Graveslinger

by Darren Compton

  When the door closed behind him, he glanced at it to be sure it was fully closed and then gave Fiya a thumbs-up.

  She smiled thinly but felt she could trust him. Ever since he burst through her front door, she trusted him.

  Rutger knew in his gut he was making the right decision. Even if it felt like a debt, he owed her birth parents. “Alright, kiddo, let’s get you settled in.”

  Softly, she said, “Aye aye, sir.”

  Several years later, a sweaty August ready to tap in September, smoldered the north side of Big Bear Mountain, a calm tourist town in Southern California. Most of the year, Big Bear was lush and green and even sported a snowcap for a few months. North of the lush mountain, however, for hundreds of miles lay a scorching brown desert with rocky hills and dust that eventually lead to Death Valley National Park, or Las Vegas, depending on one’s direction.

  Fiya could see the distant snowcaps receding from Big Bear while she and Rutger stopped for breakfast at Roy’s Cafe & Motel off National Trails Highway in the alarmingly small town of Amboy. Rutger enlightened her that they were at the location of one of his favorite horror films, The Hitcher.

  “Never heard of it,” she said, sipping her hot cocoa.

  “Never heard of it?” Rutger sighed, shaking his head, and glancing out the window as a huge 18-wheeler truck roared past on the highway. “Ugh. I’ve already failed you. It’s a classic.”

  “Are there monsters in it?”

  Rutger nodded. “Oh, yeah. John Ryder. One of the best monsters. Scary. As. Fuck.”

  “Is he a vampire or something?”

  “No, no, he’s just a man.”

  “Man’s not a monster.”

  “Man can be the worst kind of monster, especially when we’ve got nothing to lose. Sometimes, what we see as monsters probably see us hunters as monsters. I should make you read I Am Legend soon. With a vampire, when you break them down, they’re just hungry. Werewolves are a similar bloodlust. Demons, all that’s expected from them is pure chaos. Their own nature is their motive. People though, humans …”

  He paused for a moment and cleared his throat. “There are too many motivations to keep track of, and it’s frightening. Probably has something to do with free will. This John Ryder guy: pure maniac. Stalking a kid who’s transporting a car across the country and sets up this poor kid as a patsy for a string of grisly murders. Always one step ahead. I guess I like horror movies that aren’t about supernatural monsters better. They’re scarier to me.” Rutger seemed to drift off, staring out the window. His beard was neatly trimmed, with only a few white whiskers upon closer inspection, and his rusty hair slicked back with a cheap gel.

  “Oh.” She stirred around the yolk of her eggs, oozing out on her plate. After stirring it among the peppered egg whites, she scooped it into her mouth. Her dark hair was tied back in a bun that she fixed herself, and she wore a Pantera T-shirt with a rattlesnake on it with big, bold red letters that exclaimed The Great Southern Trendkill. Fiya sprouted a little more than a foot since she’d been under his wing: just about to enter her teens, wiry and already very athletic for her age.

  When she swallowed the chunks of egg, she asked, “Because you’ve seen all the real things?”

  Nodding his head again, he said, “That’s a good deal of it. And the with the real things, their motives are never as sadistic as people. Or maybe it’s because we’re people too.”

  “I guess so.”

  Rutger wiped the hot sauce off his lips. “I’m pretty sure another one was filmed nearby. Have you ever heard of The Hills Have Eyes?”

  Her eyes lit up as she slurped more egg. “Yeah! I didn’t see it yet, but the commercials looked pretty cool.”

  “Commercials?”

  “Yeah, last year or before, I think, they were all over the TV at night for a while. Mutant cannibals in the desert.”

  Crunching his extra-crispy bacon, he narrowed his eyes inquisitively at her. “Last year or before … you talking about the remake?”

  Fiya shrugged as she dug into her hash browns, which were smothered in hot sauce and more black pepper.

  “Must’ve been the remake you’re thinking about. I don’t know where they filmed that one, just the one from 1977.”

  “So, it’s really old.”

  “Not that old. Same year as the first Star Wars.”

