More Stories from the Twilight Zone (44 page)

Trying to hold the car door open while she crawled out was the first challenge. It was a full three feet to the ground, the car was tilted and stiletto heels made any leaping an act of faith. She pushed against the door with both hands, turned sideways, dangled her feet above the ground, then slipped off the seat to stand upright while still leaning against the door before wiggling to her left and letting it thud shut. Hauling two overstuffed bags out of the trunk and up the slight incline, then hoisting them onto the backseat would be her next challenge. Two inches of snow made guesswork out of maintaining footing. She took a step and slipped on loose gravel.

At first, lights above her and to her right didn't register. Then, oh my God, someone was coming. A car. Hurriedly, she jerked open the rental's driver-side door, leveraged the heavy door with her shoulder, leaned in, fumbled for the lights, turned them on, and watched as a pickup slowed, then stopped.

“Here! I'm down here!” Could she be heard? Ignoring the near impossibility of four-inch heels navigating a snowy incline, she scrambled upward. Above her, a hand suddenly thrust through the swirling snow.

“Grab on here. Let's git you on the road.”

“. . . trying to make it to Durango . . . dodged an elk.” She was
out of breath and bent double, gasping for air when she reached the road. Altitude. She wasn't used to this. But she was on solid ground.

“Probably not gonna git there tonight.” He laughed at what he seemed to think was uproariously funny. Then he sobered. “Least I can do is git you to someplace warm. Anybody else in this wreck?”

She shook her head.

He led her by the arm to the pickup, opened the door, and waited until she could pull herself onto the seat. “I assume you got some luggage down there?”

She nodded, and found her voice. “Trunk's open. Purse is on the front seat.” Deep breaths, gulps really, but starting to slow. He closed the door and was gone. The truck's interior smelled musky. Funky. Not really unpleasant, but sort of an animal smell. Like chickens had been roosting in it. And it was old—a real museum piece. She found herself hoping she wouldn't be riding in it for long . . . and its owner, a scarecrow of a man, tall, lanky, grease-stained sweatshirt over too-loose jeans. Difficult to guess his age, maybe fifties. But it was the eye-patch—a black square with rounded corners hugging his left eye, secured by black ties knotted in back of his head and buried in a wad of dirty blond hair—that gave him a menacing demeanor.

Then she admonished herself. Looking the gift horse in the mouth wasn't too wise. Didn't he save her from a cold night? If not something worse? And it was obvious that he'd survived something horrendous himself—disease, an accident, maybe. She was startled by a thud directly behind her. Her luggage, of course. He must have put it in the truck's bed.

The driver-side door opened, “Here's yer keys and purse. I closed the trunk and locked the car. Don't want nobody taking what ain't their's.”

She idly wondered who would be out in this weather looking
for something to steal. Didn't seem likely but, again, she was thankful for the help.

“Thanks. I didn't catch your name.”

“Larry, and yer?”

“Edie. I really appreciate this.” She smiled.

“Don't mention it.” He turned toward her and smiled back. Missing teeth caused his lip to curve inward, making the effort more of a sneer. He slipped the truck into gear, and carefully made a U-turn. “Gonna take you back up the road to an inn. You'll be warm tonight and in the morning Bob can call you a tow.”

“A bed-and-breakfast?”

“Yep, guess you could call it that.”

“That's great.” Suddenly she didn't care about the cab's smell. A B&B! What good luck. Nothing sounded better than a hot bath, warm sheets . . . maybe get started on one of the novels.

“You were real close. It's just up here at the end of this road.” The pickup bounced to the right and down a slight incline. How could he even know where the road was? Snow obscured everything. Wipers were almost useless, but as they pulled up in front of a rambling farm house with dormers, she noticed they were the only vehicle. Looked like she might be the only customer.

“You go on up and check in. I'll bring yer bags.”

A bell on a desk in the hall summoned the proprietor, who turned out to be “Bob.” A nice man, as clean and squat and chubby as her driver was mussed and lean. But then she sucked in her breath. Bob also wore a black eye-patch.

“Mill accident.”

“Pardon?”

