by Jeff Strand
Start screaming and hope that they run?
Tearfully confess and give them Harriett's room number?
I didn't sign up for this. All I wanted to do was tell my boss to go to hell. If I hadn't screwed that up, I wouldn't have gone walking around to clear my head, and now I wouldn't be marching ahead of two gun-carrying assassins/kidnappers/bounty hunters/whatever. That's all it would have taken. "Hey, Dirk, go to hell," and things would be perfectly fine.
What am I going to do?
Unless Harriett drops upon them like a ninja, I've got to figure something out in the next few seconds. And, unfortunately, my best option for not getting shot is to sell her out. It would be a gut-wrenching decision, but I barely know her. Why am I putting my own life at risk? That's madness.
A miracle would be pretty nice right about now.
Any kind of miracle.
Anything.
I'm not picky.
And...I get one.
The second-to-last room in the row. Their curtains are drawn and their door is shut, but the couple inside that room is having the noisiest sex I've ever heard. Not that I've heard much sex; just my college roommate on occasion and my neighbors back when I lived alone in a studio apartment, but this is some seriously high-volume lovemaking. I can hear the slam of the headboard banging against the wall, and though the man is communicating only through guttural moans, the woman is shouting a very specific request, over and over.
I stop. I glance over my shoulder and give the men a Can you believe this? look.
Reggie and Pulp stop as well. Even if you're on a professional assignment, it's difficult to ignore the sounds of a couple going at it like wild animals.
I run.
I swerve around the corner. I'm not sure what's behind the motel, but if I'm lucky, I can...shit, nope, I'm not lucky at all. There's a chain-link fence right there.
It's only a little taller than I am. Not an insurmountable obstacle, except that my pursuers are only a second or two behind me, and I lack the ability to leap over fences in a single bound.
Something strikes me in the back, right between the shoulder blades.
I think I've been shot as I fall to the ground.
No, one of them threw his gun at me.
It would have been a really dumb move on their part if I'd been able to retrieve the weapon, but they're upon me in seconds, and Pulp grabs his gun before I can even try to roll over. They turn me onto my back, then Reggie punches me in the face.
Except for one fight in middle school, I have never been punched in the face. And in middle school, the kid was wearing a mitten. The pain is unbelievable. He punches me again, and then once more, and I have to spit out some blood.
"That wasn't smart," Reggie informs me, pressing the barrel of his gun against my chin.
I'm not sure that an apology will suffice at this point.
"I don't know what kinda weird connection you think you've got with that girl, but it's time to sever it," Reggie tells me. "All you had to do was give us a room number. Now you've gone and made yourself into a loose end."
He punches me in the stomach. I groan and cough, but somehow keep the muffaletta down.
"I don't wanna kill you. That kinda thing weighs on my conscience. But what do I do now? What other option have you left me? Why would you do this to yourself?"
I'm coughing too hard to answer any of those questions, though I assume they were all rhetorical.
"Want me to do it?" asks Pulp.
"Yeah. Cut his throat."
Pulp takes out a large pocketknife and snaps out the blade. I'm not sure if they're trying to conserve bullets for their attack on Harriett, or if they don't want anybody to hear the gunshots, or if they just prefer slitting throats to blowing out people's brains.
I don't think that blabbing Harriett's room number at this point would save my life. Though I'd still try, if I could speak.
Reggie puts his hand over my mouth.
I put up a strong but unsuccessful struggle as Pulp climbs on top of me. I don't want my throat cut. I really, really don't want my throat cut. There is nothing I want less at this particular moment.
"Hurry, before somebody hears," says Reggie.
Pulp presses his blade against my neck but doesn't actually jam it in. He doesn't seem one hundred percent in favor of slashing my throat. Not that I think he's going to kindly spare my life; he just seems a bit squeamish.
"Where's Joel?" he asks.
Reggie looks past me. "How the hell should I know?"
"Shouldn't he be here by now? He only needed to grab a few things."
"Don't get all paranoid. He doesn't know which way we went."
"Yeah, yeah, but—"
"Kill him so we can get back to business."
Pulp begins to slide the knife against my neck, breaking the skin. I'm not yet resigned to my fate, but if I struggle now, I'm only going to make him cut deeper.
I don't believe in the afterlife, so I can't even soothe myself by saying that soon Becky and I will be together again.
Somebody cries out, not too far away.
There's a loud thud, much closer than the cry was.
Pulp stops cutting my neck. "Was that Joel?"
"Sounded like him. Check it out."
Pulp climbs off of me and hurries away to investigate. He goes around the corner, but returns a moment later, eyes wide.
"He's on the ground! He went off the second floor!"
"How do you know?"
"Just look at him!"
Reggie apparently decides that my death is less important than seeing what happened to Joel. I expect him to casually fire a bullet into my head, but he doesn't, he just follows Pulp around the corner.
I get to my feet and immediately begin to climb the fence. I'm still feeling the stomach-punch, so I don't climb as well as I normally would, but I scramble to the top pretty quickly.
