Truck Stop

by John Penney

  He could hear water running inside and the muffled voice became clear. It was Daniel whimpering painfully. “Don’t make me do it again, Momma. Please don’t make me do it again. It hurts.”

  Roger withdrew from the door, considered the creepy implications of what Daniel was saying. He had decided long ago that the truckers here were strange, but the past few minutes had raised even stranger questions.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Roger went back to room 2, put the key in the lock, gave it a twist, and stepped inside. It was what he had expected. Run down like the rest of the truck stop, but basically clean and in working order.

  Roger stripped down, climbed into the shower stall, and pulled the frosted plastic curtain closed.

  He stood back from the showerhead and turned on the old spigots. The water pipes groaned and vibrated as the water shuddered on. He adjusted the temperature and the flow and ducked his head under the stream. He grabbed the small paper-wrapped bar of soap from the dish, tore it open, dropped the wrapper on the ledge, and started scrubbing himself.

  He looked over at the small courtesy shampoo, considered using it, and decided it was a waste of time. He lathered his hands and scrubbed his hair with the soap.

  He stood for a moment under the spray, rinsing his hair clean and letting the hot water wash over him. A moment passed, then another.

  Then something dark appeared on the other side of the plastic curtain.

  It gathered shape as it moved toward the curtain, stopping right on the other side. It was the shape of a human silhouette.

  Roger remained under the stream of water with his eyes closed, unaware as the silhouette raised its hand and began to press inward against the plastic from the other side. The hand grew closer, inch by inch, until the cold touch pressed against Roger’s bare back.

  Roger spun around, startled, but the silhouette was gone. He peeled the curtain open a crack and squinted out into the bathroom. There was nothing there. No one.

  Roger shut off the water and climbed out of the stall. He grabbed the towel, shook it through his hair, dragged it across his face. He looked up at the mirror and stopped cold. Written with a finger in the steamy glass on the mirror were the words, “Find Us.”

  Roger stared at the message in the eerie silence for a moment, then reached up. With his hand, he wiped the words away.

  A loud clunk shattered the silence as the bathroom door closed behind him. Roger spun around. The sound of footsteps retreated outside.

  Roger yanked on his pants, pulled on his shirt, slipped into his shoes, and opened the door. He stepped out into the long, dark hallway.

  It was empty. The mother and son from the cream-colored truck were gone from the shower rooms next door.

  Roger paused and listened. After a moment, the faint sound of someone sobbing came from inside a nearby sleeping room. Roger stepped over to the door and heard his feet splash into something. He looked down and saw a puddle of blood, ebbing out from under the door. Roger grabbed the knob and shoved the door open.

  It was too dark inside the sleeping room to see anything at first. Roger waited until his eyes adjusted, then he saw something in the far corner. It was moving. He stepped into the room. It was the covers on the cot. Someone was underneath, sobbing in agony.

  Roger’s heart thundered in his chest; he swallowed dryly. “Lilly?”

  There was no answer. Just the anguished sobbing.

  Roger stepped closer, and he could see more. The covers were soaked in blood. Panic surged through Roger; he reached down and yanked back the covers.

  But there was no one there. The blood was gone, too.

  Wham! The door behind him banged all the way open against the outside wall. Footsteps rapidly retreated.

  Roger darted out into the hall in time to see the door with the small window at the far end fly open all on its own. Rain was pouring again outside.

  Roger raced down the hall and peered out the open door into the dark downpour. Off in the distance, in the cluttered junkyard, he saw the pale form of a woman standing nude with her arms outstretched, streaked in blood.

  Roger hurried out the back door. He pulled aside the broken cyclone fence and stepped into the junkyard. It was a shadowy maze of discarded truck and car parts, tires, mattresses, and old appliances.

  Roger scrambled across the soaking debris and reached the spot where he had seen the woman. But there was no one there.

  Roger took a moment to catch his breath. He spun around, scanning the junkyard desperately, then yelled out, “Who are you?!”