  “That’s pretty old.”

  “Quiet, you.” Rutger chugged his coffee. He attempted to make it taste less like dirt with the vanilla creme. He got mediocre results, but it certainly was better than dirt.

  Without his consent, the waitress with a head of bright orange hair tied back in a galloping ponytail refilled his mug. “How’s everything going this morning, you two?” Her lipstick matched her hair, even in brightness.

  “Bitchin'!” Fiya said without missing a beat. She shoveled the remaining amount of her hash browns in her grinning mouth.

  The waitress laughed out of shock and turned to Rutger to see if he was going to correct his daughter’s language. Still, after a moment of looking at Fiya with a straight face, he turned back up to the waitress with a wide tight-lipped smile. “What she said.” He added a triumphant nod. “Bitchin'!”

  The waitress continued her forced laugh and glanced at the other end of the diner. The only other customers were a pair of truckers reading newspapers, one younger than Rutger and the other appeared a decade or two older. The truckers didn’t seem to overhear anything, not that the waitress would think the truckers would care about swearing.

  She returned her attention to Rutger and Fiya. “Anything else I can get for you? I know it’s breakfast and all, but some people do like to order dessert.” She winked at the kid.

  Rutger cleared his throat after noticing the two truckers and looked back at the freshly poured black coffee. “Nah, we’re pretty good. Although you wouldn’t happen to have some cinnamon I can use, do you?”

  “Sure thing, suge. And you, little spitfire?” Anything else I can get for you?”

  Fiya shook her head. “I’m getting full, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetie. I’ll be right back with that cinnamon.”

  They waited for the waitress to finish walking away, and Fiya noticed Rutger watching her disappear into the back. “You like her?”

  He shrugged and pouted his lower lip. “She’s alright, I guess.”

  “But you’d go for it if I weren’t here, right?”

  Raising an eyebrow, Rutger looked at an almost 12-year-old Fiya right in the brown eyes. Her face had become sad, but not on the verge of crying. Several years under his wings, he knew she was sharper than most were at her age, and it sometimes caught him off guard. She saw herself as a burden, but he couldn’t even recall a situation where he was willing to choose a one-night-stand over Fiya. Sure, having a child around did seem to get him more attention from women, but the urge just didn’t seem to be there. He supposed he missed casual sex at times, but it just didn’t seem to be a priority, and he certainly never expressed in front of her if he missed it. Yet, her intuition still surprised him. “You’re not holding me back. If that’s what you think, you can stop thinking it right now.” He thumbed toward the kitchen. “I don’t need that.”

  “Okay.” She paused for a moment, and then her glum face transformed into a happy kid, which pleased him to see the smile return to her face. He hated seeing her face look so sour. She added, “But if she looked like Brooke Burke?”

  “If she looked like Brooke Burke, you’re getting your own room at the motel, Kiddo!” He laughed and then flicked the paper wrapper of his straw at her.

  Fiya poorly deflected, and the crumbled paper straw wrapper bounced off her hand and tumbled into the collar of her shirt. She attempted to get at it, but movement caused it to fall deeper into her shirt. “Crap.”

  “That’s unfortunate. Now go to the bathroom. We’ve got a lot of miles ahead of us to burn, and there’s not that many stops along the way, at least until Phoenix. We plan
on getting all the way to El Paso by nightfall.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” She got up from the table and shook out the bottom of her shirt. The little crumpled paper wrapper fell to the floor, and Rutger snorted himself a scoffing laugh. She stuck her tongue out at him, and she hightailed it to the bathroom, practically skipping.

  Rutger barely glanced at her as she passed the diner counters and saw the waitress come back with a glass container of cinnamon. “Anything else, hon?”

  “No, thank you, just the check, please.”

  “I’ll bring it right up.”

  He paid no attention to her as she walked away, and he sprinkled the cinnamon in his coffee, followed by more of the vanilla creamer. The scent was already a massive improvement, and the first sip hit the mark. To help speed things along, he drank the rest of it in a few gulps. Not quite chugging since he intended to savor the taste. It had cooled a little since the waitress had refilled the drink, so it didn’t burn his tongue on the way down. It was gone fast enough to be finished before the waitress could bring the bill to him.

