by Dave Daren
I nearly flashed my brights, just once, to make sure I wasn’t driving in the wrong direction, but so long as I managed to get away from Knox’s goons, I didn’t care what direction I was heading in.
My speedometer capped out as I felt the car rattle underneath me, but I didn’t dare stop. My jaw clenched so tightly it ached, but I couldn’t relax. Every muscle in my body, every nerve, every hair were all set on edge as I sped through the night, and over the seat belt sensor’s dinging, I could still hear the telltale rumble of the trucks’ engines.
If my phone hadn't been shot out of my hand, I could have dialed 911, but even then, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they’d have disregarded the call.
Nothing about the situation sat right with me as I drove blindly and aimlessly through the backcountry without lights, a map, or a plan. But right then, my only goal was to make it out of the night alive.
The car lurched forward as I flew over another bump. For a split second, my tires spun across even ground, and I realized I’d managed to find a road.
I swung the nose of my car around to line myself up with the asphalt and sped in my new direction.
I couldn’t tell which way I’d come from or which way I was going, but the trucks on my tail faded further and further into the distance as I refused to let up my speed, even as my car groaned in protest.
Even the seat belt alarm had quieted, as if it knew I had bigger priorities to deal with.
Each beat of my heart was reflected in my aching, bleeding hand, that throbbed as if it had a heartbeat of its own. The blood dripped down my fingers to my wrist, then to the bunched up sleeve of my hoodie, and finally under my shirt cuff inside. I accredited the nauseating level of blood to the adrenaline and hoped it wasn’t as bad as I feared.
I was certain that the bullet hadn’t grazed my finger, because if it had, I doubted I’d have a finger left. The more likely culprit was the glass of my phone that had shattered as the metal tore through it.
In my rearview, the prairie behind me was still. Had I lost my pursuers? Had they given up? I wasn’t sure how long I’d driven with them on my tail, or how long it had been since I’d last seen them.
It could have been seconds, minutes, or even hours before they’d dropped away. I didn’t let up on the gas yet, however. I needed to be good and certain they’d given up the ghost before I let myself fall back to a safer speed.
It took even longer for my heartrate to tick back down to normal, or, rather, as close to normal as it could get while I was still in fear for my life. But at least it didn’t feel like it was going to leap from my chest anymore.
It also finally occurred to me that my ears hadn’t stopped ringing since I made it into the car. I wasn’t sure if it was from the gunshot still or maybe from my own nerves, but everything sounded tinny and far away.
I felt like I was seeing everything from outside my body, which, admittedly, was probably because I was in shock. I kept my hands locked around the steering while, and once a little more time had passed, I dared to turn my headlights back on.
There wasn’t anything ahead of me for as far as the light stretched, just more shattered asphalt and empty fields.
The digital display on my dash had broken long before I moved to Texas, and the time had remained permanently stuck on 12:00 a.m. on the dot, which meant I had no real way of telling what time it actually was. I’d been a Boy Scout, once, but I wasn’t about to try and analyze the position of the moon for a better idea as to how long I’d been running for my life.
Wherever I’d ended up, Knox’s trucks hadn’t managed to follow, and I counted that as a small blessing. I just prayed that my luck hadn’t quite run out with making it out alive, and that the photos I’d sent to Brody had made it safely.
Without them, this entire endeavor wouldn’t be worth a damn thing. All I’d have to show for the night would be my broken phone and a story even I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t lived it.
I slowed my speed to something that was probably closer to the legal limit, even though I didn’t expect any police to be around in the middle of nowhere to clock my speed.
I wasn’t sure what sort of look that goons had gotten of my vehicle without the use of their headlights, and so if I quit driving like I was being chased, it might help me fly under the radar if we ended up crossing paths again. Hell, I didn’t know if they were even out looking for me, and I certainly didn’t know what I’d do if they found me again.
The fact that my survival was dependent on a series of unknown “what ifs” made my chest ache with worry, but I didn’t have any sort of choice other than to keep driving.
And so that’s what I did. I drove.
The adrenaline eventually wore off and with it came the crashing wave of exhaustion that slid over me. My mind still whirred as I tried to figure out my next steps, but my body was a different story.
My hand throbbed from the gash the shattered glass screen had left along my palm, and my feet ached from where I’d worn blisters into my heels from running in loafers. My shins itched from whatever bramble I’d been allergic to, and my head pounded with what felt like the worst hangover I’d ever experienced.
I wanted to sleep, and I wanted to work at the same time, but neither of those were an option as I continued along the meandering road in the middle of nowhere.
It wasn’t until the inky black of the night started to soften into a deep blue to the stark white of a cloudy daybreak that I saw signs of life.
Up ahead, nestled into the sharp crook of the road was a run-down gas station. It was almost kitschy in how old-fashioned it looked, but the beaten-up, red pick-up in the parking lot was certainly modern enough to give me hope.
I pulled into the lot, my car sputtering from the effort. I don’t think I’d ever driven the damn thing for so long without stopping, and it could have used the break nearly as much as I did. I slotted the vehicle right up alongside one of the gas pumps and was grateful to see that despite the old-timey aesthetic, it had a very modern credit card chip reader installed.
