Short Story Class Exercise: "Turnaround"

She called the contraption Glinda, after the good witch in the Wizard of Oz. But Sarah Carter could tell that Rachel, her driving companion, wasn’t going to get it.

“Why did you name it Glinda?” Rachel asked as they were loading up the Corolla to drive home for winter break. Sarah found Rachel in the campus paper, the Berkeley Scout, under Rides. She was heading to Dallas to visit her sister for the holidays and offered to buy all the gas in exchange for a ride. With fuel prices on the rise, it was a deal Sarah couldn’t pass up.

“It’s kind of a joke between me and my father. When he bought me the GPS, he said that now whenever I got lost, all I had to do was turn it on, click my heels three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home,’ and Glinda the Good would magically get me there, like she did Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz—one of our favorite movies.”

“Cute,” Rachel said, her gravely voice caked with sarcasm. Sarah and Rachel were about as different as you could get. Rachel grew up just outside of Brooklyn with four brothers, a controlling mother and an indifferent father. Cynical and curt, Rachel was slow to trust and quick to anger, and she had no qualms about listing your faults one by one, in order of their irritability factor.
“Personally I think it’s a ridiculous waste of money and technology when a regular old fold-out map that you can get down at Joe Schmoe’s garage works just fine. I wouldn’t trust that thing, but whatever.”

Sarah bit her lip and looked down at her feet. She had never been very good at confrontation.

They shoved in the last item, an ice chest filled with water, fruit and cheese for the road, engulfed in an awkward silence. 
“Well, I guess that’s it!” Sarah said a bit too brightly. “Do you want to drive the first shift or shall I?” 
“I’ll do it,” Rachel said. “I can’t bear the thought of listening to Gilda just yet.”

Sarah wanted to tell her it’s Glinda, not Gilda, but instead she stared out the window while they drove over the Golden Gate Bridge just as the sun was setting, a rich tapestry of ochre and deep violet nestling into the blue Pacific. It reminded her of a Navajo rug she saw for sale on the side of the road once in New Mexico, like the fabric of heaven, she had thought. She had begged her father to stop, but he said those stands were filled with nothing but fakes and sped by while Sarah craned her neck around to get one last look. It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen, and like everything in her life it seemed, just out of reach.

By the time they pulled into Modesto for their first bathroom break, Sarah had finished writing to her boyfriend Jake in Wyatt, Texas. She remembered how they had rolled on the bed, laughing uncontrollably when he got the letter informing him of the scholarship to Abilene Christian University. He was a devout agnostic who thought organized religion was the tool of megalomaniacs used to control people of weak character. But a full ride was full ride, and he was confident he could fake it for four years. Sarah’s father would rather chew rusty nails than let his daughter spend her precious college years in Abilene, the armpit of Texas.

Sarah capped the calligraphy pen and put it back in the carved wooden box that held her stationary. Even though all of her friends teased her about her old-fashioned method of communication, Sarah found hand-written letters and notes romantic and classy. She could spend hours composing her thoughts and then lovingly transferring each notion and emotion, dream and desire, carefully etched onto crisp, clean sheets of paper in rich black ink.

“So what’s in the box?” Rachel asked, as she maneuvered into a tight space between a pick-up truck and a church van in the parking lot of Flying J’s Travel Center.

“It’s nothing. Just some paper and writing and stuff,” Sarah replied, shoving it under the seat. Rachel would have a field day giving her shit if she found the flowery notecards with sappy sentiments scribbled on them, and she didn’t want to give her the extra ammunition.

“Huh,” Rachel grunted. She turned off the ignition and threw the keys at Sarah. “Your turn, Emily Dickinson,” she said, and headed into busy truck stop.

###

They got as far as Phoenix before they had to stop for the night, which was not part of Sarah’s original plan. She had wanted to leave Berkeley at noon at the latest, but Rachel’s roommate locked her out of her dorm room earlier that morning after they had a fight over the ownership of a jar of Skippy’s Peanut Butter. It took her two hours to find the resident assistant to let her in so she could get her duffel bag.

