The Hole (19 page)

Slowly, like it was a bowling ball and not a tiny metal box, Evajean brought the box up until it was over her head and her arms were straight. It seemed to absorb the light now and glowed with a faint yellow aura. Evajean stood like that for a minute before her hands and the box started to shake, then sway, and then fall to her sides, the artifact clutched in her left palm.

“I can’t,” she said, still looking toward the room’s front window. “There’s nothing there. It’s just a box.”

“It’s okay,” he said, but it wasn’t. Evajean could squirm through the window and, if she didn’t make enough doing it and if the crazies weren’t watching the back of the hotel, she’d manage to get away. But then where would she go? And what would he do?

Evajean was back at the window, standing this time, leaning through the split in the curtains. Elliot was taking a step toward her, ready to shout at her to get down, when she said, “I think we can make it.”

He stopped. “Make it where?”

“To the truck,” she said. “If we run. We didn’t lock it. We could jump in and lock the doors and then run them over if we need to.”

“Your serious.”

“I think we can. It’s not very far. I mean, it’s right there, Elliot. Seven feet away. Eight, maybe. And they’re-”

“Farther than that,” he said. It made sense. And it beat sitting in the room, waiting for the crazies to make the first move. “Okay. I’ll get the dog. We get dressed, put the box in your jacket, and we leave everything else. If we’re going to do it, we can’t be slowed down with our hands full of stuff.”

“I really think we can, Elliot.”

“I know,” he said. “Let’s do it, then.”

He pulled on his jeans, socks, and boots. Evajean had only her shoes to put back on. That done, Elliot picked up Hope. He kicked, but Elliot only adjusted his grip tighter until he quit.

They stood by the room’s door, Elliot with one hand on the knob, the other on the latch for the deadbolt. “Ready?” he said.

Evajean exhaled. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he said. “When I open this door, run. Go straight to the passenger side and get in. Lock your door.”

She nodded.

“Good,” Elliot said. “I’m going to open it now.” He turned the deadbolt. The lock slid easily, clicking open. He pulled in a large breath and let it out. This is it, he thought. You’re going to do this and it’s going to work. “Okay,” he whispered to himself. “Okay.”

And twisted the knob.

He swung the door open, jumping out of its way, and then was running. He could hear Evajean behind him, her sneakers slapping the concrete. The truck was right there, parked just to the left of their room, between the white lines. But the crazies were right there as well and, as soon as the hotel room door opened and the light from the flashlights swept across Elliot and Evajean’s faces, they came forward, stumbling over each other, reaching out-and babbling in their odd language, the noise in deafening layers.

Evajean got to her side as he was still rounding the front of the truck. She yanked at the door and then screamed at him. “It’s locked!” She pulled harder, rocking forward and back, and Elliot could only ignore her, could only focus on getting to his side, getting into the truck.

His door was open. The latch gave a terrific pop as he pulled the handle and then he was inside, yanking the door shut, dropping Hope and leasing across the cab to pull at the lock on Evajean’s side. His fingers slipped on the metal stud, however, and through the window, behind her, he could see the crazies approaching, not more than ten feet-three or four paces-away. He felt sick and his head hummed and, somewhere beneath his feet, Hope howled.

No, he thought. No, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. He focused. And, just as the first crazy-a fat man in his forties, disheveled hair held in random spikes by the remnants of styling gel-reached out a hand for Evajean, reached out a hand that was so close he was sure she could feel it, he got the grip he needed on the metal and pulled. It snapped up. Evajean yanked again on the door and it came open. She climbed inside just as the fat man’s fingers slid across the back of her jacket.

But then the door was closed and locked again and they both sat, too stunned for anything else, as the crazies closed in around the truck. When a palm smacked against his window, however, Elliot came out of it and jammed the key into the ignition and turned. The engine sputtered and came to life, its satisfied roar driving the crazies back a step. Elliot shoved the stick into reverse, put his foot on the gas, and heard a pained yelp.

