by Ricky Fry
When he was satisfied the van was in order, Monica climbed into the driver’s seat for her shift behind the wheel.
Four hours. Fours hours, and we’re still in fucking Kansas.
It was another two hours to the state line. A sign welcomed us to “Colorful Colorado,” and I closed my eyes, imagining for a moment I was on a trip with my friends and would soon be smoking Rocky Mountain weed.
“Do you think we’ll see it?” Ruby’s squeaky voice interrupted my fantasy.
When I opened my eyes, I was still in the van. “See what?”
“Denver. The Mile High City?”
“I don’t know, Ruby. Maybe.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to Denver. Did you know it was voted the best place to live in 2016? The city council decriminalized psilocybin mushrooms in 2019. Maybe I could live there some day—when this is all over.”
“That’s a nice thought.”
“You don’t think it could happen?”
“I don’t know, Ruby. Two weeks ago, I was drinking a beer in downtown Portland with my friends. Now I’m shackled in the back of a prisoner transport van. Anything can happen.”
I’d thought about that night many times in the last two weeks. It was the same night I hit Matt over the head with that stupid model house and burned rubber out of town. I’d come home after the beer to find him pacing the living room in a jealous rage. He was always jealous. At first, I’d found it kind of cute, but as the months passed, he’d become more possessive, more controlling. What he’d said that night had left me with no choice but to run.
“I’m sorry,” said Ruby.
“Sorry for what?”
“For bothering you. My grandmother always said I could be a bit too enthusiastic. It’s just, other than my boyfriend, I’ve never really had any friends.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Like crazy.”
I heard tiny sobs interrupted by a snort coming from Ruby’s position in the seat behind me. “I’m sorry too,” I said. “You’ll get to Denver someday.”
“You really think so?”
“Sure, and I’ll come for a visit.”
“Thank you, Spencer! Oh, thank you so much.”
Hope is the only thing keeping her going. Why should I be the one to destroy that?
Thirty minutes after we’d crossed the Colorado state line, Monica pulled the van into a rest stop. More clinking chains between our legs. More balancing over dirty toilet seats with one hand. More obvious stares from families on their way to Mount Rushmore or the Grand Canyon.
I was the last to go, and when I was escorted by Monica’s firm grip back to the van, Travis was taking brown paper bags from a long cooler behind the rear doors.
Monica belted us into our seats as Travis passed around the bags along with small, plastic water bottles.
“Eat up,” he said, opening his own brown bag as the van pulled back onto the highway.
My cuffed hands fumbled to pull a cheese sandwich and a bruised apple out of the bag. “How am I supposed to eat like this?”
“Not my problem,” said Monica.
I bent down as far as the seatbelt would allow and twisted sideways. It wasn’t comfortable, but I managed to take a bite of the apple before moving on to the sandwich.
“Hey!” Denise’s gravelly old voice barked from the backseat. “How ‘bout some real food? I’m sick of the same crappy sandwiches.”
Monica’s eyes glared back in the rear-view mirror. “We eat the same thing you eat. Stop complaining.”
“You know what?” Travis held his sandwich up and then dropped it unceremoniously to the floor. “She’s right. There’s a McDonald’s in Burlington. I’m getting a burger.”
“Yeah, you know that’s not going to happen.” Monica’s eyes were back on the road. “We can only make approved stops.”
“Screw ‘em. We’ve been driving for two days, Monica. Don’t you want a milkshake?”
Denise barked again. “I want a milkshake!”
“Not you guys,” he said. “Come on, Monica. At least let me buy you some fries. We’ll make it quick.”
Monica sighed. “Fine, but it’s your ass if we get in trouble.”
The line for the drive-through was backed up into the parking lot, car after car of summer road-trippers stopping for milkshakes and hamburgers.
“Park it,” said Travis. “I’ll run in.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“It’ll be fine, Monica. They’re in a cage, and the door is locked. What could happen?”
She looked around as though she was expecting to see something. “Alright, just make it quick.”
He disappeared into the brown and yellow building, and Monica fidgeted with the steering wheel. None of us said anything. We could sense her unease and knew it was better to keep our mouths shut.
The silence was interrupted by the ringing of a cell phone. Monica jumped in her seat.
She fumbled with the phone for a moment and hesitated before answering. “Lujan speaking … yes, sir … I apologize. We should have called in the stop … yes, everything is fine. Travis thought he heard an odd sound and wanted to check under the hood.”
She hung up the phone, and we sat in silence again. Travis returned a few minutes later, carrying a much bigger brown bag and a cardboard drink holder. When he’d climbed in and passed the bag to Monica, he jumped back down and came around to the side of the van. I heard the fumbling of keys before the door swung open.
Monica’s hand went to her forehead. “What are you doing?”
He shrugged her off and held out a milkshake. “They must have made a mistake in there, gave us an extra one. You want it, Spencer?”
I could almost feel Denise’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head, but a tall, vanilla milkshake sounded like paradise after two weeks of jail food.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Take it.”
I nodded, and he placed the ice-cold drink between my fingers. There was even a cherry on top.
“Thank you,” I said.
Maybe he really is a sweet guy, just stuck doing a job he hates like everyone else.
