by Jeff Strand
Chapter Four
A RUN-DOWN, BARELY standing store had a faded sign that read "Last Chance 4 Gas." (The word "chance" was barely visible, but identifiable through context clues.) Fortunately, our gas tank was seven-eighths full. There would be no running out of gas in sinister locations during this trip. No way.
"Joe needs to go potty," said Theresa.
"You just walked him at the rest area."
"He needs to go again. He's walking funny."
"Okay, fine." I pulled the camper into what passed for the parking lot. There were no other cars, not even one for whoever worked there. Maybe nobody did.
"I'm going inside," said Roger, getting out of the vehicle.
"Why? Do you have to go potty, too?"
"I want to check the expiration date on their beef jerky. I'm guessing late eighties."
"Doesn't it hurt to be such a geek?" I asked.
"You can't say you aren't curious. Samantha, Helen, you coming with us?"
"I think we're fine," said Helen.
"We'll send a search party in ten minutes," Samantha added.
Roger and I walked inside the store, careful not to slam the door and cause the entire structure to come crashing down to the ground. The aisles were narrow, the scent was interesting, and an elderly man sat behind the front counter, glowering at us as he paged through a tattered sports car magazine.
"Got any beef jerky?" Roger asked.
The old man coughed. "Yeah, but you don't wanna eat it."
"I'll trust you on that one," said Roger, looking through the candy rack for unusual and ancient selections. I noticed the magazines on the rack were at least a year old, unless a certain celebrity had gotten re-married and re-divorced without my hearing about it.
"Where're you headed?" asked the old man.
"Wreitzer Park," I told him, looking uncomfortably at a doughnut that had cherry filling leaking from the side with an ant imbedded in it, like those fossilized bugs in amber.
"Not the safest place to be."
"Really?"
The old man nodded. "Bad elements there."
"What kind of bad elements?"
"Dangerous ones." He coughed. "Deadly ones." He coughed again. "You don't want to be anywhere near Wreitzer Park, trust me on this."
I stared at him, trying to figure out if he possessed great wisdom or great senility.
"What kind of bad, dangerous, and deadly elements?" I asked.
"Just stay away from Wreitzer Park." He returned his attention to the magazine.
"Got it."
"I bet these M&M's are worth something in the collector's market," said Roger, taking them off the rack. He bought the candy, along with a spooky pickle, and we left the store.
"I think we should camp someplace else," I told him.
"Why?"
"Because a creepy old man just told us there are deadly elements there. That, to me, is a good reason to find another place to camp."
"Aw, c'mon, Andrew. He was a nutcase."
"Yes, but nutcases are often the best people to trust."
"Samantha said this park is an abandoned paradise. Nobody ever goes there! We'll probably have the entire place to ourselves!" Roger considered that. "Hmmmm, maybe that's why the dangerous elements decided to go there."
"At the very least we're going to tell Helen and Samantha about it. If we do go to that park and something bad happens, I don't want them finding out later we didn't heed some creepy old man's warning."
Theresa and Kyle were helping Joe run in circles around a tree, so Roger and I approached the women.
"Slight problem," I said. "Apparently Wreitzer Park has a bad element."
"Meaning?" asked Samantha.
"I don't know. It was a vague warning. Something about it being deadly."
"I see."
"I'm not necessarily saying we should find another camping option, I just wanted to point out there's been a warning about our current plan of action, and if there are other options readily available, maybe we should consider them."
"What exactly did you hear?" asked Samantha.
"The old man is right inside. Go in there and tell him where we're going."
The women exchanged a confused look.
"So, you're saying we should go someplace else?" asked Helen.
"Yes."
"Roger?"
"I'm sticking with the 'Looney Old Man Babbling Nonsense' theory, myself."
"I'm not suggesting we cancel the whole trip," I insisted. "I'm just saying that if our choice of parks has been classified as deadly, that maybe we should pick another one that hasn't been classified as deadly, that's all. It's not like there aren't other parks. It's, what, one o'clock? We've got plenty of time to find another place. What do you say?"
"If you're really not comfortable going there, then yeah, we should find another place," said Samantha. "We've got the Georgia guide, I'll look through our options while we head back to the highway. What do you think, Helen?"
"I'm fine with it if everybody else is."
"I think it's kinda stupid," said Roger. "But I got my antique M&M's, so we can do whatever you want."
"Great," I said. "Let's get out of here."
We called the kids back to the camper, started the engine, and pulled out of the parking lot, heading back the way we came. Yeah, I felt like a total wuss, but total wusses tend to stay alive. I had my children and pregnant wife with me, and I wasn't going to take any chances whatsoever with their safety.
"He probably just wanted the best fishing spot for himself," said Roger.
"Probably."
"I have to wonder if perhaps you're taking this responsibility thing a bit too far. Maybe there's, you know, a middle ground."
"I am on the middle ground," I said. "I could have us all wearing life preservers."
"I guess you're right."
"Wreitzer Park didn't sound all that great anyway. I hear it's overrun with earwigs."
Roger shrugged. "Yeah, but apparently Joe back there is a fearless earwig hunter."
