by Dana Fraser
A shotgun blast echoed through the woods, its reverberations winding along the creek to where Hannah and Ellis refilled their water bladders. Brother and sister dove to the ground, Ellis letting out a pained grunt.
Hannah snaked a hand out to lightly touch his shoulder.
“I’m okay,” he said, grinding the words out through gritted teeth.
Fresh guilt washed over her. Blood no longer colored his urine, but she was pretty sure he had at least one cracked rib and several more that were bruised.
The boy who had been poised to stab Ellis fared much worse. The Honda’s front left tire had crushed the assailant’s neck.
Besides Ellis surviving the hit, the only thing she had to be thankful for was how his attempt at manufacturing a binary explosive out of ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder had failed, the condoms filled with the material bursting without fanfare as he hit the ground with them in his pocket.
“I don’t think that was fired in our direction,” Ellis said, rolling to one side with a grimace.
“Stay still,” she ordered softly and reached to unzip his backpack. “I’ll pull them out.”
Retrieving the binoculars, she handed them to her brother.
“Wow, we must be really slipping not to have spotted those on the way down,” he said after holding the field glasses up to his eyes for a few seconds. “Take a look.”
Two semis were on road, the big yellow one pulled across where the road turned so that the dark blue rig couldn’t pass.
“You spot the main event yet?”
The mockingly sepulchral tone sent a chill down her spine. She followed the line of the trucks along the right side.
A man was on his back on the road near the open passenger door of the yellow rig. He wasn’t moving.
“We should get a little clo—”
“No,” she interrupted sharply, the specter of the one trucker she’d passed on the road before reaching Ellis’s school rising up like bad Thai food.
She had been a second away from stopping, ignoring the instinctual tickle at the back of her skull because the man appeared to be having a heart attack. Then she had seen the butt of the rifle so close to the hand he had resting against the truck. The fresh hesitation had her easing her foot of the brake.
He’d looked up at that and she’d seen something in his gaze, something she’d seen before and almost died because she hadn’t recognized the danger in time.
“We need to stay away from truckers.”
Protesting, Ellis took the binoculars back. “That’s two trailers full of stuff. Some of it could be food, sporting equipment…and one of them clearly doesn’t give a shit about his load anymore.”
A grim laugh cleared his throat as a crow landed on the dead man’s chest and began to feast.
“We wait here,” she decided. “Someone might be alive in the cab, or the shot could have attracted more than our attention. If there isn’t any movement for a while, then we move closer.”
“And wait some more?”
“Don’t get flip,” she shot back, instantly regretting her sharp tone.
“Please,” she said, turning pale green eyes in his direction. “Stopping that knife-wielding clown left you in rough shape. We can’t risk any more injuries … not this close to home.”
Relenting, he pushed the binoculars in her direction then rested his head against his bicep. “You’ve got the first watch, then.”
An hour passed in which two more crows landed to peck and caw. A fourth landed half an hour after that and a squabble broke out among the circle of birds. The late arrival retreated, hopping up to inspect the cab with its open door.
Anticipating another shotgun blast or some other violent attempt to shoo the bird, Hannah held her breath.
Nothing happened.
She nudged Ellis. He wiped at bleary eyes.
“You see something?”
“Yeah, a crow is up in the cab now.”
“Hmm…” His dark brows lifted in contemplation. “Pretty sure that means there are two happy meals instead of one.”
Hannah frowned, but his logic matched hers.
“It’ll be dusk soon,” he prodded, getting into a sitting position and gesturing for her to hand over the binoculars.
She complied then watched as he scanned the road and as much of the tree line and open fields as the angle of their current location allowed.
“We should check it out now.”
She nodded, her lips parting gently until he stopped her with a hard shake of his head.
“Not happening,” he said, pushing up into a standing position. “I am not sitting here on my ass while you go investigate a double homicide.”
There wasn’t time to argue so Hannah relented. She also knew he was better at this kind of thing than she was. His father had trained them both when it came to handling weapons, clearing a building and evading pursuers. But Ellis had a true talent for it. She would have said it was a sixth sense but there was no scientific evidence to support such a claim, just her gut observation.
“Wow,” he chirped and tossed a cocky wink in her direction. “No push back. You must be feeling r-e-a-l-l-y guilty for running me over.”
Snorting, Hannah extended her arm, suggesting he lead the way.
Ellis picked out a path that brought them to a position where they could look down into the cab of the yellow rig with the binoculars.
“What do you see?” Hannah whispered.
“Crow ass,” he answered, pain shooting through his rib cage at the laughter he was trying to suppress. “I’m pretty sure someone alive isn’t going to let a crow eat their eyeball.”
“Gross.”
“Circle of life,” Ellis argued, slipping from the safety of the trees cloaking them.
They reached the yellow rig together. Leaving his pack on the ground, Ellis climbed up into the cab and emerged with a shotgun. Pressing the slide release, he pulled on the slide and peered into the ejection port.
Mouth flattening in disappointment, he rotated the shotgun to examine the magazine tube.
“Please don’t tell me that was his last shot.”
