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Short Story Spotlight -- Running on Fumes

Donna Schlachter • Dec 23, 2022

The short story I'm sharing today was inspired by the fact that I binge watched Mannix a few years back. He got hit on the head at least once every episode, and he always rescued the damsel in distress. I figured it was time a dame got herself out of trouble. Enjoy!


                                                                                             

If I’d known just how hot that asphalt would be, I’d have worn something different than flip-flops.

But when I left my LA apartment that morning, I didn’t know I’d be walking further than from the building to the car, from the car to my pedicure appointment. Hence the flip-flops. You know, don’t scratch the new polish.

One other thing I hadn’t counted on was that I’d forgotten to put gas in the car. I checked my watch. No time to stop now. I’d be running on fumes, but I could stop for gas on the way home. Just a little, since I was heading for the airport the next morning. A friend was picking me up so I didn’t have to pay for parking. I jumped in the car, turned out of the driveway, and peeled off down the highway, top down on the convertible. The wind rushed around me, snapping the ends of my strawberry blonde hair like a cat-o-nine-tails. The slight sting from the hair hitting my face reminded me I was alive, and free, and on my way to Hawaii.

Which is why I needed the pedicure.

Traffic was light as I headed west toward a small manicure/pedicure shop I’d found one day when I’d gotten lost on my way to the dentist. I declare I am the most directionally challenged person I know. The problem is I can get to my dentist from my house and from the office where I work downtown. That’s it. But on that particular day, I wasn’t in either of those places. And rather than drive the long way around, like from the convention center where I was to either home or the office and then to the dentist, I struck out on my own with a vague notion of how to get where I was going.

Suffice it to say it was the most serendipitous journey I’d been on in a long time. I never made it to have my teeth cleaned, but I discovered the absolutely best nail technician in the world. Yes, you heard me right – in the world.

So off I headed today, in my Pepto Bismol-pink Caddy, a gift from an eccentric aunt who said she couldn’t see anybody but me driving Miss Prissy, short for Priscilla. I think she was right. I’ve turned a lot of heads in this car, and sometimes I wonder if they’re checking me out or the car.

About two miles down the winding road, I stopped at a red light. Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel to an old ZZ Tops tune on the radio, singing along with the words I remembered, humming through the gaps, I didn’t hear the car door open until it closed.

And then there was a man sitting beside me.

I couldn’t have been more shocked if a kangaroo sat there instead. And don’t get me started about kangaroos, because I have a girlfriend from college who moved to Australia and actually had one of those great beasts hop into her car one day as she was stopped at a crossroads trying to figure out if she was supposed to go left or right in the middle of nowhere. Those puppies aren’t nearly as cute as they look on television. Took her three times at the detailers to get the mess off the carpet.

Anyway, as I was saying, this guy sat on the other end of the champagne-beige vinyl bench seat. The first thing I noticed was the holes in the knees of his jeans. Not the designer-jean razor-cut kind of holes, either. No, these were the size and shape of pants worn thin from use and worn through by washing.

The next thing I noticed was the gun in his hand.

I’ve heard witnesses on television say they didn’t know what the person looked like because all they saw was the gun, and I thought that sounded pretty silly. I mean, if you saw a gun, wouldn’t you look up at their face specifically so you could identify them later on?

But they were absolutely right. And as much training as I’ve had in personal safety classes offered at work, the programs I’ve watched, the movies I’ve seen, all that flew straight out of my head, and I was left staring at the barrel of this gun that had to be six feet long and ten feet wide.

Seriously.

At least, that’s what it looked like at that moment.

His hands didn’t shake. The barrel that was trained on me didn’t waver. And although I’m no plus-size woman, I do manage to nicely fill out a size 14 t-shirt. So I made a big enough target that a blindfolded blind man could have hit at that range.

I took my hands off the wheel and held them up in surrender. Right then, pretty much whatever that guy wanted he could have. At least, anything that didn’t entail the removal of clothes. As I said, I fill out my size 14’s, and no stranger is going to see me naked for any reason.

He waggled the gun at me as if he’d done this before. Which was a wee bit worrisome. “Drive. Act normal. Don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

I faced front, put my hands back on the wheel, checked that the light was green, and inched forward. At least, it felt like I was crawling. I could drive. At least, I hoped my still-empty skull could remember how to drive. Act normal? What was normal in this situation? Stupid? What was stupid was here I was on my way to a pedicure and this crazy guy wanted me to go somewhere else because I was fairly certain he didn’t need his nails done.

And the only thing I could think to do was pray.

I’m not normally a religious person, but even atheists hit a brick wall sometimes and resort to hoping there is something bigger and better than them. I wasn’t praying for rescue. I wasn’t praying for him to be sucked up in a giant vacuum cleaner and leave me alone.

I prayed that he just wanted a drive to the block from where I was going so I’d be on time. Although I hadn’t told a soul about my nail technician, somehow word got out and she was super-busy. She’d managed to squeeze me in, she said. Warned me not to be late.

And I was flying to Hawaii the next day. I wouldn’t be able to re-schedule. I couldn’t go to the beach with the gnarled talons on the ends of my toes. I’d be laughed off the island.

He poked me in the ribs with the gun, and under other conditions, I might have laughed and said he was tickling me. But not this time. He looked dead-serious. Not too heavy on the dead, please.

I glanced at him. “What?”

“Drive faster. The speed limit.”

“I might if I knew where we were going.”

“You just do what you’re told.”

Half a mile ahead, I had to make a decision. My nail appointment was to the left. To the right was the on-ramp to the highway that led east to the mountains. I wanted to go left. Left. Left. I prayed the word like a mantra. If there was someone up there bigger than me, I hoped he wasn’t at lunch.

I stayed in the lane next to the centerline, preparing for the left turn, hoping if he wanted to go right that traffic would be too thick and I’d be forced to turn left.

