Strays

by Matthew Krause

  That was her experience anyway.

  Sarah entered the bathroom, went to mirror, and checked herself. Almost a week on her own, and she still hadn’t outgrown the vanity of it. Still, the habits were slipping. She ran fingers through her hair, fluffing the last remnants of curls that were fading from days without a good wash, and she checked the circles under her eyes. They made her look old; no wonder the college boy didn’t know she was fifteen, a little less than three years from being “street legal.” Still, she still looked good … well, good enough. She was not yet ready to use this body of hers as a last resort, but the dull ache in her belly and the soft growls that accompanied it continued to linger.

  Satisfied with herself, or as satisfied as she was going to get, Sarah rubbed her face and yawned. She tried to remember a time when the yawn was a harbinger of good things, of a restful sleep in a warm bed undisturbed by the groping touch of callused, sticky hands and the chortling breath that stank of Cortez Silver.

  Let’s play.

  Sarah jumped. There were no such good memories. For half a decade she had learned to sleep like a soldier, mind slipping barely three clicks into dream state so the senses could be on the alert for intruders. Not that the alert had done any good. Big Buddy was unwelcome but inevitable. The only thing that soldier-sleep had done for Sarah is spared her the shock of a surprise attack when he came calling. The nights with Big Buddy were terrible enough but ten times worse if you didn’t see him coming.

  A crusty laugh escaped from Sarah’s lungs, another precursor to the scream she fought to control, the way the belch had preceded the vomit. Sarah had no idea what amused her. Perhaps it was the fact that she looked forward to sleep, looked forward to crouching like a swami trying to fit into a box, because despite the pain of awakening with an almost geriatric pain in her knees and hips, at least for those few hours it was sleep undisturbed. She was not sure why that amused her but it did, almost as much as the fact that Big Buddy’s advances had seemed less horrific when she was waiting for them. She imagined that if she ever stood before a firing squad, she’d ask them to remove the blindfold.

  With three light steps, Sarah made her way to the fourth stall. The door hung open about a foot on its hinges, and she pushed it back and stepped inside. The toilet seat was down, of course; this was, after all, the women’s room. Sarah settled into position, sliding her hips so that she sat on the far back part of the seat. She leaned forward to push the stall door shut with her left hand and then slid the bolt lock into place. Then twisting, leaning her shoulder to the west wall of the bathroom, she bent her right leg and then her left, hooking the heels of her sneakers just inside the rim of the toilet where they would rest. She crossed her arms across her knees, settled her chin on her arms, and made yet another stab at a prayer before settling in for sleep.

  That’s when she saw the words. They had been printed on the back of the stall door, black permanent marker, written in thick block caps with careful deliberation:

  LET’S PLAY

  At last, Sarah Smallhouse found her scream.

  Flight

  She waited for someone to come—the shaggy college boy, a trucker, the young man behind the counter. Certainly, the scream had been loud enough to shatter the mirrors, and Sarah could have sworn it echoed for almost half a minute. But there were no footsteps of heroic men bursting in the door to save her. Maybe they didn’t care, or maybe a screaming girl in this particular C-store bathroom late at night was a common thing. Whatever the case, Sarah was very much alone in the fourth stall with those awful words on the door, and she leapt up at once and threw her shoulder squarely between the LET’S and the PLAY to force herself out.

  When she retired to third stall down a few moments later, she discovered it was much less comfortable than the fourth had been. The toilet was farther apart from the partitions, and Sarah had to lean hard to one side or the other in order to brace herself. Her shoes kept slipping off the rim of the toilet, and even when she did find what passed for a sweet spot, nestling into a reasonable pose that might allow her to shut her eyes, the thought would come to her of those words written on the door just one stall down …

  LET'S PLAY.

  It was impossible to sleep. It was impossible to think. All that was left was something just beyond generic fear, just below real terror, like a scar on your soul that used to hurt like hell all the time and now is just there, a constant throb.

