by Jeff Strand
"Do you understand what she's saying?" Dan asked.
"I appreciate your concern for my karma," Julie said. "However, it is more important than you can possibly understand that I catch up to the van. If you don't help me out, my friend will be butchered by maniacs. I don't mean maniacs of the soul or whatever the hell you're babbling about, I mean legitimate maniacs with knives and shit."
Her spirits lifted a bit as the van came into view not too far ahead. They were quickly gaining on it.
"Let me get this out of the way right now," Julie said, rolling down the window. "You're not going to like what I'm about to do. Some moral boundaries will be crossed. Get over it and pull up right next to that van."
"Oh my word, you're going to shoot them, aren't you?"
"Only the psychopaths."
"Oh, fudge. Fudge, fudge, fudge."
"Just stay calm. I'll be out of your hair in a few minutes."
* * *
"Would you mind so terribly much if I gouged your eye out?" asked Tyler, waving a scalpel in front of Benjamin's face. "Would it bum you out, or would you keep up a sunny attitude?"
Benjamin elected not to answer.
"Yep, you sure do have pretty brown eyes. Not as pretty as blue eyes, but for brown eyes, they look like perfect keepsakes. Which one do you want, Silas, left or right?"
"Goddamn it, stop threatening his eyes!" shouted Dominick from the front. "I'll pull this fucking van over, I swear!"
A gunshot rang out.
Some blood sprayed from the side of Dominick's head.
The van jerked to the right. Tyler's scalpel-wielding fist swung in an arc that took it directly into the intended target—an eye. But the wrong eye. Silas's eye.
Silas's reaction involved a great deal of screaming, hand-flapping, and unnecessary conveying of the information that Tyler had just stabbed him in the eyeball. He grabbed the handle of the scalpel as the van went off the pavement. The accompanying bounce drove the scalpel even farther into his orb and his reaction became somewhat noisier.
The van tilted to the right. Benjamin's stomach lurched as the mattress slid along the floor. Silas smacked into the side of the van, scalpel-first. Tyler grabbed something to steady himself, but unfortunately it was a machete blade. He let go of it and struck the wall right next to Silas.
Don't tip, don't tip, Benjamin silently begged as the van tipped onto its side.
Benjamin, still strapped to the mattress, struck Silas. The van continued to roll, shattering the windows and banging the hell out of Benjamin as it turned completely upside down, fell onto its left side, and finally stopped with its tires on the grass where they belonged. The mattress slammed back down onto the floor.
Though he was not a physician, Benjamin was able to note beyond reasonable doubt that Silas was dead, unless people's necks were supposed to bend back that way. He couldn't even see the end of the scalpel amidst all of the spilled eyeball contents.
Tyler was not dead. However, the van's roll had not been a positive experience for him. Evidence of this theory included but was not limited to the machete blade jutting through his left arm, the two nails in his left cheek, and the pencil that now served as a makeshift ear piercing. He looked stunned, and Benjamin understood exactly how he felt.
Then Tyler seemed to remember where he was. His expression made it clear that he intended to do great harm to Benjamin even though he didn't specifically say anything to that effect. He stepped forward and let out a howl of pain. He stumbled backwards and let out another howl of pain. Benjamin couldn't see what he'd stepped on, but it was probably sharp.
Another gunshot. Tyler cried out, clutched at the brand-new bullet hole in his shoulder, and ducked down.
He spoke in a very soft, weak voice: "Tell her I give up."
"He gives up!" Benjamin shouted.
"Did I kill him?" Julie called out from right outside the van.
"No, but you hit him in the shoulder, and he has lots of other injuries."
"Life-threatening ones?"
"Ummmm...I'm not sure. Not if he gets immediate medical attention, I guess."
"Tell her I have a machete through my arm," said Tyler.
"He says he has a machete through his arm," Benjamin reported.
"Does he really?"
"Yes."
"What about the other guy?"
"Oh, he's dead."
The van door slid open. Julie hopped inside, kicked Tyler in the face, and slid the door shut behind her. She grabbed a knife off the floor and quickly cut the straps that bound Benjamin to the mattress.
"Thank you," he said, sitting up.
"Are you hurt?"
"Yeah, but probably not by your definition."
"Good. Your job is to make sure he—" she pointed down at Tyler "—doesn't try anything while I get us out of here. If he does, stab him in the head with something."
She hurried to the front of the van and pulled Dominick's corpse out of the driver's seat. She let it drop to the floor, then slid behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered.
"You really think it's going to start?" Benjamin asked.
"If it does, we can avoid carjacking another good Samaritan. I'm in favor of that."
