Night of Fear

by Peg Kehret

  “Lord God Almighty,” sang Grandma Ruth.

  “My truck’s just behind the barn. You and the nutty saint get in. You’re coming with me.”

  “You can’t take her! Half the time, she doesn’t know where she is or even who I am. If you leave her here, she won’t tell anyone about you. I swear it. She won’t remember.”

  The man hesitated.

  “If she’s with us,” T.J. said, “she’ll attract attention.”

  “OK. OK, we’ll leave her. Let’s go.”

  “I have to lock up the dogs first.” The lie rolled easily off his tongue. “Otherwise they’ll follow us. They’ll run after your truck.”

  “What dogs?”

  “The dogs that guard this property. I let them out of their pen just before I came in the barn and I have to put them back in.” If he could just get out the barn door, he could race home, call the police, and race back. Maybe then he could stall the man a little longer, and the police would find them while they were still here at the Crowleys. Even if he had to leave with the man in his truck, the police would know exactly what area to search. They would put up road blocks.

  “There are guard dogs out there?”

  “I have to lock them back in their pen.”

  “Well, make it fast. I’ll stay with the saint while you do it.”

  One of the kittens batted at Grandma Ruth’s shoelace. She laughed and wiggled her foot.

  T.J. turned toward the barn door. How long would it take him to sprint home, call the police, and run back? Six minutes? Seven? Could he be gone that long without making the man suspicious? He would have to run faster than he ever had before. It was the only way to get help.

  As if he could read T.J.’s mind, the man said, “Don’t try anything funny. If you aren’t back here in three minutes, this old saint’s going to need last rites.”

  T.J. gulped. There was no way he could make it across the field to his own house and back in only three minutes. He didn’t have a key to the Crowleys’ house or he would call from there.

  “Put those dogs in and come right back. Nothing else.”

  T.J. nodded. As he eased out the barn door, the man still stood directly behind Grandma Ruth. The hand in the jacket pocket was next to the gray curls that showed beneath her straw hat.

  Grandma Ruth smiled as a kitten jumped into her lap.

  T.J. closed the door behind him and bolted toward the dog pen. Salt and Pepper met him at the gate, leaping and wagging. T.J. opened the pen and put them in the pasture. They galloped happily away.

  If his parents saw the dogs there instead of in their pen, they would know something was wrong. They would come to investigate. So would the Crowleys, when they got home.

  T.J. knelt in the dirt beside the doghouse. With his finger he scratched, HELP BANK ROBBER TRUCK.

  He couldn’t take time to do more. He had used at least two minutes already.

  He wondered how long it would take his parents to look for him at the Crowleys’ house. They still thought Mr. and Mrs. Crowley were coming home today. They had no reason to think that T.J. would come over to feed the animals.

  If only he had left a note, telling his parents where he and Grandma Ruth were. He and his parents always left each other notes, if they went somewhere. But he had thought he would return long before his parents got home from Open House. There had been no reason to write a note.

  T.J. ran back to the barn. Grandma Ruth waved when she saw him. “Hello, David,” she said. “Did you come to see the kittens?”

  “Let’s go,” said the man.

  “Where’s the preacher going?” asked Grandma Ruth. “Aren’t we going to sing the hymns?”

  “The preacher and I will be back soon,” T.J. said. “Stay right where you are, Grandma Ruth. You’re . . . you’re in charge of the hymns today and I want you to stay right there and sing until we get back. Don’t leave, no matter how long we’re gone.”

  “Move it,” said the man, as he shoved T.J. toward the door.

  T.J. stumbled out the door. If Grandma Ruth stayed in the barn, she would be safe. Eventually, she would be found and taken home. If she wandered off, anything could happen to her. One of the remaining wooded areas in Pine Ridge County started on the other side of the Crowleys’ driveway and Grandma Ruth could easily get lost in the woods. She could fall and break a bone and not be found for hours.

