The Siege (13 page)

Despite the chilly night air, Hocker stripped off his T-shirt and twisted it into a thick knot. Then he unscrewed the gas can and stuck one end of the shirt into the top. He shook the can several times to saturate the shirt with gas, then he took off the truck’s gas tank cap and stuffed the shirt halfway in. Tasha shivered as she watched, not sure what was going on. She knew, finally, what was happening when she saw Hocker open the truck door and splash gas from the can all over the front seat of the truck. When the can was empty, he tossed it into the seat and then suddenly turned around to face Tasha.

She was sure he had seen or sensed her hiding there, but when he started moving toward her, he suddenly kneeled and felt around on the ground. At last, with a grunt of satisfaction, he found what he was looking for and went back to the truck.

She heard a soft scratching sound, but before she could guess what it was, she saw a cigarette lighter flare up in Hocker’s hand. The flame looked like a solitary orange teardrop. Hocker went to the rear of the truck and, poised like a track runner in starting blocks, held the flame to the rag stuck into the gas tank. When a thin tongue of fire licked up one side of the cloth, he ran to the front of the cab. The engine roared to life, and Tasha guessed that he had dropped a heavy rock onto the gas pedal. There was a soft click as he shifted the truck into gear, and then he dove away from the truck. He hit the ground with a
thud
as the truck leaped forward.

The ground was uneven and cluttered with thick brush, but with its wheels spinning and squealing, shooting dirt and rocks up behind it, the Ford sped toward the edge of the cliff. Hocker got up quickly and, leaping into the air with a joyous whoop, ran after the truck, tripping and stumbling in its wake. The trailing flame from the gas tank got brighter, and Hocker followed it as though it were a fleeing will-o’-the-wisp.

At the cliff edge, the truck almost stalled trying to run up over an edge of rock, but dinosaur-like it plowed up and over, and then shot out into the darkness of the ravine.

It wasn’t dark for long! As Tasha watched, horrified, the night flashed bright with an oily yellow explosion. Hocker stood at the edge of the cliff, looking like a demon poised at the brink of Hell. Flames and thick, curling smoke roared skyward, blotting out the dusting of stars. Tasha cringed when she heard Hocker shout his joy, his animal-like howls echoing from the stark rock walls across the river.

But it wasn’t over yet. As the sky filled with light, there was a sudden, thunderous boom as the truck’s gas tank exploded. The flames intensified, underlighting the roiling black smoke with a wicked yellow glow. Tasha huddled in the cold, dark forest, fighting the impulse to scream. Another smaller explosion ripped the silence of the night, and then the flames slowly ebbed, leaving the silhouette of Hocker on the cliff edge, more afterimage than reality.

She listened to him at last turn away from the scene of destruction. She quickly got up from her hiding place and started back toward the tent, stumbling in the dark. She was sure he would see or hear her, so halfway back, she turned and started running toward him along the road. They collided in the dark.

“Jesus Christ!” she shouted, letting her panic out in a high-pitched wail. “What the hell’s happening?”

Hocker pulled back a step and held her by both shoulders. She felt like a quivering mess in his grip. “Hey! Hey! Take it easy, Tash,” he said. He was trying to calm her down, but she could hear the guy-wire tension in his voice.

Tension?
she wondered,
or excitement?

“What the hell was that noise?” she wailed, thinking it would be just fine to let him think the explosion had woken her, and that she had run blindly out of the tent. “What in the name of Christ happened?”

“Now, now,” Hocker said. “Don’t get all freaked out. I did what I had to do.”

His voice was soothing, but the grip on her arms closed tighter. She tried to pull away but couldn’t break his grip. Behind him, the distant rock wall still glowed with a fading, flickering orange. She could see, despite the chill, that his face and bare chest were slick with sweat. He looked like someone who had just finished a long bout of lovemaking.

“Was that the truck?” she shouted. “Did the truck blow up?” Again, she tried to pull away, but his grip held.

