Chapter 12 – Part 2
It happened so fast, Kyle was barely conscious of what he was doing, but his hands reacted where his mind wasn’t clear and the gas pump was in the car filling up the tank. Christine had walked into the building, and almost immediately began yelling at the clerk pointing her gun at his head. Kyle couldn’t hear from where he was standing, but from his mouth escaped, “What the crap!” With a full interrobang intended. After a few more moments of yelling from Christine and nervously raised hands from the clerk inside. She glanced back at Kyle and started waving at him with her free hand, while keeping her other hand and her eyes carefully on the clerk. The machine clicked on, and Kyle did as he knew to do, as he’d done many times before, and filled his car with gas.
As the numbers ticked past on the counters, Kyle stood shivering and nervously watching in every direction at once looking for cop cars. He bounced on his toes and tried to warm his body which felt unnaturally cold relative to the weather. His breath came noisily from his nose as he rocked and bounced. The numbers continued to climb, but it felt like forever. Finally Christine burst from the door of the place waving at Kyle and yelling, “Go! Go!” He hadn’t finished filling, but he started to pull the pump from the tank when she hollered, “No, I’ll get it. Just get in!” Kyle ran to the driver side door and hopped in. At Christine’s insistent hand waving he started the engine and sat gripping the wheel. Inside the station, he saw the clerk moving around frantically inside. Was he going for help or was he going for a gun himself? Either way, Kyle knew they didn’t want to be there much longer. Christine yanked the pump, which was still spraying gas, out of the tank and threw it to the ground. She leaped into the passenger side seat and yelled at Kyle to “Go!” again. He slammed on his gas and they fled. Behind them the clerk ran out of the building after them waving a bat and yelling ineffectually at the retreating rear window of the Bug.
Kyle jumped a curb with reckless abandon as Christine laughed while bouncing in the seat next to him. It was exhilarating. Until they heard a siren flare on behind them. Christine jerked around, and Kyle eyes bolted onto his rear view. In the distance, he could make out the lights that went along with the siren.
“Oh crap!” Christine said for them both. Kyle’s grip on the steering wheel become white knuckled as his breathing quickened, and his eyes sought for escape.
“What should I do?” he asked, his voice edging toward a higher octave in desperation to escape his tightening throat.
“Uh,” Christine said looking out both sides of the car as she chewed on her lip. ”There,” she shouted at once, pointing down an alley. ”Turn there!” Kyle swung the car hard into the alley, scraping against the wall, making a horrible crunching noise and a spew of sparks. He straightened out and barely avoided a dumpster against the opposite wall. He slammed on his brakes and the car skidded to a halt crushing the first few boxes of cardboard at the lead of a large collection further into the alley. They both looked at each other a moment, and then Kyle looked up again at the mirror, and Christine turned her body to look out the rear. They stayed like that waiting in anticipation as the siren grew increasingly louder. Suddenly the car whipped past the entrance to the alley, sirens pounding against the glass on the rear of the Bug, flashing lights reflecting off every mirrored surface inside. Both Kyle and Christine screamed a short, “Ah.” And then listened as the doppler effect decreased the pitch of the siren, and it’s volume slowly diminished into the distance.
Kyle breathed out heavily and then looked at Christine. He gave himself a few more breaths to catch up to regular and said, “Hmm.” His brow furrowed and then he said, “I wonder if he was actually chasing us.”
Christine laughed. Kyle smiled back at her. ”You might be on to something there, Kyle,” she said.
A sudden pounding on the hood of the vehicle drew another short, “Ah,” scream from the both of them. They turned forward fearfully expecting to find a swat team. Instead they found a round buddha like face with long curling locks at either side and another face with hair like Mo from the Three Stooges. Mike and Kevin. Christine made a grunting noise somewhere between confusion and revulsion, and Kyle screamed for a third time.
