by Lukens, Mark
The road through the woods had turned into the main street of Purgatory; it ran straight on down through the town, which was just a line of one and two-story businesses on each side of the road. Farther down were two sets of blinking yellow traffic lights where side roads branched off. At the other end of town were the snow-capped mountains in the distance.
Something was wrong with this town; Hank could tell that right away.
He passed a drug store, a bed and breakfast, and a barbershop. Then he pulled over in front of the next building which housed a veterinarian’s clinic squeezed in between an antique shop and a real estate office. All of the businesses seemed to be open; several of them even had OPEN signs in the doors or windows.
Hank pulled the Kia off the road and parked right behind an old Chevy van that had a massive dent in the back like something
(maybe a big black pickup truck)
had plowed into it. The van looked old, at least from the nineteen seventies. It had a ribbon of rust around the bottom panels and the windows were so dark they almost looked black.
The Kia’s motor chugged and coughed when he put the car in park. And then the engine died. A ghostly mist of steam rose up from the front of the car.
“Shit,” Hank breathed out. He tried to start the car but there was nothing. He turned the key over and over again but the car didn’t even try to crank.
“What is it?” Julie said as she climbed back into the passenger seat.
“Car’s dead.” He looked past Julie at the vet’s clinic. “Come on, we need to get some help.”
Hank didn’t wait for Julie. He got out of the car and stood up on legs that felt like Jell-O. He slammed his door shut and glanced up and down the lonely main street. He saw several cars and trucks parked in front of the businesses, and all of them had some kind of dents or damage to them.
What bothered Hank even more was that he didn’t see any vehicles driving around. He didn’t see anyone walking, no one entering or leaving any of the buildings. He didn’t even hear any noise. No cars, no music, no talking. He heard nothing but the bitter wind which seemed to be growing colder by the moment.
“I don’t see anyone,” Hank said as Julie got out of the car. “I’ll go get help. See if you can get Cassie out of the back seat.”
Hank hurried around the front of the car, and as he stepped onto the sidewalk he glanced back at the road they had driven in on. He had a mental picture of the black pickup truck roaring out of the woods into town and slamming into their car just as Julie got Cassie out, pinning their crushed bodies in between the pickup’s grill and the mangled Kia.
He didn’t see the truck coming out of the woods, and he didn’t even hear the roar of the truck in the silence.
Maybe he wasn’t coming after them.
But Hank wasn’t taking any chances. He hurried back around to the back door on the driver’s side and helped Julie pull Cassie out. She was still unconscious and he had a chance to look over her injuries. She had a lot of minor cuts on her face, neck, and arms; but the major damage was two deep cuts, one on her right upper arm and one on her right thigh. The wounds were bleeding pretty badly. They needed to get the bleeding stopped.
Julie shut the back door as Hank cradled his little girl in his arms. Her blood leaked out onto him, but he didn’t care. He held the back of her head in one hand and struggled not to cry.
He ran with Cassie in his arms up to the sidewalk. Julie was already in front of him, already calling out for help.
But no one came.
“The veterinarian’s clinic,” Hank said through blurry tears. “Go in there.”
And then Hank’s heart skipped a beat.
He heard the truck’s motor rumbling from down the road in the woods.
He was coming back.
They had to hurry.
And he didn’t need to waste words or energy telling Julie to hurry. She could hear the truck coming—she knew as well as he did the danger they were in now.
She wrenched the door open to the vet’s clinic and held it open for Hank as he ducked inside with their daughter in his arms. As he entered, he saw a flash of his wife’s face; she looked years older suddenly, her face drawn down in concern, her eyes dark and wide with fear.
The bell dinged as Julie slammed the door shut.
“Hey!” Julie shouted. “We need some help here! My daughter’s hurt!!”
No answer. Not a peep from anyone.
The lights were on in the waiting room and behind the registration window. The waiting room was furnished with comfortable seating and tables with out-of-date magazines on them and fake plants in the corners.
“Nobody’s here,” Hank said, still holding Cassie in his arms, shock on his face. “There’s no one in this whole damn building. I haven’t seen anyone on the streets. No cars driving around.” His words came out panic-quick, and he could hear his own voice trembling.
The pickup truck was coming. He could hear it outside. The man was coming back for them.
Julie burst through the door that led to the back, and a moment later Hank saw her in the receptionist’s area. She screeched as she ran to a desk with a phone on it.
“Hello!! We need help!!”
She tried the phone on the desk. She listened for two seconds, then pounded on the buttons, and finally threw the phone down on the desk.
Hank hurried through the open door and caught up with Julie.
“None of the phones work,” Julie told him.
“Help me find a place to lie her down.”
Julie ran to a hall that led towards the back of the building, there were doors on each side of the hall. She burst into the first room on the right and turned on the light. Hank followed her inside and saw a large padded table that was probably for dogs. He lowered Cassie down to the vinyl surface gently. He looked around the small room and saw a few medical supplies probably meant for pets, but maybe they could find something for Cassie.
“Those white towels,” Hank said to Julie.
