Random Acts

by Franklin Horton

  Cole: Good day here. Glad you’re enjoying the job. You’re coming straight home when you get off, right?

  Amanda: Yes, Dad.

  Cole: Good. See you then.

  Even if her dad shunned social media, at least he’d adopted texting. She couldn’t imagine having to call people every time you needed to relay information. Nor could she imagine what it must have been like in the old days when you could only call from home. No cell phones, no email, no social media. It was all so primitive. The very idea was as remote to her as the idea of travelling in a horse-drawn wagon.

  She texted her friend Raven.

  Amanda: What’s up, chica? I’m on break.

  Nearly immediately, the phone rang in her hand and startled her.

  “That was fast,” she said.

  “How’s the job?” Raven said.

  “Love it so far.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Yeah, I’m excited. Working with the grumpy old men was kind of funny for a while but I needed a break.”

  “No doubt,” Raven said. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too. That why you called?”

  “No!” Raven gushed. “I almost forgot. I was talking to my mom about her social media accounts last night.”

  “Did you mention my mom?”

  “I mentioned you were going back through her account saving pictures.”

  “Did you mention you thought she was having an affair?”

  “No way,” Raven said, sounding offended. “That shit is personal.”

  “I know. That’s why I was asking.”

  “Anyway, she told me the social media site everyone used then was called MySpace. It became less popular when some of the other sites came along but she said everyone used to have accounts there. They would post pictures, their favorite songs, all that stuff. It was really old school.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Amanda said.

  “You should check it out and see if she had an account there and if it’s still available.”

  “You haven’t checked already?”

  “No, I haven’t. But check her married name and check her maiden name. MySpace may go back to before she was married.”

  Amanda had never considered what that might look like, finding the things her mother posted before her father came along. “I’ll do that.”

  “Tell me how it goes.”

  “I tell you everything,” Amanda said. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  “Good. Love ya, girl.”

  “Love you too,” Amanda replied, ending the call.

  When she finished her meal she walked back to the shop. Shuttle customers from earlier in the day were arriving in small waves, turning their bikes back in and heading home. She jumped right into action, replacing the rental bikes on the racks and hanging up helmets. The afternoon and evening went fast. There was never too long a period between customers. In fact, she was surprised when Ben told her she could go on home.

  She took a quick glance at her phone and saw it was right at eight P.M.

  “How’d that happen?” she asked.

  “It’s like that in the summer. The days are a blur.”

  “It was fun. I liked it.”

  “Great,” Ben said with a smile. “The help makes it more manageable. When you’re short-handed around here it can get out of hand pretty quickly. Customers are lined up and they get grumpy because they’re waiting. Shuttle schedules get screwed up. It sucks.”

  “Well, I’ll see you same time tomorrow, I guess,” Amanda said.

  Ben gave her a little wave. “Drive safe. See you tomorrow.”

  Amanda walked back to the Wrangler and got inside. She settled into the seat and sat there for just a moment, letting the experiences of the day coalesce. For some reason, out of habit she supposed, she whipped out her phone and punched the button that would dial her mom.

  It rang one time before Amanda realized what she’d done, realized her mother was dead. Realized there would be no more calling her.

  She supposed it was because she hadn’t been many places by herself since her mother died. In her old life, it was part of her habit. When she got in the car, she’d call her mother and let her know she was starting home.

  That was probably what she was doing now. She’d been planning to tell her mother she was starting home and what a great day she’d had. Sobs erupted from her with such violence it was like an attack of vomiting. There was no preamble, just the sudden rush of full on crying.

  Despite the tears blurring her vision, she rushed to start the vehicle and get out of the parking lot. She didn’t want Ben to see her out there and wonder why she was still sitting there. He didn’t need her to see her like this. She wasn’t sure he’d understand. No one could understand unless they’d lost someone this close to them. She hoped he’d never have to understand this.

  Never.

  36

  Victor was sitting on his bed. Across the room, his computer was on and the Amanda Castle social media profile filled the screen. Victor stared at it, emotions washing through his head like debris-filled floodwaters. There was love and confusion. There was longing and pain. There was rage.

  Murderous rage.

  “You are the DeathMerchant,” Victor said aloud. “You are the DeathMerchant.”

  He stood and walked to the display of knives on his wall. He removed a long, jagged knife from a hook and awkwardly swung it. He lunged and slashed, cursed and yelled until he was screaming, tears filling his eyes.

  “I do not understand you, CamaroChick19,” he said. “Why would you do this to me? Why did you reach out and then pull back? Why did you lie to me?”

  Victor whipped the knife around and touched the sharp tip to his monitor. He gently traced the tip of the blade over Amanda’s face, her eyes, her throat.

  “I’ll fucking kill you,” he said. “You do this shit to me and think you can get away with it? Don’t you know who I am?”

  He yanked the knife away, a wave of regret overtaking him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can you forgive me?”

  He whipped the knife back around, putting it to her throat again.

  “Can you forgive me if I have to kill you?”

