Truck Stop (7 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

A bitter cold breeze swirled through the truck stop complex. The rain had let up for the moment. It had been over an hour since Ben had left, and an eerie emptiness had settled in. No one had come or gone. It was just the four trucks and Roger’s car in the parking lot.

But Cedar Mountain Truck Stop was never silent. It was always restless.

Inside the shadowy truck wash, the rows of hanging shammies swayed slightly in the breeze that whistled down the large tunnel.

In the repair garage, the eerie maze of parts and equipment stood silent, but the wind seeped in through the cracks in the sheet-metal siding, causing the chains from the massive engine hoist to tinkle slightly. Kincaid’s weird sculpture waited, half-formed, for its artist to return.

And in the back hallway of the diner, there was the lonely dripping sound of the rainwater in the buckets and the rustle of the missing-persons fliers on the bulletin board.

Cedar Mountain Truck Stop was alive and breathing, and it would never rest peacefully. Too many dark and evil events had happened here over the years, and time alone wasn’t enough to separate those events from this world.

The only refuge for the living at the moment was inside the warm diner. Bart was busy cleaning the grill in the kitchen, and Kat was at the cash register with Ida and Daniel Consiglio, who had come in to take showers.

“There you go,” Kat said as she handed Ida some change. “Towels are in the rooms. Leave them in there when you’re done,” Kat took out two keys with numbers stamped into them. “Number 5 and Number 6,” she said.

“Thank you,” Ida said as she took the keys and turned to her son with a stern look. “Daniel.” It was a command.

Daniel obediently followed his mother as she started toward the back hallway.

Kat came around the end of the counter and joined Roger, who was still slumped in the booth, staring out the window. He didn’t look up. He kept staring out into the darkness. Kat waited a moment, then asked, “Coffee?”

“Can’t afford the caffeine,” Roger said, still looking away.

“Decaf?”

“Still has some.”

“Barely,” she said, then grew puzzled. “What’s the deal with caffeine? You came in here to buy that energy drink earlier, and that’s loaded with the stuff.”

Roger grew a bit irritated. “It makes me more aware, that’s all. More sensitive, you know, to the things I see.”

“Oh,” Kat said; it all made sense to her now. She looked over at Bart, busy in the kitchen, then took a seat at the booth.

Roger felt her scooting in across from him; he was being rude and angry, and it wasn’t fair to her. She was only trying to help. He turned and looked at her. “Thanks anyway, though.”

“No problem. Let me know if there’s anything else I can get you, huh?”

“Yeah,” Roger mumbled, then looked back out the dark window.

There was a moment of silence. Kat was torn about what she should say. Nothing seemed right anymore. Anything she could come up with seemed stupid and superficial.

It was Roger who finally spoke, quietly. “I never should've left her out there.” His words were full of pain. It was a tortured, horrible thing to confess, and he couldn’t look at her when he said it.

“Roger, it wasn’t unsafe. You parked right out there in plain sight. If anyone should feel shitty about all this, it’s me. I didn’t see her get out.”

“You were doing me a favor,” he said. “Lilly’s my responsibility, and I’ve been fucking that up for years on my own, trust me.”

Kat reached out and gently put her hand on his arm. “Don’t do this, Roger.”

“No, fuck it. It’s true. Most of the time I’m out playing some shitty gig someplace when I should be home with her.”

“But you said you’re going to stay in Las Vegas from now on.”

“Yeah, now. But that doesn’t fix what I fucked up before, believe me.”

There was another long moment of silence. Kat looked at the tortured man as he continued to stare out into the blackness. He was open and honest with her. No one had been honest with her before, and she felt like she could tell him anything. “You want her. That counts for a lot. My mom ditched me for fourteen years. Then she found me here two years ago. Came in here like nothing ever happened. Bart gave her a job waitressing. We actually got along at first. I started thinking things were going to work out.” Kat reached down to a bracelet on her wrist. It was a unique piece of jewelry—woven strands of silver with delicate jade inlays. “We got each other these matching bracelets. We were like regular BFFs. Only then she did it again—took off with some trucker. Haven’t heard from her in two years. Nothing. No phone calls. E-mail. Nothing.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah, but my dad is still around, and that makes all the difference. Like I said, your daughter is lucky to have you.”