I climb over the top and then have a dizzy spell. I lose my balance and hit the ground, hard. Not "falling from the second floor of a motel onto pavement" hard, but hard enough to knock the wind out of me and keep me from getting right up and dancing away.
I get up, part of the way, then fall back down. Sharp bolts of pain shoot through my shoulder, and I wonder if I've dislocated it.
I touch my neck. Not as much blood as I expected, though certainly not dry.
As far as I can tell, once I get past a few trees, this will lead to an incline which will then lead me to the highway, where I can try to flag down a car that's doing seventy-five miles an hour.
I assume it's a good thing for me that the other guy went over the second floor railing. It probably wasn't an accident.
Two gunshots ring out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I stand, all the way this time. I think I messed up my leg, too, which is simply delightful. I inflicted more harm upon myself by falling off the fence than Reggie and Pulp did when they beat me up and cut me.
Anyway, time to suck it up and run for help. Assuming that I'm going in the right direction. Most likely, I'll drown in a swamp or break my neck scaling another fence beside the highway.
I run, though it's more of a zombie-like stagger.
"Evan!"
I stop and turn around. Harriett rushes over to the fence.
"Evan, come back!" She holds up my set of keys. "You can operate your vehicle! Hurry!"
"There are three men trying to find you!" I shout. I doubt this is new information to her by now, but you never know.
"They aren't any more. At least not if you drive us away before they get back up."
I consider sticking with my original plan of just running for the highway, but I turn around and shuffle back to the fence. I can't believe I have to climb this thing again, and this time with only one good arm. I reach up with my right arm and start climbing.
"It's more efficient if you use both hands," says Harriett.
If we weren't in a life-or-death rush, I'd ask if she had bolt cutters in her bac
kpack, which would make this a lot easier. Since we're very much in a hurry, I awkwardly climb to the top, and somehow make it down to the bottom without falling again.
"Did you dislocate your shoulder?" Harriett asks.
"Yeah."
"I can fix that. It will be quick but not without pain." She leans her pole against the fence, then hurriedly unzips her backpack and takes out the towel. "Stuff this into your mouth."
"We can deal with my arm later."
"No. I need you to be able to operate your vehicle accurately."
I stuff the towel into my mouth. Harriett doesn't hesitate; she just grabs my upper arm and jams it back into the socket. Since I recently watched her sew up her own wound without a whimper, I'm embarrassed to let out a towel-muffled howl of agony, but I do so anyway.
Harriett jiggles my arm. "Fixed?"
I spit out the towel. "Yes, thanks."
Harriett picks up the towel and then takes me by the hand. "Let's go. I don't know how long they'll remain unconscious."
We hurry back around the corner. The chubby-cheeked guy is lying motionless on the pavement, body bent in half the wrong way.
"Oh my God," I say.
"That one won't be getting up as quickly as the others."
"Is he dead?"
"I didn't check."
Reggie and Pulp are in a pile at the bottom of the stairs. Pulp's eyes are closed but he's breathing. Reggie is battered but awake, and trying to drag himself out from underneath his associate.
Several motel room doors are open, though the frisky couple is still going at it, despite the gunshots.
We rush over to my car, which is only about fifty feet away. By the time we get there, Reggie has gotten out from under Pulp. He starts to limp toward us. He must not have his gun anymore, or else presumably he'd be shooting at us.
I unlock Harriett's door first, and scurry over to unlock mine. I get inside and slide the key into the ignition. Reggie is still coming for us, like one of those horror movie killers who moves slowly yet somehow seems even more menacing because of the lack of haste.
His eye patch has slipped down to his cheek. I'd expect an empty socket or a milky film over his eye, but it looks like a perfectly normal eye. At least it does from about twenty feet away at night, which I suppose isn't the best way to judge the appearance of an eye.
Fortunately, the horror movie comparison does not extend to being unable to start the car. The engine roars to life. I put the car in reverse and slam my foot against the gas pedal, just in time to pull away from Reggie. Even up close, his eye looks fine.
I brake inches away from a car parked behind me, spin the steering wheel, and floor the gas again. Reggie leaps onto the back of the car, but we hit a speed bump and he topples off.
We rocket out of the motel parking lot.
"Did you get my phone back?" I ask.
"No. The first man was holding it when I struck him. I'm not certain where it landed."
"Damn it." I'm sure several people have already called the police, but it would be nice to be able to speak with them myself.
"How's your arm?"
"It's sore as hell. I can drive, though."
"Your neck is bleeding."
"I know. They tried to slash my throat."
Harriett gasps. "Oh, Evan, I'm so sorry. Who are they?"
"Don't you know?"
"No."
I'm not sure what the best approach is regarding our attempt to flee from potential pursuers. Get back onto the interstate, or try to find someplace close where we can hide?
I decide to go with the interstate. Put some distance between us. There could be more than the three of them, and somebody could be watching. Yeah, I'm in full-on paranoia mode now.
I turn onto the I-10 West entrance ramp. There is currently no car directly behind us, trying to ram us off the road, so hopefully we're okay for now.
Or maybe it wasn't a good idea to resume traveling in the same direction we'd been going. I don't know. For now, I'm just going to go really fast. I get into the left lane and floor it. If I get pulled over by the police, all the better.