  With the knife still in his hands, he stormed up the steps. When he came from Stanley’s house he’d brought his mother’s purse with him. He’d placed it on the dining room table, in the same exact spot where she always put it. He dug through it and found her bank card. She wrote the pin number on it in marker because she could never remember it.

  Victor burst out the door and headed to the car with his mother's purse tucked under his arm. He dug out her car key, started the Buick, and backed out of the driveway without so much as a glance at the house, at the back door standing wide open.

  His next stop was the ATM at his mother's bank. He did a balance inquiry and was pleased to find a surprising amount of money available to him. He figured it was better not to withdraw it all at once so he took out five hundred dollars with the plan that he would try for that same amount again tomorrow. His next stop was convenience store where he fueled the car and bought fuel for himself—two energy drinks, four Mountain Dews, two bags of chips, three candy bars, and five Little Debbie cakes.

  With a Little Debbie caked clenched in his teeth, Victor got on the highway and headed out of Charlotte, North Carolina. While he was not well-traveled, he’d occasionally driven his mother out of town for funerals and to doctor’s appointments. Being on the highway wasn’t particularly comfortable to him, but then neither was anything else in the world.

  “DeathMerchant road trip,” Victor said to himself.

  He opened the GPS app on his phone and punched in his destination.

  Boone, North Carolina.

  37

  Mohammed and Khebat found their flight from Germany to Mexico relatively uneventful. Despite their nervousness, no one paid them a second glance. The pair had never seen anything like the Cancun airport bef
ore. It was full of boisterous tourists. People wore garish clothes and exposed much more skin that the men were accustomed to seeing. Many people appeared drunk or well on their way to getting there. There was an overabundance of decadence. It was exactly the kind of thing the pair wished to eradicate from the Earth.

  They were met at the airport by a man who approached them without asking their names. He may have recognized them from a photo or perhaps they stuck out like a sore thumb among the tourists. The man gestured for them to follow him outside to the parking lot and a waiting vehicle. They left the city and drove to the town of Chiquila.

  The driver took them directly to the port. They were ushered aboard a fishing vessel operated by a crew of Mexican fishermen who barely acknowledged their arrival on the boat. In a country where people were afraid to ask questions and where money will buy you anything, the two Syrians were soon speeding offshore. It was a beautiful day and the sun was bright. The sleep-deprived men were forced to shade their eyes, neither even owning a pair of sunglasses.

  It was about three hours before the men spotted the monstrous container ship looming off the starboard bow. Khebat leaned close to Mohammed and called over the sound of the engine. "I recognize that flag. Hong Kong."

  If the crew of the fishing boat overheard them, they showed no sign. It had been that way for the entire trip. After the passengers had boarded at the dock they had been treated as if they were invisible. No one addressed them, no one offered them a drink, and no one engaged them in even the most mundane conversation.

  Mohammed knew nothing of the ways of the sea but it appeared to him as if the container ship was expecting them. Normally a ship on the open water would be concerned about any boat on a collision course with them, but there were no attempts made to communicate with them or redirect them.

  The captain of the fishing boat retrieved an inexpensive walkie-talkie from a waterproof bag. He spoke into it in Spanish, which neither of the Syrians understood. All the while, the fishing vessel continued to gain ground on the container ship. Then there was movement at the larger ship’s railing and a rope ladder was unfurled over the side.

  The container ship slowed but did not stop. The fishing boat matched its speed and eased closer. Crew members from the fishing vessel went into action, slinging several rubber bumpers over the starboard side in case the two vessels touched. The captain of the fishing boat maneuvered within a foot of the rope ladder but did not get any closer.

  Was that it? Was that as close as he was getting? They were supposed to hop from one bobbing and lurching vessel to another, then climb a rope ladder?

  As if reading his mind, the captain nodded at Mohammed and flicked a finger in the direction of the rope. It was an order to disembark. This was as close as they were getting. "I'm not sure I can do this," Khebat said in a panic. "There is too much movement."

  Mohammed stood, shrugged, and met his friend’s eye. "If you cannot, do you think you will still be on board this vessel when it returns to shore?"

  Khebat’s jaw set with the truth of that statement. If he could not make the transition from this vessel to the other, it would be the end of his journey. The end of his life. He would never be found. These fishermen would slice his throat with a razor-sharp filleting knife and throw him overboard for the sharks. It was written on their hard faces.

  The captain grew frustrated with the delay. He said something in rapid Spanish to the Syrians and gestured angrily at the rope ladder. Mohammed slung his pack on his back and moved to the edge of the deck. He unsnapped a rope blocking a gap in the railing and leaned forward, trying to time the moving boats. When it looked right, he lunged forward, grasping the rope ladder with both hands, then following with his feet.

  He felt like a spider scurrying up the side of a sink, hoping he didn’t get washed down the drain. He did not look back at Khebat. At this moment all of his attention was focused on getting up the ladder alive. Khebat’s fate was in his own hands. Mohammed looked up and saw two crewmen staring down at him. He was going to make it.

