The Guilt We Carry

by Samuel W. Gailey

  “What’s going on?” Delilah whispered to Alice as if the trucker couldn’t hear her.

  “You’ve made the news. Now grab my bag and follow me. Okay?”

  Delilah kept staring. Kept chewing. But managed a nod anyway.

  Alice nudged the pistol into the man’s soft belly a little harder and waited for him to climb out of the truck. When the trucker lifted his hands higher out of sheer reflex, Alice whispered, “Hands at your sides. Let’s not be obvious.”

  Dale dropped his hands, smoke still working at his eyes, and opened his door nice and easy, just as Alice instructed.

  Alice hugged the side of the truck—the side facing away from the front of the gas station—kept the pistol low at her waist and followed the man to the back of the rig. The rear of the truck stood in clear view of the gas station, and Alice’s eyes skirted toward the front doors, saw the television playing, and the attendant smoking at the counter, looking up at the screen.

  Dale fumbled with his keys for a moment—there had to be at least twenty different keys on the ring.

  “What did they say on the news? About the girl?”

  The man glanced up, his face as white as a bleached sheet, and swallowed hard. “That she’s gone missing.”

  “And that’s it? That’s what’s got you all worked up?”

  He stared down at his handful of keys. “They want to talk to her. Said that she killed a man in Philadelphia. Shot him. And they’re looking for her.”

  Alice nodded. “Okay. Get the door unlocked.”

  His hands trembled, and he nearly dropped the set of keys. Then he tried again. Found the slot, and the lock finally unsnapped with a sharp click.

  “She really kill that man?” the truck driver braved.

  Alice reached over and removed the spent cigarette from the corner of his mouth. Flicked it to the ground. “You really want to know the answer to that question?”

  Dale the trucker did not.

  “Go ahead and open the door.”

  The trucker grunted as he hoisted up the rolling door.

  “Climb inside.”

  His short little legs somehow got him up and inside the trailer.

  “Thanks for the ride, Dale. Sorry you got involved. Police on their way?”

  He nodded that they were.

  “Pull the door down.”

  The door clapped down with a bang. Alice slid the handle back into place, then secured the lock. She dropped the keys into a water grate and heard a metallic plunk a few feet down.

  Delilah still squatted on the edge of the sleeping mattress inside the cab of the truck—the girl hadn’t budged an inch.

  Alice poked her head inside. “We gotta go.”

  The young girl took a break from her chewing for a second. “Why?”

  “Because of you. That’s why. Now, grab my bag.”

  Delilah didn’t move. “No. Why run? It’s too late. Cops are looking for me.”

  “Right. You knew that was bound to happen eventually. So you can either stay here and get caught, or come with me.”

  “I’m tired of running,” the young girl said.

  “You’re just getting started, Delilah. You’re just getting started.”

  The girl stared down at her hands.

  “Fine. Whatever.” Alice was done with her. The next move, up to her. Time to move on. She grabbed her duffel bag and hopped back out of the truck.

  Delilah resumed snapping on her gum. Watched Alice walk across the parking lot, then quickly climbed out of the truck and trailed after her like a six-week-old puppy.

  Alice made a beeline toward a middle-aged man wearing matching camouflage pants and a shirt as he recapped the gas tank on his station wagon. A ten-foot boat, banged and nicked up, tied to the top of the car. A few fishing poles jutted over the edge of the aluminum fishing boat.

  “Excuse me, sir, but I was wondering if we could hitch a ride with you?”

  The fisherman had a plug of chew stuffed into his cheek and his nose was peeling a layer of skin from a nasty sunburn. He stared at Alice. Then at Delilah. Then back to Alice. “Hitch a ride?”

  “Yeah. If you don’t mind. We were riding in that truck over there, but it’s having some engine problems.”

  The fisherman stuck his finger in his ear. Scratched at what was itching him. “Don’t mind, I guess. Just going up the road a mile or so, though.”

  “Perfect. So are we.”

  The fisherman scratched at the other ear. Motioned for them to go ahead and climb in the back seat.

