by Shawn Bartek
The text went to a number she didn’t recognize, but she suspected it was Jodi’s phone. She tried to dial the number. There was still no signal to test her theory.
“I can’t believe I let you convince me to bring him,” Ami said to Scott.
“How was I supposed to know he would do something like that?” Scott said.
“He is your douche-bag friend; you get guilt by association,” Ami said, “You basically vouched for him. I trusted you.”
“I’m sorry, Ami,” Scott said.
“What do we do now?” Marc said.
“Destroy that Shane piece-of-shit,” Ami said.
“I want to do that, too,” Marc said, “But we can’t right now. Dana. What can we do about Dana? Let’s pare it down to the next steps.”
Ami took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
I want to have a good day today…
“Let’s call Dana again,” she said.
* * *
Ami pulled the phone out of her pocket. There was a signal again, now with three bars, but still no missed calls.
This time, the phone rang without end; the answering machine never picked up. Ami was encouraged by this; maybe Dana was on the other line. Maybe somebody got a hold of their mom. Or maybe the house burnt down, and the answering machine was not even a thing anymore. Such pleasant thoughts were rising like oil out of water.
She decided to see what news the local stations had. Ami loaded up the KPAX news website on the browser. The latest update was as of 7:08 PM. An official was quoted that progress on securing the middle-of-the-bridge tanker was moving along without a hitch. The one dangling off the embankment was still without the equipment needed to secure it. With more equipment on its way, it was far too early to call the evacuation off.
Ami felt incrementally better to know that the authorities were on the case and this whole thing would blow over. It was like a tasty kibble treat to have even the smallest amount of new relevant information. Like everyone else, she was accustomed to being spoiled by instant information. As this day crawled by, it showed that tweets and likes and shares should never have been classified as information.
Although reading the news update felt good, she became determined to sabotage her relief.
She dialed Dana again—no answer. When she would get to her house, she decided she’d take the answering machine and put it in the blender. Maybe light it on fire for extra spite.
Then she dialed 9-1-1. A voice picked up. It knocked the wind out of her in the same way Dana’s voice had.
“Nine one one, emergency, please hold.”
“What the fuck,” she said.
A minute later, a different voice picked up; this time it was a man.
“Is this related to the tankers, miss?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Ami said.
“We have emergency information on 620 AM, miss. They will be relaying all the latest news and we need to keep this line open for emergencies.”
“It is, I swear,” she pleaded, “My little sister is home alone at our house and I need somebody to get over there. My mom is in Toronto right now and I can’t get a hold of her either.”
“Have you called any neighbors?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any of their numbers.”
“It is always recommended in emergency situations such as this that you and your family keep a list of potential contacts.”
“I realize this, sir, but this obviously caught us by surprise. I don’t think my mom was expecting that her kids would be facing gas poisoning while she went on vacation.”
“Most don’t expect it, so they don’t prepare. Seems sort of short-sighted, doesn’t it?”
“Like I don’t feel guilty enough right now, dude,” Ami said, “Look, can you help us, or not?”
“This is the situation,” the operator said, “There was a wave of units initially sent out to do door knocks; those units are now being sent to the major arterials to keep people from coming in to town. That’s ninety percent of both the County Sheriff’s Department and the City Police force. That leaves five squad cars to respond to emergencies right now.”
“Seems like five isn’t very many.”
“Well, you don’t need very many for patrol. Everyone’s been evacuated.”
“Not everyone, obviously,” Ami said.
“I can’t go into it further, miss, but it is what it is.”
“Only five officers. That seems sort of short sighted, doesn’t it?”
“Miss, this is a recorded call, I am not at liberty to speak on the matter.”
“Can you send someone out there?”
“I will try to put a call out and see where it can be fit in. I can call you back when I hear something?”
“Fine,” Ami said, then gave the man her address and phone number, “I suppose it’s too much to ask that somebody come by to pick me and my friends up?”
“I could not guarantee an arrival time on that, you’d be wiser to make progress on going west.”
“What if I told you there was some truck that ran my friends and I off the road? Could you send a car out to investigate this?”
“We’ve heard a lot of traffic horror stories today, miss.”
“Any news on the tanker?”
“Miss, you will have to tune to the radio broadcast on 620 AM for the latest updates. We have to keep these lines open for emergencies.”
“I won’t keep you then,” Ami said, “Please remember to send a squad car out.”
She was cut off before the “—car out”.
Finally, we’re okay. She’ll be okay. Someone’s going to get her.
Chapter IX
They approached the corner of Reserve Street and Mullan Road. Amongst the strip-malls and the chain restaurants, they could see the sign of a community bank. It told them that it was eighteen past eight and it was eighty-eight degrees.
The small amount of traffic left ignored them. Half of the cars that flew past were singularly occupied, with enough room for three.
“Why doesn’t anybody stop for us?” Ami asked.
“Would you stop for us?” Marc said.
“I don’t know. We look real dangerous, so I guess not.”
“You know I haven’t even seen a cop since the one I almost ran over.”
