by Tom Franklin
“Open it,” he growled, nodding to the van, “and get the kids in. Now.”
Stunned, Anna dropped her keys on the pavement. The man glared at her, said, “Pick ’em up,” and turned to make sure they weren’t being watched. Both the children were cowering against the side of the van.
Anna knelt to pick up the keys, and when the man turned to her again she did something she would never until this instant have dreamed of doing: she leaned to the left, wrapped her left hand around her right fist, and pistoned straight up from her kneeling position, her right elbow jabbing upward like a spear. As hard as she could, with all the strength of both legs and both arms behind the surge, she drove the point of her elbow up into the hollow underneath the short man’s chin—it thunked like an axe being swung into an oak trunk. The man’s head snapped back, all his muscles went limp, and for a second or two he stood there staring up at the gray sky with eyes that were already rolling back into his head. Then he collapsed like a rag doll and lay flat on the ground, all his limbs extended toward the four points of the compass. A revolver he had taken from his pocket clattered onto the concrete.
Trembling, Anna kicked the gun underneath a car, gathered her children to her like chicks, and steered them toward the store while she took out her cell phone and punched in 911. Behind her, the hapless carjacker twitched, gagged, and staggered to his feet. Bent almost double, he stumbled away with his eyes squeezed shut and his tongue out and both hands holding his throat. Anna, safely inside the store now, saw him blunder headfirst into a parked truck and fall to his knees. Finally he disappeared around the corner of the building.
Half an hour later all the right questions had been asked and answered, and the police left with a bagged-and-tagged weapon, a detailed account of the incident, and an even more detailed description of the attacker. No one knew where he’d gone or how he’d gotten away, but Anna was repeatedly assured that they would find him. She didn’t much care. Her family was safe, and that was all that mattered. She was walking for the second time to her minivan with her children when a newly arrived state trooper approached her.
“Ms. Langley?” he said. “Is that you?”
She looked up at him, frowning for a second before recognition kicked in. She smiled. “It’s me. Last name’s McDowell now. How you doing, Keller?”
He nodded. “So-so.” He tilted his head toward the store behind them, where a second patrolman was speaking to the cashier. “I heard what happened. How in the world did you manage that?”
“I don’t know. I was mad and scared, I guess. And I just finished a self-defense class.”
“I think you got your money’s worth.”
She shrugged. “It worked only because he wasn’t expecting it.”
“He could’ve killed you, you know. The kids too.”
“He might have, if I had let him get in the car with us.”
The officer pondered that and nodded. “Probably right. Just glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks, Keller. It’s good to see you again.”
As she turned to leave, he said, “Guess this proves it, right?”
“Proves what?”
“Lightning can strike twice in the same place.”
Anna thought about that a moment. “Compared to last time,” she said, “this was easy.”
An awkward silence passed.
“Maybe what happened before . . .” He paused for a beat. “Maybe it made you tough.”
She nodded. “Maybe it did.”
Moments later the three travelers were inside their van. “Help your brother buckle up,” Anna told her daughter. “And hand me a Coke from the cooler before we get going.”
Deborah, her face still a little pale, stared straight ahead. “Mom?”
“What, honey?”
“That man. Did he just want to steal our car? Or did he want to . . . hurt us?”
Anna shook her head, reached over, and smoothed her daughter’s hair. “Doesn’t matter, Deb. Everything’s okay. He won’t be doing either one.”
“They’ll get his fingerprints, right? Off the gun?”
“Yes. They’ll catch him.”
Deborah hesitated, frowning hard in thought. “What did that policeman mean, about lightning?”
Anna sighed. “Something happened here, years ago,” she said. “Before you were born.”
“Here at this store?”
“Yeah. In the woods over there, actually.” She glanced again at the distant trees and, jutting above them, the old windmill she remembered so well. Even from this far away, she could see its blades turning lazily in the wind.
“What happened?” Deborah asked. “Something bad?”