The engine continued to sputter.
"It rolled all the way over," Benjamin said.
"I saw it."
The engine roared to life. And then died again a second later.
Though Benjamin really didn't want to be a pest, he decided to express his concerns. "What if there's a fuel leak?"
"Then we blow up."
"Okay."
The engine sputtered some more, roared to life again...and this time it didn't die. Julie pulled onto the highway and they sped off.
"I'm feeling pretty dizzy," said Tyler, his voice slurred. "Could you drop me off at a hospital? I promise I won't tell anyone."
Benjamin shook his head. "Seems unlikely."
"Yeah, that's what I figured." He scratched at his machete-impaled arm. "Any chance you'll pull this thing out?"
"I'd rather not."
Ten minutes later, they pulled off into a rest stop. "What's the plan?" Benjamin asked.
Julie glared at him. "The plan? The plan is that I'm going to find the ugliest, smelliest, most repulsive trucker available, and then I'm going to offer to fellate him if he'll give us a ride. I'll probably have to give him a sample to let him know I'm serious. I am not happy about this. Not even a little. But since the cops are going to be actively searching for us, I have to see to it that we have a ride that won't try to ditch us at the very first opportunity. So thank you very much for forcing me to fellate a grotesque truck driver. How was your day?"
"You're acting like it's my fault."
"I wasn't the one tied to the mattress, now was I?"
"No, but you shot the guard at the hospital!"
Julie was silent for a moment.
"Fine. It evens out, then." She opened the door. "Don't let him escape."
Benjamin watched her go, rather annoyed. His fault? He wasn't the one who kidnapped somebody out of a hospital at gunpoint. All he did was acquire a parasite. None of this was his fault.
"I think I'm bleeding to death," said Tyler.
"No, you're not."
"I'm gushing, man."
"You're fine. Zip it."
"I need a tourniquet."
"Enough. You and your friend were going to torture me to death. It's going to take you a hell of a long time to regain my trust. Maybe somebody will try to patch you up so that you can pretend you're dying and then suddenly go 'Surprise!' and jam a knife in their throat, but that somebody isn't going to be me."
Tyler coughed. "That's harsh." He lay on the floor and closed his eyes.
His injuries did look pretty severe, but Benjamin simply wasn't going to be the kind of simpleton who would fall for that kind of a trick. Though he had been dumb many, many times in his life, and he would unquestionably be dumb on many, many more occasion
s, he wasn't going to be dumb now. If he got into any more trouble, Julie would probably cut her losses and put a bullet in his brain.
He waited patiently. The sign at the rest area exit had said that there were vending machines. A Hershey bar would certainly hit the spot right about now. If he could find some change in the van, he could hurry to the vending machines and get back before—
No. Bad idea.
"Do you have any chocolate?" he asked Tyler.
"Come on," said Julie, poking her head through the shattered window and making him jump. "We've got a ride."
"That was quick."
"It wasn't a complex negotiation." She slid open the van door. "Get up," she told Tyler.
Tyler did not get up.
"Poke him with your foot."
Benjamin prodded him in the side. Tyler didn't respond.
"Step on his hand. Break a finger."
"I'm not doing that!"
Julie let out a sigh of frustration, climbed into van, and grabbed Tyler's hand. She pulled back his pinky until it snapped. Tyler didn't respond.
"He may be dead," she said.
"Are you sure?"
She snapped another finger. "Pretty sure."
"Oh my God!"
"Let's go."
Benjamin stepped over the bloody corpse. "He asked me for a tourniquet and I refused. I could've helped him. I let that man die!"
"It's okay. I wanted to question him, but he probably wouldn't have had any information anyway."
"But I let him die! I let him bleed to death! Then I let you break two of his fingers!"
"Are you kidding me?"
Benjamin got out of the van. "He was a human being."
"Okay, save your moral crisis for sometime when I don't have to listen to it. We're in a rush." She took him by the hand and pulled him away from the van.
"I'm an awful person."
"Yes, you suck. Shut up."
They hurried across the rest area to where about four semi trucks were parked. The one on the right already had the rear door lifted partway, revealing that the cargo storage was empty. A man who looked to be about eighty stood next to the vehicle, his eyes briefly glancing at Benjamin and then returning to Julie.
"Get in," Julie said.
"I have to sit in the back?"
"Do you want to see what's going to happen up there? I think you do not."
Benjamin climbed into the back of the semi without further complaint. The old man shut the sliding door, and Benjamin was cast into complete darkness. He tried unsuccessfully to find a comfortable place to sit, and settled for just lying on the metal floor. As the vehicle began to move, he took off his shirt to use as a pillow, hopefully enabling him to avoid a concussion from the vibrations.
