While She Was Out

by Ed Bryant

  The twins! Kenneth. She wanted to see them all, to be safely with them. Just be anywhere but here!

  Della spun the wheel, ignoring the stop sign and realizing that the access road dead-ended. She could go right or left, so went right. She thought it was the direction of home. Not a good choice. The lights were all behind her now; she could see nothing but darkness ahead. Della tried to remember what lay beyond the mall on this side. There were housing developments, both completed and under construction.

  There had to be a 7-Eleven, a filling station, something. Anything. But there wasn’t, and then the pavement ended. At first the road was suddenly rougher, the potholes yawning deeper. Then the slush-marked asphalt stopped. The Subaru bounced across the gravel; within thirty yards, the gravel deteriorated to roughly graded dirt. The dirt surface more properly could be called mud.

  A wooden barrier loomed ahead, the reflective stripes and lightly falling snow glittering in the headlights.

  It was like on TV, Della thought. She gunned the engine and ducked sideways, even with the dash, as the Subaru plowed into the barrier. She heard a sickening crack and shattered windshield glass sprayed down around her. Della felt the car veer. She tried to sit upright again, but the auto was spinning too fast.

  The Subaru swung a final time and smacked firm against a low grove of young pine. The engine coughed and stalled. Della hit the light switch. She smelled the overwhelming tang of crushed pine needles flooding with the snow through the space where the windshield had been. The engine groaned when she twisted the key, didn’t start.

  Della risked a quick look around. The Plymouth’s lights were visible, but the car was farther back than she had dared hope. The size of the lights wasn’t increasing and the beams pointed up at a steep angle. Probably the heavy Plymouth had slid in the slush, gone off the road, was stuck for good.

  She tried the key, and again the engine didn’t catch. She heard something else-voices getting closer. Della took the key out of the ignition and glanced around the dark passenger compartment. Was there anything she could use? Anything at all? Not in the glove box. She knew there was nothing there but the owner’s manual and a large pack of sugarless spearmint gum.

  The voices neared.

  Della reached under the dash and tugged the trunk release. Then she rolled down the window and slipped out into the darkness. She wasn’t too stunned to forget that the overhead-light would go on if she opened the door.

  At least one of the boys had a flashlight. The beam flickered and danced along the snow.

  Della stumbled to the rear of the Subaru. By feel, she found the toolbox. With her other hand, she sought out the lug wrench. Then she moved away from the car.

  She wished she had a gun. She wished she had learned to use a gun. That had been something tagged for a vague future when she’d finished her consumer mechanics course and the self-defense workshop, and had some time again to take another night course. It wasn’t, she had reminded herself, that she was paranoid. Della simply wanted to be better prepared for the exigencies of living in the city. The suburbs weren’t the city to Kenneth, but if you were a girl from rural Montana, they were.

  She hadn’t expected this.

  She hunched down. Her nose told her the shelter she had found was a hefty clump of sagebrush. She was perhaps twenty yards from the Subaru now. The boys were making no attempt at stealth. She heard them talking to each other as the flashlight beam bobbed around her stalled car.

  “So, she in there chilled with her brains all over the wheel?” said Tomas, the Hispanic kid.

  “You an optimist?” said Chuckie. He laughed, a high-pitched giggle. “No, she ain’t here, you dumb shit. This one’s a tough lady.” Then he said, “Hey, lookie there!”

  “What you doin’?” said Huey. “We ain’t got time for that.” “Don’t be too sure. Maybe we can use this.”

  What had he found? Della wondered.

  “Now we do what?” said Vinh. He had a slight accent.

  “This be the West,” said Huey. “I guess now we’re mountain men, just like in the movies.”

  “Right,” said Chuckie. “Track her. There’s mud. There’s snow. How far can she get?”

  “There’s the trail,” said Tomas. “Shine the light over there. She must be pretty close.”

  Delia turned. Hugging the toolbox, trying not to let it clink or clatter, she fled into the night.

  They cornered her a few minutes later.

