Mapmaker

by Mark Bomback

  The driver door opened and closed.

  The passenger door opened and closed.

  There was the chugging sound of the tank being filled. Two voices were talking outside. Then silence. There was the beep and click of the locks; the passenger door opened again. I heard a fumbling in the front seat, the brief crinkling of plastic. Then the door closed again. I waited for the beep of the lock, but didn’t hear it. Was I alone in the car? I opened my eyes halfway. I was alone, but then I realized one of the men was leaning against the back passenger-side door, lighting a cigarette, using both hands to shield it from the wind. I didn’t see Alison or the other man.

  Cautiously I pushed myself up to look outside. I had imagined we were at one of those huge McDonald’s/Shell rest stops but it was just a small gas station next to a diner. I figured the other two had gone inside to get something to eat or use the bathroom, and left the other guy to watch me. My heart leapt. The doors were unlocked. My palms felt cold and sweaty as I gripped the door handle.

  That’s when I saw something in the seat holder: an ice scraper. Maybe they were planning on driving north. Alison had mentioned Alaska. Were they planning on driving to Alaska? I pulled it out without thinking how I’d use it.

  The man outside was fumbling to get a cigarette lit, trying to shield the lighter flame from the wind. Now I understood: He must have forgotten his smokes in the front seat. No doubt he’d lock the doors again as soon as he could. I stared out at the small white gas station, the diner with a flashing neon sign in the shape of a milk shake. There were only four other cars parked in the mostly empty lot.

  Where would I go from here? Beyond the gas station was a wooded area. I couldn’t see much farther. Did the woods go on for miles or were they just a patch of trees leading to someone’s backyard? I assumed we must be somewhere rural, with a low population. The landscape looked flat. That made me think the trees behind the gas station might go deep and not just be in someone’s backyard. My worry was that it might just be an island of trees between two highways. Where I’d be trapped.

  The smoker was heavyset, dressed in a navy suit, with a head of short, grey hair. I could only see his back. I imagined he had red sweaty skin, the kind that comes from too much alcohol and meat. He wouldn’t be able to outrun me. I pulled the opposite door handle, as slowly and quietly as possible, watching the man’s back the whole time. He didn’t hear. I crouched low and crawled out, hiding by the rear wheel.

  The pavement felt hot under my palms. A breeze rustled my hair. Thank God it was summer and not freezing cold or pouring rain. There was an opening of fifty-four-plus feet between the gas station and diner. In it stood a depressing-looking Porta-Potty and a round plastic picnic table with a broken umbrella. The ground was littered with beer and soda cans. Behind that: the woods.

  I sucked in a breath and took off.

  My legs moved slowly from the drugs. They felt heavy and numb. The first tree, which I knew was less than sixty-nine feet from the car, seemed so far now. Using all my strength, I made it another four feet when the diner door opened and Alison came out. She carried a coffee in her hand, her cell phone in the other. She froze for a split second, staring at me before she pulled something from her pocket.

  I hurled the ice scraper at her. I watched in amazement as it spun in the air like a boomerang, hitting the side of her head. The coffee spilled over her hand and she shouted in pain. The heavyset man guarding the car looked up from his cell phone. I didn’t look back, but I could hear him running after me.

  The woods are dark on a cloudless night. It must have been the adrenaline that made me sprint in near blindness when just a few seconds ago my legs felt like lead.

  I stopped when I heard a strange thud, and then another, and another. Bark exploded off the trees around me. Wisps of smoke rose from tiny black holes in the trunks. I stared for a moment, frozen, stupefied.

  They’re shooting at me.

  Another pop, and I dove to the rough ground, crawling forward on my hands and knees. There was no sound of gunshots. That’s what Alison had pulled from her pocket, a gun with a silencer. I held my breath. Flashlights swept through the branches. I could hear footsteps over the crunching leaves, the heavy sound of breathing, the voices of the two men. How far away were they? I couldn’t know if I couldn’t see them. I pushed myself up, running again. More bullets. I ducked, stumbling over a tree root—and fell.

