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  TRUCK STOP

  A Novel By

  John Penney

  Copyright © 2011 John Penney. All Rights Reserved.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A cold, eerie feeling crept over Cindy as she stared at the old bulletin board filled with missing-persons notices. The faces on the board could easily have been her friends, her sister, even her mother staring back at her from the yellowing, faded pictures. Some of the faces had been missing since the early ‘90s, others more recently. One of the pretty young girls, wearing braces, with freckles and sandy blonde hair, had been reported missing just eight months ago.

  Cindy took a shallow, unsteady breath and looked up and down the dark, empty hallway. She had stopped unwillingly at this strange place in the Utah mountains, more an abandoned building than the promised diner and gift shop. She had come back here to use the bathroom and had become distracted by this strange, shrine-like bulletin board. A faint buzzing sound echoed from a fluorescent bulb that flickered back down the empty hall she had traversed, where a sign pointed to showers and sleeping rooms. Cindy couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to spend the night here. The commercial-grade burnt orange carpet was stained and dirty, and there were dark black streaks at the doorway entrances from years of foot traffic. The walls were a dingy yellow.

  Cindy knew she should continue to the bathroom, but when she glanced back at the bulletin board, she was transfixed again. She couldn’t help feeling that there was something terrifying about this place.

  She had felt this way before, but she had learned her lesson about saying anything when she tried to tell her boyfriend at the time. He had laughed at her and called what she felt “Cindy’s ghost stories” when he talked to their friends later. After that, when they were alone together and he saw that he had hurt her feelings, he tried to make her feel better by assuring her that there was nothing to be afraid of; if there were ghosts, they couldn’t touch her from beyond the grave.

  But this feeling was different. It was as if these people were near her; their faces were trying to warn her of something dark, evil, and very much a part of her world. Something that was close to her at that moment.

  Cindy felt another shiver go down her spine. She checked her watch. It was ten p.m. now; she would be able to get to Salt Lake City if she pushed on tonight. She hadn’t originally planned on driving alone, but her roommate, who had been going to spend Christmas with her, had decided at the last moment to go to Hawaii instead.

  Cindy had been angry, of course, but she had smiled the way she usually did in situations like that. She always went along to get along; Cindy’s cousin used to tell her it was because she was the daughter of divorce. She was always desperately wanting to make peace between her ever-warring parents.

  Cindy was a junior at the University of Las Vegas. Her mother hadn’t been thrilled about Cindy leaving Salt Lake City to go to school, but Cindy had fought it. She got her own loans and was doing it herself. Now, she was driving home alone to see her mother. In only another three hours she would be there, warm and safe again for the holidays.

  Cindy pulled her eyes off the disturbing bulletin board and turned to leave. That’s when she felt the stinging cold slap of a rubber-gloved hand on her mouth and the blinding pain, as something dull and heavy slammed into the back of her head.

  Then there was blackness.

  There would be no scream from Cindy to alert anyone.

  Seconds, minutes, hours. Even days could have gone by. There was no way to tell.

  A burning, acrid smell filled Cindy’s nostrils. She heard a distant metallic grinding sound. An electric hum. Her mouth hurt at the edges where it was stretched wide. There was something spongy and cloth-like reaching deep down her throat.

  She tried to force her eyes open, but her lids managed to open to only a thin crack. Her vision was blurry and smeared; shapes were drifting strangely past her so that she couldn’t focus. What she could see was dim, yellow, and blotchy. The grinding stopped, and the electric hum faded away.

  She heard her own breathing and the faint thump of her heart in her ears. Then footsteps approached. She strained her vocal cords to speak, but she couldn’t make it happen. The cloth choked back any sound.

  A dull metallic thump resonated through her body, making her vibrate involuntarily. She was confused, and she panicked. Then an excruciating pain shot up her shoulder. Another thump, and her other arm burned horribly.

