
Some screeching from the other end.
“No, you listen. Matt was almost killed twice in the same day. Our script is ten hours of gibberish, the stuntman playing the villain almost died on us from heat exhaustion, and this production is a mess. It's time to pull the plug. Yeah, I dare talk to you like this. Matt could have been killed. He's lucky he didn't break his neck in the fall. No, I don't care what—”
She listens for a few moments. Matt takes the phone back.
“Mom,” he says firmly and evenly, “I quit. I don't know what you're up to but I'm not going to be part of this dumb scheme anymore. I'm an adult, and it's time for me to live my life…Cut off?” he snorts. “That's not your decision. Yeah?”
He hangs up on her.
“What did she say?” Sandy says.
“The usual rigmarole about cutting me off. I'm calling my father,” he says and dials.
The two of us listen intently.
Matt has to talk to three people before his father gets on the line.
He faces the window and explains the situation and what we figured out. After a few minutes, he hangs up and snorts.
“Well,” he says, “I just turned my life upside down.”
Looking a little queasy, he sinks down into a recliner by the door and looks around. He seems lost in the room, a mid-level, unremarkable hotel suite of the kind a vacationing family might rent for their Vegas weekend.
The phone goes off. He looks at it for a moment and tosses it aside without answering.
“Let's go get some clothes, and a burger.”
After buying and changing into new shirts, we hop a rideshare and go for dinner. Matt, wearing new sunglasses and a t-shirt with a grinning cat in a cowboy hat and the words A PURRFECT VACATION, chows down at the McDonalds in the base of one of the Freemont casinos.
“What the hell am I going to do?” he says.
Sandy's phone rings. She checks it and stuffs it back in her pocket.
“It's her,” she says.
“Aren't you going to answer?” I say.
