Chapter 11: Lost
The car squeals as we pull out onto the dirt road. Some random country song plays on the radio while we sit in silence. With the mystery girl part of the puzzle solved, my thoughts and worries clear for the moment, which allows me to enjoy the peaceful countryside.
The country fields fly by as we drive down the highway leading out of town. Out my car window, high stalks of corn and cotton flow for acres. The thing about living in this part of Georgia is we are a bit of a paradox. Everton itself is a modern city of sorts mixed in with rich rural farmland. I have always enjoyed driving through the outskirts of the city because you literally have both city privileges and country life rolled into one like the farm we pass, which has a tractor plowing the field only about ten miles from where I was earlier in the day at Ma’s and Pa’s.
I take my phone out of my pocket and start looking through my messages. Ryleigh looks over at me with a look of disgust. “What are you doing? The cops can trace that.”
She opens up the middle compartment in the car while driving. She pulls something out and says, “Here, take this. I stopped by the gas station on the way to the park and bought us both one. We have to be extremely careful from this point on.”
I take the phone and inspect it. I go to the contact information, which already includes Ryleigh’s number programed into it. I click add new contact. Nonchalantly, I copy from my old phone the unknown number that sent the mysterious text.
I don’t really know why I do this. The text from the unknown number just freaks me out. Nevertheless, the number is programmed in my new phone as I put it in my pocket. “Good thinking. I don’t know what I would do without you right now.”
I take my old phone and throw it out the window as she does the same with her phone. Feeling much more at rest, I note that there is no sign of trouble or danger anywhere in sight. I relax in my seat, resting my head comfortable against the worn headrest. “Hey, Ryleigh. Where are we going?”
She looks at me and shrugs her shoulders. She bobs her head as if she is playing out different scenarios in her head. “I don’t really know. I would say head to my house, but it’s probably not safe,” she says.
She looks so unsure and so scared. There has to be more going on than she is letting on. The cops are after me, and I don’t feel as anxious as she looks right now. Her hair is visibly frizzing as the sweat accumulates and drips down across her forehead. Since we first began talking in the park, her whole demeanor has been shifting from calm, caring, and helpful to panic, anxious, and worrisome.
I break the awkward silence by saying, “Yeah, two police officers came to my house early this morning. They said someone saw me and a young lady run out of my parents’ house that night.”
While glancing my direction, she replies, “Do you remember the officers’ names."
“Yeah, it was Walker and Boyd. You know them?”
“No, I don’t think I do, but we can’t make stupid decisions like going to my house because they will eventually know I’m the one helping you.”
It feels like she is still keeping something back, so I implore once more, “I guess. But why can’t we just go to the cops? It’s not like I killed my parents.”
She cuts her eyes at me in a look of dismay, then back to the road. In a hurried tone that I’m beginning to think is her normal way of talking, she expresses, “We just can’t it’s not safe. And there’s… there’s someone else we need to avoid.”
My neck seizes up while the man from the diner enters my mind. The man that had the same build as the guy I think was in my parents’ house. The man that is after us? The frustration causes me to bark “What! Who else could we possibly have to avoid? Why aren’t you telling me everything? Damn it, Ryleigh! You still haven’t even told me why you were at my parents’ house that night.” Seeing red, I kick the glove box in front of me.
My foot leaves a dirty shoe impression on the cracked vinyl. Ryleigh begins sobbing with one hand over her mouth. Tears run down her face and onto the steering wheel as we travel down the road. I’m beyond frustrated and her crying because I called her out only makes me even wilder. I shake my head in anger while my fist clenches the door handle.
Looking at Ryleigh’s frightened face only increases my discomfort, so in an effort to take back control of myself, I take deep labored breaths. My eyes close shut in defiance of my wicked urges while Ryleigh says in a sorrowful voice, “I wanted to tell you when we were safe. I don’t want you to get hurt, too.” Through tears she continues “I, I… can’t do this anymore. I don’t deserve to have this burden weighing me down and you don’t either.”
Seeing her anguish and the effects of the internal battle taking place inside her, sets off a deep range of sorrow within myself. Even while I’m sitting here acting selfish and only caring about my answers, she is thinking about me. Why must I continue to loath in selfish obsession? She loves me! She will tell me what I need to know when she is ready. It can’t be easy for her to know something awful while I constantly remind her of the pain. She is as broken as I am.
My eyes open wide as I fight a tear from forming, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just don’t know what is going on anymore, and I’m used to being in control of stuff. I know that is still no excuse to raise my voice and scare you.” My hands wipe away a few tears that fought past my suppression efforts. “Having someone else to care for is new for me. I’m sorry. We will get through whatever you are shaken up about. Take all the time you need.”
She follows my lead and wipes her eyes while quickly regaining most of her composure. The water dries from her face, but it is clear she is dealing with some nightmare of her own beneath the surface. She looks right through me with her wet brown eyes cutting through to my heart in the process. It is as if she is about to speak, but rethinks what she has to say.
Her gaze turns back to the road as I keep my eyes on her. It is in this moment that I realize there is a part of me that loves her regardless of whether I can remember all of her or not. There is also another part that almost resents her for something, but the love is a much more pleasant thought. Out of nowhere, my inner peace is shattered as she shrieks “Crap! What do I do?”