This time it was the mother who hesitated. “Not really. Something good, in a way. Something that got rid of something bad.”
“Tell me,” Deborah said.
A long stare. “Maybe I will. Maybe it’s time. But first hand me that Coke.”
When everyone was strapped in and they had eased out of the gas station’s parking lot and onto the road, Anna popped the top of the can and let out a long breath. She glanced over at Deborah. “You sure you really want to hear this?”
“I’m sure.”
Charlie was already snoozing in his car seat, but that was okay, Anna thought. He was too young to understand what she was about to say. If she was able to say it, that is. She hadn’t talked to anyone about this for a long, long time.
Anna took a pull on the Coke, set it in the cup holder, and clamped both hands on the wheel at the ten-till-two position.
“Years ago,” she said, “two people left Jackson, south of here, to drive to a ball game in Starkville, over a hundred miles north. And to hike around for a bit, afterward. They were young and they were foolish and they were in love. The girl was Anna Langley—”
“That was you, right?”
“That’s right. And the boy was named Woody. Woody Prestridge. He was tall and blond—”
* * *
—and Anna thought he was just about the best thing that had ever happened to her. She stood there on the sun-dappled sidewalk in front of her dorm at Millsaps College and watched as Woody loaded her picnic basket and backpack into the trunk of his Toyota and slammed the lid.
“Done,” he said. “Prepare for takeoff.”
“How long will this game last?” Anna asked as she climbed in and buckled up. “I don’t care to spend all Saturday afternoon watching a bunch of guys bash their brains out.”
“We won’t, I promise.” Woody cranked up and headed across campus and out the gates and onto North State Street. “It isn’t even a conference game. We’ll leave early and hike around in the woods a little, on the way back.”
She stayed quiet awhile, watching the grand old homes drift by on both sides of the road. “Heck of a thing,” she said finally, “when you’re probably safer out in the woods than sitting in your own car. Right?”
He didn’t answer right away. Anna knew he didn’t want to talk about the Night Stalker. She didn’t either. She didn’t even like the name, something the stupid media had come up with because all three incidents had happened after dark. They could have at least been original, she thought. That name reminded her of the old TV movie about vampires in Las Vegas.
But this modern Night Stalker was plenty scary enough. It had been all over the news the past couple weeks, and she was worried. Everybody was worried—especially those who had to drive Route 25. It was on that highway—a four-lane that cut a bending path across the upper-right center of the state—that all three killings had taken place, or least all three disappearances; no bodies had yet been recovered. But the cars of the three missing women had later been found parked on the side of the road. The consensus so far was that the killer/kidnapper could be posing as a police officer, and had pulled his victims over beforehand. Whatever the case, Anna was less than thrilled to be traveling that same road today.
“Why don’t we take the interstate instead?” she asked him.
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“That would add half an hour to the trip, Anna. We’ll be fine.”
“Why am I thinking, Famous last words?”
“Look,” Woody said, “people can’t let this nutcase dictate where they’re going or how they’re going to get there. That’s like refusing to travel by air because someone might hijack the plane and fly it into a building.”
“It’s not the same thing,” she said.
“Well, I really want to go today, and I think you do too. We’ll be careful, okay?” Before she could respond, he crooked a finger to her and pointed to something below his right thigh. When she leaned over she saw, underneath the driver’s seat, one of those padded, telescoping steel bars that can extend to two feet or so with one flick of the wrist. In its collapsed state, it was maybe ten inches long. Woody took it from under the seat and showed it to her. “Anybody comes along who looks suspicious, I’ll crack his skull with this.”
“I’m so reassured,” she said, frowning.
Her doubts were still there fifteen minutes later, when they stopped for breakfast at a Wendy’s on Lakeland Drive, on the way out of town.
