Night of Fear

by Peg Kehret

  The truck lurched to a stop. Brody rolled down his window and stared out. T.J. looked, too, trying to figure out what Brody was looking at. The moon was almost full, shedding a thin white light across the fields. T.J. could see rows of plants but he couldn’t tell what the crop was. Some sort of winter vegetable. Cabbages maybe, or brussels sprouts.

  On the far side of the field, T.J. saw a two-story farmhouse and, in the other direction, some outbuildings. T.J. breathed faster. Maybe he could get away and run to the farmhouse for help. This time, he wouldn’t say anything about the bank robbery or the murder. He would just say he had been kidnapped. This time, maybe someone would believe him.

  Brody shut off the truck’s lights but not the engine. He sat for a few moments with the engine idling and then he turned onto the road that led toward the house. It wound through the fields, past a rusting old hayrake, and then branched into a Y, with the left side going toward the house and the right side going toward the outbuildings.

  Brody turned right. The truck crept past a building that might have been for equipment storage and then past a barn. It stopped in front of a small shed. Moonlight glinted off the shed’s corrugated-tin roof. The shed was painted white with bright blue trim. Pink poppies blossomed along the front.

  Brody got out of the truck but left the engine running.

  Too bad the truck doesn’t have an automatic transmission, T.J. thought. Even though he had never driven, he could probably manage if he didn’t have to shift.

  Still, this was a chance to escape. T.J. slid slowly across the seat until he was behind the wheel. He looked over his shoulder; Brody was walking beside the shed, looking at the ground.

  T.J. released the emergency brake, pushed in the clutch with his left foot, and tried to shift into Drive. The truck made a screeching sound, like fingernails being scraped across a blackboard, and promptly quit running. T.J. turned the key; the truck screeched again.

  This isn’t going to work, T.J. realized. Even if I can get it started, it’s too dangerous to drive when I haven’t a clue what I’m doing. He quickly slid back to the passenger’s side, surprised that Brody had not come out when the truck screeched.

  Inside the shed, an animal whinnied. T.J. got out, opened the door of the shed, and looked inside.

  Except for the patch of moonlight that shone through the open door onto the hay-covered dirt floor, it was dark in the shed. It took a moment for T. J.’s eyes to get used to the dark. He heard a movement to his right and saw a small pony, tethered in a stall. The pony’s ears stuck straight up and his tail swished nervously. He looked at T.J., opened his mouth and whinnied again, showing his teeth.

  “Hello to you, too,” T.J. said.

  A piece of the shed’s tin roof flapped once in the wind and then lay still.

  The inside of the shed was painted white, and a saddle, reins, and horse blanket hung in a tidy row on one wall. Inside the stall, T.J. saw that the pony had a clean bed of hay and a feeding trough that said FRISKIE in blue letters. A small table held brushes. Probably some kid’s pet, he thought, as he closed the door.

  Brody was walking next to the equipment shed. “Revenge,” he said.

  T.J. waited.

  “Get in the truck.”

  They both climbed back in the truck. Brody made a U-turn. T.J. could hear Brody’s breath coming quickly, as if he had been running. Neither of them spoke.

  Brody drove back past the barn and the equipment shed and then stopped again. That time, he turned off the engine and pocketed the keys.

  “Put your head down,” Brody said. T.J. obeyed. “Don’t make a sound. If you stop me, you’ll regret it.”

  He got out.

  T.J. heard noise at the back of the truck. It sounded as if Brody was untying the tarp. He waited a minute and then looked.

  Brody was hurrying back the way he had just come, carrying what looked like a pail in his right hand. The moonlight reflecting off the tin roof of the shed acted as a beacon. T.J. saw Brody disappear inside the shed.

  T.J. squinted at the door of the shed; Brody stayed inside. T.J. opened the truck door as quietly as he could, glad that the overhead light did not work. He listened. The loose piece of tin flapped twice on the roof. The pony neighed.

  T.J. swung his legs to the side and slid off the seat. His feet touched the ground. His ears strained to hear if Brody was coming but he heard only the neighing of the pony, louder now. The animal clearly did not like Brody disturbing him.