  Sleep was futile in these conditions. Sarah slid her legs off the edge of the toilet and stood, feeling the muscles in her calves howl. She rubbed her eyes and stepped out of the third stall, ever mindful to avoid looking in the direction of the fourth. She even avoided looking in the mirror lest she catch a glimpse of that now polluted toilet stall, fearful that once it had caught her eye it would swing its doors outward, flashing those hateful words in reverse in the mirror, words that would have somehow grown larger.

  LET'S PLAY.

  LET'S PLAY.

  LET'S PLAY.

  Sarah moved to the bathroom door, slid it open an inch, and peered out into the C-store. It was empty now save the young man behind the counter, still listening to his baseball game on the radio. She glanced down the rows of processed groceries … sugar-filled snack cakes, small cans of Vienna sausage, bags of chips the size of a princess satchel, shrink-wrapped sandwiches. Her stomach growled. She fought it back down. It was very dark now, that latest of late-night hours when every living thing in the time zone caught what little sleep it could, and the C-store, as well as the bathroom stall that had sheltered her for the past week, were no longer safe.

  It was time to make her escape.

  With light steps, Sarah made her way down the aisle toward the front door. The sight of the cheap foodstuffs on the shelf made her queasy, and the growling in her stomach returned. For a moment, she considered grabbing something—a packaged pastry, a candy bar, anything—and tucking it into her coat pocket, but even now, in this place of unbearable hunger, she knew this was wrong. If there was a God, he was already frowning on her, and if karma was real, it was surely coming around fast to blind-side her for being a disobedient child and running away from home in the first place. Better not to tempt fate any more by breaking one of the Commandments.

  The young man by the counter did not see her, or perhaps he did not want to. Sarah made her way to the twin glass doors and peered into the parking lot. The front dock of the C-store was empty. No cars sat at the gas pumps. Only on the west lot, that open gravel track reserved for trucks, did rows of Kenworths and Peterbilts sit idling as truckers slept in their warm cabs.

  She opened the door and slipped onto the dock.

  “… hair, brown eyes. That’s the one.”

  Sarah started at the voice. It was coming from somewhere to her left, and she let the glass door ease back a bit, holding it open just enough to hear.

  “Fifteen, yes. She said she was fifteen. Had a mouth on her, indeed she did.”

  Sarah ventured to push the door out far enough to take a peek. Standing just down the dock next to the twin Pacific Bell pay phones stood the tattooed drunk guy with the heavy black hair. He propped himself with one elbow against a 50-gallon trash can with an orange lid, and with the other hand he pressed the receiver of the pay phone against his head. He still wore those stupid sunglasses, which could barely be seen jutting from the folds of his ample hair.

  “Yes, she’s still here,” the shaggy-haired boy said in the phone, suddenly not sounding so drunk anymore. “I saw her go in the john myself.”

  She felt that scream again, the one thought to be played out in the bathroom. He was talking about her. Of course he was talking about her.

  “Sure, I’ll be happy to wait. You said something on that flyer about a reward?”

  Sarah’s face grew cold. Who was he talking to? For a crazed moment, she imagined the Green River Killer on the other end—after all, he had never been caught, had he? Or maybe the shaggy-haired boy was the Green River Killer. Would
n’t that be a gas? But if that was the case, who was he calling, why would he be talking about her, and what was this about a reward?

  “Straight down The Strip,” the boy said, “just past the U-Haul you’ll see a truck stop on the west side. Big Chevron sign out front. I'll be on the dock.” He listened a moment and then said: “That’s fine, sir. Yeah, you’ll know me when you see me. Friends call me Rhino.” A pause, and then with more gruffness: “Never mind my real name, Rhino’s all you need to know.”

  The tattooed guy, Rhino, twisted his head to glance back over his shoulder with a lazy grin, and for a moment Sarah thought he was looking right at her. “Big Buddy, is it? Well, get on down here, Big Buddy and we’ll see how big you really are.”

