The Hitchhikers, page 15
“That’s why you offered to come. You wanted to find a way to escape.”
Alice didn’t speak. There was no reason to repeat the obvious. The proof was in the paper, which was now at the bottom of the garbage, along with their chance at freedom.
“You hate me,” Jenny said.
This Alice felt she could answer. “No. I don’t.”
“You should.” Jenny turned. “Come on. Simon will be worried if we take too long.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
Jenny kept walking. “No.”
She didn’t give a reason, and maybe she didn’t know, but Alice didn’t feel any safer.
CHAPTER 20
ALICE
Alice sat in the driver’s seat, staring out the windshield as people strolled by holding pretzels and ice-cream cones, while Jenny filled Simon in on her appointment and the excitement of hearing the baby’s heartbeat. Alice’s eyes stung at the cruel irony. The trip that was meant to take her far away from her home, away from the constant reminders of their loss, and the taunting ghosts of what could have been, now smacked her in the face with them every minute of the day.
Simon decided they should stay another night to make sure that Jenny’s bleeding had stopped, so they drove around until they found a nature park and backed into a private corner parking spot. The area was surrounded by thick forest, the trees forming a canopy, so it was at least cool, and Simon allowed them to crack open windows. There were several other vehicles, all empty, parked closer to the trailhead where there was a sign with a map and an outhouse.
“Everyone will leave at dusk,” Simon said. “We should be okay for the night.”
Alice hoped for the opposite. Someone might smell the grill or notice smoke. Maybe they’d call the fire department. Or maybe the local police drove through the trailhead parking lot at night, looking for nefarious activities or lost hikers. There were too many maybes. Alice needed solid answers. The endless waiting for the next terrible thing was exhausting.
Jenny went into the bathroom a few times and came out with flaming cheeks. “There’s no more blood,” she said in a soft voice.
She never made eye contact with Alice, who was sitting with Tom, and worrying that Jenny was going to tell Simon about her note. Would she really keep it to herself? And why? Alice could think of only two reasons. Either Jenny didn’t want Alice and Tom to be punished because she cared, or she was worried about losing their driver and the RV.
It had grown even darker in the parking lot, the cars leaving one by one, until they were alone. Simon had lowered the table and turned the bench seats into a bed, so he and Jenny could rest, but he’d positioned them with their backs to the windshield and facing Tom and Alice. He sat partway up, Jenny’s head on his lap. He stroked her hair.
“Are you getting hungry, babe?”
“I keep thinking about French fries and onion rings. I saw a Dairy Queen in town when I was at the pay phone, and it smelled so good. I’ve only ever had onion rings with my dad when I was little.” She looked up at him. “But it’s okay. I know we can’t drive back into town.”
Simon shrugged. “Let’s go. I’m bored sitting around.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. We deserve it.”
Alice scoffed into her pillow. Why did he think they deserved it? Was it a reward for their hard work of keeping captives? Or being fugitives on the run? Alice wasn’t going to complain, though. Any time Jenny or Simon left the RV, there was a chance they’d be caught. She prayed for a policeman who had a hankering for a cold treat on a hot summer night.
They drove back into town, which was quieter now, with fewer people milling about. A soft evening light draped the buildings in pink gold and cast long shadows on the streets. The Dairy Queen was easy to find, with its familiar cherry-red metal roof and lips-shaped sign. The restaurant was on a large lot at the corner of a street, with parking out front. Across the road, to the right of the restaurant, was the laundromat and pay phone they’d found earlier.
“Park alongside the laundromat but leave space so Jenny can walk out behind the RV.”
Jenny looked small as she made her way across the street, stopping to look both ways for traffic, and disappeared into the Dairy Queen. Simon slouched in the passenger side, staring at the Dairy Queen. He tapped his fingers on his knee, a fast, chaotic beat.
Jenny reappeared, making her way around the parked vehicles toward the RV. She held a large paper bag with both hands under the bottom, the weight of it resting against her chest.