“Well, now, we can’t very well go riding around the countryside in a stolen truck, now, can we?” Hocker said. “That wouldn’t be too smart. ’Specially after what we did to that old man back there.”

“What you did,” Tasha screamed. “Not me!”

Hocker snorted with laughter and spit to one side. “I did what I had to do,” he repeated. “Maybe I should have gotten you up so you could’ve seen it.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the fading light. Darkness closed like a blanket over the river gorge. “God!” he said, almost sighing. “You should have seen it. It was fucking
incredible
!”

Well
, Hocker thought the next morning,
last night might have been incredible, but today is turning to shit!
They were awake and packed, ready to move when the eastern sky began turning from black to the color of soot. Pre-dawn bird calls sounded a raucous chorus all around them as they started down the dew-slickened road. Three hours later, once the sun rose and drove away the chill of night, they were still walking down the road and hadn’t yet seen a single car.

“You know, this really sucks,” Tasha said over her shoulder to Hocker, who always walked a few paces behind her. Her backpack bounced painfully in the small of her back. Every bone in her body seemed to ache from sleeping on the ground for so many nights. And last night, after the truck-burning, she hadn’t really slept at all! She had still expected a bear or something, angered by the fire and explosion down by the river, to attack them.

The seams of her jeans rode up uncomfortably into the crack of her ass, and she wiggled now and then, trying to loosen up. She wondered if, while they walked, Hocker ever looked at her ass. She was amazed that Hocker never made any sexual advances toward her. He was alone with her, night after night, and could have easily overpowered her.
Who knows? Maybe he’s a faggot
. But it suited her just fine that he left her alone.

“It’d suck even more if the cops put the make on us ’cause of that truck,” he replied.

The road twined back and forth like a lazy snake. It seemed whoever had planned it couldn’t make up their minds where they wanted it to go. Eventually, the thick forest yielded to wide, cleared hills, most of which overflowed with potato plants. In the distance, weathered barns stood like sentinels on the horizon.

“Do you even know where we are?” Tasha asked. She, like Hocker, was damned sick and tired of all this walking.

Hocker snorted and spit into the woods alongside the road.
Yeah
, he thought,
somewhere between Bangor and nowhere!

“You wanted to go to Canada, right?” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Well, Houlton can’t be too many miles up ahead and that’s right on the Canadian border.”

“You might have just spit into Canada, for all you know,” Tasha said under her breath.

They continued walking, and they didn’t see a single car until after they had stopped for a short lunch, but it was travelling in the wrong direction.

Tasha sat on the side of the road, watching the car disappear over the rise in the road. For a long time after, she could hear the tearing sound of its wheels on the asphalt. She wished she had flagged the driver down and headed south as far as he was going. Anything to get away from Hocker. She vowed to herself that, as soon as they hit a town large enough to get lost in, she would dump the creep. He served his purpose; now that he had committed a crime, maybe even murder, she wanted to be rid of him.

“We’ll go just a little more,” Hocker said. His frustration at having to walk for so long was written all over his face. “We’ll try to find a place where we can set up camp for the night. We’re gonna need some supplies, too.”

“You’re sure there are towns around here?” Tasha asked.

Without consulting his map, Hocker nodded, then spit. “You betcha. Hey look! See? What’d I tell you?”

He pointed down the road, toward a small rectangular sign bolted to a wooden post. The paint was peeled but they could read what it said:

WELCOME TO DYER

POP. 1247

“Dyer, Maine, huh?” Tasha said, shaking her head, as they got closer to the sign. “I never heard of Dyer.”

Hocker laughed aloud as he shifted his back pack. “They probably never heard of you, either,” he said. Then, snorting loudly, he spit. The glob of spit arced in the air and landed with a
splat
right on top of the town’s name.

“Bull’s eye,” Hocker said, laughing out loud.

