Hit-and-Run (weekend freewrite)

_{Photo by Robert Zunikoff on Unsplash}

"You don't have many options," Oliver said. "You already paid the registration fee for 12...”
“But what was I supposed to do, Ollie? All my friends bailed at the last sec...”

It was a game. Ollie would soon stop being Ollie and turn back to being Oliver. And Sammy could take off her pig tails and go back to being Samantha. Twenty-five. Freshly divorced and oh-so-glad. But it wasn’t time yet, the clock hadn’t gone. That infernal summer clock. Samantha felt certain it was broken somewhere, leaking time through some invisible tiny crack. It was impossible time could be so slow, and yet it was, so she was still Sammy and Oliver was still Ollie. And they were stuck with this mess of a big table.

“Well, I’d love to help you out, Miss, but see, the cook’s already made all this food. And I suppose you’ll just have to eat it all alone.”

She held back, on cue, letting the audience give the all-too-familiar shrill, the excitement, the barely-hidden laughter at a bone-thin woman like Sammy sitting down to eat twelve pies. Obediently, she sat down, her face only slightly to the side. The trick was to keep her eyes open till the very last second, right before the pie hit. Realistic. Kids liked that.

Samantha thought she liked that, too. Realistic, though not quite real. Like her marriage. Like her ex-husband. Fuck, she felt old and this job seemed never-ending. Daniel – her ex – he used to do the party thing, too. That’s how they’d met, he was Mickey and she was Minnie. He was the Elf and she was the Pixie.

Her mother had hated the job, hated her quitting college. After she waited so long to get in. Tried so hard, but that was exactly the idea, Mom, I tried so hard, maybe I wasn’t ever supposed to try at all.
Daniel hadn’t tried and Samantha hadn’t had to try with him. They’d just hit it off – he understood about her mother and she understood…him.
Or thought she did. Except she hadn’t really, had she?

She can’t scrape off the remnants of pie, though she’d like to. She licks around her mouth, lets the sugar slink down her dry throat. She hasn’t eaten today. Sometimes, it feels like she won’t ever eat again.

That was something Daniel approved of, her not eating. See, for Daniel, things fell into only two categories – things he could approve of, things that sure made him damn proud, and things that didn’t.
And Daniel thought it was just swell when she said she wasn’t hungry, so she started eating less. And less, til she wasn’t eating at all, even though she kinda was hungry. Didn’t want to disappoint Daniel, because he’d married Minnie Mouse not Peppa the Pig, hadn’t he?

I said, hadn’t he? Good girl.

_{Photo by Scott Warman on Unsplash}

He threw her a nod. "I think my wrist is broken."
Sammy barely nodded, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t for her, it was for the kids. Ollie’s wrist broke at every party and then, was magically healed by the next. She watched Ollie shaking his hands and jumping up and down.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Like someone hitting the ceiling with a broomstick. A neighbor, except it wasn’t a neighbor, was it?
There were no neighbors where they lived, Daniel had made sure of that. Said he hated the noise, even though the street they used to live on was noiseless. It’ll be better this way, you’ll see. We’ll be happy here.

And they hadn’t been, but Samantha had tried not to think too much of that. Besides, what good would thinking about it do? She’d already gone and said ‘yes’. She’d dropped out o’ college, long time now. Her mother had barely spoken to her at the wedding, her face ashen, watching her daughter glide down the aisle towards that...that…

Who could she tell and who would care to know?

And know what? What could Samantha tell them? That her husband sometimes talked scary? That Daniel sometimes disappeared in the middle of the night and was gone for hours and when he came home… Best not to think about when he came home. She’d washed it all away, it was all better now. And Daniel had said it would never happen again and she’d believed him.

Things could be good, right? Things were really gonna look up for Sam and Danny.

So when Daniel took to spending time in the old shed, she hadn’t thought much of it. She’d secretly been glad. It kept him out of the house and out of her hair and God forgive her, but she could do with some o’ that. Besides, he’d stopped going out at night, so what more could she ask of him? She had to be an understanding wife, didn’t wanna end up like her mother. Her mother hadn’t been understanding and look at her now.

Sad and bitter. No, Sammy sure didn’t want that.

They’d drive into town couple hours before each party. Costumes in the truck and they’d sometimes go swim in the lake beforehand. Things were good. But now, Daniel had gone down into town all by his lonesome and there was noise coming from inside the old shed.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Here it was – the ninth pie. Ollie never got to throw the tenth pie, because before he could, it was Sammy’s role to pick up the filled-in crossword off the makeshift table and smack him over the head with it. The children loved it and she loved what it meant – the end of yet another charade.

