Precious and Fragile Things (2 page)

“Look, if you want the truck, you can have it.”

“Shut up!” The knife again dipped close to her shoulder, close enough to brush the fleece of her jacket. The blade glittered in the green dashboard light.

He didn't want the truck. He didn't want the money. Did he want…her?

Both children wailed from the backseat, a sound that at any other time would have set her teeth on edge. Now it broke her heart. The road stretched out pitch-black and deserted before them. No streetlamps out here in Pennsylvania farm country. Nothing but the faint light of electric candles in the window of a farmhouse set off far down a long country lane.

“What do you want?” Her fingers had gone past numb to aching from holding on so tightly to the steering wheel.

He didn't answer her.

“Just let my kids go.” She kept her voice low, not wanting
Arwen and Gandy to hear her. “I'll pull over to the side and you can let them out. Then I'll do whatever you want.”

Only fifteen minutes had passed. She'd have been home by now, if not for this. The man beside her let out a low, muttered string of curses. The knife hovered so close to her face she didn't dare even turn her head again to look at him. Ahead of them, nothing but dark, unwinding road.

“Just let my kids go,” Gilly repeated, and he still didn't answer. Her temper snapped and broke. Shattered. “Damn it, you son of a bitch, let my kids go!”

“I told you to shut up.” He grabbed the back of her neck, held the point of the knife against it.

She felt the thin, burning prick of it and shuddered, waiting for him to slice into her. He only poked. No worse than a needle prick, but all it would take was a simple shift of his fingers and she'd be dead. She'd wreck the car, and they'd all be dead.

Just ahead, lights coming from a large stone farmhouse settled on the very edge of the road illuminated the pavement. A high stone wall separated the driveway from the yard. Though the snow this winter had so far been sporadic, two dirty white piles had been shoveled up against the wall.

Yanking the wheel to the right, Gilly swerved into the driveway. Gravel spanged the sides of the car and one large rock hit the windshield hard enough to nick the glass. She slammed on the brakes using both feet and sent the truck sliding toward the thick stone wall and concrete stairs leading to the sidewalk.

Into the slide or away from it? She couldn't remember, and it didn't matter. The truck was sliding, skidding, and then the grumble of antilock brakes shuddered through it. The truck stopped just short of hitting the wall. Gilly's seat belt locked
against her chest and neck, a line of fire against her skin. The carjacker flew forward in his seat. His head slammed into the windshield and starred the glass before he flew against the side window and back against his seat.

Gilly didn't waste time to see if the impact had knocked him out. She stabbed the button that automatically rolled her window completely down, and with a movement so fast and fierce it hurt her fingertips, unbuckled her seat belt and whirled over the center console to reach into the backseat. Arwen was crying and Gandy babbling, but Gilly didn't have time for speech. She reached first to the buckles on both booster seats and flung the freed seat belts with such force the metal hook on one of them smacked the window.

The inside lights had been on when they pulled into the driveway, but now the porch lights came on, too. It would be only moments before whoever lived in the house came to the door to see who was in their driveway. Gilly had driven past this house and barn a thousand times, but she'd never met its occupants. Now she was going to trust them with her children.

“No tears, baby.” She pulled Gandy back with her over the center console.

The carjacker groaned. A purpling mark had appeared on his forehead, a starburst with beading blood at the center. More blood dripped from his nose to paint his mouth and chin. His eyes fluttered.

“I love you,” she whispered in Gandy's sweet little boy ear as she lifted him out the driver's side window. She heard his cry as he fell to the frozen ground below, but hardened her heart against it. No time, no time for kissing boo-boos. Arwen balked and protested, but Gilly grabbed her daughter
by the front of her pink ballerina sweatshirt and yanked her forward.

“I love you, honey.” She heard the man starting to swear. She'd run out of time. “You take Gandy and you run, do you hear me? Run as fast as you can inside the house!”

Gilly shoved her purse strap over Arwen's shoulder, grateful the bag had been on the floor in the backseat. Wallet. Phone. They'd be able to call Seth. The police. Incoherent thoughts whirled.

Then she shoved her firstborn out the window, noticing the girl wore no shoes. Irritation, irrational and useless, flooded her, because she'd told Arwen to keep her sneakers on, and now her feet would get wet and cold as she ran through the snow.

Gilly had her hand on the door handle when he grabbed her again.

