by Aiden James
Jack wasn’t sure if he could control his curiosity or not, but climbed into the car with his brother. In the brief brightness afforded by the sedan’s dome light, he studied Jeremy more closely, noting again the large amount of blood greased on his shirt and pants. Despite Jeremy’s acute alertness, Jack worried he hadn’t escaped serious injury.
Before he could voice his concern, Jeremy shushed him, motioning more urgently to be silent. Jeremy pulled the sedan back onto the bumpy dirt road that brought them to this desolate place near Manassas Park. When they reached the main dirt road, he rolled down his window and cut the headlights, listening to the air around them. To the left would take them back to the agency’s interrogation center, while the park sat to their right. Satisfied no one from the center pursued them, he turned the lights back on and drove into the park.
The road merged with another one, paved, and Jeremy continued to leave his window down until nearly a mile inside the park. He relaxed and looked over at Jack, smiling weakly. Jack stared back, solemn.
The sedan’s dashboard was equipped with an agency communication and computer system. Jack finally looked away from his brother to study the various components. Though curious, dabbling with it could certainly give away their location. A digital clock read 11:04 p.m., and he prayed the remaining hours of darkness gave them a significant head start on whoever would pursue them.
Jeremy veered into an unlighted picnic area with a large restroom. He stopped the car and cut the lights. After placing the pistol underneath his seat, he motioned for Jack to get out of the car and follow him. The area deserted, Casey’s flashlight came in handy, illuminating their way to the restroom. They scurried over to the men’s portion of the building and stepped inside.
“Keep a look out for me, Jackie,” whispered Jeremy, once he discovered the restroom contained a shower stall. “I’m going to try to get cleaned up a little bit.”
He moved over to a trashcan, tearing his blood-soaked polo shirt off and throwing it inside the container on his way to the stall. Jack felt relieved that he was okay. At least there were no obvious wounds.
“Just leave the flashlight on the ground. Here, take these and see if you can get most of the blood out.”
Jeremy handed his jeans to Jack, who eyed them in horror, gingerly holding them as he moved over to a nearby sink.
“What in the hell happened back there, Jeremy!” demanded Jack, grimacing while looking over his shoulder as he laid his brother’s trousers in the sink.
“Sh-sh-sh!!! Keep your voice down, Jackie!” Jeremy whispered, harshly.
The water pipes murmured as he turned on the shower.
“Well??”
Jeremy’s only response was a hearty serving of his most crude vernacular, tempered by his determination to keep his voice at a whisper. The shower’s cold water commanded his immediate attention.
“Goddamn it, talk to me, Jeremy!!!”
Still no answer, other than the sound of Jeremy working quickly to rid himself of the foulness that had soaked through to his skin. Jack reluctantly turned his attention to the task of cleansing the jeans.
Blood oozed into the sink’s basin. Jack scrubbed furiously, determined not to prolong this experience more than necessary. At first disgusted and horrified at how quickly the water in the basin turned dark, after repeatedly rinsing and wringing out Jeremy’s pants, the crimson residue finally decreased to where only slight traces were visible in the water.
Jeremy turned the shower off, and Jack hurriedly finished, turning away from the sink as he held the damp trousers out in front of him. Suddenly, the flashlight flickered and died just as Jeremy stepped around the corner from the shower stall.
“Goddamn it anyway!!” he hissed. “Jackie, where exactly are you?”
“I’m right here, maybe four or five feet in front of you.”
“All right,” acknowledged Jeremy. “Walk over here slowly and bring my pants, and for God’s sake don’t trip and fall while you’re doing it!”
Jack moved slowly toward Jeremy’s voice, still holding the pair of jeans out in front of him. He couldn’t believe the darkness’s depth. For all he could tell, the restroom’s interior had completely disappeared, leaving him and his brother in a deep and empty void. This initial impression soon gave way to reality, as he scraped the side of his right arm against a steel paper towel holder attached to the wall that separated the row of sinks from the shower stall.
“Are you all right?” Jeremy asked, just before he grabbed Jack’s left arm.
“I’ll live,” Jack replied, his tone pained. “At least for now.”