Sammy rolled the crossword in her shaking hand. Come on, she couldn’t give up now, they were so close to the finish line. Soon, she’d be Samantha again. Soon.
She opened the door of the shed with that same shaking hand and she wasn’t quite sure which was louder – the beating on the wall or her heart blasting in her chest.

_{Photo by Peter Kleinau on Unsplash}

The worst thing inside the old shed was the smell. Sort of like cream pie gone bad. Gone all bloody. There was a lot of blood inside the old shed. Crusted across the walls and most of all, on the makeshift mattress on the floor. No, that was being kind. The makeshift mattress was nothing more than a bunch of old straws and a couple o’ soaked, dirty rags.
And in spite of her empty stomach, Sammy had to swallow down hard to keep herself from vomiting. Thought she recognized an old T-shirt of hers, one of those over-sized ones that every college kid seems to wear. Except she was no longer a college kid, was she?

And neither was the girl on the floor. There was no broom in sight and Samantha realized, by the torn scraps of skin on her knuckles, that the girl had been knocking against the hard walls. The girl mumbled something that Sam couldn’t hear and for a second, she thought maybe she’d gone deaf. The girl looked all about fourteen, perhaps younger. She tried again and Samantha realized she was gagged. And she should’ve knelt down and pulled the gag from the girl’s mouth, but she couldn’t, because all Samantha could think about was she could hear Daniel’s truck pulling in. Not now, but soon. Any moment now. And if he found her here, then there’d be trouble.

There were, of course, other things on Samantha’s mind, like the fact she thought maybe… maybe she recognized the girl. Yes, that’s right. Willie’s Morrison’s fourth birthday. This was the sister, or perhaps a friend of the sister, she couldn’t quite remember.
Sam hadn’t heard of anyone going missing, but then, Sam didn’t hear about anything much these days. They were too far out to hear.

Samantha took a step forward and then a step back. She could set the girl free, but what then? It was a good sixty miles to the city and she’d never make it, not in this condition. And besides, he’d know. And there was a voice, like the lightning at the end of a very long and dark tunnel that told Sammy maybe she could leave, too. Maybe together, they’d have a chance of escaping, her and this girl.

She could call the police, sure. They had a phone, just inside the house, but then, what would her mother say? There would be a scandal. This would’ve never happened if she’d just stayed in school. But she hadn’t stayed, and now, here she was – in a shed in the middle of nowhere, with a tied up, bloody girl.

They could think she was in on it. It dawned on Samantha like lightning, as quick and painful as a hit-and-run. Her and Daniel, why, they were thick as thieves, those two. Everyone said so. Their boss, their parents, the few friends Samantha had. Or had had, ‘cause she didn’t see much of anyone these days. There was no way the cops would think she was innocent, that she just hadn’t known what was literally happening in her backyard. After all, they’d worked on that party together. They’d kidnapped the girl together, hadn’t they? Even though Sam hadn’t actually done anything, she’d known. Why, she’d seen it in Danny’s eye that night.

She knew she wasn’t innocent, but she could wash her hands, just like in a moment or two, she’d wash her hands of sticky cream and bits of pie. She didn’t bother to close the shed door behind her, she just ran. Back into the house, grabbing handfuls of clothes and socks and underwear. Scattered make-up and a couple of old books. It was all she could fit in her bag and the rest didn’t matter. Daniel had been gone for some twenty minutes, which meant she maybe had another twenty minutes, half an hour tops. She could make it. She could hitch a ride into town. Not the same town. One that was far, far away and she could call Daniel from there and tell him how she knew everything and how she’d go to the police if he didn’t sign the divorce papers. She could hit up one of her old college friends, they’d help her. Of course, she’d never tell them the specifics, though she’d let him think she did. And here she was, on the side of the highway, bag slung over her shoulder, thumb pointed up.

And here was Ollie, taking her hand for the bow. They always did one final bow after the mayhem with the pies and the filled-in crossword. She liked Oliver, he was a good kid. He was only working the entertainment business over the summer, planned on going to college come autumn.

And so would she. Wipe the pie off her face and start over. Everyone deserves a do-over.

This is a weekend freewrite, based on @mariannewest's 3 prompts (in bold). Thank you, Marianne for the inspiration.

And thank you for reading,