I smell the alcohol billow from his breath and notice a slight slur. “Dawn,” I tell him. “And yours?”
“Dawn. Si.” He pauses. “Jose. Ieee just came from a Christmas party and had a fight with my boss. So Iee, uh, leffft.” His slurring is becoming more pronounced.
“Oh, really? Where do you work?” I ask, hugging myself tighter and remembering the date, December 22, near Christmas.
He shoots an angry stare my way, letting me know he doesn’t like my question, and takes another long moment to answer. “Nordstrom. At the Galleria.”
He doesn’t like me; I can sense it. “Oh,” I answer uncomfortably and decide not to ask any more. Slowly, I inspect the inside of the car. It has a dark interior. I can’t quite tell the color—maybe a deep bloodred. I notice it has power windows and long push-down door locks. They are up. Scanning down, I notice the control panel. Automatic locks, I note. He can control all the locks. Cautiously, I lean up against the car door and ever so slowly place my two fingers under the smooth, knobby lock, making it look like an attempt to keep warm. This guy is acting strange, and I want to make sure he can’t lock me in. We drive in silence for a long, long time. John has neither allowed me to get my license nor given me directions anywhere, so I don’t know whether we’re going the right way. Even though my gut screams, This is wrong, I have to trust this stranger for the moment.
We enter a freeway. “You know Ventura Boulevard, right?” I ask again. I’m getting more worried that I don’t recognize the freeway we just got on.
“Iee know. Iee know. Chut up!” he snaps.
I gulp. Did he tell me to shut up? Paralyzing silence permeates the air, and my heart catches in my throat. Oh my God! This guy is angry! He’s not going to take me to John! I push myself away from him against the side of the passenger door, using my body to cover my hand on the lock. Farther and farther we drive. My insides are screaming, He’s going the wrong way! Houses seem to be fewer and farther between, and all I can think about is the Hillside Strangler, the Trash Bag Murderer, and the girl on the news who got her arms chopped off while hitchhiking.
In a drunken haze, the driver sees my fear and sneakily lowers his hand to fumble at the control panel, flipping the switch that will lock all the doors. I feel the tug of the lock between my fingers, while the audible click of the others snapping down echoes like a gunshot in my ears. I’ll jump! I think, keeping a weird sense of calm at the idea. But where? He looks over at me and smiles. He thinks he has me trapped.
“W, where are you taking me?”
“Chut up, bitch!” he snarls. He methodically frees one hand from the steering wheel and like a vise grip bolt grabs my throat. “Chut up or I kill you!” He squeezes tighter.
Beating his hand from my neck with my free hand, I keep far away from him, never releasing my grip on the lock with my other. “Okay. Okay,” I choke. “Stop! Stop!”
“You chut up, bitch. Okay… Okay?”
“Okay! Please stop!” I beg. I need to get him to trust me, a voice from inside my head speaks plainly and clearly.
He lets go. With a wicked smirk on his face, he puts his hand back on the steering wheel and keeps driving. Lights pass sporadically now, and I can see the silhouette of the mountains in the background.
“Please, please—,” I plead. “I’ll do anything you want. Ju, just stop. Here—right here. I promise I won’t tell anyone. I’ll do whatever you want!” I try to reason with him, soften him, hoping he will stop near enough to people that when I jump I’ll see someone someplace near enough to run to.
He pays no attention, as if he can’t hear me, driving steadily onward as if he has someplace in mind. The air in the car grows heavier… ominous… dark, as if the deadly presence of evil has crept into every crevice of the car—and then I know! I know this man wants to kill me. Not just hurt me, like John, but kill me. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
Now the tears come, violent flooding tears, and I beg him for my life. “Oh my God! Don’t do this! Please!” He turns his head to look me dead in the eye. He knows I know. In his eyes there is death. There is rape and violence and pain. In his eyes there is anger—boiling, seething hatred—and it twists his face into a mask like one my little brother wore one Halloween that scared me so bad… the mask of a killer.
“Chut up!” he says one final time harshly.
I can almost feel my neck snap. I obey. Counting every streetlight we pass, I try to calculate when to jump. I gotta do it now, before he takes me any farther. But he’s going too fast. I gotta get him to slow down somehow! The houses and buildings are disappearing. On either side of the freeway there are only mountains, twinkling with a sporadic sprinkling of lights as we speed along. On the left I recognize the distant isolated glow of the Eternal Valley Memorial Park. Gena. That’s where Gena is buried! The upper desert. Oh no! He’s taking me to the upper desert!
The speed of the car is too fast; there are no more buildings now. The only streetlights left are near the periodic off-ramps. Traffic is sparse, and things look bad. I have to get him to pull over… and then I’ll jump! Up ahead is an on-ramp with another lone streetlight. But as we approach, I see something different: a second light. A small building maybe? Maybe someone is there. I have to try now. This is my last chance.
“Please, mister. Please. Just pull over, and I’ll do anything you want. Anything!”
He turns to look at the side of the road, nods, seemingly satisfied, and slows to pull over. The car comes to a stop.
Bracing myself, I lean my full body weight into the door and pull the handle. Whoosh! The door opens.
Instantly, his head whips around and just as quickly he stomps on the gas. The car lunges forward. The door flies open.
My head snaps back and forth with an invisible slamming force. As if in a vise grip my hands are glued onto the door handle, holding on for dear life. I dangle there, hovering stretched out over racing asphalt and gravel, long enough to catch my breath. Then, in a split-second decision, I let go. Over and over I roll, blinded by my momentum on the pitch-black pavement that burns hot into my skin and crunches rock into bone. Like a cat that’s fallen from several stories above, I land on my feet, wind whipping my hair in my face. I run full speed toward the just-passed on-ramp. For a moment I can’t believe I am really able to run—and not just run, but race like I’m going for the finish line in the 300-yard dash in seventh grade. Peering down I see I have lost one of my black sandals and both my knees are bleeding. I turn to look behind me. The white blob of the car is parked on the side of the road, and he is running after me!
A huge rush of adrenaline surges through my body and, with superhuman strength, I double my pace. Eighteen-wheelers fly past, honking a long, eerie, banshee scream; a car or two whiz by. My arms are frenzied flags, but no one stops. I turn to look behind me once again, and gasp. The car’s still there, but he’s gone! He couldn’t have made it back to his car in that little time! Oh God, no! He’s in the bushes!