  Deep in the basement of her mind, she knew what was happening to her. She was being dismembered. The feeling where her arms had been was distant and throbbing. Next, there was a ragged burning sensation at her ankles as her feet were separated from her legs. Finally, she felt a warm rush surge over her body as she bled out.

  Then blackness again. Silence. Permanence.

  She was with them now. The ones who had tried to warn her.

  __________

  Cedar Mountain Truck Stop was a sprawling, run-down compound at the foot of an isolated mountain pass in Utah. Muddy big rigs rumbled in and out of the large parking lot. It had been state of the art thirty years ago. Now, it was a shell of its former self.

  In the main building, which was fronted by a bay of gas pumps, there was a twenty-four hour diner with a gift shop attached. Most of the time there was no one at the register in the gift shop. If you wanted to buy any of the travel aids that gathered dust on the dingy glass shelves, you had to get the waitress’s attention, or better yet, just bring what you wanted to the diner. Mostly the gift shop sold Tylenol, condoms, and any number of stay-awake products. Beyond the gift shop was the long hallway that led to the sleeping rooms, showers, and bathrooms for long-haul truckers. There was a huge, cavernous truck wash, and a similarly oversized building for truck repairs away from the main building.

  No one knew it, but Cedar Mountain was more than just a routine stop for truckers. It was the place where people went missing.

  It was a typical weekday night. There were a lot of big rigs in the parking lot and only a couple of civilian cars. No one paid any notice to the lone figure straining with the weight of two heavy plastic garbage bags as it went behind the main building, past the large truck wash, then beyond the repair garage. The figure ducked through a hole in the cyclone fence that led to a junkyard filled with old truck parts, discarded appliances, and old mattresses.

  It was not surprising that no one paid any particular attention to the shadowy figure, or to anyone else moving around on the property, for that matter. This was the way it always was at Cedar Mountain. Transitory. Anonymous. It was the perfect place for a predator to hunt prey.

  And Cindy had just been the latest in a long line.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was a cold night, even for the Nevada desert in December. The black clouds that hung over the aging tract home development on the outskirts of Las Vegas had come down from the north, heavy with impending rain.

  Roger Dalton pulled his ‘74 Mustang to a stop in front of the dilapidated sign on the brown lawn of the Palm Ridge Estates. It was an exotic name for a man-made oasis of cheaply built townhouses dating from the early ‘80s.

  Roger shut off the engine and twisted the rear-view mirror so that he could get a good look at his reflection. His heavy black eyeliner was smeared beneath his left eye. No doubt, he had rubbed it at some point. He hoped he had done so some time after he had finished playing the last set at Stateline three hours earlier. He hated the pretentiousness of using makeup and did it only because the rest of the band members wore it too.

  Roger dug around on the seat next to him, found an unused napkin in a McDonald’s bag, and spit on it. He wiped his eyes hard, and most of the eyeliner came off, enough so that it was barely noticeable in the darkness. Roger performed a final survey of his face; it was still hand
some in that slightly gaunt, emo way. His shaggy black hair was his calculated effort to remain young looking.

  In Dalton’s business, closing in on 30 was like hitting retirement. Especially the way his career had gone. He had made it big enough to keep in the game, but never big enough to make any real “fuck you” money. He was a workaday rhythm guitarist.

  Most people would have given their right nut to make a living as a musician. But Dalton was over that. He was tired. Making that living had come at a high price, and he had only recently realized it, when he looked back on the train wreck of relationships he had left in his wake. The long stream of groupies looking up at him from their knees never saw who he really was, only what they wanted him to be. And Dalton had never been what anyone could have guessed.

  Dalton was gifted—and he was cursed, cursed in ways he could never tell normal people. He had tortured himself for years trying to drown out the curse, but it was futile. The one thing he wanted most was to be normal, but it was the one thing he could never be.

  Roger jumped out of the Mustang, grabbed his guitar off the back seat, stashed it in the trunk, and started up the walkway. He kicked a broken tricycle off the pathway, stepped up to the condo door, and knocked. He waited, glanced around at the graffiti covering the walls of the patios of the other units. There was no answer. He sighed anxiously, knocked louder.

