Just Call My Name by Holly Goldberg Sloan
She glanced down and saw camping stuff.
A tent. A sleeping bag. A tarp. It was all neatly packed. She also saw a tennis racket.
She couldn’t picture the Monster playing tennis. Underneath the racket was a pair of white tennis shoes. But they were small. With hot pink fabric lining the inside. They were women’s shoes.
They must belong to the person who owned the car. The stolen car. She hoped the owner was still alive. And searching for her Honda.
But Robb Ellis’s SUV was parked in this lot, and Destiny was somewhere in the cinder-block building, and that had to mean people were coming to help her.
Then the Monster holding the gun said, “Get in.”
She couldn’t stand to see his eyes. She saw Sam in those eyes. So she stared at the ground as she asked: “You want me to get into the trunk?”
His voice was hard. “Right now.”
She still had her purse over her shoulder. He suddenly released his grip on her arm and ripped the purse off her body. And for a brief moment, that felt like a violent assault worse than being forced into a trunk.
That was her purse. It had her things. Her useless cell phone and her wallet with her ID. Without her identification, how would anyone ever know who she was?
He flung the purse into the bushes and grabbed her arm so hard, it felt as if he were going to break it. The purse no longer mattered.
Gone.
She smelled alcohol on his sour breath as she heard: “Get in the trunk right now.”
She lifted her right leg into the back and then lowered her body, which felt like someone else’s, as she climbed into the dark space.
In order to be able to fit, she had to bring her legs up to her chest and, for a moment, she thought he was going to slam the lid of the trunk straight down on her head.
She wasn’t yet crunched up enough to fit into the space. She cringed, but he didn’t hit her.
It was just a threat.
She pulled herself together and then put her head down on a hot nylon bag, which held the tent. She felt a metal pole against her ear.
And then the Monster banged the lid shut, which plunged her into darkness.
She heard the electronic chirp and the click of the car locks sucking into place.
She had her legs folded up so close to her body that her chin rested on her sweating knees. It was the crunch of a fetal position.
She was going back to being unborn.
Was the first step in dying returning to darkness and the crammed place where someone else did the breathing?
Her chest had difficulty rising and falling, expanding and contracting.
It wasn’t just how hot the air was. Or how compressed her body felt in the metal container that was the trunk of a new-model Honda sedan.
It was more than that.
She suddenly felt certain that this was her coffin.
She decided that this was what it must feel like to be conscious when they put you in the final resting place.
Her lips moved to form a single word.
Destiny.
She couldn’t see Emily.
But the tall man with the coppery hair had shut the trunk. She could see again. He was now walking away from the car. And he had something in his hand as it slid into his pocket.
Was it the gun?
He moved toward the bathroom, which meant he was coming toward her. He had a limp. She understood from his twisted face that something was causing him pain.
Destiny remained frozen at the back corner of the building.
As the man came closer, something about him looked familiar.
He had strange-colored hair and a choppy haircut, and his jaw was set at an angle that showed tension, even from a distance.
Destiny took a deep breath.
Well, he didn’t scare her.
She exhaled.
Okay.
He did scare her.
He totally scared her.
But she hadn’t struck out on her own as a kid by being scared.
Or maybe she had.
So maybe she had used fear to her advantage. That was another way to see it.
She could feel her heart pounding, and her sweat made her dress stick to her now as if spray-on adhesive had been applied to her body.
He entered the cinder-block crapper, and it was quiet.
Maybe the girl had flushed herself down the toilet.
He had to use the facilities, and suddenly she was nothing to him. Just another person who didn’t believe a sign that said Closed meant anything.
Or maybe she was some kind of junkie, and she’d shot up and was now slumped over in a stupor in a dirty stall.
He hoped that she had overdosed.
Clarence went around the privacy wall that led to the men’s area and was greeted by the institutional toilets that were exactly like those in prison.
He was surprised that just the sight of the stainless steel brought up a wave of hate that crashed over him hard.
That pain felt like electricity running down an exposed wire touched by his open hand.
He felt dizzy.
His ache was so deep.
He would share the feeling with the world.
Destiny looked across the hot blacktop of the parking lot, and heat was making wavy lines that were shaking everything.
It wasn’t now or never.
It was maybe now. Maybe never.
What was she even doing here?
A voice inside screamed that she was there for a reason. She had to do something. She was the kid who jumped into the cold pool. She never stuck her toe in first.
And then a switch was flipped, and she took off at a run. It was as if she were on fire.
The big rig. That was the answer. That was where she would find help.
When she reached the truck, she grabbed the chrome handle next to the driver’s-side door and hoisted herself up.
But the door was locked.
Destiny’s fist pounded the hot glass.
It was silent inside.
Not a sound.
And no one in sight.
Destiny’s head whipped back to the cinder-block bathroom.