They found a Motel 6 right off I-10 and after a late dinner at the Denny’s across the street, fell into bed exhausted. Sarah was awakened the next morning by the shrill sound of a car alarm shrieking outside their window. Rachel pulled the pillow over her head and mumbled something about breakfast. Sarah shimmied into her jeans, threw on a sweatshirt and went to the lobby for coffee and sweet rolls. When she got back to the room, Rachel was sitting straight up in the bed her eyes wide and the TV remote hanging limply from her hand.

“Oh, you’re up! I just…”

“Quiet!” Rachel shushed, and turned up the volume.

A young Asian newscaster was pointing to a map of the western United States. The camera zeroed on an area encompassing eastern New Mexico and west Texas with the words “Serial Killer Feared on the Loose” scrawled across the screen.

“Police found another body last night just outside of Midland-Odessa, strangled and eviscerated,” the reporter said, her voice rising and falling with carefully constructed concern. “As with earlier victims, the vital organs were removed and the remains left in the vehicle. The victim has been identified as 24-year-old Brenda Smothers, of El Paso, Texas. Police are linking this grisly death to three other bodies found in the last two weeks in the western portions of Texas and one near the New Mexico border. Cell phone records indicate that all four victims may have become lost even though all of their vehicles were equipped with navigational systems. FBI agents and profilers were brought in last week to assist state police with the case, which has received national attention. Investigators now believe that it is possible the killer or killers are somehow redirecting their victims from their original course as they travel through these remote counties.”

“Oh my god…” Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Careful, you’re about to spill!” Rachel said, taking the tilting Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee from Sarah’s grasp and putting them on the nightstand. “Isn’t that the direction we’re headed?”

“Yes. But we won’t get lost. We’ve got Glinda.”

###

They didn’t talk much as they loaded their overnight bags back into the car, each girl lost in her own thoughts. Sarah and Jake used to joke about how rural Texas is the perfect breeding place for maniacal killers. Chalk that up to one too many remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Sarah laughed at her own paranoia and shook her head.

“What’s so funny?” Rachel asked, shooting Sarah a suspicious glance.

“It’s no big deal. Just something I remembered.”

“Well, we could sure use something to take the edge off. Feel like sharing?”

Sarah sighed. “I don’t know that you’d think it’s very funny, especially after hearing about those murders.”

Sarah fired up the engine and let it idle for a few minutes. “Let’s make sure we have Gilda programmed and ready,” she said, reaching across Rachel’s lap to open the glove box.

Rachel grabbed her arm. “Tell me what you were giggling about earlier,” she demanded.

“Okay! Lighten up on the death grip, would ya? I was just remembering that movie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and how ridiculous it was.”
“But that was based on a true story, wasn’t it?”

“I guess so, but loosely. C’mon… that story was so over the top. My friends and I used to make fun of it, that’s what I was laughing about.”

Rachel slumped down in the seat and turned to look out the window. They were just entering New Mexico, and in a few hours they’d be in Las Cruces, the place where the first body was found.

When they stopped to gas up, Rachel bought the morning edition of the local newspaper. On the front page was a picture of a car pulled off to the side of a country road surrounded by yellow police tape and a coroner’s van parked a few feet away. The headline read: “West Texas Killings Worry Travelers.”

Inside the filling station a couple of county transit workers were getting coffee at the beverage island. “It’s a damn shame,” said the older of the two, pouring cream into his cup. “None of those girls was older than 25. Could’ve been my daughter. And weird how they got sidetracked.”

“Cops said they was all just driving through the state. None of ’em was locals,” his buddy responded, sucking his breath back through clenched teeth. “It’s ain’t good.”

Sarah paid for the gas and went back to the car. Rachel had her head buried between the pages of newspaper, her left knee rising and falling in quick succession as she tapped her foot—something Sarah noticed she did when she was upset or nervous.
“So, anything new?” she asked, hoping to get an idea of the emotional temperature in the car.

“Not really. Only that they think whoever’s doing it isn’t done. There were apparently clues at the last crime scene that’s leading them to believe he or they… or she… is going to strike again soon. They won’t reveal what tipped them off, though, so who knows. Could be purely sensationalism to sell more papers. The strange thing is, that all of the victims tried to make calls to get directions or get a bearing on where they were, but they never got the right information. They think that whoever’s doing this is able to tap into the cellular sites or satellites or whatever. I don’t really understand most of it.”