Hope was under there, cowering beneath the pedals. “Get out!” he shouted, but the dog only pulled back further. The crazies had come forward again and the truck shifted as two climbed onto the back. Elliot reached down, his face mashed into the steering wheel, and groped around for the dog. He felt fur, grabbed, and pulled. Hope screamed at him and bit his hand, but he didn’t let go and hauled the animal out, throwing it behind Evajean’s seat.

Evajean was looking out the back of the truck, watching as the crazies shoved supplies out and into the parking lot as they crawled across to get at the rearview window.

The pedals now free, Elliot slammed down the gas and the truck jumped backwards. One of the crazies on board fell off but the other held on to a drum of gasoline and maintained his place. “Go!” Evajean shouted at him. “Go!”

A week ago, Elliot couldn’t have called himself a killer. Aside from a brief fight in middle school, when another kid had shoved him in the locker room mostly to see what would happen, Elliot hadn’t hurt anyone. At the moment he pulled the truck back out of its parking space, his body count was two: the woman in Wal-Mart and the little boy in the road above Nahom. The former had been a panicked moment of self-defense, however, and the latter an accident, an inability to swerve out of the way in time. Now the murder was slow and the number unguessable.

The back tire of the truck thumped twice: up and onto a crazy and then back down to the pavement. They did it again. And again. He backed the truck up in a wide arc and countless crazies were crushed in its sweep. His mind was too occupied to contemplate this now, but it surely would later.

Evajean had her hands pressed into the dash and she squeaked each time the truck’s tires made another thump. The dog whimpered from behind her seat. Crazies punched at the windows and one threw a flashlight, cracking the windshield in a long, horizontal line at Elliot’s eye level.

He pushed the stick into first gear and drove over three crazies who were trying to get up onto the truck’s hood. The back left tire stuck and then spun. He let off the gas and then pumped it slowly until the wheel came free. “Oh, God,” Evajean repeated over and over, whispering it to herself.

Then they were back out on the road and heading to the highway, with one crazy clawing up the truck’s front grille and three more in the back, trying to get to the rear window. Elliot swerved, trying to throw them off, but all four hung on and Evajean kept saying “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” He could crush the one on the front if he needed to, just drive the truck into a wall at low speed. But the three on the back had stuff to hang on to. Even if he could get the truck up to fifty or sixty miles per hour, they’d just stay back there, like kids in the bed of a pickup. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to get into the cab. The back window was small, only six inches high. Breaking it would allow them to reach inside at most. What concerned him more was the threat to their supplies. If the crazies got mad enough, they might start tossing the food and guns and gasoline off the truck, ruing this second chance he and Evajean had been given.

Elliot accelerated as the crazy in front pulled himself onto the hood.

Evajean screamed something, but he didn’t hear her. He couldn’t figure out what to do, couldn’t think of any way to get these damn crazies off the truck. So he drove. He kept his foot pressed all the way down on the gas, the truck accelerating, its frame shaking as it passed forty miles per hour. The crazy on the front slipped back onto the grille, its hands flailing out across the truck’s rusted hood, finding no purchase. It didn’t come all the way off, however. Elliot could still see the top of its head rising just beyond the broken metal lump where a hood ornament used to be.

Up ahead, a road sign told him to get in the right lane for the freeway. To the left, a side road ran into a collection of warehouses and large, fenced in parking lots full of tractors, buses, and other industrial vehicles. Elliot looked at the crazy on the front and, through the rearview mirror, the two on the back. He was out of options, really, and there was only one thing left he could think of to do. Yanking the wheel, hoping to dislodge at least one of their unwanted passengers, he took the turn to the left, into the industrial park. This is stupid, he told himself. Easily the dumbest move you’ve made in a long time. But what choice did he have?

“I want you to get ready to run,” he said to Evajean as he slowed around a curve leading to a collection of large and dark warehouse buildings, surrounded on all sides by stacked shipping containers and palettes of lumber.

“Run?” Her voice was weak and out of breath.

“Get ready to. When I stop.”

She spun to face him and Elliot accelerated again, relieved to see the gate to the complex was open. “You’re stopping?” she snapped at him. “Why are we stopping?”

