by AJ Rose
Ash jumped in. “He was sitting up and talking and a little dazed but moving under his own power. Like she said, we were afraid the intruder wouldn’t be the only one, so we left.”
“Where are you from?”
Ash talked over the top of Charlotte. “Upstate New York.” That was all they needed to know. “Look, we can’t go back home, and we didn’t know what to do with him. It didn’t seem right to try to put him to rest ourselves, but we can’t exactly alert a coroner for this.”
While they’d talked, the two doctors—nurses?—had determined that yes, Russ was in fact gone.
“Time of death, twenty-one forty-three,” the tall one said, then turned to them. Doctors then, since nurses couldn’t officially call it. “We’re going to need you to fill out some papers, name and address, all of that. I’m very sorry about your friend, and we’ll take good care of him, but in the meantime, we’ll start a file and get your information. Okay?”
Ash balked. The man was dead, and there was no way something as mundane as insurance was going to be taken care of on his behalf. They hadn’t done anything medical other than call time of death, which was off by more than an hour. For what did they need his or Charlotte’s information? Beside him, Elliot shifted uneasily, and Riley looked up at his mother, picking up on the tension.
“Okay,” Ash agreed, voice raspy. The two men left the room after exchanging a glance. He had no intention of signing anything, but they’d be able to formulate a plan in the few minutes’ privacy they’d been given.
“Why does that feel so weird?” Elliot asked, going to the door of the ER to watch them walk down a corridor lit by emergency light only. One of them pulled a hand-held radio from his lab coat pocket.
“What the fuck, Char?” Ash hissed, trying to keep his voice down. “Learn to take a cue, man. When I said he had an accident, you saying he was attacked only raised red flags. Do you want them to arrest me for his murder because our stories don’t match?”
“We could have brought him here for treatment, you bastard,” she snarled, her voice carrying more venom than he’d ever heard. “We had no reason to believe this place would be chaos except you said so, and now Russ is dead because we didn’t get him to a doctor in time.”
“I don’t think we should stay here,” Elliot said uncertainly, but Ash and Charlotte ignored him as Riley shrank behind his mother.
“I didn’t hit him over the head, Charlotte. That fucker from prison did, which wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t insisted on waiting out this whole fucking mess at home, so don’t start pointing fingers at me.”
“Guys,” Elliot said again. Riley whimpered.
“So what you’re saying is if I don’t listen to you, people get hurt, but if I do listen to you, people will get killed,” she shot back, visibly vibrating with anger.
“You know what happens if you don’t listen to me? We will never make it,” Ash gritted through his teeth, fighting to keep his volume down and his temper in check. “If we’d left even a day earlier, everything would be fine, we’d be on a camping trip, and our only problem would be fewer amenities. We wouldn’t be standing in this room having to fill out goddamned paperwork—”
“What was Russ’s last name?” Elliot asked hurriedly, taking a piece of paper with a checklist of pain symptoms on one side and blank on the other from one of the drawers in a nearby cabinet. There was also a stash of pens.
The question stopped both Charlotte and Ash in their tracks. “Wallace. Russell Wallace,” she answered, surprised.
Elliot scribbled the name on the paper, then left it on Russ’s chest. “Say your goodbyes right now. Quick.”
“Why?” Ash gaped, not sure who this assertive person was who looked like his lab partner but acted nothing like him.
“Because it’s not paperwork they’re looking for,” Elliot said with certainty, antsy and peering down the hall again from his position by the door. “I just saw two security guards talking with one of those doctors, and I have a bad feeling about this. So we have to leave.”
Charlotte began to protest, but Ash pushed her toward the gurney. “Listen to him.”
She picked up Russ’s hand and kissed his knuckles, then whispered something in his ear. Riley stood awkwardly by his mother’s side and murmured the word goodbye. Ash was sorry to rush them, but as soon as she let go, he herded them toward Elliot, who motioned them to follow. They walked at a fast clip toward the ER entrance, Ash looking over his shoulder in time to see security round the corner at the other end of the hall.