Jeremy let go as he grabbed his jeans, struggling in the dark to pull them back on. After a shrill whistle and a few more choice words in response to the damp coldness against his skin, he zipped up his pants.
“Help me find my shoes, Jackie, and we’ll get the hell out of here.”
“Where’d you leave them?”
“Well, I believe over here. Oh shit—!”
He kicked the flashlight that lay hidden in his path. It skidded across the floor several feet before it flipped over. The light flickered back on again.
“Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus!!” Jeremy exalted sarcastically. “I’d say it’s about time we get rid of this thing. That’s the third time in the past hour this has happened. What’s the saying, Mr. Baseball? Three strikes and you’re out. Right? Though, the second time it happened is the reason we’re still among the living.”
Several streams of water dripped onto his muscular shoulders from his hair. Naked from the waist up, Jeremy’s build was still the envy of Jack, built fairly well himself. A colorful tattoo of a buxom female posed seductively on a Harley just below his left shoulder was the only vestige from Jeremy’s younger and wilder days. The dark flowing locks long gone, but the mature version of Jack’s brother, who lacked just one full semester to complete his master’s degree in archaeology, still carried the glint of fiery excitement in his piercing green eyes. Like right then.
“My shoes are right behind you, Jackie,’ he advised. “Scoot them over to me and let’s leave.”
“First, why don’t you tell me what happened back there?” said Jack, moving the shoes toward his brother. “I’m dying of curiosity, man. If you were me and I pulled this shit on you, we wouldn’t be going anywhere until you were satisfied with my answers. Right?”
“Oh, I’m sure I’d beat it out of you if I had to,” he agreed, chuckling. “But, that’s not the point. The point is we’ve been in here longer than I believe prudent. We’ll be the center of attention for a lot of folks soon if not already. Trust me, bro. I’ll fill you in completely once we’re far enough away from here.”
Jeremy picked up the flashlight and Jack followed him out of the restroom. The cool night air came as a welcome relief to Jack’s nostrils after their most recent assault from the restroom’s cramped foulness, though Jeremy certainly didn’t appreciate the coolness as much. They moved quickly back to the sedan, the lone vehicle parked in the area.
“Are you going to be all right like that, without a shirt?” asked Jack.
“For now, I’ll be fine. Remember, Jackie, ‘mums the word’ once we reach the car,” cautioned Jeremy, his voice falling to a soft whisper. “You know how surveillance happy these assholes are.”
“‘Got it.”
They quietly slipped inside the sedan. Jeremy started the engine and they moved back onto the main road, heading northeast toward the park’s exit.
The dashboard’s clock read 11:29 p.m., and Jeremy’s recent misgivings were soon confirmed when another car crept up behind them. Though barely visible behind its bright halogens, he and Jack detected a faint outline of small globes along the vehicle’s top. For the moment they remained dormant.
“Shit!”
Jeremy reached under his seat to confirm the pistol was still there, slowly withdrawing the weapon and placing it in his lap. The two automobiles traveled like this for several miles until they
reached Highway 28, at which point Jeremy turned right while the police car turned left. They headed north on the highway.
Jack let out a ragged sigh of relief, feeling as if he might throw up. This brought another reproachful look from Jeremy, who pressed his index finger to his lips again.
“Not yet,” he whispered.
The road merged with Highway 7, near Broad Run Farms. Jeremy pulled the car off the highway and down a deserted road. They passed a handful of darkened houses. Once beyond the last house, Jeremy pulled over to the roadside. He silently mouthed his intentions to replace their present vehicle with another from this neighborhood. Leaving Jack with the sedan’s keys, he backtracked on foot.
The dashboard’s clock read 12:14 a.m., and every minute Jeremy was away heightened Jack’s anxiety. To pass the time, he rummaged around his seat; locating two boxes of cartridges for the semi-automatic pistols the agents had armed themselves with. Finally, just after twelve-thirty Jeremy returned, driving an old Ford pickup truck.
The truck idled rough, and at first Jack was reluctant to leave the car’s comfort. But once Jeremy explained this was the best he could provide them with at present, and that they pressed their luck by driving the sedan any further, Jack helped him hide it in a nearby wooded ravine.