  They would get me now. I lay frozen on the damp earth. The beams of light swept through the trees like ghosts. Their footsteps drew closer and closer, punctuated by the sharp crunch of leaves. I pressed my face against the dirt, holding my breath. Please God, I prayed, don’t let them see me. In a panic, I grabbed a handful of acorns, throwing them in the opposite direction. When they clattered off the trees, the flashlights suddenly swung toward the noise. I dared to lift my head, watching as they hurried toward it.

  “She’s over here!” Alison shouted.

  Without thinking, I bolted. Branches and thorns cut my skin. I tripped in burrows and animal holes. There is no straight ahead in the woods; you have to weave. They heard my footsteps because in an instant, they were right behind me again, hunting me.

  That’s when I fell.

  The drop seemed to take forever: feet first, down and down. My back hit against the roots and rocks. I grabbed at the dirt, reaching for anything to still myself, to hold on to. I couldn’t see above or below me. I landed with a sharp jolt and fell forward onto my hands and knees, knocked out of breath and stunned with fear.

  I couldn’t see anything. I was too afraid to move. Was there flat land around me? Or was there another slope or cliff a few feet away?

  I looked up; the sky was starless. I looked down; the ground was black. The only sound I could hear was my pulse in my head and ears. My first instinct was to scream for help but the only people who would hear were the ones I was running from. I stayed still, listening to my frantic heartbeat. I looked around; they were gone. No voices, no flashlights, no bullets, no footsteps. Had they given up and assumed I was dead?

  I’m lost. I’m completely alone. I am hurt.

  Knowing this was more frightening than anything else that had happened to me. More frightening than the car, the bullets, the chase.

  The air felt cool, even cold against my skin. Different animals made sudden, quick noises around me. I curled my legs into my chest and wrapped my arms around them. A burning sensation seared my left ankle from the fall. I squinted through the ravine, searching for any sign of lights. There were none. Have you ever seen a map of the world at night? Africa is red with fires; North Korea is black; America is dotted with crystal white blobs. How far was I from one of those?

  My mouth was parched and filled with the metallic taste of blood. I curled up against the base of a tree. My left ankle burned like a flame. I was too tired even to cry.

  The sky was grey-blue when I woke up. At first I had no recollection of where I was. I stared at the earth, the leaves, the endless trees in disbelief. Just yesterday I had woken up in my own bed and now I was in a dry creek bed in the woods, lost, far from home. Somewhere I could hear the tinkling sound of water.

  I pushed myself up. My head ached, I was thirsty and dizzy. At least the pain in my ankle had subsided. The palms of my hands were bloody and scuffed from where I’d fallen, and I knew I had to rinse the dirt away from the broken skin as soon as possible. My jeans were ripped at the knee and covered in dirt and leaves. I looked like a child who’d taken a terrible spill on the playground. But I wasn’t a child and this wasn’t a fall from a bike or roller skates.

  Behind me the earth rose at a steep angle, twenty-three feet up to a ridge, scarred by my path. That fall might have saved my life. The creek wasn’t entirely dry; seventeen feet to my right was a small stream of water running slowly over the rocks. In the dawn it looked crystal clear.

  I had never been so happy to see water before. I limped over to it. I knew my ankle wasn’t broken, though. I knelt down
and let the icy water rinse the dirt and blood from my scraped hands. I cupped them and gulped feverishly, spilling all over myself. Water had never tasted so good, so clean and cold. I washed my face and wiped the dirt from my jeans and the navy sweatshirt I had on. Then I took off my sneakers and socks and soaked my feet and ankle, hoping it would stop the swelling and pain.

  Birds chirped overhead. I realized I was panting. But I felt human again. Now I had to find my way out of the woods. I stood up. The sun was just climbing over the treetops. I figured it was about eight A.M. I turned myself in a circle. The ravine wall blocked my path back to the gas station, but I didn’t want to go there. They might still be waiting for me. I marked the tree I’d slept against with a rock, carving a double line in the bark and headed northeast, toward home, measuring in my head as I went.

  I counted two hundred yards, marked another tree, and limped another two hundred yards, marked another tree and walked another two hundred steps. My stomach sunk in with hunger, my ankle ached, I couldn’t stop thinking about grapefruit juice and a grilled cheese sandwich. I imagined I’d find an ace bandage on the ground.

