Road Trips
Authors: Adrian Lilly
ROAD TRIPS
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© 2014 by Adrian W. Lilly. All rights reserved.
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Also by Adrian W. Lilly
The Wolf at His Door
(Only 99 cents!)
The Iowa landscape droned on unbroken in the bluish light of
dusk. Carly Denaif flipped on her headlights, and the beams glistened on the
moist pavement, bent on the brown stalks of corn waiting to be harvested.
Carly pressed her back against the car seat, stretching her
weary muscles. She yawned and turned up the radio, fighting to stay awake. Cool
air rushed over face as she rolled the window down an inch. Her windshield
wipers squeaked across the windshield as they swiped away beads of mist.
At the top of a rolling hill, she scanned the horizon. The
mist hovered at the tassels of the undulating corn. Engulfed in the haze, the
fields became surreal, sparkled in her headlights.
In the distance, she saw the first car she’d seen in about
an hour. The pinpoint of headlights were approaching quickly—too quickly. Carly
watched as the beams raced toward her. The large sedan swerved onto her side of
the road.
Carly let out a short squeal as she turned her wheel hard to
avoid the collision. Her car’s front tire caught the brim of the road. Her car
careened off the road, and in the wash of her headlights, she saw a third car,
off the road, its hazards blinking yellow.
The car rested on a jack and a man kneeled, changing the
tire. He leaped from the side of the car as Carly’s car plowed into his. Her
ears filled with the grinding crunch of the cars. Carly pulled hard on her
wheel again and brought her car back onto the road and slammed her brake. Her
car screeched to a halt. She let out a deep breath. In her rearview mirror she
saw the taillights of the other car vanish.
A small whimper escaped Carly’s lips as she steadied her
nerves.
Did I hit him?
She wondered. She knew that if she had killed
him, she would lose it. She put the car in park but left the engine running. Carly
grabbed her cell phone from the seat beside her.
Carly took small, tentative steps as she approached the other
car. The old, beat up car tilted at an obtuse angle in the road-side ditch,
like a boat snagged in a river and sinking. Carly covered her mouth as she
neared the car, seeing no sign of the man.
Please be alive.
The mist gathered strength, turning to a soft, cold drizzle.
She rounded the back of the car.
“I thought I was done for,” a voice said behind her.
Carly jumped and screamed, her cell phone flinging from her
hand. She spun to face the young man she had almost hit. He gave a futile
laugh. “I mean really, I thought you had me.” He flashed a winsome smile.
“Sorry to startle you.”
Carly laughed, too, in relief. “I’m glad you’re okay.” She
looked down to the ditch. “My phone!” The phone had plopped into the slime-covered
waters.
“Think we can fish it out?” He asked.
“I hope.”
“I can’t believe that ass didn’t even stop.” He jerked his
head in the direction the other car had traveled. “What a psycho.” He kneeled alongside
the ditch. “Here goes,” he said and thrust his hand into the fetid water. He
groped blindly in the muck and pulled his hand back covered in mud. “Nothing.”
“I can’t believe that fucking creep.” Carly said, staring
down the road at the long-gone driver. She turned to the young man’s car. “I
think your car’s kinda trashed.”
“It was kinda trash before you hit it. Now it’s complete
trash.” He stood from the ditch and surveyed the damage as he shook water from
his hand. “Can you give me a ride to a phone?”
“You don’t have a phone?”
He gestured to the road. “You ran it over.”
Carly grimaced looking at the smashed bits of phone on the
asphalt. “It’s the least I can do. At least
my
car’s still running.”
“At least,” he replied, following her to her car.
She turned off the radio before unlocking his door. He sat
and gave a cursory look over the interior. He smiled to her again as he pulled
the door shut. He raised his muck-covered hand. “Do you have a napkin or
something?”
“Oh. Of course.” Carly dug in the glove box and pulled out a
wad of paper napkins from a fast-food restaurant. Carly stole a moment to
survey him as he wiped his hand. She guessed he was not much older than she.
His clean-shaven face had a soft, friendly quality—the dimples, she guessed—and
in fact, he was the kind of guy she would hit on. Suddenly the car accident
felt like serendipity.
He said, “I can’t believe anyone besides me is stupid enough
to travel alone out here—at night, especially—with the murders and all.”
Carly giggled. “You sound like my parents. They told me to
fly home from school and then fly back.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “I
told them I have a better chance of dying in a plane crash than by a serial murderer.”