“I sure as hell would’ve preferred we waited on this, but after what just happened, I didn’t think we should risk it,” said Jeremy, once they finished moving the sedan. “Perhaps that cop back there followed us on account of the park’s curfew—most places have them, you know. I thought for sure we’d get stopped. When we didn’t, I reckon he believed we were a pair of agents out there on some sort of covert surveillance, or some shit like that.”
“Were you going to shoot that cop, Jeremy?”
Jeremy hesitated before answering, his expression thoughtful.
“Only if necessary, Jackie,” he finally replied. “If it meant ‘us’ or ‘him’. Or ‘her’ if a female.”
He moved to the rear, grabbing a pair of rifles and ammunition from the trunk, while Jack made sure he picked up the two small boxes of ammunition he recently discovered. Jeremy threw the car’s keys deep into the woods, and the two quickly moved back to the truck.
Very loud and hardly the optimum choice of transportation, the old Ford was originally built in the mid 1980s. A definite gas-guzzler too. The odometer showed just forty-two thousand miles, but surely it had clicked over twice before.
The truck’s cab torn up pretty badly, the dashboard was bare and primitive, equipped only with an AM/FM radio. Jack tried to ignore the rusted-out holes in the floorboard and the steel coils poking through the bench seat.
“How are we going to buy gas for this thing?” he asked once they closed the doors and Jeremy sat the rifles behind the seat. “It’ll be expensive as hell!”
“You don’t need to keep whispering, Jackie,” Jeremy replied, smiling smugly, for the most part his usual self. He kept the pistol beside him as he turned the truck around toward the highway. “We’ve got three quarters of a tank, so I figure that should easily get us to the state line. We’re on our way north, in case you’re wondering. We’ll decide exactly how far north once we leave Virginia.”
“That’s fine. But, are you relying on your looks to get us there? I mean, how are we—Hey! Where’d you get that shirt from?”
Jeremy wore a white T-shirt, stretched tightly with an orange ‘ten’ stenciled in large numerals on the front and back of it. He snickered in response, but Jack had to wait for an answer.
“Well, I suppose you could say the kind folks who provided this wonderful piece of shit-on-wheels for our use were even kinder to leave this shirt for me,” Jeremy explained, once they were back on Highway 7. “Seriously, man, it was folded up right where you’re sitting now, with a Peterbilt baseball cap resting on top of it. The shirt’s clean, too!”
“No shit, huh?”
“No shit, indeed!” Jeremy enthused. “As for how we’re going to pay for gas, food, and some brand new clothes for both of us.... I guess they took your wallet, too, for you to ask that.”
“Yeah. They took it when they confiscated my watch and pocket knife,” said Jack. “I guess we’re really screwed once we run out of gas!”
“I lost my watch to those bastards, too,” said Jeremy. “So, as far as keeping track of time, we’re probably S.O.L. for now. But, I’ve got more than twelve hundred dollars in cash on me, courtesy of those very same bastards…. Here, Jackie, I’ve got Bo Cochran’s wallet with me. Never mind that I managed to keep it from you until now. Most of the money’s his, though there are contributions from the others as well.”
Jeremy withdrew the damp, bulging leather wallet from his front right pocket and handed it to Jack. It had indeed belonged to Agent Cochran. Jack frowned as he studied the man’s driver’s license and the pictures of his wife and kids.
“Don’t let that fool you,” Jeremy told him without taking his eyes from the road. “I’m sorry for their loss, but I’d bet my very life he’s the son-of-a-bitch who murdered your buddy. God knows he leaned on me pretty hard during my interrogation. Let’s not forget he was about to put a bullet through my head, and yours soon to follow.”
Jack closed the wallet and handed it back to his brother, who stuffed it back into his jeans’ pocket. The truck shook noticeably as Jeremy pushed the accelerator to sixty-five miles per hour.
“God, I hope this thing stays together until we’re at least off this road!” he said. “I’ve counted just six other cars along here with us so far. That might be a good thing if this baby holds up. Jackie, I believe I saw a map in the glove compartment when I first broke into the truck. Would you mind grabbing it? I’d like to make sure we’re headed in the right direction.”
