Snared wd-3

by Stefan Petrucha

  She’d asked to stay home, arguing rationally at first. When logical pleas tanked, Lindsay resorted to a more emotional approach. Tears were involved. They didn’t work. Anger soon followed, but it didn’t get her anywhere. There was no way she could get out of the trip. Her parents had already taken the time off work. So Lindsay was faced with ten days in her uncle’s house—away from her friends and an epic party.

  Just thinking about it made her sad. Everyone from school was going to be there. BlackBerrys and cell phones had been buzzing about it for weeks. All the cool and cute would be gathering at Kate’s house. (Her parents were vacationing in Paris!) It would be a red carpet event with beer and banging tunes, and Lindsay was going to miss it.

  Lindsay’s motivations weren’t totally selfish either. Yes, she badly wanted to go—who wouldn’t?—but Kate needed her, really needed her, and that was important, too.

  Lindsay loved her friend like a sister, but Kate was about as organized as a chimp, not to mention the fact that she was panic waiting to happen. Lindsay knew the second one little thing went wrong with the party, Kate would freak like a meth head on Cops. She had said a billion times she couldn’t pull the party off without Lindsay.

  The invitation tragedy was a perfect example. Kate had wanted to use paper invitations, and that would have been okay, but she bought boxes of invites with a picture of a kitten wearing sunglasses on the cover. Inside they read“ Come and party with the cool cats.” If Kate had sent out those wholly cred-killing invites, she’d never have lived down the humiliation. So Lindsay wrote the invitation for Kate—email only—and she made it sound like a total secret, because Lindsay knew the best way to get the word out was to tell people to keep quiet.

  Lindsay often thought that she would make a great party planner, or maybe a wedding planner. She was able to look at any event, no matter how complicated, calmly and thoroughly, and spot the details others might overlook. Last year she organized the freshman dance, and instead of throwing some high-school hoedown with a pop tune theme, she made it memorable. She did an industrial disco night called Batcave, with painted wall panels that made the gym look like a dungeon and a wrought-iron bar for sodas. It was a total hit. Everyone at school talked about it for weeks.

  Kate just can’t do this on her own. I should be there, helping her.

  But she wasn’t; she was in an SUV with her parents, driving through a downpour headed to Redneck Hollow, and no matter how she tried to hide her disappointment—because she knew the trip really meant a lot to her dad—she just couldn’t.

  It was like being kidnapped or something. She was a prisoner, and her two captors sat in the front seat, acting all happy and crap.

  When the power on her Treo died, cutting off Lindsay in midtext, she couldn’t help but groan. Her connection to home and her friends was severed. She hadn’t bothered charging her cell phone completely, because she preferred the PDA. So her cell phone had died an hour into the trip, and now her Treo was toast. How much worse was this trip going to get?

  A hand touched her shoulder, and Lindsay looked up, startled. Her mom had turned in the seat and was looking at her with a shadow of frustration on her brow. Her mom’s lips were moving, but Lindsay couldn’t hear what she said because she had her tunes cranked. She pulled the earbuds out and said “What?”

  “You know, you could talk to us if you’re bored.”

  “I could, but that would negate the whole not-talking-to-you thing.”

  Her dad laughed, and her mother just shook her head.

  “We’re sorry about Kate’s party,” her dad said. “But try to have a good time. You used to love the beach.”

  She really wished he’d quit saying that.

  “I also used to wear diapers, but I don’t see any of us clinging to that tradition.”

  “You’ll feel better when we get there. Believe me, it’s nicer now.”

  Lindsay rested her head against the cold window. The vibrations from the road and the rain beating down massaged her temple. Outside, the day grew darker, and the downpour rapped harder on the SUV’s roof. All she could see were blurry trees and more blurry trees, the same view over and over, like an animated message board avatar.

  Of course, there was a major difference. She was trapped in this image.

  Lindsay sat in the SUV while her parents shopped at the grocery store on the edge of town. She’d tried to see the city’s shops and offices through the storm, but everything outside the car was a big gloomy smear. So she searched her iPod for a song—not a specific song, just one that might make her feel better. Scrolling along the titles, she came across a cool tune by Green Day and jabbed the Play button, but after listening to a few grinding guitar riffs, she poked the button again and turned it off.

  Lindsay pulled the earbuds loose, wrapped them around her iPod, and dropped the player on the seat. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the door, staring at the front of the supermarket. Come on, Dad, she thought, watching the glass doors slide open and closed for shoppers. Hurry up.

  She felt certain her mood would improve when they reached the house. The SUV and the storm felt so confining. She would have gone into the store with her parents, except her mom would have constantly asked her opinion about food and junk to make Lindsay feel involved, and she just wasn’t in the mood. The house would be better. She could charge up her phone and Treo and reconnect with Kate so her friend didn’t have an attack over the party. And bonus, her uncle Lou was out of town. That was such a relief. Lou wasn’t a total freak, but he came close. He was loud and annoying and told the worst knock-knock jokes ever. Her dad said he was in Arkansas, fishing with friends, which meant she’d get the guest room, and her parents would take his. At least she’d have some privacy.