I was silent for a long moment. "We have some dumb-ass conversations, don't we?"
"This was a conversation?"
We'd backtracked about two miles before Theresa and Kyle started to fight over the final chocolate square from one of their candy bars. Theresa claimed she'd been saving it for future consumption, while Kyle's counter-argument was that he, not Theresa, had been the one with the foresight to ration his chocolate, and the final square contained his personal tooth marks on the edge as evidence of his decision.
"One of you is lying, and they'd better fess up," Helen said, using the version of her don't-mess-with-me voice she directed at children, which was substantially less frightening than the version she directed at husbands.
"It's mine!" Kyle insisted.
"Should we pull over for DNA testing?" asked Samantha.
In the rear-view mirror, I saw Helen give Samantha her please-don't-encourage-my-easily-encouragable-children look.
"I think the store had a DNA test by the jar of pickled eggs," said Roger.
Helen gave the same look to Roger.
I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.
"Give me the chocolate," Helen ordered, holding out her hand.
"But it's mine!" yelled Kyle.
"I don't care. If you're going to fight over it, nobody gets the chocolate."
"But then she gets her whole candy bar and I don't get all of mine because she's a liar!"
"I am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too, asshole!"
Whoa! Kyle's first curse word. I was glad to be there for a truly memorable parental moment. I stopped the camper and turned around in my seat, not wanting to miss this showdown.
"What did you say?" Helen demanded.
Kyle looked surprised and terrified, as if the word had escaped from his mouth without his consent. "Nothing," he said in a small voice.
"What did you say?" Helen d
emanded again. It seemed peculiar to want him to repeat a word he was in big trouble for saying in the first place, but I wasn't about to call her on that.
"He said the a-word," Theresa pointed out, helpfully.
"You be quiet," Helen told her.
"But he did!"
"I know what he said."
"Then why did you ask?"
"All right, I've had enough of this! I don't want to hear a single word out of either of you until we get to the campground. If I hear one word, even one, you will both be in more trouble than you can imagine!"
Theresa and Kyle sat back in their seats to glare at each other.
I resumed driving.
Vague threats like "more trouble than you can imagine" really weren't Helen's style. She was usually capable of describing potential punishments in such minute detail they seemed to be the work of weeks of preparation. I wondered if she was genuinely shaken up by this third pregnancy.
"See, Roger, all of this could be yours," I said.
Roger grinned. To be perfectly honest, though my children drove me absolutely bonkers on a regular basis, I really had gotten a good deal, considering what they'd been through. It had only been about two years since Kyle and Theresa were kidnapped and almost killed. It was my fault, the direct result of a horrific mess Roger and I had gotten ourselves into. Theresa recovered fine, but Kyle had spent a year going to a school for emotionally disturbed children.
That said, most of the time he was a perfectly happy little kid, and if the worst we had to deal with was him calling his sister an asshole, Helen and I were extremely fortunate.
We rounded a corner and I applied the brake. A large dark-green truck was stopped in the center of the road, about fifty feet ahead, blocking our path.
"What's he doing?" asked Roger.
"I don't know." The truck was filthy, the front grille covered with unidentifiable gook. Somebody was in the driver's seat, but he didn't appear to be moving.
We waited for about ten seconds.
"Honk at him," Roger said.
"I'll decide when to use the horn, thank you very much." I gave the horn a light tap.
The truck didn't budge. The driver didn't react.
"I don't think his engine's on," said Roger.
Samantha moved up to the front and looked through the windshield. "What's up with this guy?"
"Is he awake?" Roger asked.
"Yeah, his eyes are open," said Samantha. "Honk at him again."
"I will make all decisions about the use of the horn." I waited for several seconds to prove I was making the decision on my own, and then honked at the truck again.
No response.
"Jeez, I hope he didn't have a heart attack or something," I said, putting the camper into park. "Everybody wait here, I'll go see what the deal is."
I got out of the vehicle and walked toward the truck. The engine was on. The driver was a guy in his late thirties or early forties, with at least a week's worth of beard growth and unkempt long black hair. As I got closer to his truck, it was clear that he was very much conscious and watching me closely.
But as I walked up to the driver's side of the truck, he stared forward, watching the camper. "Hi there," I said, waving to get his attention.
No reaction.
"Hello? Sir?"
Nothing.
What was wrong with this guy? I hesitated for a moment, and then knocked on the door. "Sir?"
He didn't move.
Now, I could tell the guy was watching me when I approached the truck, so why was he ignoring me now? "Sir, I really need for you to move your truck. We can't get around you."
Again, no response. Now I was getting irritated. I knocked on the door again, harder this time. "Hey! I need you to move the truck, okay?"
Very slowly, the man turned his head to look at me. He narrowed his eyes, and then very slowly returned his attention to the camper.
I got ready to pound on the door, but decided that perhaps this was a gentleman I didn't want to make mad. Did I really want to piss off a guy who was acting this strange, and who could easily have a shotgun resting on his lap?