The only highway patrolman Anna knew sat down at their table with a plateful of biscuits and gravy. Officer Jack Speerman had been Woody’s roommate in college and teammate on the football team when Jack decided to drop out and apply at the Police Academy. Some admired him for it, but some said he was throwing away a great future—maybe even the NFL. Jack didn’t care. He’d been determined to become a cop. Woody had once confided to Anna that he suspected part of the reason was that Jack’s brother Stuart, a year or two older, had been in and out of jail most of his miserable life, and that Jack might be trying somehow to atone for the sins of the sibling. Whatever the reason, Jack Speerman had done well, and seemed happy in his job.
He asked them where they were headed, and Woody told him. When Anna restated her concerns, Jack shook his head. “I agree with Woody,” he said. “Don’t change your plans because of whoever this guy is. He’s probably a thousand miles away by now anyway. Just be watchful.” He dusted some salt onto his gravy. “It’s the folks traveling alone that I worry about.”
“What?” said Anna.
Jack pointed his plastic fork at a young lady placing her order at the counter. She was tall and attractive in a sixties-hippie kind of way—straight black hair, long skirt, no makeup. A cloth purse was slung over one shoulder. “Said she’s looking for a ride to Kentucky.”
“Why worry about her?” Woody asked, chewing his egg sandwich.
“What?”
“When she finds a ride,” Woody said, “she won’t be traveling alone.”
The cop chuckled. “Problem is, she might not find one. I’m going that way myself when I finish up here, but I can’t take her with me—that’s strictly against the rules. And I don’t have a good feeling about her standing beside the road with her thumb stuck out.” Then he paused, looked at both Anna and Woody, and cocked an eyebrow. “Unless . . .”
“We’re only going as far as Starkville,” Anna said quickly.
“That’s on her way. From there she could find a ride to Tupelo, then maybe catch the Trace up to Nashville and points north. Or stay on Highway 45 up to I-40 and—”
“Sure,” Woody said. “We could take her to Starkville at least.”
Anna was scowling.
“You don’t want to?” Woody said.
She shrugged. “It’s just—well . . .”
“Well what?”
Anna swallowed and lowered her voice. “Nobody knows who this killer is, Woody. We don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman.”
“I doubt it’s a woman,” Jack said. “All three victims disappeared without a trace, or any sign of a struggle. For that to happen, there was probably some lifting and carrying of a body. Miss Flower Child over there’s not big and strong enough for that kind of thing.”
“He’s right, Anna. There’s no risk. We could at least help her out.”
Anna sighed, thought it over, and nodded. Who knows, maybe three traveling together would be even safer than two. But she kept that thought to herself.
When they’d finished their breakfast, Woody threaded his way over to the girl’s table—her name was Mary, she told him—and invited her to join them on their trip. Our good deed for the week, Anna thought. Mary gratefully accepted and, after they were introduced, gave Anna a smile that warmed her heart and made her ashamed of her doubts. The three of them waved a goodbye to the cop, left the restaurant, piled themselves and Mary’s travel bag into the Toyota, and headed east into the morning sun. Four miles later the route curved northeast toward the towns of Carthage and Louisville and Starkville. Lakeland Drive, when the trees beside it started outnumbering the businesses, was better known as State Highway 25. Anna tried not to think about that.
Besides, it was a gorgeous day for traveling.
* * *
Mary and Anna exchanged some polite small talk for the next ten minutes or so. Mary revealed that her brother was moving from their hometown in Lexington, Kentucky, to Jackson later this year, to work for an engineering firm there, and they all agreed that it was indeed a small world. Mary herself was on her way back to Kentucky, returning from a visit to an old girlfriend in Baton Rouge. Her junk heap of a car had died on a back road on Highway 61 near the Mississippi/Louisiana line, and was now in a repair shop owned by a friend of a friend in Natchez. She’d retrieve it later, after her brother moved here and got settled in, she said, although she wasn’t sure the car was worth retrieving. She traveled light, and despite the safety issues she didn’t mind hitching rides.
“Pretty trusting of you,” Anna said.
