The Retribution of Mara Dyer (11 page)

And so it was that the three of us, dressed like tourists, started hoofing it along the highway, getting whiplash every time a car passed us, which was a lot. Between the scorching heat and the insect-thick air, I thought it couldn’t get worse, but then it began to rain.

The sky opened, and we were instantly drenched; the water was warm enough that it felt like the clouds were sweating on us. Our faces mirrored expressions of misery as we ducked off to the side of the highway under a large tree that was still not quite large enough.

“My biscuits are burning,” Jamie said, taking off his shoes. The skin over his toes was cracked and bleeding. “Does anyone know how to start a fire?”

Blank stares.

“So we can’t start a fire,” he said. “We can’t fly. We can’t create a force field. We are the most bullshit superheroes.”

I pushed my limp, sodden hair back from my face. “Faulty premise.” I knew what he meant, but still. “Though, Stella’s not so bad.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “That means a lot, coming from you.”

I pouted. “That hurts my feelings.”

“Jamie’s right, though,” she said. “And the list of stuff we can’t do is even longer—we can’t use credit cards, we can’t call our parents, we can’t rent a car—”

“We might be able to steal a car, though,” Jamie said.

The two of us turned to him at once. “I mean, not like with hot-wiring or anything. I have no idea how to do that shit. I just meant—I might be able to talk someone into giving us their car?”

“Lending it,” I added helpfully.

Jamie nodded with enthusiasm. “Lending it. Exactly. If someone comes along.”

“Do you even have your license, Jamie?” Stella asked.

He feigned surprise. “Was that a short joke, Stella? Have our dire circumstances caused you to develop a sense of humor?”

“It was an age joke, actually. And an appearance joke. You have a baby face.”

Our circumstances
were
dire, though. We had no car, no money, no food, and no dry clothes. The hours passed, and the
rain continued its assault, and we grew wetter and hungrier and colder but had no choice but to keep walking, me in plastic flip-flops that were murdering my feet.

The rain finally stopped as daylight dwindled into dusk. The sun bled into the clouds, coloring them pink and orange and red. We trudged up the road, which was framed on the shoulders by dense trees and creepers. After an eternity we came upon a gas station, if you could call it that. There was one pump, and the tiny clapboard building behind it listed precariously to one side; a small junkyard squatted in shadow beside it. A plastic doll head with only one eye was impaled on the broken wooden fence.

Jamie huddled closer to me. “This is serial killer territory.” He linked arms with me and Stella. “United front,” he whispered. “They can smell our fear.”

I would have liked to pretend that I wasn’t as nervous as he was, but . . .

I dipped my hand into the waistband of the boxers to make sure my scalpel was still resting against my skin. It was. The warm steel under my fingertips made me feel better.

Finally, the three of us walked inside. It was dimly lit, naturally. We glimpsed a bar composed of ridged metal sheeting, and three rather large men sitting at it. One of them wore a black wife-beater with black sunglasses perched on his balding forehead. Another wore an improbably long-sleeved flannel shirt and a cowboy hat, of all things. The third had white hair
and a tobacco-stained white beard. He had only one eye.

Someone else appeared out of the shadows, cleaning a glass with a dirty rag.

“You look a little lost,” he said to us.

I expected Jamie to speak first, but Stella surprised me. She offered up our fake sob story to the men, told them about being abandoned on a camping trip, blah blah, and then said we needed a ride. I was incredibly impressed. Jamie looked like he was ready to wet himself.

“Where’re you headed?” asked Cowboy.

“Miami,” Stella offered.

“You’re heading north. I’m heading south.” He crossed his arms in opposite directions, as if we needed him to explain what that meant. The other men were silent.

Jamie nodded just once and cleared his throat. “Well. Thank you anyway, gentlemen. For your time.”

Dejected, we left the gas station or bar or serial killer meet-up, whatever it was, and headed back outside. It was nearly night now. Insects buzzed around us, and on us. The air was loud with their noise as we walked down the road.