But no such luck. There wasn’t a car in sight.

I sighed. How was I going to get out of this mess?

He prodded me again. “Right.”

“What’s right?” Sometimes I can be such a smart-alec.

“Turn right.”

I guess that great someone in the sky was out to lunch. On the day before I was to leave for the greatest vacation of my life.

Because what I neglected to tell you is that this friend – who is a man, by the way – was paying for both of us to go on the most romantic trip. He had the honeymoon suite in a hotel on the beach booked – and before you ask, no, we aren’t married. He has one of those, thank you very much, and doesn’t need another. His words, not mine.

Not that I want him to have two wives, mind you.

One would do nicely if it was me.

But since it isn’t, and he hasn’t made any moves to do anything about that, I’m happy to take what I can get.

“Settle for”, my sister would say.

“Reality”, is my answer.

So we headed toward the highway. I kept a tight grip on the steering wheel but let my mind wander where it must. I had to figure out what to do next. This highway was more deserted than the city streets. If I’d hoped for a helpful highway patrol or a busload of vacationers to notice my white knuckles or stern face, I was out of luck.

Then the low-gas light came on.

I stared at the icon. Was this my answer to prayer? I was going to be stranded on a deserted highway miles from anywhere with a gun-toting madman who would likely shoot me just for the fun of it.

Didn’t sound like much fun to me.

Now I regretted all those movies I’d watched where the bad guys always got away with shooting the innocent virgin in the first ten minutes of the movie, and the detective spent the next two hours tracking him down.

Okay, so I wasn’t an innocent virgin. But you get the idea.

I had about a gallon left in the tank. Fifteen miles in this Caddy, give or take. So now, I needed a plan for what happened when we ran out of gas. I mean, what if we’re stopped there on the side of the road, and some Helpful Harold stops who conveniently has a can of gas in his trunk? How do I communicate – without saying the words aloud – that I have a homicidal kidnaper holding a gun on me and for him to leave us alone? Or wait, don’t leave us alone. Use one of those cool karate moves on this guy sitting next to me and overpower him so I can run screaming from the car?

Not likely to happen. Never saw it in a movie. And why not? Because who’d believe it?

Right on cue, Miss Prissy starts coughing and bucking about twelve miles down the road.

The guy with the gun sits upright. “What’s that?”

“We’re running out of gas.”

His face turned red. Maybe he’ll have a stroke and I’ll get out of this yet. “What stupid broad would take a ride in the desert with no gas?”

Now he’s making this my fault? I hate when people do that. My sister always does that. No matter what, it’s always my fault. An earthquake in Ecuador? I must have bought gas that was produced by fracking. A typhoon in Trinidad? My hairdryer. As if I’m the only person in the world who uses a hairdryer.

I’ve got a short temper in these situations, and I let my mouth go into gear before I engage my brain. At least, that’s what my father always used to say. But that’s another story for another day. “I wasn’t planning a trip into the desert today.”

He held the gun out and rested the barrel against my temple. I’d seen that plenty of times in movies. I know what kind of damage even the smallest of bullets can do to the human brain. And how hard it would be for someone to get the blood spatters out of the hand-stitched seats. “But I have gas in the trunk.”

Gas in the trunk? What was I thinking? I didn’t have gas in the trunk. Bats in the belfry, maybe.

He waggled the gun again. “Pull over and get it.”

I let off the accelerator and eased the car to the side of the road, put it in gear, and turned off the engine. The heat settled over us like a heavy, wet blanket. I turned to face him. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Do what?”

I shrugged. “Whatever it is you’re planning to do.” Tears blurred my vision as I thought of my life ahead. Of my vacation. Truth was, I didn’t love the guy, but I figured this was my only chance to get to Hawaii. “I don’t want to die.”

“None of us wants to die, lady, but it’s going to happen to everybody at some point.”

“Yeah, but I guess I always hoped I’d just go to sleep one night and not wake up. When I’m old.” Truth was, I’d once subscribed to the idea that there should be a maximum age. Like sixty. But the closer I got to that number – I was just a couple of years past the halfway mark – the more I felt the number should be higher. But thirty-two was definitely too young to die. Especially for me.

“What’s the fun in that? Then you’d leave a whole lot of stuff undone and unsaid. Knowing you’re going to die is a gift.”

I thought about that for a long time. “Maybe. But only if you know in advance. Otherwise those things are still left.”

He nodded. “Get the gas.”

I took the keys from the ignition and stepped out. Immediately the heat from the black asphalt worked its way through my flip-flops like the shoes were tissue paper. I walked around to the rear of the car and popped the trunk. Now what?

I made like I was rummaging around for a few minutes until he called out.

“What’s the problem, lady?”

“I can’t reach it. It shifted too far in.”

The car door opened then slammed shut, he stood beside me. For the first time I noticed that sour smell of sweat coming off him.

“Where’s the can?”

I pointed. “In there. Back in the corner. Can you reach it?”

He sighed as if pained by the silly woman Fate had given him, pocketed the gun, and reached in.

I grabbed him around the knees. “Let me help you.” And before you could say Jim-Dandy, he was in the trunk. I slammed the lid shut, turned around, and dusted off my hands.

That was a job well done.

He hammered on the metal trunk lid a couple of times but I ignored him. Then I guess he remembered the gun because I heard two or three popping sounds and holes appeared in the metal. He had shot Miss Prissy.

I looked back the road towards town.

It was going to be a long walk.

I hoped my nail technician would cut me some slack.

 

Bio:

A hybrid author, Donna writes squeaky clean historical and contemporary suspense. She has been published more than 50 times in books; is a member of several writers groups; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; ghostwrites; edits; and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, traveling extensively for both, and is an avid oil painter.

 

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