“Well, it’s definitely creepy. Let’s just make sure not to pick up any hitchhikers—no matter how cute they might be,” Sarah said, trying to lighten up the mood.

Rachel folded up the paper and stuck it between the seats. “Let’s just get going and get across that shithole of a state,” she said. 
“Hey, Texas isn’t all bad,” Sarah said defensively. “My family’s been here for generations. And my boyfriend’s going to school not too far from here.”

“Yeah, yeah. My sister lives in Dallas, remember. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though. Whoa, back it up,” Rachel said, straining against the seat belt to turn and face Sarah. “What’s this about a boyfriend?” she teased.

Sarah smiled for the first time that day. “His name is Jake and he’s on a full academic scholarship to ACU.”

“What’s ACU? And what’s he studying? Is he still your high school boyfriend or did you meet somewhere? How old is he? What’s he look like?”

“What is this, 20 questions?” Sarah said brightly. Sure was nice to have some regular conversation. All this talk about killers and gutted girls was giving her the heebie-jeebies.

“Abilene Christian University… I know, I know, but he’s just doing it because they’ve got a great digital communications department. He’s 22. We’ve been dating since our junior year and he’s got black curly hair and brown eyes.”

“Awww, how touching, high school sweethearts,” Rachel said, the sarcastic edge to her voice returning. “That’s a strange major, digital communications. Never heard of it.”

“ACU is one of the few schools that offer it. It’s basically the study of the technical aspect of communication, like the internet and satellites, that kind of stuff,” Sarah explained.

“Too bad he’s not here. I’ll bet he’d have some theories about how this killer is messing with the cell phone transmissions to get these girls out in the boonies and helpless.”

“Well, I actually tried calling him but didn’t get through. He might have his phone off or something.”

###

They crossed into Texas just as the last splash of sunlight lit up the sky, captured in the high clouds that had gathered during the afternoon. As night fell, a glorious full moon rose in the east, casting a soft glow over lavender hills blanketed with scrub and brushwood.

Pulling over for a quick bathroom break at a rest stop, they interrupted three truckers sitting on a picnic table smoking. As they walked toward the restrooms, they overheard the men talking about the murders. “That last one weren’t more ’n 20 mile from here, just over in Kiley,” said one, scratching his scruffy reddish beard.

After they had finished, the girls hurried back to the car, careful not to look up as they walked by the table. The truckers were oddly silent. Sarah and Rachel could feel three pairs of eyes burning into them as they passed. One of the men spat and yelled out, “Night ladies. Be careful out there!”

“My turn,” Rachel said. She grabbed the keys out of Sarah’s hand and quickly climbed into the driver’s seat. “You go too slow and I want to get the fuck out of here.”

Sarah got in beside her. Two of the lights in the rest area had blown out and it was dark. A lonely wind began to growl as it crawled across the desert and the girls shivered, even though it was still 90 degrees out. Rachel peeled out of the parking lot and shot onto the highway, which had narrowed to two lanes as it inched across the desolate swath of land between El Paso and Midland-Odessa. Except for an occasional 18-wheeler, they were alone on the road.

“Do you want to hear some music?” Sarah asked. Anything to keep from listening to Rachel drumming her fingers on the dash as she drove. Rachel didn’t answer. “I really wish you would use both hands to drive,” Sarah added, followed by a loud exhale.

“Do you want to drive? Do you want me to pull over, right here, on the side of the road, next to that skeleton of a smoke tree, in the dark? Is that what you want?” Rachel said, punishing each word.

“No. I just think, with this wind and all, that maybe it would be safer if you held on tighter.”

“I’ve never been in an accident in my life. You just worry about where we’re going, and I’ll worry about getting us there in one piece.” The words hung in the air. “You know what I mean,” she said, her voice faltering.

“Yeah, sure,” Sarah replied unconvincingly, her attention diverted. “Did you turn off the road or anything when I dozed off for those few minutes?” she asked, fiddling with the buttons on the GPS unit velcroed to the dash.

“No. Why?”

“Well, Glinda says we’re not on U.S. 80 anymore. She’s telling us to make a U-turn whenever possible, which usually means we took a wrong turn somewhere and she wants us to backtrack.”