  As he put on his black denim jacket, he saw the waitress coming back with the bill. She smiled as she approached and handed it to him. “Here you go, hon.”

  Taking the little black tray with the bill, which he didn’t even look at, he placed a clean $20 bill, giving the waitress more than a 25 percent tip. He handed it back to her before she could walk away. “No change. Keep it.”

  “Oh my, thank you, that’s very generous.”

  “Don’t sweat it.” He adjusted his collar and watched the waitress walk away when he noticed only one trucker sitting at the booth, checking his watch and glanced toward the bathrooms. He almost thought nothing of it until he saw the trucker sneak a peek at him with a side-glance.

  A few seconds later, the trucker got up and left his table, exiting the doors near the bathroom.

  The women’s restroom was immaculate, which Fiya assumed was due to such a low flow of traffic; the employees were able to dedicate more time for a thorough cleaning. They even went the extra mile of using a strong lemon scent.

  She flushed and exited her stall when a tall man with matted brown hair stood blocking the door. He looked at her with piercing blue eyes and heavy eyebrows. Stubble darkened the lower half of his face, which seemed an attempt to hide his lingering baby fat. He had a familiar dark brown leather jacket that took her a moment to realize she passed a man wearing the same jacket on the way to the restroom.

  Out of his jacket pocket appeared a small Taurus revolver, pointed at her. “No scream, no boom.”

  Fiya froze, her eyes transfixed on the barrel of the revolver, and all she could hear was the thudding of her heart.

  Without thinking about it, her arms went over her head. She saw the man’s lips moving but couldn’t hear anything over her panicking heartbeat. “I don’t … have any money …” she said, softly with an angel-like innocence. Her eyes never left the barrel.

  “If you come quietly and quickly without making a scene, you won’t get hurt and especially not your daddy.” Leather-Jacket Man took a step forward, only a few feet from her now. A dimple appeared in his cheek as he smiled. “Damn, you are precious. Larry was right.”

  She knew she needed to do something, but her body wouldn’t let her. Her teeth rattled as her heart continued to pound. Even though he didn’t have the fur and fangs, he still reminded her of the Big Bad Wolf. She felt useless, as if she were observing the entire scenario and had no control over herself.

  “There’s a door right outside this bathroom, angel, we’re going to take it, and you’re going to get in the truck. A big black one. You’ll like that. If not, you’ll learn to.” He took another step closer and put his hand on her shoulder, gripping tight. He tugged on her, with dirty overgrown fingernails that pressed into her skin; not enough to break the surface but enough to leave a mark. “Come on, little angel …”

  And then like a reflex, Fiya unleashed a straight knee kick perfectly into Leather-Jacket Man’s crotch.

  She had become especially adept at Muay Thai boxing already, one of the martial-arts classes Rutger was proud to enroll her in; now was the first time she used any of the moves outside the classroom. She didn’t even think about the kick. She just thrust forward and saw the man’s eyes bulge: perfect form and execution, which would have pleased her sensei back home in Washington.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t strike him hard enough to make him drop the gun, as his first reaction was to immediately smack her across the face with it. It stung, the edge of the sight leaving a scratch on her cheek, and she immediately fell over to the sink.

  She touched her face, smearing the blood on her fingertips, and in the mirror, she saw the small gash on her cheekbone. Dizziness set in, and the reflection blurred.

  “Good thing that face is just a bonus,” he huffed as he limped closer to the sink, attempting to grab her again. His face had gone to a slight shade of purple.

  Seeing her slumped over at the sink, he felt tempted to do what he wanted and just leave. He could make it quick, which wasn’t a difficult task for him. He already rolled over the bolt on the door so no one could walk in and interrupt them, the lock that customers weren’t supposed to touch. The odds were in his favor that she looked young enough that she would still be fresh and may not have even started bleeding yet, by his guess. Larry was outside watching the clock, though, and he doubted he could go fast enough under that pressure, and the knee to his nuts may give him some struggle getting it up.