“Bitch!” The man cried from behind her, and she waited for the hot slice of metal against the back of her neck. Time had gone, run away, disappeared. “You'd better drive this motherfucker and drive it fast or I'm gonna put this knife in your fucking guts!”

He reached over, yanked the gearshift into Reverse and slammed down on her knee. The engine revved. The truck jerked backward. Gravel sprayed. Gilly twisted in her seat, reached for the wheel, struggled for control, fought to keep the truck from hitting the kids. The headlights cast her children in flashes of white as they clutched each other in the snow. The back door opened and a Mennonite woman wearing a flowered dress and a prayer cap planted on her pinned-up hair appeared. Her mouth made a large round
O
of surprise when she saw the truck spinning its wheels and hopping backward onto the road like a rabbit on acid. When she saw the weeping,
screaming children, she clutched her hands together and ran to them, her own feet bare. Gilly would never forget the sight of her children in the rearview mirror as she sped away. She couldn't see their faces, only their silhouettes, backlit from the porch light. Two small figures holding hands in the dirty, drifted snow.

“Drive!” commanded the man who'd taken over Gilly's life, and she drove.

It took her at least a mile to realize he hadn't stabbed her. His slamming hand had bruised her knee, which throbbed, and he still had her tight by the back of the neck, but she wasn't cut. The truck slid on a patch of black ice and she didn't fight it. Maybe they'd skid and wreck, end up in a ditch. She couldn't think beyond what had happened, what was still happening now.

Her babies, left behind.

“Not the way it was supposed to go down. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

He repeated the word over and over, like some sort of litany, not a curse. Gilly followed the curves in the road by instinct more than attention. She shuddered at the frigid night air from the open window and kept both hands on the wheel, afraid to let go long enough to close it.

“Damn, my fucking head hurts.”

Blood covered his shirt. He let go of her to reach toward the floor and grab a squashed roll of paper towels. He used a few to dab at the blood. Then he pointed the knife back at her. It shook this time.

“What do you want from me?” Her voice didn't sound like her own. It sounded faraway. She felt far away, not here. Someplace else. Was this really happening?

He snorted into the wad of paper towels. “Just drive. And roll up the fucking window.”

She did as he ordered, then slapped her hand back to the wheel. They'd only gone a few more miles, a few more minutes. Ahead, a traffic light glowed green. She sped through it. Another mile or so, and she'd hit another light. If it was red, what would she do? Stop and throw herself out of the car as she'd thrown her children?

She risked a glance at her abductor. He wasn't even looking at her. She could do it. But when she got to the light, it didn't oblige by turning red, or even yellow. Green illuminated the contours of his face as he turned to her.

“Turn right.”

Now they were on a state road, still deserted and rural despite its fancy number. Gilly concentrated on breathing. In. Out. She refused to faint.

The man's voice was muffled. “I think you broke my fucking nose. Christ, what the hell were you doing?”

Gilly found her voice. Small, this time. Hoarse, but all hers with nothing of anyone else in it at all. “You wouldn't let me stop to get my kids out.”

“I could've cut you. I still could.” He sounded puzzled.

Gilly kept her face toward the road. Her hands on the wheel. These were things that anchored her, the wheel, the road. These were solid things. Real. Not the rest of this, the man on the seat beside her, the children left behind.

“But you didn't. And I got my kids out.”

He made another muffled snort. The wad of bloody paper towels fell out of his nose, and he made no move to retrieve it. He'd dropped the knife to his knee. Not close to her, but ready. Gilly had no doubt if she made any sudden moves he'd have it up at her face again.

“Well, shit,” he said, and lapsed into silence.

Silence. Nothing but the hum of the road under the wheels, the occasional rush of a passing car. Gilly thought of nothing. Could think of nothing but driving.

Her mind had been blank for at least twenty minutes before she noticed, long enough to pass through the last small town and onto the night-darkened highway beyond. When was the last time she'd thought of nothing? Her mind was never silent, never quiet. She didn't have time to waste on daydreams. There were always too many things to do, to take care of. Her thoughts were always like a hamster on a wheel, running and running without ever getting anywhere.

Tomorrow the dog had a vet appointment. Arwen had kindergarten. Gandy needed new shoes. The floor in the kitchen badly needed a mopping, which she meant to do after paying the last round of bills for the month…and if she had time she wanted to finish reorganizing her closet. And through it all, the knowledge that no matter how many tasks she began, she'd complete none of them without being interrupted. Being demanded of. Being expected to take care of someone else's needs.