  Strange, static music began to waft out eerily over the junkyard above the drumming rain. At first, Roger couldn’t place it, but then it became clearer. It was from the ‘90s. Joan Osborne. He scanned the clutter and focused in on the source of the music. It was coming from beyond a mound of junk behind an old shed.

  Roger started climbing toward the source of the sound. He passed the old shed, traversed a stack of slippery tin siding panels, and clambered down on the other side of the mound of junk. He picked his way over a pile of rotting wood planks halfway submerged in the mud and found the source of the eerie music. It was coming from an old, rusted-out truck cab. Roger stepped closer, wiped the rain from his eyes, and squinted into the empty cab. The music was coming from the dead radio.

  Roger stared into the dark cab, then whispered intensely, “What is it? What do you want?”

  The radio fell silent. Roger waited for something more. There was nothing but the sound of the incessant rain drumming on the rusted truck roof.

  Roger stood up and looked around, his frustrations growing. He sighed anxiously, took a step to leave, and crack! The rotting wood planks in the mud beneath his feet gave way.

  Roger plunged downward into the darkness and landed with a splash. He was up to his waist in muddy water at the bottom of a pit that had been opened by the rain, its edges eroded by the water. Roger scrambled to his feet, disoriented. He looked around for a way out, and that’s when he saw them. The rotting, dismembered remains of three corpses were moving toward him out of the oozing muck.

  Roger cried out, horrified. He shoved the decaying remains away from him and clawed desperately to get out. But the walls of the pit gave way in his hands, and he slipped backward. There was a sickening crack as he collapsed against a woman’s upper torso; her ribs sunk into her spine and her head separated from her shoulders.

  Roger frantically shoved his way out of the remains and started scrambling desperately up the muddy wall. His fingers dug deep into the soft earth; he kicked with all his might and sunk his toes into the oozing side of the pit. He pulled himself up, kicked again, and sunk his other foot into the mud. He yanked his hand out and stabbed it into the muck higher up the wall, getting a grip. He reached the top and pulled himself out.

  Roger collapsed onto the edge of the burial pit, gasping for air. The rain washed over him, streaking the mud that now covered him from head to foot. He had found something worse than hell. A mass grave of dismembered bodies, buried here by someone who had butchered them in a heinous way.

  Roger rallied his strength and rolled over onto his side. He started to pull himself to his feet, but then stopped cold. A small stuffed paw was sticking out from under one of the muddy wood planks at the edge of the pit.

  Roger reached over, pulled on the paw, and withdrew the lower half of a mud-covered stuffed animal. He carefully scrutinized the shredded remains, and a dark feeling of dread began to overtake him. The color. The fur. The shape.

  Lilly’s stuffed rabbit. Jimmie Jerry.

  “Oh, God. No.“

  Roger’s entire world began to collapse around him. His body went numb. He couldn’t feel his grip on the rabbit. He couldn’t feel the rainwater streaming over him, or the bitter cold. He tried to inhale, but he couldn’t. It was like someone had hit him in the chest with a sledgehammer. The silent moment of horror felt like an eternity. Every emotion Roger had ever felt in his life closed in on itself, imploding i
n a debilitating black hole.

  Then the frozen moment began to thaw. The sounds of the rain returned. The icy cold wetness stung his bare hands. The deep ache in his muscles came flooding back.

  Roger staggered to his feet, clutching the stuffed animal’s remains. He desperately peered across the dark junkyard. He could see Kat in the diner through the side window.

  Roger opened his mouth to yell, but before he could utter a sound, a blinding white beam of light swung toward him from the other side of the junkyard.

  Roger spun around. A shadowy figure brandishing a shotgun was coming right toward him. The glint off of a brutally large hunting knife in his other hand flashed menacingly. This was no ghost. This was the killer, and Roger had discovered where he dumped the remains of his victims.

  Roger ducked behind the rusted truck cab. The killer snapped off his flashlight and disappeared into the shadowy darkness of the cluttered yard.

  Roger peered out from the cab and carefully scanned the area between him and the back entrance to the truck stop. He charted a course in his head that would take him to the break in the fence.

