by PM Drummond
My rental car sat parked where I left it about a foot behind my aunt’s ancient Fairlaine, which was six inches behind a tree stump. The men’s black GMC SUV sat about a foot behind my rental.
I grimaced. Another damsel-in-distress lesson, don’t park so close to another car that the bad guys can block you in. Darn, darn, and double darn.
I attempted to tiptoe over the gravel toward the cars, but tiptoeing over gravel is an oxymoron, it can’t be done. Every footstep crunched. Between the crunchy footsteps and my pounding heartbeat, every creature in the forest could hear me.
A quick inspection of the inside of the GMC showed no bad guys hiding, but no keys either. I tried the door handle, but it was locked. Even if I could smash the window and take the behemoth vehicle out of gear, I wouldn’t be able to push it backward up the incline. As big as it was, I’d be hard pressed to push it on flat ground.
Crap, I just want to go home. I just want to live a normal life.
I looked to the heavens and whispered. “I’m not good at this covert sh—stuff.” Saying shit to God probably wasn’t something I should risk just now.
I stood back a few paces and lifted my hands to the side of the truck. Since the wheels wouldn’t roll, and the truck was on an incline, it would probably be easier to push the big SUV sideways than backwards. I gathered power into my shoulders, but even before I released it, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. My little scream-and-demolish-my-surroundings stunt had drained me.
This place had such a low available energy I wasn’t recharging very fast. Where had the energy come from when I’d demolished the cabin then? Images of the two dead men flashed in my mind.
No. Surely not. Could I have drawn so much energy from them that I’d killed them? Pummeling them to death with books and furniture was something I’d been trying not to face or think about, but it was almost acceptable in a way. They were trying to harm me or kidnap me, so conking them on the head with something was justifiable. Sucking the life out them . . .
Okay, now wasn’t the time to be worrying about this. They were dead. I’d obsess about how I’d killed them later. My stomach clenched.
I’d killed them.
I’d killed two human beings.
I teetered on the verge of falling apart, but dissolving into a weeping puddle wouldn’t accomplish anything. I’d stopped dissolving into puddles when I was twelve. I shook my head hard and fast a few times.
I needed the keys to the SUV. The dead guys would be the easiest to search, but I wasn’t sure if I could touch them. A dam of guilt over killing them sat tenuously just behind my fear and need to escape. If I touched them, that dam might break and hysterics wouldn’t help my cause. The guy next to the back door was alive, but the most logical choice was the closest man—Mr. Smith. He’d been driving in my earlier vision of the men. Something in me just didn’t want to get that close to him.
Stop it, Marlena Marie Burns. Stop it and get through this.
I stiffened my spine and walked toward Mr. Smith. The closer I got to him, however, the more my spine-stiffening wilted and the softer I walked. By the time I was three feet away, sweat poured from my brow and my hands shook like the leaves in the surrounding trees.
He wore a forest-green windbreaker and khaki slacks. Nice that he color coordinated his outfit to the job. Maybe fashion tips were in the bad guys code of ethics. I almost giggled. It was truly strange how close the smart-ass section and the stress section of my brain were together. I knew I was dealing with my stress, but I also knew I was postponing what I didn’t want to do.
I’d start with the jacket pockets, since that’s where my father kept his keys—well that and the fact that I wasn’t looking forward to fishing around in the man’s pants pockets.
I took a careful step and leaned forward, hand outstretched, breath held, my hand shaking so much I doubted I could get it in the small slit of the pocket opening. My fingers brushed the green fabric, and Mr. Smith’s right hand whipped around and fastened to my wrist.
His upper body twisted toward me, and he yanked me down. His left hand shot forward, and he grabbed at my shirt. I pulled back, and his grab fell short. He tugged and grabbed at me several more times. I pulled back each time, but my feet slid forward with each yank, tipping my center of gravity toward him.