  Or it could have been an hour. There was no way she could read her watch. All Della knew was that she had run; she had run and she had attempted circling around to where she might have a shot at making it to the distant lights of the shopping mall. Along the way, she’d felt the brush clawing at her denim jeans and the mud and slush attempting to suck down her shoes. She tried to make out shapes in the clouded-over dark, evaluating every murky form as a potential hiding place.

  “Hey, baby,” said Huey from right in front of her.

  Della recoiled, feinted to the side, collided painfully with a wooden fence. The boards gave only slightly. She felt a long splinter drive through the down coat and spear into her shoulder. When Della jerked away, she felt the splinter tear away from its board and then break off.

  The flashlight snapped on, the beam at first blinding her, then lowering to focus on her upper body. From their voices, she knew all four were there. Della wanted to free a hand to pull the splinter loose from her shoulder. Instead she continued cradling the blue plastic toolbox.

  “Hey,” said Chuckie, “what’s in that thing? Family treasure, maybe?”

  Della remained mute. She’d already gotten into trouble enough, wising off.

  “Let’s see,” said Chuckie. “Show us, Della-honey.”

  She stared at his invisible face.

  Chuckie giggled. “Your driver’s license, babe. In your purse. In the car.

  Shit, she thought.

  “Lousy picture.” Chuckie. “I think maybe we’re gonna make your face match it.” Again, that ghastly laugh. “Meantime, let’s see what’s in the box, okay?”

  “Jewels, you think?” said Vinh.

  “Naw, I don’t think,” said his leader. “But maybe she was makin’ the bank deposit or something.” He addressed Della, “You got enough goodies for us, maybe we can be bought off.”

  No chance, she thought. They want everything. My money, my rings, my watch. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. My life. “Open the box,” said Chuckie, voice mean now.

  “Open the box,” said Tomas. Huey echoed him. The four started chanting, “Open the box, open the box, open the box.”

  “All right,” she almost screamed. “I’ll do it.” They stopped their chorus. Someone snickered. Her hands moving slowly, Della’s brain raced. Do it, she thought. But be careful. So careful. She let the lug wrench rest across her palm below the toolbox. With her other hand, she unsnapped the catch and slid up the lid toward the four. She didn’t think any of them could see in, though the flashlight beam was focused now on the toolbox lid.

  Della reached inside, as deliberately as she could, trying to betray nothing of what she hoped to do. It all depended upon what lay on top. Her bare fingertips touched the cold steel of the crescent wrench. Her fingers curled around the handle.

  “This is pretty dull,” said Tomas. “Let’s just rape her.”

  Now!

  She withdrew the wrench, cocked her wrist back and hurled the tool about two feet above the flashlight’s glare. Della snapped it just like her daddy had taught her to throw a hardball. She hadn’t liked baseball all that much. But now-

  The wrench crunched something and Chuckie screamed. The flashlight dropped to the snow.

  Snapping shut the toolbox, Della sprinted between Chuckie and the one she guessed was Huey.

  The black kid lunged for her and slipped in the muck, toppl
ing face- first into the slush. Della had a peripheral glimpse of Tomas leaping toward her, but his leading foot came down on the back of Huey’s head, grinding the boy’s face into the mud. Huey’s scream bubbled; Tomas cursed and tumbled forward, trying to stop himself without-thrust arms.

  All Della could think as she gained the darkness was, I should have grabbed the light.

  She heard the one she thought was Vinh, laughing. “Cripes, guys, neat. Just like Moe and Curley and that other one.”

  “Shut up,” said Chuckie’s voice. It sounded pinched and in pain. “Shut the fuck up.” The timbre squeaked and broke. “Get up, you dorks. Get the bitch.”

  Sticks and stones-Della thought. Was she getting hysterical? There was no good reason not to.

  As she ran-and stumbled-across the nightscape, Della could feel the long splinter moving with the movement of the muscles in her shoulder. The feeling of it, not just the pain, but the sheer, physical sensation of intrusion, nauseated her.