Ellis shrugged, placed the shotgun across the floor on the passenger side and pulled himself back up into the cabin.
“I’m going to check the other truck,” she said, nose wrinkling from the odor already pouring out of the yellow truck’s cab.
“Lucky you,” Ellis called as she walked away.
Both trucks had short cabs. The blue one showed a local address, the load he was hauling local as well.
“Paper products,” she groused.
Grabbing the keys, she walked to the back of the trailer and rolled the door up to find tall columns of toilet paper.
Imaging her little brother’s reaction, Hannah groaned. The only way he could derive more amusement from the load would be if the driver had been hauling sanitary napkins or adult diapers. Then he might have turned his cracked rib into a snapped rib.
She returned to the lead semi in time to see Ellis stand on the side rail, raise his arms and send a heavy metal lockbox rocketing toward the asphalt.
The box hit, its lock and internal hinges refusing to surrender. He stepped down, bending to retrieve it when she stopped him.
“Too noisy,” she cautioned. “Let’s see what’s in the trailer. Maybe there’s something back there we can use to pry it open.”
He pointed at the box at his feet. “Except I looked, and the key to the trailer’s padlock has to be in there.”
Her face fell. Ellis wrapped his arms around his ribs and laughed.
“Sorry, just kidding.”
From his pocket, he produced the key and followed her to the back of the trailer with its double doors. She opened the padlock, swung one door open and climbed inside. She stuck a hand back out.
“Flashlight.”
Ellis rooted around in his pocket for the baby Mag-Lite Hannah had used at the school.
�
��Here.” He waited, feet shifting as he listened to the sound of Hannah opening boxes and watched the beam of her flashlight bounce around.
Emerging with a smile on her face, she hopped down.
“I think there’ll be stuff we can use,” she said. “But we need time to find it. We’ll bunk inside tonight.”
“We’ll be…ah…boxed in,” he said. “And I’m not trying to be punny.”
Looking at the blue truck behind them, she smiled. “I know it’s a risk, but I’ve got an idea.”
Hannah’s eyes drifted open - it was twilight, time to wake up and sneak out to the creek for enough water to get them through another twenty-four hours. Sitting up, she reached for the two containers when she heard a noise. Across from her, Ellis’s eyes flew open, his hand reaching for the shotgun.
The sound didn’t repeat. Her ears and mind strained to focus while she kept perfectly still. Twice, someone had come by, one on foot, the other on what sounded like a tractor. Both had been foolishly loud on their approach.
The guy on the tractor took a few boxes of toilet paper. The other traveler had nearly broken her heart, dissolving into tears and sobbing at the end of the trailer, the door open and resources he or she couldn’t imagine hiding behind the scene Hannah had staged.
Only Ellis’s fierce glare for her to stay quiet had kept her from calling out. He’d gone back to sleep as soon as the danger was over. She still hadn’t put the incident out of mind, probably never would.
She cast a glance at her brother. He raised a fingertip to his lips — a shadow touching shadows.
Could he hear something she couldn’t?
Her question was answered as soon as she finished thinking it.
“Unless you want to get yourself dead,” a man warned, his grim voice sending chills cracking down her spine, “You’ll stand up with your hands above your head.”
He was guessing, she told herself. She and Ellis had been silent as the grave inside the truck.
“It was a nice trick,” the man continued.
Or was it a second man? The pitch changed and the speaker’s position sounded different. Was it one man moving or two men?
“Getting the paper boxes from the other truck, spilling some on the ground here and making a little wall in the trailer so it looks like more of the same — worthless cargo unless you gotta wipe your ass.”
Spit filled her mouth. She needed to swallow but was afraid to even breathe.
“I know you’re carrying.”
A grimace stretched her mouth wide as she heard two metallic clicks. She looked at Ellis but couldn’t see is expression in the deep shadows.
“So am I,” the man taunted. “Three-oh-eight with hundred eighty grain soft point. It’ll drop a horse at this distance.”
A low, nasal sound surprised her. It wasn’t coming from the man. Wasn’t coming from a person.
“Shh.” The speaker’s pitch changed yet again, the quality of his rough voice immediately softened.
The man was comforting someone. Was that a dog’s whine she had heard?
The man repeated the soft command, the tenderness in his voice for an animal deeply at odds with his threat to kill her and Ellis.
“First shot, might not hit you, but it’ll ricochet. Fifty-fifty chance, I’d say. Second shot, second ricochet?”
Seriously? He was just going to fire into the trailer?
From the corner of her eye, Hannah saw Ellis pump his hand downward, cautioning her to stay in place and not reveal their presence.
“I’d say you have a twenty-five percent chance of not getting hit. Third shot—”
Third shot and they would be mincemeat. She couldn’t risk the possibility that he was bluffing. He was bound to come up into the trailer anyway. And if he was carrying a weapon, there was little they could do.
“Don’t shoot,” she called out, her hands rising slowly up in the air.
She glanced at Ellis before her head cleared the column of boxes. It was clear from his tightly bunched shadow he wasn’t going to follow her lead.
