Chapter 7
“Which way,” Jasmine asked just above a whisper. “I can’t see anything out here.”
He didn’t answer. He just shoved her into the blinding darkness and walked as if able to see or feel where he wanted to go.
Jasmine looked down and saw them; small faint glowing bulbs, like those used on an aircraft that lit the passage to an exit. Why she didn’t see them when she surveyed the area was a slap in the face. She was better than this and, although a faint amber, she should have noticed them. She should have seen him or at least heard him when he approached her. Especially a vehicle of sort would have made enough noise over the wind for her to hear it. I had better get my act together, she thought, or I’ll never make it to Dallas…
She followed the lighted path to a Harley Davidson motorcycle. The bike of her dreams of all things, a Harley Davidson Softtail. She took it as a good sign. That would get her to Oklahoma, and if she were lucky through the city, maybe even to the Red River or at least as far as she had gas.
“You know, I’m such a good guy, I’m gonna let you sit up front,” the stranger said. His words were in the midst of a laugh. “Yer’n gonna ease yerself on that bike and put yer arms behind your back,” he continued in an odd southern accent. Not quite the Texas drawl, nor the southeast hillbillies she’d heard about, but a mixture of both along with the lack of an education. He was also dressed in old military clothing with multiple coats and wore an old soft helmet. The tips of his gloves were gone, exposing brown nails and chapped fingertips.
“I’ll need to take my pack off first,” Jasmine said in a manner and tone that depicted fear.
He stared at her for a long beat, sizing her up, looking at her hands for a weapon he might have missed when he crept up on her, but at the time, all he saw were the weird look’n binoculars that still hung from a strap from around her neck. That and the backpack that looked full with harmless crap. She’s probably carrying food, water and surely something stolen. Accord’n to Owen, gypsies were known to be thieves, scavengers, and vagabonds. You certainly have to guard your belongin’s when they’s around, that’s fer sure, he thought. Owen said when he was a boy a gypsy woman from Dallas robbed his parents of hundreds of dollars which was why they had to stay outside. They didn’t have the money to pay for a place of any size and the government pigs refused to let them in.
“I don’t trust you gypsies, you hear? So move nice and slow,” the stranger said, leveling his pistol and pointing it at her chest. “I’d be heartbroken if’n I had to kill ya… I never had a gypsy a’fore… Hell, I don’t know if I want one. Owen says gypsies work for the devil himself, and they’s be da’cause of the meteor.”
Jasmine wanted to laugh. Aunt Dooriya was right. She loosened the breast strap and the pack eased back a little. She then slowly thumbed both straps and moved her hands up as if removing the pack and before the stranger could blink, she pulled her shotgun and planted the barrel on his forehead. Startled, he jumped, and was surprised he didn’t think to pull the trigger.
“Your silly little twenty-two will hurt, but mine will take what little brains you have left in that thick head of yours and spread them all around the barrens. There won’t even be enough left of that thick skull of yours to hang on a post,” Jasmine said, smiling a smile that sent a shiver down his back.
Sumbitchen gypsies, cain’t trust’em, the stranger thought. He then, as if after a flash of though, laughed and said, “You ain’t so smart, you didn’t chain’ba a round.”
“Don’t have too, it’s an automatic, oh, and look, the safety isn’t on either,” Jasmine answered, smiling.
The smile sent another shiver down his back as he leaned in and took a closer look. He whistled and said, “Sumbitch if’n you didn’t get the drop on me…” Sumbitchen, gypsies.
Jasmine reached over, plucked the pistol from his hand, and tucked it in her belt, and as his eyes followed her hand he nearly stepped back in surprise, she was carrying two pistols on her hip. “Sumfuckingbitch,” he shouted and then thought, sumbitchen, gypsies.
“What’ your name?” Jasmine asked, smiling, almost giggling.
“Toby,” The stranger answered.
“You know, Toby, I’m such a good gal, I’m gonna let you sit up front,” Jasmine said. Her words were in the midst of the same mocking laugh. “You’re’n gonna ease yerself on that bike and put yer arms behind your back,” she continued in the same thick accent. “And I’m gonna do you one better. I’m going to stick this here gun in your belt, and it’s going to be pointing at your balls. You make one move and ka-pow, got it?”
Toby gulped. Sumbitchen, gypsies
In the distance, she could hear the faint roar of another freight train following the previous one. In less than five minutes, the tornado passed maybe twenty yards from where they stood. The roar was horrible and the debris was worse. She saw every imaginable thing she could think of in the funnel, from animals to decayed human bodies.
While Toby swung a leg over the Harley, Jasmine looked around, expecting a partner or two to rush out of the darkness to come to his aid; yet, she saw nothing and heard nothing but the roar. She returned the shotgun to its place in her pack, tightened her the straps, and eased up behind him and cuffed him with his zip lock ties.
“Head on the gas tank, Toby,” She said, gently pushing his head down. “Head on the gas tank or I leave your worthless body here for the next tornado to drag all the way to Canada.”
Toby laid his forehead on the gas tank, mumbling, “And what’cha think ya gonna do, use me as bait to get across the barrens?”
She tucked his pistol between his belt and stomach with the barrel pointed at his crotch. She practiced grabbing the handle and whispering, “pow,” and he flinched each time. The act sent a pain to his groin. He winced.
“Oh, no-no. I want to meet Owen. I want to rape him, brutalize him, kill him, then cook and eat him. And if you’re nice, I might share some of it with you. But for sure my belly and pack will be full,” Jasmine said in a manner, tone, and accent that she remembered her grandmother used when confronted by someone. Her grandmother’s presence usually made the shyer ones slink back and those that were brave gave it a second thought but in the end usually backed off. “I’m also low on money. I can’t spend credits outside the city.”
“Gypsies don’t eat people. You’d steal dem blind, but you ain’t got it in you,” Toby said with a slight stutter followed by a faint slurp.
“Oh, yes we do. We have for hundreds of years. Sometimes we just drank their blood but mostly we feasted. I for one love the taste of a man’s heart.”
“Sumbitch,” Toby uttered. “Goddamn sumbitch.” He shook as if cold. “You ain’t gonna make it.” He chuckled. “He’s got too many men from here to the OK entrance.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Jasmine answered. “But I’m betting I will, and you’re going to take me straight to him.”
Toby slurped drool. Something he apparently did when he was scared.
She then reeled in the string of lights, unhooked it from its battery, and put them into one of the saddlebags.
She kick started the Harley and smiled. It was her first real smile since her father died.
She leaned forward. “Better tighten those thighs, Toby. I don’t want to lose you or let that pistol go off on its own,” Jasmine said in a voice that was turning into a coolness that even she had never heard. “And understand, Toby. If you try something and I can’t get to that pistol, my cannon will blow a hole completely through you. If, that is, it doesn’t explode when it hits you…” She hesitated for a beat for the dramatics… “Believe me when I say this, Toby. I’ll have the cannon out and fired before I hit the ground.”