  I’ve got to stop, she thought. I’ve got to rest. I’ve got to think.

  Della stumbled down the side of a shallow gulch and found she was splashing across a shallow, frigid stream. Water. It triggered something. Disregarding the cold soaking her flats and numbing her feet, she turned and started upstream, attempting to splash as little as possible. This had worked, she seemed to recall, in Uncle Tam’s Cabin, as well as a lot of bad prison escape movies.

  The boys were hardly experienced mountain men. They weren’t Indian trackers. This ought to take care of her trail.

  After what she estimated to be at least a hundred yards, when her feet felt like blocks of wood and she felt she was losing her balance. Della clambered out of the stream and struggled up the side of the gulch. She found herself in groves of pine, much like the trees where her Subaru had ended its skid. At least the pungent evergreens supplied some shelter against the prairie wind that had started to rise.

  She heard noise from down in the gulch. It was music. It made her think of the twins.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Chuckie’s voice.

  “It’s a tribute, man. A gesture.” Vinh. “It’s his blaster.”

  Della recognized the tape. Rap music. Run DMC, the Beastie Boys, one of those groups.

  “Christ, I didn’t mean it.” Tomas. “It’s her fault.”

  “Well, he’s dead,” said Chuckie, “and that’s it for him. Now turn that shit off. Somebody might hear.”

  “Who’s going to hear?” said Vinh. “Nobody can hear out here. Just us, and her.”

  “That’s the point. She can.”

  “So what?” said Tomas. “We got the gun, we got the light. She’s got nothin’ but that stupid box.”

  “We had Huey,” said Chuckie. “Now we don’t. Shut off the blaster, dammit.”

  “Okay.” Vinh’s voice sounded sullen. There was a loud click and the rap echo died.

  Della huddled against the rough bark of a pine trunk, hugging the box and herself. The boy’s dead, she thought. So? Said her common sense. He would have killed you, maybe raped you, tortured you before pulling the trigger. The rest are going to have to die too.

  No.

  Yes, said her practical side. You have no choice. They started this. I put the note under the wiper blade.

  Get serious. That was harmless. These three are going to kill you. They will hurt you first, then they’ll put the gun inside your mouth and-

  Della wanted to cry, to scream. She knew she could not. It was absolutely necessary that she not break now.

  Terri, she thought, Tammi. I love you. After a while, she remembered Kenneth. Even you, I love you too. Not much, but some.

  “Let’s look up above,” came the voice from the gully. Chuckie. Della heard the wet scrabbling sounds as the trio scratched and pulled their way up from the stream-bed. As it caught the falling snow, the flashlight looked like the beam from a searchlight at a movie premiere.

  Della edged back behind the pine and slowly moved to where the trees were closer together. Boughs laced together, screening her.

  “Now what?” said Tomas.

  “We split up. “ Chuckie gestured; the flashlight beam swung wide. “You go through the middle. Vinh and me’ll take the sides.”

  “Then why don’t you give me the light?” said Tomas.

  “I stole the sucker. It’s mine.”

  “Shit, I could just walk past her.”

  Chuckie laughed. “Get real, dude. You’ll smell her, hear her, somethin’. Trust me.”

  Tomas said something Della couldn’t make out, but the tone was unconvinced.

  “Now do it,” said Chuckie. The light moved off to Della’s left. She heard the squelching of wet shoes moving toward her. Evidently Tomas had done some wading in the gully. Either that or the slush was taking its toll.

  Tomas couldn’t have done better with radar. He came straight for her.

  Della guessed the boy was ten feet away form her, five feet, just the other side of the pine. The lug wrench was the spider type, in the shape of a cross. She clutched the black steel of the longest arm and brought her hand back. When she detected movement around the edge of the trunk, she swung with hysterical strength, aiming at his head.

  Tomas staggered back. The sharp arm of the lug wrench had caught him under the nose, driving the cartilage back up into his face. About a third of the steel was hidden in flesh. “Unh!” He tried to cry out, but all he could utter was, “Unh, unh!”

