The Siege Read Free

near Fredericksburg, Virginia, and she wished for the millionth time she had left him behind long ago. He, like her—although for different reasons—was heading to northern Maine, and any company was better than none, she supposed.
    His name was Roy Moulton, but because of his habit of frequently clearing his throat and spitting, especially when he was nervous or upset, she had taken to calling him “Hocker.” And it hadn’t taken her long to realize there was definitely something—a lot of something—weird about him.
    For one thing, and she knew she should have deserted him as soon as he told her this, he had readily admitted that he had “walked out of” (“escaped,” she figured) a mental hospital in Athens, Georgia. During their journey north, she had had plenty of time to wonder exactly why he had been hospitalized. She wasn’t entirely convinced by his reason: that his aunt and uncle had wanted to “get rid of” him after his mother died. His father, he told her, had gone to the store for cigarettes and never returned when Hocker was six years old.
    For another thing, Tasha had to consider how he travelled. It had taken her a while to see the pattern, but there was a definite pattern. They would hitchhike just as bold as could be along major turnpikes, usually I-95, even getting stopped and questioned by the cops now and then; but then, for no apparent reason, Hocker would suddenly demand that they leave the highway for a backroad, and they would spend several days passing through one small, nameless town after another. Then, acting as if some danger of which only he was aware was over, he would just as suddenly say it was all right for them to get back onto the turnpike, which they would travel a few days until they were off again onto some twisting two-lane backroads. That had slowed their progress down considerably. Tasha was beginning to wonder if, at the rate they were going, they’d even make it to northern Maine before snow fell. But most of all she just wondered why Hocker used such a strange leapfrog method of travel.
    She failed to see why Hocker would suddenly want to get off the highway. It made no sense at all. It wasn’t to buy food or other supplies because they could get everything they needed in any of the sprawling shopping malls along the turnpike. It was almost as if… as if Hocker was on a mission of some kind… of that he felt suddenly threatened or pursued. By what , Tasha didn’t know… and she wasn’t so sure she wanted to find out, either.
    Whatever the reason, Tasha had learned not to resist him; the first and only time she had done that, he had threatened to “make her sorry” if she didn’t come with him.
    Lying awake late at night and on early morning walks like now, Tasha wondered if maybe Hocker had been hospitalized for something a bit more serious than “family squabbles.” Secretly, she wondered if he might not have it within him to kill her and leave her buried in some nameless, shallow grave along the highway. Maybe he was one of those serial killers who cuts a notch into his belt for each woman he murders. But of course, Tasha was pretty sure she could handle herself. Anyway, she figured if Hocker was going to off her, he would have done it long before now. No, there were a lot of things weird about him, but he wasn’t a murderer….
    As they walked along, Tasha kept looking at the wispy gray traces of morning mist still clinging to low spots along the side of the road. She imagined tattered, shrouded ghosts— maybe the ghosts of mass-murderer Hocker’s victims —drifting noiselessly along the road with him, following them north. Droplets of dew clung to grass and bushes like ripe berries, ready to fall or fade as the sun angled its light through the leaves overhead. They were on the outskirts of a small town. It was Holden, Maine, Hocker informed her. Tasha could just about care; all she was interested in was maybe grabbing breakfast at a roadside diner