Dani parked her old Mustang under the big oak on Prairie Avenue and after checking the traffic—there wasn’t any because it was late—stepped out onto the street and shut the door behind her, taking care to not slam it too hard. It was spooky quiet out here, but Leo had asked her to meet him out here, so she had come.
She walked across the street to the old gas station where he had told her to meet him, her shoes crunching on the loose stones on the asphalt. She stepped into a pothole and almost twisted her ankle and muttered, “Shit,” but she was okay and continued over to the station. A dog howled in the distance and it sent shivers down her spine. Why the hell had he asked her to meet him out here? Couldn’t he have just come to her place?
As she got closer to the station, she looked up. The moon was full and shone down on the building, and the security light lent a green glow to the structure. It had a weird metal siding on it and she wondered why people had ever made buildings out of this metal. It seemed to her that it would be really cold in the winter and stiflingly hot in the summer. She had lived in a mobile home for a while and it was like that. But when she looked at the building, she had to admit that it looked pretty cool. The metal seemed to glow under the moon and the greenish tint of the fluorescent security light.
She walked up to the side of the building and wondered what the graffiti scrawled across the metal tiles meant. Before she could think about it too much, she heard a low whistle from behind the garage. She walked over to the corner and peeked around without saying anything. She heard another whistle and then a whisper. She stayed silent and then she heard her name.
“Dani. It’s me.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. She walked around the corner towards the voice. “Leo! What are you doing?” She kept her voice quiet because of how silent the street was, but she wanted to laugh. “You scared me!”
She got closer to him and then he stopped her with a harsh, “No!”
She stopped in her tracks. He was huddled against the building, slumped down in the fallen leaves, in the shadows. “Leo? What is it?”
“Stop. Don’t come any closer.”
“Well, if you didn’t want me to come out here to be with you, why the hell did you call me? And for that matter, why the hell didn’t you just ask if you could come over to my place? It’s not like you’ve never been over there before and it’s not like I haven’t told you that you’re welcome to come over and—”
“Dani,” Leo whispered. “For fuck’s sake. Shut up.”
“Leo, you do not get to tell me to shut up. I came out here to this creepy-ass old gas station at one o’clock in the morning because I thought you might be in trouble and it really is creepy as hell out here and you do NOT get to tell me to shut up!”
She thought she heard him chuckle. “Are you laughing at me, Leo? You had better not be laughing at me!”
Then what she thought was a chuckle turned into a horrible gurgling sound.
“Leo! Are you okay? You sound like you’re choking!” She started towards him and he stopped her with a loud moan. “Leo. You do not sound like you’re okay.”
He coughed and it sounded kind of...clogged. “I’m not okay. I got bit, Dani.”
“Bit? By what? A bat? A raccoon or something?”
He laughed quietly, but it turned into another coughing fit. “No. Not either of those.”
“It was that dog I heard howling down the street, wasn’t it? I bet it’s rabid! It was fucking Cujo, wasn’t it? We have to get you to the hospital!” She stepped towards him again.
“Dani. No.” She could barely see his hand raised to stop her, and then he pointed towards the garbage bag a few feet from him. “There. That’s what it was.”
She stepped over to the garbage bag, broken glass crunching under her shoes. She was glad she hadn’t worn sandals. She toed the garbage bag and it shifted, rolling towards her. It wasn’t a bag of garbage. A human face stared up at her, grey and pockmarked, Leo’s pocket knife stuck in its eye.
She sighed. “Ahhh, goddammit, Leo.” She looked over at him.
He nodded. “I know.”
“You knew they were heading this way. Why weren’t you more careful?”
“Do we really need to have this discussion now, Dani?”
“No. I suppose we don’t. It’s a done deal, isn’t it?”
She saw him nod and then the clouds cleared and the moon shone brightly on Leo’s face. It was as grey as the “garbage bag” a few feet from him.
“Leo. I’m so sorry.”
“I know. Me, too.”
She pulled the pocket knife out of the garbage bag’s eye and stepped closer to Leo.
“Dani, stop.”
“No. I have to.” She took his hand and kissed it. “We had some good times.”
“We did. You know what you need to do now.” His voice had become more guttural. “You know the plan. You have the supplies.”
“Yes. I’ll do what I need to do. Good night, Leo.”
He nodded. “Good night, Dani.” He kissed her hand and she tried to ignore how slobbery his kiss was.
She did what she needed to do. She walked around the front of the gas station and looked up at the green glow of the corner of the metal building. She walked rapidly back to her Mustang and headed back to her place.
It was a whole new world.