  Lightning flickered overhead. The rain started pouring harder.

  Roger steeled himself, then got up. He crept carefully around the edge of the burial pit, leaned his weight onto the stack of sheet-metal siding to avoid any unnecessary noise, and pulled himself up. He moved slowly over the slippery sheet metal to the other side and looked back in the direction he had last seen the menacing figure. The pouring rain made it hard to see much of anything. Whoever it was could be anywhere.

  Roger looked back toward the truck stop. The break in the fence was in sight. He continued toward the edge of the yard, and another flash of lightning lit up the sky. The killer’s silhouette stood three yards in front of him.

  BOOM! The dark figure fired wildly at Roger. Roger took a dive.

  Inside the diner, Kat heard the gunshot. She hurried to the side window and peered out. Bart ran up behind her. “What the hell was that?”

  Outside, Roger scrambled desperately through the tangle of junk; the dark figure zeroed in on the sound of Roger’s retreat and took off after him. Roger grabbed a twisted piece of metal from an old motorcycle frame and ducked behind the shed.

  He pressed himself up against the corrugated metal wall and raised his makeshift weapon. He listened intently for the sound of the killer’s approaching footsteps, but it was hard to hear anything over the pouring rain. He would have to hope for the best and swing when the killer was in sight.

  A few seconds passed. Nothing. No one came. Roger began to lose his nerve. The killer wasn’t that far behind him. Had he cut around in another direction?

  Roger slid to the other end of the shed wall and peered around. Headlights swept across the junkyard. A car was approaching.

  It was Ben’s highway patrol cruiser.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ben pulled to a stop in the side lot outside the junkyard; his eyes were fixed intently on the dark, shadowy maze beyond the cyclone fence. Despite the rain, his cop’s ears had heard the gunshot when he arrived moments ago, and he could tell the direction it had come from.

  He unsnapped his holster, grabbed his flashlight, and opened his door. He was in full cop mode now, careful and alert. He had been trained that way. Safety first. Even when it seemed like a routine traffic stop, treat it like the person behind the wheel could be deadly. And this was even more uncertain. There had been a gunshot.

  Ben snapped on his flashlight and shone it across the junkyard. The rain had eased up a bit, and he could see more than he thought he would be able to. But what he saw wasn’t helpful; it was just a terrain of tangled clutter.

  Ben considered his next move. He was certain it had been a gunshot. He had heard enough of them to know, and this had been a shotgun. But so far there was no one out in the junkyard that he could see.

  The back door of the truck stop squeaked open. Ben looked over and saw Bart leaning outside. “Officer? I think we just heard a….“

  “Yeah, I heard it too when I was pulling up. Everyone okay inside?”

  “Yeah, we’re okay,” Bart answered.

  “Go back inside,” Ben ordered. “Lock that door behind you.”

  Bart retreated into the truck stop and closed the door tightly behind him.

  Ben looked back at the junkyard. It was worth a look. He carefully crossed over to the break in the fence and ducked through. He made his way past the old shed, careful to keep his pistol poised and ready as he panned his light ahead of him through the maze of junk.

  He climbed over the mound of slippery metal siding and down the other side to the rusted truck cab and the edge of the dark burial pit. He paused, puzzled. What the hell was this, a collapsed well of some kind?

  Ben tilted his light down into the muddy hole. The cold white light landed on the decomposed human remains that bobbed up and down in the murky water at the bottom.

  A wave of nausea swept over Ben. “Oh, Christ….”

  “Hey!” Roger’s voice called out from the darkness.

  Ben whipped his flashlight in Roger’s direction and aimed his pistol. “Freeze!”

  It took only a split second for Ben to see it was Roger, clambering desperately toward him through the junk.

  Jesus Christ, Ben thought. You never approach an armed officer like that in the dark. Especially one who had seen what he had just seen.

  But Roger wasn’t thinking straight. He was panicked and frightened. “He’s out here! He was just out here!”

  Ben lowered his pistol. “What’s going on?”

