“Peter? Where are you?” I couldn’t see him anywhere. It was too dark.
“Bryn!” came his voice, bouncing painfully off my eardrum and startling me out of my nightmare.
I sat bolt upright, looking around me in a panic, trying to figure out for a second where I was. It was dark for some reason. I saw our trailer and Peter and Buster looking up at me curiously, their faces lit by the moonlight shining in sideways from the far horizon. “What the hell?” I said, rubbing my face, my brain now coming into focus. “Holy crap, I was having a terrible dream. How long was I out?”
“I know. You woke me up talking in your sleep. And it’s late. Like after dinner time. We all slept right through it. Bodo’s not here. ”
I sighed heavily, knowing exactly where he was. “Dammit, Bodo.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Yes. He went to that friggin Cracker Barrel.”
“Did you tell him to go there?” asked Peter, obvious disapproval in his voice.
“No, of course I didn’t. In fact, I specifically told him not to go there.”
Peter chuckled. “He only listens to your orders when he feels like listening to them.”
“I don’t give orders, Peter. I’m not General Custer or whatever.”
“Well, you’re our leader, like it or not. And leaders give orders.”
“I give suggestions. And I strongly suggested that he not go there earlier today. I told him we weren’t going to rescue his ass if he got in trouble, too.”
“Did you mean it?”
“No!” I said angrily.
“Why are you mad at me? I’m not at the Cracker Barrel.”
I ran my hand over my face again. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just frustrated. Now we have to go over there, risk our own butts, and possibly lose time on the road. Actually, that would be the best case scenario.”
“The worst case scenario being that we get eaten.”
“Yeah. That would be the worst thing I can think of.”
“Can you do me a favor and not tempt fate with statements like that?” said Peter, sounding like he was only half joking.
“Yeah, you’re right. Things can always, always be worse.” I reached down and grabbed my gun from the ground where I’d been sleeping. “Just stay here. I’m going to go see what he’s gotten himself into.”
“Huh-uh, no way am I staying here alone. I’m coming with you.”
“Well get on your damn bike, then, because we can’t leave our stuff here.”
“What are we going to do with Bodo’s bike?”
“We’ll leave the big butt bike here and if he comes back while we’re gone he can get it. I don’t want to leave the trailer unattended.”
“Okay. Good idea. Maybe we should leave Buster here with Bodo’s bike.”
“Fine. Use that bungee cord in the trailer to tie him to the frame. He has a hook you can use on his collar.”
Peter got Buster all tied up and we got on our bikes to head over to the restaurant.
We’d gotten all of ten feet before Buster started barking.
“What the hell is his problem?” I hissed.
Peter turned around and went back, saying, “Shhh! Buster! No!”
But Buster wasn’t having any of that being left behind stuff. He was whining and dancing around, making it very clear that if we tried to leave him again, he was going to call all the canners from the nearby towns to come to dinner.
“Friggin dog,” I growled, turning around and waiting for Peter to untie him. I got off my bike and snatched the Hello Kitty backpack out of the trailer. “Get in here, you stupid mutt. I’m not going to risk you running around like an idiot, waking up all the canners. You’re riding with me.”
He got in the bag without fighting me on it, and I zipped it almost all the way up. I left a space at the top that he poked his head out of. This time I put him on my back so I wouldn’t have to take a Buster tongue bath on the way over to the Cracker Barrel.
We left the highway underpass and Peter started giggling.
“Shut up, Peter.” I was still grouchy.
“I … I … can’t. You have no idea … how ridiculous you look … with a poodle in a Hello Kitty backpack on your back.”
“I can imagine, trust me.” I shook my head. Stupid Bodo is going to pay for this.
We pulled up into the parking lot of the Cracker Barrel. It was completely dark. My watch showed eleven o’clock - prime canner partying time - but so far, I’d heard no sounds; and it seemed like the canners were partial to shouting and making loud asses of themselves, so I was hoping this meant this was a canner-free zone.
I stopped near the front porch of the restaurant. Cracker Barrels were all designed the same way, with a large open area in front that held rocking chairs for sale and big chess games set up in between them. I guess it was supposed to resemble an old trading post from the Wild West.
Peter pulled up next to me. “Do you see anything?” he whispered.
“No,” I whispered back. “Let’s go around back … make a loop.”
Peter followed behind me as I went counter clock-wise around the building.
Everything was black. And silent. There was no sign of Bodo or anyone else for that matter. In fact, all the windows of the place were still intact and there was no sign of vandalism anywhere. I was getting totally creeped out by the perfectness of it all.
“There’s something really wrong about this place,” whispered Peter loudly. “It looks like no one’s been here yet. Like it’s frozen in time!”
We drew up to the front of the building again and I stopped, getting off my bike.
“What are you doing?” asked Peter, panic in his voice.
“I’m just going to look in the window. I’ll be right back.” I walked over to Peter, sliding the backpack off my arms. “Take Buster and keep him quiet. If I see anything disturbing, I’ll let you know. Be ready to ride like hell out of here.”