III

A
fter a late breakfast, Donna got into her car and backed out of her sister’s driveway. She didn’t tell Barbara where she was going; she didn’t feel the need to, and she certainly didn’t want to explain herself, not any more.

Driving slowly down Burnt Mill Road, past the Mill Store, she waited at the blinking red light to turn left onto Main Street. There was Sparky in his customary slump beside the gas pumps. She wondered if he might spend his nights there as well. Tooting her horn a few times, she stuck her hand out the window and waved to him. As she turned onto Main Street, it amused her to think Sparky would be wondering all day who the hell that woman was in the blue Toyota.

Donna made her way down Main Street, taking her time to check out what few changes had occurred since her last time in town. A few of the houses sported fresh coats of paint, but generally, the downtown store fronts, if any different at all, looked smaller and seedier than ever.

When she saw two girls running and skipping along the sidewalk, she thought back to when she and her best friend, Lorrie Parker, used to do the same thing.
Some things about Dyer never changed
, she thought,
for better or for worse
.

On the edge of town, Brooklawn Cemetery was as neat and well-trimmed as ever. The old maple at the front gate had already changed color, and every passing breeze sent brilliant red leaves spiraling groundward. The spiked wrought-iron fence had a fresh coat of paint that glistened like polished ebony.

A shiver ran through her as she saw the groundskeepers digging a new grave. Bright ochre earth was heaped up in a rounded hill, and their shovels flashed in the sun. She could faintly hear their conversation as they worked. One of the men, the overseer, sat on a small John Deere tractor, smoking a cigarette. His wide girth made the tractor look like a toy.

“Ahh, shit. Poor Larry,” Donna whispered once she realized who that grave was for. She stepped on the gas to get by the cemetery quickly.

The town gave way to wide open hills, crisscrossed by rows of potatoes fields. A quarter mile down the road, Donna slowed and, out of habit, snapped on her turn signal for the left turn onto Mayall Road. Insects whirred in the dying grass alongside the road.

She passed the Larsens’ farm on the left. It looked like she remembered it, not much worse, anyway; maybe one or two additional rusty cars around back, but it looked as though the Larsens were still hanging on. After the Larsens’, there was a small grove of trees marking the stream where she used to play. Then, on the left, was the driveway up to her old house.

The car wheels crunched over the gravel, setting her teeth on edge as she turned into the driveway. All around her, a summer’s growth of grass swayed in the wind, its ripe, yellow heads bowed heavy with seed. The insect noises got louder, filling the air.

Donna eased up the driveway, leaning over the steering wheel as she stared up at the house. From the dormers down to the cellar windows, it was obvious the hose needed a good scraping and at least two coats of paint. If she was going to do it, she would make damned sure not to use the same dull yellow her mother favored.

Several balustrades were broken out of the porch railing and gave it an odd, broken-tooth look. By the living room window, one shutter hung down at an awkward angle. Rotting branches and last season’s dead weeds littered what had once been a well-kept front lawn, and the shrubs out front had grown rampantly.

But Donna knew it would take more than paint and a little cleaning up to lay to rest the ghosts that hovered inside the house. She wondered if the house could ever be resurrected to its former beauty. Probably not, but she was sure of one thing. She wouldn’t be the one to do it! When she got back to Donna’s, she would press her sister harder about selling the place, before it was so dilapidated they couldn’t get a decent price for it.

She stopped the car at the foot of the walkway and sat for several minutes staring up at the front door. The screen on the storm door had been ripped down from the top, leaving a large, hanging triangular flap. It looked like someone had tried to break into the house and, failing, had torn the screen out of spite. She cut the engine, dropped her car keys in her purse, and stepped out.

The walkway, like the driveway, was chocked with weeds and grass that grew through the cement. At the bottom of the stairs, Donna’s heel caught on a tuft, and if she hadn’t grabbed the newel post, she would have fallen to the ground. Straightening up quickly, she looked around in embarrassment, even though no one was nearby to see.