Run Away Baby (22 page)

“You’re in no place to negotiate,” said Charlie.

“But I am.”

Out here, in the rustling night breeze, beneath the moonlight, they could look in each other’s eyes. Charlie blinked a couple of times.

“I’m telling you Charlie, you can’t make things right but you can make them better,” she whispered.

He grabbed her arm and marched her back down to the fire.

Rake had added more wood to it, so now it was a gigantic, crackling bonfire. He barely looked their way when they sat back down in their lawn chairs; he was too busy glaring up in the distance.

“I figure they live up that way,” he said to no one in particular.

“Well, I don’t know about y’all, but I’m hungry,” Meggie said. She went over to the cooler, found a bag of hotdogs, and tore it open. Next, she rummaged around on the ground until she found a stick. She dipped the tip of the stick into the fire, waited for it to ignite, and then blew out the flame. She rubbed the sooty tip on the edge of her shoe, and then stuck it through a hotdog. None of what she did made sense to Abby, but it was so methodical that Abby felt sure Meggie had done it many times before. The hotdog-on-a-stick dangled over the flames, Meggie turning it slightly. No more than a minute went by before she decided it was ready to eat. Instead of eating it, though, she turned to Rake. “You want this?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Why didn’t you tell him it’s your place?”

“It was none of his fucking business.”

“Okay,” Meggie said. She took a small bite of the hotdog, and then set it in her lap so she could light a cigarette. She took her time, alternating between small, almost dainty, bites of the hotdog and leisurely puffs on the cigarette. This wasn’t how Abby would have predicted she’d consume a hotdog. Starving, she thought about asking if she could have one too, but she held back.

“That guy had a lot of fucking nerve,” Rake said.

Abby nodded sympathetically. Maybe he’d forget all about his plans for her now that he had someone else to focus on.

“Who the fuck does he think he is, coming down here and trying to, trying to…” Rake stumbled on his words.

“Intimidate you,” Abby offered.

“Trying to fucking intimidate me. Who the fuck does he think he is?”

No one answered. Charlie cracked open another beer. Meggie got up and went to the cooler for another hotdog. Abby caught her eye and raised one finger and smiled, hoping she’d realize she wanted one too, but Meggie closed the lid on the cooler and sat back down, oblivious.

“I think we should take a walk,” Rake said to Charlie. “Go find him. They must be pretty close if they saw the fire. I’m not done with him yet.”

“You’re
not?”
Charlie asked. Abby saw his eyes flick over to her and back to Rake.

“Did you see his truck? His fucking wannabe rancher Toyota Tundra? Did you see how fucking
clean
it was? It looked like he just drove it out of a showroom. I’ll bet he’s some office job corporate motherfucker. Probably sits behind a desk and watches people on a little computer screen and tells them to work faster. Or he’s a teacher. He reminds me of a fucking high school teacher, doesn’t he? That fucker wouldn’t know a day of hard work if… if…”

“If he was up to his eyeballs in it,” said Meggie, trying to help now, as well.

Rake nodded and continued ranting: “That fucking truck couldn’t haul anything bigger than a lawn cart. What a fucking douchebag.”

“Hey, are you serious? Let’s let this go,” Charlie said.

Rake ignored him. “I’ll bet they didn’t even lose a dog. I’ll bet they were just coming this way to nose the fuck around.”

“You really don’t think there was a dog?” asked Meggie. “I believed them! I sure hope there’s a dog. I’ve told you, Rake, I want a dog. If he shows up here I’m gonna keep him.”

“He’s not gonna show up, because there
is
no dog. The dog story is bullshit.”

“Listen to me. Calm down for a second and listen. I don’t know if we should start anything,” said Charlie.

“We aren’t.
He
did.
We
aren’t starting
anything.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t even see me or Abby,” said Charlie.

“I don’t appreciate someone telling me I’m trespassing on my own land.”

