Hannah Pittard - Listen to Me

In Mark’s front pocket was the last packet of glow sticks. He tore it open, pulled out all three sticks, snapped each one, and tied them to his wrist. The room immediately around him came into pastel view. Gerome wagged his tail and circled.

“Where’s your leash?” Mark whispered. “Where’d it go?”

Gerome ran to the door and nosed at the place where they’d discarded the leash.

“Good boy,” Mark said.

Once the dog’s collar was hooked, Mark eek ed open the high-levered lock. It was only after he was in the hallway shutting the door carefully and quietly that he realized he’d be leaving Maggie in an unlocked room. He paused. The hallway was so black; he didn’t like the idea of leaving Maggie exposed.

Gerome let out a full-mouthed moan at his side. Mark saw no other option. He pulled the door closed. It didn’t latch. But, provided no one came through checking, it would appear, were there light, as though the door was flush with the frame. It was the best he could do.

Gerome tugged him down the hall, past the fire door, through the lower stairwell, and out the basement exit. Outside, the air was dank and fluid. His moist pants felt cool against his legs.

There was a minivan parked near the rear exit of the hotel. Gerome steered deftly around it, leading them rapidly across the bottom parking lot in the direction of the forest at the perimeter of the clearing.

Two more cars were parked in the distance, near the far edge of the mountaintop — a low sedan and a high-riding truck. Neither of them had their headlights on, but one of them — one of the far ones — was idling. Or Mark thought it was idling. He thought he could hear the engine gently ticking in the distance. Maybe he was imagining things. Maybe what he was actually hearing was the beginning of the return of electricity, its whirs and hums.

Gerome hunched into a squat the minute he hit grass and relieved himself. The smell was foul. He crab-walked along the edge of the trees, through the sodden grass, in the direction of the far cars. Mark breathed shallowly through his mouth and followed, the leash taut and his arm outstretched in order to provide as much distance between them as possible.

The earliest smidgen of light was visible to the east. Mark rubbed at his eyes. At long last, Gerome stopped, shook himself frantically, then returned daintily to Mark’s side, his tail high, as though nothing had ever been troubling him.

There was just enough residual moon and just enough burgeoning morning sun that Mark could see now that the truck, definitely idling, had a door open. In fact, from its massive outline, it looked not unlike the truck they’d been followed by a few hours earlier.

Mark stepped closer.

Above the purr of the engine — impossible, of course — but above the purr, he thought he heard a whimper. Then the noise, the one that sounded like a whimper, morphed — further impossible — into a sob, and the sob into a word, and the word — the one Mark heard — was no, and the no seemed very much as if it were being uttered by a woman.

A moment later there was a slap — what sounded like a slap — and this was then followed by a full-on cry.

But the cry didn’t belong to a woman. It belonged to a child.

Instinctively, Mark craned his head, his better ear angled more directly toward the vehicles.

The woman’s voice, higher, clearer, now said, “Stop.” There was another slap.

It was impossible — these sounds, this series of sounds — because things like this didn’t happen in real life. Not to Mark. Things like this happened on TV, on scripted police procedurals, in Maggie’s articles. They didn’t happen to him.

There was another sharp cry — the child again — and then what could only be described as a gasping, as though something were drowning or possibly being smothered.

Gerome lifted his head as if to say, It’s not just you, bub. It’s you and me both, and you know a dog has ears designed to detect distress. You know it, bub. There’s no denying it. Try all you want.

Mark felt his pulse pick up. The question, of course, was whether to approach or retreat. The options were to go back to the hotel room and pretend he’d heard nothing, or advance toward the car and risk giving the impression of a classic busybody.

He thought of Maggie, of what she’d do, what she’d say. “If you see something, say something,” she might quip. “Do you want to be polite, or do you want to be proactive?” He thought of the college girl.

Gerome tugged in the direction of the two vehicles. The little bell on his collar jingled. Mark yanked him back. He yelped. “Quiet,” he said. “Quiet.”

The sun was up a degree higher, though it was still closer to night than to day. He could see the color of Gerome’s fur. In another few minutes, he’d be able to see the make of the two vehicles in front of them. In a few minutes after that, he’d see their license plates. In a few minutes more, he’d see into the windshields. But he didn’t want to see into the windshields. He didn’t want to see the numbers on the plates, and he surely didn’t want to engage with anybody who might have been following them so belligerently just a few hours earlier on that slim mountain road.

He turned toward the hotel — he’d made his decision — but it was too late: Mark and Gerome had been spotted.

“Hey,” said a voice from inside the opened door of the truck. This was a man’s voice, not a woman’s, not a child’s. Perhaps Mark had been mistaken. Perhaps both he and Gerome had been mistaken. “Wait a minute,” the voice said.

Mark’s cheeks went hot. He’d been caught meddling. His bowels churned loudly.

A figure now emerged from the truck, the outline of a man, of a very large man. Mark thought he heard the sound of a zipper. He felt sick.

The figure stepped forward; Gerome growled, and Mark heard the unmistakably muffled mewl of a child coming from within the truck. Mark backed up.

“You need something?” the man said. His voice was familiar — not associated with a singular person, but with a specific type of person, with a specific breed. In his voice was the twang of mountains, the thud of poverty, the absence of education, the clash of inbreeding.

The man stopped walking when Gerome growled again.

“Pete?” said Mark. “Is that you?”

“Who’s Pete? I’m not Pete. You want something?”

“Who do you have in there?”

“You work here? You asking me to leave?”

Mark heard rustling from the interior of the truck. Something was wrong. A struggle was underway. He was sure of it.

“Do you have permission to be here?” Mark asked. “Who do you have in there?”

“Are you the person who gives permission?” the man said. “Is that for you to give?”

The rustling continued.

“Does someone need help?” It was the only thing Mark could think to ask, though having asked it, he realized how weak the question sounded, how ineffectual and insincere even.

And now, inside the truck, an overhead light flicked on. A young woman uncrumpled herself from the passenger’s seat. Her hair was disheveled; she appeared half asleep. Her face, what Mark could see through the windshield, was pale blue and hollow.

He heard the mewling again. And then, against his will, though will had nothing to do with it since he’d not been prepared or forewarned, he watched as the woman pulled aside her shirt and exposed a breast.

Mark looked away and toward the man, who was looking now at what Mark had just seen. The man stepped sideways, a defensive move, meant to block Mark’s view. The maneuver worked, but not before Mark looked once again — this time, yes, against his will; it was instinct; it was animal; he shouldn’t have but he did — toward the breast and saw, just before the vision was interrupted by the shadow of the man, a baby being lifted up from the deep of the cab, up and toward the breast.