Dark Road (8 page)

Dan turned off the flashlight and they left as their eyes adjusted to the dark.

Chapter Nine

Getting home seemed to take twice as long as the trek to the Taylor’s had, but in reality they had skimped on some of the stealth and made it back in almost half the time. They were whispering as they got to the front of the house and Marissa was putting her key into the door. Marissa had moved the Ruger to her left hand so she could get her keys out of her right front pocket and Dan was carrying basically everything else.

Both of them froze when the door slowly opened on its own. Keys forgotten and still in her pocket, Marissa’s initial thought was that Bekah had woken up while they were gone, and when she realized they were home had come to open the door for them. “Bekah, honey, you know you shouldn’t open the door when Mommy and Daddy aren’t home.”

Marissa’s heart stopped cold when she heard Carey’s voice, and she dropped her keys. “A very good lesson that I’m sure she’s learned well. Maybe we should wake her up and ask her?”

Both Marissa’s and Dan’s minds were racing.
How did he know? What has he done? What have
we
done?

“Now,” Carey said, “why don’t you two tell me just what you’ve been up to at the Taylor house and what you’ve found, hmm?”

“Let’s go inside and we’ll tell you everything.” Dan said.

Marissa shot him a look, but didn’t say anything.

“Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think you’ll be coming back into this house until my curiosity has been satisfied,” Carey said. “And, after all, isn’t possession nine-tenths of the law? So why don’t you start by answering my questions. What were you doing out so late at night, or should I say early in the morning, skulking about in the dark like common criminals?”

“We’re not the ones in someone else’s house Carey!” Marissa hissed. “We’re not the ones in someone else’s home with someone else’s
children
without their permission, Carey!”

“Now now, I’m a parent too, and someone needs to look out for these two lovely little girls while their parents are out doing heaven only knows what. Why, anything could have happened to you while you were out.” Carey’s voice grew dark. “And I can guarantee you that you will never see these children again if you don’t play ball will me starting right…now.”

Carey took a step into the doorway and Dan and Marissa had to step back or be run into when he took another step outside and closed the door. “I am tired of you two lying to me and you
will
answer my questions, and you
will
tell me what you were doing in that house, and you
will
tell me what’s in those cases right now. If not, I will take your children,” he was looking from Marissa to Dan and back again, but mostly at Marissa and the look of utter horror on her face, “and I will find another family who would love to have two darling little girls, or possibly two families who would each like a little girl, and I will banish you from the community!”

Dan was numb. Numb with fear, shock, and pain. How could this evening have spun so entirely out of control? We were going to grab the guns and make good our escape. In retrospect it sounded like the plot of a really bad Western and those always went horribly wrong…but this, this was supposed to have been different.

Marissa hung her head and hugged herself for a second and the look of triumph on Carey’s face told Dan everything, right up until she looked back up. Marissa wasn’t defeated.

While she’d been hugging herself she’d dropped her right hand to the butt of her gun and she drew it as she looked up. Carey’s attention was on her face instead of her hand, which was a bad move on his part but in the end it wouldn’t have mattered. Once Dan saw the look on her face he put down his burdens and got ready to do “something”—what, he had no idea, and the thought of pulling his own gun never occurred to him.

“OK, Carey, you want answers? We found the key to Mr. Taylor’s gun safe and we found this.” Marissa pulled up her 9mm and handed the .22 to Dan, who now had two empty hands. We also found a number of other guns but this is the only one you need to be worried about right now.” Then she thumbed off the safety and pulled back the slide to chamber a round.

Carey didn’t grasp the gravity of the situation. “You should have come to me with this immediately. The community needs those for protection, possibly to hunt. We’ve been trying to figure out a way to get into that safe for three months! The last thing we need is for people sneaking around in the middle of the night to
steal
guns from other people.” Carey didn’t see the least bit of hypocrisy in the last two things he’d said.

“I’m afraid that knowing this, it’s going to change your standing in the community. We’re obviously going to need to take those guns.”

Carey reached out to grab the .22 from Dan and, almost as a second thought, grab the 9mm from Marissa. He was too slow, and it was a mistake either way. Marissa lowered the barrel to Carey’s chest, the muzzle touching directly over his heart, and pulled the trigger in the blink of an eye.