“But Rake, isn’t it kind of not
really
your land anymore?” asked Meggie. “Right?” She shrugged.

“You’re pretty tough right now that you’ve got an audience,” he said to her.

She lit another cigarette and focused her attention back on the leaping flames in front of her.

“I think mixing with them any more than what already happened is a bad idea,” said Charlie.

“You’re not really gonna make me finish what he started on my own?” Rake said to Charlie. He stood up and tossed his beer can into the fire. “If you want me to have your back, you’ve gotta have my back.”

“Do you want
me
to come with you?” Meggie asked when Charlie stayed planted in his lawn chair, nibbling on his lip.

“No. You’re gonna stay here and babysit,” said Rake. He reached into the back of his pants and pulled out a gun. He handed it to Meggie, but looked at Abby. “Listen, you rich bitch. She knows how to use this, so don’t do anything stupid.”

“Don’t you need that to scare those people?” Abby asked.

“I don’t need a gun for what I’ve got planned for them. But if I did, I’ve got another one just about like that in my truck.”

“Okay,” Abby said. She noticed Meggie didn’t ask him why she was babysitting Abby, and using a gun to do so.

“I can’t control her. She’s taller than me. And I’m sleepy! You need to tie her up or something,” Meggie said to Rake.

“No. That’s not necessary at all,” said Abby. “I’ll behave myself. Please don’t tie me up. I’m fine. I’ll sit right here and be good.”

“Shut up,” Rake told her.

“Charlie,” Abby said, “please tell them that I won’t do anything. Tell them not to tie me up.”

“Whatever you’ve got planned for those people, I don’t like it,” Charlie said to Rake.

“But you’ll help me,” said Rake. Charlie nodded an almost imperceptible nod. Rake turned to Meggie then. “Go get the duct tape out of my truck.”

“Which kind?”

“The roll of gray tape. Bring it down here.”

She ran up to his truck and was back a couple of minutes later with it. Rake took it from her and said to Abby in a noxiously sweet voice, “Do you need to tinkle before I tape you to your chair?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it.”

She rose from the chair and took a step away from the fire pit. Rake shook his head. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Up the hill a little ways.”

“Do it here if you have to.”

“In front of you all?”

“Yeah. Do it.”

“I can hold it,” she said. She’d wet her pants later in the chair, if it came to that.

“Then sit back down.” The whole time Charlie sat there, staring off in the distance, drinking his beer. Abby’s saga was unfolding before him like a TV show someone had left on in another room.

Rake wrapped the tape around her waist, all the way around the back of the chair, in several layers. He avoided taking it to a sexual level, perhaps because Meggie was feet away, smoking a cigarette, a gun resting in her lap. She looked sad and sick and uncomfortable, but not shocked, not confused. She looked to Abby like a kid who needed to go home and take some Pepto after a long, overstimulating day at an amusement park.

Rake taped Abby’s wrists to the chair’s armrests. There was no fabric to protect them and she couldn’t imagine what kind of torture it would be removing the tape. If it ever got removed. Maybe this would be how they’d find her. A mosquito landed on her cheek and she tried to blow it away.

“Pesky little fucker,” said Rake, brushing at it. “Is that better?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Good. Glad I could be of service.” He applied a little more tape, to be on the safe side. “Another layer of the good stuff,” he said. He held up the roll of tape. “And
this
is good stuff. You can fix a leaky pipe, a rusty car, hell, you can hold your whole fucking house together with a roll of this.” He tore off a small piece and stuck it over her mouth. She waved her head back and forth emphatically. He yanked off the tape. “What’s the problem now?”

“I can’t breathe. Please. My nose is stuffed up from my allergies.”

“You don’t have allergies.”

“Yes I do.”

“Your nose ain’t stuffed up.”

“Yes it is!” She sniffed weakly a couple of times. “See? Please,” she turned to Charlie, “tell him that I won’t be able to breathe if my mouth is covered. I’ll suffocate. I’m not kidding. Please!”