  At that moment, it occurred to T.J. that Brody might have left the gun in the truck. Was it still tucked into his jacket pocket, or was it lying in the truck where T.J. could get it? T.J. leaned back in, feeling quickly across the seat. When the gun wasn’t there, he stuck his hand underneath the driver’s seat, moving it back and forth, with his fingers outstretched. He found only a half-empty pack of cigarettes.

  He straightened and looked into the bed of the truck. The tarp was pulled back, revealing a row of four red and yellow five-gallon gasoline cans, the kind the Stensons used to fill their power lawn mower. If they were full, Brody could drive a long time without needing to stop at a service station. T.J. lifted one of the cans, intending to pour the gasoline out. It was empty.

  Quickly, he lifted the other cans. They were empty, too.

  T.J. walked away from the truck, toward the farmhouse. He wanted to run but he was afraid of making noise. He wanted a good head start before Brody discovered that he wasn’t in the truck. He picked each foot up carefully and set it down gingerly, nervous that he would cause a twig to snap or a pebble to roll. Slowly, quietly, he walked farther from the shed, away from the truck. The pony neighed again, sounding frantic now. What was Brody doing back there?

  With the pony making so much noise, T.J. dared to walk faster. When he judged that he was more than halfway to the house, he broke into a run, his arms pumping at his sides. Brody couldn’t catch him now. He would easily make it to the house and get help. Even if Brody was already on his way back to the truck and discovered that T.J. didn’t wait there, he couldn’t catch up to T.J. now, not before T.J. got to the house.

  Exultation made T.J. run even faster. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw an eerie glow. It took a second for him to realize what it was.

  The shed was on fire. Bright yellow fingers of flame reached out the open door, grasping at the edges of the tin roof.

  The pony’s terrified voice sliced through the night; the creature’s fear sent a thrill of horror down T.J.’s arms. He remembered the dry hay on the ground, the wooden stall where the pony was tethered.

  The pony neighed again. It was a higher pitch than before, almost a scream. T.J. turned around and ran back toward the shed.

  Back at the restaurant, Mrs. Stenson looked at her watch. “Goodness,” she said. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. We’d better be on our way.”

  Other parents murmured surprise that so much time had passed.

  Mr. Stenson agreed that they should leave. But even after everyone gathered their coats and left a tip and paid the bill, the parents clustered in the parking lot, still talking about how they could keep their children safe.

  When the Stensons finally reached their own driveway, the house was dark.

  “It looks as if T.J. already got Mother to bed,” Mrs. Stenson said. “I hope she didn’t give him any trouble.”

  “You worry too much,” Mrs. Stenson said. “T.J. is quite capable, when he has to be.”

  “I’m surprised he went to bed already, too. He was going to watch a movie on TV.”

  “Maybe he’s in training for tomorrow’s basketball game. Which reminds me: his coach told me tonight about a basketball camp that he’d like T.J. to attend. He feels T.J. is an extraordinary player, for his age.”

  “Oh?” Mrs. Stenson turned on a light in the living room and sat down. “Tell me about it.”

  T.J.’s feet pounded down the dirt lane, his breath coming in gasps now. He coughed, choking as he inhaled smoke. Ahead of him, he
saw flames darting through the open door of the shed.

  As he approached the burning shed, he saw Brody standing off to one side, watching the fire. A gasoline can, like the ones in the back of the truck, sat on the ground beside him. Brody smiled, looking like the groom at a wedding or an athlete who had just broken a world’s record. How could he stand there, looking so happy, when a helpless animal was about to be cremated alive less than twenty feet away? Did he plan to set the other buildings on fire, too?

  T.J. didn’t stop to ask questions. He drew in his breath, held it, and ran through the open door of the pony’s shed. On his left, the flames were shoulder high. T.J. feared the wall on that side would collapse any second. To his right, the frantic pony pawed and kicked at his stall. The whites of the animal’s eyes were enormous with fear. His lip curled up and he neighed over and over, with no pause in between.

