Nowhere Read Free Page A

I have to get somewhere quickly before someone catches up to me. I know you don’t understand what I’m talking about, but I really have to get going. So…please… please just go away!”
                  “Yea, I bet you’re sorry! You little coward! It could have just as easily been a little zippy mini van with a family in it. It could have been a lot worse. You deserve to get your teeth kicked in! Now get out here!”
                  “No!” Richard yelled “Go away! Go away!! I have to leave, I can’t stop. You have to go now, so that I can go!”
                  There was no response…
                  Richard stood up and pressed his ear to the door to try to hear if the trucker was still out there. He heard nothing, then he briefly heard breathing. He heard the doorknob cycle back as if the trucker had let go. He listened harder to hear footsteps of the trucker walking away, but couldn’t hear anything except a low rhythmic breathing.
                  The trucker was still out there, he knew it. He was probably waiting for him quietly just outside the door, hoping that Richard would take the bait of silence and come out to a face pounding.
                  Richard sat back on the commode and cried silently. He was paralyzed in fear. He couldn’t leave because of the trucker, but he couldn’t stay because… because of Them. He couldn’t let them find him, especially in a place like this, cornered with nowhere to run. He waited and waited, perhaps for ten or fifteen minutes, hoping to hear the trucker stomping off in defeat, but he just heard the rhythmic breathing. He couldn’t put the noise out of his ears, it was all he could hear from beyond the little white door.
                  Then shivers went up his spine as on the side of the wall he noticed someone had written the words; “They know this place…”
                  He had to get out, and get farther away… even if it meant taking a beating.
                  He looked around for something that he could use perhaps as a weapon. If he could just over power the trucker in the hallway, he might be able to run back to his car fast enough to get away….
                  There was a sink, a toilet, and a roll of toilet paper, nothing more. There was nothing really that could be used, except for maybe the toilet seat. Richard frantically pried at the toilet seat until half of it pulled loose from the porcelain commode. With the leverage gained, he pulled again at the other half and it snapped loose from the plastic hinge. Richard now held a big white boomerang shaped blunt object.
                  Could it be done… he thought. It had to be done….
    He went to the door and again listened, he could still hear the trucker’s angry breath venting back to him.
                  As quietly as he could, he slid back the bar latch with his left hand, while keeping the toilet seat cocked back in his right hand, ready to strike if things took a turn for the worst.
                  He waited a moment and then gripped the door knob. Slowly and silently he turned the knob, knowing full well that the trucker’s eyes would be upon it from the other side watching it turn. He imagined the trucker silently waiting for the opportune time to put his shoulder to the door, stunning Richard so that he could beat the crap out of him.
                  Everything was so silent that Richard could hear the springs in the latch compress as the knob rotated. Finally he got the knob cranked back all the way and could feel the weight of the door press towards him a little. He gathered his wits about him for a moment before swinging the door open ready to attack.
                  The hallway was empty except for the stacks of soda cans and cases of beer that had been there before. He realized that the breathing