Public Enemy Zero

26

Somewhat reluctantly, the dog followed Mitchell as he continued traveling away from the housing complex. Until Rookman had mentioned the police scanner, the plan was to make his way over to a marina two miles away and try to steal a small boat.

While Mitchell knew nothing about hot-wiring cars, he knew something about boats. He’d spent a summer working in a marina that belonged to his mom’s boyfriend at the time. In South Florida, there were five ways to go north and south. There were three major highways, I-95, U.S. 1 and the Turnpike. The other ways were via rail or the Intracoastal, a waterway that led from Miami all the way up to Georgia.

Besides giving him a way to travel that didn’t involve major roads, being out in the open water would give Mitchell a safe distance from people getting too close.

He remembered an all-night diner was right off the main highway that ran near the marina. Mitchell decided that Rookman’s hint about the police scanner was worth paying attention to. He walked another half mile with Mr. Barks.

He came to the other side of the street across from the diner. In the distance he could hear the low rumble of trucks on the highway and smell the exhaust fumes. Several tractor-trailer trucks were pulled up at the diesel pumps or parked in the large lot in the back.

He looked down at Mr. Barks. The dog stared back up at him. The animal had enjoyed the adventure at first but was now scared by the unfamiliarity of everything. Mitchell tied the dog to a pay phone near a darkened strip mall and walked back toward the diner. He could hear whimpering behind him.

He’s just a dog, Mitchell told himself and kept walking. The dog let out a sad whine.

Mitchell stopped. For fuck sake. He turned back to the dog, not believing himself. After everything that happened that day. The horrific human tragedy he partially caused, the goddamn dog was now making him feel bad?

He sat down by the dog and looked at its collar. He found an old tag and a new tag with the same phone number. He pulled one off and put it in his pocket.

“Listen, buddy, when I get away from here, I’m going to call your parents so they can come get you. I just can’t do that right now.” He looked at the rope. “If I let you go, I don’t want you to get hurt, and well, I can’t let you go running back home and have the cops see you.”

Mitchell looked at the pay phone he’d tied Mr. Barks to. Should he make one more effort to call 911? He picked up the receiver and started to dial. He hesitated over the last number. What would happen if he called? They’d send a cop car out to get him for sure. None of the cops he saw so far had been wearing any kind of protective gear. That meant that even they didn’t know what was going on. Calling for help was an invitation for suicide.

“Damn,” said Mitchell as he hung up the phone. They’d think he was crazy. They got dozens of calls a day from paranoid lunatics. There was no reason for Mitchell to think they’d treat him any differently.

He dialed a different number and made a collect call. A gravelly voiced answered. Mitchell hesitated to think about what to say. He knew Rookman was a security nut.

“Um, is this poison control? ‘Cause I think I ate too many dicks,” said Mitchell.

“Asshole,” said the voice and then he hung up.

There went that plan, thought Mitchell. He looked over at the diner to see what the best way to get in and out of the back would be.

Mitchell jumped when the phone rang behind him. Mitchell stared at it, afraid to answer. Mr. Barks looked up at him.

Mitchell picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Looks like a pay phone number and not a burner. That’s a mistake man. Always have a burner cell phone,” said Rookman.

“Yeah, um, I’m new at this.”

“No shit. Do you have a plan? I mean, don’t tell me. But do you have a plan?”

Mitchell looked at the diner and the row of trucks in back where he hoped to find a police scanner. “I think so. Part of one. I got an idea for a hideout.”

“That’s good. But keep moving. So tell me, what’s really going on?” asked Rookman.

“I don’t know. People try to kill me when they see me. Their eyes go all bloodshot. They look like fucking vampires or zombies.” Mitchell’s voice started to crack. “I just want it to stop.”

“That’s some scary shit, man. Sounds like it might be some kind of rage virus or something. Is there anything on you that might be making people go bat shit? Like a high-frequency transmitter? There have been experiments on ultra high and low frequencies that make people lose their shit.”

“No,” said Mitchell. “I searched everything I have. Nothing unusual. I thought maybe my iPad or something. But that was in my car when I first got attacked. I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, man. Something happened to you. Don’t forget that. You’re just trying to do what you can to survive. You’re a good kid, Mitchell. I see a lot of assholes every day, and I know you’re not one of them. Right now you need to stay alive. I’ll ask some of my spook connections if they know anything. If I can get you some help, I’ll try, maybe through them. But you got to know sooner or later they’re going to start tracking me to get to you. So don’t fall for it.”

“Yeah, man. Thanks.”

“Stay safe. Stick with what you know. Don’t do anything stupid. Stay away from people. Especially stay the fuck away from me.”

Mitchell thanked him and hung up. Stick with what you know. Mitchell knew two things: broadcasting and boats. He’d have to avoid broadcasting for the time being. Boats were his next stop.

Mr. Barks had watched the conversation, trying to understand. Mitchell gave him a hug and then walked over to the diner. Behind him, the dog laid down to take a nap and wait for his new friend to come back. It would be a long wait.

Mitchell avoided the street lights that illuminated the parking lot in bright patches and worked his way to the rear of the diner. He was certain all kinds of shady things took place back there, from drug deals to prostitution. He kept a careful eye for anybody lurking in the shadows.

He heard the loud roar of a tractor-trailer start and then watched one pull out. From where he was standing, he could see the front of the diner. It didn’t look like anyone was on their way out, so he approached a cluster of six trucks.

Through the large glass windows he could see drowsy men in baseball caps drinking huge cups of coffee and eating more carbs than Mitchell would in a week. A waitress, who looked like she belonged in a nursing home, would shamble around, filling cups, and then go back to a stool behind a register and watch the clock. This was no SWAT team.

