Jennie Bentley - Spackled and Spooked

After a second, Lionel closed the door again. As his steps continued up the side of the van, I moved, as quietly and noiselessly as possible, to crouch next to Brandon. Hopefully any noises I made would be attributed to Brandon ’s thrashings. When Lionel went back inside, I’d get us both out.

It was a fine plan, as far as it went. It was even successful, to a degree. Lionel didn’t realize that I was there. He did not, however, go back inside. Instead, he opened the driver’s side door. I threw myself sideways, into the space directly behind the driver’s seat, praying that once again, he’d look right past me. Jumping up into the seat, Lionel chuckled, a highly unpleasant sound, made all the worse for the words that accompanied it. “Ready to go for a ride, Brandon, old buddy?”

And that’s where the brilliance of my plan blew up in my face. I’d expected Lionel to go back inside after reassuring himself that everything was okeydokey out here. He didn’t. Instead, he cranked the key over in the ignition. The van hiccupped, and we bumped backward out of the driveway onto Becklea and, with a grinding noise, barreled down the street toward the corner.

It was a supremely unpleasant ride, one of the worst I’ve ever had to endure, and that includes the 350-mile trip from New York City to Waterfield that I took with my mother at age five, when we had to pull over every twenty minutes so I could throw up.

I didn’t get carsick this time, in spite of driving with my back to traffic. It was probably because I was too worried about where we were going and what would happen when we got there to have time to think about anything else. Not to mention that I was worried about Brandon. I couldn’t risk examining him, for fear that Lionel would notice me. And he couldn’t talk, but every time the car went over a bump in the road, he groaned. I hated to think what the drive was doing to him; maybe he had internal injuries, maybe Lionel had shot him and he was slowly bleeding to death. Whatever was wrong with him, it didn’t sound good.

And where was Derek? Hopefully he had realized I was inside the van and was following us. Hopefully he had called Wayne to report what had happened. Hopefully the police were closing in on us even now. Hopefully they’d reach us before Lionel murdered us both. He didn’t have much to lose at this point, if indeed he had killed Holly and Venetia, as I thought he must have. There was no doubt that he’d abducted Brandon, and I didn’t think it was so he could bring him to a surprise party. If he planned to kill Brandon, and I thought he’d have to, he likely wouldn’t have any qualms about killing me.

I had no idea where we were going, and I couldn’t raise my head up high enough to look out the front window, for fear that Lionel would notice me. The back of the paneled van had no windows. The road we drove on felt smooth, paved, but beyond that, I had no idea whether we were going east or west, north or south. Toward the coast or away from it. Occasionally I’d hear the humming of another car passing by, coming closer then fading, but other than that, I didn’t hear a thing.

I also couldn’t tell how much time had passed. I’m not good at telling time without a clock. A couple of months ago, I’d been locked in an underground tunnel with a rotting corpse for fifteen hours, and it had felt like days had passed before I finally got out.

After a while the van slowed, and the surface under the wheels changed. Now it felt more like we were bumping over a rutted track of some sort, or at least a less-trafficked road. Eventually the van rolled to a stop, and Lionel cut the lights and the engine. He sat for a second in the dark, maybe bracing himself for the task to come, then took the key out of the ignition and got out.

As soon as the driver’s side door closed behind him, I was on the move, slithering between the seats into the front compartment, squeezing myself into the space under the dashboard on the passenger side. If he remembered something he’d forgotten, and opened the front door again, I didn’t have a hope of remaining undetected, but chances were good he was on his way to the back doors, and I didn’t want to sit there in plain view when he opened them.

No sooner had I curled up, than the double back doors opened, and I heard Lionel root around among the tools. He removed something-I could hear the slide of metal, something long, against other metal and plastic objects, and another groan from Brandon.

“Sorry, old buddy,” Lionel said, without sounding like he meant it. “Don’t go anywhere, OK?”

He laughed merrily at his own wit before closing the door again. I could hear his steps walking away and then the rhythmic sound of digging. Grasping the edge of the door, I levered my head up high enough to peer out.

Yep, that was what he was doing, all right. Digging. A grave, most likely. If he saw me, he’d probably make it big enough for two.

I crawled back to where Brandon was and went to work on unwrapping him. Lionel had stuffed a dirty rag in his mouth, and as soon as I’d removed that, Brandon started breathing a little easier. He still seemed pretty weak, though. His eyes stayed closed, once he’d ascertained who I was, and he didn’t talk, either. And getting him free of tarps, blankets, and the electrical tape Lionel had used to tie his hands and feet together was no easy task.

Five or ten breathless minutes might have passed when we heard a sound at the back door, and froze. I could still hear the rhythmic sounds of the spade cutting into the ground, though, so unless Lionel had an accomplice, it wasn’t him.

The door opened soundlessly, and I lowered the wrench I had just picked up.

“Whoa!” Derek whispered.

“You took your time,” I answered, although my voice wasn’t near as brave as my words.

“I had to park somewhere else, so he wouldn’t see me. Wayne is on his way. C’mon.” He reached out.

“Look at Brandon first. I can’t tell how badly hurt he is. He’s wrapped in blankets, and he’s not speaking, just groaning. But he’s breathing, anyway.”

“C’mon out.” Derek held out a hand to me. “Keep an eye on Lionel. We don’t all want to be stuck in the van if he comes back.”

Decidedly not. I slid out of the car and looked around. “Where are we?”

“Don’t you recognize it?” Derek said. “There’s Melissa.”

He pointed to a big, white rectangle floating above ground some yards away. I stared at it in incomprehension for several seconds before I realized what I was looking at. It was the back of Melissa’s billboard, welcoming visitors to Devon Highlands. Lionel had driven to the construction site.

Derek crawled into the back of the van and got busy. I located Lionel and watched him. “How’s Brandon?”

“He’ll live,” Derek said, “if we can get him outta here before Lionel finishes burying him. That wouldn’t be good for him.”

“He’s still digging. No, wait.” Thirty feet away, Lionel planted his shovel in the ground and straightened his back. He must have picked a spot where less digging was necessary to achieve a nice, deep grave. Working here, of course he’d know where that’d be.

“Move!” Derek hissed. I slipped around the corner of the van just as Lionel turned around. And although I couldn’t see him, I could feel his reaction when he saw the open van door. He hesitated for a second, then I heard him pull the shovel back out of the ground and bring it with him.

“Hello?” he called. His footsteps were slow and careful as he walked back toward the van. Just as deliberately, I slipped around the front. After a second I heard the shovel bite the dust again as Lionel apparently decided that he must have just neglected to shut the door tightly enough, and it had opened on his own. I sidled back down toward the rear of the van. If I could just get my hands on that shovel…