Strays Read Free Page A

Big Buddy’s advances had seemed less horrific when she was waiting for them.  She imagined that if she ever stood before a firing squad, she’d ask them to remove the blindfold.
    With three light steps, Sarah made her way to the fourth stall.  The door hung open about a foot on its hinges, and she pushed it back and stepped inside.  The toilet seat was down, of course; this was, after all, the women’s room.  Sarah settled into position, sliding her hips so that she sat on the far back part of the seat.  She leaned forward to push the stall door shut with her left hand and then slid the bolt lock into place.  Then twisting, leaning her shoulder to the west wall of the bathroom, she bent her right leg and then her left, hooking the heels of her sneakers just inside the rim of the toilet where they would rest.  She crossed her arms across her knees, settled her chin on her arms, and made yet another stab at a prayer before settling in for sleep.
    That’s when she saw the words.  They had been printed on the back of the stall door, black permanent marker, written in thick block caps with careful deliberation:
    LET’S PLAY
    At last, Sarah Smallhouse found her scream.
     

Flight
     
    She waited for someone to come—the shaggy college boy, a trucker, the young man behind the counter.  Certainly, the scream had been loud enough to shatter the mirrors, and Sarah could have sworn it echoed for almost half a minute.  But there were no footsteps of heroic men bursting in the door to save her.  Maybe they didn’t care, or maybe a screaming girl in this particular C-store bathroom late at night was a common thing.  Whatever the case, Sarah was very much alone in the fourth stall with those awful words on the door, and she leapt up at once and threw her shoulder squarely between the LET’S and the PLAY to force herself out.
    When she retired to third stall down a few moments later, she discovered it was much less comfortable than the fourth had been.  The toilet was farther apart from the partitions, and Sarah had to lean hard to one side or the other in order to brace herself.  Her shoes kept slipping off the rim of the toilet, and even when she did find what passed for a sweet spot, nestling into a reasonable pose that might allow her to shut her eyes, the thought would come to her of those words written on the door just one stall down …
    LET'S PLAY .
    It was impossible to sleep.  It was impossible to think.  All that was left was something just beyond generic fear, just below real terror, like a scar on your soul that used to hurt like hell all the time and now is just there , a constant throb. 
    Sleep was futile in these conditions.  Sarah slid her legs off the edge of the toilet and stood, feeling the muscles in her calves howl.  She rubbed her eyes and stepped out of the third stall, ever mindful to avoid looking in the direction of the fourth.   She even avoided looking in the mirror lest she catch a glimpse of that now polluted toilet stall, fearful that once it had caught her eye it would swing its doors outward, flashing those hateful words in reverse in the mirror, words that would have somehow grown larger.
    LET'S PLAY.
    LET'S PLAY.
    LET'S PLAY.
    Sarah moved to the bathroom door, slid it open an inch, and peered out into the C-store.  It was empty now save the young man behind the counter, still listening to his baseball game on the radio.  She glanced down the rows of processed groceries … sugar-filled snack cakes, small cans of Vienna sausage, bags of chips the size of a princess satchel, shrink-wrapped sandwiches.  Her stomach growled.  She fought it back down.  It was very dark now, that latest of late-night hours when every living thing in the time zone caught what little sleep it could, and the C-store, as well as the bathroom stall that had sheltered her for the past week, were no longer safe.
    It was time to make her escape.
    With light steps, Sarah made her way down the aisle