  Fiya felt the cold tip of the barrel touch her lower back as the Leather-jacket Man began to lift her shirt with it. Then the barrel followed her bare spine down to the top of her jeans, and the sudden cool draft helped her realign her focus. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth tightened, and her knuckles turned white.

  This time, her instinct made her kick backward; rather than aiming for the testicles again, she went for the target Rutger was often fond of: the knees. She struck so hard that she was certain she might’ve dislocated his kneecap.

  The scruffy man in the leather jacket toppled over, hitting the partition wall of the bathroom stall, and let out a slurred curse that echoed within the tiled walls.

  He dropped the gun this time, skidding into the stall Fiya used.

  She could stay and pummel him to death, the fire in her belly certainly wanted to, but instead she took the opportunity to run.

  The man tried and failed to grab her leg as she slid by, and she rolled the deadbolt back to open the bathroom door, where Rutger stood, almost filling up the doorframe. At first, his face was written with worry, but when he saw the blood on her face and the man in the leather jacket scrambling to get up in the women’s restroom, his face flashed into a rage that would make Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk blush.

  Rutger stepped aside just enough for Fiya to get by and positioned himself in the doorframe, with his boot preventing the door from closing all the way. He glared down at Leather-Jacket Man, fighting every urge to stomp his head into the tile.

  “Look, man,” Leather-Jacket Man said, wobbling like a baby deer to stand. All his weight fell on the other, undamaged leg. “All I did was ask for directions to Barstow …”

  “In the women’s restroom?”

  “Yeah, she uh, ignored me on her way in, and she just attacked me. You need to get her some serious help, man!”

  Rutger tilted his head as if dodging the load of bullshit being slung his way. “I already had the waitress call the police.”

  Leather-Jacket Man’s mouth gaped open, trying to say something but couldn’t quite find the right lie. He sighed. “I’ll just get going. I’ll get directions as the next stop.”

  “Directions … sure.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “A truth you could’ve asked your waitress, not follow a young girl into a public bathroom.”

  A scoffing sigh, a sure sign of being caught in a lie if Rutger ever saw one, exhaled from Leather-jacket Man again. He looked around o
n the floor, searching for his gun.

  The gun, however, was in Rutger’s line of sight, near the toilet inside the stall. “Oh, I’m sure your fingerprints are all over that thing, and her blood. Police just love that stuff.”

  After finally spotting his Taurus, the man smirked with an annoying devil-may-care attitude that made Rutger want to shatter his teeth. “Alright, you got me. But what makes you think you can stop a bullet?” He inched closer to the stall.

  “I can’t.”

  “Good to know.” He bent over to reach the gun.

  It took him a couple of seconds to grab it, and he twisted around to aim at Rutger, only to find Rutger already in his face. “But I am faster than you,” he bellowed.

  Rutger grabbed the hand that held the Taurus and kept it from pointing at him. The Leather-Jacket Man couldn’t get his index finger around the trigger in time, and thanks to Rutger’s frightening grip, his hand fell numb. The revolver fell to the floor again.

  Even though he was not permitted to kill people, Rutger remembered there was nothing judged about inflicting pain on them in self-defense, or when they had it coming. Sometimes vampires or crypt fiends would employ regular humans in their servitude, so physical force was often necessary.

  He sensed this guy was about to swing at him with his other fist, and Rutger let go of the arm, which just confused Leather-jacket Man long enough for Rutger to slam his fist into his face.

  He came from the side, bending and breaking the man’s nose almost ninety degrees, just like a cartoon. Blood exploded from his nose and splattered against the stall wall as if someone threw a cup of runny deep-red paint. Dark red droplets and chunks clung to the wall.

  Then Rutger rammed his fist into his face again before the guy could reopen his eyes, and the back of his head smacked against the stall wall. Rutger fought the temptation to keep going and restrained himself as the man slid to the floor. The second hit seemed to have put the piece of shit to sleep, which still didn’t satisfy his own rage.