said, “Are you all right?”
Chuck breathed deeply, but said nothing.
Len could see his friend’s face was a mess, so he said, “I’ll get some napkins.” As he reached for the door, Chuck grabbed his arm.
“Don’t go in there!”
“Why not?” Len asked.
“The guy’s dead. Somebody shot him.”
“What guy?”
“The attendant! He’s slumped over the counter, blood all over the place.”
“Is the person who shot him still there?”
Chuck’s eyes widened. “I…I don’t know. I didn’t hear anybody. Jesus, do you think maybe he is?”
Len glanced around. The only other car he could see was an old truck parked against the side of the store, right where someone who worked there would probably park.
“I doubt it,” Len said. “I’m going to go take a look, okay?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Did you check his pulse to make sure he was dead?”
“No,” Chuck admitted. “But he looked dead.”
“We should check to make sure, don’t you think?”
Reluctantly, Chuck nodded.
“Why don’t you call the police while I go inside,” Len suggested.
“Okay. Good idea.”
Len pushed the door open with his shoulder in case there were fingerprints on the handle the police could use, and stepped inside.
Immediately, he covered his nose to block out the overwhelming smell of blood. The counter was just inside on the left. Lying face down across the top was a man with gray hair. There was no reason to check his pulse, though. He was dead for sure. Len could see two bullet wounds: one between his shoulder blades, and one in the back of his head. The cash register was open, and whatever money had been there was gone.
A robbery, out in the middle of nowhere.
“Len,” Chuck called from outside.
Grateful for a reason to leave, Len rejoined his friend.
Chuck held up his phone and shrugged. “I still don’t have a signal.”
Len pulled his cell out. No bars for him, either.
He looked back at the store. There was probably a phone inside, but chances were it was on the counter next to the body, which would mean stepping on the bloody floor to find it. Beyond the fact that doing so wouldn’t make the police happy, the creep-out factor was way off the scale, so as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t an option.
“We’ll have to go to the next town,” he said.
“And just leave him here like this?”
Len thought for a moment. “No. You’re right. We can’t do that. One of us should probably stay.”
“I ain’t staying.”
“Fine. You take the car. I’ll stay.”
Chuck didn’t look happy with that solution, either, but then he started rocking on his feet and said, “I gotta pee.”
He headed toward the side of the building.
“Where you going?” Len asked.
“I’m not going back inside!” Chuck disappeared around the corner. But it was only a couple seconds before he yelled, “Hey, Len!”
“What?”
“There’s a pay phone over here. If you have change you can call the police.”
“You don’t need change to call 911.”
“What?” Chuck’s voice had grown distant.
“You don’t…never mind.”
Len headed around the side of the building and saw that his friend had moved out into the desert. The phone was off to the right just a bit, hanging on a wooden post.
13
Ash woke with a pounding headache.
He must have gasped or something, because a hand was suddenly on his shoulder, rubbing it softly. Then a voice said, “It's all right. You're okay.”
It was a woman's voice, but it didn't sound like Janice's.
“My head,” he grunted.
He tried to raise his hand to his temple, but his arm would only move a few inches before it stopped. He opened his eyes just enough to see what the problem was. There was a tube or something coming out of his arm, and what looked like a leather strap around his wrist.
He tried his other hand. It moved without opposition.
“Sleep some more,” the voice said. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“Are we stopped?” he asked, realizing he felt no motion.
“Stopped?” A pause, then, “Just sleep.”
And as if it were a command, darkness overtook him once more.
The next time he woke, his headache was gone.
When he opened his eyes, he realized he was not, as he’d previously thought, still in the RV. Instead he was lying on a bed in a wood-paneled room, soft sunlight seeping in through the window on the far wall.
There was a dresser to his left and an armoire in the corner beyond the foot of the bed. Below the window was a writing desk. All the surfaces were empty.
He tried to prop himself up so he could look out the window and get a sense of where he was, but his right arm caught on something. No, he quickly realized, not caught. Restrained. Hadn’t he been immobilized the last time he’d woken?
Around his right wrist was a padded leather cuff attached to the frame of the bed. The apparent reason for this was the IV line attached to his arm. His left, though, was completely free.
He had no idea what he was being fed from the bag hanging on the stand, but the idea of being both restricted and drugged did not appeal to him. He quickly worked the cuff open, turned the IV flow off, and pulled the tube out of the port on his arm.
His first stop was the dresser to see if there were any clothes to go with the T-shirt and underwear he’d been sleeping in. He found several pairs of jeans, more underwear, socks, and a whole drawer full of colored T- shirts. The bottom drawer even had two dark wool sweaters and a hooded pullover sweatshirt. The biggest surprise was that not only was everything new, it was all in his size, too. He got dressed.
Inside the armoire he found the boots he’d worn during his escape, and beside them, the messenger bag. A quick check of the bag showed that the only thing left was the money. What did he care, though? None of the contents had been his in the first place.
He pulled on the boots, laced them up, and walked over to the window. What greeted him was a surprise. It wasn’t the chaparral country where the mysterious Mike and Janice had picked him up, or even the desert. Instead, there was a mix of grassy fields and groves of evergreens. In the distance was a row of mountains.
The only structure in sight was way off to the left and only partially visible. It was big, though. Maybe a barn