Harriett looks more than a little uncomfortable with our velocity, but she'll have to deal with it.
"Tell me what's going on," I say.
"I don't know."
"You know more than I do."
"I heard your door open. I thought you were going to abandon me, so I got up to try to talk you out of it. I looked through the curtain and saw you with those men. I waited until you'd left to come out. Another man ran out of your room, tried to grab me, and had to be dealt with."
"Well, you sure did that effectively."
"I hope you don't think I should feel sorry for him."
"No, that's not where I was going with this."
"I suppose he could be paralyzed for the rest of his life. I have plenty of emotions, I swear, but it's difficult for me to feel sympathy in this situation."
"I get it," I say. "I'm not trying to get you to weep over the guy who went over the rail. He deserved it. They were all dicks. But this is the point where you need to accept reality."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that there's no fucking Cyclops."
Harriett frowns. "It's your vehicle and you get to set the language boundaries, but it's difficult for me to carry on a conversation when there's harsh profanity."
"Don't change the subject."
"That was not a subject change. That was an effort to keep me from being distracted from the subject."
"Fine. Whatever. There's no flipping Cyclops."
"Now you're being sarcastic and condescending."
"Well, do you know what kind of conversation deserves that attitude? One about killing a mythological creature. Grow up, Harriett."
"I never asked you to believe me."
"And I don't."
"You've never believed me. Why is it an issue now?"
"Those men showed up and tried to kill me because you're living in a fantasy world! The whole prophecy thing is ridiculous. I mean, c'mon, Jeannie was supposed to be one of your hero buddies, and she had no idea what the hell you were even talking about. I get that your life has been home-schooling taken to an extreme, but it's time to wake up."
"How do I know they were after me? Perhaps you've gotten into some trouble yourself. I only met you yesterday. I don't know who you've enraged."
"They knew about the Cyclops."
Harriett seems genuinely stunned by this. "What are you talking about? What did they say?"
"The one with the eye patch, Reggie, he said that you're delusional. They wanted to take you back to your parents."
Harriett is silent for a moment. "I don't understand his motive. He lied to you. My parents are dead. They killed themselves."
"Why should I believe that?"
"I'm sorry that I didn't have a phone device to take pictures of their corpses before I buried them. Do you want directions to their graves? Do you want to dig them up?"
I sigh with frustration. "You get that between the two stories, I have to believe theirs, right?"
"Why? Men hired by my parents to take me home wouldn't be trying to kill you. Even with my extreme home-schooling I understand that."
"I'm not saying they aren't bad guys."
"Did you give them legitimate cause to want you dead?"
"I wouldn't tell them where you were."
"Thank you. I appreciate that. But even though I have a limited understanding of how the world works, I know that men who are hired to return a daughter to their parents usually don't try to murder people along the way."
"I totally disagree with that. I don't know your parents. They could be crime lords who have dangerous associates working for them. Or you could be on the run because you stole drug money or something."
"Very well," says Harriett. "Both of those are plausible."
"Reggie, the older guy, was wearing an eye patch. He's the Cyclops. You projected that onto him or something. I
don't know the psychology."
"I've never seen him before."
"I don't buy that."
"I cannot explain why they were looking for me. I assume they want to stop me from fulfilling my destiny. And I'll be honest, it's very worrisome."
"You have to understand my perspective, right?" I ask. "You talk about killing a Cyclops, and then he shows up with an eye patch."
"You keep acting as if I'm trying to convince you that I'm right," Harriett says. "I have yet to make any effort to plead my case. All I've done is ask for a ride. If you want to eject me from your vehicle right now, I accept that. I simply ask that you bring it to a complete stop first."
I glance up at the rear-view mirror. There are several cars behind us, but none of them seem to be operated by drivers suffering from homicidal rage. We may be okay.
"I'm going to drive to the next exit, then pull off and find a phone. I can't force you to stay with me, obviously, but it would make my life easier if you helped me talk to the cops."
Harriett nods. "I owe you that much. I'm sorry about your face, neck, arm, and leg."
* * *
A couple of miles later, I take the exit ramp. I watch carefully for a car to follow me, but none does. Maybe all of our problems have been solved and everything will be happy fuzzy delight from now on.
We stop at a convenience store. The pay phone outside doesn't work, of course, but the clerk lets us borrow a phone, and I call the police while Harriett paces around the candy aisle, too distracted to enjoy the bounty of treasures before her.
"We're going to have to answer a lot of questions," I say.
"Yes."
"I'll make you a deal. I won't say anything about the Cyclops if you don't. Tell the truth about everything else, but say that this was a journey to find yourself. Make it sound New Agey."
"New Agey?"
"Just be vague."
"I will. This was a journey to find myself."
* * *
And now we're at the police station. We've been here for hours. We've answered, in separate rooms, the same questions about eighty trillion times, though I think we're almost done. I sit there silently, while Harriett reads Lassoing the Cowboy. I notice that she reaches the last page, then turns immediately to the front and starts reading it again.