“Hey!” one of them shouted, taking up chase.
“Go!” Ash ordered, and they broke into a run. The check-in woman gave a token protest, but they didn’t wait to hear it, scrambling outside and into the van. Ash peeled out of the loading lane and away from the hospital as the sound of sirens reached their ears. He killed the headlights, driving by the light of the moon and parking in someone’s driveway a block away.
“What are you doing?” Charlotte asked in a shrill voice.
“Trust me,” he muttered. A minute later, the sirens wailed louder as two cop cars sped down the street, one riding the other’s bumper. Once they’d barreled into the hospital parking lot and stopped at the overhang protecting the ER entrance, Ash calmly backed the van from the driveway and drove away, leaving the lights off but otherwise not speeding, not calling attention to themselves in any way.
“What the hell?” Charlotte asked breathlessly, keeping the cop cars in sight as long as she could. Ash got back on the highway and flicked on his lights.
“Your honesty with those doctors made them think we were the ones who killed Russ,” Ash said flatly. “Our story was suspicious because the reason Russ was dead changed. The paperwork thing was a way to keep us there while they summoned the police. It appears law and order in this town is still alive and well, despite no power.”
“What does that mean?” Riley asked from the backseat, clearly frightened.
“It means we can’t stick around. I don’t want to be driving at night, but we have to get back to camp, pack up all but the essentials, and get ready to move out at first light. Keep out your tents and sleeping bags only, got it?”
“Yes, Uncle Ash,” Riley said obediently.
Charlotte remained tight-lipped, staring out the window at the blackness. After a minute, she couldn’t seem to keep her anger inside.
“We could have taken Russ for help, Ash.”
He tightened his grip on the wheel, making the plastic creak with the pressure. If it had been light out, he’d have seen how white his knuckles were.
“I know,” he finally admitted. “I’m sorry.”
“How much contact with other cities do you think those police have?” Elliot asked tentatively.
“I don’t know,” Ash said. The razor wire was back in his stomach, only this time, trying to snake up his esophagus and choke him. “We have a few hours at best to get out of here. Char, you take my tent with Riley, okay? I’ll sleep in the other one.”
She sniffed, but nodded. Elliot shifted in his seat to look at her.
“I know you’re upset,” he began, hesitating when she turned her glare on him, but he plowed on. “You have a right to be, but how far would we get if they’d managed to keep Ash on suspicion of murder? Not saying they would, but who knows what it would have taken to get him free if they decided he was the one who’d caused Russ’s injury?”
Charlotte didn’t reply, but Ash watched her in the mirror, his eyes flickering back and forth between her face and the road.
“I’m sorry about Russ,” Elliot said. “I really am, but I don’t much like our chances without Ash around. Do you?”
“No,” she grumbled.
They finished the drive in silence, and when they got back to camp, Charlotte rushed Riley into the boy’s tent and decisively zipped the flap shut. Brian watched them curiously, then listened while they relayed the situation. Without a word of instruction or judgment, he moved around
the camp, gathering their supplies and repacking the back of the van. Ash heard him telling the fish their sentence had been commuted and they’d been given an executive pardon before he dumped them back in the river. With most everything packed up, Elliot bid Ash goodnight and went to get into his tent. Brian had already retired, so they were alone.
Ash stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “If you hadn’t been listening to your gut, I don’t think we would have gotten out of that situation quickly enough.”
Elliot eyed him, then nodded. “If someone else gets hurt, no more playing field doctor, okay? If someone needs medical attention, and we don’t know if the hospitals are in bad shape, we go check it out.”
Ash was surprised by how cold Elliot’s voice was. “Okay,” he agreed.
Elliot paused and stared at him. “That could be me, Ash, if I have a bad seizure. I don’t want to die because you think there’s a threat in going for help.”
A chill breeze blew Ash’s hair off his neck, and he shivered as his sweat cooled. It was a clammy, uncomfortable feeling.