Julie grabbed the towels and pressed them down on the two worst wounds, the one on her arm and her leg.
Cassie looked so pale.
“Did you lock the front door?” Hank said as the thought of the black pickup truck raced through his mind again.
Julie stared at him in horror. “I … I …” She shook her head no. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Hank told her. “I need to go back out there and lock it. We can’t let that guy in here.”
“He followed us,” Julie said with horror. “He’s coming back for us?”
“I think so. I need to go see if it’s him out there. Maybe it’s not; maybe it’s someone who can help us.”
Julie nodded quickly, her eyes so large. She kept the towels pressed down on Cassie’s wounds, trying to stop the flow of blood. But the blood was already beginning to soak the towels.
“I’m going to turn the lights off out there,” Hank told Julie. “I’ll keep this one on, but I’m going to need to shut the door.”
Julie nodded again so quickly it was almost like a tremor had run through her body forcing her head up and down. “Just hurry.”
Hank left the room and closed the door. He hurried down the hall, flipping off lights as he went, and he entered the reception area. There were two desks and a wall of filing cabinets. He found a plate of switches on a wall and he flipped all of them down.
Even from the reception area he could hear the rumbling of the truck outside. The truck was right out there in the street, probably right in front of this building; the man inside probably saw the lights turn off in here.
Hank had to force his legs to move, he had to force his muscles into action. He bolted out into the waiting room which was much lighter because of the row of windows that looked out onto the street.
He imagined that when he got to the door to lock it, the door would fly open and a gigantic man would loom in the doorway, perhaps wearing a dark duster and old cowboy hat that hid his grizzled
face in shadows. But the man would definitely be holding a shotgun so he could finish the job that he had started.
But when Hank reached the door, it didn’t fly open. He slammed his body against the door and fumbled with the lock before finally twisting it and hearing the satisfying clicking sound. He backed away from the door and rushed over to the first window. All of the blinds were drawn (Thank God), but the dull late afternoon light still shined through. He crouched down beside the first window and pried the bottom of the blinds open with two fingers and peeked outside.
He saw the black pickup truck parked in the middle of the street blocking their Kia in, just like he had imagined it in his mind. He could see the shadowy figure of a large man sitting behind the steering wheel. The man had some kind of hat on—maybe a cowboy hat.
The truck sat there in the road, raised up high on large, knobby tires. The truck had chrome running boards, a chrome roll bar, and dual chrome exhaust pipes that poured out white smoke into the cold air. There was some kind of small chrome hood ornament at the end of the hood, and even from the window Hank could tell it was some kind of angel leaning forward with its wings folded back.
The man in the truck was just waiting patiently with the truck’s engine rumbling.
He’s just sitting right out there in the middle of the street like he knows no one is coming, Hank thought. It’s like he was pushing us to this town, herding us here.
And where is everybody? Did they all leave? Did he do something to them? Are they all dead?
As Hank stared at the pickup truck, he noticed something else that caused his heart to skip a beat with horror. The pickup truck wasn’t damaged anywhere that he could see. He tried to remember back to the accident, he tried to remember what the truck looked like. Had the front of the truck been smashed in? A headlight busted? The chrome bumper dented in?
He couldn’t remember. Everything seemed so fuzzy, even his memory of the accident. He couldn’t remember what they had been doing before they were hit. How had he not seen the truck coming for them?
A howl from the back of the vet’s clinic drew Hank away from the window; he pulled his hand away from the blinds and let them snap back in place.
Julie was crying out from the back.
Hank jumped to his feet and ran back to the room he’d left Julie and Cassie in. He burst through the door and saw Julie rocking Cassie back and forth in her arms. Cassie looked even more pale and bloody—she looked lifeless.
“I don’t think she’s breathing,” Julie sobbed.
Hank rushed over to them. He checked Cassie’s throat for a pulse. It was weak, but it was there.
“She’s still got a heartbeat,” he told her.
“We need help. We need to find a phone. Someone in this town has to help us.”
Hank nodded. “Listen to me, that guy in the pickup truck is outside.”
Julie froze.
“He’s just sitting in his truck, parked beside our car like he’s guarding it.”
“What does he want?”
“I don’t know,” Hank said, but he felt like he was lying. He was pretty sure he knew what that man wanted—to finish the job he had started and to leave no witnesses behind.
“I’m going out the back and get to another building,” Hank said. “Try to find a phone. You stay here and keep the towels on Cassie’s wounds. You’ve got to press on them. Maybe try to find some kind of tape in here.”
“What if he tries to get in here?”
As if on cue, they heard a smashing noise from the front of the building—like something (maybe the pickup truck) had smashed into the front door and windows.
“He’s trying to get inside!” Julie hissed, her eyes wide with terror.
“Okay. Give me Cassie. I’ll carry her. We need to go out the back.”
Julie nodded vehemently, but she wasn’t moving, frozen for a moment, still clutching their daughter in her arms.
Hank gently pried Cassie out of Julie’s grasp and held her in his arms. He knew he should be looking for something to bandage her wounds with, but another danger was at the front door and he didn’t have time. They needed to run.
