Charlene shrugged, “I’m new to this too. I can tell you, I ate pretty much everything in my Frigidaire yesterday, ketchup included. I mean, they seemed fine with hot-dogs and steak. If everything West and Stanwick have told me is true, I seriously doubt they’ve spent their lives calorie counting.”
David gave an awkward smile and asked Charlene if she wanted a burger.
“Sure, make it a meal.” She looked at Cobb who was browsing a rack filled with candy bars. Realizing she’d already forgotten his name, she called over to him, “Hey, mister … Hey!”
He looked up quizzically, “Yeah?”
“You want anything from the burger joint?” She looked back at the advertising hoarding and realized why the word ‘joint’ had suddenly bubbled to the surface of her vocabulary.
Cobb shook his head, grimacing and rubbing his stomach, “I’ve eaten so much crap already today.” His hand still on his stomach, he was suddenly very conscious of the reason they had taken this unscheduled stop in the first place. He looked around for the sign for the restroom, then, having located it over to the right of the register, he looked through the window at the gas pumps to see if Stanwick or West were heading in yet.
It looked to Cobb as if West was done gassing up, but he was now standing chatting idly with Stanwick. In spite of Stanwick’s dire warning, Cobb was starting to wonder if he should chance heading to the restroom on his own when a tall bulky man with a shaved head, torn denim jacket and shit-kicker boots shouldered past him, his arms laden with potato chips and a twenty-four pack of Grolsch.
A black girl who was stood behind the register waved her hand and called after the man, “Excuse me sir, I think you forgot to pay for your those.”
The guy barely glanced over his shoulder, “Screw you lady, the president says I don’t gotta pay for shit.”
Undaunted by his size, Cobb grabbed the shoulder of the denim jacket, “Buddy, quit being a jackass and pay the woman.”
With surprising swiftness, the skinhead threw his haul onto the floor and thrust back his left elbow, catching Cobb’s jaw with a dirty blow. Cobb stumbled backwards into the shelving behind him and fell to the floor. He had time to admire the sheen of the man’s calf high boot as it connected with his stomach. This one kick turned out to be as much as Cobb’s bladder could take. The flood of warmth which seeped into his pant leg was as relieving as it was humiliating. So great was the mixture of pain and release that his eyes were half closed as the torrent of blood spattered his face. It was this second spray of warm liquid splashing his mouth and chin that confused Cobb. Mortified by the thought that perhaps he had managed to piss clean through his pants, Cobb started to shuffle backwards on the floor. The cashier’s scream that alerted him to the fact that something much more disturbing was going down than the sight of a grown man wetting himself.
West threw his shoulder at the door and was surprised to see that even though the hulking man’s body was shoved across the floor by the force of this, it still wasn’t enough to stir Stephanie Beach from her frenzied attack. He stepped over the man’s legs and headed towards the cashier, ignoring Cobb’s unflattering state and clinging to the hope that Charlene would have the sense to deal with the child. The cashier was hidden from view, but the sound of her screaming sobs told West that she hadn’t moved from behind the counter. He thought it would be a small blessing if the owners of this outfit were cheap enough not to have a panic button installed. An absence of closed circuit cameras would be a wish too far and with that in mind, he walked with his head lowered as he rounded the counter.
Pushing through the door, Stanwick quickly made for Charlene, tugging her sleeve and pointing towards the burger bar, “How many?” she whispered.
“God, I don’t know. David and Stephanie both wanted one, and I could eat, but Cobb said he was fine.”
Stanwick’s mouth opened in stunned silence. At crossed purposes, she struggled to unravel her question from Charlene’s answer. She tried again, “How many staff?”
Charlene laughed nervously, then pursed her lips, “I have no idea.” She followed quickly behind Stanwick as she ran towards the restaurant section, Stanwick jumping the counter swiftly and tackling two employees to the ground with as much delicacy as she could manage. She held her hands over their mouths, “Don’t move, don’t scream and do not think for a second that I won't kill you both if you screw up.”
There was a thin, pale skinned and bespectacled boy pinned under Stanwick’s left knee and a red headed girl of average build and slightly above average looks struggling under the weight of her right leg. Stanwick looked up at Charlene who was hovering awkwardly by an ice cream machine, “Check the back!”
As Charlene stalked off between the deep fryers and broilers, Stanwick’s eyes darted quickly between the two youths, “I bet the sexual tension in this place is unbearable huh?” She grinned devilishly, looking into the girl’s eyes, “How do you keep your hands off him huh?” She could see that they were both scared witless and her attempt at breaking the ice was not receiving the best reception, “Perhaps I shouldn’t start these things with death threats?”
The boy’s eyes widened and started to well with tears, so Stanwick tried again, “Listen, both of you, this is all a huge mistake okay? No one else is going to get hurt. The skin-head kind of looks like he’s a goner but you guys will be just dandy. You really need to pull yourselves together for me though. Do you think you can do that?”
Both heads nodded fearfully.
“Good.” She looked at the girl who seemed to be the calmer of the two, “Now can you tell me, is there anyone else working besides the cashier?”