  Sarah pulled herself back into the store and ducked down one of the aisles. She lifted her head to look, and just beyond the magazine rack this Rhino fellow could be seen through the giant walk-through windows that protected the front of the store. She saw him cradle the phone back on the receiver, and then he paced across the dock, stuffing his hands in his pockets, standing guard. There was no escape.

  Crouching low, Sarah made her way back to the narrow hallway near the bathrooms, the hall that led back to the stock room. She lifted her head only briefly to study the young man who worked behind the counter. He was still hunched over his radio, smoking a cigarette and listening to the baseball game, and that was good. He would not notice her as she slipped in the back, into the stockroom.

  Three days earlier, Sarah had been lingering around the dumpster, steeling herself to peer in for something to eat, when a grocery truck backed up to the side of the C-store. The driver had brought down a rack filled with dry goods and wheeled it around the back, not through the front door as Sarah had expected, and since the dumpster was right there on the back corner she had stolen away lest the man see her. Hungry as she was, there was still much shame in poverty if someone else was looking. Nevertheless, she kept the memory of the grocery truck high in her thoughts. The fact that the deliveryman took his wares behind the building meant that there was a back entrance leading directly into the stockroom, and now it would provide Sarah with the perfect escape.

  Daring one last look at the young man behind the counter, Sarah pushed the thin aluminum doors leading to the stockroom and cringed as they squeaked. She waited for the footsteps of the clerk, but he was too entrenched in his game to notice a couple of rusty hinges. When she was sure she was safe, she slipped into the stockroom, listening to the hinges whistle as the doors swung back behind her.

  The stockroom consisted of a wall of wooden shelves packed with brown cardboard boxes. Logos from chip companies like Nalley’s and candy companies like Mars graced the boxes. Some of the boxes were partially opened as the night clerk had no doubt consulted them for restocking. For another agonizing minute, Sarah considered reaching into one of the open boxes and grabbing anything she could find, just something to tamp down this awful hunger.

  But then there was the door, back next to a wide sink where the mop buckets were filled, and freedom seemed much more important at the moment. With a quickened pace, Sarah stole to the back door, turned the knob, and pushed. She expected an alarm, but there was none. It was simply a stock door, locking from the inside.

  Sarah leaned into the door, and it opened quite easily to a damp asphalt track behind the store. At the far edge of the track was a cluster of bushes, and hunched down next to them was something small and orange, its green eyes flashing in the moonlight. Sarah started and then realized that it was a cat, short-haired with deep ginger fur. It sat back on its hind haunches, its pale white chest thrust up, and from the light of the storeroom behind her, Sarah swore that it was smiling. She found herself smiling too.

  “Hey kitty. Whatcha doing out here?”

  The cat’s eyes slowly closed once and reopened, and the smile seemed to broaden, and then it ducked back into the bushes. Just like that, the first friend Sarah was likely to make on this journey was gone.

  She glanced back over her shoulder, taking a last lingering look at the boxes of food stacked on the storeroom. The moment did not last. Shaking off the pain in her belly and the temptation in her heart, Sarah bit her lip and stepped out into the night.

  Creepy Jack

  “Evening, girl.”

  The car was long and looked something like a midnight blue as the street lamps flickered off its hood. Sarah could not tell the make or the model—she knew little about cars—but it had rolled up on her right out of a bad movie, the kind she had watched those afternoons at home, some black-and-white tragedy about a lonely girl walking the night and getting into trouble.

  “I said good evening,” the man in the car persisted.

  Sarah glanced at the car, peering in through the window on the shotgun side, which had been rolled down so the man could talk.

  “It’s not evening,” she said. “It’s four in the morning.”

  Deep in the dark of the car, she heard a low chuckle. “I won’t tell if you won’t. Need a ride?”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. Not much of a pickup line, but she had heard worse. “Fifteen will get you twenty,” she said.

  The man snorted again. “Like I said, I won’t tell if you won’t. You cold?”

  “It’s August,” she said. “I'm not cold.”

  “Hungry, then. I bet you’re hungry, girl. Here.”

