Lug kept turning around and watching the brush, then quickly catching up, giving directions to Pack. “Don’t think anyone’s around. It’s awful early. Maybe they’re not lying. You’re not lying, kid, right?” He lightly punched Nick in the back with the butt of the rifle.
“I told you,” Nick said, momentarily winded by the hit.
“When we get to the RV,” Lug said to Pack, “figure out how to get into this camera. I’ll get these two situated in the back. You get rid of the film.”
“What we gonna do with ’em, Lug?”
“I don’t know.”
“We can’t stick around…”
“Just shut up, Pack. I’ll take care of it.”
Pack’s dirty blond hair and almost invisible mustache made him look like his whole face hadn’t seen a washing in months. His dark eyes kept flickering from John’s to Nick’s and then away.
What other crimes have these two guys been part of? Nick thought. He realized he should try to find out who hired the men to infect the horses with a killer disease. He’d have to listen to them talk when they thought no one was listening. He decided to just stay quiet.
Reaching the RV, Pack unlocked the door. Inside, beer cans were piled in various boxes on the floor. A small dirty kitchen was behind the driver’s seat, but it could barely be seen under the piles of junk. The place smelled of the stinking, sweaty clothing that lay around over the built-in furniture and floor.
Lug led the boys to a room in the back. He opened a brown door to a room where an even stronger stench of mold and dirty socks greeted them. Nick grimaced, turning away as Lug let them through.
“Welcome to my boudoir,” Lug said.
Nick saw one large unmade bed, unkempt, with dirty sheets. Two in-the-wall dressers lined either side. They were made out of wood, stained as if someone had chucked a pizza two years before and never wiped off the tomato sauce. The dresser drawers stood open with wrinkled clothing tumbling out of them. Several comic strips were taped to the dressers. On the walls were newspaper clippings about the horses that Lug and Pack had been following.
At the four corners of the bed were four steel poles from floor to ceiling. The poles were fixed to the floor by bolts.
Lug shoved both boys onto the bed. “Get on your faces,” he said.
Neither of the kids moved.
“I said on your faces,” Lug growled more fiercely, giving Nick a sharp punch in the back. He pulled a pair of long scissors off the shelf. “You guys don’t cooperate, I’ll start cutting your hair, then your fingers, then your ears and noses. Got it?”
He grabbed some duct tape off the floor and said, “Get on your faces, lying flat on the bed.” Nick heard something clink, and he knew immediately Lug had picked up some handcuffs.
Lug turned and strode out the doorway for a moment.
While lying flat, Nick slid his right hand underneath his pants and moved the Swiss Army knife to the side. He’d need it—and soon. Next, Nick pulled it out and nestled it among the pile of sheets as Lug stepped back in.
“Put your hands behind your backs,” Lug said gruffly.
John was already on his face. “You okay?” he whispered to Nick.
“Shut up!” Lug said as he took Nick’s left hand and clicked on the handcuffs then closed the other side onto the steel pole by the bed. The handcuffs tightened on his wrist. Lug then cuffed Nick’s right hand to John’s left and finally fixed John’s right hand to a steel pole on the other side of the bed. Lug then wrapped their feet and hands in the duct tape, first each boy’s legs strapped together, then to each other. He wasn’t worried about wasting tape, that was for sure.
Nick mouthed to John, “Don’t say anything.” But Lug was going to make sure of that. He wrapped tape over each boy’s mouth. “This’ll shut you two up,” he said. When he finished, he tested each pair of handcuffs and the tape then grunted and left.
Immediately Nick and John began twisting and wiggling. Nick knew there was no way to get out without help. But where was Ally? He twisted around and jerked on the handcuffs to try and reach the knife. John murmured something behind the tape, but Nick shook his head, indicating they not try to speak.
Thirteen
Ally Stays Close
Sure to keep out of sight, Ally followed the boys at a distance. When she saw the two thugs push them into the RV, she hid in the bushes on the far side of the vehicle. She tried to make out what was going on inside, but the windows were filthy. On one side, someone had inscribed, “Wash me,” and next to it, “I’m one dirty critter.”