But as he pulled his hand away from mine, it came to rest, if only for the briefest moment, on my knee. And he winked—that same wink that sent shivers running down my spine—as if he knew a secret I’d soon find out.
SIX
“You know I covered for you back there?” Monica was furious, all that pent up silence exploding in an instant.
“What? How?”
“They called,” she said. “When you were busy buying a milkshake for your girlfriend. You’re not fooling anyone with that act.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Said we heard a funny noise, and you jumped out to check under the hood. They wanted to know why we didn’t call it in.”
“Did they buy it?”
“I think so.”
“Thanks, Monica. I owe you one.”
“I can’t afford to get fired, Travis. You know my little brother has—”
“—cancer. Yeah, I know. Look, I’m sorry. Okay?”
So there’s the truth. Monica isn’t angry. She’s afraid for her brother and feeling the stress.
The milkshake still cupped in my hands was getting warm. I couldn’t take a sip after Travis’ hand had found its way to my knee. Maybe it was an accident, and the wink was just an unintentionally creepy habit.
No, I’d been too quick to dismiss the warning signs with Matt until everything had gone terribly wrong. At least, based on the call from company headquarters, I figured the van must have had some kind of GPS tracking unit. I felt a little better knowing someone, somewhere, was keeping an eye on things.
“Hey, aren’t you going to drink that?” Travis had spun around in his seat and was looking at me through the wire divider.
“I’m not feeling well. Maybe Ruby could have it.” I would have passed it to her myself if my arms weren’t pinned down.
The disappointment swelled in his eyes, and his lips moved like he was searching for words. “It was an extra one anyway. It’s fine.”
I was relieved when he turned around and reached for the radio dial. Even more relieved when he found something other than country music.
“Wake up, Spencer.” Ruby’s gentle voice coming from behind me stirred me awake. The sun was setting behind distant mountains, and the orange glow of a city rose up before us.
“What? How long was I asleep?”
“About an hour. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Where are we?” I couldn’t remember dozing off, but the milkshake still resting between my hands had melted.
“Denver,” she said with a tone of wonder in her voice as if we’d somehow found ourselves at the gates of Oz. “Aren’t the mountains lovely?”
“You made it.”
“Yeah.” She laughed and snorted. “I’ll get out of the van here, please.”
Much to Ruby’s delight, we indeed stopped in Denver, arriving at the Downtown Detention Center—a brutalist mid-rise building with mud-brown walls—after nearly an hour of fighting city traffic.
Monica backed the van into a secure garage, and we were allowed to use the bathroom before being belted back into our seats.
“Got a hot one for you,” a detention deputy in a dark blue shirt said to Travis. “She’s a fighter.”
Monica produced another set of bright pink scrubs from the back of the van and followed Travis and the deputy into another room.
I heard the screams before they’d even come back to the garage—a high pitch, bloodcurdling wail you’d expect from someone being murdered.
It took four of them to carry her, one for each arm and leg, suspending her in between them as she thrashed and spit and kicked at her chains.
Monica still had the bright pink scrubs tucked under one arm.
“I told you,” said the deputy. “This one’s a real mess. Hey, you guys need a spit hood?”
Travis took a fine mess hood from the deputy and cinched it over the girl’s head. She was young, maybe even younger than me, with the look in her eyes of some wild beast caught in a hunter’s trap.
“Careful,” said the deputy. “She’s a biter.”
Great. I hope they’re not planning on putting her next to me.
I was relieved when Monica unfastened my seatbelt and motioned me back a seat. I shuffled my way around, head bent over in the tight space of the van, and plopped down next to a smiling Ruby.
“I’m so excited,” she said. Another snort. “I don’t have to keep talking to the back of your head.”
I would have been excited too if what I saw next hadn’t terrified me.
They pulled the still kicking girl lengthwise onto the bench seat, lying down on her back with long, velcro straps holding her tight. Travis was the last to climb down out of the van, but before he did, he leaned in close over the girl’s screaming face.
“Be a good girl,” he said in a calm voice, “or I’ll have to kill you—put a plastic bag over your head and toss you into a deep ravine. Good girls live. Bad girls die.”
The screaming voice went quiet. Travis cocked his head in my direction, and one corner of his mouth curled into a repulsive grin. Another wink.
I waited until we were back on the highway, climbing up into the Rocky Mountains with the radio playing Southern Man by Neil Young, before leaning toward Ruby and whispering, “Do you think he meant it?”
“No,” she whispered back. “It’s probably just something he says to scare them.”
But I could tell from the wrinkles on Ruby’s freckled forehead she was scared too.
We rode for hours without speaking, Travis behind the wheel again. The only sounds were the road and the old classic rock hits that played on the radio. I watched aspens and pine trees, and the dark silhouettes of mountain peaks pass by outside the window until my eyes grew heavy. Still, sleep wouldn’t come easily.
Good girls live. Bad girls die. Why had Travis said that? And why did he look at me right after he said it?
It was only when Ruby’s head lolled over onto my shoulder that I rested my head against the top of hers and drifted off to sleep.
