Джордан Шор - The Search

Julie didn’t make a sound, though—she just kept her focus on the window. However, as the warm liquid landed on Julie’s stomach, she turned her head and screamed. A massive flow of blood had begun gushing out of Adam’s neck. Jack stood behind him, and held Adam’s head back with his left hand. In his right hand, Jack held a bar of soap with a couple of razor blades attached to it, the soap bar functioning as a handle. Julie crawled on her back out of the bed, backpedaling across the floor, until she reached the corner of the room.

“I’m so sorry, Julie. I didn’t mean to actually faint. My blood sugar must’ve been low,” Jack whimpered. “I figured the poison was in the stew. So, I thought I’d fake fainting and perhaps catch them off guard, so I could get to the rifle in the kitchen. I’m so sorry, Julie. I never meant for this to happen.”

Julie stood up, but kept staring down at the floor with her arms hanging down and her shoulders low. The blood on her lower stomach had merged with her sweater. She kept her eyes on the floor, and held her head down.

Then Julie walked out of the room—she didn’t limp.

Jack’s jaw began to shake, but before he spoke, Julie had already left the room.

Julie didn’t make any noise as she passed through the dining room. She just took the clothes from the dresser, and then locked herself in the bathroom.

Jack took off the blood-drenched blazer he wore, and used it to cover the other dead body in the living room. The dining table had a big pile of blood on it, and Jean’s face was in the center of that. Jack kept his eyes on the bathroom door as he paced back and forth across the dining room. Then suddenly, he stopped, and with a miserable expression on his face stared out the window. His eyes focused on the apple trees on the overgrown lawn, and his jaw began to shake once more. As Julie emerged from the bathroom, Jack startled.

“How… I mean,” Julie hesitated. “Did you see him put poison in the stew?”

“No, but I saw a glass jar in the barn. I think they were planting beef.”

“Excuse me?”

“They were making toxin, or at least attempting to.”

“You can make toxin out of beef?”

“But the jar had air in it. I don’t think they knew what they were doing. I don’t think the stew was poisonous.” Jack glanced at the pile of vomit on the floor. “I think I’m all right.”

“You can make poison from beef?”

“You can make poison out of more or less everything organic.” Jack looked out the window. “You can even make cyanide from apples.”

“You can make cyanide from apples?” Julie looked overwhelmed.

“From apple seeds. But you need a lot of them.”

“But they’re not very hard to come by.”

Julie kept staring out the window with empty eyes and a catatonic stare. Suddenly, a tear escaped her eye, but she wiped it away just as fast.

“We should leave. We’ll take the truck,” Jack said. “How’s your ankle?”

“I don’t notice the pain anymore.”

“Either way, you shouldn’t walk on it. Let me carry you from now on.”

Jack picked Julie up in his arms and carried her past the hallway. But then he froze and kept staring at the wall, as he set her down.

Julie looked mystified. “What’s wrong?”

“This guy.” Jack pointed at one of the many pictures on the wall. “He’s in all of the pictures. I think there’re three of them.”

Julie looked frightened, and stared intensely at the man in the picture.

“I’ll get the rifle from the kitchen,” Jack said.

On his way back from to the kitchen, Jack exhaled loudly and shook his head, as he looked down at the rifle he was holding.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s not loaded. They tried to trick me into the kitchen.”

Jack walked back to the kitchen, and opened several kitchen drawers.

“There’re no knives either!” Jack yelled.

Then Jack went into the dining room, and opened the top draw in the dresser next to the bathroom door, and his face lit up with joy.

“Did you find the ammo or the knives?”

“Neither,” Jack responded. He picked up a cell phone out of the drawer, but then, his smile vanished. “I don’t think it’s working. The screen is all black. No, wait, it’s working now.”

Julie seemed relieved as Jack brought the phone to his ear. But a few seconds later, Jack looked back at Julie, dejected.

“It’s not ringing,” Jack said. “What’s nine one one in Canada?”

“It has to be nine one one. Right?”

“It’s not ringing.” Jack looked at the screen.

“Try triple nine.”

Jack kept his eyes on the screen. “How do I hang up? There’s no hang up button.”

“Let me see,” Julie said, and extended her right arm.

Jack handed her the phone.

Julie sighed. “That’s where to punch the pin code, Jack. Did you just punch nine one one on the screen? You have to unlock the phone first. You know how to use a smart phone, don’t you?”

“So, how do we unlock it?”

Julie shook her head. “You need a code to unlock it, and the code could be anything.” She sighed deeply. “Let’s just get out of here. You got the keys, right?”

“What keys?”

“For the truck.” Julie looked frightened.

“The keys are in the ignition. I checked.”

Jack grabbed the bar of soap from the dining table and placed it in his pants pocket. Then he picked Julie up in his arms. Once at the door, he looked cautiously in all directions, scanning the terrain before he quickly ran across the courtyard toward the truck. The blood in the center of his white shirt rubbed off on Julie’s elbow.

Julie climbed into the truck on the driver side and scooted over to the passenger side. Jack pressed the starter button and the engine started accordingly, but then he turned it off just as quickly. His eyes wandered across the windshield.

“What’s wrong?”

“This doesn’t feel right,” Jack said. “Something’s wrong.”

“You mean the truck sounded wrong?” Julie seemed frightened.

“No, the image is wrong. I’m forgetting something. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Are you all right, Jack?” Julie asked warily.

Jack turned his head and looked at Julie. His pupils were more dilated than usual. Then he kept turning his head until his eyes were locked in on the curtain that separated the driving cabin from the trailer mattress—Julie did just the same.

Jack took the bar of soap out from his pocket, and swallowed once before he pulled the curtains apart and dashed into the back of the truck. His eyes briefly took in the scenery, and then he returned to the driver’s seat.

Except for a mattress, a few bed accessories, a baseball cap, and a crumpled-up pornographic magazine, nothing and no one was in the back of the truck. Julie looked relieved when she saw the empty sleeping cabin, but when she looked at Jack, who kept staring at the windshield, she appeared just as frightened as before.

“Are you all right, Jack?”

Once again, the deep sound of a massive engine filled the cabin. Jack kept his eyes on the road in front of him, but his hands never moved.

“You know how to drive this thing, right?”

Jack kept staring at the windshield and never blinked.

“Are you really a truck driver, Jack?”

“No, I was never a truck driver. But I drove a truck when I was younger,” Jack looked at her. “But trust me. I have no trouble driving this truck, Julie.”

“Well, let’s go then. What are you waiting for?”

“It doesn’t feel right.”

“What , Jack?” Julie’s tone said she had run out of patience. “What doesn’t feel right?”

Jack turned off the ignition, and the heavy, vibrating sound came to a halt.