Roger took a moment to consider Kat’s story; she was speaking as someone who had survived a self-destructive parent, and he believed her. Zoe had been deep into drugs from the moment Lilly was born, and even with all his out-of-town gigs and tours, Roger had always made sure he let Lilly know how much he loved her.

A faint flicker of lightning danced in the turbulent sky in the distance followed by a low peal of thunder that rattled the window. Another storm front was on the way. They both regarded it silently; any other time, they would have said something, but after a night like this, it hardly seemed noteworthy.

Kat looked down at the damp stains on the table from Roger’s wet jacket sleeve. His clothes were soaked all the way through. She could only imagine how cold he must feel.

She gave him a smile. “So what am I going to have to do to get you to take a hot shower and get into some dry clothes?”

Roger trudged down the dark, deserted back hallway with a shower room key and some dry clothes from his car. He hadn’t cared what he was wearing, but he agreed to shower and change. Anyway, maybe Kat was right. It wouldn’t hurt for him to be warm and dry.

Roger approached the bulletin board filled with the missing-persons fliers, and his pace slowed. The collage of eerie pictures took on a new meaning to him now as they fluttered slightly in the strange hallway breeze. His eyes wandered over the yellowing photos of the forever lost, and a dark thought began to cloud his mind. It wasn’t the haunted feeling he had had before. It was worse. Much worse. Would Lilly’s picture soon be there, too?

Roger looked away, shaking off the horrific idea. No. He would find her. Some way, somehow he would find her.

A low metallic bang came from a side door; Roger shot a look in its direction. It had yellow peeling paint and a faded sign that read “Waste.”

Roger hesitated, listened longer. Then it happened again. A low, metallic bang came from beyond the door.

Roger crossed to the door, turned the old knob, and gave a push. It was stuck. He leaned into it with his shoulder and it clunked open. Roger shoved hard and the door swung wide. The loading dock and garbage Dumpsters were on the other side. Roger heard the rapid retreat of footsteps and looked over to see someone disappear around the corner. Who the fuck was that?

Roger darted outside, jumped off the loading dock, and raced around the corner. He looked out across the dark parking lot and saw the favorite-aunt woman struggling with a heavy plastic garbage bag as she climbed into her truck.

Roger stood his ground, considering the older woman’s odd behavior. He turned back and crossed over to the Dumpster. He carefully lifted the lid and peered inside.

There was nothing unusual, just the typical garbage that might be found coming from a truck stop like this. Roger let the lid go and it slammed shut. A Dumpster diver. He never would’ve pegged the friendly woman for a Dumpster diver.

Roger stepped back into the hallway and closed the door. He continued down the hall to the shower rooms, consulted the key Kat had given him. It was room 2. He found the matching door and slid the key in the lock.

A low murmured voice drifted to him in the quiet.

Roger hesitated, turned back. He listened carefully. It was a man’s voice coming from inside room 5. Roger crossed over to the other door and pressed his ear to the door.

He could hear water running inside and the muffled voice became clear. It was Daniel whimpering painfully. “Don’t make me do it again, Momma. Please don’t make me do it again. It hurts.”

Roger withdrew from the door, considered the creepy implications of what Daniel was saying. He had decided long ago that the truckers here were strange, but the past few minutes had raised even stranger questions.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Roger went back to room 2, put the key in the lock, gave it a twist, and stepped inside. It was what he had expected. Run down like the rest of the truck stop, but basically clean and in working order.

Roger stripped down, climbed into the shower stall, and pulled the frosted plastic curtain closed.

He stood back from the showerhead and turned on the old spigots. The water pipes groaned and vibrated as the water shuddered on. He adjusted the temperature and the flow and ducked his head under the stream. He grabbed the small paper-wrapped bar of soap from the dish, tore it open, dropped the wrapper on the ledge, and started scrubbing himself.

He looked over at the small courtesy shampoo, considered using it, and decided it was a waste of time. He lathered his hands and scrubbed his hair with the soap.

He stood for a moment under the spray, rinsing his hair clean and letting the hot water wash over him. A moment passed, then another.