  That word stopped Sarah in her tracks. Here. She knew what that word meant. Here, meaning at this point, this position, this moment in time. Here. Shorthand for Here you go or Here’s something I want to show you or Here, take this.

  He had asked if she was hungry. And yes, she was hungry, so hungry, in fact, that she was processing every word, every inflection, every syllable, breaking down the semantics and the words to make sure she heard them right, that they did, indeed, mean that something to eat was on it’s way.

  Gently, so as to not show too much interest, she turned her head toward the car, which had slowed down to stop next to her.

  Here was something beyond her wildest dreams. The man’s hand, lean and smooth with long fingers—not the fat greasy pig fingers she expected—was holding out a small white paper bag. Imprinted on the front was a familiar pair of golden arches.

  “One of those egg-muffin things and those world famous fries,” the man said.

  “They don’t make fries for breakfast.”

  “Sure they do,” the man said. “The ones with the 24-hour drive-thru always have fries in the fryer.” He shook the bag, making it ruffle. “I bought it for you, girl.”

  Sarah stared at the bag. For as long as she could remember, that symbol on the bag meant goodness and warmth and comfort, and most of all, a state of not-hungry. She could even smell the fries, just a little bit, their crisp aroma hovering in the cool night breeze.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Sure you can. It’s a gift.”

  Sarah took a step toward the car and felt her hand reach for the bag before she knew what it was doing. She caught herself at the last moment and froze, her arm extended in air, her fingers mere inches from the gleaming white paper.

  “I’m sorry, I … I can’t.”

  The man pulled the bag back in the car, and Sarah almost cried out at the loss. After a moment, she saw the car inch forward until it was next to the curb. The engine died, and the man flicked on the interior lights, ducking his head to look at her. His face was the color of toast, and he wore a dark sweater with a light gray pattern that looked like it would be comfortable in front of a fire over cocoa. His hair was a dried-blood tint but neatly combed, and although the shadow of the dome lights hid his eyes, his smile was just wide enough through a light rash of whiskers to be real, coming from a place between pained and forced. He looked gentle, peaceful, and Sarah wanted to trust him. She watched as he reached into the switch alongside the steering column, pulled out the keys, and jangled them in the air.

  “See these?” he said.

  “Yes.”
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  With a flick of his wrist, the keys arced out the window, clinking on the pavement in front of Sarah.

  “Pick those up,” the man said. “You can hold onto them. That way you know I’m not going to drive away with you because I can’t. And then you can get in my car, take a load off your feet, and have something to eat.”

  Sarah looked down at the keys before her. “What’s the catch?”

  “I just do nice things,” the man said. “It’s what I do. I like to go out at night and find people who are struggling and do something nice for them. Is that a crime? Because if it is, I’d much rather go to Hell for doing the right thing than the wrong thing.”

  Sarah found her smile all at once, and she shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s not a crime.”

  “Good,” said the man. “Come inside then. My name’s Jack.”

  Sarah hesitated. “Like Jack the Ripper?”

  “Nah, just a little ditty ‘bout Jack and Diane. Your name Diane?”

  A polite laugh made its way out of Sarah’s chest. She had no idea what Jack was talking about. Was he trying to be funny? Sarah didn’t think he was funny. In fact, she found him to be a bit creepy, and the name Creepy Jack suddenly lodged in her head. Still, she was hungry, and hungry almost canceled out creepy at this particular moment.

  She stooped and picked up the car keys. She went to the open window, fully intent on handing them back to Creepy Jack, but then she caught the scent of those fries again, and her stomach lurched, and without even realizing what she was doing her fingers groped for the car door handle. She tugged up on it, and the door swung open, and her body did the rest, sliding into the front seat and plopping in next to him, and that was that. Her eyes darted about for the bag of food, but already Creepy Jack had moved it away, placing it on his left leg closest to the driver-side door. She thought about reaching for it but then thought better about it because you never knew, a move like that could be misconstrued.