  But what was she supposed to do for ten days? She couldn’t hang with her parents the whole time, though she imagined that was her dad’s plan.

  “You might meet a nice boy on the beach,” her mom had said before they left on the trip.

  Yeah right, Lindsay thought. Redlands Beach is probably crawling with gap-toothed Cletuses. Likely they swim in cutoff jeans and show off their hairy backs. Gross.

  She smiled and shook her head, but she did find a ray of hope way in the back of her thoughts. Maybe she would meet a boy. It could happen. People from all over went to the beach in the summer.

  The glass doors of the store opened. Lindsay squinted through the storm and saw a fat guy in overalls hauling two bags of groceries into the downpour. Sadly, that was the kind of guy who’d probably be prowling the beach, his round belly rolling over the top of his swim trunks. Or worse, what if he was feeling saucy and decided to wear a thong?

  Lindsay groaned and laughed, imagining that very thing. “So sick,” she whispered to the empty car.

  Though totally unlikely, some hot guy’s parents might have kidnapped him, too. That would be cool. They’d meet on the beach. He’d have blond hair and aquamarine swimming trunks, like the kind she saw that OC stud wearing in last night’s rerun. His name would be something totally cool, like Jaimie or Josh, and he’d be eighteen and headed off to college after summer. Every afternoon they’d meet on the beach and then hit town for coffee and stuff.

  As she thought this, the doors of the market slid open again. Two men stood in the opening, side by side. One was tall and slender, the other short and round. The rain blurred their faces, so Lindsay only got a vague impression of what they looked like. Both wore slick black parkas against the rain. The round one held a sack of groceries. The thin one opened an umbrella, then handed it to the round man. The thin man opened a second umbrella that he raised over his head, and the two men stepped into the storm.

  They walked slowly, seeming to match each other’s steps perfectly in a creepy kind of dance. The mushroom parts of the umbrellas floated over their heads, gliding smoothly through the battering rain and wind. Lindsay squinted harder and slid across the seat to get a better look at these strange men. A chill ran down her
back, and her hands trembled.

  When the men reached the front of her parents’ SUV, the tall one looked through the wind-shield at her. His head turned slowly, though his shoulders didn’t move. He didn’t stop walking, didn’t even pause. He kept looking at her, though. His narrow face was blank and motionless, his eyes black with shadows. And his head kept turning, as if it wasn’t attached to the rest of him.

  Lindsay’s stomach knotted with fear. The guy was creeping her out bad. She checked the doors and made sure they were locked; then she curled her legs up tight to her chest and held them with her arms. She looked down at the screen of her iPod and stared at the letters without reading them. Anything to distract herself from the curious freaks with umbrellas. She counted to ten, feeling certain that at any moment she’d hear the sound of the door handle click and crack as the two men in black tried to break into the car.

  On the number nine, with her heart beating so hard she thought it would burst through her chest, a loud rapping startled her, and she yelped. Her head whipped up, away from the iPod screen, and she saw her dad’s face, dripping wet, pressed up against the glass. He was pointing at the door lock and shouting “Hurry up.”

  Lindsay sprang forward to disengage the lock. Behind her dad, she saw the two men in black drifting deeper into the storm.

  2

  As they drove south on the narrow coastal road, Lindsay was thrilled to see all of the new construction going up near town. Then she was disappointed when they neared her uncle’s house, because this stretch hardly seemed to have changed at all. Every tenth house was fantastic—all glass and new paint—which only served to point out the lameness of the older properties.

  Of course, the weather didn’t help. It was so dreary. Still, she kept hoping, unreasonably that in the years since she’d last visited the beach it had gone from zero to hero on the resort scale. Then, just before turning into her uncle’s drive, she saw the sign for the Redlands Mobile Home Park, and her spirits sank a little lower.

  Lightning cracked as Lindsay followed her parents into Uncle Lou’s house. The rain sounded like a million tiny footsteps on the roof.

  “It’s supposed to clear up tomorrow,” her dad said. He carried her bags upstairs, while her mom stayed in the kitchen to unload the groceries.

  Uncle Lou’s house hadn’t changed in five years. His green sofa still faced the fireplace in the den, and the square wooden coffee table sat in front of it. He still had all of the old paintings of dogs and hunters on the walls. At least he’d discovered the magic of Febreze, so the room didn’t smell as bad as she remembered. Lindsay went to the window and looked toward the beach. Angry surf, with caps of froth, cut a line through the otherwise gray scene. The beach looked messy with tons of drift-wood and litter poking out of the sand.

  Glad I brought sandals. I’d cut my toes to shreds on that stuff.

  Once she heard her dad’s heavy feet on the stairs, Lindsay turned away from the view. She needed to recharge her Treo, cell phone, and iPod, and get her laptop set up.

  Her dad met her at the bottom of the stairs and said, “You’re all set. First door on the right. Why don’t you get unpacked and then come down to help your mom fix dinner?”

  “I have to call Kate first,” Lindsay said, walking up the stairs. “Tell Mom I’ll do the salad.”