  If she went the opposite direction, away from the woods, toward Ridge Road, there were other dangers. Cars drove too fast all over the Pine Ridge area and Grandma Ruth no longer remembered things like stopping to look before you cross a street.

  His mind darted from one terrible possibility to another. Despite recent development, there were still coyotes in the region and as their feeding grounds shrank, they had begun attacking household pets. T.J. didn’t think they ever attacked humans but he wasn’t sure.

  If the coyotes weren’t a threat, the people were. Groups of rowdy teenagers used the privacy of the woods at night to drink and smoke pot. T.J. had seen news reports of elderly people in other cities who were robbed and beaten by drunken gangs who chose helpless victims. If it could happen elsewhere, it could happen here. There had already been a murder; any other horror seemed possible, too.

  “You’re in charge of the hymns!” he shouted. “Don’t leave!” He shoved the barn door shut, wishing there was a latch or hook or some other way to lock Grandma Ruth inside.

  He looked around the Crowleys’ yard for a shovel or a piece of lumber that he could use to brace the barn door so it wouldn’t open. He saw nothing that would work.

  “Come on. Quit stalling.” The man grabbed T.J.’s arm and yanked him toward the back of the barn where a rusted blue pickup truck sat beside the bushes. A canvas tarp, fastened with a rope, covered something in the back of the truck. For one awful instant, T.J. wondered if it was the body of the bank clerk but then he remembered that she had died at the hospital.

  As T.J. climbed in the truck, he heard Grandma Ruth’s thin voice from inside the barn, singing, “Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty.”

  The man put the key in the ignition. The starter ground briefly and quit. He tried again. T.J. crossed his fingers. Maybe the truck wouldn’t start.

  The engine caught, died, and caught again. That time, the man gave it more gas and they lurched forward toward the Crowleys’ driveway.

  “Put your head down,” the man said.

  T.J. leaned forward, his head on his knees. He felt the truck bounce along the Crowleys’ private lane to the street and then turn left, toward Ridge Road.

  Chapter Four

  After a few minutes, T.J. started to sit up.

  “Keep your head down.”

  T.J. glanced at the man and then did as he was told. He wasn’t sure if the man was afraid T.J. would signal for help or if he just didn’t want T.J. to know which way they were going.

  The truck seat bounced and jiggled. The man turned so many times that T.J. gave up trying to tell where they were.

  Twice the truck stopped briefly, as if at a stoplight. T.J. wondered if other vehicles were stopped next to them. What would happen if he suddenly sat up and waved and yelled for help? T.J. lifted his head slightly.

  “Stay down,” the man growled.

  “I’m getting stiff,” T.J. said.

  “You’ll live.”

  The truck never went very fast and after several more turns, T.J. wondered if the man had a destination. He didn’t drive like someone who needed to escape. Although he must know that every cop in the county was looking for him, he seemed to drive aimlessly, as if he had all the time in the world and was enjoying the scenery.

  “Where are we going?” T.J. asked.

  “None of your business.”

  “They’ll be looking for me. My parents have called the cops by now.”

  “They won’t know where to look.”

  “You can’t keep me hostage forever. My folks will put my picture in all the papers and on the TV news. Someb
ody’s sure to recognize me.”

  “Who said anything about holding you hostage?”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  T.J. glared at the man. “What’s your name?”

  “Brody.”

  “Is that your first name or your last name?”

  “What is this, some sort of quiz? You want to call me by name, Brody is all you need to know.”

  “Have you ever been in jail?” T.J. asked.

  “No! And I’m never going to jail, either. What do you think I am, some kind of criminal?”

  “That’s what most people would say.”

  “Well, most people are wrong. I never stole anything and I never hurt anybody in my life.”

  “You don’t call it stealing to rob a bank?”

  “Don’t talk crazy.”

  “And the teller. I suppose you didn’t hurt that bank teller.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. I saw the TV news. It showed the bank and the ambulance and one of the nurses at the hospital.”

  “You’re crazy, boy. You’re talking out of your head.”

  “Me? I’m crazy?”

