Summer Prompt Awards 2023
Short Story Contest hosted by
BooksbyLwordpress

══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ═══════

The Little Road Trip Handbook

[Rule Number One: Never pick up a Stranger.]

🐘

Duke Pettit reached down and swiped the little elephant keychain from the floor where it dropped from her pocket.

"Hey! Ma'am! You dropped something!"

But she just kept walking. He trotted after her. The airport was crowded but she was kind of tall so Duke was able to keep up with her. She came to a stop right ahead of him at the luggage conveyor.

"Excuse me," he said with a winning smile.

She smiled back with a questioning expression.

"Yeah, you dropped this," he chuckled, dangling the keychain from a finger.

"Oh," she looked at the trinket and shook her head. "No. That's not mine. Sorry," she said with a toothy grin.

Duke frowned. "Yes you did. I saw it fall from your pocket," he insisted.

"Not from my pocket," she shrugged. "Maybe you just thought I dropped it," she laughed nervously.

"No. I clearly saw it fall from your pocket. But no matter. I'll turn it in at the gate," he smiled wanely.

Duke grabbed his suitcase and headed back for the flight gate to turn in the tiny keychain wondering as he went why she denied it being hers. It was just a key chain.

🎙️

Duke stopped by the restroom and then made his way back to the flight desk, in case someone who lost the little elephant key chain came there to ask about it. Just then, the airport PA system cracked to life and a feminine voice filled the hall.

"Attention Passengers. This is a Courtesy Page for Passenger TaVillia Benoit. TaVillia Benoit please report to the ticket desk immediately for an important message. TaVillia Benoit please report to the ticket desk immediately for an important message."

There was no one at the flight desk so Duke slipped the little key chain in his pocket and headed for the front of the airport deciding he would drop it at the ticket desk and be on his way. When he finally reached the front lobby he was surprised to see the same girl who had dropped the key chain. She was on her phone and very upset with someone.

Duke over-heard her frantic exclamations.

"What do you mean no one is coming! I ordered this private service an entire month ago just so I wouldn't have to take a cab! I wanted someone with credentials! Is there any possible way you can send another car? I don't mind waiting. Please," she wailed.

Duke's eyebrows rose at the sound of her frustration and anxiety as he realized he had stopped and was rudely staring. He shook himself mentally and purposely strode past her, heading for the turn-style door which entered the sidewalk that would take him to the parking garage, forgetting all about the little keychain.

Just before he could enter the open section he heard it.

"OH SIR! SIR!"

🚐

A feeling of dread exploded in his gut but for reasons unknown he turned to see her trotting up to him, her face flushed red and teary eyed.

"I'm so very sorry to bother you, but weren't you there at the baggage claim?"

Duke nodded, unable to find his voice.

"Oh thank goodness," she sighed. "My personal driver seems to have skipped out on me and I was wondering if I could catch a lift with you?"

"It's kind of dangerous, don't you think, to ask a stranger for a ride?"

Oddly, she gave him a look of relief and went right on with her sorrowful tale.

"But of course. That is why I hired a private driver."

Duke shook his head. "Soooo okay, why not just call an Uber then?"

"Uber?" Her brows scrunched together in a curious frown. "I don't understand Uber. What is Uber?"

Duke was astonished. "You don't know Uber?" He echoed. "Where are you from? Outer Space? Everyone knows what Uber is," he laughed, noticing she just stared at him with a blank expression. "You really don't know do you?"

"No," she gave him that toothy smile he remembered at the baggage claim.

Something about that smile relaxed Duke and he nodded. "Well, I'd like to know where in the world you're from, not having Uber service. It seems so strange to me."

"Yes," she nodded profusely. "I am foreign exchange student from Bulgaria. Today, I am the first day in this country," she said proudly.

Duke held out his hand to her. "Well, welcome to America."

She placed her hand in his and he shook it heartily. "Alright then, where are you going?"

"Yes!" She was nodding again. "California!"

"California? What? Why have you landed in Nevada?" Duke nearly screamed.

"For sight-seeing. My host family said I will see the desert if I come here and I want to see the desert. In Bulgaria there is no desert."

"Ah, no desert," Duke murmured.

"Please you can take me?" She asked hopefully.

🏜️

"Where is your luggage?" Duke suddenly asked her.

