For breakfast, I had three strips of beef jerky, a handful of wilted dandelion leaves, and a bottle of water. I had at least ten pounds of cornmeal in my pack but no good way to cook it.
After breakfast, I crept back out to explore. The rest and food had refreshed and revived me. I would discover a way out of this garage today. If Darla was alive, I would find her.
Two guys were working by torchlight in one corner, struggling to remove something they called an alternator bracket from a dilapidated truck. I hid behind a nearby pickup and listened to their conversation until I’d heard, “I cain’t work in
Instead, I watched the office from the safety of the shadows under a parked pickup. For a long time, everything was still. I wondered if I might simply be able to saunter out into the light.
Then I caught a flicker of movement from inside the guardroom. As I continued watching, I saw more motion-dark shadows of arms or heads floating, appearing disembodied within the darkness of the room. I thought about it a minute-the outside of the guardroom was brighter than the inside, so I couldn’t see in, but the guards could see out, no problem. If I tried to waltz through the garage doors, I’d be painfully obvious, and probably painfully dead shortly thereafter.
I watched and waited, growing more and more anxious as the minutes ticked by, turning steadily to hours. When my stomach reminded me to eat, I retreated to the truck I’d slept in. As I ate a lunch of beef jerky, I thought about the situation. I couldn’t keep waiting and watching. But getting killed wouldn’t help, either. Maybe I could put a truck into neutral and push it into the guard shack? Or attack the two mechanics-they might be carrying keys.
The sputter of an engine growling to life interrupted my thoughts. I stuffed the remains of my lunch into my pack and slung it over my shoulders. I clambered out the back of the truck and onto the canvas roof to observe the center of the garage. Another cloth-topped deuce was pulled up alongside the stack of gas cans. One of the mechanics was gassing it up.
A hulking guy came around the corner of the truck. He might have been 6’4” if he had straightened up. But he walked with little mincing steps, hunched over as if he were cradling something to his chest. I couldn’t see his face or clothing; he was silhouetted in the light of the open garage doors.
I saw a flash of brown hair around him. A girl was walking beside him, shielded by his rectangular bulk. I crawled closer, sliding across the truck roof, trying to get a better look.
A pair of wiry guys strutted around the corner behind the hulk. They talked to each other in voices loud enough to be audible over the idling truck.
“Iowa City is going to be off the hook.”
“Them Dirty White Boys is scum, but they know how to party.”
All four of them had gathered in a knot at the back of the truck. One of the wiry guys let down the tailgate.
“What you waiting for?” the other guy slapped the hulk alongside his head. “Get in.”
The hulk hunched further over and moaned, an unnatural-sounding monotone noise that continued long past the point at which most people would have had to stop and breathe. The girl was saying something to him but too softly for me to hear her words.
Still moaning, the hulk took hold of the edge of the tailgate in both hands and hopped into the truck like a rabbit, both legs moving at once. There was a tinkling sound as he moved. Just before he vanished within the blackness of the truck, I saw why-his ankles and wrists were connected with lengths of heavy chain.
The girl heaved herself up onto the tailgate. I had a clear view of her back for a moment. My brain flooded with fierce light, and my heart leapt. Her height, her shape, the way her hair bunched around her shoulders-I’d recognize her anywhere. Darla.
Chapter 45
That truck wasn’t going to leave the garage without me. Either I’d be on it, or I’d get killed trying to hitch a ride.
Darla disappeared into the blackness of the truck bed, following the hulking guy. One of the wiry guys closed the tailgate and tied down the flap. Then they strolled around the corner of the truck, heading toward the cab, out of my line of sight.
The only person I could see now was one of the mechanics. He was facing away from me, holding a five- gallon can above the truck’s gas cap.
Only about two feet separated me from the roof of the nearest truck. I crawled to the gap and reached across, eyeing the mechanic the whole time. Once my hands touched the other truck, I swung my legs across. The mechanic didn’t even glance up.
I scuttled over two more trucks in the same way until I was lined up roughly even with the one that held Darla, but three ranks back. The truck I was perched on had its hood open. The vehicles between me and the idling deuce were both pickups-there was no way I could keep hopping from roof to roof as I’d been doing.
I looked down the aisle on the left side of the truck. The two wiry guys were standing by the driver’s door of the idling truck. If I tried to sneak down that aisle, they’d spot me. But from the aisle on my right, I’d be in plain view of the mechanic. I couldn’t afford to wait-they were gassing up the truck for a reason. I had to get on it-and fast.
I slinked away from the aisle, stood, and jumped. I caught the metal girder overhead in both hands. My whole body screamed with pain-my tortured muscles being stretched by my weight. I gritted my teeth and started slowly working my way forward, hand over hand. Even with my taekwondo practice, I probably couldn’t have traversed the beam that way ten months before, swinging from my arms. But there was one advantage to being blasted back into nineteenth-century farming by the volcano: I was at least as strong as anyone I knew, except maybe Darla.
I couldn’t see the guys by the cab anymore, but I was in plain view of the mechanic. So long as he kept paying attention to the gas, I’d be okay.
I worked my way slowly along the beam. Twenty feet. . ten. . I hung over the bed of a pickup about ten feet below me. The mechanic pulled the spout of the gas can out of the truck and turned toward me. I froze, praying he wouldn’t look up. If I moved, he’d spot me for sure. But maybe, just maybe, it was dark enough that if I just hung there, I’d be unnoticed.
A drop of sweat rolled along the bridge of my nose. The mechanic set the gas can on a pallet loaded with empties and hefted a full can from another pallet. My arms burned from the strain of holding myself perfectly motionless, and the drop of sweat tickled my nose, threatening a sneeze.
The mechanic opened the gas can, pulled out the spout, and thrust it into the truck, turning his back to me. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and started hand-over-handing it toward Darla’s truck again.
How long would it take to empty the gas can? I didn’t know, so I moved as fast as I could. I was steadily getting closer to the mechanic. If he turned around and looked up now, there’d be no way he could miss me.
This beam didn’t pass directly over the truck. The closest I could get was about five feet from the back of it. I swung my legs, forward and back, gaining momentum and then letting go as I arced toward the truck.
I landed about in the center of the roof with a whump of compressing canvas. Instantly I fell flat, hoping the noise of the engine would cover the sound of my fall.
“What are you doing in there?” shouted one of the wiry guys.
The guy in the truck started moaning again. I heard Darla whisper, “Shh, shh.”
“Freaks,” another voice said, and they both laughed.
I pressed myself to the canvas. One of the struts supporting the roof dug into my belly.
To my right, the mechanic yelled, “Done! You only got a two-gallon reserve. You screw around at all, you won’t make it back.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the reply came.
Two doors slammed in quick succession, and the truck rolled forward. Clinging to the roof, I rode from the blackness of the garage into the thin, yellow light outside.
