On the Other Side of the Bridge (6 page)

“He won't do anything,” Lonnie told the guys, knowing that the Wyndham Security Company had strict rules about their guards drawing their weapons. Mr. Barnaby wouldn't shoot unless he felt his life was in imminent danger.

Lonnie pulled his polo shirt over his head so his face couldn't be seen. Axel did the same with his T-shirt, and they continued running.

Reaching the gate, Slurpee turned back, his face uncovered, and let out a sharp laugh. “You're too slow, fat boy! Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me. I'm the Gingerbread Man!” Then he shot Mr. Barnaby the finger with both hands.

“Slurpee, the cops are going to show up any second!” Lonnie told him. “Let's get out of here!” Still holding his shirt over his head, he yanked him by the arm, and the three of them tore off down the street.

They didn't stop running until they reached the Smile Easy Dental Center, where they hid behind the building, in case the police happened to drive by.

“Man, that was freaking awesome!” Slurpee brayed out. “Did that fat tub of lard really think he could outrun us?”

“That wasn't funny,” Lonnie told him. “You almost got us in huge trouble.”

“Yeah, if we got caught, we could've gone to jail!” Axel agreed, wringing his hands.

“There's no way that old geezer was gonna catch us,” Slurpee said. “My granny can move faster than him on her walker.”

Lonnie slapped him on the arm. “Hey, don't talk that way about the guard. I know him. My mom and him are friends.”

“They are?” Slurpee said, surprised. “Well, there you go. He wasn't gonna do nothing to us. We didn't have nothing to worry about.”

“Are you kidding me?” Lonnie said. “You busted the windows and destroyed the office. You think he was going to ignore that?”

Axel stared at his hands. “What if the cops dust the place for fingerprints? They'll know we were in there. If I go to jail, my parents are going to kill me!”

“Quit your whining, man,” Slurpee said. “You been watching too many cop shows. The Marsville P.D.'s way too busy to waste their time fingerprinting the place. Right, Lonnie?”

He asked him as if having a mother who was a security guard gave Lonnie insight as to what the police might do when investigating a break-in. But he had to say something to calm Axel down.

“Slurpee's right, Torres. The most the police will do is take down a report and file it.”

Axel stopped whimpering and wiped away his tears. “Really?”

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure, especially if the guard tells the cops that it was kids who broke in.” Lonnie didn't know if there was any truth to what he said, but at least it helped Axel regain his composure.

They waited by the side of the building for a few minutes. Finally, Slurpee said, “I'm gonna take off.”

“Go ahead,” Lonnie told him. “But I think me and Axel will stay here a little longer. Just be careful. If you see
a cop car coming, hide in somebody's yard or something.”

Lonnie and Axel watched Slurpee hurry out of the Smile Easy Dental Center parking lot. Ten minutes later, they left, too, keeping an eye out for the police as they walked.

They reached Axel's house safely, and Lonnie hung around for a while. Then he made his way home, thinking they were in the clear.

But he was wrong.

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
, while Lonnie lay in bed, he heard the front door open and shut. Turning over on his side, he pulled back the curtain and saw his mother's car sitting in the driveway. She had just arrived home from work.

He heard her footsteps outside his door, then a knock. “Lonnie, are you up?”

“Yeah.”

“Get yourself ready. I'll fix you breakfast.”

Breakfast? That was the farthest thing from his mind. Lonnie was still trying to recover from the nightmare he'd had.

He dreamed he was back at the Martex warehouse, this time alone. The place was dark, except for a faint ray of light that shone from above. Tall bundles, casting ghostly shadows, surrounded him, and a strong odor of wet newspapers and mildew filled the air.

Out of the darkness, a deep, raspy voice called out,
“Put your hands up and stand where I can see you!”

Lonnie poked his head from around a bale of paper and saw a Wyndham Security guard. His first thought was that it was Mr. Barnaby. But as he looked closer, he realized it wasn't him. It was someone—or something— inhuman. The guard wore a Wyndham Security uniform,
but his face and arms were covered with rotting flesh and open sores, with yellowish pus oozing out. His teeth looked like corn nuts.

“I see you, boy!
” the guard-thing bellowed, starting toward him with slow, but deliberate steps.
“You can't hide from me!”

A wave of terror welled up inside Lonnie. He backed away, trying not to make any noise. Then he broke into a mad run through the bundles of paper, which now formed a labyrinth, with endless tunnels and pathways.

Behind him he could hear the
clop, clop, clop
of the guard-thing's shoes as it picked up its pace.

“You're not gonna get away from me this time, boy!”

Lonnie turned to the right and hit a dead end. Back the other way he ran, made another right, then a left. Again, he was trapped.

“Run, run, as fast as you can. I'll still catch you. I'm the Security Guard Man!”
the guard-thing taunted. Then it let out a chilling laugh.

Lonnie clamped a hand over his mouth in time to stop a scream from escaping. Right and left he zigzagged, but again he hit a wall.

“I'm gonna getcha, boy! I'm gonna getcha!”

Right, right, left. No good, either.

Right, right …

“Gotcha!”
A pair of rotting hands seized Lonnie by the throat, and he gurgled a strangled cry.

He woke up and reached for his neck. Nothing.

After his mother checked on him, Lonnie showered, got dressed and made his way to the kitchen. His mother had already set a glass of milk and a plate of Saturday pancakes on the table for him. The pancakes got their name because his mother used to cook pancakes only on
Saturday mornings. When she began making them on other days, Lonnie still called them Saturday pancakes.

His parents were seated at the breakfast table, having coffee. Lonnie picked up on their conversation and realized they were discussing the break-in at the Martex Paper Company.

“Serves them right,” his dad said. “You know, they refused to hire me. The supervisor, what's his name? Milton something? He promised he'd get back with me, but he never did. Later I found out that he hired two other guys.”