Mary smiled. “I’m a trustful person. It’s a prerequisite for my job.”
“Your job?”
“I’m a nun,” Mary said.
Woody almost ran off the road, and even Anna gasped aloud. “You’re kidding,” they blurted at the same time.
“Strange but true,” Mary said. “I’m Sister Mary Patrick. Or at least I will be, when I finish my training. St. Anthony’s Convent in Elizabethtown.”
“A nun,” Woody said, as if tasting the word.
“Don’t worry, I won’t try to talk you into choir practice or bless your car or anything.”
“Actually, my mother’ll be pleased,” Anna said. “She worries sometimes about the company I keep.”
“I hope you’re not referring to me,” Woody said.
She leaned over to Mary and whispered, “I’m referring specifically to him.” They both laughed.
Ignoring that, Woody said, “I couldn’t help noticing your jewelry.” He nodded toward a bracelet of sparkling green stones Mary wore on her left wrist. “It doesn’t look very nunlike.”
She grinned at him. “It’s not. It’s way too expensive. But it was a gift, and I never take it off.”
“Girls will be girls?” Anna said.
“I told you, I’m just a trainee.”
As they made their way north, Anna filled Mary in on her background, her family, her plans to be a schoolteacher. She’d been raised not far from here, Anna said; they would even be able to stop tonight on the way back and say hello to one of her uncles, since he worked at a Walmart right beside the highway up in Winston County. Most of her relatives still lived in that area, and most were miffed that she hadn’t chosen to attend the university in nearby Starkville. But the scholarship she’d gotten three years ago to Millsaps, in Jackson, had been too good to pass up.
“Did the two of you meet there?” Mary cut her eyes over to Woody, who seemed to have tuned them out and was focused on his driving.
“No, Mr. Cool over here went to Mississippi State. He graduated last year, I met him at a party that summer, and I’ve been trying to educate him ever since.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know much about the schools down here,” Mary said.
“He doesn’t either,” Anna replied, grinning.
The subject eventually changed to
the Night Stalker—even Mary had heard about it on the news—and Woody said he’d been able to see in Jack Speerman’s face this morning the pressure he’d been under lately. Especially since most everyone knew about Jack’s brother’s errant ways and had never seemed entirely trustful toward him because of it. In Woody’s opinion, the fact that Route 25 was Jack’s assigned territory this past year or so, and the fact that all the killings had taken place along that highway, was both good and bad. Bad for the obvious reasons, but good because if Jack could somehow help break the case, he’d be a hero.
“Forget the hero part,” Anna said. “If I were him, I’d ask to get reassigned.”
Woody shook his head. “That’d be hard, in more ways that one. This is the ideal work territory for him—he lives near here, and only about a hundred yards off the road. Besides, he’s smart, and good at what he does. Hell, he really could—oops, excuse me, Sister Mary.”
“It’s okay,” she said.
“—he really could be the one who solves all these killings.”
“Wish he’d hurry up and do it, then,” Anna said. She felt a chill ripple its way up her spine.
On that note they fell silent. The next half hour was smooth sailing: they cranked down the windows and cranked up the radio and occasionally hummed along with an oldies station, the autumn sun in their laps and the wind whipping their hair around. Anna was suddenly glad she’d agreed to the trip.
* * *
It was almost ten o’clock when Sister Mary Patrick asked Woody if they could stop at the gas station just ahead on their left—the last one, Anna knew, before a particularly long stretch of forest and pastureland. “Too much coffee back at Wendy’s,” Mary explained, and was the first one out the door when Woody pulled the little Toyota into the station. They parked beside a metal trash bin almost as big as the car.
“Think I’ll make a pit stop too,” Anna told Woody. She followed Mary into the minimart section of the building and waited in the hallway outside the restroom door until Mary was done. When Mary came out and they squeezed past each other, Anna said to her, “Tell Woody to amuse himself for a while—when I finish in here I’m gonna buy some snacks before we leave, to bring along with us.”