Chapter 8

 

 

 

 

“OK you can let me go now.”

I immediately let her go and stepped back.  She pulled what remained of her shirt around to cover her top some.  I walked around past her and looked in the truck cab.  I saw a man’s shirt and grabbed it and handed it to her before I turned around and faced away from her as soon as she took the shirt from me. 

“OK I put it on.  Thank you.  And thank you for saving me from those two men.  They kidnapped me late this morning when I was waiting at a bus stop and they drove most of the rest of the day until they stopped here.  I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you had not come to help.”

When she said OK I turned around again. 

“I’m happy to have helped.  If you are OK now I’ll leave you be.  You can take their truck back to where ever you are from or to the closest town.  I’ll go back to my camp and pack up and leave.  I really don’t want to deal with the police.”

“I’ll tell them that you saved me and that they tried to kill you.  They shouldn’t arrest you.”

“I agree they shouldn’t.  But if it’s all the same to you I will just head on down the road now that you are safe.  When I grabbed the shirt I saw the keys are still in the truck.”

“We can’t just leave them here.”

“They deserve nothing from either of us.”

“I guess they don’t.  But what if a family comes here with kids.  I would not want the kids to find them.”

I walked back over to the truck and looked in the back of the box.  It was jumbled mess of stuff back there.  I saw a pair of gloves which I put on and then grabbed an old cheap blue plastic tarp.  I threw the tarp on the ground and drug the two bodies over on to it before rolling the bodies tightly up in the tarp.  I picked up both of their pistols and threw them in the cab of their pickup so a kid would not find them.

“That should keep any kids from seeing them.  Anyone that can move them would be old enough to stand the sight of two dead guys.  Good luck ma’am.”

“Thank you again for saving me.  Maybe I could just ride with you.”

“If that’s what you want I could drop you off at the next town.”

“They took all my money.  I have nothing anymore with me.”

I still had the gloves on and unrolled the tarp again.  I went through their pockets and took all their money which I then handed to the woman and took the two pistol holsters before again rolling up the two bodies.  It seemed like quite a bit of money.

“Now you have some money again.  It looks like a fair amount.  If it is not all yours then I figure they sure owed it to you anyway.  If I were you I would just drive the truck to a town, park it, and just walk away from it.  You should take one of those pistols with you for protection.  I think things are going to get pretty bad soon and everyone will need some form of protection.”

“You don’t want me to go with you do you?  I lost my job and don’t really have anywhere to go.  I don’t have any family close by.  That’s why I was at that bus stop when they grabbed me.”

“Ma’am I have nothing against you and I am glad I could help you get away from those two guys.  Like I said I will take you to the next town and drop you off there if you want me to.”

“I have no right to ask any more from you.  I will take that ride to the next town big enough to have bus depot then.  I think they threw my bags in the back of their truck.  I’ll get them and go with you.”

We both walked back over to the bad guys’ truck.  She pointed out two suitcases that were hers and I retrieved them for her.  I told her to wait a minute and I did a quick search of their truck, both the cab and the box. 

I took the two pistols and the holsters for each.  There was a rifle case that felt heavy which I took with without opening it.  There was a back pack that was mostly empty and I filled it with items from the truck.  That all done I locked the pickup truck and threw the keys for it off into the brush.

I put on the now heavy backpack, took the rifle case and the larger of her two suitcases and we walked back to my camp.

“I’ve already eaten supper would you like me to make you something?”

“If you are leaving right away then I can just wait and get something at the next town we come to.  By the way my name is Janet Brown but please call me Jan.”

“Nice to meet you Jan.  My name is Benjamin.  You can call me anything you want.  If you will excuse me it will only take a couple minutes for me to pack up so we can leave.”

While I was packing up she opened one of her cases and took out a shirt.  She then walked off a ways and changed before coming back and asking if she could help me.  I declined the offer of help and was soon done and everything was packed up, stowed in the back, and securely tied down.  We left as soon as I was done.  I considered myself lucky that no one else came by at the camp ground while I was packing.  That could have been awkward to say the least.

From the camp ground I went north to hit highway eighty two then turned west again.  I thought when I hit Interstate Fifty Five I could leave Janet there as it should maybe have a bus stop at that intersection.

As I was driving she talked some.  She did admit that she did have some money in one of her suitcases and a little more in the bank if they would give it to her (many people expected the banks to close at any time).  We had found her purse in the cab of the bad guys’ truck so she had that too with her ID and whatever else she carried in her purse.  She used a tiny flashlight from her purse to count the money I had taken from the dead guys; it was just over a thousand dollars she said.  She tried to give me at least half of that money but I told her she was the one they beat up not me so she deserved it.

She had been to college but had lost the better job she had when things started to go down hill.  She had eventually taken a waitress job but she had just lost that job when the place closed down after the banks took everyone’s money.

She said she did have an Aunt and Uncle that lived up in Michigan but did not know them very well.  She asked me several times where I was going and what I planned on doing.  Finally I told her that I had no plans at all and had just decided to head west where there were fewer people than in the bigger cities like Atlanta where I had just come from.

We talked the whole way to the junction of the Interstate highway where I pulled into a gas station to fill up and maybe get rid of her.  As I was filling the tank she went inside to the ladies room.  When she came back it was obvious she had brushed out her shoulder length reddish brown hair and washed up some.  She might have put on some make-up but I really could not tell.  She looked pretty nice whether she had make-up or not I thought.  Though she did have one black eye that kinda spoiled the look at least a little.

There was a fast food joint open near the gas station and I pulled over there so she could get something to eat before they closed.  As I pulled up I saw it said twenty four hours so I guess they were always open.  I sat with her as she ate just a little bit of the food she bought.

At the gas station I had asked about a bus stop and they had given me directions.  Jan had given me a look that I could not decipher when I had asked about the bus stop.  She stopped eating and started to talk again.

“I want to go with you.”

“You know nothing about me except that I am a cold blooded killer and now you have somehow decided that you best move is to come with me?”

“You are not a cold blooded killer and it is obvious to me that you are a nice man.  Neither one of us has a place to go and no one to go to.”

“Just because neither of us has a place to go does not mean we should be together.”

“It’s dangerous now.  You said so yourself.  You saved me once.  Don’t you want to keep me safe?”

“Just because I saved you once does not mean I have to be responsible for you.  You are a healthy and obviously intelligent adult.  You do not need me to watch over you.  I have no place to take you.  I have no plans of where to go.  I will be camping out all the time so it would not be the place for a lady like you.”

“I’m no stranger to camping.  I could buy a little gear and be comfortable camping out.  What else will I do anyway?  You know as well as me that there are no jobs at all anymore.  No one knows what is going to happen next but I agree with you that it is likely to get much worse and way more dangerous.”

“You can have one of those pistols.  When you were holding that one you looked like it was not your first time with a gun.”

“I’ve done some shooting before.  Why don’t you try it out and let me go with you.  If I get to be a burden I will admit it and you can dump me off at any town.  You have little to lose and maybe I could even be a help to you.”

“Maybe besides being a cold blooded killer, I might also be a rapist.  Did you consider that?”

“I’ll just have to take my chances then won’t I?  Why don’t you want me with you?”

“I did not mind helping you and would do the same thing over again but I really do not want to be responsible for you.  If I had a good plan or a real place to go it might be different.  Your not gonna let go of this are you?”

“No.  Have I wore you down yet?”

“Whatever.  Come with then if that’s what you want to do.”

She seemed pretty happy with herself as we left the fast food place.  We asked at the gas station about any place to buy camping gear and there said there was a Walmart in the town of Winona which is where we were.  Again we got directions and even asked about a nearby camping area and got directions to that too.