  “Tomas?” Chuckie was yelling. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The flashlight flickered across the grove. Della caught a momentary glimpse of Tomas lurching backward with the lug wrench impaled in his face as though he were wearing some hideous Halloween accessory.

  “Unh!” said Tomas once more. He backed into a free, then slid down the trunk until he was seated in the snow. The flashlight beam jerked across that part of the grove again and Della saw Tomas’ eyes stare wide open, dark and blank. Blood was running off the ends of the perpendicular lug wrench arms.

  “I see her!” someone yelled. “I think she got Tomas. She’s a devil!” Vinh.

  “So chill her!”

  Della heard branches and brush crashing off to her side. She jerked open the plastic toolbox, but her fingers were frozen and the container crashed to the ground. She tried to catch the contents as they cascaded into the slush and the darkness. Her fingers closed on something, one thing.

  The handle felt good. It was the wooden-hafted screwdriver, the sharp one with the slot head. Her auto mechanics teacher had approved. Insulated handle, he’d said. Good forged steel shaft. You could use this hummer to pry a tire off its rim.

  She didn’t even have time to lift it as Vinh crashed into her. His arms and legs wound around her like eels.

  “Got her!” he screamed. “Chuckie, come here and shoot her.” They rolled in the viscid, muddy slush. Della worked an arm free. Her good arm. The one with the screwdriver.

  There was no question of asking him nicely to let go, of giving warning, of simply aiming to disable. Her self-defense teacher had drilled into all the students the basic dictum of do what you can, do what you have to do. No rules, no apologies.

  With all her strength, Della drove the screwdriver up into the base of his skull. She thrust and twisted the tool until she felt her knuckles dig into his stiff hair. Vinh screamed, a high keening wail that cracked and shattered as blood spurted out of his nose and mouth, splattering against Della’s neck. The Vietnamese boy’s arms and legs tensed and then let go as his body vibrated spastically in some sort of fit.

  Della pushed him away from her and staggered to her feet. Her nose was full of the odor she remembered from the twins’ diaper pail.

  She knew she should retrieve the screwdriver, grasp the handle tightly and twist it loose from Vinh’s head. She couldn’t. All she could do
at this point was simply turn and run. Run again. And hope the survivor of the four boys didn’t catch her.

  But Chuckie had the light, and Chuckie had the gun. She had a feeling Chuckie was in no mood to give up. Chuckie would find her. He would make her pay for the loss of his friends.

  But if she had to pay, Della thought, the price would be dear.

  Prices, she soon discovered, were subject to change without warning.

  With only one remaining pursuer, Della thought she ought to be able to get away. Maybe not easily, but now there was no crossfire of spying eyes, no ganging-up of assailants. There was just one boy left, even if he was a psychopath carrying a loaded pistol.

  Della was shaking. It was fatigue, she realized. The endless epinephrine rush of flight and fight. Probably, too, the let down from just having killed two other human beings. She didn’t want to have to think about the momentary sight of blood flowing off the shining ends of the lug wrench, the sensation of how it felt when the slot-headed screwdriver drove up into Vinh’s brain. But she couldn’t order herself to forget these things. It was akin to someone telling her not, under any circumstances, to think about milking a purple cow.

  Della tried. No, she thought. Don’t think about it at all. She thought about dismembering the purple cow with a chainsaw. Then she heard Chuckie ‘s voice. The boy was still distant, obviously casting around virtually at random in the pine groves. Della stiffened.

  “They’re cute, Della-honey. I’ll give ‘em that.” He giggled. “Terri and Tammi. God, didn’t you and your husband have any more imagination than that?”

  No, Della thought. We each had too much imagination. Tammi and Terri were simply the names we finally could agree on. The names of compromise.

  “You know something?” Chuckie raised his voice. “Now that I know where they live, I could drive over there in awhile and say howdy. They wouldn’t know a thing about what was going on, about what happened to their mom while she was out at the mall.”