“I saw you noticed . . .” He gestured toward his left eye. “Happened years ago, nasty accident. You passed the saw mill on your left . . . corner of 64 and 285? Closed now. Regular death trap. No OSHA in my day.”

“And Larry?”

“That ol' conveyor belt made us twins. Only good thing is we're both right-handed.”

“I'm not sure I'm following.”

“If you're right-handed, you don't want to lose your right eye—you compensate better if it's opposite your dominant side.” This time Bob winked with his good eye. “Nope, under the circumstances, we were both lucky. Now, enough about me. Let's get you checked in and tucked in.”

She put her credit card on the desk and moved to sign the register.

“Sorry, I shoulda said we're not set up to take those. More out of laziness, just never got the paperwork done. Cash is always good, or a check.”

“How much is a single room?”

“Fifty-five.”

Wow. That was a bargain. How long had it been since she'd paid fifty-five dollars for a room—and breakfast? “Plus tax?”

“Nah, I don't bother. More of that paperwork.” He grinned, scrunching up his good eye and making the eye-patch bounce against a fat cheek. “Listen, why don't we settle up in the morning—give me time to print out a receipt.”

The accountant in her was screaming “audit,” but there she went again, looking at that gift horse. She should be so thankful to be out of the weather.

“That'll be fine.”

“You like a sandwich? Kitchen's closed, but I could rustle up something. There's coffee and hot chocolate in the room.”

“Hot chocolate sounds perfect. I'm past being hungry—a warm bed trumps any thought of food at this point.”

“I understand. Guess you'll be needing me to call the wrecker in the morning?”

“Yes, thanks.” Information traveled quickly around here, she noted.

“Away we go, then. I'll get the boy to bring that luggage up in a few minutes.”

She wasn't sure who the boy was—to date, she'd only seen two people, Larry and Bob. But as long as she didn't have to drag her own luggage up a flight of stairs . . . She always overpacked. Another stressor. She made a mental note to add it to the list.

The room was toward the back of a long hallway on the second floor. An
unlighted
long hallway. There were bulbs in the ceiling fixtures—maybe they were trying to save money. Bob opened the door with an old-fashioned metal key—one of a circle of many. “I want to apologize about putting you in a converted storeroom. We're expecting a big party tonight—snow's slowed 'em down. 'Fraid this is all I have left.”

“If it has a bed, I'll be fine.”

But after he left, she looked around. The bed was a thin, ticked mattress of cotton batting thrown onto a rough wooden frame. There were no sheets, just two khaki green blankets—both wool, both scratchy. And she wasn't really sure they were clean. There were no women's touches—no starched linens, fluffy towels, aromatic soap—in fact, there was no bathroom. Must be down the hall. Funny, Bob hadn't pointed it out. There was a Coleman camp stove on a card table in the corner with a blue-speckled, enamel-over-tin coffeepot—a package of cocoa next to it. That was positive. But she wasn't going to feel safe lighting a propane camp stove indoors.

A soft knock interrupted her inventory and she opened the door to a young man in Goth black, including spiked locks with neon pink tips that fell forward over his forehead. Large black-rimmed sunglasses completed the look. She congratulated herself once again for not having children.

“You want these in there?” Chains hanging off his belt clunked against the door as he leaned in to point.

For just a moment she was tempted with a smart retort,
No,
just leave them out in the hall.
But she stepped back so he could enter.

“Yes, please. You can put the smaller one down there.” She pointed to the foot of the bed. “I'd like that one on the bed. Easier to unpack.” She watched as he moved forward, wrestling with one bag at a time as he carried them through the doorway. She wondered why he hadn't popped up the pull-handles. It was like he'd never seen luggage before.

She watched as he struggled to lift the large case onto the bed. He seemed frail—thin, undernourished, and decidedly weak.

“Here, let me help you with that.” She stepped forward, grabbed one end of the bag and lifted, knocking him off-balance. He caught himself before he fell, but his glasses slipped to the floor.

It was all she could do not to scream. He grabbed up the glasses and slammed them back on—but not before she'd seen the pink, pulpy indentation where his left eye had been. This was no mill accident—this was recent and still not healed.

She forced a smile. “Thanks. You've been really helpful.” She reached for her purse and held out a five-dollar bill.

