The Trunk

“You know we shouldn’t have.”

He sighed, it was the fifth time El had repeated herself. “But we did.”

They sat silently in the front seats of his car. He had the window rolled down a little on his side and was holding a cigarette out toward the darkness. She had her legs tucked against her chest; her chin sat heavy between her knees.

Out in front of them, the city fizzled with the energy of the night. At the horizon, the electric lights and the stars mingled, till Nick wasn’t sure where the city ended and everything else began.

Thinking of his mother brought him no peace, down there in one of those houses, alone and scared. El was practically vibrating with fear, she was thinking about her father.

Nick tapped his foot against the pedals, and when he blinked, he had his eyes shut for seconds at a time. Sleep was catching up to him, fast.

He rubbed his brow with his dirty hand, skin stretched under his wet fingertips. By the time he’d finished his cigarette, he wore a pair of pseudo eyebrows, dried brown, and flaking away at the faintest touch. Casual as always, he tossed the cigarette out of the car, watching as it tumbled down the mountainside.

Nick gave El’s shoulder a nudge and pointed to the dash. Quickly but carefully, she reached out to grab the pack of cigarettes and slide open the lid, holding them out for Nick to choose. Snatching them from her, he shakily pulled the last one out and tossed the pack out the window. “Light me up already.” He growled. No hesitation, El knew he liked it that way.

His lighter gave a soft click as it came to life, and not half a second later, Nick was already reclining in his chair, eyes shut. Darkness resumed.

That didn’t change much for her. The front of Nick’s car was so familiar to her she could navigate it with her eyes closed. She knew where he kept his spare cigs, about the false compartment at her feet that held a switchblade. El couldn’t quite remember whether he’d used it earlier. Hopefully he hadn’t dropped it. She considered asking him, but his temper was flimsy, and the trunk was already full.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick noticed El doing up her top button. He watched intensely, taking a long drag and huffing the smoke in her direction. She pulled away from him a little, looking down at her new shoes. These ones were black, like the ones he’d asked her to bring. “Undo the button.” He said, coughing up against the back of his hand.

How could she refuse? Against her raw fingertips, lashed with thin cuts, she pulled at the button of her shirt and let it loose again. The neck of Nick’s shirt stretched down to her collarbone. Patterned grey and blue, it suited her boy’s complexion.

“Better.” He said half-heartedly, looking back out of the front window, not bothering to hang his cigarette out of the car anymore. He nearly leapt out of his seat when he heard the thump on the window of his car.

Gingerly, the pair peeked to their side, where a woman in a dark blue uniform stood holding a flashlight, aimed at El. “Roll down the window, would you?”

El’s first thought was of Nick’s temper. He was prone to snapping in tough situations, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d assaulted a police officer if it degraded to that.

Every vein in his neck had flared blue, he was either about to start throwing punches or screaming. With him it was as simple as flipping a coin.

Letting out a heavy sigh, and patting down his shirt, Nick rolled down his window. “Could you uh… Turn the light off?” He asked.

The policewoman continued to swap the light between the two. Behind the light, it was impossible to see her face. Only a uniform stood against the dark. She sniffed. “You alright back there?” She asked, and for a moment Nick, froze, thinking she meant…

“I’m fine.” El said, putting on as confident a voice as she could muster.

“Now you’d tell me if you weren’t, wouldn’t you?”

The girl paused, feeling a little sick. Maybe it would have just been easier to tell the police what happened. But Nick had insisted they’d done the right thing. “Yeah.”

A cold wind blew past the policewoman and into the car, kicking up Nick’ hair and making a new prickly mess in the place of the last one.

“There’s an awful lot of bumps on your car.” The policewoman observed, pulling back for a moment to stand up and shine her light around the car, toward the rear.

Nick put on a smile. “Sure is. Used to belong to my pa.”

“What was he? A driver or something?”

After hesitation, he managed a laugh. “Something like that.” A vein on his neck looked close to bursting. “We’re really busy officer.”

