Taken By The Bull

I don’t know who I’m meeting. I’m not sure where. And Mikey was right… Who would even know to call me? What the hell is going on here? A sense of unease settled over her as Lenard Street rolled past, as the housing became more sporadic and spread out, and the occasional abandoned car began to dot the roadside.

There’s a sign for Chevalier Street. I’m here. Almost. She made note of the numbers on the letterboxes of the buildings as she passed them, rapidly counting down towards 2149 – until finally, she found it.

That sense of unease grew as she turned in and pulled up in the parking lot of a small bar, killing the engine. The bright, clean rental car stood out like a sore thumb among the other vehicles; but there weren’t many of them. The place seemed to be half deserted. I’m not sure about this. Not at all…

She put her hand out onto the door handle, but stopped before she could open it and instead turned to look out through the back window of the car. Three young men – well, not that young – standing clustered around the door of the bar turned her way, and one pointed; then as one, they started to move in the direction of her parked car. They didn’t exactly look friendly. They did look rather tough.

Unbidden, a memory surfaced; blood on her hands looking black under the harsh light of the flickering streetlight above, smearing the keys of her clunky old cellphone as she frantically rang 911 –

No. This isn’t good. It isn’t good!

Without thinking, she turned the key and brought the engine roaring back to life, and sent the car tearing back out in reverse. I gotta go! I gotta get gone!

The tires squealed as her heart pounded in her chest, her hand on the gears as she swung around and shifted out of reverse. She heard someone shouting as the car sprang forward again, the engine ratcheting as she pushed it – don’t stall out! Please! – and then she was moving, the safe metal shell of the car around her, hurtling out of the parking lot and back up the way she had come.

All she wanted was to get back to the hotel and get on her phone. Call Mikey. Call Steve. Anyone who could tell her, she’d been overreacting. That everything was fine.

It is fine. It is, she repeated to herself as Chevalier Street fell away beneath her and her heart began to slow, her breathing steady. You don’t need anyone to tell you that. It just – it reminded me of… And I panicked… That’s all. That’s all. They were probably going to be perfectly pleasant, and I acted like a total idiot!

Already she was cursing herself for her reaction, for judging total strangers based on where they came from, and what they looked like. Hell, it had happened to her enough times, when she was younger. She’d probably messed up something really interesting.

Was… there a car, following her?

Staci’s fingers on the wheel tightened as she saw the headlights blooming behind her, getting closer. No, it was – just a coincidence, that’s all. They’d turn away as she went down Lenard Street, and back to Main Street. Surely.

The car – no, truck – stayed close behind the whole way.

“Please, go away,” she breathed as she checked behind for what seemed like the one millionth time. “Please…”

She circled Main Street, and still it stayed close behind. Was there a chance that it was a different vehicle? She checked the rear view mirror again and again, and each time she saw the same fender with the dent in it dead center, the rust streaking up the sides. Maybe they just – they’re just guys with information, and they want to tell me, and I – ran away, and – so they’re following…

But it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel okay. Mikey was right – who knew where she staying? Who would even care that she was working on a story about Steve? Hell – he was just a bull rider! Whether he was cheating the system or not – why would that be such a big deal? She only suspected it because of instincts and a conversation caught on her voice recorder, a conversation that nobody but her even knew existed!

Maybe they’re just bull riders too, and they know I’m a reporter, and – they know something – but then why would they want to meet me out here, in the back of nowhere? Why not just – come to the hotel, if they know where I’m staying, why not leave a name, a number? But if they are dangerous, then why are they after me, anyway? What could I have possibly done?

Twice her hand moved towards the phone in her bag, and twice she pulled it away. Calling the police made sense, but she was driving in the near dark in an unfamiliar town, and what if it was nothing after all? What if –

So many ‘what if’ questions and no answers. All she knew was that as Main Street came to an end for the second time, the truck still followed, and panic still beat on the bones of her chest like a frightened bird killing itself to escape its cage.

She took a turn that felt familiar, and kept going. The lights of the town began to recede and fall away behind her and she picked up speed; with no idea where she was going, only knowing that every instinct told her to flee, to get away, to be anywhere but here.

It wasn’t until the trees growing up around the road she’d taken arched over the car like a covered avenue that suddenly she knew where she was going; where, maybe, her innate animal-senses had been leading her all along. To the one place in all of Biloxi where she felt truly safe.

She pulled into the parking area in front of the Double Thunders ranch at high speed, the tires throwing up gravel in a wide spray. Was the truck still – yes, yes it was! She threw open the door and launched herself out in a panicked tangle of arms and legs, her bag forgotten completely as she backed away from the oncoming lights, eyes wide and blinded by the brilliant whiteness.

The truck careened to a stop and the doors were flung open while the engine still ran; three dark figures emerged, the details lost in total silhouette.

“Why are you following me?!” She took another two steps back, looking back over her shoulder at the lights of the ranch house – so close, and yet so far away. “What do you want?”

“Sorry, lady.” The figure at the head of the group picked up speed as he approached, closing the distance; twenty feet, fifteen… He was winding something around his fist. “This is nothing personal.”

Ten feet away.

“Go away!” She turned and stumbled up the path towards the house, heart hammering so badly that she couldn’t think straight, blood pounding in her head, pounding, pounding – like thunder, like drums, like hooves – and in the near-darkness she couldn’t see her feet and those heels that had seemed so smart and sensible before tripped her up and sent her flying forward, hands breaking her fall. Small stones tore her skin, but she didn’t feel it; she felt nothing but terror and the need to run.

A memory flashed into her mind, obliterating everything in that moment. The flickering streetlight. The blood on her hands. The warm weight in her arms, bleeding, fading out of existence. “Trev! Trev! Please – don’t go to sleep! Stay with me, please! The ambulance is coming – so don’t – don’t die on me! Please!”