North Reserve had become mostly empty; a few abandoned cars rested on the concrete like dead buffalo. It was quiet enough for them to hear their footsteps on the sidewalk.
In the distance, they saw movement about a quarter mile up Reserve. A truck appeared out of a parking lot and was heading in their direction.
“Sweet, there’s somebody,” Marc said.
“Jesus, is that the same truck that hit us?” Ami said. It gave her chills to think that the truck that just ran them off the road would still be loitering around the area. Had Ami pissed them off so badly with their near collision that they’d retaliate? Or was it Shane and his terminal dickishness that pushed them over the top? But this truck looked dark green to her; she thought the one that had been following them was bluer. It was difficult to tell for sure from a distance.
When it was still small to them, the truck abruptly swerved and hopped over the street’s landscaped meridian. The front grill plowed over a freshly-planted tree and crossed into what would have been oncoming traffic. Then it jetted into a parking lot, vanishing behind a Wendy’s.
“If it is the same guys, they need to know when to say when,” Scott said.
“If that is those same guys,” Ami said, “We need to go or hide. I don’t like it. Why would they still be around here?”
“Are you sure it was the truck that hit us?” Marc said.
“I don’t know,” she said, “There’s so many of those stupid trucks around here, I can’t tell.”
The sidewalk stretched out in front of them and it was quiet again.
Another car flew by. Then there was a small rush of three cars. The group watched the cars shrink until they disappeared
into the horizon.
None of those cars stopped for them either. There should have been one good person left in town; one person that represented good-natured small-town folk. Maybe it would be a person that would recognize them. A person that had babysat one of them, or maybe one of their teachers.
But no one stopped. Ami could feel the derailed tankers taunting her from East Missoula. They had already brought a pall into the city; it wouldn’t take a chlorine cloud to do damage. The evacuation was revealing the town’s true colors.
* * *
They crossed the intersection at Reserve Street and Mullan Road. They were at both the proverbial and literal crossroads. They would need to go east on Mullan in order to go to Dana. But if the police had already picked her up, then the group would be heading in the opposite direction of their own safety.
Ami stopped them, “We should wait a few minutes and see if anybody calls me back about Dana.”
“They said they only had five cars to send out?” Marc said, “How long will it take them to get around to your sister?”
“Oh, come on,” Ami said, “Please just let me feel good about this possibility.”
“Sorry. Did we decide to start placating you now?”
Ami laughed at him and bumped her head against his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” she said, “No, keep being real. If there’s no hope, then I can only be surprised when something good happens.”
Marc moved to put her arm around her, but he recoiled.
Would she think it was weird to put my arm around her? he thought, Would it layer awkwardness on top of the already shitty situation?
He patted her on the back instead.
“I know this sounds dumb,” Ami said, “But I kind of want to get off the road while we wait. That truck gives me the creeps. If they’re around here still, I don’t want them to see us.”
Marc pointed to the Albertson’s. The front doors of the grocery store were gaping open.
“Maybe we can duck in there for a few. Maybe there’s someone in there that could help us,” Marc said, “Maybe even if they’re only going to Frenchtown, they could take us to my Dad and we could take his car to get Dana.”
Ami said, “Perfect. I need to eat something.”
Scott said, “Yeah, I’m starving too.”
When they arrived at the grocery store’s automatic sliding doors, they discovered that the doors weren’t so much open as they were bashed-in completely; safety glass carpeted the linoleum.
“That would make me think nobody is here or somebody could be here that we don’t want to meet,” Marc said.
It was too dim inside. Above the check-out line, halogen emergency lights spotlighted the cashier stations, while the grocery aisles disappeared into dark obscurity.
Ami yelled out into the store. “If there’s anybody there, we really need help. We had a car accident and we need to get to my sister.”
No answer, just quiet.
Scott tried the same yelling tactic, “We could probably pay you for a ride.”
Still nothing.
“Maybe whoever broke in moved on,” Marc said.
The only people they could see were not really people, but two life-sized cardboard cutouts. One was a bikinied model that was Baywatch-attractive; large amounts of flowing bleached blonde hair and a one piece swimsuit that rose too high above her hip bones. The other dusty cutout was a six-packed hunk. Equally fake palm trees surrounded them. The only set piece that was in three dimensions was a fully inflated raft, adorned with a Coors Light logo. It was not a heavy-duty raft; made of cheap vinyl that is already lousy with holes by the time it leaves the Taiwanese factory. Entry slips were attached to a small cardboard box; the raft was a third place prize.
Ami could see herself floating with Scott down the Clark Fork River on the raft. It was a welcome feeling to be able to fantasize after the immediacy of the last few hours.
Her fantasy turned out to be a half-relevant thought, and then the other half broke through:
If only the Clark Fork River ran in the other direction, we could float this fucker right to the Rattlesnake.
“If only the Clark Fork ran in the other direction,” Marc said.
“Holy shit, I was just thinking that,” Ami said.
