Truck Stop

by John Penney

  Roger threw open the Mustang door and raced over to the wreckage on the edge of the raging flash flood. A thick sludge was gushing out of a jagged hole in the tanker. It was probably some sort of toxic waste, which would be dangerous but not, Roger hoped, flammable.

  Roger carefully threaded his way through the sputtering power lines to the cab of the truck. Russell was slumped over the wheel, unconscious.

  Roger yanked open the cab door, grabbed Russell, and shook him violently. “What the fuck did you do with my daughter?” he shouted.

  Russell mumbled incoherently, blood streaming down his face.

  Roger shook him again. “Where’s my daughter?”

  Russell drifted off, unconscious.

  Roger considered his options; the toxic sludge was swirling up around his feet. The sparking power lines were smoldering and shorting all around him. He had to get out of here. Fast.

  Roger grabbed Russell and dragged him out of the truck.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bart was out in the junkyard covering Ben’s body with a plastic tarp when the entire complex was plunged into darkness. He returned to the diner and joined Kat, who was panicking.

  Nothing worked. Not even Kat’s cell phone. Whatever tower had gone down must have had cell transponders on it.

  They looked out the dark window and saw Florence White and Ida Consiglio outside Florence’s truck.

  “The CB radios in those trucks will still work,” Bart said, as he grabbed a couple flashlights from the kitchen. “Here.” He handed Kat her own flashlight, and they went outside.

  Kat clung to her flashlight tightly, warily scanning the dark parking lot as they made their way toward the women.

  “The cell phone relays and the landlines are down,” Bart said to the women truckers. “We need to get the police up here. Either of you tried calling out on CB?”

  “I got word out about the shooting, but I haven’t heard back whether or not the message was passed on to the police,” Florence said. “I’m sure it will get to them eventually.”

  “Well, I got on mine as soon as I saw that murderin’ creep drive his rig out of here,” Ida said. “But I heard the entire road below here was washed out by a flash flood. Cops ain’t gettin’ here even if they wanted to.”

  Kat anxiously peered around the parking lot. “What do we do?”

  Ida gave her a grim smile. “Nothin’ we can do, honey. Just tighten your pucker and stay put. Or, you can come on by my rig and have a stiff one with me and my boy.”

  There was no chance in hell Kat was going to take the leathery old woman up on an offer like that. She didn’t even bother to respond.

  “We’re going to wait it out in the diner. You’re all welcome to join us,” Bart offered.

  “I’ll be just fine out here,” Florence said with a gentle, motherly smile. Then she pulled out a small, silver, .38 pistol. “If that shooter comes back, he’ll have to tangle with me.”

  At one time, Kat would have been thrown by the sight of the sweet older woman with the pistol, but in the three years she had worked at the truck stop she had come to expect just about anything from the drivers.

  They were a tough, self-reliant group, and this was a rough world. Chances are they’d seen shootings like this before. Self-defense wasn’t just some kind of “what if” scenario for them. It was part of their daily concern, and most of them could tell you a dozen or more stories about having to threaten the use some kind of lethal force to get out of a jam.

  Bart, of course, didn’t bat an eye either when he saw Florence’s gun. “All right,” he said. “But if you change your mind, come on in.”

  Florence retreated into her truck. Ida headed back to hers.

  As Bart and Kat started toward Frank Rucka’s rig, Kat’s racing mind returned to Roger. She had seen him take off recklessly after the truck. She knew how desperate he was. “Maybe we should go down and find out what happened to Roger,” she said to Bart. “If the road was washed out like Ida said, he couldn’t have gotten far.”

  But Bart shook his head. “We’re not going anywhere. No point in that. Not with all that happened here.”

  Kat started to object but stopped herself. As much as she worried about Roger, she knew Bart was right. She had just seen a policeman gunned down in front of her eyes, and with that, the night had turned deadly. They were all in survival mode now.

  __________

  Frank was behind the wheel of his truck, staring at the picture of the little girl on his visor. His eyes were rimmed in red. He was utterly lost and desperate. Everything seemed to have to come to an end for him here. His truck. The spoiled shipment. And the feelings he had been running from for the past three years. He was in a dark corner, and there was no way out.

  The .44-magnum pistol in his lap had been there long enough for the cold steel to warm to his body temperature. He looked down at the weapon distantly. It wasn’t good or bad. It didn’t care. It wouldn’t do anything he didn’t make it do. It was him. Frank Rucka. He had to do it all, and he was ready.

  His hand felt heavy as he reached for the pistol. Then Ben’s and Kat’s muffled voices from outside shattered the moment.

  Frank looked out and saw them approach. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Sure enough, they knocked on the door.

  “Yeah!” he heard himself call out.

  “You okay in there?” Bart’s voice was muffled through the door.

  Frank remained motionless with his eyes closed. Go away. Just go away. “I’m fine,” he called.

  “Well, if you wanna join us inside, you’re welcome,” Bart offered.

  Go inside? With you? Why? To sit around a coffee shop and have to endure the anxious fear of people who wanted to live? Worry about a cop killer who might come back and kill them?