Then something dark appeared on the other side of the plastic curtain.

It gathered shape as it moved toward the curtain, stopping right on the other side. It was the shape of a human silhouette.

Roger remained under the stream of water with his eyes closed, unaware as the silhouette raised its hand and began to press inward against the plastic from the other side. The hand grew closer, inch by inch, until the cold touch pressed against Roger’s bare back.

Roger spun around, startled, but the silhouette was gone. He peeled the curtain open a crack and squinted out into the bathroom. There was nothing there. No one.

Roger shut off the water and climbed out of the stall. He grabbed the towel, shook it through his hair, dragged it across his face. He looked up at the mirror and stopped cold. Written with a finger in the steamy glass on the mirror were the words, “Find Us.”

Roger stared at the message in the eerie silence for a moment, then reached up. With his hand, he wiped the words away.

A loud clunk shattered the silence as the bathroom door closed behind him. Roger spun around. The sound of footsteps retreated outside.

Roger yanked on his pants, pulled on his shirt, slipped into his shoes, and opened the door. He stepped out into the long, dark hallway.

It was empty. The mother and son from the cream-colored truck were gone from the shower rooms next door.

Roger paused and listened. After a moment, the faint sound of someone sobbing came from inside a nearby sleeping room. Roger stepped over to the door and heard his feet splash into something. He looked down and saw a puddle of blood, ebbing out from under the door. Roger grabbed the knob and shoved the door open.

It was too dark inside the sleeping room to see anything at first. Roger waited until his eyes adjusted, then he saw something in the far corner. It was moving. He stepped into the room. It was the covers on the cot. Someone was underneath, sobbing in agony.

Roger’s heart thundered in his chest; he swallowed dryly. “Lilly?”

There was no answer. Just the anguished sobbing.

Roger stepped closer, and he could see more. The covers were soaked in blood. Panic surged through Roger; he reached down and yanked back the covers.

But there was no one there. The blood was gone, too.

Wham! The door behind him banged all the way open against the outside wall. Footsteps rapidly retreated.

Roger darted out into the hall in time to see the door with the small window at the far end fly open all on its own. Rain was pouring again outside.

Roger raced down the hall and peered out the open door into the dark downpour. Off in the distance, in the cluttered junkyard, he saw the pale form of a woman standing nude with her arms outstretched, streaked in blood.

Roger hurried out the back door. He pulled aside the broken cyclone fence and stepped into the junkyard. It was a shadowy maze of discarded truck and car parts, tires, mattresses, and old appliances.

Roger scrambled across the soaking debris and reached the spot where he had seen the woman. But there was no one there.

Roger took a moment to catch his breath. He spun around, scanning the junkyard desperately, then yelled out, “Who are you?!”

Strange, static music began to waft out eerily over the junkyard above the drumming rain. At first, Roger couldn’t place it, but then it became clearer. It was from the ‘90s. Joan Osborne. He scanned the clutter and focused in on the source of the music. It was coming from beyond a mound of junk behind an old shed.

Roger started climbing toward the source of the sound. He passed the old shed, traversed a stack of slippery tin siding panels, and clambered down on the other side of the mound of junk. He picked his way over a pile of rotting wood planks halfway submerged in the mud and found the source of the eerie music. It was coming from an old, rusted-out truck cab. Roger stepped closer, wiped the rain from his eyes, and squinted into the empty cab. The music was coming from the dead radio.

Roger stared into the dark cab, then whispered intensely, “What is it? What do you want?”

The radio fell silent. Roger waited for something more. There was nothing but the sound of the incessant rain drumming on the rusted truck roof.

Roger stood up and looked around, his frustrations growing. He sighed anxiously, took a step to leave, and crack! The rotting wood planks in the mud beneath his feet gave way.

Roger plunged downward into the darkness and landed with a splash. He was up to his waist in muddy water at the bottom of a pit that had been opened by the rain, its edges eroded by the water. Roger scrambled to his feet, disoriented. He looked around for a way out, and that’s when he saw them. The rotting, dismembered remains of three corpses were moving toward him out of the oozing muck.