Ally would have laughed if she wasn’t so scared.
She watched the RV for several minutes, thinking through several plans of action. As long as the two men remained inside, she couldn’t do anything to rescue Nick and John. She certainly couldn’t storm the vehicle like some commando.
She decided to watch and wait, and edged around the RV, creeping through the trees. It appeared that someone was sitting in the driver’s seat of the RV, fumbling around, although the vehicle hadn’t started or moved. She crept through more trees until she was behind the RV’s rear large-frame window. Is that Lug? she wondered, peering in what she figured must be a bedroom. Maybe this is where he’s stowed Nick and John, she thought.
On the other side of the window, Lug disappeared through a door, and Ally crept a little closer. She studied the vehicle again and caught the mirrors on the sides. “Can’t let myself be seen in them,” she murmured, moving directly behind the RV. Hidden by the trees, she determined how to walk up to the vehicle without being seen in the mirrors. Studying the window again, she couldn’t see Lug or Pack.
Where are the boys? she wondered. Edging through the brush and taking a breath, she scrambled forward, waited, and listened. It sounded like Lug and Pack were arguing at the front of the RV. If I’m going to help Nick and John, now’s the time, she thought. Holding her breath, Ally placed her right foot on the RV’s rear bumper to look in the window. She was afraid of being seen but knew she had to take some risks. A ladder ran up the back of the RV to the roof. Grabbing a rung, she pulled herself up until she could just look inside the window.
Ally gasped. Nick and John were taped up and handcuffed on opposite sides of a bed. She could see they couldn’t move.
Her heart booming into her head, she tapped on the dirty window. Immediately, both heads swung round. Her eyes met Nick’s, then John’s. She motioned a thumbs-up and mouthed, “I’m trying to help.” But she could see they didn’t understand.
She looked below her a moment. If she had something heavy, a bar or maybe a tire iron, she might be able to knock out one of the men when they stepped outside the vehicle—that is, if she hid and waited. But who knew when they would come out? And she wasn’t strong enough to take on both of them, even with a tire iron.
Ally thought of writing something on the back window to tell the boys what she was doing and maybe get some information. She thought, Do the two criminals have a gun? Or a knife? Anything lethal? That was the most important thing. She began to spell G—U—N—? backwards, hoping the boys could read it.
Finally she tapped lightly on the window. “Do they have a gun?” she mouthed.
Nick shook his head.
What about the handcuffs? she wondered. Where are the keys? She started to write handcuff.
Suddenly the bedroom door started to open. Giving the glass a quick wipe, Ally erased her etchings and slid out of sight.
“Whoa!” she said, her heart drumming. “Almost nailed!”
V
Molly had been running as fast as she could on the beach. Almost back to the houses, she didn’t see a little pothole left by the waves and tripped, skidding into the surf.
“Ouch!” she cried and gripped her leg.
She rolled to her front and started to stand up.
“Youch!” she wailed again. “My ankle’s sprained!” Moving out of the way of a wave, she gingerly set down her foot. It hurt—badly. How could this happen no
w? “Father God,” she prayed, “please help us…”
Limping along, she thought it probably was best to reach the first house, knock on the door, and ask to use the phone. But there were several hundred yards of dunes before she reached it. Her eyes teared at the pain in her ankle and shin. Still, John and Nick and Ally might get seriously hurt if she didn’t get help!
“Lord, I’m going to get there!” she cried into the wind.
Her eyes streaming with tears, Molly tried to run, but it was no good. She limped along, keeping to the lip of packed sand where the waves last touched so she had something solid under her feet. She gritted her teeth and kept going. “Lord,” she murmured. “I’ll just go. Just keep on to get there, whatever it takes!”
Fourteen
Stuck!
