Run Away Baby

“Why are we stopping?” she asked.

He jumped out, not even closing his door. His pants were coming down, he was squatting behind the truck. As the dust cleared Abby could see the top of his head and the side of him, but with the windows down she could hear him with no problem. At first she thought, What did he eat? My God.

But then a clearer reality formed. The obvious answer. He was scared shitless.

Why was he scared even more than she was? It didn’t make sense.

She fiddled with the drawstring around her neck. It did not make sense.

Chapter 41

“Are you okay?” she asked when he got back in the truck.

He nodded, looking straight ahead, hands on the steering wheel.

“I guess we’re just about there?”

He nodded again. The truck was in park; they weren’t moving.

“You’re having second thoughts,” she said.

Charlie shifted into drive and they went bumping down the road again, up a small hill, down into a dip of a valley, up another small hill. They were in an orange grove now. They went a little farther and a burned out house appeared on their left. And then finally, a large, weather-beaten shed. Charlie pulled up in front of it, left the truck running, and walked up to the big sliding door. He reached into his pocket, took out a key, and unlocked a padlock.

He slid open the door and c

ame back to the truck. Without a word he got in and drove into the shed.

“Here we are,” he said, turning off the truck.

It was quite dark inside, even with the light coming in from the open door. The shed was huge and empty, with other rooms sectioned off in the back. It had a dirt floor and gaps in the walls where rays of light poked in.

“Here we are,” he said again.

“Should I get out?”

“Yeah.” He walked around to the back of the truck and started gathering the supplies. Abby went around to help him. He handed her a sleeping bag. “It’s not all this bad. It doesn’t all have a dirt floor, either. In the back there are rooms that got added on. My uncle used to have a little studio back there.”

“Okay. That’s a relief.”

“Follow me.”

“Are there lights we can turn on? I mean, I can kind of see right now since the big door’s open, but for later?”

“There’s no electricity here anymore. I’ve got some flashlights. It’s probably better if we don’t use them though. Especially at night.”

“Does anyone ever come out here?”

“They shouldn’t. No trespassing signs are posted everywhere. But you never know.”

Abby followed him through the shed. At the back there was a wooden door with a latch handle. Charlie opened it. Some light was coming into this part. They went up a couple of spidery steps to a room with a wood floor and a small dusty window. It was empty except for a saggy recliner and a tool bench along one wall. There was an empty pegboard with outlines showing where tools once hung.

“After all these years it still smells like cigarettes,” said Charlie, almost fondly.

“This is it? This is the studio?”

“My uncle added it on. It was his little getaway. In here,” Charlie said, “is the bunkhouse.” He opened a little door and showed Abby another small room with a wood floor, a small window, and two wooden platforms on either side of the room. “There used to be a twin mattress on each of those, and sometimes my cousins and I would sleep out here if it wasn’t too hot.”

“Oh. Fun,” said Abby. It looked like something out of a nightmare.