Roger cried out, horrified. He shoved the decaying remains away from him and clawed desperately to get out. But the walls of the pit gave way in his hands, and he slipped backward. There was a sickening crack as he collapsed against a woman’s upper torso; her ribs sunk into her spine and her head separated from her shoulders.

Roger frantically shoved his way out of the remains and started scrambling desperately up the muddy wall. His fingers dug deep into the soft earth; he kicked with all his might and sunk his toes into the oozing side of the pit. He pulled himself up, kicked again, and sunk his other foot into the mud. He yanked his hand out and stabbed it into the muck higher up the wall, getting a grip. He reached the top and pulled himself out.

Roger collapsed onto the edge of the burial pit, gasping for air. The rain washed over him, streaking the mud that now covered him from head to foot. He had found something worse than hell. A mass grave of dismembered bodies, buried here by someone who had butchered them in a heinous way.

Roger rallied his strength and rolled over onto his side. He started to pull himself to his feet, but then stopped cold. A small stuffed paw was sticking out from under one of the muddy wood planks at the edge of the pit.

Roger reached over, pulled on the paw, and withdrew the lower half of a mud-covered stuffed animal. He carefully scrutinized the shredded remains, and a dark feeling of dread began to overtake him. The color. The fur. The shape.

Lilly’s stuffed rabbit. Jimmie Jerry.

“Oh, God. No.“

Roger’s entire world began to collapse around him. His body went numb. He couldn’t feel his grip on the rabbit. He couldn’t feel the rainwater streaming over him, or the bitter cold. He tried to inhale, but he couldn’t. It was like someone had hit him in the chest with a sledgehammer. The silent moment of horror felt like an eternity. Every emotion Roger had ever felt in his life closed in on itself, imploding in a debilitating black hole.

Then the frozen moment began to thaw. The sounds of the rain returned. The icy cold wetness stung his bare hands. The deep ache in his muscles came flooding back.

Roger staggered to his feet, clutching the stuffed animal’s remains. He desperately peered across the dark junkyard. He could see Kat in the diner through the side window.

Roger opened his mouth to yell, but before he could utter a sound, a blinding white beam of light swung toward him from the other side of the junkyard.

Roger spun around. A shadowy figure brandishing a shotgun was coming right toward him. The glint off of a brutally large hunting knife in his other hand flashed menacingly. This was no ghost. This was the killer, and Roger had discovered where he dumped the remains of his victims.

Roger ducked behind the rusted truck cab. The killer snapped off his flashlight and disappeared into the shadowy darkness of the cluttered yard.

Roger peered out from the cab and carefully scanned the area between him and the back entrance to the truck stop. He charted a course in his head that would take him to the break in the fence.

Lightning flickered overhead. The rain started pouring harder.

Roger steeled himself, then got up. He crept carefully around the edge of the burial pit, leaned his weight onto the stack of sheet-metal siding to avoid any unnecessary noise, and pulled himself up. He moved slowly over the slippery sheet metal to the other side and looked back in the direction he had last seen the menacing figure. The pouring rain made it hard to see much of anything. Whoever it was could be anywhere.

Roger looked back toward the truck stop. The break in the fence was in sight. He continued toward the edge of the yard, and another flash of lightning lit up the sky. The killer’s silhouette stood three yards in front of him.

BOOM! The dark figure fired wildly at Roger. Roger took a dive.

Inside the diner, Kat heard the gunshot. She hurried to the side window and peered out. Bart ran up behind her. “What the hell was that?”

Outside, Roger scrambled desperately through the tangle of junk; the dark figure zeroed in on the sound of Roger’s retreat and took off after him. Roger grabbed a twisted piece of metal from an old motorcycle frame and ducked behind the shed.

He pressed himself up against the corrugated metal wall and raised his makeshift weapon. He listened intently for the sound of the killer’s approaching footsteps, but it was hard to hear anything over the pouring rain. He would have to hope for the best and swing when the killer was in sight.

A few seconds passed. Nothing. No one came. Roger began to lose his nerve. The killer wasn’t that far behind him. Had he cut around in another direction?

Roger slid to the other end of the shed wall and peered around. Headlights swept across the junkyard. A car was approaching.

It was Ben’s highway patrol cruiser.