At first it appeared that nothing had happened. It was quieter than any of the three had anticipated it would be, but not silent by any stretch of the imagination. The majority of the noise from a firearm comes from the end of the barrel, the muzzle, and having that pressed against Carey’s chest absorbed quite a lot of it. A couple of streets over, the first of the remaining dogs in the neighborhood started to bark.

Carey had time to look down at his chest, grimace, open his mouth, and then tumble forwards. Both Marissa and Dan had to jump out of the way to keep from having Carey fall on them. Marissa and Dan stared at each other for several seconds until Dan broke the silence by saying, “Rissa, what did you just do?”

“I…the girls…he threatened…” Marissa closed her eyes for two seconds and took a deep breath.

When she opened her eyes she had changed again, like she had on the night Danny died. “He threatened the girls, Dan, he was threatening us. He’s not going to be threatening anyone else anymore. Let’s get him behind the bushes and then we need to get into the house before someone comes out to see what the noise was.” She swallowed, proving she wasn’t actually completely over it. “It’s been a couple of weeks since we heard gunshots around here but we can hope everyone just keeps their heads down for a little while. Dan, I did what needed to be done.”

“Right, ok…and then we need to talk.”

“Fine, later.” Marissa replied. “Get his shoulders; we need to get him off the porch.”

The number of barking dogs was up to three.

…

Once they were inside, they both noticed that Bekah was awake and looking at them from under her covers. Jessie was still sound asleep.

Marissa was the first one to her but only by half a step. “Bekah, honey, are you ok? Did anything happen while we were gone?” Dan asked.

“Mr. Carey came in through the window in the kitchen, but I stayed still because I didn’t want him to know I was awake,” she said.

Dan closed his eyes and let out the breath he’d been holding. “Good girl,” Marissa said. “Mr. Carey is gone now. It’s ok.”

“What was the noise outside?” Bekah asked.

“Don’t worry about it right now,” Dan told her. “Mommy and I need to do some things and you need to get some more sleep.”

Bekah wasn’t stupid, so she wasn’t going to argue with her parents, but she also wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep. “Ok,” she said and then rolled over and pretended to try to go back to sleep while Dan and Marissa watched her for a few seconds and then went into the other room.

“We have to leave, like tonight or this morning, as in, as soon as we can pack the bikes.” Dan said.

Marissa nodded her head. “I know. I’m sorry. Not for what I did but for what it means we have to do.”

The look on Dan’s face was one of shock, and bewilderment, and dismay. “Come again? You just
killed
a man Rissa. You’re not sorry?”

“No, Dan, I’m not.” Marissa’s face was as hard as her voice. “And once the shock wears off you’ll be able to see my point of view, even if you won’t agree with it. He threatened us and our children, and I would not and will not have it. Not now, not ever.” Then she walked away to start packing.

…

The last thing to pack took the longest because they had to get Jessie awake enough to get her into the pull-behind and that was no mean feat. Bekah was still awake, and when Marissa realized she hadn’t gone back to sleep she had her get up and get dressed since she would be riding her own bike anyway.

As Marissa was bringing the last load of things out to the garage she saw Dan tinkering with the lawnmower and asked him what he was doing.

“Creating a diversion.”

“How so?” She asked.

“It’s been over a month since anyone has heard a lawnmower, right?” Dan asked. Marissa nodded. “Well, even though they siphoned out all the gas from the tank there’s still a little bit in the bowl of the carb and the tank that they couldn’t have gotten. I’m guessing it’ll run for at least a couple of minutes.”

“I’m going to take it down the street and around the corner a half a dozen houses in the other direction from where we’re going and fire it up. I figure if I leave it running on the sidewalk, everyone will come out to see what the commotion is and hopefully won’t even notice us leaving. With the gunshot earlier, some people are bound to be awake already. When we open the garage door someone is more than likely going to come outside and investigate. I’m going to take this out through the front door and have it running when we open the garage door.”