And then we heard something else—a truck spitting gravel and groaning as it left the station. It pulled up beside us.

“I felt bad for ya,” Cowboy said. “Come on. Hop in.”

My legs ached with relief as I sat in the front of the cab. Jamie had discreetly shaken his head when he’d been offered
shotgun, and Stella had already climbed into the back.

The cowboy was doing us a favor, and a long one, so I decided to make conversation, be polite. “So where are you from?” His name, we had learned, was Mr. Ernst.

“Born and raised in Canton, Ohio. You three?”

“New York,” Jamie and Stella and I said all at once, sticking to our script. Not suspicious at all.

“And your friends just abandoned you like that?” he said, shaking his head with disbelief.

Stella changed the subject. “So, what brings you to the Keys?”

“Oh, just driving the old girl here,” he said, patting the dashboard with a toothy grin. “Just me and her and the road.”

But as he leaned forward, I caught a glimpse of a gun in a holster on his hip. I stiffened.

Jamie had seen it too. He pretended to be interested in it, and asked Mr. Ernst about it, who happily obliged with the make and model and whatever it is people talk about when they talk about guns. I wasn’t really listening. I felt wrong, off, and the feeling made me nervous.

“Never know who you might meet on the road,” Mr. Ernst said. “Gotta be careful. God bless the Second Amendment.” He patted the holster and winked at me.

The road stretched on into infinity, and we didn’t see a single pair of headlights pass in our direction. Suddenly, after who knew how long, I felt the truck slow down.

Stella did too. She wiped her red-rimmed eyes. Jamie kept running his hand over his scalp. They were worried too.

“Where are we?” Stella asked chirpily.

“Mmm, pretty deep in the Keys,” he said evasively. “Still got a couple of hours ahead of us till we reach Miami.” We passed a sign that announced a rest stop in a quarter mile. “It’ll be a while till we hit another bathroom,” Mr. Ernst said. “Nothing around here for miles, so I thought we’d all stop and take a leak.”

Jamie exhaled just a little too loudly. I glared at him.

“I should go,” Stella said.

“Me too,” Jamie admitted.

“Do you have a map?” I asked Mr. Ernst.

He raised his eyebrows. “Girly, I’ve been driving since before you were even a twinkle in your mother’s eye. The only map I need is up here,” he said, pointing to his temple.

“Right,” Stella said, looking back at the road. But we could all feel it: Something was wrong.

17

M
R. ERNST CHATTERED AWAY UNTIL HE
pulled into a parking spot at the rest stop, if you could even call it that. The squat building was tucked off to the side of the road, almost completely obscured by a tangle of weeds that clung to the faded, rust-stained walls. There was a small unpaved clearing around it. And no other cars or trucks.

Mr. Ernst turned off the truck and pocketed the keys. “I’m gonna go take a leak myself,” he said. “You coming?” he asked Jamie.

Jamie raised an eyebrow at Stella. “Yeah . . . ” He didn’t want to go alone, and he didn’t want Stella to have to either.

Mr. Ernst winked at me. “Don’t get into any trouble now,” he said, then walked off toward the building.

Stella and Jamie hopped out of the cab, Stella nearly running. She must’ve really had to go. I felt bad for Jamie, trailing behind, so I jumped out of the truck too. As I approached the building, the unmistakable smell of raw sewage assaulted my nostrils. Stella had already gone inside, but I caught up with Jamie quickly, and we stood there just staring at it. A thick layer of grime covered the once blue stenciled sign for the ladies’ room, and flies choked the entrance. Jamie swatted the air in front of his face. The men’s room was on the other side of the building.

“Tough break,” Jamie said to me.

“What?”

“Not having a penis.”

“God, I know.”

“We’re stalling.”

“We are.”

“I don’t know, Mara. I’m not sure I can do it. I don’t want to walk in there and see our not so illustrious truck driver at the urinal. It could get weird. I think I’m just going to go in the bushes.”