“I fucked up,” he said, his remorse plain. “I fucked up, and Russ paid for it with his life. I have to live with that. I won’t make the same mistake twice. From now on, if we stop near a town, we drive through and see if we can figure out their emergency capabilities. I don’t know what else to say to make up for this.” That last was said in a tone bordering on pleading. “I’m sorry.”
Catching him off guard, Elliot kissed him. “I forgive you. And once she realizes you didn’t mean to misjudge anything, Charlotte will, too.” He turned toward his tent and zipped himself inside, leaving Ash to stare stupidly after him, his fingertips ghosting over the impression of warmth from Elliot’s lips.
8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Day 5
Warren, Pennsylvania
* * *
Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.
—Yousuf Karsh
* * *
SLIPPING UNSEEN FROM Allegheny National Forest hadn’t been difficult, given no one manned the entrance and exit booths, but Ash hadn’t wanted to chance driving too close to Warren. At first light, he had Elliot and Brian map out a route leaving the forest on the southwest edge while he deconstructed the tents and repacked all their backpacks. It had taken them a full two hours to emerge from the canopy of trees, the sun making them squint with its spring vividness. As they left one danger behind, he’d grown increasingly fidgety, Elliot noted, catching him glancing repeatedly at the dash.
“Everything okay?” he murmured. The others were playing a game of road sign ABCs, and Riley cackled because he’d grabbed the only q on a sign boasting Antiques, Next Right.
“We need to stop for gas soon,” Ash responded, equally quiet so as not to alarm anyone. Because they avoided interstates, there were fewer places to stop that had any kind of population, and without power, there was no way to get the gas from the reservoirs in the ground, anyway. All the pumps they’d passed were electric.
When the low fuel indicator lit up, Elliot looked over his shoulder to see if any of the others had heard the dinging. Brian glanced up, but he’d kept from giving anything away. Thankfully, Charlotte had chosen that moment to lament, wishing they’d pass a sign for a Dairy Queen. She hadn’t heard.
“How do we do this?” Elliot asked.
“Siphon,” Ash answered. “It’s about the only option, so we need to find a place with some cars but no people.
He frowned. “Most everyone will either still be at home or….” He let his voice die off. He didn’t know what sorts of conditions they’d face once they got to the next town. Just then, Elliot spied a sign: Oil City, Pennsylvania, 10 Miles.
“Well, if we can’t fuel up in Oil City, we can’t fuel up anywhere,” Ash said.
The last two miles before they began to see civilization, Elliot kept his eyes peeled for what Ash required. Mostly, a house here and there stood sentry on the highway, but they saw nothing useful. There were no other cars on the road, and there wasn’t anywhere to stop. Elliot worked to keep himself calm, knowing if they ran out of gas, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Not ideal, by any means, but they were near a town.
“There!” Elliot exclaimed, immediately kicking himself for alerting the rest of the passengers with his volume. He pointed at a sign for O’Leary’s Auto Body, heralding the gravel entrance to a brick building with three garage bays off the side and a darkened glass storefront. Parked around the place were several cars, a few crumpled at one end or the other, some simply sitting as if their owners would saunter out of the building at any moment and speed off.
“Good.” Ash squinted.
“What are we doing?” Charlotte asked with more tension than curiosity.
“Need gas,” Ash said in a clipped tone. Either he didn’t want to bother explaining they would need to steal it, or he was still upset with her from the night before. All morning, things between them had been strained, and Elliot had spied Charlotte wiping tears from her face more than once.
“Can we use the bathroom here?” Riley asked as his mother pulled him into her lap protectively.
“I don’t know if we’re going inside, buddy,” Ash replied. “But if it’s deserted enough, you can go ’round the back of the building.”
“Mom says that’s gross, going pee outside.”
“I think in this case, you don’t have a lot of choice, Riles,” Charlotte said wearily.