  “That’s what I said. I don’t know about any bank robbery so don’t go getting it into your mind that I do.”

  “Denying the truth won’t make it go away.”

  Grandma Ruth had told him that, when he was five years old and accidentally broke his mother’s favorite flower vase. Grandma Ruth found him burying the pieces in his sandbox.

  “Denying the truth won’t make it go away,” she said.

  T.J. shoveled more sand on the pieces of vase.

  “Go tell your mother what happened,” she advised him.

  “She’ll spank me.”

  “No, she won’t. Not if you say it was an accident and tell her you’re sorry.”

  He took her advice and was astonished when his mother hugged him and praised him for being honest. After that, he tried never to deny the truth.

  Keep singing, Grandma Ruth. They’ll find you soon.

  “I’m not denying the truth,” Brody said. “I’m opening some eyes so the truth is known.” He spoke with pride, as if he had been chosen by the President for an important assignment. “When I’m done, the whole world will know the truth of what it was like for me.”

  T.J. squinted in the darkness, trying to read the man’s face. “What exactly do you mean?” he asked.

  “Where were the cops when I needed them? Looking the other way, that’s where. Well, they won’t keep looking the other way when I’m finished.”

  The man’s voice rose as he talked, taking on the desperate quality that politicians got when they tried to convince people that they were the only ones who could save the country from disaster.

  Finished with what? T.J. wondered. The more Brody talked, the more unbalanced he seemed. T.J. remembered his dad saying the bank robber was probably on drugs. Maybe he was still high on something. He certainly sounded like a cokehead. Or maybe he was nuts. Or both.

  Great, T.J. thought. I’m riding around, going who knows where, with a lunatic on drugs behind the wheel.

  T.J. listened for traffic noise but heard nothing except the rattling of the truck itself.

  “I’m getting a kink in my neck,” T.J. said.

  Brody glanced out the windows in all directions. “All right. You can sit up.”

  As he did, the truck stopped at a red light. T.J. looked out the window at an abandoned grocery store, the sort of small Mom-and-Pop kind of store that used to be on Ridge Road, before the supermarket came. The store’s windows were boarded over and NO TRESPASSING was scrawled in large black letters on a crude wooden sign.

  He had no idea where they were. The only other building he saw was an old house with a faded sign out front: ANTIQUES. Diagonally across the sign was another sign that said, CLOSED.

  Next to the house was an empty lot with a chain-link fence around it. Whatever had stood on the lot was now demolished and T.J. suspected the antique shop and the grocery store were next in line for the wrecking ball. Dead leaves and crumpled papers clung to the bottom foot of the fence as if trying to climb over and escape.

  “Come on, come on,” Brody said to the red light. He looked in the rearview mirror and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  On the far corner of the old grocery store, blending in with the dirty exterior of the building, T.J. saw a phone booth. Without stopping to think, he flung open the door of the truck, leaped out, and sprinted toward the phone booth.

  Behind him, Brody yelled, “Hey!”

  In his haste, T.J. tripped on the curb and nearly fell. He stumbled, slowed, and managed to get his balance. Without looking back, he ran across what used to be the grocery store’s parking lot.

  He zigzagged as he ran, in case Brody took a shot at him. He hadn’t thought about the gun when he jumped out of the truck, which, he realized, was a stupid mistake. Still, it was dark now and T.J. was fast, and a moving target was hard to hit.

  He reached the phone booth and pulled on the door handle. Nothing happened. T.J. yanked harder; the door was stuck shut.

  T.J. put his shoulder against the rusted hinge in the center of the door and shoved. The door gave slightly. He stepped back, lifted his foot and kicked at the hinge, hoping he wouldn’t shatter the glass and cut his ankle to shreds. His heel hit right on the hinge, so hard that it sent ribbons of pain up T.J.’s leg, but the hinge gave way, and the door opened.

  He stepped inside the phone booth, grabbed the receiver with one hand and punched 9-1-1 with the other. It was a good thing the emergency number was always a free call, because T.J. had no money with him.