Simon swung the RV door open for her, taking the bag in one hand, and helping her up with the other. The RV filled with the scent of onion rings and hamburgers.
Simon set the bag on the table and Jenny unpacked it, while Alice moved around getting napkins and sodas. Tom was watching them from the back. He met Alice’s gaze and tried to smile. She wondered if he was remembering how she’d craved soft-serve ice cream when she was pregnant. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Jenny gagging behind her.
Alice turned around in time to see Jenny pressing a napkin against her mouth and staring down in horror at her burger, which was lying open-faced. Alice followed her gaze, expecting to see a bug, a hair, or something hideous, but it was only a tomato slice resting on a grilled patty with cheese. The other side of the bun sported a stack of lettuce, onion, and pickle.
“What’s wrong?” Simon was halfway out of his seat, his body frozen as though he didn’t know if he should lunge across the table.
“I told them no tomato!”
Alice remembered now that tomatoes made Jenny feel sick.
“Take it back,” Simon said.
“Maybe I got the wrong one.”
Simon checked the other burgers. They all had tomato.
“It’s okay,” Jenny said. “I’ll try.” She used her napkin to pick the slice up and move it off the burger, but it was breaking into mushed-up pieces. Alice handed her a fork, and watched as Jenny scraped every bit of tomato juice and seed off her patty, removing half of the cheese with it. She managed to get it all into the now-empty paper bag, then put her burger back together, but when she brought it to her mouth, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to take a bite. She dropped it back onto the foil wrapper and pressed the napkin to her lips as her shoulders heaved.
Simon shook his head and Jenny’s eyes turned glassy. “I’m sorry…” She tried to say something else behind the napkin, but it came out muffled.
“Not your fault.” Simon wrapped the burger in the foil paper, then shoved it into the empty bag. “I’ll get you a new one.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Simon put the gun on the table in front of Jenny, spinning it so the handle was close to her body, and the barrel aimed ahead. Then he was out the door before any of them had a chance to register this change of circumstance. Alice looked at Jenny, who quickly picked up the gun.
“I know how to shoot.” Her voice quivered, her eyes still watering from either the tomatoes, or the fear that Alice was going to push her limits. “Simon taught me.”
Jenny hadn’t threatened her before. It was always Simon saying what he would do to them, but Jenny’s grip was tight, and her finger dangerously near the trigger.
“I want to give Tom his burger.”
Jenny hesitated, looking at Alice, then in the direction of Tom on the bed, like she was weighing the risks. “Not until Simon comes back. Stay where you are.”
“Well, can I have one now?” Alice didn’t want to eat until Tom could, but it might relax Jenny if Alice was busy doing something with her hands.
Jenny picked up one of the wrapped burgers and held it out. Alice carefully took it from her and leaned back against the counter. She nibbled on the burger, sipped her Dr Pepper.
Minutes passed—enough of them that Alice was wondering if Simon had run into problems. Jenny hadn’t stopped watching the door either.
Footsteps, outside on the pavement, then the click of the door handle. It swung outward and Simon lunged up the steps, making the RV bounce, before slamming the door behind him. He dropped a new Dairy Queen bag on the table and sat down across from Jenny, breathing fast.
“Those guys are idiots.” He lifted the burger out and unwrapped it in quick agitated movements before placing it in front of Jenny. “Dude was going to melt a new slice of cheese on the patty and use the same bun. I was like, man, you better get this right. My girl can’t smell or taste any tomato. So, then he finally makes it fresh, but when he brings it out, he just dumps it into a bag and slides it over to me. No sorry. No free ice cream. Nothing!”
Simon took a bite of his own food, which was probably cold by now, and with his mouth still full, he said, “We’re going to teach them a lesson tonight.”