He nodded his head. “I suppose so.” He paused, then, “Oh,
by the way, my name is Peter.”
Carly removed a hand from the steering wheel and pointed to
herself with her thumb, “Carly.” She extended her hand to Peter. “I’m not sure
if I should say ‘Nice to meet you.’” They both laughed.
“I was on my way back to Chicago for school when I got a
flat tire,” Peter said.
“Oh, really. Where to?”
“University of Illinois—Chicago.”
“I go to the Art Institute,” she enthused. “So, what’s your
major?”
“I’m getting my master’s in geography,” he smiled, “I know,
very exciting.”
“You’re a master memorizer of state capitals?”
Peter sighed as if he’d heard that one before. “I’m getting
my master’s in
transportation
geography. There’s more to geography than
memorizing—”
“Okay. Okay. I was kidding. What can I say? I’m an art major.”
She lulled her head to the side and rolled her eyes, annoyed with herself. “Hey,
can you help me look for emergency phones. I mean, we need to call the police.
I bet that jerk was drunk.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Peter rubbed his chin as he
stared out the window. “The next rest stop should have a phone,” he offered.
“We should head north on the next main road so we can cut over to a larger
route.”
She braked slightly as she turned another bend. She studied
the long, dark road. “Are you sure?” She had intended to stay on her current
route.
“Maybe it would be quicker to go back the other way,” Peter
suggested. “Then again...”
“That’s the way that creep went.”
“Exactly.” He lifted his eyebrows.
“So where should I turn?”
“Just the next right, so we head north.” He cleared his
throat. “I do want to thank you—for stopping. Some people would’ve just left
me.”
Carly smiled, “It’s no trouble. Anyway, I’m happy for the
company. I was getting tired.”
Peter laughed. “That’s not good.”
“Besides,” Carly added with a timid smile, “It’s creepy out
here. Especially with that psycho running around.”
“Tell me about it. I was shitting myself trying to get my
tire fixed.” Peter’s face puckered in curiosity. “Why are you out here and not
on the Interstate like a normal person?”
“I don’t like semis.”
“Just keep your hands at two and ten, and the semis won’t
blow you off the road,” he mocked.
Carly cast her eyes over to him, and when she spoke, her
voice was strained. “A few years ago, my best friend and I were stopped in
traffic on the Interstate. We were the end of the line, right behind a semi.
Well, I got out, because I wanted a smoke, and I couldn’t smoke in her car. I
was standing beside the car when another semi slammed into the back of her car.
It killed her instantly. I just, I just don’t like semis and there are less of
them out here.”
“Real smooth, Pete,” he muttered to himself, looking out the
window. Peter turned to face her, his face stricken with regret. “I’m sorry.”
Carly tried to lighten the mood. “Smoking saved my life.”
Peter smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I hear it does that.” He
shifted in the seat. “So you know that I study geography.” He flashed another
easy smile. “So what art stuff do you do?”
“Photography emphasis. Hey, could you get me a pack of
cigarettes out of the back seat?”
“Sure.” He reached in the backseat. “What’s this?” He turned
around holding a cabbage head decorated with shredded carrot hair, eyes made of
cucumber and olives, and radish lips.
A mischievous smile split Carly’s face. “Oh. That. Part of a
project I’ve been working on. I was shooting these in the fields and stuff.”
“Inspired by that killer—”
“The Reaper. Yeah.”
“Seems a bit morbid. People have died.” Peter’s voice filled
with a chastising tone that annoyed Carly.
“Art doesn’t kill people. People kill people. Besides,
morbidity is an artistic topic.” Her voice rose with fire. “Look at the works
of Francis Bacon, or one of my favorites, Ivan Albright. His paintings were
beautiful in their grotesquery.”
Peter frowned. “Still, seems … thoughtless for the
families.” He turned in the seat to face her. “That sounds like an elevator
speech.”
“Yeah, I have to defend my work a lot against censor-happy
Puritans.” Carly glanced at him and turned her eyes back to the road. “Look, I’m
trying to draw attention to the fact that this guy’s rampaging across the
countryside, killing people, cutting off their heads and replacing them with
cabbages—”
“And leaving the heads in cabbage fields.”
“And that—and the police are nowhere. Really, with
technology today, how hard could it be? All they need is one hair. Just one!”
“So how does your art do this and not exploit the situation?”