His plan was to scope out the trucks and look through the windows to see if he could spot a scanner. He had no idea how common they would be but at least he’d give it a shot here. If he came up with nothing, then he’d just head over to the marina.

Mitchell approached the first truck from the side farthest from the diner. He climbed up on the running board and looked inside. It was too dark to be sure, but it didn’t look like there was anything on the dashboard or seat that looked like a scanner.

He hopped down and was about to walk around the front of the truck when he noticed something — all the trucks had been parked in a staggered fashion. If he walked around the front, he would be visible by the people in the diner. He guessed it was a strategy to make it easy for the drivers to keep an eye on their rigs while they ate.

Mitchell decided it would be prudent to take the long way around and avoid being seen. He passed around the back of the truck and walked up to the cab on the next one. A quick look inside showed nothing like a scanner.

He hopped down and walked toward the back to look at another truck. Doubts about Rookman’s advice were starting to settle in. Mitchell would look at two more and then give up the whole idea.

Mitchell climbed up on the third truck’s running board and looked in. He couldn’t see anything in there, either. He was about to hop back down when he noticed an antenna sticking out from under a map on the passenger side door.

All right, we’re in business, he thought. The next step was getting it. He tried the door handle with no luck. That left the next option. Mitchell undid the zipper on his backpack and pulled out the tire iron he’d taken from the back of the stolen car.

Through the windows of the cab, he looked at the diner to see if anybody was coming. It looked like he had the all-clear. Mitchell had no idea what kind of sound the broken glass would make. He decided to wait for a truck to pass by before he broke the window.

Two minutes went by and then a truck roared by on the road in front of the diner. Mitch struck the window and it shattered. Without hesitation, he grabbed the scanner from under the map and hopped down off the running board. He moved toward the back of the trailer and caught his breath.

He heard a door open. Fuck. Mitchell looked to his left and saw a large figure climbing out of the other rig he’d just looked into. He was holding onto something metal in his hand.

Christ, these guys sleep in their cabs, Mitchell remembered.

“What the fuck are you doing?” called out the man.

“Just broke my beer bottle,” said Mitchell.

The trucker was in the shadow of his own trailer. “Come here for a second,” he called out.

Mitchell was in the process of thinking of something clever to say when he heard the trucker make a familiar low-pitched growling sound. The silhouette lunged toward Mitchell. A shot went off.

Mitchell didn’t feel like he’d been hit, so he ran. From behind he could hear the trucker’s footsteps as he chased after him. Afraid to get caught in the open where the trucker could take another shot, Mitchell ran around the back of the nearest trailer, hoping to put it between him and the raging man.

Even though Mitchell didn’t get a clear look at the man, he could tell he was large by the sound he made as he ran. It was like a locomotive heading toward him. Mitchell passed around the back of the trailer and ran toward the rig in the front. The trucker was still in pursuit.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see more men pile out of the diner to see what was going on. Mitchell made a beeline from the parked trucks to the street. If he could make it across the street, maybe he could lose his pursuer in the trailer park he’d seen back there.

As Mitchell passed by the diner, he realized that the men coming to see what the commotion was were going to be too close. He made a quick jag to the right and headed toward the pumps.

A trucker was standing outside his truck filling it up. He looked up to see Mitchell running in his direction. Confusion turned to rage. He charged toward Mitchell.

Mitchell heard more footsteps behind him as the men who stepped outside the diner to see what was going on joined the chase. The man from the pump was getting close. Mitchell didn’t want to get caught in the middle.

The pump man held out his hands to claw at Mitchell’s face. Mitch ducked down to the right and slammed the tire iron he was holding into the man’s shin. The man fell over. Mitchell could hear the men behind him getting closer. He wasn’t sure if he’d make it to the other side of the street, let alone the trailer park.

He looked at the open cab door that belonged to the man that he had just hobbled with the tire iron. Mitchell jumped between the pumps and hopped inside. He closed the door just as the first trucker slammed into it.

Mitchell locked the door and then locked the passenger side.

A man began beating on the door with his head and fists. Mitchell could hear a loud clanging as the hand holding the gun struck the metal exterior. The men from the diner started to pound on the truck, as well.

It was a horrible racket. Foreheads and fists began to split open and blood began to cover the outside of the cab. The windows were going to break at any moment.

Angry faces stared at him with bloodshot eyes.

Mitchell looked at the controls. The rig was still running, but the shifters were in different places and he had no idea where the brake was. The driver’s side window cracked.

He’d seen trucks started up a thousand times in movies. Mitchell searched his memory. He reached out with his right hand and unlocked the parking brake and then put it into gear as his left foot popped the clutch. Mitchell hit the gas and the truck jerked forward.

One of the men who was trying to climb on the hood fell away. Mitchell stepped on the gas again and got the shifter into the groove. The truck rolled away from the fuel pumps.

Outside the cab, the men kept slamming their fists into the metal sides. Mitchell pushed the accelerator all the way and angled the truck toward the road. He overshot and the trailer clipped the side of a parked pickup truck, dragging it into the road.

Mitchell had no choice but to keep going. In the blood-splattered rearview mirror, he could see the men were still chasing him. Mitchell passed the pay phone where he had tied up Mr. Barks. The animal gave him a woeful look as Mitchell roared by. In the passenger side mirror he could see the dog barking at the men as they chased after Mitchell.

The truck built up speed and the men eventually weren’t able to keep up. They faded into the distance, but he didn’t need the scanner he stole to know the police would be on him in minutes.