  When Alice opened the door, she could smell dead fish. A mile or so would probably be all that she could handle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE PARKING LOT at the North Carolina/Virginia state line Welcome Center stood packed with cars, minivans, pickup trucks, and a separate area for eighteen-wheelers, all lined up in nice and even rows. Motorists stretched their legs, families ate snacks at picnic tables set away from the restrooms, and dog owners let their four-legged friends off leashes to roam, sniff, and answer the call of nature.

  Sinclair strode across the grass, Phillip at his heels, and made his way to a public telephone that appeared as though it hadn’t been used for quite some time. The silver box surrounding the phone was covered in dust and grime, and tagged with indecipherable graffiti in various colors. Sinclair waited for Phillip to pick up the receiver and watched as the big man withdrew two packets of hand sanitizer towelettes from his pocket and proceeded to wipe down the mouth and earpiece carefully.

  “Dirty,” Phillip said.

  “Indeed. I shudder to think who has pressed their lips to this device,” Sinclair agreed.

  Phillip kept wiping down the phone, waiting for the signal from Sinclair that it was clean enough.

  “Do you have the change?”

  Phillip grunted that he did.

  “And a pen?”

  Another grunt, and he handed Sinclair an ink pen.

  “After you dial the number, I would like a Mountain Dew and some cookies from the vending machine. Nothing with raisins, please. I shouldn’t be more than a minute.”

  Phillip glanced down at a slip of paper, dialed the number, fed the slot with some quarters, waited for the connection, then handed Sinclair the telephone.

  Sinclair counted each ring silently and produced a faux smile as someone finally picked up. “Good afternoon. My name is Mark Weatherford. May I ask whom I am speaking to?”

  A man’s voice issued a dull response.

  “It’s nice to make your acquaintance, Robert, and I realize that you have no idea who I am, and this may come out of the blue, so I will cut straight to the point—”

  The man cut Sinclair off; his voice curt and dismissive.

  “No, Robert, I can assure you that I am not a telemarketer. Please, do not hang up, and listen to me for a moment. Time is of the essence. Tell me, do you happen to have a daughter by the name of Alice?”

  There was a moment’s lull, dead silence on the other end of the line, then the man answered, his voice going up an octave as he stammered into the phone.

  “Yes, yes. Alice is alive, but”—Sinclair listened to the man’s desperate flurry of questions for another moment or two—“I understand. I really do. I’m sure you have a thousand questions, but suffice it to say that I am a friend of Alice’s and I only want to help.”

  Again, Alice’s father fired off a barrage of frantic inquiries.

  “Yes, I have seen her recently, but, unfortunately, she’s gotten herself into a bit of trouble.”

  More questions. More pleading.

  “I know this must be difficult for you.”

  In the background, Sinclair heard a female’s voice plead and crack, and Alice’s father shushed the woman to be quiet.

  “Listen to me for a moment, Robert. I am on a public pay phone and I am running out of quarters. I can promise you that Alice is safe—for the moment—but the trouble that she finds herself in is rather serious. I think it would be b
est if we met in person.”

  An automated operator’s voice came onto the line, requesting more change.

  “Robert, we’re running out of time here. So, please let me know where to find you so that I can answer all your questions face-to-face.”

  Sinclair listened into the earpiece for another few seconds, and jotted down an address on the back of the flier. “Thank you, Robert. I shall be seeing you very shortly, and trust me, we will sort through all of this. You have my word on that.”

  As he returned the phone to its cradle, he watched Phillip approach, clutching a can of Cheerwine and a package of chocolate chip cookies.

  “I specifically asked for Mountain Dew.”

  “Sold out.” The big man extended the can of Cheerwine toward Sinclair.

  “Then I guess this will have to do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE FISHERMAN IN the station wagon hadn’t uttered a peep during the five-minute drive over pothole-riddled roads. His belly pressed up against the steering wheel, and the man cleaned his fingernails with a pocketknife as he drove. The car rattled and squeaked as a few black flies buzzed here and there, landing momentarily before taking flight once again.

  Alice knew Delilah was staring at her with those big, almond eyes, but she chose to ignore the girl. The car rounded a turn in the road and they slid across the vinyl back seat that was both sticky and reeked of something rotten.