“
Mijo
, isn't there a student at your school the kids call Slurpee?” Lonnie's mother asked, almost causing Lonnie to choke on a chunk of pancake.

He swallowed a deep drink of milk to dislodge the food from his throat. Trying to remain calm, he shook his head slowly. “I … don't think so.”

“Are you sure? Because it seems to me that I once heard you talking to someone on the phone about a boy called Slurpee who had been suspended for stabbing a student with a pencil.”

“No, Mom, I, uh … I was probably talking to Axel about going to 7-Eleven to buy a Slurpee. I don't know anybody called Slurpee. But you're right. There's a kid at my school who got suspended for stabbing another kid with a pencil, but his name's Kirby, not Slurpee. Jeez, Mom, why would anybody be called Slurpee? That's a weird nickname, Slurpee.” Lonnie stopped when he realized he was babbling. He took another drink of milk.

“Some kids broke into the Martex Paper Company warehouse yesterday,” she said. “You know my friend, Otis Barnaby? He works security in the area, and he got a call that the burglar alarm had been tripped. So he drove out there and caught three boys tearing up the office, but
they ran off. Anyway, Otis told me that one of the boys called another one Slurpee. This Slurpee kid was big, two hundred, two hundred ten pounds, with a shaved head. Are you sure you don't know anyone at your school who fits that description?”

“Mom, I don't know anybody called Slurpee,” Lonnie insisted. “Honest. Maybe Mr. Barnaby heard wrong. The kid's name might've been Stevie or Sidney or Stanley.”

“Lonnie's right, Becky,” his dad said. “Otis is getting kinda old. His hearing probably ain't as sharp as it used to be.”

She shrugged. “Oh, well. I just thought I might've stumbled over a clue that could help the police with their investigation.”

The word
investigation
made the hairs on the back of Lonnie's neck prickle. He scarfed down the rest of his pancakes. Then he grabbed his backpack and kissed his mother goodbye.

Before he reached the door, she asked, “Did you finish your book project?”

His book project! He had forgotten all about it. “Uh, yeah, it's ready,” he lied. “I did it yesterday as soon as I got back from Axel's.”

At the beginning of the school year, Lonnie had promised his mother he was going to try to bring up his grades, and at the time, he meant it. Once classes started, he slipped back into old habits.

He thought about when he could finish his project. Progressive Reading wasn't until fourth period, so maybe he could work on it during lunch. Since he and Axel shared the same lunch period, maybe Axel could help him with it.

The moment Lonnie arrived at school, Bobby Arbuthnot and Noe Macías rushed up to him, grinning like a couple of jack-o'-lanterns.

“Hey, Lonnie! Slurpee told us that you and him and Axel broke into the paper company yesterday,” Noe said excitedly. “Is that true?”

“And is it true that y'all almost got shot by a security guard?” Bobby asked.

“What?”

“That's what Slurpee's telling everybody,” Bobby said. “That y'all broke into the Martex warehouse, and while y'all were in there, a security guard shot at y'all.”

“Nobody shot at us,” Lonnie said.

“And did Slurpee really give the guard the double-bird?” Noe asked, giggling like a first grader.

Bobby laughed. “I could see Slurpee doing that. He ain't scared of nothing or nobody.”

Of course he isn't scared
, Lonnie thought.
Slurpee's too stupid to be scared
.

The bell sounded.

“Listen, guys. Do me a favor, would you?” Lonnie said as they headed toward the steps. “Don't say anything about this to anybody, okay?”

“It's kind of late for that,” Bobby said. “The whole school already knows about it.”

Lonnie didn't know about “the whole school.” Usually the whole school means a handful of students. Except that in this case, he was probably mistaken.

While he was hanging his backpack in his locker, Jo Marie Elrod came up behind him and said, “I heard about what you and Axel and Herman did yesterday.”

Lonnie couldn't believe that the story had gotten around so quickly, even Jo Marie knew about it. “What
did we do?” he asked, acting as if he didn't know what she was talking about.

“You know what you did,” she said. “But more important, God knows. Just like He knows about how you sneak out of church on Sunday mornings.” Jo Marie pointed an accusing finger at him. “Don't try to deny it, Lonnie. I've seen you go out the back door of the church and then come back in at the end of the service. I don't know where you go, but pretending that you're in church when you're not, is a sin, and you're going to have to answer to the Lord for it.”

Lonnie flashed her a snarky smile. “If I have to answer to the Lord, can I just send Him a text?”

“Don't mock the Lord, Lonnie Rodríguez,” Jo Marie fumed. “Don't you dare mock the Lord. Ezekiel twenty-five, seventeen says, ‘I will execute terrible vengeance against them to punish them for what they have done. And when I have inflicted my revenge, they will know that I am the Lord.'”

“Yeah, well, thanks for the Sunday school lesson, Jo Marie. But I've got to get to class or Mr. Arrington might execute terrible vengeance on me if I'm late.”

Lonnie grabbed his books and strolled down the hallway. Jo Marie rattled off something else, but he didn't catch it.

Mr. Arrington stood at his door greeting his students. Inside his room, he kept a wooden box that looked like a pirate's treasure chest. But instead of treasure, the box was filled with costumes Mr. Arrington wore when he taught about certain periods in Texas history.

During the first week of school, he dressed up as a Spanish conquistador, while he shared the story of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and of his search for the
Seven Cities of Cibola. On another occasion, he taught the class dressed as the French explorer, René-Robert LaSalle.

Yvette Sosa was in Texas history with Lonnie. He had known her since the third grade, when they were in Ms. Camacho's class together. They'd also had Mr. Treviño as their teacher. After fourth grade, Yvette moved to Austin, but she and her family returned to Marsville this year.