Tonight a man had held her at knifepoint and threatened to take away that tomorrow with its lists and chores and demands. If nothing else, no matter what else happened, how things turned out, Gilly would not have to heave her weary body out of bed and force herself to get through one more day. If she was really unfortunate, and a glance at the twitching young man beside her told her she might be, she might never have to get out of bed again.

The thought didn't scare her as much as it should have.

He shifted. “I need to get to Route 80.”

“I'm not sure…”

“I'll tell you.”

In a brief flash of light from the streetlamp, she saw his forehead had furrowed with concentration. Gilly looked to the road ahead, at the lights of oncoming cars and the lit exit signs. The man ordered her to take the exit for the interstate, and she did. Then he slumped in his seat, head against the window, and the sound of his tortured breathing filled her ears like the sound of the ocean, constant and steady.

In the silence, uninterrupted by cries and demands, Gilly let her mind fall blank again as she drove on. Her rage and terror had passed, replaced by something quiet and sly.

Relief.

T
hud, thud. Thud, thud. Thud, thud
. The truck's wheels passed over asphalt cracks with a sound like a beating heart. For an hour or so her abductor had told her which roads to take, what highways to follow. Some were small, obscure back-country lanes, some major four-lane roads, all of them dark and fairly clear of traffic. She didn't know if he meant to dodge pursuit, was lost, or had a plan. He'd listened to the radio for a while, switching stations, pausing at a commercial for the built-in navigation service that came with all the newer model cars.

He'd run his fingertips over the dash. “You got that?”

“No. It was only an option when we bought the truck, and we didn't take the option.”

On the radio, the soft-voiced operator assured the sniveling woman that she was going to be just fine. The commercial narrator reminded everyone what a lifesaver the service was. The man had seemed pleased and switched the station, finally settling on the weather. They were predicting snow. His
eyes had closed several miles back. His breathing had slowed, joined with the heartbeat of their passage, to soothe and lull her further into blankness.

Into quiet.

When Gilly was growing up, her best friend's house had been full of constant noise. Danica had four brothers and a sister, plus a dog, a cat, a bird and several tanks full of fish. Her parents yelled a lot, mostly to be heard over the rest of the roar. Gilly loved spending time at Danica's house, but she'd often come home from a visit with her head whirling, slipping into her solitary bedroom and putting her head under the pillow to muffle even the silence that almost always greeted her.

It wasn't until she'd had kids of her own that Gilly realized noise was normal. Most families lived with it. Shouts, laughter, calling to each other from room to room. The burble of the radio, television. These were the sounds of normal families. She'd come to appreciate the noise of normality, but could never quite relish it the way she now savored the silence in the car. It had been a long, long time since she'd been in silence like this, been granted the choice to stay silent, herself.

Gilly drank the quiet like it was wine, and felt nearly as drunk from it. No whining, no complaining. Nobody asking to stop to pee or to change the radio station. Nobody ignoring directions. Nobody grumbling she was going too slow or too fast. Nothing but an occasional sigh from the man in the driver's seat beside her, or the clink of metal to remind her he still had the knife ready at his side.

The man beside her came awake with a snort and flailing arms. The knife hissed through the air scant inches from her hand and arm, then knocked against the center console, rattling it. Gilly swerved across the center line and back, heart
pounding. The man sat up and scrubbed at his face with the hand not wielding the weapon.

“Fuck!”

Gilly shifted in her seat and repositioned her hands on the wheel. She didn't say anything. Her abductor muttered and tapped the hilt of the blade in his hands, then apparently decided to pretend he hadn't been sleeping at all. Maybe he thought she hadn't noticed.

“Where are we?” he blurted as if he didn't realize she ought to be the one with the questions.

Gilly told him by tilting her head toward the road sign they'd just passed. They'd been on the road for two hours. Her thoughts drifted briefly to Arwen and Gandy. Had Seth picked them up yet? Were they home, safe in bed? It was past their bedtime, and Arwen was impossible in the mornings if she didn't have enough sleep….

“I asked you a question!”

The rap of the knife's blade against her shoulder made the car jerk beneath her startled hands. Gilly yelped, though he'd only tapped her with the flat of it. She steadied the massive truck, visions of rolling the huge vehicle punching any other thoughts from her head.