Marissa nodded. “All the attention will already be down at the lawnmower and hopefully they won’t even notice us taking off.”

“Right.”

…

Rick Gayle usually didn’t remember his dreams but he typically didn’t wake up directly from REM sleep either. In this case he did both. He’d been dreaming of a backyard barbecue consisting of 1¼ inch thick sirloins, bratwurst, cold beer, and fresh corn on the cob—with fresh strawberry shortcake for dessert. Man he missed ice cold beer...scratch that, he missed beer period! Then some jerk had spoiled it by cranking up the lawnmower next door. How freakin’ inconsiderate can you be? It’s grilling weather; you don’t mow the lawn during your neighbor’s party!

Then the dream started unraveling, everything except for the lawnmower. The smells went away, the wonderful succulent taste of medium sirloin, and ice-cold beer, and fresh strawberries. And yet still the sound of the lawnmower remained. It was dark because the power was out and had been for months. It was…almost 3:00 am! Who is mowing their lawn? More importantly HOW are they mowing their lawn?

…

“Where did you put the mower?” Marissa asked.

“In front of Rick Gayle’s house.” Dan said.

“What? Why on earth for?”

“I don’t know. I got that far down the road and figured I was about as far as I thought I could go and still get back here in time with the mower running and get the garage door open and everything. Then I realized whose house I was I front of.” Dan shrugged. “I wasn’t going to backtrack.”

“Well, too late now.” Marissa said. She looked out the window beside the door and didn’t see anyone on their street, so they ran to the garage—hearts racing—opened the garage door as quickly as they could, and set off…and made it three whole houses before someone called out to them.

“Who is that? Who’s that on the bikes?”

“Really?” Dan muttered under his breath.

“Just keep pedaling, don’t answer, and don’t look back—and whatever you do, don’t stop!” Marissa said, both to Dan and to Bekah. Her voice was shaking both with fear and excitement. Adrenaline was coursing through everyone at this point.

“Dan? Is that you?”

“Seriously?” Dan said loud enough for Marissa to hear.

“It’s the pull-behind, Dan, who else has one in the neighborhood?” Marissa said.

“At least they aren’t shooting at us.” Bekah said.

“Don’t talk like that, dear.” Marissa said.

“Halt or I’ll shoot!” A new voice from off to the side barked.

“SERIOUSLY!?” Dan yelped but didn’t stop pedaling.

They were coming up to a corner where they made the first deviation from their planned escape route. The shout to halt had come from their left and Dan judged that if they turned left the “shooter” would be cut off.

“Turn left at the corner!” He whispered, loudly enough for his family to hear but hopefully not loudly enough for anyone else.

Just then, there was a gunshot, and Dan’s heart sank and he almost fell off the bike.

“KEEP GOING!” Marissa shouted. “He shot up into the air.”

Dan chanced a look over his shoulder and saw that, at the very least, both his wife and daughter were still riding their bikes. “Jessie, you ok?” He asked.

“Uh huh.” She yelped.

I should have gotten gas. I should have stolen an SUV. I should have gotten us out sooner. I should have had an arsenal in the house. We should have been better friends with the Taylors and had him take us when they left.
All of these thoughts were running through Dan’s mind at the same time as
I can’t go any faster because I can’t leave my eight-year-old daughter behind. I’m a horrible father for even
thinking
that!

They made the left turn and nobody fell, and the trailer didn’t come unhooked. To get out of the neighborhood they would need to make the next two rights, and then the next left…and hope they didn’t get shot at anymore.

“Is everyone ok?” Dan asked. “Bekah, are you ok honey?”

She didn’t answer at first, and when Dan looked over at her he could see in what little starlight there was that there were tear tracks on her face.

“Honey, can you keep up for a little longer?” Dan asked.

She nodded her head and said, “Yeah, Dad.”

“Just a little further, honey, then we can stop.” Dan said.

“We have to keep going, I hear running behind us!” Marissa shouted from his left.

The mower had died about the time that the guard had fired into the air, which was going to draw even more guards. They had to get out of the neighborhood
now
. Dan was pretty sure that they wouldn’t be pursued outside of the neighborhood, but he wasn’t positive.