April Henry - The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die

Now I wish I had stayed at the restroom door and eavesdropped on every word. “What else did they say besides Sagebrush? Did they tell you my name?”

“Katie. Like you wrote on your napkin.”

“Did they tell you my last name?” It seems like something I could hold on to. Another piece of the puzzle that is me.

“If they did, I don’t remember it. I was busy trying to decide if I was going to tell them about you. They did have a photo of you.”

“A photo? What did it look like?” I think of my family. “Did it show anybody else?”

“It was kind of grainy. Like it was printed from online or something.” Ty raises his arms over his head, fists clenched, and pastes on a grin. “It looked like this. Like you were celebrating a big win.”

I want so badly to be that girl again. The girl I used to be. The girl I don’t remember. The girl who smiled and had something to celebrate.

My breath is coming a little easier now, but I still feel like a rat in a trap. “Can you do me a favor? There’s a dark blue Honda SUV out in the parking lot, like, five rows back and 45 degrees to the left. Can you see if it’s still there? And then I’ll leave. I promise.”

Ty pushes open the door. In a minute, he’s back, shaking his head. “It’s there. But it won’t do you any good. Three guys are going through it—the two who asked about you and another one.”

I want to just sit down on the floor and give up. “Then they know I’ve got to be in one of these stores. Except most of them are probably closed now. They won’t stop looking for me. And they’re going to find me.”

“There’s still other places here you could be.” He looks up at the ceiling, thinking. “There’s something like eight movies showing at the theater complex, and the Ben and Jerry’s is still open. And there’s a brewpub on the other side that doesn’t close until twelve. But yeah, it’s not that many places.”

“I don’t know what to do.” I rub my temples. The headache’s back, and the food, which tasted so good going down, now threatens to come back up. “The minute I leave this bathroom, they’ll see me. Out there in the restaurant it’s nothing but windows.”

Ty tilts his head, thinking, and then nods. “I have an idea.”

“You really think you can get me out of here without those men noticing?” I ask Ty. “Out of McDonald’s or out of the shopping mall?”

His dark eyes look directly into mine. “Both.”

I look away. “I don’t know.” What am I doing dragging the guy who closes McDonald’s into my problems? Even with the gun, the chance that I’m going to end up dead must be close to a hundred percent. “It’s probably not safe for you to help me. I mean, those men—they really want to kill me. If you get mixed up in this, you could get hurt. Maybe even killed.”

Ty hears me say the words, but I can tell he doesn’t really believe them. Maybe I wouldn’t either if some guy hadn’t dragged me out into the woods. He starts speaking as soon as I stop talking.

“Look, the reality is that you need to let me help you. Or you might as well just walk out that door with your hands up.”

I’m so tired. It’s almost tempting to do what Ty says, even though he didn’t mean it. To walk out there and give myself up. To pretend that if I do, the next stop will be a clean white bed at the Sagebrush Mental Health Center. Instead of a muddy grave in the woods.

Then I remember the pink and white chips that used to be my fingernails. If I give myself up, maybe it will be worse than just a bullet in the head. “Okay. What’s your plan?”

Five minutes later, Ty wheels a big brown square garbage can into the restroom. It barely fits through the door. I open the lid. He’s put a new black plastic liner in it, but my nostrils flare at the reek of mold and rancid grease that still wafts from it. I lift my leg to climb inside, but the top edge is higher than my waist and too flimsy for me to balance on.

“Here. Let me help you.” He clasps his hands and leans down to make a step for me. I put one foot in, then raise the other and swing it over the edge of the can. Nearly losing my balance, I steady myself on his shoulder. I start to put my foot down, but have to turn it sideways when I realize there’s only a narrow rectangle at the bottom. The rest of the space is taken up by big indents that must hold the wheels. After I jam my first foot behind the second, the plastic creaking at every move, I crouch down and try to figure out where to put my arms. My mind offers up a memory, not really my own, but of a photograph from the 1950s, people crammed into those phone booths shaped like upended glass coffins. My right knee is pushing against my chin, one shoulder is twisted awkwardly. But I’m in.

When Ty closes the lid, it stinks even more and it’s hard not to feel like I might smother. He groans when he tries to tip it back on its wheels. “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I can move the world,” I think. Or rather, I remember . I have a dim memory of a classroom, a blackboard, a teacher reciting those words.

For a minute I forget about the smell and how cramped I am. All I can think about is how two little shards of knowledge—a photo from the 1950s and an old quote from some Greek or Roman philosopher—just got knocked free in my brain. Does that mean I might start remembering more?

We go bumping along. I’m so crammed in that I don’t get thrown around too badly, but I can feel my bones aching where bruises will probably show up tomorrow. If there is a tomorrow. A few times the cart drops down over a stair or a curb, and then the sound of the wheels gets deeper and more spread out, and I realize we’re outside. He’s wheeling me to the spot where they keep the shopping mall’s Dumpsters behind red brick walls. Consumers out to buy a bunch of new shiny stuff don’t want to be reminded that everything eventually gets used up and tossed aside.

Finally we stop. “Back in a sec,” Ty says in a low voice, and then his footsteps move off as he goes to get his car. The plan is for him to drive around the block a few times, making sure he’s not followed, and then to take the back entrance into the mall and drive straight into this walled-off area to retrieve me.

But what if someone else comes to get me first? I realize, too late, that the gun is in my pocket, not my hand. I try to twist my hand back to get it, but it’s impossible. Another memory comes to me, but this time it’s a real memory, it’s my memory, it’s not something I learned in school or saw on the Internet. In my memory, I am hiding underneath a bed, waiting for someone to find me. Playing hide-and-seek. I don’t know who I was playing with or how old I was or even whose house I was in. But I do remember what it felt like to tremble and wait and concentrate on not making a sound. To try to not even breathe.

But back then it was half delicious. Now it’s just pure terror. Because the next person who swings that lid back could be the man in the oxblood shoes. The man who ordered my death.

And then I hear something. The hairs prickle on my arms as I concentrate. The sounds become clearer. Footsteps. Coming closer.

Should I stand up now, grab the gun as I unfold my legs, try to take advantage of the element of surprise? But what if I knock the cart off balance and tumble out? I’m not sure I can even get out of here without someone helping me.

A new sound is layered over the footsteps. My heart hammers in my chest. But then I recognize it. Some guy is humming. And saying an occasional word. “Baby… love… do that…”