  Even with the door open, the phone booth smelled like moldy earth and dried urine. T.J. tried not to breathe the stale air.

  As he put the receiver to his ear, he looked to his right, through the dirty window of the phone booth, trying to see a street sign or something else that would indicate where he was so he could tell the emergency operator where to send help. He saw only the abandoned buildings.

  He looked to his left. Across the empty parking lot, he saw the blue pickup, sitting in the street with both doors wide open. A car, driving in the opposite direction, slowed while the driver looked at the truck. Then the car picked up speed and continued.

  T.J. pressed the receiver to his ear. “Help!” he yelled into the telephone.

  There was no reply.

  He poked 9-1-1 a second time.

  He heard nothing. No voice. No dial tone.

  T.J. jiggled the receiver holder and listened again.

  Nothing. The telephone was out of order.

  A hand clamped down on T.J.’s shoulder.

  It came to Dane in a flash: the perfect way to get Craig Ackerley to quit bothering T.J. He would videotape Craig being obnoxious and then show the tape in Communications class.

  As one of the school’s roving reporters, Dane was supposed to film ordinary scenes at random, edit them, and present a fifteen-minute video each Friday afternoon. The class loved seeing themselves and their friends; they called Dane’s presentations “The Pine Ridge Candid Camera.”

  Until now, Dane had shown only clips that made people look good. His aim had been to catch people unaware as they picked up litter, or told a funny story, or held a door for someone whose arms were full of books. But now he intended to be ready and the next time Craig started in on T.J., Dane would start the video camera.

  Dane knew what would happen if the whole Communications class saw Craig’s disgusting behavior. They would jeer and boo and give Craig a bad time about it. Craig would be so embarrassed that he would quit bothering T.J.

  Dane waited until Top Gun stopped for a commercial and then dialed T.J.’s number, eager to share his idea. He planned to assume a false voice when T.J. answered and say, “This is Mr. Fogbrain, head of the English department at Pine Ridge School. It has come
to my attention that your grades have slipped and therefore you are suspended from the basketball team.”

  But Dane never got to say his little joke because no one answered the phone at the Stensons’ house.

  That’s odd, Dane thought. He knew T.J. would watch his favorite movie. Well, maybe T.J. was in the bathroom or outside, calling his cat, Fluffy, home. He would try again later.

  T.J.’s arm shook as he hung up the pay phone.

  He turned to face Brody

  “I called 9-1-1,” he said. “I told them where we are. The police will be here any minute.”

  A flicker of fear shone for an instant in Brody’s eyes. He reached past T.J. and grabbed the telephone. “I’ll cancel the call,” he said. “I’ll tell them it was a practical joke.”

  He stretched the metal telephone cord taut across T.J.’s shoulder and leaned forward to put his ear to the receiver.

  For the first time, T.J. noticed that Brody wore a small gold earring in one ear. T.J. didn’t remember the television newsman mentioning an earring when he broadcast a description of the killer; the bank employees must not have seen it.

  Brody reached past T.J. to flick the receiver holder up and down. A slow smile formed. “You didn’t call anybody,” he said. “Not on this phone.”

  He dropped the receiver. It clanked twice against the back of the phone booth and then dangled helplessly.

  Brody yanked T.J. out of the phone booth and shoved him toward the street where the truck sat.

  T.J. looked in all directions, hoping another car would come along. The street was deserted.

  T.J. got in the truck. Brody closed the door and climbed in the other side.

  “That was a stupid thing to do,” Brody said. “You might have got hurt, jumping out like that. You don’t want to get hurt, do you?”

  “No.”

  “All right, then. You do as I say from now on.”

  T.J. nodded.

  Brody started the truck. “Down,” he said.

  “I won’t jump out again.”

  “Down!”

  T.J. bent forward and put his head on his knees. Next time, he would think it through before he made a move. He shouldn’t have tried it when there were no other people around. He should have waited until there was another car nearby, or people who would hear his shouts and rescue him.