A picture of our last encounter in the university parking lot flashed through my mind. I had one chance. I braced my foot, twisted, and thrust my hand toward the SUV twenty feet away. I pulled energy into my shoulder. My own body was depleted, but, as before, it found an energy source connected to my wrist and drained it. Mr. Smith screamed and released me. I shot forward, my arms flailing. The energy bolt went off target and hit the back of the Escort and spun it. The back bumper of the Escort clanked against the front bumper of the SUV as it swung past and clear.
I scrambled on my hands and knees away from Mr. Smith before I looked back at him. His slack face didn’t register any life. I lifted my hand toward him. No signal.
Crap. My hands shook, and I fell to my knees. I couldn’t deal with killing someone else. I don’t care how evil they were or what they did to me. I crawled over to Mr. Smith, placed my hands to his chest, and before I could rethink it, I pushed every last bit of power I could find into him.
Mr. Smith’s chest arched up then down. I fell back on my butt, drained and weak. After a few seconds, Mr. Smith stirred then looked at me, eyes glazed at first then clearing. Confusion registered in his face.
“Why?” he said, his voice barely audible.
I shook my head and scrambled backward crablike away from him on my hands and feet with my butt dragging in the dirt. I had a feeling the other men’s deaths were going to torment me later when all this sunk in, but as bad as he was, I’d actually spoken to Mr. Smith. It made him more real somehow. I’d probably regret saving him, but it was too late.
Wobbling to my feet, I shuffled to the Escort and got in. I’d left my keys in the ignition. I turned the key and the Escort chugged a few times then caught and started. I shifted into drive, but the check engine light came on and the car died.
“No, no, no,” I shouted and pounded my hands on the steering wheel. I popped two more of the pills from the new bottle and gagged them down.
“Please don’t tell me I fried you or sucked the battery out of you.”
I put the car back in park and several cranks later, managed to get it started again, even though it chugged and spat like something wasn’t quite in sync with something else.
I tried to think calm thoughts as I revved the engine and popped the gear shift into drive. The little car lurched forward. I spun the wheel, spraying gravel all over the porch before the tires caught, and I shot past the SUV.
For the first ten or fifteen minutes, I just drove. I didn’t care where, as long as I drove away from the carnage I’d created at Aunt Tibby’s. As the medication took effect, the little car ran better, but it never reached the smooth idle it’d had at the beginning of the trip.
Then my brain began to thaw. Guilt and hysteria tried to crowd in first, but I shoved them aside, trying to figure out what I was going to do next. The airport was out of the question. They’d expect me to go there. They’d been waiting for me at LAX and somehow followed me. I remembered the woman that had bowled me over at the airport in Orange County. Had she been one of them?
I shook my head.
“You’re getting paranoid, Marlee,” I said.
The back of my neck tingled, and my stomach turned. How had they followed me? I’d checked my rear-view mirror a thousand times. I hadn’t seen anyone for any length of time, certainly not the giant black SUV.
Something one of the men had said came back to me. He’d said my car was in the driveway and my suitcase was still in it. How would they know what my suitcase looked like?
I slammed on the brakes and the Escort skidded to a stop on the deserted country road. I shifted into park, and the Escort instantly died.
“Shit.” I pulled my
suitcase toward me. In the third outside pocket I shoved my hand into, I found a small electronic device about the size of a quarter. My skin crawled just touching it.
“Rat bastards.” I rolled down the window to throw it out but stopped. I held the thing up and smiled.
“On second thought, you guys want to play follow the leader, I’d be more than happy to oblige.”
I remembered a little truck stop I’d passed on one of my wrong turns on the way here. I smiled when I thought of how irritating it must have been for them to try to follow me when I was lost and driving aimlessly through the Montana countryside. They’d been following the tracking signal from the device in my suitcase. Well, they could just follow it some more. I tucked the device in my jeans pocket. All those years of watching The A-Team and Mission Impossible reruns were finally paying off.
