He waited for nightfall to leave the cave. Several times during the day he had stepped out to survey the ridge and plot his way down, formulating his plan and gearing himself up for another trek in the dark.
The stars were out and the moon illuminated his path through the desert. He didn’t run tonight. His muscles were sore, and fatigue racked his body. The sound of crunching dust below his shoes beat a cadence with his heart, and he marched on.
Several hours later, his heart skipped as he saw a sign of civilization.
A road.
Two lanes of paved blacktop running perpendicular to his path. He quickened his pace and jogged up to the pavement, standing on the shoulder.
Jack thought for a moment that he would see his rental car still sitting on the side of the road, but he knew this was foolish. He had no idea if this was the same stretch of highway, and so after looking down both horizons, he tried to knock the irrational thoughts of finding the broken-down Mustang out of his mind. He sat down on the shoulder and rested, trying to suppress the feeling that he was almost home. Almost done.
He recalled the night this all began, sitting on the center line and wishing for a quick end to it all. He was happy that he was alone. No burden of another’s suffering on his conscience. For all he knew, Laura was resting peacefully in the bed in the back of Boots’s cabin. Sure, she’d probably fumed at being left, but the way she got on with the old man, she more than likely spent the day on his front porch listening to stories, like a cheap lemonade commercial.
Jack felt the dimples in the road as they rested under the white shoulder stripe. Unchanging.
He thought about which way to go. The road must have led out from some town, or was on its way to one. Picking the wrong direction could kill him, leading him farther into the desert and away from people. Or he could keep going on the path he’d chosen, cutting cross-country toward the east. The only certainty he had was that he was not going to go back.
He got up and crossed the road, delaying his choice for those fifteen steps. The blackness of the night gave no indication of city lights on any horizon. It was a shot in the dark. A simple decision with the greatest ramifications. He stood there for several minutes, the supposed self-made man unable to choose his fortune. And then he saw it. Slowly building like a halo over the southern horizon. A white haze that grew in intensity until two halogens popped up over the road. A car. Driving fast and headed his way.
Excitement filled his heart as he pondered this development. He started thinking of rescue, but as the car approached, mile after mile, his stomach rose into his chest. The hair rose on the back of his neck with each passing second until it told him to move his feet. Whatever was coming down the road was forcing foreboding before it. Fear ran through his body and Jack knew that he needed to get off the road, to run as fast as he could east into the desert. His muscles ached and the sweat poured down his face as he ran, but it was as if his feet were in quicksand. Jack spotted a large boulder several yards ahead. With his body screaming at him, he leaped behind the boulder as the black pickup truck roared past. Jack cautiously peeked back at the road.
The truck went by the place he had been standing minutes before. The black pickup. He recalled Molly’s story, the sadistic kidnapper. The black pickup. What was this twisted narrative he was being forced to partake in?
As soon as Jack’s muscles began to ease their tension, he saw the brake lights turn on. The truck stopped in its tracks a quarter mile down the road. Then the white lights of its reverse gear kicked on as it squealed backward down the asphalt. Fear smothered Jack as he brought his legs in and cowered behind the rock.
The truck stopped. Suddenly a bright halogen light illuminated the desert in a narrow swath. The driver had gotten out and was using a flood lamp to look for something. His back to the boulder, Jack could see a beam of light pass over him to the left and disappear into darkness, the shadow of the rock shielding his presence from the giant flashlight. The beam disappeared for several minutes and Jack braved another peek.
The driver was on the other side of the road, several hundred yards off, searching with his light. Jack looked at the pickup idling on the highway a football field away. He could run for it, jump in the truck, and take off. Home free. But what if the guy had a gun? All it would take would be one noise, one pass of the lantern, and he would be spotted. He doubted he had the strength or speed to make it.
Suddenly his own position felt exposed. He looked east but could find no better cover. He wanted to run, farther into the desert. To find a better hiding spot. But again, the fear of being spotted filled every ounce of his being. He huddled himself down behind the boulder.
The light returned to his side of the road, and Jack thought he could make out the clicking sound of feet on pavement below the idling engine sound. He was in full-blown panic, waiting for the beam to stop on his position, for the boogeyman to come and do his work. But it never came.
Jack heard the sound of a car door slam, then the engine engage. The truck drove up the highway until the taillights faded from view.
He waited awhile to move, remembering every bad horror movie he had ever seen, expecting the truck to be lurking out of view, ready to fire up and chase him once he got up. But out here, there was no place to hide a truck. Boots was right. Out here, you can see ’em coming.
Jack stood, brushed himself off, and walked into the night. His heart rate settling back down as he thought about the irony of it all: he was now reciting Boots’s lines.