The light returned to the front seats, and Nick squinted. “And what are you busy with, up here?”

Panicking, El began to blush furiously.

The policewoman chuckled softly. “I was a kid once too. Never tried it like this though.” Pausing, the light switched off. “You two have fun now, but if you’re still here when I come back up then I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

The two sat in stunned silence before Nick finally managed a few words. “Thanks… Officer.”

Nick turned in his seat, watching her wander back down the trail. When he turned back around, El had hardly a moment before she knew something was wrong.

“You stupid bitch.” His knuckles were familiar against the side of her head. “You said we’d be alone up here.”

His knuckles didn’t hurt when he did it anymore. The first time, he’d turned his knuckles red, but by the tenth, they only managed a weak pink shade. Now, when he hit El, his knuckles looked the same as they always did.

She bounced off his fist and smacked the other side of her head against the window, not hard enough to shatter it. He grabbed the door handle on his side and yanked it open, kicking the door out of his way and slamming it shut behind him.

El settled her head against the dash, a rivulet of blood running down the grey plastic. Nick began to pace about the mountaintop, swinging his fists at the air and stomping his feet like a petulant child.

Breath catching in her throat, she doubled over and spat blood. He’d probably beat her again later for bleeding in his car. How dare she be so inconsiderate.

She popped open the door gently and slid out of the car. Landing painfully against the grass. Her shoulder took most of the hit. That was a place that hadn’t been hit in a while. It was like her father was with her again.

Reaching out, she managed to pop open the hidden compartment, and sure enough, his switchblade was still inside. In a trembling hand, she managed to pull it out and tuck it into her pocket.

He was screaming on the opposite side of the car, and from where she lay on the floor she could see that Nick had kicked off his shoes and was running back and forth like a crazed animal. El kept quiet, crawling toward the boot of the car, toward the trunk.

That was when she spotted the light rapidly approaching from the trail. She managed to back up a little and slide beneath Nick’ car. She could just about make out the form of a woman running up the hill, torch in one hand, baton in the other.

Nick twitched, feeling his blood run cold and the hair on the back of his neck stand up. In front of him stood his shadow, restless and panicked. Turning toward the light, he saw the policewoman again. A skinny blue cloud against a black world. He dashed toward her, toes tearing grass out with each stride.

El saw the baton smack Nick at the side, slowing him a little, but not enough. He took the policewoman off her feet and tackled her to the ground. They let out a shared grunt of pain, as Nick pulled himself up and began to swing his fists at her.

A loud thud echoed from the boot of the car, and Nick’ attention was lost. He stared at it incredulously. That gave the policewoman enough time to pull away from him and reach for her pistol. He stumbled back, and she stood up to her full height, aiming it toward his chest.

El pulled out from beneath the car and dragged herself into the light, feeling bristles of grass against her collarbone and chest. The policewoman kept the gun aimed at Nick, but through the shadows, El was sure she saw her head looking in her direction.

“Help.” El whimpered.

Nick was too busy staring at the trunk of his car. He didn’t even seem to care that there was a gun pointed at him. Not even noticing when the policewoman walked over to El to attend to her wounds, gun still poised on him.

El tilted her head to the side, showing the officer her wound. The officer leaned in, likely looking for a way to help. It gave El the opportunity to shove her man’s switchblade into her throat. The gun went off in her hands and in a flash of light, the three were illuminated.

A girl with desperate eyes. A boy thrown from his feet by a bullet. A woman flailing about in the grass.

El reached the gun before it went off again, carefully holding it downward. While the policewoman gurgled, she walked over to Nick and helped him stand up.

The hole in his chest dribbled blood. Nick quietly moaned, writhing as if in honey. But neither of them cared for that certainty of death. They’d both heard the trunk.

With a bloody hand, El popped the trunk open. Inside, her father lay, hands bound, mouth gagged. Pale as paper. Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger on her father, then her boy.

She sat down heavily, and watched the lights in the city come to life in blue and red.