He hadn’t come out.
She then jumped down from the step below the driver’s door. Hitting the pavement hard, she took off again in a sprint.
This time she ran for the silver car.
The distance seemed great because she felt so exposed. When she reached the Honda, she was out of breath. She could see that no one was inside, but her hand still went for the door handle on the passenger’s side.
Locked.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
So where was Emily?
In frustration she made a fist and hit the trunk.
And then from inside something hit back.
It was dark and roasting hot.
And it smelled like dirt.
The tent wrapped up in the nylon sack had been in the campsite for three days, and the outdoors was now a part of the baking upholstery. The tennis racket and the tennis balls, pushed over next to the spare tire, also had a distinctive odor.
She hadn’t been inside for long, and she already felt as if she were suffocating.
And then suddenly, in this tomb, there was a sound.
A thud. Just above her head.
But it didn’t seem like the thud that the Monster would make. It was a pop. A small hand?
Should she scream at the top of her lungs for the world to hear?
Instead she made a fist with her right hand, and she had only a few inches of available motion, but she hit back. Not a thud but a bump.
And then she heard a muffled voice: “OhmyGod! Emily?”
It was Destiny.
Emily opened her mouth to answer, and she tried, but her voice was closed down, and the tightness in her throat released only the smallest of sounds. Only a murmur:
“Help me.…”
The trunk of the silver car was locked.
&nb
He was coming.
She couldn’t see him. But she knew.
He was coming. He had to be.
Destiny grabbed each of the doors’ handles and tried again, even though it was obvious to her this was a waste of time.
But if she could get a door open, she would find the release to the trunk. Inside would be a lever.
And then she saw the stack of cinder blocks on the other side of the parking lot. They were next to the piles of sand and gravel.
Destiny took off across the blacktop, running to the cinder-block stack.
Her legs felt like rubber. They didn’t belong to her. She was someone else now.
Destiny picked up a cinder block. It was much heavier than she’d thought. The cement edge tore at her hand when she grabbed it. She barely felt her skin rip.
She tried to run back to the car, but she was small and the cinder block was heavy. She gripped it with both hands, trying to hold it in front of her legs.
All the while was the knowledge that he was coming.
The cinder block hit her thighs and slammed into her knees. She was bleeding from her hand and from her right leg as she approached the silver car.
Then, using all the strength in her upper body, she threw the cinder block at the window on the passenger’s side.
It hit with a violent crash, and the glass fell like a sheet. It looked like broken diamonds glistening on the seats.
The car alarm was blaring now. And it seemed like the whole world could hear.
45
He’d done his business.
He winced as he turned to go, because his missing foot hurt. It was because it was so hot outside. The heat irritated his skin, and his artificial leg made him sweat even more than normal.
He needed to cool down the stump.
The sinks were too high, and there was no way to get his body up to the right angle. But once he had a thought, he became obsessed. Now the thought was cold water on the scarred nub.
The girl was locked in the trunk. He’d taken care of that. Time was on his side.
There were metal toilets, just like in his cell. They looked okay. If he dropped in paper towels and then flushed multiple times, the bowl would fill up with cold water.
So why not? He’d done it before.
The place looked sanitary enough because it was closed and maybe they’d cleaned it. It wasn’t spotless, but he wasn’t going to really look. He was thinking fuzzy now. The alcohol and the pills and the drive were numbing.
Some other man’s piss could wash over his stump, if that’s what it took to make his hacked-away foot stop screaming for attention.
And so he dropped a handful of brown paper towels into the stainless-steel toilet bowl, and then he shifted his weight onto his good foot and flushed three times in a row, sending jets of cool water into the basin.
Leaning against the metal divider of the cubicle, he bent over. He was a below-the-knee amputee. If the government weren’t in charge, he could have gotten a foot that had toes. Or that had skin color that matched. He could have had it shaped and customized.
But that stuff cost money, and he wasn’t getting state-of-the-art rich-man care.
His stump was covered with a silicone liner. Every morning, when he put on the leg, he rolled the liner over the stump, making sure he didn’t tear the oozy rubber. It had to fit just right or he couldn’t lock in the socket.
Over the liner he had a rubbery sock that had a steel rod. He had to position it just right or it wouldn’t click into the dummy. The dummy was the leg-and-foot part.
The dummy was so dumb, he often thought, that it couldn’t tell the missing foot to shut up and stop screaming.
Getting it off was easier than putting it on. But he had it down now. What once was a difficult process was now just a series of motions.
Clarence released the pin, rolled down the sock, pulled it loose, and then removed the liner.
One. Two. Three. Four.
He then dropped the stump into the toilet bowl, and the cool water touching the rash of red skin sent tingles up his leg and into his spine.
And a split second later, he heard the sound of breaking glass and the car alarm.
