No Sanctuary

So where’s he taking me? Gillian wondered.

Someplace far away, she thought, or we’d be there by now.

She wondered if it was still night. After sunrise, it wouldn’t matter so much about the dead lights. Maybe she had nailed a brake light, but what good would that do?

Where is he taking me?

From the smooth, steady ride and the engine sounds, she guessed that they were on a freeway—had been on a freeway most of the time.

We’re going very far away, she thought, and then felt herself slip away again.

She woke up gasping with fear and bathed in sweat.

Sweat?

The air in the trunk felt warm. She couldn’t remember it being warm before. She could remember shivering sometimes and wishing she had clothes on, or at least a sheet to cover herself. The warmth meant sunlight.

It’s daytime.

She wondered what time they had left Holden’s house. Maybe three or three-thirty in the morning? There was no way to be sure, since she’d been unconscious, but he’d probably been quick to get on the road. The sun would start heating things up by seven or eight. If it was much later than that, the trunk would probably be a lot hotter.

So we’ve been on the road about four hours, maybe longer.

If he headed south, we’re well into Mexico by now. East, we’re in Arizona.

“Crucify me on a cactus,” she heard herself mumble. “Ha ha.” No joke. She could see herself on one of those saguaros that stood in the desert like a mutant man with upraised arms. She felt nails in her palms, the spines piercing her back and buttocks and legs. The sun seared her bare skin. She heard her skin sizzling like bacon on a skillet. Squinting through the glare of the noon sun, she saw Holden smile and drop to his hands and knees and crawl toward her. Bones littered his way—glaring white skulls, ribcages, parts- of a dozen bodies or twenty. The bones clinked and clattered as Holden scuttled through them. Some dissolved into white powder that puffed, and he was crawling through a cloud of bone dust. When he emerged from the cloud, he was no longer Fredrick Holden. He was a tarantula, fat and furry and half a foot across. And scurrying toward Gillian’s feet. Gasping, she tried to move her feet away from it. Skeleton fingers held her feet to the hot desert ground. She couldn’t move. The spider climbed onto her bare left foot, walked up the skeleton hand at her ankle as if the finger bones were the rungs of a ladder. It moved up her shin. It sat for a moment on her knee as if resting. Then it began crawling up Gillian’s thigh, and she screamed.

The scream snatched her away from the horrors in the desert. She was in the trunk again, panting. When she opened her eyes, they both burned as if someone had flung saltwater into her face. She realized it was sweat.

The trunk was very hot. The black air felt like a heavy blanket pressing down on her, suffocating her.

I won’t suffocate, she told herself. This trunk isn’t airtight. I’ll just cook.

I must’ve been out a while, she thought.

She was drenched. Even lying motionless, she could feel runnels sliding down her body, tickling her. The newspapers felt sodden under her back. She rolled onto her right side. Sweat must have been clinging to her skin in tiny beads like raindrops, standing in pools in the hollows of her throat and navel. It cascaded off her when she rolled. She heard it spill onto the newspapers.

The change of position helped. Much of the paper peeled off her back with the turn. A sheet of it still adhered to her buttocks, but there was nothing she could do. She lay there motionless, her eyes shut tight to keep the sweat from stinging them. The trickles continued. Her legs, pressed together, felt as if they were lathered with hot butter. Only her mouth was dry. Her tongue touched dry flakes along her lips.

The floor of the trunk suddenly tipped beneath her. She flinched and choked herself on the rope and quickly bent her knees, rumpling the papers but stopping her forward roll.

The car’s going uphill, she thought. Up a steep hill.

It had moved up and down many times before, rocking her slightly, but never anything like this.

He’s taking me into the mountains, she thought.

Chapter Twenty-two

Rick jerked awake as something smacked the wall of his tent. He lifted his head. The blue tent was murky inside with daylight. He thought a pine cone must’ve fallen. But then the tent was struck twice more, and other objects, missing, thumped the ground outside.

Bert moved, rubbing him, and he looked down at her. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

“They’re throwing stuff.”

The sleeping bag’s zipper was on the other side of Bert. He couldn’t get to it without crawling over her, so he started to squirm out the top. Bert rolled away from him. He heard the zipper slide with a sound like ripping fabric.

“So long, Rick the Prick!” Jason’s voice. It came from a distance. “So long, cunts!”

Rick was half out of the bag, sitting up, his hand on the knife propped upright inside his hiking boot. Bert had slid out the open side. She was on her elbows. At the sound of Jase’s voice, she stopped trying to get out.

“It hasn’t been nice knowing you!”Luke called.

“FUCK YOU AND THE HORSES YOU RODE IN ON!” That one came from Andrea. From nearby. Her tent?

Bert shook her head.

There was distant, derisive laughter from the boys.

Rick sat motionless, waiting. Bert didn’t move either. She was still stretched out, lying half across her empty sleeping bag, propped up on her elbows, naked to the knees. Her feet were still inside Rick’s bag. Her breasts rose and fell as she breathed.

“I guess they’re gone,” Rick finally said.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish.” Smiling, she lay back and folded her hands behind her head. One of her feet stroked the side of Rick’s leg. “I hope that’s the last of them.”

“We’ll take that other trail.”

“And make sure, first, they’re really going up to Dead Mule Pass.” Bert took her legs out of Rick’s bag and stretched them out on top of it. “It’s hot in here. Must be late.”

He flipped the sleeping bag off his hot legs. The air felt good on them. “When Jase handed the gun to you, it changed everything. That ... I think that pretty much shattered my obsession with Julie and the rest of it.”

“God, if I’d known what you went through. I feel like such a jerk for forcing you into this trip.”

“It was probably good for me. I know you’ve been good for me.”

“We don’t have to go on, though. If we turn around, we could be back at the car this afternoon. Would you rather do that?”

“I don’t know. I think I’ll be all right now. And I’d hate to cheat you out of the rest ...”

“I wouldn’t mind. This hasn’t exactly gone the way I’d hoped, anyway.”

Rick nodded. “Bet you didn’t expect it to be this exciting.”

“Or this crowded.”

“Well, now that Jase and his pals are gone ...”

“That only leaves Andrea and Bonnie.”

“Maybe we ought to split up with them.” That, Rick knew, was what Bert wanted. Strangely, the idea of leaving the girls behind didn’t disturb him. He felt no disappointment. Andrea was a temptation and she had offered herself to him. If she were gone, he could stop struggling against the urge to take her up on it. And he could be alone with Bert.

“They’re nice and everything,” Bert said. “Andrea’s kind of a kick.”

“She’s sure got a mouth,” Rick added.

“But it’s like having guests. Even if you like their company, they’re in the way.”

Rick suddenly had a thought that made his heart quicken. “How about this?” he asked. “We’ll have a leisurely breakfast, tell the girls to go on without us, and then we’ll get all our stuff together. And we’ll hike around the end of the lake to our stream.”

“You mean, stay there?” Her voice was eager, her eyes bright.

“All day. And we’ll pitch our tent down by the inlet and spend the night. Does that sound okay?”