ABOMINATIONS

CRAE

There was nothing around for miles and the only sounds were the humdrum noise of the tires on the pavement, the wind whistling by the partially cracked windows, and a song Crae couldn’t make out coming in over the radio, which was mostly static in a remote area like this. It was a wonder there was any music at all. Being on transport wasn’t the worst thing to be assigned to, and it made it better that Shauna was able to come with him. Crae suspected that Tiler knew what was up between them and this was her indirect way of trying to be nice. Or it was a total coincidence. Either way he was happy with it.

Most of the time when they went on drives like this they did not speak. Shauna was not a particularly vocal person and neither was Crae so they enjoyed a comfortable silence, the radio offering a mixed soundtrack of whatever station they could catch or static depending on where they were driving that particular time. There wasn’t much to look at out here besides desert and shrubs. They had passed the border into Nevada but the scenery had remained exactly the same. The large truck that they were driving left a cloud of smoke in their wake, and in front of them the sun watched them on their journey, silent but scorching.

He wished life could always be this simple. Well, as simple as things could get when you were transporting either weapons or drugs. Crae had his money on drugs. He wasn’t one of the people involved in the direct dealing of them, but he did end up with the transport job sometimes so he didn’t think of himself as any better than the men he was going to deliver it to. All he could hope was that the transfer would be quick and civil. He had no idea how many people were involved total, or who would be meeting them at any given dropoff. It was situations like this that reminded Crae what kind of mess he had gotten himself into.

“What’s on your mind?” Shauna asked, snapping Crae’s attention out of his own head.

“Hmm?” He responded, glancing from the straight road that stretched seemingly forever in front of them to briefly look at her. The sun was setting and her skin glowed in this light, turning a caramel color.

“You’re zoned out, and gripping the steering wheel so tight it looks like it hurts.”

“Oh,” Crae said, looking at the strained skin on his knuckles and loosening his grip a little bit, stretching his hands for a moment to regain feeling. “Just… I don’t know, stuff.”
“Stuff?”

“Yeah, like, wondering what events in my life got me into this situation. Was it a specific one or two or has every decision in my life lead up to this moment, you know? Was me choosing orange juice over apple juice at lunch on that one day in fifth grade what got me here?”

“Okay, you lost me,” Shauna sighed, propping her feet up on the dashboard. She was wearing an unflattering uniform, which was supposed to match whatever truck they were driving and make them more inconspicuous. Her boots made a clunking sound as they settled. “You shouldn’t be getting all existential while you’re driving.”

“You’re welcome to drive,” Crae offered with a smirk, knowing she hated driving.

“Nah, I’ll let you go for another hour or so,” she replied, and they fell into silence once more.

Crae tried to focus on the road ahead of him but it was difficult when the landscape had not changed for hours and his mind was trying to give him things to think about to entertain him. The issue is that when his mind did that it usually went to dark or existential things, a habit he hadn’t been able to break since his dad died.

“Babe,” Shauna said once again a few minutes later. The pet name threw him for a loop; she never called him things like that.

“Huh?” he said.

“You’re doing it again. Let me drive.”

Crae looked down at his knuckles once more, and the blood had left them again. He flexed them as he slowly pressed on the brake, the truck screeching to a slow halt. When he got out and stretched he tried to soak up as much of the orange setting sun as he could, looking out over the desert. He heard the crunching of gravel as Shauna walked around the truck to join him.

“It’s gorgeous out here,” he breathed.

“Yeah,” Shauna agreed, reaching a hand out and lightly tracing her fingers from Crae’s shoulder to his elbow before breaking the contact. “I think I’d like to move out here, or somewhere like it someday. Nothing around for miles except me and whatever animals I decide to have on my giant farm.”

Crae chuckled and turned to look at her. She lifted one eyebrow.

“Something funny about that?”

“No, I just didn’t pin you as the farm type,” he said, smiling.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me yet,” Shauna replied.

“Yet?”

She grinned back at him and leaned forward, planting a short kiss on his lips before turning on her heel and hopping into the driver’s seat of the car.