“Come on, Julie,” Hank whispered. “Follow me.”
They left the room and hurried down the dark hallway to the back of the building.
There was another crashing sound from the front of the building, like a window being shattered.
Hank saw an exit sign lit up near the ceiling above a steel door with a push bar. He pushed the door open with his hip, expecting to hear a shrill alarm sounding off. But no alarm sounded.
Julie followed Hank out into the air that seemed to have gotten twenty degrees colder since their short time inside the vet’s clinic. They ran past the back of the building along a gravely lane big enough to drive a garbage truck down. And Hank saw a garbage dumpster, pallets, and some old boxes stacked up at the corner of the building.
On the other side of the gravel drive was a retaining wall eight feet high constructed of cinder blocks. Above the wall was a hill that rose steeply up to the woods.
They reached the exit door of the next business (Hank couldn’t remember what it was) and Julie tried the door.
Locked.
They heard a noise from behind them. They turned and saw the black pickup truck rounding the corner of the first building and driving down the gravely path towards them.
“Run!” Hank shouted.
They ran. Hank was a few steps behind Julie because Cassie was weighing him down a little. They didn’t even bother trying any of the exterior doors as they raced past the buildings.
“Up ahead!” Hank shouted. “An alley.”
Julie didn’t waste energy answering; she just ran to the alley and ducked into it. Hank was right behind her. The alley was narrow—way too narrow for the pickup truck to follow them. They ran down the alley, past a few doors and barred windows. The sky was growing dark quickly, almost like a sudden storm was moving in. Hank glanced up and saw the iron-gray sky darkening, but he didn’t see any storm clouds brewing above them—it was just solid gray.
They raced towards the other end of the alley that opened out onto the sidewalk. It was getting dark quickly, but it was still lighter out there on the street than it was in the alley.
They got out onto the street and hesitated for a moment. They were about to turn right and head down the street, but they heard the now-familiar sound of the rumbling pickup truck. It was coming back out onto the street from the first building. It was like the man in the truck knew every move they were going to make. And even from this far away, Hank could see that the black pickup truck was undamaged. The headlights and fog lights were on, shining down the street. As hard as they had been hit, the truck should’ve sustained some kind of damage.
The truck idled on the street. Just waiting there, like it was waiting for them to make their next move.
“Come on,” Hank said and they ran to the next business—a bar called The Mountain Tavern. The door was locked. They pounded on the door. Julie peeked through the tinted windows, her hands cupped on each side of her face.
“There are people in there!” she shouted.
She pounded on the glass with her fists as hard as she could, but the glass seemed unusually thick. “Hey!” she shouted. “We need help!! Our daughter’s bleeding to death!!”
Hank peeked through the window while still managing to hold onto Cassie. He saw people inside at the bar. They were drinking, dancing, watching TV. A bartender struggled to keep up with the demand for drinks.
“HEY!!” Hank shouted until his throat hurt. He tried the door again, but it wouldn’t budge. He kicked at it but did no damage.
Why weren’t those people helping them?
Hank heard the rumble of the pickup truck. It was much closer now.
“Daddy,” Cassie whispered.
Hank looked down at his daughter as she opened her eyes. “Just hang on, sweetie,” he told her as unnoticed tears spilled from his eyes. “I�
��m going to help you, I swear.”
“Do you see the light, Daddy?”
Even though Cassie’s voice was a whisper, Hank could hear her clearly. She turned around in his arms and pointed down the street.
Hank saw it—a giant ball of light a few blocks away. The ball of light occupied the middle of the street, crackling with energy.
He knew he should be afraid … but he wasn’t.
• • •
The paramedics pulled Cassie out of the wrecked Kia Optima that was almost wrapped around a tree. They put her on a stretcher and wheeled her towards the waiting ambulance.
“This one’s still alive!” the paramedic shouted.
“What about the other two?”
The paramedic shook his head no. The mother and father were already gone.
The night had come quickly and an icy rain had been falling for over an hour now. It looked like the Kia had lost control and slid off the road. There were no other vehicles involved in the crash.
• • •
Cassie seemed to be getting stronger by the second in Hank’s arms, like she was coming back to life. She wasn’t as pale, her heartbeat was stronger, and her bleeding had stopped.
Hank set her down on the sidewalk and she stood there, staring at him. She was crying. And so was Julie.
“I love you,” Cassie said and she walked away from them towards the ball of light in the middle of the street which seemed a block closer now. And it seemed bigger. And brighter.
The pickup truck was closer, too. But the shadowy man hadn’t gotten out. Hank could see the chrome angel at the front of the hood much more clearly now. The angel was beautiful with her wings folded back like she was ready to fly off the hood of the truck at any moment and soar towards the ball of light.
Hank turned back to Julie and they followed Cassie down the street to the light, and even though it crackled with energy, Hank could only feel a warm heat from it that drove back the bitter cold all around them. It was warm inside that light, Hank was sure of that. And there was something else inside that light, a feeling of love and security that Hank couldn’t describe.