  The station wagon rumbled past a bullet-ridden stop sign, never slowing, cruised beside a barn that stood charred and black, ready to fall down at a moment’s notice. They drove for another minute, then the fisherman pulled the creaking station wagon to an abrupt halt in front of a little shack with a hand-painted sign that hung over the front door, the writing barely legible. Looked like a child had scrawled the letters—Larry’s Market.

  “Far as you go,” the fisherman said, then spat a mouthful of brown tobacco juice out the window.

  Alice and Delilah didn’t argue. They piled out of the car and sucked in the fresh country air. The station wagon jerked to a start before Alice could even close the door, kicking up a brown cloud of dust and rumbling down the single lane dirt road shrouded by live oak and cypress trees hanging heavy with Spanish moss.

  The sound of the station wagon faded into the afternoon air, replaced by the call of crickets and cicadas, constant and loud. They were in the middle of the sticks. No other houses. No other cars. Just the song of insects that seemed to get shriller and shriller with each passing second.

  Delilah stared at all the trees and kudzu, then pressed up close to Alice and whispered as if they were in church, “What do we do now?”

  Alice looked over toward Larry’s Market, nothing more than a clapboard shack not much bigger than a kid’s tree house, with paint missing in fist-sized chunks on the warped pieces from wood that curled up at the edges. Sections of termite-ridden wood planks had fallen off long ago and lay buried in the dirt. A tin roof rattled in the wind. Most of it rusted and covered with dark green moss.

  “Go talk to Larry, I guess.” Alice walked up the front steps to Larry’s porch, sidestepping a gaping hole in the rotten wood the size of a pancake. Something brown scurried in the darkness below the porch floorboards. She forced her eyes away from the hole in the wood and stepped onto a small porch. Crap everywhere. Empty cans of baked beans used for ashtrays. Bags of generic cat food. Stacks of old newspapers black with mildew piled up beside a wicker rocking chair. When Alice opened the screen door, it shrieked like a fox caught in a trap.

  The front room was cast in darkness, not much sunlight able to peek through the layers of filth on the small windows. One window had been taped over with cardboard, aged and swollen by years of rain. Two buck heads were mounted onto the back wall, their antlers tangled up with cobwebs that ensnared a collection of dead flies. A stuffed raccoon, a few stuffed piglets, and a bird that looked like it might have been a turkey once stood frozen in mid-motion along the front wall next to the door.

  Larry’s Market offered little more than generic sodas, boiled peanuts, and homemade beef jerky displayed in a rusted-out wheelbarrow. But the salty curing of the beef jerky couldn’t put a dent in the stench of cat piss that permeated the air.

  Alice spotted the oxygen tank in the corner of the room before she saw who it was attached to.

  “Help ya?” a phlegmy voice hissed from the shadows.

  Delilah let out a low moan and clutched at Alice’s arm. She bolted for the front door, but Alice grabbed the girl by the wrist and held her still, then ventured a little closer to the voice in the corner of the room.

  “Hello.”

  An old man, who appeared more dead than alive, perched atop an overturned pickle barrel, sitting perfectly still as if he had been subjected to taxidermy as well. The old man wore blue jean overalls on top of a threadbare shirt that might have been red a decade ago. A twenty-pound cat that looked as ancient as the old man curled up on his lap, and the oxygen tube snaked over the tomcat and wound its way up into the old man’s nose, poking its way through the patches of nose hair that sprouted out of his nostrils like tiny shrubs.

  “Bags of the boiled nuts is a buck fifty,” the old man wheezed, each word and breath sounding like an effort.

  “Are you Larry?” Alice asked.

  The hiss that squeezed out of his lungs didn’t exactly answer her question but it was all that he offered.

  “We’re looking for a ride,” Alice said.

  “Ride? What kind of ride?” Larry grunted.

  “We need to get to Shallotte. We’re kinda stuck. Do you know anybody around here that might be willing to give us a ride down there?”