“Pay attention!”

“Sorry,” she said, but she didn't sound it. She tried again. “Sorry.”

She told him out loud, though by now they'd passed another sign. She watched him scowl at the white letters on the green background, and wondered if he couldn't read. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and held it up, turning on the map light to look at it.

“We need Route 80.” He shook the paper at her. “You didn't go the wrong way, did you?”

The unfairness of the accusation stung her into response. “You're the one telling me which way to go!”

She regretted her outburst when he bared his teeth, blood grimed in the cracks, and lifted the knife.

“I have a knife.” His voice was hoarse.

“I know you do.”

“Don't talk to me like I'm some kind of fucking idiot.”

If he was going to cut her, he wouldn't do it while she was driving. He'd make her pull over first. Wouldn't he?

“Sorry.”

“Okay.” He seemed to think they'd reached some sort of mutual agreement. Gilly didn't know what it might be, but she wasn't going to argue.

“We haven't passed Route 80 yet.”

He held up the soiled scrap of paper again. “That's where we need to go.”

“We haven't even made it to State College,” Gilly said, not pointing out they'd have been long past there if he hadn't made her take such a crazy, circuitous route.

Gilly waited to hear what he'd say next. He didn't speak. The tires thudded. She felt him staring.

“We're going to need gas,” she said at last, since even though she loved the quiet, craved it, it frightened her. “Depending on how far we're going.”

He leaned close to her to look at the gas gauge. She expected a whiff of sweat, of dirt. An angry or scary odor, something bad.

He smelled like soap and cold air. For the first time she noticed he didn't even wear a winter coat, only jeans and a worn hooded sweatshirt with a zipper. In the green dashboard illumination she couldn't tell the color, but everything on him was dark. Hair, eyes, the growing scruff of a beard she could
just make out. A quick glance at his feet revealed huge and battered hiking boots.

“Fuck.” He leaned back into his seat. The knife seemed forgotten at his side, but she wasn't sure she could trust that impression. One sudden move and she could find herself with four inches of steel inside her.

Later, when it was all over and she could be totally honest with herself, Gilly would think it was that clean scent of soap and fresh air that let him keep her. That and the silence. People assumed it was the knife, and she never disabused them of that notion, but Gilly knew the truth. He smelled good, and he didn't talk much. It was wrong…but right then, it was enough.

They drove a few more miles in the silence before he sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. “How much longer before we have to stop?”

She looked at the gauge. “We have less than a quarter of a tank.”

Her captor made a muffled sound of disgust. “Next gas station, stop.”

They weren't on a particularly populous stretch of road, but it wouldn't be long before they found a station. He leaned forward again to punch the button on the radio and found only static. He punched the button to play the CD. The familiar words of a lullaby, albeit one unconventional and untraditional, blared from the speakers.

“What the hell is this?” He turned down the volume.

Her smile felt out of place but she couldn't stop it.
“Bat Boy: The Musical.”

He listened for a moment longer to the words, a mother's gentle promise to nurture the unloved and unwelcome bat-child found in a cave and brought to her home. The song was
one Gilly liked to sing along with, but she didn't now. When it was over and the next song from the campy rock musical had taken over, he stabbed the button on the stereo to turn it off.

“That's weird,” he said bluntly. “You listen to that with your kids in the car?”

She thought of Arwen, who hadn't seen the show but loved to sing along with the songs too. “Yes.”

He shook his head. “Damn. What's it about?”

His voice had a smoker's rasp. He talked slowly, as if choosing each word was a mental strain, but he didn't slur his words or use bad grammar. His voice matched the rest of him, unkempt and battered.

“It's about Bat Boy.” Gilly's eyes scanned the road signs, looking for one that showed an exit or gas station ahead. “It's…it's just fun.”

“Who the hell is Bat Boy?”

She hesitated, knowing already how the answer would sound. “He's half human, half bat. They found him in a cave down in Virginia.”

“You're shitting me.” Even his curses were clipped and precise, as though he was speaking written dialogue instead of his own thoughts.

“It's a story,” she said. “From the
Weekly World News.
I don't think it's real.”

He laughed. “No shit.”

“There's a gas station ahead. Do you want me to pull over?”

She tensed, waiting for his answer. He shrugged, leaned forward to check the gas gauge again. “Yeah.”