  It became clear in Frank’s mind. He wasn’t trapped. They were. They were trapped because they were trying to hold on to something that they had no control over. They so desperately wanted to stay alive that it tortured them. But not him. Not Frank. He didn’t care about his weight, or his diabetes, or his asthma anymore. He was free. He had let go.

  “I’m staying where I am,” Frank said. And he meant it. This was it. He wasn’t going anywhere else ever again.

  “Suit yourself,” Bart’s muffled voice returned. Frank heard their footsteps retreat, and he opened his eyes again. It was black outside. No parking lot lights anymore. Just deep, eternal blackness.

  __________

  Bart and Kat headed back toward the diner. Kat took an unsteady breath and shook her head. “Jesus, this is so fucked up.”

  That was all she could come up with. She had turned things over and over in her mind, trying to find a way to make sense of everything, and she couldn’t. The evening had started as a nightmare with Roger’s missing daughter and had descended into hell. She felt desperate and helpless and now trapped.

  Bart knew she was looking to him to make sense of what had happened, but that would be impossible. The best he could do for her was to remain calm and rational. “We’ll be okay. The storm will blow past, and then the cops will….“

  Headlights roared up the dark highway. They both looked over and saw Roger’s Mustang careen into the parking lot and screech to a stop.

  “It’s him!” Kat blurted and took off running. Bart followed her. They reached the Mustang as Roger climbed out.

  “You’re okay,” Kat panted, relieved.

  Roger shot a stony look back at her and opened the passenger side door. Russell was inside, wounded and groggy.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Bart asked, stunned by the sight of the bloodied man.

  “Finding my daughter,” Roger answered simply as he grabbed Russell and shook him violently. “Wake up! Wake up, motherfucker!”

  Bart stepped in and pulled Roger off of the injured man. “Easy! Take it easy!”

  Roger yanked his arm out of Bart’s grip. “Fuck that. The only reason I didn’t kill him down on the highway was s
o I could patch him up long enough to get answers.”

  Bart carefully propped Russell’s head up and examined his beaten body. “Well, you’re lucky you got him this far. He’s losing a lot of blood. Let’s get him inside, or you’re not going to get any answers.”

  __________

  Moments later, Kat swept a tabletop clean and Bart and Roger laid Russell out on it. Bart wiped the blood that oozed from a cut on Russell’s forehead and turned to Kat. “Get the first-aid kit from the kitchen.”

  Kat hurried off to get the kit. Bart grabbed a stack of napkins from a dispenser and pressed them against Russell’s head wound.

  “All right, we do whatever we have to do to get this motherfucker awake enough to talk. Don’t give him anything for pain. I want him to feel everything,” Roger insisted.

  Kat returned with the first-aid kit and put it down on the table. Bart tossed the bloody napkins away and rummaged through the kit. “What makes you think it was him?” Bart asked.

  “What?” Roger asked, distracted.

  Bart found some tape and gauze. “You saw him shoot that patrolman?”

  “Well, of course,” Roger said irritably. “I heard him run to this truck, then I saw him get in and take off.”

  “Him? Russell? You saw Russell shoot him? Or you heard it?” Bart asked as he placed the gauze on the wound and pulled off some tape.

  “Saw? Heard? Fuck, he was out there running away. He tried to drive me off the road when I came after him,” Roger shot back, growing annoyed with the older man.

  Bart remained silent as he placed the tape over the gauze, holding it in place.

  Roger pressed his point. “Look, you saw what was back there, didn’t you? I mean, that pit. The bodies.”

  “Bodies?” Kat asked, alarmed.

  Bart shot a stern look at Roger. Kat was in a fragile enough state; she didn’t need anything else on her plate. But Roger ignored him and looked back at Kat. “He didn’t tell you?”

  Bart looked away angrily and continued to dress Russell’s wound. Roger had started something that couldn’t be stopped now.

  Kat tried to catch Bart’s eye but he avoided her. “What’s out there?” she said.

  “A fucking pit full of remains. Cut up, most of them.” Roger said bluntly. He didn’t see the point of not letting Kat know exactly what they were all dealing with, especially now that they were isolated like this. Her life depended on it.

  Kat went pale. “Jesus. Bart?” She looked desperately at Bart, and this time he couldn’t avoid responding.

  “Look, you were already so freaked out, I didn’t think I should….“

  “Bodies? How many?”

  “I couldn’t tell. I just covered up that officer, and then the power went out, and I came back to you.”

  “But where did they come from?” Kat asked, reeling.

  “This fucker,” Roger said, nodding at Russell. “Right here. You said he’s been coming around here for years. He’s been killing them and dumping them there.” Roger took out the muddy stuffed animal remains. “And my daughter’s stuffed animal was right out there with them.”

  “Oh, God,” Kat whispered, horrified.

  Bart looked over at the stuffed animal that Roger was holding. The depth of rage he was feeling was palpable. Bart struggled silently for a moment, then spoke carefully and measuredly. “Look, we don’t know that for sure. We don’t know it was Russell.”

  “He ran. Why would he run?” Roger jumped in.