“Just get ready.” He leaned forward, over the dash, scanning for a good place. There, a hundred yards ahead, along the barbed wire topped fence, was a pile of massive metal shipping crates, tumbled over and laying in a mound twenty feet high. The smashed remains of other items, wooden palettes and and a crushed tractor, spread out from underneath. He turned the truck in that direction.

“What are you doing?” Evajean shouted at him, but he ignored her. She pulled Hope close to her chest.

“Get ready,” he said. “Take off your seatbelt.”

She nodded, confused, and did as he asked. Elliot, without taking his eyes off the pile, let the truck begin to slow, and unbuckled his own. The crazy in front had pulled itself all the way back up and clawed its fingers into the gap between the back of the hood and the windshield. It yanked forward and its face had just touched the glass when Elliot rammed his foot down on the break.

“Now!” he yelled and, as soon as their forward motion ceased, he pulled open his door and sprinted away from the truck, into the obscuring tangle of broken plywood. Only when he felt a safe distance away did he look back for Evajean.

She was ten paces behind him, running full out, the dog barking from inside the flap of her jacket. “Run!” he called to her and when she was close, he began moving again as well. They dashed around the pile, not glancing back, not seeing if the crazies had managed to follow.

“Where are we going?” Evajean asked, panting.

“Away. We’re going to hide.”

“So they-”

“Hide until it’s dark or they wander off. Until we can get back to the truck.”

“They’re not following us,” she said.

Elliot looked back, slowing his sprint to a jog. She was right. Through the breaks in the wood pile, he could see the truck. The crazies were still there, though the one on the front had climbed into the back to join the others. Elliot stopped running and stared. “What are they doing?” he said.

“I think they’re waiting,” Evajean said. “For us to come back to the truck.”

“I don’t think they’ll stay.”

Evajean reached into her jacket, took out the dog, who twisted and nipped at her, and stuffed it back inside. She stared at Elliot.

“They’ll come look for us,” he said.

“And we’ll hide.”

“Yes.” He looked around. They were near the side of one of the warehouses, corrugated aluminum rising two stories above them. A little way down was the square protrusion of an entrance. “There,” he said. “Let’s see if we can get inside.”

“Yeah,” Evajean said. “Okay.”

They stayed close to the wall as they approached the door, staying low. The moon was bright enough that they could see their shadows.

“What if it’s locked?” she asked, when they were half way there.

“We find somewhere else. We get further away from here. When it’s morning, we go back to the truck and try to hurt them if we need to.” He thought of the woman in Wal-Mart, of the rage he’d felt as he drove the mannequin arm into her, over and over. He could do it again. If he had to, he could kill all three of them.

The door was, astonishingly, unlocked. Standing open a few inches, it creaked as he pushed it the rest of the way. Evajean hissed in breath at the sound and they both waited, frozen, listening for the crazies. But there was nothing and so they squeezed through the opening, not risking pushing it further. Hope panted inside Evajean’s jacket, calmed.

They were in a tiny office, though Elliot could only tell by the dark shape of a desk and the moon glint off a wall clock. Otherwise, he couldn’t make out anything. “Stay low,” he said to Evajean, “and go careful. Don’t bump into anything.”

He moved in front, feeling out with his hands, reminded of their flight through the caves. His fingers brushed a mesh trash can and the plastic base of a office chair. There had to be another door at the back of the room, one that lead into the warehouse proper. Once in there, they’d find a spot as far from this entrance as possible, so they’d have the most time to react if the crazies discovered their hiding place.

“There,” Evajean said.

“What?”

“Over there. I think there’s a door.”

Elliot looked. A rectangle of bluish grey hung in the middle of a large blank of deep grey. An open door.

“I’ll go first,” he said.

“Okay,” Evajean said.

He worked his way over there, continuing to go slow, feeling for anything that’d make a lot of noise if they ran into it. It was weird that the crazies had stayed at the truck instead of chasing them, but he’d given up on their motivation. Instead, Elliot took it as a lucky break and nothing more and reminded himself that the crazies might have realized their mistake, might be coming after him and Evajean right now. So he went slow and Evajean did the same.