  Larry stared at her with jaundiced eyes, took a pouch of tobacco and rolling papers from the center pocket in his overalls and twisted up a perfect cigarette without even looking down. “A ride to Shallotte? All the way down there near Myrtle Beach?”

  “Yeah. We’re willing to pay someone for their time, of course.”

  An old woman, bent as a twisted stick, shuffled into the front room and gnawed on something inside her toothless mouth. Alice nodded at her, and the old woman kept chewing and stared at Delilah like she wasn’t sure what to make of the girl.

  “Whatcha going to Shallotte for?” Larry spat out.

  Alice forced a little smile and glanced over at the old woman who hadn’t taken her eyes off Delilah. “Got some friends down there and we missed our bus.”

  “This here’s a market. Selling pop and nuts and such,” Larry wheezed.

  “Right. I understand. Just thought you might know someone. We’d be willing to pay them three hundred dollars.”

  “Cash money?” the old man asked before seizing up with a coughing fit.

  Alice waited him out for a minute. “Yeah. Cash. Up front, of course.”

  Larry spat something brown into a coffee tin at his feet, then smoked on his hand-rolled cigarette some more. He let out a cloud of gray and joined the old woman in chewing on something. “Three hundred’s a lot for a ride, ain’t it?”

  “I guess it is. But it’s important that we get there. Kind of a hurry. So, if there’s anyone that you might know that lives around here with a car.”

  “Eli Brown’s got him a car.”

  “Okay. Great.”

  “Broke down, though. Hasn’t been running for a few months or so. Transmission is shot, I would guess.”

  “Okay. Anybody else live around here?”

  “The Shoemakers live down the road a ways. ’Bout a quarter mile.”

  “And they have a car?”

  “Naw. Bill’s got him that multiple sclerosis.”

  “Guess we’re out of luck,” Alice said.

  Larry grunted and chewed. He took another look at Delilah. “Got me a truck.”

  Alice nodded. “A truck would be fine. As long as it gets us there.”

  “Drives fine enough. A Ford. Not any of that foreign shit.”

  “Perfect. We’d really appreciate it.”<
br />
  Larry turned to the old lady and shouted at her like she hadn’t been standing there the entire time. “Going for a drive. Gone for a couple of hours. Fry up that chicken for when I get back.”

  The old woman tilted her head and kept chewing.

  “The truck will be needing some gas. Ain’t got enough to get there and back,” Larry said.

  Alice nodded. “Of course. We’ll pay for that, too.”

  “All right, then. Let me fetch the keys.” Larry blew his nose hard into a handkerchief and stuffed it back into his pocket. “Grab yourself a bag of the boiled if you want.” He grunted to his feet and the tomcat dropped to all fours. He shuffled closer to Alice and jabbed his thumb toward Delilah. “That one there rides in the back of the truck though.”

  * * *

  The oxygen tank rode between Alice and Larry, wedged in between the two bucket seats along with a few empty cans of generic beer. The cat once again curled up on Larry’s warm lap, like they were connected at the hip. The nub of a burnt-down cigarette nestled in the corner of the old man’s lips, and he still chewed on something.

  Alice glanced over at the speedometer—the old Ford farm truck puttered along at forty miles per hour on the I-95 South. Traffic zipped past them, semis and cars, horns blaring, middle fingers extended, but Larry paid them no mind.

  “Where are we exactly?” Alice asked.

  The old man gave her a sideways look. “Whatcha mean?”

  “Been hitchhiking for a while. Not even sure where we are.”

  Larry grunted. “Just outside Hope Mills.”

  “Not much out here, is there?”

  “Guess that depends on what you’re looking for,” Larry said.

  “And how far are we from Shallotte?”

  Larry dug at his ear for a second. “Don’t know. Ninety, maybe a hundred miles or so.”

  Alice did the quick math in her head. At the rate and speed Larry was driving, it would take them over two hours to get there.

  Tires hummed, horns blew. The tomcat stood up in Larry’s lap. Circled a few times, then settled back in the same exact spot.

  Alice shifted in her seat. Moved the wrong way and her rib clicked. She bit her lip and repressed a moan. She took a few shallow breaths, careful not to move the wrong way.