Buying the Virgin novel Chapter 114

BETH

I can’t believe it, but we have left our pursuers behind us under the trees. We are in the parking lot of a diner, closed now for the night, but just off the main highway. The forest closes behind us, but ahead, dissolves away to more open ground. In the night, I cannot make out any detail.

Bending over, clutching my sides against a stitch, I heave in great lungfuls of air.

“Don’t relax too much,” says Charlotte. “We’re not stopping here. It’s the first place they’ll look, a parking lot like this. If we follow the highway, we’ll make best speed. We can hide off-road if we need to.”

She’s bending over into a trash bin.

“Charlotte, what are you doing?”

“Looking for something to eat.”

“Eat? Out of the trash bin?”

“It’ll be okay. These places always empty the bins overnight, so this’ll be today’s. So long as it’s still in the box so the flies can’t get at it, it’s fine. And you’d be surprised what people throw away.…”

Appalled, but fascinated, I watch her; this girl, apparently so like me. But right now, she feels alien, as the depth of the differences between us comes home to me. “How do you know this stuff?”

Still searching through the bin, she says “When I was a kid, trying to run from the home, the first couple of times, I got picked up by the police when I was caught shoplifting for food. After that, I found other ways to eat….”

She roots among cardboard and greasy papers, then emerges with a box. “See, here you are. There’s most of a meal in here. It’s cold, but it will keep us going.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Do want to eat or not?”

“Is it good?”

“No, it’s lousy. I hate junk food, but we’ve got to have something inside us. Your body can’t run on empty.”

Reluctantly, I reach into the box; deep fried chicken. I bite in, fighting my instinct to gag. She’s right; the food is perfectly edible, but I’m eating trash and my stomach heaves at the thought.

There is a distant rumbling, the sound of car engines. “Come on,” she says, grabbing my arm again. “Time to go.”

*****

MICHAEL

James jerks bolt upright, “There’s the signal again! It’s only a mile or so away, on the road, back the way we came.”

My foot to the floor, I make a screeching turnaround, then accelerate, engine screaming, following the trace.

In under a minute, cornering, the headlights swing onto two figures, running ahead, one lagging behind the other, being dragged behind by the arm.

“Look there… running…. It’s them, both of them, Beth and Charlotte….”

Drawing closer, the one to the fore - it’s Charlotte, still racing away - twists her head around, red hair flying... She U-turns, now running away from us, still towing Beth behind her. Beth staggers and trails, but Charlotte pulls her along, gripping her by the wrist.

“Fuck! They don’t realise it’s us.”

“Beth! Charlotte!” Richard hangs out of the window, shouting and waving. “It’s us….”

Charlotte, her face swinging round again, slows, turns, still dragging the weary Beth behind her, and now running towards us. She’s yelling something, gesticulating wildly with her free hand, trying to tell us something, but….

Headlights swing from the side and front. A car screeches in from the opposite direction, moving directly towards them, and a second drives in from off-road. Charlotte, head twisting, looks from one side to another; for the shortest of moments, indecisive.

Slamming on the accelerator, foot hard down, wheels squealing, I speed towards the two fleeing women.

The car coming in from the side will reach them before we can. The other may do so. Charlotte suddenly breaks loose from Beth, pushing her towards us, waving her arms and yelling instructions.

The two women split, going in different directions, Beth hobbling towards us, Charlotte dashing into the off-road darkness. One car swerves to follow her, the other keeps coming towards us and the frantically running Beth.

James pushes his laptop aside. “Shit! We can’t follow both.”