The girl shook her head as much as Stanwick’s hand would allow.
“Okay, can either of you show me where the security cameras feed to?”
The girl’s brow furrowed, but the boy’s head nodded barely perceptibly.
“Great. I’m going to let the two of you stand, okay? Then you’re going to take me to wherever we need to go, so I can disable the recordings. Understood?”
She lifted her hands from their mouths slowly and the boy stammered, “Yes m … Yes Mam.”
West had struggled to calm the cashier. She had watched a seven-year-old girl chew into a man’s neck and she apparently wasn’t prepared to let go of that thought peaceably. West had looked about the space behind the counter and had found nothing that would render the girl unconscious without risking lasting damage. He was hesitant to gag her, but every time he took his hand from her mouth she screamed. He yelled aloud, “Stanwick, is there anyone else here?”
Stanwick didn’t respond, but he heard Charlene’s voice yelling from a distance, “There’s two in the burger bar, then there’s the dead guy and us.”
West grimaced as the girl squirmed beneath his grip, “This one’s a screamer, but if everything else is under control, we could probably get back on the road and just let her scream it out.”
Suddenly Charlene was leaning over the counter above him, “Staci, with an I.”
West was confused by her statement, but Charlene waved a hand over the counter, pointing “There’s a name tag, there on the floor next to you … I presume it’s hers.”
The girl looked threatened, her eyes narrowing as her brow knitted. Charlene thought about the way in which Stanwick had handled the other two in Jim’s Joint and she addressed Staci directly, “Hey, Staci, take some deep, slow breaths. Close your eyes if you have to.”
Staci closed her eyes and started crying more heavily, breathing erratically.
“Deep breaths Staci, concentrate on breathing slowly.”
Staci’s inhale came in three short bursts, each one wheezing and shaky, then when she exhaled, her lips closed and made a raspberry sound as spit sprayed in small bubbles into the air in front of her.
Charlene stifled a laugh, then looking at West she brought her hands to her mouth and pulled them away in a pantomime exaggeration, hoping he would understand that she wanted him to let go of t
he girl. Charlene wasn’t sure of her own strength, and as West pulled his hands away from Staci’s face, Charlene punched her lightly on the jaw, hoping Staci would collapse in a heap. In response, Staci’s mouth fell wide open and the sound which issued forth from her was almost sufficient to shake the building’s foundations. Charlene tried a second time, punching Staci with enough force that the girl was lifted from her position on the floor, over West’s legs and into the collapsed heap that Charlene had been aiming for with her first punch.
West was dumbfounded, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I could have managed that. I was just scared I’d cause her brain damage or something.”
Charlene gasped, “Can that happen?”
West looked dismayed, “Are you serious? Sure, it can happen from a lot less than a punch from the likes us.”
Charlene stared at Staci who lay still on the floor, breathing slowly, “Do you think she’ll be alright?”
West stretched his arms forward and touched Charlene’s shoulders with his hands, “She’ll be fine, I’m sure.”
It had taken Brad Cobb a couple of minutes to find anything of use to his predicament. When he noticed the swim shorts hanging at the end of an aisle filled with motor oil, bulbs and air fresheners, he had wondered why a gas station so far from the ocean would stock such an item. Still, he reasoned, swim shorts were better than urine soaked pants. He looked down at the pants he was wearing, and remembered; at least they weren’t his pants. He was half way through the process of changing into the shorts when he heard Stanwick’s whistle from the end of the aisle.
“Nice legs Brad …”
He felt his face flush with color as he struggled to pull the shorts up, the netting catching on his feet. She was just standing there watching him as he stumbled against the shelving.
“You need some help?”
He turned so that his rear faced her, “No … no I’m fine, thanks.”
Stanwick saw that out on the forecourt, another two cars had just pulled up to the pumps, “Guys, we need to get it together now!”
David stood by the door, holding Stephanie’s head close to his side. He looked at the limp lump of skin-head on the floor.
“I think he’s still breathing.”
Stanwick grinned, “Marvelous. Not even a day out the gate and it looks like Stephanie might have sired her first Blood-Bastard.”
David grimaced as she looked at the pool of blood by Stephanie’s feet, “What do you mean?”
“She got her teeth in good David, it’s possible that some of the leeches made the transfer from her saliva. He might just be on his last legs though. I wouldn’t over think it. Either way, we have to leave him and hope for the best.”
David stroked Stephanie’s hair reassuringly and looked out onto the forecourt.
From behind the counter, West called over to Stanwick, “What about the other two?”
“I told them to stay in the back office for five minutes, then dial 911 and notify the dispatcher that a seven-year-old child mauled a guy who was trying to make off without paying.”
West looked uneasy, “Was that wise?”
Stanwick laughed, “I’m sure you’d rather we just bundle everyone into the cars in some vague hope that we can convince them everything will be just fine and dandy. We have to leave now, we don’t have time to go over the finer nuances of my logic.”