 

~

It was dark when they had finished their task and were preparing to make the long journey back. Luckily, Crae thought, the truck was empty now and would be much lighter, and therefore they would get home faster. He and Shauna walked side by side down the aisle of the gas station, looking for snacks to tide them over until morning when restaurants would open again and allow them to obtain a proper meal. After grabbing a few less than healthy food items and a few drinks, they made their way back to the front of the empty store and purchased their items from the sleepy attendant. Crae glanced at his phone while he was waiting on the woman to scan all of their items. It was 3 AM. Maybe they had better sleep for the night.

“Are you tired?” He asked Shauna as they made their way across the parking lot back towards the big truck parked on the edge.

“Not really,” She responded without looking at him, reaching into the plastic bag and pulling out a package of chocolates.

“I was thinking we should sleep for the night.”

“Why don’t we just take turns sleeping while the other drives?”

“Well…” Crae said, trailing off as he stopped in his tracks just a few feet from the truck. “I was just making a suggestion. Seeing as the cargo trailer is empty and all. Plus we have those blankets and pillows upfront we can use to make it more comfortable.” His heartbeat was rising, and when Shauna turned to look at him he was surprised at how much her pupils dilated when she looked at him. His breath caught in his throat and her lips spread across her face in a sly smile.

“Ah… I see,” was all she said.

 

~

 

“So, how much land did you have in mind for your farm?” Crae asked.

Shauna shuffled, getting more comfortable as she laid on his chest. Crae’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he looked around at the blank walls around him. It was getting stuffy in the container they were in and he thought about how he would need to open the back of the truck soon so they could get some fresh air.

“Uhm, I don’t really know. A lot, I guess.” Shauna responded in a quiet voice. She traced her fingers in circles on his chest, and he raked his fingers through her hair. It was comforting, and domestic, and it made his heart squeeze.

“All that land to yourself?” He asked.

“And my animals.”

“What kind of animals?”

“I don’t know,” she mused sitting up, the blanket falling off of her shoulders like water and exposing her skin, though he couldn’t make much of the details out in this dim light. She felt around for her T-shirt and pulled it back on, leaving her bra discarded next to where her shirt had been before. “Whatever kind of animals you would find on a farm. Cows, chickens, maybe some horses so I can ride around. Ooh, maybe even goats!”

Crae laughed. “Goats? Those motherfuckers are scary.”

“Scary how?”

“Have you seen their eyes? They’re freaky! Like demons or something.”

“Don’t judge my goats!”

“You don’t actually own any goats yet.”

“Don’t judge my future goats!”

Crae just laughed and Shauna laid back down, kissing him long and slow. When she pulled away there was an unspoken tension in the air, the beginnings of a confession dying on Crae’s lips as she turned over away from him. He wondered if they could just stay like this for the rest of the night, or stay on the road in general for even longer, but he knew that Tiler would be expecting them back, and another team would need the truck soon. He sighed, unsure of himself with what to say next, disappointed in himself for not saying any of what he wanted to deep down.

“We should get going,” he said instead.

“Already?” Shauna asked, lifting her head back up.

“Yeah. I just don’t really want to sleep in the empty back of the truck. Kinda suspicious.”

“Hmm. I guess you have a point. You’re driving, though.”

“Fine by me.”

~

 

The sun was lazily making its way over the hills in the distance, bathing the sky in a soft pinkish orange glow. Shauna was still asleep next to him, and despite how tired Crae was, he didn’t want to disrupt her peaceful slumber. The radio crackled static, and Crae could feel highway hypnosis pulling at his already heavy eyelids. He knew he needed to sleep; he was probably getting close to twenty hours without so much as a snooze, and it was starting to fog his judgement. He glanced over at his traveling companion once more and debated waking her up, then turned his attention back to the road again instead. Not even a full minute later he jolted, not even realizing that his eyes had fallen shut. His gaze was starting to cloud again when a loud bang rippled throughout the silence of the desert.

The bang was followed by a second, louder bang, and then Crae found it incredibly difficult to control the truck. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed that the back left tire had blown, and the rim was grinding and screeching on the road. Crae’s heartbeat quickened, fearing there might have been more to it than just a tire blowing.

