“How… I mean,” Julie hesitated. “Did you see him put poison in the stew?”
“No, but I saw a glass jar in the barn. I think they were planting beef.”
“Excuse me?”
“They were making toxin, or at least attempting to.”
“You can make toxin out of beef?”
“But the jar had air in it. I don’t think they knew what they were doing. I don’t think the stew was poisonous.” Jack glanced at the pile of vomit on the floor. “I think I’m all right.”
“You can make poison from beef?”
“You can make poison out of more or less everything organic.” Jack looked out the window. “You can even make cyanide from apples.”
“You can make cyanide from apples?” Julie looked overwhelmed.
“From apple seeds. But you need a lot of them.”
“But they’re not very hard to come by.”
Julie kept staring out the window with empty eyes and a catatonic stare. Suddenly, a tear escaped her eye, but she wiped it away just as fast.
“We should leave. We’ll take the truck,” Jack said. “How’s your ankle?”
“I don’t notice the pain anymore.”
“Either way, you shouldn’t walk on it. Let me carry you from now on.”
Jack picked Julie up in his arms and carried her past the hallway. But then he froze and kept staring at the wall, as he set her down.
Julie looked mystified. “What’s wrong?”
“This guy.” Jack pointed at one of the many pictures on the wall. “He’s in all of the pictures. I think there’re three of them.”
Julie looked frightened, and stared intensely at the man in the picture.
“I’ll get the rifle from the kitchen,” Jack said.
On his way back from to the kitchen, Jack exhaled loudly and shook his head, as he looked down at the rifle he was holding.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s not loaded. They tried to trick me into the kitchen.”
Jack walked back to the kitchen, and opened several kitchen drawers.
“There’re no knives either!” Jack yelled.
Then Jack went into the dining room, and opened the top draw in the dresser next to the bathroom door, and his face lit up with joy.
“Did you find the ammo or the knives?”
“Neither,” Jack responded. He picked up a cell phone out of the drawer, but then, his smile vanished. “I don’t think it’s working. The screen is all black. No, wait, it’s working now.”
Julie seemed relieved as Jack brought the phone to his ear. But a few seconds later, Jack looked back at Julie, dejected.
“It’s not ringing,” Jack said. “What’s nine one one in Canada?”
“It has to be nine one one. Right?”
“It’s not ringing.” Jack looked at the screen.
“Try triple nine.”
Jack kept his eyes on the screen. “How do I hang up? There’s no hang up button.”
“Let me see,” Julie said, and extended her right arm.
Jack handed her the phone.
Julie sighed. “That’s where to punch the pin code, Jack. Did you just punch nine one one on the screen? You have to unlock the phone first. You know how to use a smart phone, don’t you?”
“So, how do we unlock it?”
Julie shook her head. “You need a code to unlock it, and the code could be anything.” She sighed deeply. “Let’s just get out of here. You got the keys, right?”
“What keys?”
“For the truck.” Julie looked frightened.
“The keys are in the ignition. I checked.”
Jack grabbed the bar of soap from the dining table and placed it in his pants pocket. Then he picked Julie up in his arms. Once at the door, he looked cautiously in all directions, scanning the terrain before he quickly ran across the courtyard toward the truck. The blood in the center of his white shirt rubbed off on Julie’s elbow.
Julie climbed into the truck on the driver side and scooted over to the passenger side. Jack pressed the starter button and the engine started accordingly, but then he turned it off just as quickly. His eyes wandered across the windshield.
“What’s wrong?”
“This doesn’t feel right,” Jack said. “Something’s wrong.”
“You mean the truck sounded wrong?” Julie seemed frightened.
“No, the image is wrong. I’m forgetting something. It doesn’t feel right.”
“Are you all right, Jack?” Julie asked warily.
Jack turned his head and looked at Julie. His pupils were more dilated than usual. Then he kept turning his head until his eyes were locked in on the curtain that separated the driving cabin from the trailer mattress—Julie did just the same.
Jack took the bar of soap out from his pocket, and swallowed once before he pulled the curtains apart and dashed into the back of the truck. His eyes briefly took in the scenery, and then he returned to the driver’s seat.
Except for a mattress, a few bed accessories, a baseball cap, and a crumpled-up pornographic magazine, nothing and no one was in the back of the truck. Julie looked relieved when she saw the empty sleeping cabin, but when she looked at Jack, who kept staring at the windshield, she appeared just as frightened as before.
“Are you all right, Jack?”
Once again, the deep sound of a massive engine filled the cabin. Jack kept his eyes on the road in front of him, but his hands never moved.
“You know how to drive this thing, right?”
Jack kept staring at the windshield and never blinked.
“Are you really a truck driver, Jack?”
“No, I was never a truck driver. But I drove a truck when I was younger,” Jack looked at her. “But trust me. I have no trouble driving this truck, Julie.”
“Well, let’s go then. What are you waiting for?”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“What, Jack?” Julie’s tone said she had run out of patience. “What doesn’t feel right?”
Jack turned off the ignition, and the heavy, vibrating sound came to a halt.
“It doesn’t feel right. My intuition tells me something’s wrong.”
“That’s because you’re scared, Jack.” Julie placed her hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t feel good to be scared. I feel scared too. But we have to go now.”
Jack kept staring at the road ahead, his pupils even more dilated than before.
“The image is wrong.” Jack sounded drowsy. “I’m forgetting something.”
“What image?” Julie’s eyes had turned wet. “Perhaps that guy was just visiting when the pictures were taken. Just because he’s in the pictures doesn’t necessarily mean he lives here.”
Jack shuddered. “The pictures. She wasn’t in any of the pictures.”
“Who?”
“The mother.”
Jack dashed out of the truck, and ran toward the small house next to the barn. Julie looked at the open truck door with a face of shock and disbelief. Another tear escaped her eye, but she didn’t wipe it this time. She just locked the door and climbed into the sleeping cabin.
41 THE DOCTOR
An unusual day
What a strange day I’m having.
A strange man is trying to convince me everything is going to be all right, and he actually speaks to me, as though he’s expecting me to answer his questions. He seems so different from the others, although he smells exactly the same. He looks like a doctor who just came out of surgery.
I’m outside now. The doctor is carrying me in his arms. The sun is in my eyes. It’s burning my corneas. I make sure to close my eyes. But now I feel a shadow on my face, so I open my eyes again. I can see the truck, right in front of me.