West nodded, slapped two hundred dollars on the counter top and then threw a small wad of notes onto Staci’s lap so that she would have something to smile about when she awoke. As he walked towards the exit, West imagined the gas station exploding in a ball of flames, wiping away all of the DNA, fingerprints and bad decisions in one glorious blast; any thought to block out the voices. He knew the Jim’s Joint employees had made the call already. He just hoped they would be on the road before the police showed up.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Compound Fracture
It felt to Stephanie as if the sirens had been following right behind them for an eternity. The thought of being separated from her parents had been frightening, even though she was already starting to feel comfortable in the presence of Charlene and West. Now, hunkered down in the rear seats of the Boss, she was certain that she was going to die or they were going to be arrested. Her head bumped hard against the passenger door and she was forced to revise her thinking; they were definitely going to die.
As far as she was concerned, her immanent demise was West’s fault. Yes, attacking the man may have been an ill conceived plan on her part, but it had been West who had convinced her father that she would be safer with him, because he had the only car that stood any chance in a high speed pursuit.
She heard the rapid thudding overhead which had faded in and out of earshot a few times. Against David’s wishes, she’d seen enough t.v. shows to know you can’t outrun the helicopter. Every time she’d watched those police camera programs, she’d thought, “Yeah, but what if …” and every time, well, almost every time the result was catastrophic.
“Stephanie, how are you doing back there?”
West’s voice was calm, happy almost.
Stephanie hadn’t realized she was crying until she attempted to reply, and could only manage a ragged, “Are we going to die?”
Charlene reached back and clutched Stephanie’s small clammy hand in hers, “We’re fine sweetheart, don’t worry.”
Stephanie heard the whisper, even over the sirens and the thudding of the helicopter, and the Boss’s engine roar, “We are going to be fine right?”
West patted Charlene’s knee, shouting over the din, “Just focus on your skull and your heart.”
“What?” Charlene asked, desperately trying to sound calm for Stephanie’s sake.
“We should be fine,” West replied, “but in the event of a crash, your skull and your heart are the only things to worry about; as long as they survive, you’ll be fine.”
Charlene squeezed Stephanie’s hand tighter, “Did you get that Stephanie?”
West weaved in and out of traffic with gentle nudges of the steering wheel, his reactions considerably more in tune than those of the average dashboard camera quarry. The helicopter was a concern, but he guessed that if the traffic opened up ahead of them, the helicopter wouldn’t be an issue. He knew the roads of America like the backs of his hand, and in West’s case, this was not a hollow metaphor. Still, he thought as he clipped the front bumper of a police Charger with his tail end, it wasn’t obvious how he was going to make it to the parking lot of the public library in Mechanicsburg without leaving an incredibly conspicuous trail.
Mechanicsburg had been an arbitrary choice for a meeting place. It wasn’t far off the interstate and he had been convinced he would be able to lose the police and make it there for three in the afternoon. The pursuit had so far not been particularly easy, taking him off the interstate twice in an attempt to shake the police. He took his eyes off the road ahead for a moment, checking the time on the car’s console; twenty miles in six minutes. Well with no traffic, the Boss could definitely do it, but that was hardly the point. Charlene’s involuntary scream drew his attention back to the road just in time for him to tuck the car in front of an eighteen wheeler, narrowly missing a Cruiser which was dawdling at a pedestrian pace in the fast lane.
West had developed theories over the years about the type of people who drove certain car brands, but eventually, he’d come to the conclusion that most drivers were simply ass holes. This experience was doing little to dissuade him from that opinion. A marked Tahoe came into view in the driver side window and he could see a police officer in the window, hand pointing towards the shoulder of the interstate, his voice issuing from unseen loudspeakers, “Pull over!”
Spotting an opening in the traffic ahead of him, West floored the accelerator and shouted, “Stephanie, I need you to get off the floor, get into a seat, and fasten your seatbelt. It’s just a precaution, but it is necessary.”
If this opening developed into a good clean stretch, he wou
ld loose the two Tahoe and the Chargers quickly. If he could keep his driving clean for eighteen miles, he could plausibly build up a lead of several miles on the helicopter by the time he reached the exit ramp.
In less than a minute, he could see the chopper falling away in his side mirrors. This was good, it meant that the police weren’t pursuing in a particularly high caliber helicopter, or that the wind was on his side. Within two-minutes, the helicopter had become a barely visible spec in the mirror. Three minutes, with only a couple of easy passes on the road and the pursuing vehicles were nowhere to be seen.
“Up ahead West … cars either side of the road.” Charlene’s fingers gripped his thigh as she spoke, but West was oblivious to her touch, “There might be spike strips?”
“Stingers.” Stephanie yelled from the back seat, correcting Charlene.
West nodded, “We can handle stingers. The tires are self healing.”
As they approached roadblock, West could see that two of the cars were pulling onto the road to form a blockade. He tried to calculate the variables that were weighing in on their predicament. The Boss was a masterpiece, and he was proud of it. It took something pretty special for West to feel that sense of achievement. Still, there was a blockade, and even given the wonderful advantage conveyed by his hand built engine, the Boss just couldn’t fly. Shame, thought West as he cut the steering wheel to the left. When they hit the grass embankment in the middle of the interstate, they were traveling at a steady pace of two hundred and seventeen miles per hour.
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 31