  “You already had him pegged.” The last thing Bart wanted was to get into a fight with Roger now, but he couldn’t let this continue to careen out of control. “Hey, I know him. Maybe not well, but I know him. At least fifteen years he’s been coming in here. I’ve got a pretty good nose when it comes to reading people, and he never set off a red flag once. Not once.”

  “Well, now he has. Especially after what I saw under his truck.” The moment Roger said it, he knew he shouldn’t have.

  “What? What did you see?” Bart grew concerned.

  “It looked like he ran over someone.” It was the only way Roger could answer without having to explain his visions. The last thing Roger wanted right now was Bart questioning his sanity.

  “But the cop checked his whole rig, didn’t he?” Bart asked, puzzled. “I saw him do it. If there was something under his truck he would’ve found it, wouldn’t he?”

  Roger knew he couldn’t say anything else. This was something he had to let go.

  “Look, Russell’s not going anywhere,” Bart said. And he sure isn’t going to be talking to anyone soon even if he knows something about your little girl. What we need to do now is chill out until the police get here, and let them deal with this.”

  Roger sighed, frustrated. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew it was the only logical thing they could do. It didn’t matter how much he wanted to beat answers out of Russell, it would have to wait.

  Bart looked over at Kat. She could tell by his look that he needed help with Roger. She reached out and gently touched Roger’s arm. “Come on,” she said.

  Roger nodded and turned away with Kat.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It had been at least an hour since Roger had brought Russell back to the truck stop. The rain had let up again, and the temperature had dropped another five degrees. Bart had managed to slow Russell’s bleeding and had covered him with a blanket to keep him warm. He stayed by Russell’s side, keeping a close eye on the bandages so he could change them when they got too soaked with blood.

  Across the diner from Bart and Russell, Roger and Kat sat together at the window booth. Kat had done her best to keep Roger’s mind off his daughter. At first, they talked about music. They both had a deep love of many similar bands. And there was definitely a connection between them. If only they had met at a different time and in a different way, Kat thought. Roger went along with Kat’s rather forced conversation for a while, but when he lapsed back into silence, Kat realized it was a futile effort. She asked Roger how he had found the burial pit in the junkyard.

  “It was one of them, one of the victims,” he said. “She came to me. Led me back there.” He looked away, out the window.

  “So when you see ghosts like that, they’re dying?”

  “Dying, just about to die. Whatever the last memory they had here. That’s what I see.”

  “And they can see you and talk to you?”

  “And touch me, if I’m not careful.”

  “But your daughter. You haven’t seen her? I mean, as a ghost.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything. I can’t control who I see or when I see them.” Roger lapsed back into silence. He looked down at the muddy stuffed animal remains on the table next to him. He felt his throat tighten as his anger rose. “That motherfucker could have killed her, and I wouldn’t know it for sure.”

  Kat studied the tortured man for a moment then asked quietly, “Have you ever tried to contact someone on the other side?”

  Roger’s expression darkened. After a moment he answered, “Once.”

  “What happened?”

  Roger took a moment before answering. “I crossed over and I almost didn’t make it back. One of them tried to hold me there.”

  “On the other side?” Kat asked.

  Roger nodded.

  Kat exhaled anxiously. “Jesus.”

  Roger shifted in his seat. He looked at the clock that had stopped when the power went out. He was growing impatient. “Look, I can’t just sit here and do nothing anymore. The bottom line is that Lilly could be dead already, and I just haven’t encountered her spirit. As hard as it’s gonna be, I need to find out, and there’s only one way to do that from this side.”

  Kat hesitated before asking the question she was afraid to hear the answer to. “How?”

  __________

  Moments later, Kat had her answer. They gathered a snow shovel from the janitor’s closet and pushed out the back door of the complex. They were headed to the burial pit to search f
or any more traces of Roger’s daughter.

  Roger panned his flashlight over to the break in the fence. “Come on.”

  They crossed over to the break and ducked through. Roger led the way as they carefully picked their way to the stack of wet tin siding by the old shed.

  “It’s just on the other side,” Roger said as he reached back to help Kat. “Careful. It’s slippery.”

  Kat took his hand, and he helped her up onto the corrugated panels. Her feet slipped a little, but she caught herself and managed to get to the other side.

  Roger tucked the flashlight in his front pocket and took a step up onto the siding. He used the shovel to steady himself. A faint, ragged breathing chilled the back of his neck.

  “Please, please. No,” he heard from behind him.

  Roger spun around, slipping off the siding. He looked behind him and saw the shadows of the old shed shift and move. A terrified woman peered out from hiding. She was covered in blood; her late ‘90s-style dress was ripped apart, and her left arm had been hacked off completely.

  She locked eyes with Roger, pleading in a halting voice. “Don’t…let him get me…please…he’s right there….” She looked desperately behind her at an unseen assailant who was closing in on her.

  “Roger?” Kat’s voice invaded the moment. Roger looked over at Kat. She aimed her flashlight down at him with a concerned look on her face. “What is it?”

  Roger spun back to look at the shed. The mutilated woman was gone.

  Roger took a deep breath, closed his eyes. “Shit.” He turned back, pushed himself up onto the stack of siding, and carefully crossed over to Kat.