She signaled and slowed to exit. Her heartbeat accelerated and her palms grew moist. Anxiety gripped her, and a sense
of loss she refused to acknowledge because she didn't want to think what it meant.

Apparently he remembered the knife, for now he pulled it up and waved it at her again. “Don't forget I have this.”

As if she could. “No.”

Ahead of them was the parking lot, busy even at this time of night. Bright lights made Gilly squint. She pulled the truck up to the pumps and turned off the engine. She waited for instructions, though normally being told what to do chafed at her. Now she felt as though she could do nothing else but wait to be told what to do. How to do it.

He leaned close enough to kiss her. His breath smelled like Big Red gum. “Give me the keys.”

Gilly pulled them from the ignition and passed them into his palm. His fingers closed over hers, squeezing. She winced.

“If you so much as flick the headlights, I will gut you like a deer. You got that?”

She nodded.

“I'll pump.” He waited, looking at her. She saw a flicker of apprehension flash across his face, so fast she wasn't sure she saw it at all. He held up the knife, but low so anyone looking at them wouldn't see it through the windows. “Don't get out of the car. Don't do anything. Remember what I said.”

She expected him to ask for money. “I don't have my purse.”

He made that sound of disgust again, and now he sounded contemptuous, too. “I don't need your money.”

He folded the knife and put it into a leather sheath on his belt, slipped the keys into his pocket, then opened his door and went around to the pump, using the keyless remote to lock the door. He fumbled with the buttons and the handle, finally getting the gas to start. Then he went inside.

Gilly sat and watched him. After a moment, stunned, she realized this was the second time he'd let his attention slide from her. She sat a moment longer, seeing him choose items from the cooler, the racks of snacks and the magazine section.

From this distance she had her first good look at him. He was tall, at least six-two or -three, if she judged correctly. She'd seen his hair was dark, but in the fluorescent lights of the minimart it proved to be a deep chestnut that fell in shaggy sheaves to just below his shoulders. He didn't smile at the clerk and didn't appear to be making small talk, either, as he put his substantial pile of goods on the counter. He motioned to the clerk for several cartons of cigarettes, Marlboro Reds. He was spending a lot of money.

He didn't hurry. He didn't look nervous or wary. She could see the knife in its leather sheath from here, peeking from beneath the hem of his dark gray sweatshirt, but this
was
rural Pennsylvania. Deer-hunting country. Nobody would look at it twice, unless it was to admire it.

Outside, the gas pump clicked off. Gilly shifted in her seat. Inside the market, her abductor pulled an envelope from his sweatshirt pocket and rifled through the contents. He offered a few bills to the clerk, who took the money and started bagging the purchases.

This was it. She could run. He wouldn't chase her. If he did, he couldn't catch her.

She could scream. People would hear. Someone would come. Someone would help her.

She breathed again, not screaming. The white-faced and thin-lipped woman in the rearview mirror could not be her. The smile she forced looked more like the baring of teeth, a feral grin more frightening than friendly.

Time had slowed and stopped, frozen. She'd felt this once
when she'd hit a deer springing out from the woods near her house. One moment the road had been clear, the next her window filled with tawny fur, a body crushing into the front end of the truck and sliding across the windshield to break the glass. She'd seen every stone on the street, every hair on the deer's body before it had all become a haze.

Today she'd felt that slow-syrup of time stopping twice. The first when the man slid across the seat and pointed a knife at her head. The second time was now.

She wasn't going back. Not to the vet appointments, the ballet practice, the laundry and the bills. She wasn't going back to the neediness, the whining, the constant, never-ending demands from spouse and spawn that left her feeling on some days her head might simply explode. She didn't know where she was going, just that it wasn't back.

When he opened the driver's side door, he looked as startled as she must have been when he made his first appearance into her life. “I…I didn't think you'd still be here.”

Gilly opened her mouth but said nothing.

His eyes cut back and forth as his mouth thinned. “Move over.”

She did, and he got in. He turned the key in the ignition and put the truck in Drive. Gilly didn't speak; she had nothing to say to him. With her feet on the duffel bag he'd squashed onto the passenger side floor, her knees felt like they rubbed her earlobes. He pushed something across the center console at her: the latest edition of some black-and-white knockoff of the
Weekly World News,
not the real thing. The real thing had gone out of publication years before.