CHAPTER 21
ALICE
Alice listened to the chug of gas entering the RV, willing it to hurry up. The attendant, a wiry middle-aged man, with straggly hair and overgrown sideburns, dipped his squeegee into a bucket and dragged it across the windshield, removing dust and dead bugs. He scrubbed hard at the splattered remains of a particularly large bug that had dried in the corner near Simon. She glanced sideways. Simon was leaning back in his seat, the brim of his baseball cap pulled down to shade his eyes, as though he was sleeping, but she could see his tight jaw, his fingers tapping.
Finally, the attendant moved away from their windshield and the RV tanks were full. Alice handed over cash, relieved when the man gave a quick nod and went to help the next car.
The Dairy Queen didn’t close until eleven and Simon didn’t want to go back to the nature park, so they found a dusty road that might have been used for logging in the past but was now rough with potholes. Overgrown shrubs and branches brushed against the RV as it bumped and dipped for a couple of miles until they reached a clearing where Simon told her to park.
Then he revealed his plan to rob the restaurant at closing time.
Tom tried to talk Simon out of it. “A Dairy Queen isn’t going to have much money in the till. It’s not worth the risk.”
“All money is good money.”
“Is it worth dying for?”
“You think I can’t handle myself? I beat your ass, didn’t I?”
Tom’s hands clenched into fists, like he was thinking about how much he wanted to wipe that smirk off Simon’s face right now. Alice sure did.
Tom tried another approach. “Just leave Alice. You don’t need her.”
“What I don’t need is you shooting your mouth off.” Simon tugged the gun out of his waistband and lifted his eyebrows at Tom. “You going to be quiet now?”
“Yes, he is,” Alice said. “And I need to get some rest.” She walked to the back and crawled onto the bed with Tom. Simon sat with Jenny at the table and played Uno.
Alice fell asleep and dreamed of messy burgers, with bits of lettuce and cheese dropping onto the RV carpet. She tried to clean it up, but more food kept falling. Then there was a baby crying somewhere in the RV, and she was searching under the seats, in the cupboards. She woke up to Tom softly calling her name and barely had a moment to adjust when Simon got to his feet.
“It’s time. Let’s go.”
Alice stumbled off the bed, grabbed a soda from the fridge, rubbed at her eyes to clear the dreams and sleep, and got behind the wheel. When they reached town, they parked again at the laundromat. This time behind it. Simon’s theory was that if anyone saw the RV, they’d think they were doing laundry—which Alice would have liked. The RV windows were rolled down, but the air was still steamy. The brick building, having absorbed the heat all day, was now radiating it out at them. Alice futilely fanned her face with one of their travel brochures.
“They’re just kids,” she said to Simon, who was in the passenger’s seat, waiting for the last cars to leave Dairy Queen. They couldn’t see the front, but they had a clear view of the parking lot and the back door to the alley, where a few minutes ago one of the workers had come out with a garbage bag that he’d tossed into a dumpster. Alice didn’t want to rob anything, but especially not a restaurant where teenagers worked, no matter how much Simon hated them.
“Even better,” he said. “They’ll piss their pants.”
“With two people working, there are more chances of a problem.”
Simon gave her a look, then got up and made his way down the center of the RV. Alice turned in her seat and watched as he reached into the storage where he’d put the disguises. He rummaged through one of the pillowcases, then brandished a roll of silver duct tape.
“I kept this.”
Alice slumped in her seat. Maybe the Dairy Queen had an alarm. Simon sat back down in the passenger’s seat. When the parking lot was empty of all cars, and it was one minute until closing time, he said, “We’ll try the back door first. It’s probably unlocked.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Jenny pleaded. “It was just a mistake.”
“The dumbass was rude to me. That was a big mistake.”
Alice observed over her shoulder as Simon pulled out their disguises from the storage and gave the hunting knife to Jenny. “Anything goes wrong, get behind the wheel, and just go.”
Jenny nodded, but she looked even more scared than Alice felt. She imagined Jenny frozen in the driver’s seat, watching Alice and Simon being hauled away in handcuffs. Or worse, on stretchers. Alice didn’t think Dairy Queen employees would be armed, but the police sure would be, and if they saw her with the fake gun that Simon was now passing her, they might just decide she was a real threat. Her sweaty palm stuck to the plastic handle.