Carly heaved a weary people-never-understand-artists sigh. “Man,
I’m taking shots that show how ludicrous this whole thing is. Cabbages for
heads, really?”
“I still don’t see it. Maybe if it happened to someone
you
loved, you wouldn’t be so callous.” He turned his head and glared out the
window. “Maybe if you got a good scare.” Peter turned his head slowly, a grin
shifting his face from anger. “Hey, did you know he leaves a note on the bodies?”
“No. I didn’t know that,” she replied without interest.
“Sure. It says, ‘Call me The Reaper, for I will mow, humans,
like little cabbage, all in a row.’”
“I thought the press just picked his name. Huh. I’ve done so
much research and didn’t come across that.”
“Really? That’s odd.” He shifted in his seat, his eyes
trained on her. “Hey, did you also hear that he’s killed at least 20 people?”
“I thought it was only ten. I mean, it’s pretty
unmistakable. I guess there could be copycat killers, but—”
“No. Twenty. For sure.”
“Hmmm.” Carly glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and
then focused on the small sphere of light her headlights cut in the darkness.
“They think he started killing at a young age, maybe twelve,
but it started with animals, you know?”
“That’s pretty common for serial killers, I think.”
“Suppose so. But he’s been killing people since he was about
16—that’s young. They think he’s only about 26 now.”
“So young.” Carly tightened her hands on the steering wheel,
felt her breath catch in her throat. She clenched her eyes to dispel the chill
crawling up her skin.
“Know what Ted Bundy used to do?”
“What?” Carly whispered, unsure she wanted to know.
“Buy junker cars and set ‘em by the road, waiting for girls
to pick him up. Works like a charm.”
Fear, like spiders racing across her skin, shot up her back
and down her arms. Carly braked for a stop sign. “Did you see those cigarettes?”
Carly cut her eyes to her hands, trembling on the steering wheel. The car
glowed red around them from the brake lights.
“No, but —”
“How about a pop?” She slipped the car into park. She
shifted her eyes toward Peter, judging his size, age.
“Sure. You know, I really appreciate the ride.” He flashed another
sweet smile.
“Right. It’s the least I could do.” Carly deliberately
returned the smile. “They’re in the trunk.” Carly pulled the trunk release at
her side. She opened her door and slipped into the night.
Peter pulled down his visor and watched in the mirror as she
fumbled in the trunk.
“Can you give me a hand?”
Peter slipped from the car, leaving his car door dangling
open. He came around to meet her. “Whatta’ ya need?”
She charged him, forcing him aside with one great shove.
Peter stumbled, falling into the ditch. She dashed away and
jumped in her seat, pulling the door shut. She leaned over and yanked the
passenger door shut and locked it. She turned and locked her own door.
Peter arose from the ditch, muddy. He ran to the car. “What
the hell…” He slammed his hands against the glass.
The mud on his hands smeared across the window as Carly
peeled away. She rounded the next bend in the road before a hysterical sob
burst from her mouth, and tears flowed down her cheeks.
Ten minutes later her car headlights caught the blue glint
of a rest stop sign. Her tires crunched in the gravel lot as her car rocked
over the potholes. Carly looked out the windshield across the empty lot. The
halogen streetlight flickered and then flared to full brightness. Light
glimmered on the jagged teeth of glass remaining in the broken windows of an abandoned
farm house across the street. A payphone rested at the far side of the lot.
Carly pulled the car up to the phone and rolled her window
down. She pulled the receiver from its cradle. She put it to her ear.
Silence.
As the phone fell from her hand, Carly emitted a small,
distressed cry. Uncertain, she leaned against her seat to gather her thoughts. In
that moment, she realized how badly she needed to pee. She pulled the car
closer to the rest stop. Crickets chirped in the night, and the halogen light
buzzed overhead. Otherwise, the rest stop was silent. She pushed the car door
open.
Carly walked to the door of the restroom. Her eyes trailed
to the woods cloaking the edges of the parking lot on either side of the rest
stop. The stillness assured her. She pushed the restroom door open with one
hand. A dingy, bare light bulb lit the room. Carly wrinkled her nose against
the outhouse smell. She entered, and the outside door slammed shut behind her,
making her jump. Looking at the toilet, she gagged. She backed into the stall
and closed the door. Carly slid her pants down and squatted above the seat. Her
relief melted away as she realized the stall had no toilet paper. She cursed
herself for not noticing sooner.