  The room wasn’t awful. The bed was huge, with a fluffy down quilt hugging the top of the mattress. A small chest of drawers, hardly large enough for the clothes she brought, stood by the closet. There was a cool window seat with a thick green cushion on the far side of the bed. She imagined that was where she’d spend a lot of the next ten days, drinking coffee and looking out at the ocean or at the screen of her laptop. That would work. She could picture herself there, like one of those models in a coffee commercial, looking all cool and content while gripping a steaming mug of bean and gazing out into the world.

  There was even an electrical outlet built into the wall under the window seat, so she could keep her laptop plugged in. Nice.

  Lindsay lifted the first suitcase onto the bed, where it sank in the fluffy quilt. She unpacked her cables and chargers first, plugging them into the socket by the chest of drawers, and then connected her cell phone and iPod. She carried her laptop and its power cord to the window seat and hooked them up.

  Looking out the window, she noticed the house next door. It was smaller than her uncle’s house, and it looked like it might just collapse under the next big gust of wind. The shingles were black and torn like the scales of a sick dragon. The house was supposed to be white, but the boards were dirty and broken. The porch in front sagged, and the two windows on the side facing her were crusted with dirt. The gloomy afternoon made it hard to tell exactly how dismal the house was, but viewed through the rain, the place made her uncle’s house look like a Malibu palace.

  Movement caught her eye, and Lindsay looked into the backyard. The first thing she noticed was the umbrella—a large black mushroom, opened up to keep its owner dry. She could not see who stood beneath the umbrella, but he wore a slick black parka just like the ones the men from the grocery store wore. The umbrella guy stood beneath a scraggly tree with pointy limbs. He didn’t move, just faced the back of the house like a black statue.

  Uneasy again, Lindsay stepped away from the window seat. What if the freaky umbrella guys had followed her? What if they lived next door? The place had all the charm of a zombie hostel, so it wouldn’t be hard to believe.

  She finished unpacking her things and returned to the window seat. Cautiously, she looked at the house next door. The umbrella guy was gone, and she found that even creepier than seeing him standing under the skeletal tree. He could be anywhere. He could be looking at her right now.

  Lindsay backed away from the window. At the chest of drawers she lifted her cell phone, which was still connected to the charging cord, and dialed Kate’s number with a trembling finger.

  “Get me out of here,” she said when Kate picked up.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.”

  Kate giggled. In the background, the TV blared some sitcom, and her friend’s laughter blended with the show’s laugh track.

  “There’s this house next door,” Lindsay said, “and Buffy wouldn’t go into it. And there are these weird guys with umbrellas all over town.”

  “Is it raining?”

  “Yeah, it’s raining, but these are huge black umbrellas and all of the guys have these shiny black parkas on. It’s like they’re part of a cult or something.”

  “Maybe they don’t want to get wet.”

  “You’d understand if you saw them. They’re from some serial killer outlet store. One of them was just outside, and he was totally scoping me.”

  That was a lie, but she had to say something so Kate would understand just how bizarre these guys were.

  “No way,” Kate said.

  “So true. He was in back of the place next door, just staring. Totally not moving or anything. Just staring.”

  “Is he still there?”

  “No. He bailed.”

  “Weird.”

  “I know. It’s just awful here.”

  “It sounds like it,” Kate said. “Maybe it’ll be better if you get some sun.”

  “I hope so. Right now it’s just so gray.”

  “Have you forgiven your parents yet?”

  “Not even. They must be punished. I can NOT believe they picked this week to drag me out of town.”

  “Well, you totally helped with the party. I so owe you, big.”

  “It’s okay. I just wish I could be there. It’s going to be way fun.”

  “I’m so nervous.”

  “You’ll do fine. Just make sure you have the number of the taxi company if anyone gets too wasted, and do not let Justin and Farge in.”

  “Oh my god,” Kate said with a cackling laugh. “I’d have to fumigate the place if those burners got in.”

  “Exactly,” Lindsay said. “Just remember, they
are guests in your house, but it is your house. Don’t put up with any dis’.”

  “I won’t, Linds. Thanks so much. I totally have to go like now. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “See ya.”

  Back at the window, Lindsay sat on the edge of the green cushion and looked out. The yard next door was still empty. She relaxed a bit and opened up her laptop. Kate was probably right. It was raining really hard, and it made sense that people would have umbrellas and raincoats on. It wasn’t like a total breakdown in reality.

  As she thought this, a figure dashed into the alley, pushing close to the rundown house. Lindsay pulled a little way back, just looking over the edge of the sill to see who stood below.

  The boy was blond with long frayed dreadlocks. He wore cargo shorts, Teva sandals, and a tie-dyed T-shirt that was drenched and pasted to his body. He bent at the waist, and a flash of light burst over his belly as he sparked a lighter. Hunched over, the burner was sparking a bowl in the downpour.

  What a looz, Lindsay thought. The burner couldn’t even wait to get home and get under some shelter before taking a hit.

  The boy straightened up a bit, cupping his pipe in his palm so it didn’t get too wet. He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke that was immediately beat down by the rain. Lifting his face to let the downpour wash over him, looking ecstatic, the boy shoved the pipe into a pocket. Lindsay moved farther from the window. She so didn’t want this dope jockey spotting her.