“Don’t cover her mouth,” said Charlie.

“Are there really bullets in here?” Meggie said.

“Yeah there’s fucking bullets,” Rake said to Meggie, not looking up at her as he wound tape around Abby’s ankles, affixing them to the aluminum chair legs. Then he got right up in Abby’s face, extra close, his warm beer breath huffing against her eyeballs. “Fit as a fiddle,” he said. He stood up and dusted himself off.

“Can you show me again how to use this thing?” asked Meggie.

“Cock it, point and click. Only you’re not going to have to worry about it, because our prisoner’s gonna behave herself. Right?” he said.

“Right,” said Abby.

“Now you sit tight. Let Meggie entertain you with some of her stories. Have a little story time. Chuck and me’ll be back before you know it.”

Abby pressed her lips together, aware that it hadn’t hurt at all when he’d ripped off the tape that had been covering her mouth. Perhaps because he’d just applied it, or maybe it was old or not really the ‘good stuff’ after all.

Charlie stood up then and he and Rake began walking in the direction they supposed the neighbor lived. It wasn’t long before they were back. They picked Abby up and carried her in her chair toward the two small sheds.

“What’s going on?” Meggie yelled, dancing along beside them.

They dropped Abby between the sheds, then turned and were on their way again. Meggie brought her chair over along with a handful of hotdogs. When Meggie handed two of the hotdogs to Abby, she inhaled them both, too hungry to complain that they were slimy and uncooked, or that Meggie had been holding them in her bare hands.

Meggie stood there watching, pointing the gun at Abby like she thought she was supposed to do. Every couple of seconds she’d flail the gun around as she swatted away mosquitoes.

“You’re making me kind of nervous,” Abby said.

“I’m nervous too,” said Meggie.

“We don’t
have
to do what they tell us, you know.”

“Well,” Meggie said. Abby waited for her to continue, but she didn’t.

“I don’t think you need to point that at me unless I do something bad. And if you accidentally kill me, they might be mad because I’m guessing they have more use for me alive right now,” Abby said, trying to sound reasonable and not bossy.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” said Meggie. She lowered her hand with the gun to her side.

“What are they going to do to those people?” Abby asked.

“I don’t know. Probably… Oh, I don’t know. You never know with them.”

“You mean they’re both unpredictable? Charlie too?”

“Especially Charlie,” Meggie said with a laughing snort.

Abby shook her head.

“It’s buggy over here without the fire,” said Meggie. “Why do we have to sit over here?”

“Probably because they realized once they got into the dark and looked down at the fire that they could see us way too easily.”

“So?” said Meggie.

“Well, if they could, so could anyone else who was looking. And I’m taped to a chair. It looks a little suspicious.”

“Oh. Right. I’m gonna look in Rake’s truck for some bug spray. You can’t move, right? You’re totally stuck there?”

“Yeah,” Abby said.

She went away, having the audacity to whistle a little song as she departed. This was, of course, Abby’s moment to escape. She would never have a better opportunity. She might never be alone again. Something else she had learned in Wilderness Bob’s classes was that survival was first come, first served. In other words, take your chance when you can. Grab it. It might be your only one.

Abby leaned forward, attempting to catch the curling edge of some of the duct tape on her left wrist with her teeth. It was just the teensiest bit of tape; she was having no luck. She drew in a deep breath, trying to calm down, trying to steady herself. She gave it another try, this time tugging at a bit of it with her dry lips. The tape rose just enough that she could then grab it with her teeth. She pulled at it and a few inches of tape peeled back, lifting away from itself without much resistance. She turned her head and was able to pull back another couple of inches, but then it flopped and hung down beneath the chair arm, in a place she couldn’t easily reach. She froze, listening for the guys, listening for Meggie. The only thing she heard was a light, tinkling jangle, like a little angel ringing a bell. She looked around, squinting into the darkness, trying to determine where the sound was coming from. She saw nothing that explained it.