  A thousand yards became two thousand. I fought back a tide of panic. The woods were endless. Was Blaney looking for me? The police? Beth? I knew she was and she must be worried sick. Harrison, my father’s best friend, my legal guardian, had been talking to the people who’d taken me—unless I’d mistaken his voice on the computer. I wasn’t sure what was real or not anymore.

  “Hello!” I yelled to the sky. “Hello! Help me!”

  The sun was overhead now; it was midday.

  For a few hours, I’d managed to hope, but now I was losing it. I could be in a national park. I pictured the map of the eastern states, those green areas, how they were so small compared to the towns and villages.

  I turned due east, toward the coast. The pain in my ankle was like a person screaming in my ear. Maybe Alison and the men had left me because they’d known I’d get lost and die. I was so afraid of the unknown. I’d never been lost. I was more afraid now than when I’d been taken in the car.

  “Hello!” I tried to scream again. “Help me! Help!”

  Plowing eastward, I caught a glimpse of something lying beneath the leaves. It was orange, plastic. I kicked the leaves away with my foot: an orange Nerf machine gun, a child’s toy. Quickly I searched for a path, a disruption in the leaves or footsteps in the mud. Nothing was clear. I walked ten steps due south, then another ten, still nothing. If a child was playing in the woods there must be a house nearby. Maybe?

  This was hope. I heard the sound of wind again, waiting to feel it or see it in the branches and leaves but the leaves were still. I turned around and glimpsed a foam orange bullet. The ground to the north-northwest looked trampled. Fourteen yards in that direction, I saw a second Nerf bullet lying in the leaves.

  The sound of the wind came, but there was no breeze.

  It wasn’t the wind I was hearing. It was a car. It was so faint, though. I froze, waiting. There …

  My ankle burned but I ran. Marking where I’d been before so I didn’t waste any time retracing my steps. With the falling leaves and the muddy ground, everything looked the same. That’s when I saw the third bullet and the clearing light.

  I stopped, catching my breath. I shifted all my weight to one foot. In front of me the trees thinned, a dirt trail no more than a foot wide cut through the woods. NO TRESPASSING signs were nailed to the trees, a fire pit was dug into the ground, filled with charred wood. Cigarette butts and beer bottles littered the ground. I’d never been so happy to see signs of human life.

  The path came to a clearing and a red clapboard house.

  I’m safe, I thought. I’m safe now.

  In the dusk, the red house looked like home. I imagined a family in the kitchen, eating dinner. I walked past the plastic wading pool, its turquoise faded from the sun and the water filled with fallen leaves. A child’s bike lay on the ground, the wheels missing. As I drew closer, the story I would tell the nice family inside played on fast-forward: I am lost. I am in danger. Call the police and call my stepmother. They would take me in, feed me, act concerned to mask their initial fear of a strange and filthy teenager showing up from their backyard unannounced. And then they would make the calls.

  A silver-colored car was parked in a dirt drive. It had a Virginia license plate. I was in Virginia? As I drew closer, I saw that the red paint on the house was chipped in many places, marred with ugly stains. The blinds were drawn in the upstairs windows; the two downstairs windows were boarded up with plywood. Through the screen in the back door I could see a bare light bulb burning in the kitchen.

  I walked up the back steps. I felt an overwhelming mixture of fear, hunger, and thirst. I couldn’t tell if I was hot or cold. I held my hand in my sweatshirt pocket. That joy when I first saw the house from the woods, like finding a gold coin, was gone. I tapped on the screen door, overcome with my need to find someone, anyone, to help me.

  There were sounds—indistinct voices and footsteps upstairs—but no one answered. On the round table inside the kitchen, an ashtray, I could see a pack of cigarettes and beer cans. A pot cooked on the stove. My nose wrinkled at the strange metallic smell that came through the screen.

  Now I had a bad feeling. Showing up here might be more dangerous than being alone. There were clearly people in the house, and they didn’t want to be found.

  I looked toward the road. No other house in sight.

  Just go. Just keep going.

  I counted in my head to the number seventeen. This was something I hadn’t done in years. It started as a nervous tic after Mom died, because I knew it was exactly seventeen feet total from the foot of my bed to the foot of my father’s bed.