They pulled in, and Ash parked behind the building in case someone came along. Elliot got out and met Ash at the back of the van as Riley scampered to the back wall, where a dumpster sat a couple feet from the brick. Riley slipped into a space too small for an adult. Elliot watched with an amused smile, then realized he probably should relieve himself, too. Charlotte got out slower than her son, grumbling.
“Everything okay?” Elliot asked her. He hadn’t really known what to say to her since the night before, feeling awkward after having gotten on her case about ratting Ash out. She didn’t seem pissed at him, but he didn’t quite know how to read her.
“Fine,” she said, then heaved a resigned sigh. “I need to go to the bathroom, too, but going outside for me is a bigger pain in the ass than it is for you boys.
“Well, I have something that might help you,” Elliot said. While Ash was bent into the cargo area, Elliot pulled at the backpack he’d claimed as his—now that there was a pack for each person—and unzipped it. His tongue snaked out of the corner of his mouth as he searched the contents by feel, careful not to nick the cutting wheel of the can opener when his fingers brushed it. “Aha,” he declared, unearthing a squished roll of toilet paper. With a slight smile, he passed it over to her. “Pour vous, mademoiselle,” he quipped, hoping to make her smile.
She did one better: she leaned up to kiss his cheek in gratitude. “You are a true gentleman.” Scurrying off into a stand of trees, she sought as much privacy as possible to do her thing.
“Have you got what you need?” Brian rounded the van.
Ash asked distractedly, “Do you remember which pack has that three-quarter inch plastic tubing?”
Brian grabbed a backpack and rummaged. Elliot left them to it, looking for his own square of privacy. Staying out of the waist-high weeds bordering the back half of the parking lot for fear of snakes, Elliot wandered to the side opposite Charlotte, looking over the cars in the lot. He managed to find a bit of seclusion between a pickup truck and a medium-sized SUV.
Fluffy, white clouds scudded overhead as his gaze wandered while taking care of business, and he lifted his face to the sun. For a brief moment, he almost believed he was on vacation, a spontaneous road trip where he and a college buddy had decided if they didn’t get out of the doldrums of studying and classes, they’d go mad. Going on the cheap meant stealing gas and eating crap food, because in his imagination, they were both broke and saving their money for when they got to a city, where they could go out on the t
own and say they’d partied like college kids are supposed to. Including the sweaty romp between the sheets at the end of the night.
With a sigh at the pleasant indulgence, he tucked away and zipped up, turning to go back to the van and running smack into Ash.
“Jesus, don’t sneak up on me like that!” he exclaimed before he could stop himself.
Expecting Ash to snap at him for being loud, he was surprised to get a chuckle instead, and a quick kiss. Ash steadying him when he wobbled.
“Sorry.” Ash held up clear plastic tubing, about three feet long, and wiggled it like it was a dead snake. Elliot’s smile turned sheepish, and he ducked his head, hoping his daydream wasn’t visible on his face in any way. “Found it, but I need a container to put the gas in. Help me find something that’ll work.”
They walked toward the front of the building, and when they got to the windows on the side, which wrapped around to the front entrance, they slowed. Ash peered into the darkness, then cupped his hands around his face, cutting the glare.
“I don’t see anyone.”
“Do you see any gas cans?”
Ash shook his head. Elliot was glad. One less place they’d have to break into. Even if he understood the necessity, he didn’t like doing that kind of thing, given how easy it would be to walk into someone else’s danger. Ash turned to circle around back and ran into Elliot, who’d been expecting him to go the other direction. He tried to step to the side, but Ash went the same way at the same time. They repeated the process the other way. Ash made a show of peering over Elliot’s shoulder to where the others milled, then pulled Elliot to him, slipping his hands to Elliot’s ass for a good grope.
“Thanks for the dance,” Ash purred, then shuffled past him to the back of the building. Elliot stood dumbly for a second, then wheeled to follow. As they passed the dumpster no longer shielding Riley, who stood by the van, chucking small rocks into the field grass beyond the edge of the parking lot, they found what they were looking for. Lined up along the back wall on the blind side of the dumpster were several dirty red gas cans, five gallons each.