Sarah turned up the volume. A tinny voice said, “Recalculating. When safe, make a U-turn.”

“That thing’s a piece of junk,” Rachel shot back, “I didn’t do anything wrong. I told you that we’d be much better off with a regular fold-out map. I’ve got one here somewhere.” Rachel began rummaging through her bag. “I could’ve sworn it was here. I took it out when I was reading about the serial killer, to see where we are with respect to the murders. I think it’s with the newspaper. Have you seen it?”

“Please stop looking while you’re driving. It’s making me really nervous. Besides, I think I threw it out,” Sarah added quietly.

“You what!?”

“I tossed the paper when I cleaned out the car at the rest stop. I think it might’ve been in the pile.”

“Jeesus H. Christ!” Rachel exclaimed. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? Here we are, in the middle of fucking nowhere—wait, let me change that—in a psychotic serial killer’s backyard, with no map, just some contraption that’s trying to tell us that we’re lost?”

“We’re not lost. We just must’ve missed a turn-off or a fork or something. Have you seen any markers?”

“No. Not since the rest stop,” Rachel snapped.

Sarah re-entered their destination on the GPS. After a few minutes of thick silence, the unit lit up, the satellite tracking complete. “There’s a turn-off up here in about half a mile. Glinda wants us to get off and go north.”

“What? I don’t think so. I’m not getting off a main highway to go on some wild goose chase because a computer chip tells me to, especially with some crazy killer on the loose. We’re going to keep going the way we’re going.”

Sarah took a deep breath. “Rachel, you’re going to turn off where I tell you to. This is my car,” she said deliberately. “And if you don’t want to, pull over and I’ll drive.”

“I just don’t trust that thing,” Rachel said, nodding her head toward the dash. “Hand me my cell phone. Let’s call Triple A. They have a 24-hour service that provides area information and directions. It’s about time that membership came in handy.”

Sarah handed Rachel her phone. “I wish you would just pull over so we can figure this out.”

“Nothin’ doin’. Have you looked around here? It’s right out of Night Of The Living Dead. Uh uh. No way. Not on my shift,” Rachel said, dialing. “Damn it! It’s not going through. Nothing but a bunch of static.” She tried it again. “Hello? Hello? Shit.” On the third try she connected. “Thank God! I need some assistance… What?... No, the Automobile Club… Oh, I’m sorry,” she snapped the phone shut. “That wasn’t Triple A. It was Branson’s Butcher Shop in Sweetwater.” She flipped it open and tried again. But this time all she got was static. She dropped the phone in her lap.

“The exit’s up here on the right,” Sarah said. “Please get off. It’ll be fine, I promise.”

Rachel blinked and nodded, her wide eyes glassy and damp with slight tears. She put on her blinker and started moving over toward the off-ramp, then she veered left back on to the highway.

“What are you doing!” Sarah screamed. “Do you want to get us killed?”

“No, but I think you want to get ME killed.”

“You’re nuts. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re going in the wrong direction and if you don’t start listening to me, we’re going to be lost for good. It’s almost like you’re trying to get us lost!”

“Oh no, that’s YOUR job, isn’t it? You and your ‘boyfriend,’ who just happens to live right around where these dead girls were found and happens to be an expert in communication. I’ll bet he knows how to scramble signals from cell phone towers and maybe even manipulate navigational systems.”

“Rachel, you’re scaring me… do you hear yourself?” Sarah pleaded.

“I hear myself just fine and here’s what I know,” she said, her voice escalating into a fevered pitch. “Something’s not right here. First you throw away my map, then you tell me that stupid navigational system wants us to get off the highway onto some obscure country road, then my phone goes out for no reason… I’ll bet the radio’s out too.” She pulled at the knob, trying to turn it on, but it came off in her hand. “See? It’s all part of the master plan, isn’t it? Are you harvesting organs to sell on the black market? Is that it? Are you and your buddies planning to cut me up, gut me like fish, and sell my liver and kidneys to the highest bidder? Or are you just some lunatic who gets off on slicing girls up. You fucking psycho.”

“You’re hysterical,” Sarah said. “I’m calling the cops if you don’t pull over.”

“Go ahead, call them!”