“After that will you finally tell me what happened back there?”
Jack opened the glove box. Lying underneath a crescent wrench and flashlight was a small Rand-McNally road atlas. He removed the map along with the flashlight, grinning slightly once he tested the light and found it worked much better than the last one they had.
“One other thing, too, and I’ll be happy to verify where we’re going,” he said, shutting the glove box door. “Since when did you start breaking into automobiles and stealing them for a hobby?”
Jeremy turned and eyed him suspiciously.
“During the reckless days of my youth,” he confessed, facing the road once more. “Freddy was the one breaking into cars back then. I simply helped drive them. Of course, I learned a thing or two along the way. But if you ever mention any of this to Grandpa….”
“I won’t,” Jack assured him. “Just curious, that’s all. Highway 7 should take us to Winchester, and from there if you want to still head north, you’ll need to take Highway 11—which could be 81. Otherwise, we’ll be heading due west, like we are now.”
“What do you mean by ‘could be 81’?”
“Well, both numbers are shown along that route. This thing was printed back in 1990, for Christ’s sake! I guess that’s the last time anyone took this truck anywhere.”
“‘Probably true,” agreed Jeremy, chuckling. “We should reach Winchester within an hour. A sign we passed a little while ago indicated it’s less than forty-five miles away. Although I didn’t pay too much attention to what it specifically said. Anyway, I know you’re dying to hear about the events that kept us among the living, so here goes.
“Right after Big Bo closed the trunk on you, he and that fucker Iverson grabbed onto my arms and escorted me to their designated execution area, which turned out to be an old woodshed at the edge of the park. I guess roughly two hundred yards or so from where we left you, and Agent Reynolds led the way there with that flashlight he bitched about. Apparently, he and Iverson forgot to bring theirs. I know they cussed a storm about it. You didn’t hear any of that?”
Jack shook his head ‘no’.
“Well, that left you and Agent Casey in total darkness, but I’ll get to the importance of that shortl
y,” said Jeremy. “As soon as we reached our destination, Cochran and Iverson forced me down on my knees. Big Bo used one of his monster-sized paws on my shoulder to keep me still, while the other asshole joined Agent Reynolds, who stood directly in front of me with the flashlight’s beam shining directly in my face.
“‘Well, this should prove to be the highlight of my day,’ he said. ‘I believe all three of us will deeply enjoy watching you die, Mr. Kenney. The only thing that could make this any sweeter is to see you squirm and plead for your life.’
“He laughed and the other two joined in, whooping and hollering with their insults concerning my manhood and legitimacy of my birth. Mind you, all the while I couldn’t see any of them on account of that goddamned light shining in my eyes.
“I guess they noticed the tremendous amount of contempt I felt toward them, which you know almost always brings a smile to my face. It pissed them off even more. I bet if they had more time allotted for our demise, they would’ve beaten the shit out of me right then. As it was, big bad Bo dug his steel-like fingers in behind my collarbone.
“I can’t even describe how much that hurt, Jackie, but I wasn’t about to give in. Especially, since I was about to die anyway. Agent Reynolds asked me if I had any final words before they administered my death sentence. I leered into that annoying light as meanly as I possibly could and told him, very matter-of-factly, to go thoroughly fuck himself to his heart’s content. As you can surely imagine, my comments produced an immediate response. I felt the cold tip of this silencer laying here now against the back of my head, and heard Agent Cochran release the pistol’s safety. In the next few seconds I’m sure my life would’ve ended. But in the instant that preceded the bullet marked with my name, a God-honest miracle took place. The flashlight went out again.”
“So, that’s what you were referring to earlier,” said Jack.
“Yep,” said Jeremy. “But it gets better. Since we were all thrown into complete darkness, I now had a sliver of a chance to still save your ass and mine. I had to move fast, though. Thank God for all of the coon hunting trips Grandpa used to take us on as kids—that, and the tae-kwon-do lessons he let me take back in high school. Otherwise, I don’t believe we’d be discussing any of this now. The window of opportunity would only last so long.