How did I become the kind of man who would let somebody bleed to death? he wondered. Yes, Tyler was homicidal, sadistic, evil, bloodthirsty, and better off dead, but still...
You've got a ghastly parasite inside of your body, you've been kidnapped by a woman who likes to shoot people, you may never see your family again, you left a bunch of students with a final exam and no monitor, and you're worried about the tragic fate of Tyler the Sociopath?
Benjamin just lay there, alone with his thoughts.
They weren't good company.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
At some point he fell asleep.
He awoke to the sound of the door sliding up. It was dark outside. He winced as he sat up—his entire body was sore.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"Georgia."
"Georgia? That's not the same direction as California."
"I'm aware of that, believe it or not. But our driver was going to Georgia, and we needed to get out of the state."
Benjamin put on his shirt and slid out of the semi, into the outdoor lights of the small motel. Julie gasped.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. Just stay out of sight. Go behind that Dumpster. I'll be right back."
Benjamin decided to save his argument for later and do as he was told. He wandered behind the wretched-smelling Dumpster, thinking that this felt like a really good time to start a mid-life crisis.
Hey, maybe somebody threw away a candy bar!
Benjamin watched the semi pull away. A few minutes later, Julie returned. "Got us a room," she said.
Benjamin frowned. "A room?"
"Yes, a room. Do you need me to define the term?"
"I'm just surprised we're getting a room. Aren't we in a hurry?"
She walked toward the building. Benjamin followed.
"We don't have a motor vehicle," she explained. "We could swipe one, but our chances of making it to California are much better if we're not in a stolen car. So we're going to buy one. A cheap one. Something ugly. Since we can't do that until morning, we might as well get some rest."
"Why didn't we just buy a car sooner?"
"Because I was going to sleep anyway. I can't stay up for forty-eight hours."
"I could've driven."
"Will you stop criticizing my plan? Do you know how annoying that is? I'm not going to let you drive because you, Benjamin, are the kidnap victim. You're still a flight risk."
"I didn't flee just now while you were getting the room."
"That's because you knew I could see you through the window in the lobby."
"No, I didn't."
"Then you're way overestimating my level of trust." She flashed the room card over the sensor and opened the door. "You do know I still have the gun, right?"
"I figured that."
"Cool. After you."
Benjamin walked into the motel room. It was small but clean, although the primary thing he noticed was that it only had one bed.
"They didn't have a double?"
"We're sleeping together."
"Can I get my wife's permission first? She usually frowns upon that sort of thing."
Julie shut the door behind them. "Nothing is going to happen. After what I had to do in that semi, the idea of tasting another penis ever again is kind of repulsive to me."
"Okay. Well. Some logic can't be argued. Do you need the bathroom?"
"Go right ahead."
Benjamin walked into the bathroom. He stared at the floor for a couple of seconds, not quite sure he really wanted to know what unpleasant sight the mirror had to offer, then gazed at his reflection.
His face was covered with dark red sores, at least ten of them, the largest the size of a nickel. He quickly stripped off his shirt and saw that his arms and chest were similarly affected.
Oh, Jesus, what kind of parasite was this? He traced his index finger around the edge of a particularly large sore on his solar plexus. Would these things heal? Would more of them appear?
He walked out of the bathroom and tried to keep his voice steady. "An explanation...would be very much appreciated."
Julie was seated on the edge of the bed. "I'm not sure. I think your body chemistry is changing."
"Is it going to get worse?"
"Not definitely."
"Not definitely? That's the best answer you can give me?"
"What do you want me to say? Tell me, Benjamin, did you have any of those blotches on your body when you got into the back of the semi?"
Benjamin shook his head.
"And now you're covered in them. So I could tell you that yes, everything is fine, I'm sure you have nary a concern, but I have too much respect for your intelligence."
"So it's going to get worse?"
"Not definitely."
"Am I going to die?"
"That's what I'm here to prevent, remember?"
Benjamin decided to end the conversation. The sooner they went to sleep, the sooner they'd wake up, and the sooner they'd be on the way to getting this body-chemistry-changing abomination out of him.
"It's time to give the parasite another shot, and then you should take a quick shower," Julie said. "You'll feel better."
"Yeah."
"And you do realize that I'm going to have to handcuff you to the bed, right?"
"Figured."
* * *
On a typical night, Pedro Ramirez loved his life. He had money, women, good looks, a vast DVD collection, and fast metabolism. He was excellent at his job and it provided him with plenty of vacation time.