  “Zoe! Open up!” Dalton rubbed his tired eyes, waited a moment longer. “Shit.”

  He peered over the low-lying porch wall and through the living room window. The curtain was partially open, and he could see there was a light on inside. He could also hear the muffled sound of a droning TV.

  Roger shifted his angle and saw a lamp on the floor near a few broken dishes. Nothing unusual. Not when it came to the way his ex-wife lived.

  Roger leaned up close to the crack in the door, cupped his mouth. “Zoe, come on. Look, I know I’m late. Just let me get Lilly, and I’ll be out of here.”

  Still nothing from inside.

  “Fuck. Come on, Zoe. Open the fucking door. I want Lilly.” Roger clenched his fist and raised it, about to pound again, when a little voice came from behind him.

  “Daddy?”

  Roger spun around, startled. Lilly, Roger’s adorable seven-year-old daughter, was standing by the side door of the condo carrying her backpack and her favorite stuffed rabbit. Despite the apparent inattention of her mother, she was ready to go.

  Roger hurried over to her. “Oh, sweetie,” he said. He scooped the backpack off her little shoulders, kneeled down, and gave her a big hug and a kiss. “Daddy is so sorry he’s late.”

  “You were supposed to be here yesterday,” his daughter said with a yawn.

  Roger choked back the pang of guilt that shot through his gut. “I know, I know. Your mom didn’t tell you that another gig at Stateline came up at the last minute when I was finishing in L.A.?”

  The little girl shook her head.

  Roger hugged her again, “I’m sorry. But I called her.”

  Lilly smiled, held up her faded pink stuffed rabbit “It’s okay, Daddy. Jimmie Jerry got lonely for you, that’s all.”

  Roger returned the smile. “I know. And I got lonely for Jimmie Jerry too.” He gave the old rabbit a kiss and took Lilly’s little hand. “Come on.”

  Roger led her down the walkway as he dialed his cell phone. “Is your mom asleep in there?”

  “She’s with Jack,” Lilly revealed.

  Roger hesitated at the sound of Jack’s name. “Jack? Jack came back to visit again?”

  “Yeah. He sleeps a lot,” the little girl answered.

  Roger frowned, annoyed. His ex-wife’s voice mail message crackled over the phone. “It’s Zoe. You know what to do.”

  Roger waited impatiently for the tone and jumped in. “Hey, Zoe. I’ve got Lilly.” Roger looked down at his daughter, then lowered his voice and continued. “Listen, I thought we discussed the whole Jack thing. You know how I feel about that motherfu—” Roger caught himself at the last second “—asshole being around when Lilly’s there. And you should’ve told her I wasn’t coming until today. It’s not—” Roger looked down at Lilly once again. It was clear that the little girl was listening to every word he said, “Look, just…just call me when you get this message.”

  Roger snapped off the phone, took a deep breath, then smiled. “It’s great to see you, honey,” he said to Lilly.

  The little girl frowned. “Did I get Mommy in trouble again?”

  “Of course not,” Roger assured her. “The only one who can get Mommy in trouble is Mommy. Come on, we’ve got a long drive.”

  He opened the car door for her, and she climbed into the back seat, shoving aside the blanket he had put there for her, knowing she would want to sleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Roger’s Mustang sped down the dark desert freeway, heading east. Fat raindrops began to splat on the windshield. Roger twisted the knob, and the old wipers groaned as they scraped across the dusty glass, smearing the distant pinpoints of light on the horizon. He shot a glance back at Lilly, who was cuddled up in the back seat with her stuffed rabbit and the blanket. She looked tiny there, her long brown hair slightly mussed and falling over the pink toy, looking tired. Roger remembered her yawn and wondered whether she was getting enough sleep.

  She looked up and saw that he was looking at her. “Where’s Sea Salt City?” she asked.

  “Salt Lake City,” he corrected. “And it’s in Utah. We won’t be there until morning.”