I threw the car into park and killed the ignition. The lack of vibration from the engine took a moment to adjust to under my feet before I pulled myself from the driver’s seat.
When my feet touched solid ground, I all but had to prevent myself from dropping to my knees to kiss the damn dirt. I imagined sailors coming back from sea felt the same level of relief I did to not be moving.
Instead, I peeled off my sweatshirt and left it in the car before I slid my keys into my front pocket and started up toward the tiny little store. The sign across the top of the building read CASEY’S CONVENIENCE in an old-timey font, and the building itself looked a bit like a barn.
It could have looked like the lost city of Atlantis for all I cared. Casey’s Convenience was practically an oasis in the desert.
I glanced down at my blood-crusted hand and gave a small grimace. The last thing I wanted to do right now was spook some poor gas station clerk, but I didn’t have much of a way to hide the damage. I flexed my still aching fingers and tried my best to ignore the throb of pain that shot its way up my arm.
I didn’t think I could try to shove it into my pocket, so I just kept my injured hand tucked into my side as I walked up to the front door. The glass looked like it could use a nice cleaning, but the storefront certainly wasn’t abandoned.
With my shoulder, I nudged into the door and gave a deep sigh of relief when it actually budged. Overhead, a soft bell gave a chime to announce my entrance.
I let my gaze skim around the store as I tried to find the owner of the dusty pick-up. There were a few meager rows of snack cakes and chips and an old cooler half-stocked with soft drinks that hummed so loud with electricity I could hardly hear the sound of the radio dimly playing over the speakers.
It took me a moment to actually find another person in the ramshackle affair. A man that certainly matched the dusty pick-up poked his head up from behind the counter where he looked like
he had been stocking cartons of cigarettes.
His thick, gray brow furrowed in confusion as he took in the sight of me, from my mussed hair, bloodied hand, and dust-covered shoes and trousers.
I couldn’t imagine how I looked to someone that hadn’t just lived the night I’d been through, but I plastered a weary, pleasant smile on my face nonetheless.
Before I walked up to the counter, I made a slight detour over to the humming cooler. I pulled open the door with my good hand and gave a sigh of relief at the rush of cool air that burst out. I’d had my air conditioning on in the car, but it was an old car, and my bout of maxing out the speedometer hadn’t helped the temperature inside the vehicle any.
I scanned the shelf of energy drinks. All the cans were blindingly bright neons or toxic-greens and yellows with punchy names like Boom! or Beast. I grabbed the least offensive can I could find, a matte black with glossy black lettering that promised it would taste like whatever it was a “cool rush” felt like.
Can in hand, I made my way back up to the register. The clerk didn’t seem like he’d taken his eyes off me since I came in. He had a pleasant, sun-worn face and wore a flimsy red vest with the name Bill stitched over his heart. I wondered if Casey was a real person or not, but there wasn’t time to hash out why the gas station was named as it was.
I set the can onto the counter and fished my wallet out of my back pocket. I pulled free a ten dollar bill and slid it across the worn countertop toward Bill.
“Keep the change,” I said. “And is there any way I could borrow your phone? Mine... broke.” It wasn’t a lie, because my phone had in fact broken. And it certainly sounded more believable than “my phone was shot from my hand, which is also why I’m bleeding.”
Bill snagged the crumpled ten dollars with a pair of thick, calloused fingers and slid it under the register as opposed to inside it. I still hadn’t been able to check a clock, but I realized then that the store probably hadn’t even opened yet. I felt a small twinge of guilt strike me, but it was severely outweighed by my need to get back to my firm before I could be run off the road again.
“Are you alright, son?” Bill asked as he pulled an old cell phone from his back pocket.
I graciously accepted the phone as he extended it toward my open palm.
“I’ve been better,” I admitted with a weary smile.
I gave a nod of reassurance and a small lift of my shoulder in a shrug. I was about as okay as I could be given the circumstance.
Bill gave a slow, cautious nod, and eyed me a bit warily.
“I’ll give you some space,” he said finally.
I watched as he shuffled off along the line of the counter to resume stocking cigarette cartons at the opposite end and then glanced down at the older model iPhone in my hand.
It had clearly been used and used well, with fine cracks running across the screen despite the bulky case. Maybe if I’d had a case like that, my hand wouldn’t have been split open, I thought a bit grimly.
The time on the clock read 5:07 A.M.. I felt a pang in my chest at the realization I’d been on the run for nearly eight hours. No wonder I felt dead on my feet.
I didn’t let myself dwell on that knowledge for much longer and swiped up on the keypad instead. I stood for a moment, stockstill and lost in my own mind as I tried to pull someone’s number, anyone’s number, from the ether.
After a long moment of thought, I punched in what I thought was Brody’s number and sent out a silent prayer to the universe that I wasn’t about to startle some poor soul that happened to have a number similar to Brody’s.
With each second that the dial tone continued to ring, I could feel the mild panic in my chest rise higher and higher in my throat. And finally, the line picked up.
“Hello?” a very tired, sleep-thick voice came across the phone. Brody.
I felt my entire body sag in relief.