“Don’t shoot,” she repeated when she could see over the boxes. “Please.”
The man had a purse strapped around his chest. A furry golden head peeked through the purse’s opening, its ears floppy, the eyes big and the nose a pale pink.
He was threatening to kill them while he carted around a fat puppy in a makeshift sling.
“Tell your partner to come out,” the man growled. “Now!”
This time when the puppy whined, he didn’t try to quiet the creature. He remained all hard and glaring at Hannah.
“I…it’s…”
Why couldn’t she speak? She hadn’t lost her voice at SHWG or the school. She needed to say something, to diffuse the situation and the uncompromising look on the man’s face.
He aimed the rifle to her right — the sight settling on the exact box Ellis hid behind.
“Please, no!”
Ellis jumped up, the shotgun in hand, boxes spilling forward so that his entire body was exposed to gunfire. His face was pinched thin with the pain he’d been carrying around for days. His legs had to be numb from staying in one position so long to protect his ribs.
Tears blurred her vision. He was hurt and wielding a useless shotgun and it was her fault. She hadn’t left the lab soon enough, hadn’t gotten to the school before everything broke down.
“Drop it, kid,” the man ordered.
The stranger didn’t know her brother. Ellis never backed down, not on his own account, at least.
Hannah heard the sound of the man drawing a long breath in, the kind hunters take before a kill. Her mouth wouldn’t move, her vocal chords were too tight. She tried to shift a foot forward, to reach Ellis before the bullet did.
Then the man exhaled and swung the rifle at her.
“I surrender,” Ellis blurted. “Don’t shoot her.”
“Slide the shotgun across the boxes, butt first,” the man ordered, his rifle still sighted on the center of Hannah’s chest.
Ellis slid the weapon over.
“Grab a wall, both of you,” the man barked. “Keep your hands up.”
A pained grunt left her brother as he complied. She looked over her shoulder only to have the man bark again.
“Eyes straight front.”
He picked his way to the hole she had carved out among the boxes. He went to Ellis first. She heard the rustling of the man’s hand as he patted down her brother and the involuntary complaint as the man must have touched upon the cracked rib.
Moving over to Hannah, the man repeated the pat down. She tensed in anticipation of a too familiar touch, but his hand didn’t crawl up too high on her thighs or linger anywhere except to remove the sheathed knife hooked to her belt.
And when the puppy let out another whimper, he gently shushed it.
“I’m Hannah,” she said, trying to make friends. “This is my brother Ellis.”
The man grunted. “Don’t look related.”
“Stepbrother,” Ellis clarified.
The man didn’t acknowledge the correction, just moved carefully to peer over the boxes behind them.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
More silence. The stranger either had rigor mortis of the mouth or he didn’t like conversing with people he was about to kill.
Hoping it was the former and not the latter, she moved on to another question.
“Does your puppy have a name?”
This time, he finally answered. “Grub.”
Despite the fear that continued to grip her spine, she felt a small smile quiver across her lips. The answer wasn’t much, but it was an opening.
“Because he eats a lot?”
“No,” came the brusque reply. “Because I might need to eat him.”
Chapter Eight
“Stop talking,” Cash ordered as he moved back to the shotgun. Picking it up, he walked a few more paces out of reach and l
eaned his rifle against the side of the trailer.
A chuckle escaped him as he checked the shotgun’s load. The kid had threatened him with nothing but steel and air. The chamber and magazine tube were empty.
“Couldn’t find the driver’s shells?”
The kid — Ellis if he remembered what the blonde had said — didn’t answer him, just glared with his face screwed tight.
“Ribs bruised or broken?” he asked, a grudging smile erupting when Ellis remained silent. The boy was in pain but he was a hard nut. Cash could respect that.
“Go ahead and sit down.”
The woman turned, her head canted as she searched his face. She didn’t move to sit, but Cash hadn’t meant his words as an order.
“If it’s all the same,” she started, frowning at him. “If you don’t plan on killing us, I need to pee and we need to collect some water.”
He studied her for a full minute in silence, his sharp gaze making her squirm before the first thirty seconds had passed.
She really was a looker. Short — but he didn’t have height preferences. Her accent was mid-western but educated. At least she enunciated with precision now that her tongue was no longer tied in knots.
“You don’t plan on killing us, correct?” she asked after the minute mark had passed and his lips had only moved to twist in contemplation.
“You plan on giving me cause?”
She shook her head, the look on her face so damn earnest he wanted to laugh.
So he laughed.
The woman huffed and her hands moved up to her hips, making him laugh harder.
What had she said her name was?
Hannah?
That sounded right. Hannah and Ellis, sister and brother by marriage with a good decade between them in age.
He wondered how strong their bond was. The kid had caved instantly when Cash had swung the rifle in Hannah’s direction. Was she just as protective of her younger brother? How long had they known one another?
All those factors were relevant in deciding if he had to watch both of them at the same time or could trust one not to get up to any mischief while the other was with him.
“Thought I saw a bucket in the back,” he said with a nod to the boxes behind Hannah.
