Darby knew freak was Army shorthand for frequency. Another slurp of grungy static, reaching a garbled peak. Like a phone dropped underwater.
She didn’t realize Rodent Face had crept closer until he was standing directly over her left shoulder, still mouth-breathing, joining the group in frozen attention as the ancient Sony AM/FM leaked electronic slush from the counter. Under the feedback noise, she recognized . . . yes, there it was . . . the faintest murmur—
“A voice,” she said. “Someone’s talking.”
“I can’t hear anything—”
“Hang on.” Ed reached through the security grate and twirled the volume dial, lifting tinny fragments out of the muck. It sounded like the automated voice, stilted with inhuman pauses: “—has issued a w-nter st-rm w-rn-ng -ffecting Backb-ne Pass with bl-zzard conditions and extr-me prec-pitation. State Route Sev-n is closed to all tr-ffic between exits f-rty-nine and sixty-eight unt-l f-rther notice—”
Ashley blinked. “Which mile marker are we at?”
Ed raised a finger, clattering the shutters. “Ssh.”
“—Em-rgency and road maint-n-nce crews exp-ct significant delays of s-x to eight hours due to m-ltiple collisions and heavy sn-wfall. All mot-rists are adv-sed to st-y off the roads and r-main indoors until c-nditions impr-ve.”
A long, crackly pause. Then a faint beep.
Everyone waited.
“The n-tional weath-r service has issued a w-nter storm w-rning affecting Backb-ne Pass . . .” The broadcast repeated, and everyone in the room deflated at once. Ed lowered the volume and huffed.
Silence.
Sandi spoke first. “Six to eight hours?”
Darby’s legs nearly folded under her. She’d been half-standing, arched forward to listen, and now she slumped back into her chair like a ragdoll. The rest of the room processed this information in hushed voices, swirling around her:
“Is that right?”
“Six to eight freakin’ hours.”
“All night, basically.”
“Better get comfy.”
Sandi pouted and closed her tablet’s leather case. “Figures. I’m already on the last level of Super Bubble Pop.”
All night. Darby rocked in the cheap chair, her knuckles clasped around her knees. A strange sensation of alarm washed over her, a sluggish sort of horror, like what her mother might’ve felt when she found that first lump under her armpit. No panic, no fight, no flight, just that shivery little moment when daily life goes rancid.
It’ll be all night until the snowplows get here—
Rodent Face cleared his throat, a juicy gurgle, and everyone glanced to him. He was still standing behind Darby’s chair, still breathing down her neck. He addressed the entire room, his words slow and clotted: “I’m Lars.”
Silence.
“My . . .” He inhaled through his mouth. “My name is . . . Lars.”
No one responded.
Darby tensed, realizing this was likely the first time Ashley, Ed, and Sandi had heard him speak as well. The awkwardness was tangible.
“Uh . . .” Ashley flashed his easy smile. “Thanks, Lars.”
“You know . . .” Lars swallowed, both hands in his jacket pockets. “Since we’ll be . . . ah . . . here a while. Better make introductions. So, ah, hello, my name is Lars.”
. . . And I’m probably the one with a kid locked in my van.
Darby’s mind raced, her thoughts fluttering out of control, her nerves writhing and sparking like live wires.
And we’re trapped here with you.
In this tiny rest stop.
All night.
“Nice to meet you,” said Ed. “What’re your thoughts on Apple products?”
*
Twenty minutes of strategic small talk later, Darby had all of the parked vehicles matched to their drivers.
The buried one belonged to Ashley. He’d been the first one here, having arrived sometime after 3 p.m. this afternoon to find a deserted rest area with a murmuring radio and stale coffee. He’d been in no hurry to cross the pass, and figured he’d play it safe. He was a college student, like herself — Salt Lake City Institute of Tech or something. Now that the ice was broken, he was an absolute chatterbox with a Cheshire grin full of white teeth. Darby now knew he was planning a Vegas trip with his uncle to see some illusionist show. She knew he hated mushrooms but loved cilantro. Good lord, could he talk: “And Ashley is still a perfectly good male name.”
“Uh-huh,” said Ed.
The two older folks were more guarded, but Darby now knew the red F150 was actually Sandi’s — not Ed’s, as she’d originally guessed. She was also surprised to learn they weren’t even married, although they sure bickered enough to be. They were cousins, actually, and Sandi was driving them both to Denver to visit family for Christmas. A bit of an eleventh-hour trip, by the sound of it. Ed had been in some sort of recent trouble, since he didn’t have a car or (apparently) a steady job. Prison time? Maybe. He seemed to be something of a beached male; a fifty-something man-child with an earring and a biker goatee, and Sandi seemed to love babying him, if only so she had an excuse to hate him.
So Darby had eliminated three drivers, and two vehicles.
This left Lars.
He hadn’t spoken at all since he’d told them his name, so Darby couldn’t get a firm idea of exactly when he’d arrived here, but judging by the snowpack she estimated maybe thirty minutes before Ed and Sandi. She watched Lars fill a Styrofoam cup with COCO and return to his sentry spot at the door, taking a childish slurp. She hadn’t seen him sit down once.
As she sipped her own drug of choice, COFEE, Darby tried to plan her next moves. But there were too many unknowns. She couldn’t involve Ed, Ashley, or Sandi — not yet — because then she’d lose control of the situation. Involving other people had to be a last resort. You can’t put the pin back in the grenade. Right here, right now, she had the element of surprise, and the worst thing she could possibly do was waste it.
Still, her mind conjured worst-case scenarios. She imagined telling Ashley (the youngest and most physically able) that she suspected they were sharing oxygen with a child molester, and Ashley understandably blanching. Lars would notice this, yank a gun from his baby-blue jacket, and kill them both. Ed and Sandi would be witnesses, so they’d die, too. Four bullet-riddled bodies in a glossy pool of blood. All because Darby opened her mouth.
And, the flipside — what if there wasn’t a child in Lars’s van?
What if I imagined it?
What if she’d seen a plastic doll hand? A dog paw? A kid’s empty glove? It wouldn’t explain the bars or the combination lock, but still, it could’ve all been her tortured imagination, a trick of light and shadow, and it had only lasted a few seconds anyway. Her mind swirled a little.