Saints of Evil | Trepidation Trilogy | The Empty World Sequence

Five

The sun was setting and the gas tanks were empty.  Trip frowned, ground out his cigarette in the cut-off bottom of a Coke bottle that stood in the dashboard drink holder.  "These German cars never have ash trays built in.  Why they can't be plain liberal instead of so very politically correct about everything...guess I'd hate it if it were too like America."

     "I wouldn't know," Mara said.  She looked down to the floor between the chairs where Gatito lay.  He propped up on his new Raym T. Raven pillow that was propped up against the plastic hump of the interior wall.  Gatito must have felt himself being watched, he looked up, pulling the headphones from his ears. 

     "Don't worry, we just have to stop for some gas," Trip offered.

     "Where are we?" Gatito asked.

     "Just coming into Freiburg."

     The boy looked puzzled.

     Trip smiled at him, "It's a city in Germany, we're back in the Northern Goth states, thought it would be safer."  He glanced up at Mara for just an instant. 

     Gatito put the phones back in his ears and looked toward the back of the van.  Valerie was curled up somewhere, Rozz was sitting on the mattress with his feet quite near Gatito's.  Mara saw he was painting his nails black when she looked back.

     Trip pulled the van into a service station and parked it next to a pump on its underwheels.  He got out of the van and walked around to the back.  When he opened the door Rozz walked back to him and hopped to the ground, waving his hands to dry his nails.

     Mara was left in the van with oblivious Gatito and Valerie.  She walked back to them, but when she got closer she thought Valerie looked sick, not just bored. "Valerie, are you all right?" she asked politely.  She'd been sharing the girl's clothes but still she didn't know her well. 

     Valerie pressed her forearms harder against her belly.  "I don't know, my stomach hurts or something."

     Mara asked Valerie if she knew what it was, but Valerie just wasn't talkative.  Mara knew that when she felt worst she'd always hated people trying to make her speak.  "Well, we're at a gas station now, we could go see if we could use their bathroom, at least let me go get you a drink of water or something."

     Valerie crawled to the rear door and slid her feet to the ground.  Mara climbed carefully down after her.

     There were two bathrooms, and they both entered the women's room.  It was small but there were two separate stalls and a sink.  Mara let herself into the handicapped stall, letting Valerie take the closer one.  She thought for a second it would have made more sense putting the stall with the larger door near the entrance, but, people often made little sense. 

     Her belly was so large, her belly button sticking out a bit.  Mara really wasn't sure she liked seeing any part of herself naked.  She wasn't sure she liked being pregnant.  She almost felt she would cry as she pulled her pants back over her belly.  Part her, it was part her, Daniel had said, but how awful not to know the father. 

     But it was Valerie who cried.  Mara left the stall quietly and listened. And then she did something she didn't usually let herself do, and it was so easy when she tried: she tried picking up on Valerie's thoughts. 

     "Mara," said Valerie.

     "I think I know, Val.  Give me your card.  I'll go get a package of tampons in the mini-store, something for the pain even."

     Valerie opened the door.  She was dressed but she looked miserable.  She held her card forward to Mara. 

     Trip was coming into the store just as Mara was. He'd paid for gas at the pump but he was looking for food.  He smiled right at her.  Mara smiled quickly and walked fast to the far side of the store where it seemed the toiletries were.  She snatched up a box of tampons, a small plastic bag with some pantyliners as well, then stepped sideways for a box that would have a bottle of pain-numbing pills in it.