They stood in the parking lot beside his 1966 Volkswagen Van.

"No. I have a back-pack only," she smiled.

Duke shrugged. He supposed, being a little bit of a hippie himself, that it could be true.

He unlocked the passenger door, opened it for her and she jumped in.

Duke made his way behind the wheel, started the engine and looked over to her with a smile that died on his face.

"Drive."

"You Bulgarian piece of--"

"Shut up. Drive."

Duke shifted the van into gear, as his mind worked furiously to figure out how she had managed to get a gun into the airport at all,
he suddenly realized he'd been scammed from the beginning.

Seeing her at the baggage claim meant nothing. Anyone would be able to go there. A rush of fear induced anger filled his senses.

"You didn't come from Bulgaria at all did you!" Duke shouted.

"You don't want or need to know. Now drive. That's all you have to do if you don't want to end up as road-kill." She held the gun firmly, confidently.

Duke knew he was totally screwed.

🛣️

His hands shook as he pulled onto Interstate 80 and drove away from Elko Regional Airport. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip. He tried to roll down the window.

"No. No window."

"There's no air conditioning in this van! Do you want to die in the desert?" Duke tried to reason with her.

Her voice was quietly ominous. "Drive to the border, or I'll be dumping your body to the vultures and do it myself."

"You aren't even from Bulgaria are you!" He accused her and rightly so because he knew she wasn't. The accent she had used to fake him out was now gone, replaced with that deadly calm tone, a tone that told him she wasn't kidding around.

Duke trained his eyes on the road and drove, as requested, heading towards the border on a road trip from hell. His mind raced with horrifying questions that all ended with his death on a lonely stretch of desert highway.

After fifty miles of driving in silence she told him to roll down the window, which he did, gulping the hot desert air that blew in like a wall of humid bricks. His stomach lurched when a few miles more down the road she told him to pull over. His heart thumped against his chest.

He licked his lips tasting the sweat that rolled down from his forehead. His swallow reflex kicked in but his adams apple froze like a dried peach pit. He licked his lips again trying to work up any amount of saliva but his mouth was as dry as the 114° degree heat beating down from the cloudless sky. It had to be close to noon or one o'clock.

"Open your door." She said emotionlessly.

"Please," he begged without shame.

"Open. The door. NOW."

Duke closed his eyes and opened the door.

He wanted to give her no reason to pull the trigger her finger was wrapped around now.

When he opened his eyes and turned back to her, the bottom of her booted foot struck his face and his world went black.

💀

Duke woke up under the blazing heat of the sun on his back. With a groan he rolled over and struggled to sit up. He wasn't dead. Or was he? Perhaps this was how hell looked. Beside him, a half empty plastic bottle of water. He grabbed it and sucked it down because his life depended on it. She must have thrown it down beside him before driving off in his pride and joy.

How courteous of her he thought wryly.

He'd had his VW since highschool. Now, at thirty-three, he guessed it was time he learned some hard lessons. He knew he was lucky to be alive even if he died out here of heat stroke. Duke rolled to his knees and shakily stood up. He had no idea how long he'd been out but if the heat of the tiny bit of water she'd left him was any indication then he had been laying here for some time. A scorching wind blew against his face. He took a couple of steps. His legs felt like jelly. He was about fifty feet from the road. He could follow it back to Elko.

At the road, he saw where she had peeled out on the black asphalt as she left him here to die in the desert. A pile of his belongings lay scattered in the sand. There was one bottle of water and his Travel Stop Guide Book. The little book lay open and its pages flapped lightly in the humid breeze.

Rule Number One mocked him like the cruel desert sun as did the tiny elephant key chain in his pocket.

📒

TaVillia Benoit sped down the road, the toy gun tossed carelessly on the passenger seat as she drank a cold bottle of green tea she had found in his ice chest. Throwing her head back she laughed out loud.

She never planned to kill anyone. She just knew better than to hitchhike all the way to California, because her daddy always used to tell her, TaVillia, never, ever, pick up a stranger, it's too dangerous, and of course he was right.

Her daddy also told her, never trust a thief.

She dropped the little key chain to see if anyone would pick it up and give it back. If they'd give back something so trivial and inexpensive she figured they were pretty honest.

Those were the two rules she lived by. And they worked like a charm.

🐘

-Word count 1780-