Marc then grabbed cardboard boob. “Ain’t this Kathy Crawford or Cindy Ireland or something like that?”
“Grow up,” Ami laughed at him.
“Look, there’s nobody here that can help us, let’s just move on.” Scott said.
“I need to eat. I want grocery-store cake,” Ami said, “No, wait. I want hard cider.”
“Do you think that’s really a good idea?” Scott said, “You want to be drunk during this?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said, but retreated, “Alright. Not drunk exactly, but something to take the edge off. I’m not going to have more than one, I promise.”
Ami’s confidence in the police to pick Dana up was at its peak. Marc had taken her down a peg on this point, but she had her own rationale for having comfort with the police: It’s their job. That’s what the police do. They sometimes get a bad rap, but the majority of the time they’re good at it. It meant the gang would have a little time for refreshments while they wait for a phone call.
The idea gained traction with Marc when he considered the effect a shotgunned beer would have on his nerves. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll join you.”
Scott said, disappearing into one of the aisles, “Fine, but I need real food. I’m going to eat all of the cold cuts in the deli.”
As Marc and Ami embarked for the beer aisle, the lights at checkout drifted further away and they became enveloped in the murky grocery.
It became so dark that Marc tripped over a hand basket sitting on the tile floor. He cussed and Ami giggled at him. She pulled out her phone and opened the flashlight application and handed it to him.
Shining the phone’s flashbulb around the beer section, Marc found what he was looking for. A tall-boy can of Steel Reserve. He cracked it open and chugged it as fast as he could, the ice-cold burning his throat as he raced to the bottom of the can.
“Blech,” Ami said, “How can you drink that shit?”
“It’s because of—” Marc turned the can around and examined it in the dim light, “That’s it. Eight point one percent alcohol. Efficiency is the priority right now.”
“Fine, pull me a can,” Ami sighed.
Marc put Ami’s Swiss Army phone/flashlight on the shelf and ripped a can from the six-pack. She took a large pull on it and made a sour face. Marc could tell that shivers were travelling down her back.
“Wow, you really know how to treat a lady to the good stuff,” she said.
“I’ll let you know if I see a lady,” he said.
“Ha!” she nudged him, “Jerk.”
“You can give the rest to me if you don’t want it.”
“No, I think I can force it down. If it tastes this bad, it must be doing good things to you.”
Marc smiled at her. He took another drink and said, “I was thinking. I saw like three wrecked cars on Reserve, maybe they still have keys. Maybe they’d still run. Who cares if the tires were blown or the bumper drags. They could probably get us to Dana faster than our feet would. We can check them out.”
“Thanks for still trying to think of something,” Ami said, “I’m glad you’re here, I mean it.”
The sweetness in her eyes was directly aimed at him and he began to feel giddy.
But then the phone buzzed and rattled off the beer shelf. Marc dove after, but missed it. It fell into a small reservoir at the foot of the fridge. He pried it out with his fingertips and stared at the lock screen. There was a red circle with a phone in the center, and a cute little bouncy arrow underneath.
A missed call.
“Oh, goddam—”, he started.
Before he could finish his thought, the sound of rubber squeaking against the linoleum interrupted him. A hand poked his back.
“Hello,” said a voice, eerily deep and wet, “How can we help you, sir?”
Marc turned around to see a figure; by the process of elimination, it must have been a man. It was a humanoid shape with a cratered, leathery face and a gaping hole for a mouth, inhabited by a maximum of five marbled teeth. Above the stretched suntanned face was a giant two-toned bushel of wild hair. A rat’s nest with golden blond tips that were fried by the sun.
The sound drifting from his mouth gave Ami shivers even worse than the beer.
The Rat’s Nest Man stood next to another man; a friend with an equally unfortunate face. This man was rounder than his rail-thin pal; his head was a hammy monochromatic slab. It looked like a flesh balloon with eyes and a mouth.
Despite the friendly greeting, just the sight of these two was enough to get Ami and Marc’s heart racing.
“Um. I don’t…” Marc started, “We didn’t know for sure if anyone was in here.”
“That’s okay,” Balloon Head said, “We manage the store.”
A flaw in this claim: neither of them looked like they could manage basic hygiene.
“And I suppose you guys are the ones that broke through the front doors?” Rat’s Nest said.
“Oh, no,” Marc said, “That was like that when we got here. We’re sorry. We’re not shoplifters. We just needed a place to rest and thought that since no one was here...”
Rat’s Nest Man laughed. He stepped closer; his carbuncular face appeared into the light of the flashbulb. He put his hand on Marc’s shoulder. The squeeze could have easily been interpreted as hostile or jolly. Some men have grips that can go either way.
“Oh, it’s okay,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. Is there anything else that we can get you? Another beer?”
“Nah, it’s okay,” Marc took a step back.
“Are you sure? We don’t mind. Looks like you have good taste. That’s my favorite,” Balloon Head pointed at the can of Steel Reserve.
“No, we were just on our way out,” Marc gently squeezed the beer can, enough to relieve his tension, but softly enough not to call attention to it.