“Hell, that was too close,” he said and exhaled a loud sigh.
Rudy sat up again and looked at the map. “I think we’re coming up on the turn. Yeah look, there’s a road sign.”
Tony signaled right and slowed to make the turn.
As he straightened the wheels on the narrow road, he said, “Now we’ve got to find a place to hide ‘til nightfall. It won’t be long before they discover the Ram and the body. Damn, I should have taken that bastard’s wallet.”
Tony sensed control had begun to slip away. So far, they had escaped capture by following his gut but this small mistake evidenced that the stress of the last three days had taken a toll on him and without rest, he might lead the cops to his doorstep. With the wallet, the feds would discover the identity of the man and that would lead them to the Subaru. Even if he could find a place to sleep soon, the few hours between now and nightfall wouldn’t be enough, but maybe it would take the edge off his weary mind.
Natalie knew none of this was her fault but she couldn’t shake the guilt. Tony showed no remorse for the people he had killed, so she grieved for the victims of his violence and for the families left to pick up the pieces. There were four, possibly five people dead because of her. One she killed in self-defense, but the others were the unfortunate victims of her situation. She didn’t know anything about them, except for the last one.
He had a baby who would ride in the infant seat next to her on the way to buy groceries or visit McDonalds. He or she would never know their daddy. There had to be another child as well as the child restraint seat was so small it had to be for an infant, yet on the back seat laid a coloring book and other toys too mature for a baby. Suddenly, two children had become fatherless and their mother didn’t know yet she would have to raise them alone.
Natalie began to cry again, not for herself, but for the pain caused because of her. If she could do it again, she would have never left the cornfield, never moved to LA, never have changed her name from Amy Westerhill, and never said to that girl in mirror, “Whatever it damn well takes.”
She felt faint from lack of food and water. The last thing she had consumed had been taken from the faucet in the gas station’s restroom over sixteen hours before. It certainly hadn’t been the most sanitary way to get fluids, but she knew if she didn’t find ways to hydrate her body, if she got the opportunity, she wouldn’t have the strength to escape. She could live without food as she often did to keep her slender figure, but she had been allowed so little to eat since her abduction more than two and a half days ago, she felt weak and nauseous.
The bruises, bites and abrasions on her body were too many to count. Over the last two days they had become a dull painful reminder of the horror imposed on her, and played continuously in the background. Every shift, every twist of her body as she tried to find a comfortable position, a state she never achieved, brought with it an unwelcomed aching memory.
In the last few minutes, though, she had a new sensation, worse than the others. With the gag in her mouth, she had survived all day by breathing through her nose. Since Tony hit her in the face a few minutes ago, now she was sure it was broken. Blood clotted inside her nostrils. She couldn’t inhale enough oxygen to fill her lungs. They screamed for relief, but were unsatisfied. Her head began to swirl in a black haze.
Agent Hawk continued to drive north toward a roadblock that had been erected. Darkness began to invade her like the damned of a thousand souls entwined her bowels. It grew more intense with each mile. The adrenaline rush had faded to a fear that once again, they had slipped past her.
Her suspicions were confirmed when a report came over her radio that the burgundy Dodge Ram never came through the roadblock. Ten minutes from the manned barricade, she called the Washington State Patrol and asked them to stand by until she arrived.
“There,” was all Rudy said as they came over a small rise on the country road. His right arm and index finger pointed to the left.
Tony followed his gesture and saw an old barn set back a couple hundred yards. From its dilapidated condition, it appeared to be abandoned. At the eaves of the barn, stands of trees and wild berry vines of various genus grew untended. The vines had grown long enough they covered some of the roof. The only side not overgrown completely was the front. The walls listed to one side and Tony got the uneasy feeling a strong wind might topple the building. But with luck that wouldn’t be today. Today they had no choice. Today they had to find cover for themselves and the Subaru.
Unlike SR 21, no traffic travelled this road, so without watchful eyes, Tony steered the car across the open ground toward the decayed structure. The rain that had come a few minutes before had obscured any evidence of car or tractor presence near the barn, and he hoped the threatening sky would deliver and wash the proof of their arrival away as well. Tony stopped a few feet back from the door to the barn.
Rudy got out of the Subaru. The barn door was large enough to drive the car through with ease and it stood ajar. Through the windshield Tony watched Rudy try to pull it out of the way. It didn’t budge. With the building teetering to one side, it had forced the bottom edge of the door into the ground.
Tony got out too help, but with both of them pulling and pushing, it still wouldn’t yield. Frantic wasn’t an emotion he often experienced but it began to mount now. At any minute the law might come over the rise and then it would be over. He had no intention of suicide by cop, that would thwart his plan and he wouldn’t have earned Ma’s absolution. They had to get under cover now.
As the dappled clouds had folded gray upon gray patterns in the afternoon sky, they now began to wring the rain out once more. Tony slipped around the barn door and ducked inside.
_____
©
Jearl Rugh 2012
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