A second bang, quieter than the blown tire and reminiscent of the first one, echoed out again, then a whizzing noise and a loud clang against the side of the truck. It was exactly as Crae had feared. Someone was shooting at them.

Shauna, amazingly, was still asleep. Crae was now very much awake, and weighing whether it was better to keep going and get away from whoever the hell was shooting at them, possibly damaging the rim of the truck beyond repair, and definitely drawing attention to them wherever they stopped to fix it; or stopping, and facing the unknown assailant with nothing but the handgun he had on his belt. He was running out of time to decide, if the black sedan that appeared on the road just within his sight told him anything. He couldn’t make out anything besides the shape of it, but it had to be where the bullets were coming from, and it was gaining on them fast.

Crae pressed his foot into the pedal, forcing it to touch the floor as the truck groaned and the back left rim screeched on the asphalt. The speedometer climbed to eighty, ninety, and then the governor kicked in and the truck kicked back, forcing Crae to sit at ninety miles an hour. A quick look in the mirror showed that the sedan was gaining on them easily. Frantic, Crae looked over at Shauna, who was still unconscious.

“Shauna!” Crae screamed. She didn’t move. He moved his right hand from the steering wheel to her shoulder and shook her vigorously. “SHAUNA!”

Why isn’t she waking up? Crae wondered, panicking, his breaths coming out shorter as the black car pulled ever closer. He could see the gunman hanging outside the passenger window now, a semi-automatic shotgun pointed at them. Just as the thought that the two of them might die crossed his mind, another bang rang out, louder this time, closer. The back right tire blew with a follow-up bang, and Crae lost control of the wheel as the truck began to spin.

The ride turned bumpy as the truck careened into the desert sand, hitting the top of a slope and beginning to roll down into the shrubs below. Metal crunched deafeningly around them. “Shauna!” Crae screamed again, squeezing his eyes shut after catching a glimpse of her limply lulling her head up and down with the motion of the rolling vehicle.
When the truck finally stopped rolling, it was on its side, Shauna’s door facing the dirt. She was leaning against the door, her eyes still shut, not moving. There was no way she could have slept through that. Was she dead? Did she get knocked out during the roll? Did she have a concussion?

Crae struggled against his now locked seatbelt to reach out to her. The windshield and the window next to him had shattered, and he could see large shards of glass embedded in his arm as he stretched it out to her. He felt blood running down the side of his face and dampening his hair as she shook her shoulder once more.

“Shauna, please,” he said, his voice cracking. He made a move to unlock his seatbelt so he could get them out of the truck, but the sound of a shotgun cocking made him freeze.

He turned his head to look straight down the barrel, the glare of the sun preventing him from seeing the man on the other side of the gun’s face. His flight response took over and he made a move to shield himself, the seatbelt unlocking simultaneously as he lost his balance and fell toward Shauna’s limp body.

“No!” He screamed, covering his face.

 

“Crae!” Something forcibly grabbed his wrist, and suddenly there was sunlight streaming into Crae’s face. The hand on his wrist was Shauna’s, and when he looked up at her she seemed just as concerned as she did pissed off.

“Dude, you started screaming in your sleep and nearly caused us to get in a wreck. Are you good?”

Crae tried to steady his breathing. His mouth felt as dry as the desert outside. He took in his surroundings. It was midday, the sun not visible through the window. They had come to a stop on the side of the road, and Shauna was in the driver’s seat. He looked in the side mirror outside his window and to his confusion there wasn’t a black sedan in sight.

“What… but I was.. You..” Crae couldn’t get the words out. His throat was just as dry as his mouth, and he reached for the water sitting in the cupholder, downing the entire thing as Shauna continued to stare at him.

“Bad dream?” She said when he finished the water bottle.

“Yeah… sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t even remember falling asleep.”

Shauna chuckled, putting the car back in drive once she could see that Crae was alright. “I know. I woke up at about seven this morning and you were so tired you couldn’t keep your eyes open, so I made you switch with me and you barely even closed the passenger door before you were out.”

Crae chuckled slightly. “Makes sense. I’m sorry for scaring you.”

Shauna shook her head, reaching her hand out to grab his. “Don’t worry about it. You’re safe now.”