Clarence grabbed his artificial leg and began furiously trying to put the pin back into the socket of the prosthesis.
He struggled in what was now a crazy man’s rage.
K.B. Walton’s eyes opened, and his first thought was that someone was going after his rig.
He had a full load: auto parts to be moved across the country for a brake recall. It wasn’t like transporting a truck weighed down with flat-screen televisions, but those brakes were worth real money. And thieves didn’t necessarily know what they’d get when they went after someone’s haul. They made mistakes just like everyone else.
Trucking pirates were the reason that Walton kept a gun right behind the front seat. It wasn’t legal in every state, but being a trucker, what worked in one place was off-limits somewhere else.
So you had to turn a blind eye.
Now, as he pulled himself up off the cot, his body half numb and tingling, he expected to see his windshield or one of his windows busted up.
But they weren’t.
K.B. moved stiff and jerky like a robot with low batteries as he made his way to his feet. How long had he been asleep?
From the heat inside the truck cabin, a long time. It was stuffy, and the fan had gone off. He suddenly felt like he was baking alive.
It had been dark when he’d pulled over. And now the sun was high in the sky. What was up with that?
K.B.’s neuropathy was messing with him now. Half of his body wasn’t cooperating.
He reached down to the toolbox where he kept the gun, and he couldn’t get it open. His hand felt like a crab claw trying to pick up a single strand of silk thread. He was thrashing to get his fingers to even bend.
And then, at long last, the toolbox popped open.
His three fingers found the gun, but his upper arm felt numb, and he couldn’t raise his hand more than a foot. So the gun hung at his side, a weapon that would be useful if he were shooting at the dirt.
He considered the sound again.
Maybe what he’d heard was a trash can with bottles that had tumbled over.
A bear? A coyote? The wind? All kinds of stuff happened.
It didn’t have to be something wicked in the parking lot.
But K.B. forced himself forward, gun dangling limp from his deadweight arm.
Destiny reached her hand through the open cavity and grabbed the door lock, pulling up. She then flung the door wide, her eyes searching all the while.
And then she saw it.
The latch to open the trunk.
It was on the floor. Destiny put a knee on the seat, a knee that crushed right into the glistening, corn-kernel-size chunks of the safety glass.
They looked like ice on the black upholstery. She didn’t feel a thing as the shards stuck like gravel into the pink skin of her bony kneecap.
Pop.
It was open. Destiny ran to the back, screaming now:
“Emily!”
But Emily was already climbing out, her hands clawing at the trunk lid like something wild released from a cage. She was panting, rapid puffs as if she’d been running, when instead she’d been curled up in a ball in the hot dark.
And then Destiny saw him.
Emily looked over at the same instant.
The Monster was out of the cinder-block building.
K.B. Walton opened the back door of his big rig cab.
The air outside was warm and heavy, but it was still a welcome relief from the stuffy interior of his truck. If only he could get some circulation back into his arms and legs.
He was able to find the handrail that he’d attached to the back panel three years before, when things first started to go tingly in his world. Now he was grateful as he lowered himself down the two metal s
K.B. touched the blacktop just in time to see a man step out of the cinder-block structure across the parking lot. He looked like he had a gun in his hand.
What’s going on?
K.B. could see two things right away: the man walked with a limp and with a sense of purpose. His face looked enraged.
As a trucker, K.B. Walton had seen all kinds of trouble. And what he’d learned was to stay away from another man’s problems. He had enough of his own.
K.B. swung back around, with the intent of returning to the cab of his big rig, and then he heard female voices.
One of them was shouting.
That was when K.B. saw the silver car. And the two girls. They looked terrified.
He couldn’t hear clearly what the girls were saying, but the cries were for help. That much he could figure.
Walton turned back to the man.
There was a black SUV parked just outside the cinder-block building, and the orange-haired man now pointed his gun at the front left tire of the car and fired.
The shot sounded like the bang of an exhaust pipe.
A loud boom followed by a muffled pfffttt as the bullet pierced the rubber.
Walton watched as the man calmly took aim a second time at the SUV’s right front tire and pulled the trigger again. A second bang pierced the silence, causing that tire to lose its form.
The trucker stood frozen on the blacktop.
Now, that just isn’t right.
Who does that fella think he is?
It didn’t matter what someone had done to you; you don’t go shooting out a person’s tires.
And then the orange-haired man turned his head and saw him.
His gaze went from the girls, who were crouched nearby, behind the silver car, to the big rig.
And that was when the man started across the asphalt, straight toward the trucker.
Emily and Destiny held on to each other, their hearts racing and their adrenaline surging, both filled with the kind of terror that removes all rationality.
There was no time for logic.
Emily had no idea how or why Destiny was there, but the sight of the girl allowed air to return to her lungs.