Slices (7 page)

The
gun in the holster under Gary’s flannel shirt felt ridiculously
heavy.

“How
do we do do this?” Craig asked.

What,
like I’ve done this before?
Gary wanted to say. He looked around at people in their cars,
families with kids and couples out walking their dogs, and he said,
“We want one guy. By himself. We get him alone — in the
bathroom, so no one sees it — get his keys.”

“Sure.
Sure,” Craig said. “Make him lie on the ground and count
to fifty.” Like they’d been doing to clerks all morning.

They
waited, pretended to study the map. After a while, a man walked into
the bathroom wearing a suit — not an expensive one, but still a
suit — and carrying a briefcase.

Gary
did the math. The guy wasn’t on vacation, that’s for
sure. Working man, no wife and kids with him — or, sure, he’d
have left his briefcase in the car, if there was someone to watch it.
Made sense.

He
looked over at Craig, nodded, and in they went.

Gary
stood by the door, in case someone came in. Craig looked under doors
to find the one unoccupied stall.

Then
— Craig was good at this part, he liked this part — Craig
kicked the door open, reached in and grabbed the poor sonofabitch by
the shirtfront and hauled him out, threw him face-first against a
sink. Not hard, not teeth-breaking hard, just enough to bloody his
lip a little, let him know they weren’t fucking around.
Bright-red bloodsmear on white porcelain, like a candy cane, and then
the guy was on the floor, howling, making way too much noise.

“Shut
up. Shut up,” Craig hissed. “Listen! Gimme your keys!
Gimme your fucking keys!”

“My
— my keys?” The man on the floor was having trouble
talking. “You can’t — ”

Gary
stepped further into the room, frustrated. “Come on. Just give
us your keys and we won’t hurt you.”

“I
don’t — have them, they’re in the car — ”

“Shit.”
Craig pulled out his gun. “What car? What one is yours?”

The
guy just shook his head. “You don’t want my car.”

Gary
drew his gun, too, and pointed it at him.

“No,
you don’t understand, I’m serious — ”

“Do
we look like we’re not fucking serious?” Craig snarled.
“Does this look like, what, playtime? Does this look like
recess to you?”

The
man shook his head.

“
Where
is your
car?”
Craig pressed the gun to his head.

The
man sagged. “I’ll show you,” he said.

Craig
glanced at Gary. Gary nodded reluctantly — this wasn’t
the plan — and Craig let the man up.

“Don’t
try to run,” Gary said. “No sudden moves, no calling for
help, or — ”

“You’ll
kill me?” There was a strange smile on the guy’s face
when he said it. A sickly, sweaty smile, but a smile that was somehow
weirdly calm all the same.

“Right,”
Craig said, missing it, and he hauled the man to his feet.

Craig
kept his gun at the man’s back. Gary stood at his side,
concealing the gun, and looking almost casual, almost natural, the
three of them walked out of the bathroom, staying far from the eyes
of the playing children and watchful parents.

Off
in the distance, someone was playing Frisbee. Someone else was
laughing. Gary thought the air seemed thick, like syrup. That they
were moving in slow motion. He looked around at people in their
motorhomes and RVs and thought about vacations he’d had as a
kid and wondered how exactly he’d come to wander so far away
from that life.

The
man’s car was white, non-descript. No bumper stickers or a cute
license-plate frame.

The
keys were sticking out of the lock on the trunk. The keyfob was still
swinging gently back and forth. Gary reached for the key as they
approached, but the man darted forward at the last moment and pulled
them out of the lock.

Craig’s
finger tightened on the trigger. But the man turned and dropped the
keys in Gary’s hand.

“We
said not to try anything,” Gary said.

“I’m
not.”

Gary
stared past him. “What’s in the trunk?”

“Nothing,”
he said, way too quickly.

“Uh-huh.”

Craig
took the keys and unlocked the car. Gary put the money inside.

“Whatever’s
in the trunk is not our goddamn problem,” Craig said.

“That’s
right. That’s right,” the man said.

Craig
stared at him for a moment. “What is
your
goddamn problem?”

