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Wednesday, June 17, 2015

17 Born to Make the Kill

The last couple of years at home, she had fought with her parents, especially her mom, and that often. Then it seemed like the issues were monstrous, life altering—life ending. After she declared her emancipation on her seventeenth birthday, she could hardly look back to wave to her mom—and her hair bun—as she stepped onto the westbound bus. 

Despite Newton’s Law, she had found that every action didn’t cause an equal and opposite reaction. Sex with a boy didn’t mean she would get pregnant. Speeding down a country road in a friend’s car didn’t get her killed or maimed for life. Consequences were something parents made up to control their kids, to make them conform to their wishes, to stop them from having fun. She said it once to their face, which only escalated the punishment for failure to do her chores with the enthusiasm of a God-fearing, parent-honoring, Christian girl she was supposed to be. After that she chose to recite her “It’s not fair” and “I hate you” mantras when she was out of earshot of her parents.

Now, the petty frustrations over the farm and her parent’s dogmatic lifestyle turned to the rancid taste of regret. She might never see them or her sister, Cindy, again. She had planned to fly home for Thanksgiving next month but now they would find nothing to be thankful for. Worst of all, the strong likelihood resonated that they would never know what happened to her. It could be years, if ever, before her body would be found.

The Christian family where she was reared left an imprint on her soul. She had been taught, and as a child came to believe, in a loving but demanding God. As she matured and entered adolescence, what started with doubts, by high school had blossomed into disbelief. Although, for the sake of harmony at home she went through the motions of attending worship services and Sunday school, the Bible belt began to chaff like a sixteenth century courtesan’s corset. Since she moved to the west coast, though, she had turned her back on all of it. To live for the moment and pursue her passions seemed a much more worthwhile endeavor than the unlikely outcome of the search for God. 

But with death skulking so close now, the line between faith and doubt blurred. What if her parents had been right? Would God listen if she called out? He didn’t owe her anything but would He save her—could He save me—from the monsters in the next compartment? If He really was love, as she had been taught, could this circumstance be part of His plan? Was this a trial to bring her back to belief or a punishment for disbelief? If she prayed hard enough would He intervene? 

As she lay in the darkness, tears flowed uncontrolled across her swollen cheeks and she knew the answer. If God had ever been there, He had turned His back now and nothing could spark belief again. When faith’s last ember had died, not even a miracle would have convinced her it was nothing other than coincidence. Too much tragedy in the world proved it. Certainly when the twin towers fell in Manhattan three years ago, people of all faiths and of no faith at all pleaded for salvation, but they all met the same fate. No one’s god intervened that day no matter how fervent. Foxholes provide great motivation for supplication to a supreme being but regardless, the enemy still comes to kill and destroy. Is that fate? Could God reverse it? In the spring her mom and dad always joined hands with the family and prayed for a good growing season and a bountiful harvest to follow. Some years it happened, but when it didn’t and they ate canned beans for dinner for a month, was God in that?

She swiped the tears away from her face. She knew this wasn’t about faith at all. God didn’t bring this on her as a pathway to restore her to His favor or punishment for her sins. No, this was on her, her ego brought this. For a moment she had sunk to believing the ends justify the means—“Whatever it damn well takes!”


“Where we headin’ boss?” Hank asked Tony.

“North. Any ideas?”

“I see we’re heading north, damn it. Don’t take no rocket scientist to figure that out.”

“We need to get out of California, shit head, maybe the country, until this blows over. I’m thinking Canada.”

“I have an uncle with a hunting cabin in Canada,” Rudy interjected from the back seat where he had sat in silence since they left the LA basin. He had pretended to sleep while Tony and Hank joked and trash talked about what they were going to do and how many ways they were going to do it to the bitch in the trunk, but he actually had been gnawing on ways to get Natalie out of this. No plan had surfaced, yet the longer he sat there the more he began to believe he was as much a prisoner as she.

“Christ, I thought you were sleeping,” Tony said and looked into the rearview mirror. ”Where in Canada?”

“British Columbia,” Rudy replied. If he could keep her alive until they got there, he knew the woods well. His uncle had taken him hunting there several times, and he knew he could find a place for them to hide until Tony and Hank gave up looking. Then he could have her to himself.

“And you can find it?”

“Not only find it, but I know where the key is.”

“Then, Hank, we’re headin’ to BC.”


The microwave chirped and Maggie took her warm drink back to the bedroom. She sat on her bed, propped herself up against her pillow, and pulled the blankets tight against her chest. In the last few minutes she had gone from fearing for Natalie’s life to being annoyed she hadn’t had the courtesy to call. She had fretted over nothing. Natalie’s been home all along.

She took a sip of the chocolate beverage and could feel the comfort slide down her throat. Although it soothed her, it wasn’t enough to quiet her frustration. She reached for her cellular phone and dialed Natalie’s home number. After several rings, Natalie’s voice spoke into her ear.

“This is Natalie,” the recording stated, “please leave a message.”

Surprised she didn’t answer, Maggie thought, Maybe she’s in the shower.


The thunderous sound of a diesel engine interrupted Natalie’s thoughts. With the roar on the side of the car nearest her head, she realized she faced the front of the vehicle. The rumble of the eighteen-wheeler’s powerful engine passed slowly, followed by the whine of trailer tires on the pavement.

She rolled her body so she could lie on her back. As she did, the soreness in her muscles screamed once again with searing reminders of her wounds but she pushed through the agony until her back lay against the floor of the trunk. Worse than lying on her side as her swollen head now rested against the steel, she continued to rotate until she rested on her right side. As she did, she could see the dull glow of six taillights, three on each side of the vehicle and that reminded her of something that had nagged her when she saw the dark car in the warehouse parking lot. Now it came forward. How could someone working as a producer for Ansell Parker, drive an old beater like that? I should have listened to that voice. 

The pitch of the engine’s whine dropped and she felt the car slow down. Some of the taillights suddenly shone brighter as her body rocked backward. She sensed the vehicle came to a stop and then gravity pulled her towards the driver’s side as it accelerated into a right turn. After a few minutes, the car lurched to the right again and she heard the grind of gravel under the tires. The car slowed to a stop.

_____

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© Jearl Rugh 2012
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