“I feel like I’m going to catch hepatitis just standing here.”

“If you want to go in the bushes or something, I can watch to make sure no one’s coming?”

I rubbed my nose. “I’m going to go in, I think. For Stella. Solidarity, you know?”

“You’re a better man than I.” Jamie held his fist out. I bumped it. His footsteps crunched on the gravel and then faded as he walked off into the bushes.

I took a few seconds to psych myself up, then held my nose and kicked the door open.

It wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting. It was worse. There were a few stalls. One of them was open, and the toilet was so backed up that it was all I could do not to gag. The mirror behind the sink was cracked and dingy. The tile floor that had probably once been white was stained in shades of brown and yellow.

No. There was no way.

I turned to leave, but as I did, I heard a noise behind me.

Stella was pressed against the wall, her body almost completely obscured by Mr. Ernst, who was covering her mouth with one hand. He saw me see him, and pointed his gun at me.

“Go on back now,” he said. “Or you’re next.”

My veins filled with lead. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was already imagining Mr. Ernst dead on the floor, his throat ripped open, his mouth a bloody hole.

“He’s done this before,” Stella whimpered when he uncovered her mouth. “He’s going to kill us.” The words barely escaped from her mouth. She could hear what he was thinking.

He shook his head. “Not the colored boy. Not my type.”

Part of me was still standing there, rooted to the spot. The
other part was tearing out his throat. But only in my mind. In reality nothing was happening. In the seconds that followed I imagined a hundred different ways for him to die. None of them worked.

What was wrong with me? It had been a long time since the drugs had worn off. Why couldn’t I do it?

And what would happen to me and Stella if I couldn’t?

“Let her go,” I said with frightening calm. I don’t know where it came from.

“If
you
don’t go, I’ll shoot the both of you right this minute.”

I took a step closer. “You’re making me jealous,” I said in that same chilly voice that was and was not my own.

“Back up.”

I didn’t. I stepped closer. “This whole time I thought you were coming on to me. That’s why
I
chose to sit in front.”

He looked me up and down. “You’ll get your turn.”

“Me first,” I said. “She can’t do the things I can.”

Those were the first words I said to him that seemed to sink in. He looked back and forth between me and Stella, then finally stepped away from her. He trained his gun on me.

“You,” he said to Stella. “You stand there and watch.”

Stella scooted down the wall till she was backed up against the sink. My feet carried me toward Mr. Ernst without me even having to tell them to.

“Don’t scream,” Mr. Ernst said. He pressed his gun into my side, spun me around, and pushed me against the wall, pinning
my hands behind me in one well-practiced move. His cowboy hat fell to the ground.

I expected my heart to race, my skin to sweat. I expected to cry and scream.

I didn’t.

“Don’t touch me,” I said instead.

He laughed. It was a little boy’s laugh, a giggle really. “Don’t touch you? If you didn’t want to be touched, you wouldn’t be wearing those shorts! Why, they’re an invitation! You’re advertising. Open for business.”

He did something lewd with his tongue. I imagined cutting it off.

“Take them off,” he said, nodding at my stupid boxers.

“I can’t,” I said plainly. “Not without my hands.” I wriggled my arm behind me. I reached my hand into the waistband of the boxers and felt the scalpel, warm from my skin. My shoulder ached, wrenched behind my back and forced into the wall by the pressure of Mr. Ernst’s body. His breath roared in my ears, rotten tobacco mingling with the stench of human waste.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ernst appeared to be having trouble with his pants. I wriggled my arm behind my back, which unfortunately arched my body toward his. He took it as encouragement.

“I knew you wanted it,” he whispered into my ear. Then he licked my cheek.

“The tongue definitely has to go,” someone said in my voice.

I looked up into the cracked mirror behind him and Stella. My reflection stared back. She shook her head in disgust. Neither Stella nor Mr. Ernst seemed to notice.