“No
problem,” the man said. His face was a dead mask of clam. “This
is just very important. All right? You can take the car, that’s
fine. That’s no problem at all.” His voice was flat and
soothing. “But you can’t open the trunk. All right? This
is very important. When you’re done with the car, just walk
away from it. Leave what’s in the trunk alone. Do you
understand?”

Craig
was shaking. He couldn’t have said why. He also couldn’t
explain later, no matter how many times Gary asked, why he did what
he did next:

He
raised the gun to the man’s face. He had a moment to notice how
dull and flat the man’s eyes looked
(like
nailheads, they looked just like nailheads),
and then he pressed the gun between them and pulled the trigger,
dropped the hammer.

Whatever
had gone wrong, however they’d lost control of the situation,
Gary had missed all the warning signs.

He
wasn’t missing them now. The car was giving up on him and he
knew it. The accelerator jerked and hesitated under his foot, the
engine kept pausing, as if lost in thought. The
service
engine soon
light came back on and stayed on, and the
oil
and
battery
lights soon joined them.

“What’s
wrong?” Craig said. “What’s wrong with the fucking
car?” The silence from the engine had taken his mind off the
noise from the trunk for a moment.

“It’s
dying,” Gary said.

“That’s
great. That really is. You know that? That’s fucking terrific.
Now we need another goddamn car.”

Minutes
passed without words. Out of the half-light of the setting sun, the
car’s headlights picked out a sign:

Rest
area, 3 miles. Next rest area, 48 miles.

“Oh
no. No. Not another rest area. Not after the last one.”

“We
don’t have any choice,” Gary said, and he could tell
Craig wanted to argue, but there was nothing he could say.

The
engine hesitated as they pulled into the exit, and then twice more as
they pulled into the parking lot. As they passed the
No
Overnight Stays
sign, the engine gave up completely. They coasted, then stopped, and
with a wordless glance at each other, Craig and Gary got out of the
car, used the open doors to push it into a parking space.

They
looked around. One thing was obvious. One of them had to say it.

“There’s
nobody here,” Craig said.

Gary
shrugged. There wasn’t. Theirs was the only car.

“We
wait,” Gary said. “Someone will come.”

“Sure,”
Craig said. “I mean, it’s not like this is the middle of
nowhere, right?” he said, even though it was. “Somebody
has to come.”

There
was a sudden sound from the back, a crash, desperately loud without
the noise of the engine.

“There
is someone back there,” Craig said. He said it very quietly.

Gary
nodded, no longer able to pretend that there wasn’t. “Not
our problem,” Gary said. “You said it yourself.”

“Yeah.”

More
noise. A shuffling, a shifting of balance.

“Can
I turn on the radio?” Craig asked suddenly.

Gary
snapped the key into position. “Knock yourself out.”

Craig
turned the radio on, turned the dial from one end to the other and
got nothing but static. Once, he found something that may have been
the crackling ranting of some distant preacher, but that faded, too.

“Not
like we’re in the middle of nowhere,” Gary said.

“Shut
up,” Craig said, and Gary let him say it. Gary turned the power
back off, and the sound of static died.

There
was another crash. Two more. That, Gary thought, is the sound of
someone with both feet tight together, trying to kick their way out.

Craig
laughed, eyes sideways at Gary, then stopped.

A
new sound came from the back, and this time Gary couldn’t
identify it:

A
low rumble, like a growl, or like the pulse and thrum of some kind of
machinery.

“What
the fuck is that?” Craig said. “Some kind of animal, or —
?”

Gary
shook his head. He didn’t look at Craig — his eyes were
firmly fixed on the entrance waiting for some car, any car, to pull
in.

Three
more kicks. Weaker, this time, like protests.

Craig
opened his door and got out. Gary nearly asked, where are you going?
— but decided it didn’t matter. He dropped the keys in
his pocket and followed.

They
ended up at the Coke machine, staring at it behind the metal bars
that kept it safe from vandals.

“You
don’t have any change, do you? Or any ones?” Craig asked.

Gary
shook his head.