I crept up to the porch of the restaurant, headed not for the front doors, but for a small window that I knew looked into the gift shop area. All these places were the same, with a gift shop in front that you had to walk through to get to the dining room.
As soon as I got to the window and looked in, I knew why we weren’t seeing Bodo anywhere. He was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, tied to it with zip ties, and a small girl was pointing a rifle at his head from just a few feet away.
My heart fell down to my feet. I could see he was talking fast, probably trying to convince the girl not to shoot him in the face. She kept glancing behind her as if there were another person in the room, but I couldn’t see him. There were still some racks of shirts there, and whoever he was, he was behind one of them. He must be pretty short, though, because the racks were only about four feet high.
I left the porch and ran around the back, gesturing to Peter to stay put. I found the back door I had seen on my earlier trip around and tested it. It was locked, but I decided not to let that stop me. I searched the nearby ground and found a piece of old rusted rebar. I jammed it into the space between the door and frame and pulled on it as hard as I could. I felt the frame bending a little, and encouraged by my little success, put more of my back into it. I could feel my shoulder muscles nearly popping with the effort, but I was rewarded by the metal giving a little bit more. I stopped to check my progress and saw that I’d moved the frame enough to the side that the lock was no longer holding the door closed. I pulled the rebar out and held it in my hand. It wasn’t brass knuckles or a knife, but I felt a little less guilty using it as a potential weapon than the gun. I had to conserve my bullets anyway.
I eased the door open, praying they hadn’t heard me breaking the lock. The only sounds that had reached my ears were those of my grunting, so hopefully that meant they’d heard nothing inside.
I found myself in a kitchen. I tiptoed around the stainless steel prep tables and over to a door that had a round window on it. I could see into the dining room from there but not the gift shop.
I slowly pushed the door out, watching through the window as I did, making sure no one was coming. I slipped through the crack, entering the dining room as silently as I could, my sneakers making slight squeaking sounds on the dirty tile floor. I took two steps out into a narrow hallway that had coffee machines and racks of glasses set up on a long counter. This must be where the waitresses poured the orange juice. I went to the end of the hallway and found myself at the spot where the gift shop met the dining room. I had a perfect view into the room where Bodo was being held captive, and now I knew why I couldn’t see the person who’d been standing behind the girl before.
It was a guy in a wheelchair, his head below the level of the rack of t-shirts.
I found myself facing a moral dilemma. All my life I’d been told to take special care with handicapped people. I never used the handicapped bathroom, even when it was the only one available and I had to pee really bad, just in case someone in a wheelchair might come in and need it. I offered to push people in chairs up ramps. I took things down off high shelves in the grocery store for ladies in walkers.
But now a guy in a wheelchair and his girlfriend or sister or whatever, were holding my friend hostage. Did I sneak up behind him and put a gun to his head, taking advantage of his obviously inferior position of strength? How could I live with myself if I did something like that?
I heard his casual-sounding voice from across the fifteen-foot space.
“Just shoot him in the face and be done with it.”
Moral dilemma solved. I snuck out and flicked the safety off my weapon, coming up slowly behind the guy, my gun raised level with his chair.
As soon as I reached him, I put the metal barrel to the back of his head, pushing it forward ever so slightly. “Don’t fucking move or I’ll blow your stupid head off.”
The girl with the rifle spun around and I ducked behind the wheelchair, keeping the guy between us. “Shoot me or my friend, and I’ll kill this asshole right here in his chair. I don’t give a crap if he’s paralyzed or whatever.”
“Go ahead and shoot me,” he said, nonchalantly. “I don’t give a rat’s ass.” He put his hands on the wheels of his chair and started to turn it around.
I panicked. I didn’t really want to shoot him, but I needed to use him as my shield. I grabbed the handle of the chair with the gun in my hand and pulled him back, jamming the rebar into his wheel spokes with the other. “You’re not going anywhere, dick.”
“Hey! What’d you put in my wheel! Take that out!”
“Jimmy, just shut up and let me handle this!” shouted the girl.
I turned my attentions from Jimmy to his protector. “All you have to do is let my friend go, and I’ll leave you two alone. But if you try anything funny, we’ll take this place down to the ground. I have friends outside who are waiting for me to get back.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I don’t believe you.”
I could see her strength was waning. The rifle was pointed more towards the ground now, even though she kept trying to hitch it up, using her elbows braced against her sides.
“I don’t care if you believe me or not. Let my friend go, or you and your boyfriend here are going to have an extra hole in your heads.”
“Good!” yelled Jimmy. “Shoot me!”
“Shut up, Jimmy!” both the girl and I screamed at the same time.
Both of us were startled at first and then I smiled.
She smiled back, a little sadly. “He don’t wanna live,” she said with a heavy southern accent.
“Who does?” I said. “The world sucks right now. I just want to get my friend and go.”
“Bryn, she has dose jaw breakers you were talking about. I was just trying to get you some and dey jumped me.”