  Roger paused on the other side of the sheet metal pile and caught his breath. “The guy who buried the bodies down there…he saw that I found them…he…he took a shot at me.”

  “All right, slow down,” Ben said. “What guy?”

  “I…I don’t know, I couldn’t see his….“

  BOOM!

  Inside the diner, Kat screamed as she watched a slug slam into Ben’s chest.

  “Moth…er…fuck…er,” Bart whispered beside her, horrified.

  Ben reeled for a split second, clutching the gaping bloody wound in his chest, then pitched backward, crashing onto the metal siding.

  Roger took a dive to safety behind a pile of tires. Shit! Had that really just happened? Roger was in raw survival mode now; his body was reacting before his mind could come to terms with the horrific turn this nightmare had taken. He pressed back into the shadows, peered out, and saw Ben was lying dead in a pool of blood.

  It did. It had happened. The cop was dead.

  Footsteps could be heard retreating. Roger looked around the other side of the tires, but he couldn’t see anyone. Then the sound of a truck starting came from the front parking lot.

  Headlight beams pierced the darkness, and Russell’s old tanker truck swung into view around the side of the building and headed off for the highway. The motherfucker was getting away.

  Roger leaped out of hiding in a blind adrenaline rage and clambered across the junkyard to the opening in the fence. He ducked out and cut around the side of the building as the old tanker truck rumbled off down the dark road.

  Roger darted to his Mustang, jumped behind the wheel. He fired it up and jammed the gas. The muscle car squealed out of the parking lot.

  __________

  The tanker truck threaded its way down the twisting mountain highway. The road was narrow and treacherous in the driving rain and sleet; the old truck’s wheels slipped and shuddered when they hit the patches of black ice that had started to form along the edges of the hairpin corners.

  Roger could see the taillights of the old truck weaving in and out of view as it went through the turns in the road ahead of him. He gripped the steering wheel of his Mustang with white knuckles; he could feel the slick road under his car as he accelerated. The tattered windshield wipers, their padding long gone in Roger’s desperate flight from the parking lot, raced back and forth, doing their best to stem the icy onsl
aught.

  He rounded a corner and saw his opportunity, a straight stretch of road ahead.

  Roger jammed on the gas and roared up behind the truck. He cut the wheel hard left as he closed the distance; the Mustang slewed wildly out alongside the truck. Through the dark, vibrating side window of the old tanker, Roger could see Russell’s hazy image shoot a look at him. Then the tanker swerved to the left, slamming into the Mustang in a shower of sparks.

  “Motherfucker!” Roger yanked his foot off the gas and grimaced as the Mustang careened out of control on the icy wet road, the front end whipping wildly back and forth. He kept turning into the direction of the skid until he regained control.

  The son of a bitch had just tried to kill him.

  Up ahead, the tanker-truck barreled around a tight corner; the massive wheels rimmed the edge of the road and slammed through a pothole in a shower of icy mud. The brake lights flashed as it was forced to slow.

  Roger swerved back onto the road, more determined than ever not to let the monster get away. He jammed on the gas; the Mustang roared and shot forward again. Roger’s plan was wild and reckless; he would force the tanker off the road no matter what it took.

  The truck crested a rise in the road with the Mustang behind it. Roger leaned forward into the wheel, squinting out of the blurry windshield. He was starting to close the gap between them again when the truck slammed on its brakes.

  Roger instantly hit his brakes too, and he saw why the truck had braked.

  A churning flash flood raged across the highway at the bottom on the other side of the rise.

  Roger cut the wheel to the right, and the Mustang skidded to a stop on the muddy shoulder.

  But the truck couldn’t brake fast enough. The back end of the massive tanker shuddered and swung around sideways.

  Roger watched, horrified, as the out-of-control big rig careened sidelong toward a massive power line tower on the side of the highway. Roger jammed the Mustang into reverse trying to get away from the inevitable fireworks, but it was too late. The tanker slammed into the tower; the steel latticework buckled instantly and came crashing down on the tanker. The high-voltage power lines snapped and popped and danced wildly in a shower of sparks.