I managed to get the Escort restarted on the fourth try, and I drove through the mockingly peaceful countryside to the truck stop to set my plan in motion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
STUMBLE INN
At eight that night, I arrived at the Stumble Inn Truck Stop and Motel just off the 90 near Three Forks. In the large dirt lot next to the Stumble Inn sat four semi-trucks. The rental car sputtered while maneuvering around fuel pumps that looked like they belonged in an oil company museum. I parked between a faded blue pickup and a Dodge Dart with hay in the backseat.
When I put the Escort into park, true to form, it died. I patted the steering wheel. “Okay, I’m giving you a little rest, but you need to start again when I come back. There’s some yummy gas out front that you’ll get as a reward.”
I popped two more of the pills and grabbed my backpack. I walked to the phone booth next to the entrance and called Rune. A green Mayflower moving truck rolled in from the west and parked in the lot just as Rune picked up the line.
“Marlena.” Just one word, but my whole body vibrated at the sound of his voice. Tears of relief, exhaustion, sadness, and anger welled in my eyes. I rested my forehead on the cool phone booth glass and closed my eyes.
“What’s wrong, fotia?” he asked.
“She’s dead,” I whispered.
“Are you hurt?”
“Just my soul.”
“Was she dead when you arrived?”
“No, and it’s my fault. I led them straight to her.”
“Sarkis’s men?” Concern flooded his smooth voice. “Where are you now? Where are they?”
“I’m at a truck stop. They’re back at the cabin. At least two are dead. I . . . I killed them.”
I sucked in a breath and held it, hoping it would dam up the hysteria that flooded the back of my mind.
“Marlena.” Rune’s voice flowed deep and calm over the line. “Listen to me. You did only what they forced you to do. It was their choice to be there. It was they who began the confrontation, not you.”
“They were human beings, someone’s sons, someone’s friends.”
“They were monsters with an agenda. It was them or you.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “It makes sense to my head but . . .”
“But your heart is not convinced.”
“Yeah.” I sniffed and wiped my nose with a page out of the phone book thinking that I really needed to get one of those little packs of tissues if I was going to keep being such a big hot mess.
“There will be time for rumination later,” he said. “Now is time for action. You said two were dead. How many more were there and where are they?”
“Two and they were both semi-unconscious when I left. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I don’t want to go back to the airport.
“Wise decision,” he said. “Have they seen your car?”
“Yes. So I can’t drive it much farther, and besides, it isn’t running so well after I zapped it.”
“You zapped—”
“Long story,” I said. “The pills are wearing off again, and . . .” I sighed and pounded my head against the payphone enclosure to try to clear my brain. “Look, I guess I could drive the car to the airport then take a cab to the bus station. They wouldn’t be looking for me on a bus and—”
“No, I think I have a solution. I know people in central Idaho in the forest near Ketchum. You will be safe there. I’ll give you directions, but you must not arrive there until daybreak.”
“Daybreak?”
“Yes. That is imperative. They have guard dogs, of sorts, that roam the property at night. You must not arrive until daybreak when they rein in the animals.”
“Okay,” I said. “If you say so.” Great. His friends sounded like a paranoid bunch of hillbillies. Not to mention the fact that I was a little done with forests.
I pulled the map and a pen out of my backpack and scribbled down the directions he gave me.
“Wait for me there,” he said. “Tony will take us and our motorcycles as far as he can in the panel van, but we will have to wait until sundown to traverse the smaller roads to the encampment.” He sighed. “I should not have allowed you to go alone.”
I slowly rolled my aching forehead against the phone booth glass and scanned the parking lot. Lack of sleep and the new pills were hitting me pretty hard all of sudden. If I didn’t find some energy pretty soon, I’d fall asleep. Another Mayflower moving truck rolled in from the west and parked. The driver and his co-driver, a man and woman in their fifties in matching western shirts, climbed down from the cab and walked to the truck stop diner.
“Marlena? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, sorry. I drifted for a second,” I said. “Don’t beat yourself up too much. You really didn’t have a choice about me coming alone. It’s what I wanted.”
I pulled my forehead from the glass and rubbed my temples.