  The slight covering of hay on the dirt floor had burned itself out. The ground still smoldered but at least T.J. did not have to run through flames.

  He looked over the top of the gate on the pony’s stall and saw a metal latch that would allow the gate to swing open. He reached for the latch and then jerked away; the metal was so hot it burned his fingers. Instinctively, he stuck his singed fingers in his mouth and licked them.

  He pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt down over his hand and tried again. With the sweatshirt acting as a pot holder, he got the latch open.

  Sweat ran down the back of his neck. He had to let his breath out and inhale again. He held his arm up, trying to filter the smoky air through the sleeve of his shirt.

  He kicked the gate open and saw that the pony was tied to the far side of the stall. T.J. stepped into the stall and fumbled with the pony’s tether. The animal seemed to sense that T.J. was trying to help him. He quit jerking his head and stopped kicking at the stall. His eyes seemed to plead with T.J. to hurry.

  The tether was knotted around one side of the stall. T.J. pulled frantically at the leather strap, trying to untie the knot. He was choking now and his eyes smarted and watered so much that he had to blink constantly in order to see what he was doing.

  The tin roof crackled from the heat. Beside him, the wooden walls sizzled and spit like a steak on the broiler. The flames danced around the perimeter of the shed.

  At last, the knot gave way. Grasping the tether in both hands, T.J. tugged, leading the pony out of the stall. When the frightened animal saw that T.J. was pulling him toward the burning wall on the other side of the doorway, he braced his legs and held back. Clearly, the pony did not want to go closer to the flames.

  T.J. pulled. “Come on, Friskie. This is your only chance. There is no other way out.”

  The pony whinnied in terror and began to buck.

  There was only one door. If they didn’t get through it soon, it would be too late. The entire left wall of the shed was now on fire; soon there would be nothing left to hold up that portion of the roof.

  Sparks exploded like a string of firecrackers across the interior of the shed. Dry hay in the pony’s stall ignited.

  The pony looked over his shoulder and saw the fire burning in the stall. T.J. tugged on the tether. The pony put his ears back, stopped bucking, and followed.

  Just as T.J. pulled the pony through the door of the shed, the left half of the structure collapsed. With one side of the shed gone, the fire spread quickly through the rest. The dry wood of the door frame splintered and began to burn. Within seconds, the open door was a solid sheet of flame.

  One minute later, T.J. thought, and the pony and I would both have been trapped inside.

  The rest of the shed buckled inward and fell to the ground.

  Ashes, smoke, and tiny bits of wood billowed toward the moon like an erupting volcano. The tin roof bounced slightly as it clanged to the ground.

  The noise made the frightened pony bolt and the tether jerked out of T.J.’s hands. The pony galloped toward the farmhouse.

  T.J. stood as if he were hypnotized, watching the fire.

  Within seconds, the shed was gone. Only the blackened roof remained on the ground, with smoke pouring out from under it on all sides.

  A bright flicker on the far side of the shed caught T.J.’s attention. Hot ash or a piece of burning wood must have dropped into dry grass.

  He circled the smoking remnants of the shed. When he got to the far side, a small grass fire was spreading away from the pony shed, toward the barn. T.J. stamped on the flames, trying to get them out with his feet. Just as he got one spot out, the flames cropped up again a few feet away.

  A grass fire, he knew, could be even more dangerous than the shed fire was. A grass fire, once it got out of control, could sweep quickly across many acres, laying waste not only the crops but everything else that stood in its way: equipment, vehicles, and even the farmhouse.

  Three small fires erupted at the same time, a few feet apart. Sparks were obviously smoldering in the dry grass.

  T.J. took off his sweatshirt and, holding tightly to the sleeves, beat at the flames.

  Whack! Whack! The sweatshirt slapped the ground, smothering the fire beneath it. He could cover more ground at one time with the sweatshirt than he could with his feet. Smoke rose from under the sweatshirt and T.J. feared the material would catch fire, too, but it didn’t.

  Whack! Whack! T.J. flung the shirt again and again, until he thought his arms would fall off.

  It worked. The burning grass smoldered and smoked but the flames died out, leaving only a charred black area on the ground.