My eyes dart from her broken figure to the road looking for something that could explain her terror. We are about five or six miles out of town by this point, so it could be anything from a cow in the road to a drunken fool driving in the wrong lane, you never know in Everton. The fairly straight road leads out of town into the vast expanse of country farmland, surrounded by large corn stalks that stretch upward towards the heavens. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then I see what made Ryleigh shriek. About a quarter mile from where we are now there is a curve in the road that turns left out of our view. Near the last bit of the curve that remains in our view, there are two police cars sitting on the grass beside our lane.
Ryleigh takes a momentary look in my direction, and it becomes clear she wants me to tell her what to do. I only see two logical options. Drive by the cops and hope we aren’t stopped. Or, turn down a road before we reach the turn. Not really knowing which option to choose I offer, “Take this road up here to the right. But we need to figure out where to go quickly before we get trapped.”
I point to the road as she does what I suggest by taking the next right. It strikes me odd that she turns the wheel without hesitation or reconsidering that I could be wrong. She must really trust me. I don’t know if I would have even asked her let alone blindly do as she suggests. I would have made my own decision and dragged her along for whatever happened next, pretty much as I’m doing now.
Mossy trees surround the new road on both sides, making it impossible to see through the thicket. Before we get too far, I turn looking out the back window. To my relief, there are no police cars or any other vehicles following us that I can see. Satisfied that we had avoided the cops, I relax slouching down in my seat. Ryleigh likewise lets out an audible sigh of reli
ef as my hand reaches over and comes to rest on her leg.
She removes one hand from the wheel and grabs my hand. While running her fingers across the top of my hand, she inquires, “Well, where do you want to go? I guess it should be somewhere isolated or at least somewhere no one would ask questions.”
I brush my fingers through my now completely sweat drenched hair. “Yeah, we need to lay low. If they really think I had something to do with my parents’ death, and you are right about not going to them then it has to be somewhere isolated. Um… Let me think about it, just keep driving for now. Unless you already have a place in mind?”
Shaking her head, no, she looks in the rearview mirror, “I just hope we can find someplace with a hot shower and comfy bed.”
She drives down the shaded road while I attempt to figure out a place to stay. It has to be isolated. There are plenty of places that are isolated, but we really need a place where we can relax and regroup. I need answers, and she obviously isn’t going to open up until she can relax somewhere she feels safe. So where is somewhere she would feel safe? I would feel at ease in a hotel. Well a nice hotel anyway—one that isn’t on the police’s radar. Nice is probably out of the question considering the circumstances. But we might be able to make some sort of hotel work.
Confident that I have a working plan, I break the silence. “We obviously need someplace isolated like we said. But I’m feeling totally give out, and in no time at all the morning will be gone, and the heat of the afternoon will be in full effect. I think we should head for a hotel, one that’s not in Everton’s immediate jurisdiction.”
She nods her head, looking in my direction, “That should work. It would need to be a crappy hotel or at least one that police wouldn’t immediately think to search… I’m thinking the one in Burkeville. But even it would only be safe for tonight. They will start looking for you elsewhere when you don’t return home.”
I like the way she thinks! “You’re right. It would be somewhere they would eventually look, but I think we should be fine for tonight. And hopefully we can figure a way out of this, so that we would only need a night.” I pause rubbing her leg then continue, “However we have one minor problem. Do you know how to get to Burkeville from here because I don’t?”
She answers with a slight chuckle, “No. I don’t know how to get there from here. I don’t really know where here is, I was hoping you would know where we are.” I shake my head no as she continues, “Hopefully we will come across a familiar road. Or we can always double back to the main road and hope we don’t meet any more trouble.”
“So, basically we just have hope then, huh. I guess hope is more than most have.”
After she mentioned the road, my eyes have started wandering out the window seeking anything that looks the least bit familiar. All that is there are trees covered with dark green leaves. Every now and then, a driveway leading to a house or barn will appear as we drive down the bumpy paved road, which has seen better days. We pass a dirt road with a road sign naming both the dirt road and the paved one we are traveling. The sign addresses the road we are on as ‘Granger Drive.’
Ryleigh notices the sign as well and comments, “I think this is the road that runs into Highway 78. I haven’t ever come this way so I don’t know for sure.”
I look at her while responding. “I guess we will find out.”
We drive for a mile or two just looking out the window at the passing landscape. Then our hope suddenly comes to fruition. Granger Drive does indeed run into highway 78. The importance of this intersection is that Highway 78 leads into Burkeville.
As we near the intersection of Granger Drive and Highway 78, both Ryleigh and I let out sighs of relief and comfort. We might actually make it to the hotel. Which means we might actually make it out of this nightmare.
Now that we are traveling at 60 mph due west on Highway 78, we both not only know where we are, but know we will also make it to Burkeville in 15 miles. However, knowing doesn’t help a lot as the miles tick by slowly. Every car we pass sends chills down my spine. Each of the many passing cars takes on the form of a police cruiser in my deranged mind and every second that passes makes me pick at the seat cushion in a rougher and rougher fashion.
It gets to the point where I have to close my eyes to keep the fear at bay. The only logic being that I can’t over analyze and fear what I can’t see. Having my eyes shut helps some, but it doesn’t make the fear or sorrow go away completely. Nothing ever does.
Light comes and goes causing the darkness in my head to blink white every few seconds. Black, then white. Black then white, over and over again. Eventually, the light coming and going quickens to the point I can’t bare the incessant intrusions anymore. My eyes surge open like a powerful dam finally giving way to the multitude of torrent water behind it. The sunlight breaks through the evil trees that are thinning out as we enter the city limits of Burkeville.