“Same as last time,” he said. “Flash it at them so they know we’re serious.”
“I think they’ll know.”
Simon tossed the denim overalls at her. “Hurry up.”
After they were dressed in their disguises and gloves, Alice followed him down the RV steps, and into the shadows alongside the building, then around the dumpster.
“I’ll go in first. Stay right behind me.”
When they entered through the back door, Alice was hit with the strong scent of lemon cleaner. Simon gestured to the floor. Wet tiles. She nodded and followed him through the kitchen, past metal shelves and ice-cream machines. She peered through the equipment, searching for the workers. Voices, up front. Arguing about who had to clean the grill.
Simon was moving faster now, rounding the counter, the gun straight out in front of him, and both hands gripping it like he was in a police movie.
“Put your hands up!”
The action was so abrupt and shocking that the two workers behind the front counter, holding spray bottles and rags, just stood staring at them with their mouths open.
“I said, put your goddamn hands up!”
The boys dropped the cleaning tools onto the counter. One of the bottles rolled off and clattered onto the floor. They lifted their arms into the air.
Simon was standing in the throughway between the counter and the kitchen, blocking the boys in beside the ice-cream machines. Alice was at his shoulder. He jerked his chin at her.
“Lock the front door, then get back here.”
Alice hurried to the door, contemplated running straight out, then glanced back at Simon, who was watching her. Could she make it out before he shot her? Simon narrowed his eyes, and shifted his body slightly in her direction, one foot back like he was getting ready to run.
Alice flipped the dead bolt and returned to Simon.
“Anyone else in here?” he said to the boys, who were standing side by side and had shuffled backward, so they were a few feet away. The shorter one had brown hair that winged out from underneath his white Dairy Queen paper hat and his cheeks were marked with acne. His red uniform shirt with plaid trim hung off his skinny frame. He couldn’t have been a day over sixteen.
The other one looked a little older and husky, with a thick middle and stocky legs. His blond hair was long under his uniform hat, falling straight over his ears, and something about the way he was staring at Simon made Alice think he was the kind who might try to resist.
“Turn around and get on your stomach with your arms behind your backs.”
They both spun around, but the blond one moved slower, with a you-don’t-scare-me attitude, as he lowered himself. They flattened their bodies on the floor and stuck their arms out.
Simon looked at Alice, who was behind his right shoulder.
“Tape them up.”
She pulled the tape out of the front pocket of her overalls and hurried over to the boys. She crouched near the small one, his wrists thin, and his shoulder blades jutting out from a narrow back. His uniform pants were baggy, the loops scrunched together by a belt. His Dairy Queen hat had fallen off. The back of his hair waved into curls at the base of his neck.
“Don’t look at us,” Simon yelled, and both kids kept their heads turned away.
Alice fumbled with the end of the tape, struggling to peel it back while wearing the knitted gloves. She could feel Simon’s mounting agitation behind her, the squeaking of his shoes pacing on the clean tiles. Finally, she had the tape end, which she wound around each boy’s wrists tight enough to hold them but hopefully not cut off their circulation.
They were so close to Alice that if they had turned their heads, even for a second, they could have seen her face, her eyes, but they stayed frozen. The smaller one had started crying and whimpering, then begging. “Please don’t hurt us. Please, I don’t want to die.”
“Jesus Christ. Tape that kid’s mouth shut.”
Alice ignored the order and muttered to the boy, “Stop crying.” He tried to rein in the sobs, but he was doing a poor job.
“Tape him!” Simon shouted again.
“We need him to tell us where the money is.” She couldn’t put tape across their mouths. She couldn’t hurt them. She wouldn’t. She got to her feet.
Simon flipped the light switch, and they were plunged into darkness, except for a dim emergency lighting in the kitchen. He came around the back side of the counter and yanked a phone out of the wall, dropping it with a clatter.