Another gas station, this time along an empty stretch of highway in Utah. We were shuffled back and forth under flickering overhead lights to the dingy bathroom. The night air tingled my skin, and a soft breeze carried the scent of cattle somewhere off in the dark.
Another round of paper bags and tiny water bottles were passed around. Another bruised apple and uninspiring sandwich.
“What do you want to do with her?” Monica motioned over her shoulder to the now-quiet girl, still strapped to the bench seat. “You think she’ll give us a hard time?”
“Fuck her,” said Travis. “It’s four hours to St. George, and then she’s not our problem anymore.”
“But what if she has to pee?”
“Let her piss her pants. That’s what she gets for being a bad girl.”
Monica sighed and shrugged her shoulders before climbing into the driver’s seat for her turn behind the wheel. In another minute, the van pulled back onto the open highway.
“Wait,” said the girl, who was still wearing the spit hood over her head. Her voice cracked and strained, tired from her earlier screams. “I’ll be good. I promise. Just let me go to the bathroom.”
“Too late,” said Travis. “Should have thought of that before you spit on me.”
From my place next to Ruby, I heard the girl whimper and what sounded like they might be tears. In another life, I would have demanded they stop the van. I would have stood up for what I believed was right. But out here in the middle of nowhere, I was somebody different. My hands and legs were chained, and I was becoming more and more afraid of the man who held the keys.
It was Denise who spoke up from the back seat. “She’s still a person. Let the girl use the bathroom.”
“Quiet,” he said.
Monica turned up the radio.
But Denise wasn’t giving up. “It ain’t right, Travis, and you know it. Come on, Monica, you gonna get let him get away with this?”
“Shut your mouth, Denise.” His voice shook with unsteady anger. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”
Denise muttered under her breath. “Bastard.”
Travis didn’t seem to hear her because he turned back around and went to work on his sandwich. I wondered if all the long hours on the road were getting to him or if something much more sinister lurked beneath the surface.
It had been the same with Matt, the anger slowly bubbling up in little fits and bursts until it finally boiled over. I twisted my wrists in the tight handcuffs, felt the shackles still squeezing my ankles. I wanted to run. Run like I’d done so many times before. But there was no running now. I was a prisoner. His prisoner. And I was totally helpless.
An hour passed. More classic rock hits on the radio. We sat without talking, the only other sound the soft crunching of apples in the dark.
A big sign flashed in the headlights: DO YOU HAVE GAS? NO SERVICES FOR 115 MILES.
Another whimper, and the gentle trickle of liquid splashing onto the floor.
I looked down and saw the puddle of urine, the motion of the van inching it slowly toward my feet.
SEVEN
The sky was clear. Its rich blue color and a single puffy cloud reflected on the glassy waters of the lake. I hung my legs over the long dock and dipped a toe in, sending tiny, gentle ripples out in perfect circles.
The water was cool. Refreshing. Renewing. And as I swam out beyond the dock, it was as if my time in the van had only been a distant nightmare, fading until it would soon be forgotten.
Something tickled my foot. I imagined it was only a gentle fish. But soon, it wrapped itself around my ankle and tightened its grip.
I struggled to break free, and with each kick and pull of my leg, whatever was holding me grew tighter and tighter until it began pulling me beneath the surface.
> I couldn’t breathe. My mouth filled with water. I struggled to break the surface one last time and screamed for someone, anyone to help me. But I knew in that place I was alone. No help would come.
I closed my eyes and let the water take me. Down. Down. Down ever deeper into that bottomless lake, until there was nothing but darkness.
“Spencer.”
Someone called my name, and when I opened my eyes, I found myself still in the van.
“Are you okay?” It was Ruby, soft, and gentle.
Okay? No, I’m not okay.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just a nightmare. How long have I been asleep?”
“I don’t know.” She leaned over just enough to place a delicate kiss on my cheek. “Try to go back to sleep. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
But it was Ruby who fell asleep first, head rolling onto my shoulder again. I watched the miles disappear under the headlights of the van and listened to her quiet breath.
We’d been heading west on I-70 ever since leaving Topeka, that much I knew from the road signs. Now we came to an interchange, where I-70 ends and I-15 heads north, to Salt Lake City, and southwest, all the way to Los Angeles. I wondered if I closed my eyes, I might dream this time of palm trees and waves crashing on the beach.
Monica eased the van around a wide turn and merged into the southbound lanes. The only other vehicles on the road were big rigs pulling trailers, drivers paid by the mile racing through the night to deliver their loads.
I did sleep again, but there were no palm trees, only the empty sleep that comes from complete exhaustion.
We arrived at St. George, Utah, as the first sliver of sunlight broke over the horizon, bathing everything in a warm, red glow. The night before, as we’d climbed up and over the Rocky Mountains, there had been pine and aspen forests beyond the window. St. George stood in stark contrast, with its cacti and manicured, bright green golf courses set against the desert scenery.
Monica backed the van into yet another secure garage behind a sign that read: Purgatory Correctional Facility.
There was more of what by now had become a familiar routine, our own sort of purgatory: Shuffling off to the bathroom, munching on dry cheese sandwiches in brown paper bags while Travis and Monica went through the formalities of loading and unloading prisoners.