As the horses drifted out of sight on the other side of the road, Kelly could no longer see any of the kids on the dunes. She climbed down the mast ladder and rigging, then stole inside the house. It was past 7 A.M. Searching the horizon for signs of the other four had tired her. She picked up John’s radio, went back to the roof, and turned it on.
Kelly listened for a few minutes, then climbed up the mast with the radio in her backpack. At the top, she scanned the horizon for signs of the horses and the friends but saw nothing. She let her gaze rest on the RV in the dunes. It had to be campers, she thought. They probably were asleep—and they didn’t even know the horses had been right in their neighborhood!
When a news break came on the radio, Kelly barely listened until something suddenly interested her.
“Local police have cornered several gunmen holed up in Duck Liquor Store, which they tried to rob a short time ago,” the announcer said. “The twenty-four-hour store had one person on duty who is now a hostage. Over a dozen officers and a S.W.A.T. team have surrounded the store. The gunmen aren’t talking. We’ll keep you updated as the situation develops.”
Kelly picked up the binoculars and turned them south toward Duck, but the town was too far away for her to see anything. Then she picked up the video, focused the zoom lens, and looked for something to film. “I’m missing everything happening everywhere,” she sighed.
V
“Where do you guys live?” Lug yelled, ripping the tape off John’s lips. It stung, but John only whimpered, forcing himself not to cry.
Nick tried to speak, but John interrupted, “Up the beach.”
“So you’re here on vacation?”
John looked at Nick, and the older boy nodded. “Yeah, we’re here on vacation.”
“Why were you looking for us?”
“We were hoping to take pictures of the horses. We weren’t looking for you,” John said contemptuously. “We thought everyone around here liked the horses.”
“Not everyone,” Lug said. Then he glared at John angrily. “You’ve really messed up things.”
“What are you going to do with us?” John asked. His voice trembled a little. He didn’t want to show Nick how afraid he was.
“We’re going to shut you up.”
“But we didn’t see you do anything,” John protested.
“Yeah, but you know.”
“Why are you trying to hurt the horses?” John pressed, despite a frown from Nick.
“That’s none of your business!” Lug growled. “Now shut up!”
“You’re not working for the developer that wants to build on this horse sanctuary, are you?” John asked.
“Shut up, kid,” Lug said as he stretched out the tape. “You tryin’ to make me slip up? No, I ain’t workin’ for no development organization. People. I work for people. Just like everyone else. No one works for an organization. They all work for people, some of whom are nuts. Royally nuts. Like the birdbrain we got payin’ us to do this job.”
“Who’s that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Lug started to wrap the tape back onto John’s mouth.
But not before John managed to say, “The police will be here soon.”
“Oh, they’re not coming, kid! Don’t you know there’s been a big robbery in Duck? Some guys are holed up in a liquor store. All the cops are there! Nobody’s gonna be around here for a long time.”
John gulped. If that was true, they were in bigger trouble than he thought.
Lug laughed and gave him a sudden shot to the forehead with the palm of his hand. He finished drawing the tape over John’s mouth. “I’m sicka listening to you.”
V
The boys didn’t know Ally was leaning against the rear of the RV, listening. She heard the big guy talking. It sounded like John was answering. She hoped no one noticed the streak left by her fingers on the back window where most of the word she’d written was rubbed out. She couldn’t risk going on either side of the RV, though, because she knew she could be seen in one of the side mirrors.
Ally chewed her lip and wondered what she should do. What if the men decide to pull away with Nick and John in the RV? “Dear God,” she whispered, “just give me an idea.” She had to do something to keep them from pulling out into the road and going up the highway.
Stooping to peer under the RV, Ally studied the underside for something to break. She definitely didn’t want to mess with the gas tank, but she traced the long drive shaft from the engine in the front to the differential between the rear wheels. She’d learned how to change oil by opening the square nut on the bottom of the oil pan, but she had no way of turning the nut. It might make a lot of noise anyway, she decided.