We could always return to our original plan and drive back the way we'd been going before the wimp-out. Of course, there wasn't nearly enough room on the road to turn the camper around until we reached the store. I wasn't quite comfortable enough driving the motor home to relish the idea of driving in reverse for three miles, but what was I gonna do, throw open the door and drag this idiot out of his truck?
I rapped my knuckles against the window. "Sir? Is something wrong? Do you need me to get help?"
He looked at me and rolled down his window. "Quit touching my goddamn truck." He said these words in a surprisingly articulate manner.
"Sorry about that, but you're in the way."
"What way?"
"The way of my camper. We need to get past you and you're in the middle of the road."
"No kidding."
"Uh, right. So could you move?"
The man opened his door and slowly climbed out of the truck. He wore filthy blue jeans and a T-shirt bearing the faded slogan "Quality Counts!" He was tall, at least six-two, and lean but muscular. He had an ID badge clipped to his pants pocket, which featured his picture and the word "Goblin."
"You can't go down that road," he informed me.
"Yes, I realize that. That's what I've been saying. Your truck is in the way."
"I know my truck is in the way."
I wanted to grab him by the shoulders, give him a good shaking, and scream "Then move it!" but wisely refrained. "Okay, well, since we're both aware of that, maybe you could move it? Just a bit?"
"A tree fell, about a mile up ahead. It's blocking the road. It's right as you go around a corner, and I didn't want you to crash into it."
"Oh. Well, that's very nice of you. Maybe we could help you move it."
The man (Goblin?) shook his head. "The tree's too big."
"We have a couple of people in the camper who could help." Technically, Helen wasn't far enough in her pregnancy to be exempt from manual labor, but regardless, I wasn't going to let her engage in any. "It's just a tree, right? We should be able to get it off the road."
"Nope."
"C'mon, four people should be able to move a tree." Never having moved a tree in my life, I had no idea how much manpower was required, but none of the trees close to the road seemed anywhere near large enough to provide much difficulty.
"What did I just tell you? It's too big of a project. Go back the way you came."
"There's nowhere to turn around."
"That's not my problem. You bringing an oversized vehicle down this narrow road doesn't constitute an emergency on my part."
Clearly, this guy was not going to move his vehicle. "All right, well, thanks for not letting us crash into the tree."
"Not a problem."
Goblin got back in his truck while I returned to the camper. "What'd he say?" asked Roger as I shut the door.
"He says there's a fallen tree blocking the road, and we have to turn back."
"So why was he just sitting in his truck like that?"
"Because he's an extremely odd individual. I think his name is Goblin, by the way."
"Goblin?"
"That's what his badge said."
Roger stuck out his lip in a mock pout. "Everybody else gets all the cool names."
I turned around and spoke to Helen. "I'm gonna have to drive backwards until we get to the store, so I'll need you to watch through the window and let me know if I'm getting too close to the side of the road."
"I'll watch, too!" said Kyle, excited.
"What did I tell you about talking?" asked Helen. "Not one word!" She got up and walked to the back of the camper to look out the rear window. Samantha opened one of the side windows and stuck out her head.
I put the camper in reverse and slowly applied the gas. This really sucked. Stupid store owner and his stupid warning. This was my punishment for b
eing responsible.
"You're okay on my side," Samantha announced as we backed up.
"Yeah, you're fine," said Helen. "Just keep going straight and ... oh, crap, someone's coming."
In the sideview mirror I saw a truck drive up behind us. A filthy dark-green truck identical to Goblin's. It moved toward us until it was no longer visible in the mirror.
"The jerk stopped two inches from our rear!" Helen informed everybody.
Then the truck in front of us moved, driving forward until it almost touched the camper's bumper.
We were boxed in.
Chapter Five
"EVERYONE STAY CALM." I turned off the camper's engine. "They've got identical trucks, so they're probably just part of the same ... I don't know, fallen tree warning squad or something. Helen, what's the guy in the back doing?"
"Nothing. He's just sitting there."
"Does he look homicidal?"
"Not really."
"Good."
I honked at the truck in front of us, trying to get Goblin to back up. He didn't move.
"Okay, let's just wait and see what they want," I said.
We sat there, trapped between the two trucks, waiting for something to happen. The drivers stayed in their vehicles, silently watching us.
"Do you want me to get out?" Roger finally asked.
I shook my head. "Helen, make sure the kids aren't near the windows."
"I'm scared," said Theresa.
"You don't have to be scared, honey," I assured her. "It's just that these people are acting kind of goofy, that's all. Everything will be fine, I promise."
Samantha picked up her purse and reached inside. "I think we should call the police."
"Good idea," said Roger. What a brownnoser.
Samantha took out her cell phone and punched a couple of buttons. "Damn it! The battery's dead. Roger, I thought you said it was charged!"
"I plugged it in last night!" Roger insisted.
"Did you plug it in right?"
"Yes, I plugged it in right. I'm pretty sure I did. I don't know. I've never plugged one in before. I don't like cell phones."
Helen got her own purse and retrieved her cell phone. She looked at the display in disbelief. "My battery's dead, too!"
"Are you serious?" I asked.