“That's okay.” He waved aside the money, turned, stumbling over his own thick, black motorcycle boots, and bolted out, leaving the door open.

In all her life she had never seen so many empty eye sockets. And that included a couple bad pirate movies. Three in thirty minutes—all left eyes. What kind of coincidence was that? She walked to the door to close it and heard angry voices coming from somewhere downstairs. Tiptoeing into the hall, she stood and listened. Sounded like Bob and Larry were upset about something. She couldn't make out the words, but the anger was real. She inched along until she could hear clearly—thankful now for the darkness.

“You're flirtin' with the devil. We've been lucky so far—you know that for a fact, Bob Hutchins. There's no good reason to tempt fate.”

“Only money. She's young—healthy. That means functioning kidneys, liver, lungs—maybe there's someone out there needing a heart. That'd put some green in your pocket.”

“Let her go. I don't want to get my three squares behind bars . . . or worse.”

“Losing your nerve? Never thought I'd see the day.”

She didn't wait to hear more. Organs. They were talking about selling organs and they were talking about her. Or parts of her. Get out. She had to get out. She willed rubbery knees to carry her back to the room. Yes, her imagination was working overtime, but her sixth sense was screaming,
Hurry.
She didn't know where she would go, but she wasn't staying there.

She rummaged through her bags, kicked off the mud-stained Manolo Blahniks without a second's regret at having ruined an eight-hundred-dollar pair of heels, pulled on a pair of raglan socks, silk long johns, sweatpants, two silk undershirts, and a sweatshirt, then thrust her feet into a high-topped pair of UGGs. All before allowing herself a really deep breath. A scarf and stocking cap, and she was ready to go.

Wait. Money and identification. Grabbing her purse, she dumped it on the bed, picked out penlight, BlackBerry, billfold, car keys, and stuffed all in the pockets of a quilted, wool buffalo plaid jacket. Then frantically she made one more comb-through of her luggage to find something even vaguely resembling a weapon, but airlines made pretty certain there'd be nothing—no nail file or cuticle scissors.

She shivered. It was now or never. She slipped into the hallway, closed the door, and turned away from the voices—still debating her demise? She didn't want to find out. She couldn't dwell on what might be—she had to concentrate on getting away. Time was on her side, if she made use of her advantage. They wouldn't be expecting her to leave. Moving quickly and quietly, she discovered another staircase just two doors down from her room—another
set of stairs that descended into darkness. She wasn't good at taking chances, but what choice was there?

The voices had faded by the time she'd reached the first floor and the door in front of her seemed to lead to a side yard. Her luck was holding; it was unlocked. She slipped out, closing the door behind her and hesitated, listening for someone coming her way. Nothing. The night was clear, but bitter. The snow had stopped and a bright, almost full, moon hovered above. She didn't have a plan, but instinct said get back to the road. Getting lost in the woods at nine thousand feet in winter might not have pretty consequences.

But she'd keep to the tree line and out of sight of the house—that made good sense. The snow wasn't deep, maybe three inches, just slippery. It took her thirty minutes to reach the road by walking along the edge of a stand of aspen. Their black and silver gnarled trunks stood out in crisp relief against the white. She'd never looked over her shoulder so many times in her entire life, but there was no one following her. No cars or trucks, no flashlights, or shouts in the darkness. The night was eerily quiet, moonlight on snow dazzling in its pristine freshness.

Was she safe? Would they even check her room before morning? Depended on who won the argument, probably. But maybe, just maybe, she had escaped. She would be all right but she needed a vantage point—someplace high above the road that would give her a clear view in both directions. And offer some protection from the elements. It was probably around thirty degrees—below freezing with a slight wind chill. She was dressed for an overnight in the wilds, but not a comfortable one.

A mountain juniper about forty feet above her would work. Its low-lying branches offered the perfect cover. Not warm exactly, but out of the wind. Adrenaline would keep her from frostbite. Keep her awake and focused. She needed a plan and she had no earthly idea what it was going to be. At least from that vantage
point, she could keep an eye on the rental car. She thought they would expect her to run—not expect her to stay close. But was her logic their logic?