“Brody, it’s Archer,” I began. “I--”
“--Archer?” Brody suddenly seemed much more awake. “Jesus, kid, you had Evelyn and I worried. We blew up your phone for hours last night. What the hell happened?”
I listened to him shuffle about, probably as he got out of bed so he wouldn’t wake his wife. A door softly creaked closed across the line.
I leaned my back against the counter and gave a shaking breath.
“My phone is...” I paused and glanced over at Bill, who seemed to be stocking awfully slow. “My phone broke last night. I’m fine enough, but I sent you some photos last night, about ten of them I think, before my phone… broke. Did you get them?”
I couldn’t help the hopeful lilt to my tone and wanted to tamp it down, as if the universe would hear my hope and try to beat it out of me. Brody made an indecipherable sound over the phone.
“I didn’t get any pictures from you last night,” he began with a wary edge to his voice. “Let me check again, just to make sure I didn’t miss them.”
I listened to the phone shift in his hands and the sound of his fingers tapping against the screen as my nerves bundled in my chest. I felt a bit sick to my stomach.
“Nothing, I’m sorry,” he replied when he came back on the phone. “What were the pictures of?”
His words made me want to sink into the ground. He hadn’t even received the pictures that had gotten my phone shot.
Any sliver of hope that remained in my chest flew out of me as I let out a desperate laugh and pushed my aching hand up through my hair.
“The waste dump,” I breathed out. “The photos were of the waste dump.”
I couldn’t help the creep of misery from seeping into my tone as I spoke. I’d risked my life for those photos, and now, they were just... gone.
“Well, can you resend them?” Brody asked. “What happened to your phone?”
He didn’t seem nearly as worn down by all of this, and I realized that was probably because for the last eight hours, I’d been running for my life, and he’d been at home asleep with his wife.
I hated that he and Evelyn were right about the waste dump being dangerous. I scratched at the side of my face and gave a shake of my head he couldn’t see.
“My phone was shot,” I said in a way that was probably a little too casual for the weight of the information.
The line went fuzzy and silent for a few, dragging seconds.
“Shot?” Brody repeated. He said shot like it was some strange, foreign word he couldn’t quite wrap his head around.
“Shot,” I sighed. “I thought the message had managed to send before that. But apparently not. After the shot, Knox’s men chased me down in a couple of trucks, and that’s how I spent my evening, night, and now the wee hours of the morning.”
Bill the Gas Station Clerk openly stared at me now with his pale eyes spread wide in horror.
I gave him a tight-lipped smile and a small nod of acknowledgement. I knew how insane my night sounded, but he saw the evidence written on me, what with my bloodied hand and dirtied car.
Brody seemed at a loss for words, and for several long moments, all I heard was the sound of his breathing.
“They chased you?” he blurted out. “Jesus, Archer, I told you that you shouldn’t go to the dump alone!”
For the first time, Brody sounded like a father with his stern yet worried tone.
“Where are you now?” he managed to ask after getting control over himself.
“A gas station, uh, Casey’s Convenience,” I said as I rubbed the nape of my neck.
Bill cleared his throat, and I looked back at the clerk.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” the gas station clerk began. “But if it helps, you’re just outside Tolar.”
I had no real idea where Tolar was, but I gave him a smile and mouthed the word “thanks” before I passed that information along to Brody.
“Just outside Tolar,” I said. “I’m going to try and head back to Crowley. I need to figure out our next steps.”
Brody guffawed.
“No, when you get back t
o Crowley you need to go see the damn sheriff, Archer,” he said without leaving much room for argument. “You were shot at and chased. You still got your phone?”
I furrowed my brow, because he did have a point, and I didn’t like it.
“Yeah, but like I said, it doesn’t work,” I reminded him with a heavy sigh. “Right now, it’s just a very expensive paperweight.”
I could practically feel Brody rolling his eyes.
“But it’s clearly been shot,” he said with a flat edge to his voice. “So, you show your shot at phone to the sheriff as evidence.”
He said it like it made perfect sense, and well, I supposed it did.
“I can meet you there, if you don’t think you’re able to drive,” he offered.
I appreciated the sentiment more than I knew how to express at the moment. My night had been long and exhausting, and the small kindness softened my edges, just a little.
“No, no, don’t worry about it, Brody,” I brushed off his offer. “I’ll be alright. I’ll be back soon. I’ll, uh, hopefully be in before eight, but I make no promises.”
And with that, I hung up before he could protest my decision. I turned and held the phone back out to Bill. He gave me a wary, appraising look as he took it from my grip.
“You’re about an hour and a half outside of Crowley,” Bill informed me. “You should be back well before eight, but, I can’t account for the sheriff’s department.”
I was too exhausted to really care that he’d been listening. He’d been kind to me, and that went a long way.
“Thank you,” I said with another weary smile. “I appreciate all your help.”
I snagged my energy drink off the counter and popped the tab to take a long, desperate drink. I’d stopped moving for too long and felt the exhaustion creeping into my periphery.
“To get back to Crowely,” Bill started. “You’ll wanna keep driving down the road you came on to get here, just head straight up until you see the big fork in the road, then take the left, and you should run right into town.”