  When I’d finished counting, the voices upstairs grew to a shout. I walked away without thinking, quickly toward the road. I didn’t know which way to go: left or right? It was lighter to the left, so I went southwest toward the setting sun, following the downward slope of the hill. There were no lights, no other houses. I moved quickly, even running in short spurts until the pain in my ankle made it impossible.

  I guessed I had forty-five minutes before dark. I felt my right side pocket. I had some cash and my bank card. Thank God Beth had always warned me to keep some money “on your person.” Thank God I’d followed her advice. Thank God for Beth …

  My wallet was in my canvas shoulder bag—back at my cubicle along with my phone. Pathetic, but I was lost without my phone. Did I even have anyone’s number memorized? My brain came up empty. I hadn’t eaten anything since I’d left MapOut. Like a broken clock, my mind kept ticking back to lunchtime at work Friday, asking WHY I hadn’t eaten both halves of the sandwich I’d packed, remembering how I’d thrown the brown crusts and leftover peanut butter into the woods for the birds.

  The dirt road cut between two overgrown, untended fields. I hurried along it, limping now with every step. The light was turning a greyish purple. A flock of birds flew in a V overhead, heading northeast, carried by the wind. Every step I took tore at my ankle. As I staggered in the near dark, I made a list in my head: aspirin, ace bandage, water, food, call Beth …

  No, I had to call the police first. I knew Beth would be going crazy, worried sick. But what about Blaney? What had they done to her? Did they kill her? Kidnap her?

  I stiffened.

  An unmistakable distant sound cut across the dirt road: the long muted blast of a train horn. I ran toward it until a single pair of headlights rushed into view and vanished in the distance. Then I sprinted, trying to ignore the pain in my ankle. When I get there, then I’ll be safe. My legs burned when I finally reached the paved road of a town.

  I’m not sure how long I stood at the town’s edge. Beyond the crossing were the lights of storefronts. A spire stood dark against the night. At first I thought it was a church steeple, but as I walked closer it looked like a castle or fortress. I blinked several times, fighting fatigue. The light turned green and I concentr
ated on walking a straight line, toward a lighted pizza sign.

  As soon as I pulled open the glass door, my mouth watered. I counted the money in my pocket: twenty-six dollars plus some change and my bank card. Hunger overrode anything else: my fear for Blaney, my concern for Beth, thoughts of Connor.

  And then I glimpsed myself in the mirror on the back wall.

  My hair was ratty, clumped, my hands and face smeared with dirt. The rip that ran down the side of my jeans—torn from the fall in the ravine—was stained with brownish spots of blood. My eyes widened at the unrecognizable reflection. This wasn’t just a homeless girl; this was a filthy, crazy vagrant. Someone who might be dangerous. Me.

  The fat bald man behind the counter asked for the money before he handed me two slices on a paper plate and a bottle of water. I couldn’t blame him. He eyed me suspiciously as I sunk into a corner booth. What happened next was a blur of starvation; I inhaled the pizza and the water. Only when I’d finished did I notice the other people around me: four kids my age on a double date, talking about a baseball game. The girls were wearing the boys’ jackets, maroon and blue. ALTON HIGH FOOTBALL.

  I was in Alton, Virginia.

  For the first time since I’d escaped the car, I could think clearly again. I yawned. My stomach felt unsettled, but a warm, delicious drowsiness suddenly rose up from deep inside. I thought about curling up in the booth cushion.

  Fighting the impulse, I rubbed my eyes, hard. I pictured Alison as she injected me, the expressionless look on her face as she pulled out the gun. Why would they have killed me in the woods, but not in the car? They hadn’t followed me down the ravine, so I doubted I could be traced. They had my phone; I hadn’t used my bank card. Not yet, at least. But I couldn’t assume they gave me up for dead or lost forever.

  In the tiny bathroom of the pizza place, I cleaned up as much as I could. I scrubbed my face with the foam from the grimy dispenser. I tried to wipe the dirt and bloodstains from my clothes with a damp paper towel, but only ended up smearing the mud around my dirty clothes.