Then Ally’s eyes caught the tires. Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of this before? she thought. She took out her knife to slash the tires and make them go flat. That would buy some time for the police to arrive—and prevent the thugs from driving away. Ally knelt down and slid under the rear of the RV. Grease and dirty oil lay on the ground under the differential. Squirming to avoid it, she looked up and noticed several rust spots on the bottom of the RV. The whole floor is about to rust out! Can I make a hole big enough to get inside? She picked at the rusty spots with her knife, but the bottom was too hard to break. She crawled back from under the vehicle so when she slashed a tire she would be safe from possibly being crushed. Poising the tip of her knife blade against one of the tires, Ally gave a stout thrust. The blade just bounced off the side of the hard rubber. She stabbed again and again until she was panting, but nothing happened.
All those stories about people slashing tires must have been done with much sharper knives than mine—or maybe that was stuff that just happened in the movies, she thought. Anything could happen in movies. But real life? That’s a different story.
Standing the knife blade against the wall of the tire and holding it in her left hand, Ally tried to pound the butt of the handle with her fist forcefully enough to at least make a puncture. “Come on,” she said to herself, “there has to be a way.” But—nothing. She only hurt her fingers. Sighing, she looked back and forth between the front and rear tires. If she couldn’t puncture them, what else could she do?
With a gritty squeak, the RV’s side door opened. It was Lug. Ally saw his feet step in front of the vehicle and turn toward the back. The big man’s boots crunched on the pebbly sand.
Ally froze.
Fifteen
The Flat Tire Trick
There was no time to run back into the bushes. Ally knew Lug would see her for sure if she tried. She looked back under the RV, scrunched into a ball, and hid as close to the rear tire as possible. She labored to control her breathing. She knew she couldn’t hold it long. Her heart was drumming as she gripped the knife in her right hand.
Lug was walking back by the side of the RV, stopping several times to look at something in the undergrowth. He scraped at something Ally didn’t recognize, then continued whistling. He’s in a good mood, Ally thought. Too good for the kind of crimes he’s committed. She waited, curling tighter. Please don’t let him look under here, she prayed silently.
Lug shuffled by on the other side of the RV, his boots kicking up little puffs
of sand as he stepped. Suddenly he began talking to himself and swearing. He appeared frustrated about something. Ally thought that was probably a good sign.
“Old witch is nuts,” Lug said to no one, harshly. “We’re gonna land in the can for sure. No way we can get those horses. We’re gonna have to give up on that, money or no money.” He swore again.
Ally cringed and wondered, Who is the “old witch” who was nuts? Was some woman paying these thugs for the crime?
Lug’s black work boots interrupted her thoughts, kicking up earth as they scuffled by the rear wheel opposite the one where she was lying. His feet moved back and forth as he opened a compartment in the rear. It sounded like he took out some sort of equipment and continued to talk to himself: “Why did I have to get into this? Pack is his usual idiot self. I swear, I’m outta here.”
Ally remembered John saying the idea to hurt the horses could be related to the land developer. But didn’t my father refer to the ruthless person who ran the organization as a “him”? she thought.
Lug grunted as he pulled something out of the RV’s rear compartment.
Ally strained to see what it was, keeping her breath as quiet and even as she could. Lug’s feet were less than six feet away.
Then something dropped onto the ground. Ally strained to see what it was. A syringe! Her heart beat wildly.
“This’ll put out those two,” Lug said as he bent down to pick it up. For a second, the lower part of his face came just below the bottom of the RV. Ally could see his lips twisted into a sneer. She lay still, hoping he wouldn’t look her way.
Lug grunted again. “Gettin’ old,” he said, closing the rear compartment with a scrape. Dust sifted down off the sides of the vehicle. For a moment, he stopped, both boots pointed toward Ally.
Instantly, she knew what he was seeing. The letters! He noticed the letters on the window!
Lug’s boots went up on tiptoes, and Ally almost stopped breathing. She pulled herself slightly around the tire to be ready for a fast getaway. But then he muttered, “Man, we gotta wash this thing.”
Tracks in the Sand Page 5