  T.J. stood still, his breath coming fast. His nostrils and throat felt raw from the smoke he’d breathed and he had a taste of smoke in his mouth, as if he had swallowed great gulps of it. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, wishing he had a drink of cold water. He waited and watched, to be sure the fire didn’t start up again.

  Smoke hung thick and heavy in the air, making the night seem darker than before. The remains of the shed hissed and snapped as they settled to their final resting place.

  When he was certain the grass fires were out, T.J. looked around for Brody. He was gone.

  T.J.’s weariness lifted. Maybe I can still get away, he thought. With a fresh burst of energy, he ran the same way the pony had run: toward the house. Toward help.

  As he approached the spot where the lane branched, he saw that the truck was still parked there. There wasn’t any way to reach the house without passing the truck. T.J. narrowed his eyes, trying to see if Brody was behind the wheel. The truck appeared empty.

  T.J. drew closer. When he was nearly to the spot where the road branched, Brody stood up. He had been sitting on the ground with his back against the truck’s rear tire.

  Brody stretched and took a step toward T.J. “Wasn’t that something?” he said. He sounded awed, as if he’d just witnessed a glorious sunset or seen a bald eagle in flight. “My old man would be proud of that one.”

  T.J. slowed to a walk but kept moving. He passed the front of the truck. He turned, walking backward, so he could keep an eye on Brody.

  “Get in,” Brody said. “It’s time to go.”

  “I’m not going with you anymore.”

  “I said, get in.” The voice was harsh now.

  “No!” T.J. backed away from Brody’s outstretched hand. “You can go on by yourself. I’m staying here.”

  “Get in the truck!” The tone of Brody’s voice was ominous.

  T.J. hesitated. There had been no gun in the truck. Was there one in Brody’s pocket? Maybe Brody didn’t even have a gun. Maybe he had shoved something else in his pocket, back there in the Crowleys’ barn.

  Maybe, T.J. thought, I should run.

  The pony whinnied again, this time from the direction of the house.

  “Get in,” Brody hissed. “Now.” He grabbed for T.J.’s shoulder.

  T.J. ducked, whirled around, and ran.

  Brody instantly dove forward and his outstretched hands caught T.J.’s ankles, tackling him from behind.
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  Brody’s fingers dug into T.J.’s ankles as T.J. landed face down in the dirt.

  “You are asking for real trouble, boy,” Brody said. He kept one hand on T.J. as they both stood up.

  Whether he has a gun or not, T.J. thought, he’s stronger than I am. He can force me to go with him and I’ll just make it worse for myself if I run again.

  Wearily, he returned to the truck and got in.

  Grandma Ruth stumbled on a protruding tree root. She grabbed at a bush to steady herself and then quit walking. She looked in all directions but, no matter which way she turned, it seemed the same.

  The woods had always been a joyful place, full of adventure and discovery. Now, for the first time in her life, she was unhappy here. She was tired, too tired to go another step. She decided to do as the animals do and make herself a nest in the dry leaves. She would curl up on the forest floor, like a fox or a fawn, and fall asleep.

  Tomorrow, after she was rested, she would go home. Surely by morning, Edward would find her. He would hug her and take her home and tease her about her foolishness.

  “How could you get lost in our own woods, Ruthie?” he would say. “You know every stone and leaf better than the squirrels who live here.”

  And she would laugh and tell him, “I wasn’t lost. I just decided to spend the night with the deer.”

  Smiling, Grandma Ruth eased her weary body to the ground and closed her eyes. She heard only the slight rustling of the leaves as an occasional breeze brushed her face. It seemed as if she were the only person in the universe.

  Then, not far away, she heard the yipping of a coyote and she felt less alone.

  Chapter Eight

  Brody drove slowly away, with no lights.

  Am I a coward? T.J. wondered. Did I give in too easily? I could have yelled, and struggled with him; someone might have heard us. If I had kicked him and bit him, I might have been able to get away and outrun him. Maybe Craig Ackerley is right. Maybe I am scared to fight. Maybe I am a wimp.