“Man,
I could really use a Coke.” Craig laid his head and hands
against the bars for a second. He laughed. “We’ve got all
this money with us, and I can’t buy a Coke. That’s kind
of funny, isn’t it?”

“Sure,
I guess.”

Craig
walked over to the drinking fountain, and found that it didn’t
work. He smacked it with the flat of his hand, then backed up and
kicked it.

“Cut
it out,” Gary snapped. The sound reminded him too much of the
car.

“Gary,”
Craig said. “I just — what are we gonna do, Gary? Just
sit here and wait?”

“You
have a better idea?”

“Not
really.”

Gary
moved to where he could see the entrance better, and Craig followed
him.

“Can
I have a cigarette?” Craig asked.

“You
don’t smoke.”

“I
thought I’d start.”

Gary
had to laugh at that. He took out his pack of cigarettes — he
had three left, and he’d been saving them for later, but —
but there
isn’t going to be a later, is there?

He
handed over the cigarettes and lighter and shoved that thought back
down wherever it had come from.

He
watched Craig fumble with his first cigarette and then he turned his
eyes back to the dark and empty road. He wanted to make some joke
about waiting for Godot, but couldn’t think of anything funny
to say, and besides, he didn’t really think Craig would get it.

“We’re
going to take the first car that comes along, right?” Craig
asked.

“First
one that comes,” Gary agreed.

The
banging started up again. They could hear it from here. It didn’t
sound like it was going to stop.

They
looked at each other. Gary thought about all they’d left behind
when they’d abandoned his vehicle and said, “I think we
should get the money out of the car.”

Craig
nodded, followed a couple of reluctant paces behind.

Closer,
and they could hear it again — that snarl, like gears, or an
inhuman throat.

Gary
lifted the keys to the door, when one loud crash rocked the car back
and forth. He dropped the keys, and they bounced and clattered under
the car.

Gary
cursed and dropped to his hands and knees. He reached underneath.

Something
wrong here, under the car. Some slick puddle, something dripping from
the car — oil, he thought, but the smell was wrong, unhealthy
and organic, and it wasn’t coming from the engine, it was
coming from —

Whatever
was in the trunk thrashed and lashed out and shook the car again, and
Gary’s hand touched the keys and closed deathgrip-tight around
them. He lurched to his feet, opened the shaking door, and hauled the
suitcase out.

He
didn’t say a word. He headed for the restroom and Craig
followed.

He
stepped inside, ran cold water in the sink, and put the suitcase
down. He splashed a little water on his face, and stared at what
there was of his reflection in the dull plate of metal that passed
for a mirror.

“We’re
not going to be able to see if anyone comes, not from in here,”
Craig said.

“I
know. I know. I just wanted to be inside for a minute. Away from —
” He jerked a thumb toward the parking lot.

“Sure.
Sure. Take your time.” Craig let out a lifeless laugh. “You
know, right now I’d even be happy to see a police car?”

Gary
smiled weakly.

After
a while, they stood out in the parking lot, far from the restless
car. They smoked Gary’s last two cigarettes and stared up at
the sky. That was the nice thing about the middle of nowhere —
all the stars. Gary looked up at all the constellations he’d
learned about as a kid and couldn’t remember the name of a
single one.

“I
hate these places,” Craig said.

“Rest
areas?”

“Rest
areas. It’s like — they’re not really
places,
are they? Not really. They’re what you find between places.
They’re where you go when you aren’t anywhere.”

“Huh.”
Gary stared at the last of his cigarette, then flicked it away into
the dark.

“They
just seem so weird and fake,” Craig continued. “Metal
mirrors and metal drinking fountains and stupid little flyers for
places you’ll never go, and it’s like they weren’t
even built by
people,
do you know what I mean?”

“Shut
up,” Gary said softly.

“No,
seriously. It’s like whoever built them just had some vague
idea of what real people would like — what would get them to
stop way out here. They feel like traps, almost — ”

“Shut
up!” Gary snatched the cigarette from Craig’s hand,
finished it himself in one long last drag. “Can’t you
even hear it anymore?”

He
could. They both could. It was getting even louder.