“Rune, I appreciate what you’re doing, but I . . . I don’t know what I can promise you in return. I don’t want you to get any wrong—”
“You owe me nothing,” he said. “Don’t worry about that now. You have plenty of other things to think about.”
“I know. I just—”
“Have a hard time relying on others. Believe me, I know how that feels. Sometimes, independence born of mistrust is a hard habit to break.”
“You know,” I said rubbing my temples harder, “I’m way too stressed right now to think deeply. Is it okay if I try to figure out what you just said later?”
The deep vibration of Rune’s chuckle made me feel better somehow—lighter of mind.
“Yes, fotia. You may think of it whenever you wish. I will see you tomorrow night.”
“Okay. See you.” I hung up before I got all emotional and weepy again.
“Buck up, Marlee,” I said to my reflection in the glass. “Don’t be a wimp. Do what you need to do.”
I pulled the tracking device out of my pocket and half stumbled out of the phone booth toward the parking lot. Two Mayflower trucks in a row heading east—it was a sign. I felt like a frightened Mayflower pilgrim on alien soil, and I was definitely being persecuted, or at least pursued, for who I was. I walked to the nearest Mayflower truck. A massive sleeper compartment butted against the driver’s area. A two-by-three-foot padlocked door to the right of the driver’s door was scored by long vent slots. I looked around to make sure no one was watching. No one was around, but just to be safe, I pretended to yawn and stretch as I reached over and slipped the tracking device through one of the vent slots.
I smiled and walked to the truck stop entrance. I hoped Sarkis and his men tracked mister and misses Mayflower all the way to the East Coast. That would give me some breathing room and hopefully royally piss them off when they figured out what I’d done.
The truck stop was one of those combination diner, motel, gas station, mini markets. I used the bathroom and bought two bags of sandwiches, junk food, energy drinks, Gatorade, and a Stumble-Inn-Mini-Market-Mondo-Big-Cup of coffee with ten packets of sugar. With hours alone in the car and no other energy source traveling with me, I’d have to make my own artificial energy
to stay awake.
I took my time counting the money for my purchases and absorbed ambient energy being thrown off by the teenage cash register clerk and surrounding customers. I gave the cashier a twenty for gas and stuffed a five-dollar bill in her tip jar then lugged my bags and nagging conscious to the car. Absorbing energy on accident was one thing. Purposely drawing off of someone who wasn’t trying to kill or kidnap me was another. Five bucks wasn’t much for stealing a piece of someone, but with my dwindling cash supply it would have to do.
It took six tries to get the little beast of a rental started. I pulled it to the pumps and, defying all the posted warning signs, left it running as I filled it up. The clock on the dash glowed 8:48 p.m. as I pulled onto the highway and headed west toward Idaho.
I checked my directions for the hundredth time and pulled onto what I hoped was the final dirt road at a quarter till five in the morning. Between the thick pine trees, what I could see of the sky was still dark, but the stars weren’t as bright. I hoped it was close enough to sunrise to keep me from being eaten by guard dogs. I could always stay in the car until the dogs were taken in.
Rune had said the compound was two miles up this last road, but about a half mile in, I was beginning to have my doubts. The dirt road deteriorated from a fairly orderly gravel road to two ruts in the vegetation. The pine trees thickened and closed in as if pulled by a giant drawstring.
Claustrophobia clawed at my throat, and I battled flashes of lying in the hole beneath my aunt’s house. My tension escalated and yanked my jittery sugar/caffeine high to a fevered pitch. The Escort’s lights dimmed and the engine sputtered.
“Okay, just calm down,” I said to both myself and the little car. “We can do this. Don’t get all freaked out now.”
I took two more of the pills and washed them down with the energy drink, the irony of the oxymoronic act registering in the back of my addled brain. The headlights brightened and illuminated several sets of glowing orange eyes fifteen feet ahead. I slammed on the brakes. Something under the hood popped. The engine and lights died, and darkness seized the car.