Sarah pulled her phone out of her pocket and started dialing, but before she could finish Rachel grabbed at it and started yelling into the receiver. “Help! She’s trying to kill me!” Sarah lunged for the phone, knocking it out of Rachel’s hand onto the floorboard. She dove between Rachel’s legs in an effort to retrieve it, but Rachel kicked the phone away, wedging it behind the brake pedal. Neither one noticed that they had drifted into the oncoming lane.

Just over the next hill, J.P. McNamara listened to the radio, singing along to George Jones. The tractor trailer groaned as it climbed over the ridge. “He stopped lovin’ herrr today, they placed a wreath upon his door,” he crooned, tipping his cap back to scratch his head. “Soon they’ll caaarry him awaaay.” The semi crested and picked up speed as it hurtled down U.S. 80. “He stopped lovin’ herrr today.”

###
The state trooper kicked a piece of twisted metal from the wreckage and let out a long whistle.

“Just a damn shame,” he said, shaking his head. “Them girls didn’t stand a chance in that tiny tin cup of a car. Good thing they probably went quick.”

He watched the coroner’s wagon pull out onto the highway in a cloud of dust.

“That trucker, not so much. Looks like he suffered some before he died,” he added.

About 20 feet away, his partner squatted to inspect something tangled up in a creosote bush.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Look what I got!”

He shoved his big hands into latex gloves and gingerly pulled out a half-used roll of duct tape.

“Call dispatch. I think we may be on to somethin’.”

Flash Fiction: "Mud"

Out of the mud two strangers caught me splitting wood. Except it wasn’t wood I was splitting. It was Jeremiah. Pieces of his skull, some still fresh with bits of skin and hair, skipped across the watery rose-colored cement. One chunk landed just at the edge of the driveway, right where the sludge from the rains began. The dirt road that used to lead up to the old Missouri farmhouse had all but disappeared from the recent storm.

“How ya doin’?” asked the man, the toe of his boot nudging a gooey chunk of Jeremiah’s leg bone poking up through the muck.

Rain that hard can make the dead rise. I wished now I had put Jeremiah in the box with his sister, but I wanted the bones to wash clean in the holy water that began falling from the sky the day Jeremiah took his last breath. Who knew the strangers would appear? No one ventured out in weather like this.

“Hello?” he asked again.

He stopped at the end of the driveway and peered at me under a visor he made with his hand, shielding his eyes from a slant of sunlight pushing through the clouds. The other man waited few steps back, his right hand stuck deep inside his trench coat, fingers probably clutched tightly around a gun. I know mine would be if I was in their shoes.

“Can I help you?” I asked. Maybe they were just looking for directions. Maybe they would turn around and leave quietly—and alive. The voices had stopped after the last kill. My service was complete.

“Yes. We’re looking for a young man and his sister. The boy escaped last week from a state facility housing juveniles. And the girl, well, we’re not sure if she came willingly or forcibly.”

“Are you the law?”

“No. We’re private investigators hired by the family,” shouted the second man, his voice getting lost in a rush of wind that carried the promise of more rain. Thunder followed.

The first man kicked again at the tip of Jeremiah's leg bone. He hitched his trousers and bent down for a closer look.

“I saw them!” I yelled quickly. It worked. The man whipped up faster than a guillotined hen.

“Where? When?” He started walking briskly in my direction, his city shoes clicking on the wet pavement.

“Whoa! Stop right there, mister, or I’m not tellin’ you anything.”

“Okay, easy guy.” He held his hands up and spread his fingers wide open like a kid about to get the belt for raiding the cookie jar.

“I saw them. The boy, he was dragging the girl by her arm. She was crying. Crying. Crying. He just laughed. He had mean eyes, that one. Evil. They were hitch-hiking north along Route 17.”

“Did you talk to them?”

“No. He’s not right, that one. Bad. He come from bad seed.”

“Did you tell anyone you saw them? The police? Anyone?”

“Why? What he done?”

“That’s confidential, but there is a substantial reward for the person or persons who turn him in.”

“Turn him into what?”

The stranger looked back at his partner and shook his head. “Just let us know if you hear anything,” he said. He stretched his hand out with a business card. I didn't budge and he stuck it between the fence pole and t

“Will do. Y’all have a nice day now and watch out for the mud. You never know what you might find in there.”