  Behind him, Khebat tried to repeat Mohammed's fluid motions. He grabbed a rung of the ladder with two hands but could not will his feet to leave the security of the deck. He tried to raise a leg toward the ladder but fear gripped him. He was frozen in place.

  Growing impatient, the captain took matters into his own hands. He eased the fishing vessel away from the large container ship. Khebat’s eyes grew wide with panic but he held to the rung of the ladder and the captain made his decision for him. One second later, Khebat was dangling in the air, his legs kicking before mercifully finding purchase on the rungs of the ladder.

  Mohammed reached the top of the ladder and climbed onto the deck of the ship. He turned, leaned over the railing, and shouted encouragement. Khebat could not hear the words, could not hear anything but the pounding of his own heart and the roar of the ship’s powerful engine. He struggled to climb the ladder, urging his legs to move one rung at a time.

  Once he was finally in reach of the top, strong hands grasped his shirt and dragged him onto the steel deck. They were not gentle with him but it was well enough because his legs could not have supported him. Two crewmen helped Khebat to his feet and held him upright.

  Another man, bettered dressed, appeared from nowhere and began issuing orders in rapid Chinese. The Syrians did not understand the language but understood the beckoning gesture and urgency behind it. The man obviously wanted to get them out of sight as quickly as possible. They were directed through a hatch and down a narrow corridor.

  After a few turns, the man at the head of the entourage unlocked a cabin door and ushered the pair inside. The well-dressed man walked across the room and opened another door, indicating this room had a toilet. In the floor were two cardboard boxes of food and a case of water. The man pointed at the provisions then nodded at them. Mohammed nodded back, understanding that the intention was these they not leave this room until they were told to do so.

  When the crew left, they heard the rattle of keys and the door locking behind them. The crew wanted to take no chances, just in case the instructions were not clear. Mohammed and Khebat did not find this treatment to be rude or scary in any way. Used to the world of compartmentalized information and covert action, this was customary treatment. They had spent nights in worse places.

  38

  Victor’s first day in Boone was a bust. He sat outside the bike shop all day and CamaroChick19 did not work. He had found a parking place that gave him a view of both the front door and the side entrance into the business parking lot. His space was on the street where he hoped he might draw less attention. Boone was smaller than Charlotte, and he understood being noticed was potentially a problem. As far as he was aware, just sitting in your car on a public street was not a crime, so what could they do?

  The waiting had been frustrating. When the bike shop closed that night without Amanda showing up for work, Victor found a nearby Walmart and spent the night in the Buick. A lot of truck drivers and RVs overnighted in their parking lots. No one would pay any attention to him. Fortunately, Boone had strong cell signal so Victor was able to stream videos until he fell asleep.

  He'd noticed the sign on the front door yesterday stating the shop opened at 8 AM. He was back in position at 7:45 AM, watching both doors. He sat there all morning, nibbling at what remained of his road snacks and the food he brought from home. When the urge hit him, he peed in his empty soda bottles then tossed them into the back seat.

  Around noon, he decided to get out of the vehicle and stretch his legs. He walked by the bike shop, down to the end of the block, then turned around. He didn’t do much walking or anything physical at all. That was as far as he was willing to commit to. He turned around and walked back. On his return trip he saw her.

  She’d parked a Jeep Wrangler in the gravel parking lot beside the bike shop and was heading toward the side door. Victor was less than fifty feet from her. Fifty feet from the girl who’d so disrupted his life. He
froze in his tracks.

  She noticed him, as a young woman might notice any man who stopped in the streets to stare at her, but there was no recognition in her eyes. If there was recognition, there was certainly no acknowledgment. She’d given no indication at all she knew who he was.

  Victor looked away from her and started walking toward his car. His anxiety shot through the roof and he was breathing hard. He was on the verge of a full-fledged panic attack and could not figure out why. He unlocked the car door and climbed inside.

  He slouched in the driver seat, sweat pouring from his face and rolling down his neck. He went to wipe his forehead and brush his hair back, surprised, yet again, to find his hair gone. He picked up a used McDonald's napkin from the floor and mopped at his head with it.

  His mind was a scrolling screen of data he couldn’t lock long enough to read. Why did he feel this way? Why was he flipping out at the sight of this girl? His mother and Stanley were dead. They were the people he hated the most. They were his oppressors. So why was he having such as reaction to this young woman he barely knew?

  Then he understood.

  It wasn’t just the girl. It was everything that came with her. It was what she brought down on him. She’d ridden into his life like one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, bringing plague and pestilence upon him.

  All that had happened to him in the last week could be tracked back to his interaction with CamaroChick19. Had he not been obsessively communicating with her and using his phone at work, he might still have a job. Admittedly, he was on his phone a lot before she came along. The times he was communicating with her were not the only times he was sitting at the desk goofing off when he should've been working. There was no escaping that at that particular time it was his interaction with her that got him in trouble.

  It was her who brought up the flash mob videos. It was through watching those videos and following them through the bottomless internet video wormhole he found the knockout game videos. It was those videos that inspired him to set up an attack on his former employer. That attack led to jail.