  “How long are we staying there?”

  “Daddy’s playing tomorrow night and the night after. Then we come home again.”

  “Where do I sleep?”

  “At your Aunt Cathy’s. Remember her?”

  Lilly nodded, then dropped her head onto her rabbit and yawned.

  Roger smiled. “You’ll like it there. They have a nice house. They even have a pool.”

  The raindrops started coming faster and harder. Roger turned up the wipers, which caused an unnerving grinding sound. The blades were worn almost to the metal.

  Roger cursed under his breath. “Shit.” The blurry mess began to clear.

  They traveled along for a moment in silence, then he said, “Honey, after this weekend, I’m going to start playing in a bar at home in Las Vegas. I’ll only be gone for a few hours a night.”

  Lilly’s little blue eyes looked up at him from her resting position. “With the band?”

  Roger took a moment before answering “No, they…they’re still going to tour without me.”

  “What about our record deal?”

  It had always been “our” record deal. Roger had made sure of that. He figured if Lilly looked at his career as if it belonged to both of them, she’d understand when he had to go away for so long at a time. It was a self-serving move, of course, and Roger had grown to see it as embarrassing, but the terms of the deal had stuck with Lilly. And now it was going to all backfire if she was that invested in “their” record deal.

  “Well, that…that didn’t work out,” Roger proceeded carefully. Sure enough, a disappointed look started to cloud his daughter’s face. Roger added quickly, “But you never know. I might be able to get a deal myself.”

  Roger’s feint didn’t do much to change Lilly’s reaction. He sighed and decided to take a chance and deal with it head on. “Look, my deal is going to be much better. I won’t have to leave you with your mother again. Won’t that be good?”

  Lilly nodded, yawned again. Her eyes were growing heavy.

  Roger watched her for a moment and continued, “Lilly, I’m sorry about tonight. I should have talked to you on the phone myself to tell you I wasn’t coming yesterday, but I promise it’s not going to happen again. From now on, we’re going to be together all the time.”

  Lilly nodded again. A faint smile crossed her face as she pulled the blanket around her and drifted off to sleep, her head resting on the pink rabbit.

  __________

  The rain
was coming down heavily by the time Roger pulled his Mustang off the highway and into the Cedar Mountain Truck Stop. It was getting close to two a.m., and they had been on the road for hours. He squinted through the windshield as the tattered blades ground back and forth in a futile attempt to clear the onslaught of water.

  He carefully steered toward the metal canopy that covered the aging gas pumps in front of the diner. His car rolled to a stop underneath, and he shut down the engine. He sighed—finally, a break from the rain.

  He glanced into the back seat where Lilly was fast asleep under her blanket. “Just gotta get some gas, honey,” he said. He knew she probably couldn’t hear him, but it seemed important to tell her. He yanked open the car door.

  The gas pump island was a good twenty-five yards in front of the main building. A muscular, bald, mid-40s truck stop mechanic was busy trying to prop up a broken panel in the leaky canopy over the pumps with a mop handle.

  Roger gave him a cursory nod as he crossed to the pump and slid his card into the slot. He wiped away the heavy mist over the digital display, leaned down close, and tried to decipher the instructions. Given the age of the rest of the place, he was surprised to see that he could use his card and didn’t have to pay the attendant first.

  “Fuck cats and dogs, this is raining goddamn buffalos,” the mechanic said, smiling sardonically.

  Roger glanced over at the man, who was looking over at him now.

  “Raining all the way from Nevada?” the mechanic continued.

  Roger shrugged. “Not all the way.” He jammed the nozzle into his tank and cranked the handle over. Fuel began rushing into his tank. Roger stretched his neck, looked over at his tattered wipers. He considered them for a moment, then crossed to his trunk and popped it open. He shoved aside his guitar case, pushed some dirty clothes out of the way, and found the roll of duct tape he was looking for. He pulled out an old shirt, ripped it in half, and crossed back to the windshield.