Saved - Chapter 4
Title: Saved - Chapter 4
Notes: I love a good cult so of course I am intrigued by everything that has been going down in Texas over the last couple of weeks with the FLDS. 'Saved' is really more about runaways than cults so if you like that sort of thing you might like this. The following story is completely fictional and has been written for entertainment purposes only.
It took a long time for the sky to take on a soft blue glow.
“Do you want to brush your teeth?” Caiden knew Rainey was awake.
“Yeah.” Rainey was relieved that Caiden had finally spoken. Neither of them had gotten any sleep under the tree at the rest stop, with cars coming and going, worried about their clothes, what they would do next.
There was someone in the restroom when they got there so they used the stalls, waiting until the person left to wash their faces and brush their teeth. They used extra baking soda on their toothbrushes, but it just created a lot of extra foam; it didn’t make them feel cleaner like it was supposed to. Rainey stood in front of the smokey mirror and ran his fingers through his straight black hair, pushing it into his eyes some.
“What are you doing?” Caiden laughed, but he knew; that was how Chris’s hair had been.
“Just seeing how it looks.” Caiden ran his hands through his own dark brown hair and pushed it behind his ears, some persistant strands still falling forward. “C’mon let’s see if our clothes are still up there.”
All of their things were hanging on the branches just as they had left them. Caiden broke a long, thin branch off of a nearby bush and began pulling everything down, piece by piece. Rainey stood underneath, ready to catch the things that fell.
“Everything’s damp.” Rainey said, feeling the cool fabric with his freshly washed hands.
“That’s all right. It’ll be hot, this will cool us down. Maybe we should rinse out our clothes all the time before putting them on.” Caiden always tried to make the best of things. Once the boys had changed into their clean t-shirts and pants they headed to the highway, walking on the northbound side.
“Let’s walk farther up, the road is straighter there.” Caiden followed Rainey, glad that the morning air was still gentle and cool. About a half mile up the hightway sat a large, flat boulder. “How’s this? It’s flat and straight, seems like a good place to wait.” Chris had told them not to walk more than they had to.
“Yeah, this looks good.” The boys reached the boulder and smiled. On the dusty ground next to it was a large ‘A+’ formed with small rocks and pebbles.
Settling agaist the rock, they waited. No one passed by for what felt like an hour. Rainey eventually sat on the dry, cracked ground, drawing spirals in the dirt with a stick. When he tired of that he began to write a letter to his mama but he erased it before Caiden looked over. Caiden stayed closer to the road, his eyes fixed on the blacktop, questions looping through his mind. When he saw a blue speck in the distance he stood up and dusted himself off, Rainey followed. As the car got closer they saw that it was an older, blue sedan.
“Should we try?” Rainey was squinting, trying to get a look at the driver.
“I think we have to, can’t sit out here all day.”
The boys stood up straight and stuck out their thumbs; the car sped past in a blur.
“We’ll have better luck next time.” Caiden smiled at Rainey, who sat back down on the ground and began writing his letter again.
The sun was up high and six more cars had passed, none of them slowing down even a little bit.
“Maybe we should go back to the rest stop, try to get a ride there.” Rainey really just wanted to sit underneath their tree again.
“Those people are all going south, we’d need to find the rest stop going north. I don’t know how far up it is though, we didn’t pass it on the way to the diner.”
“You want to try walking?”
“I don’t think we should, it’s really hot. Let’s just stay here awhile longer. If no one comes we can go back to the rest stop for more water, okay?”
“All right.” Rainey bit his lip and moved to the side of the boulder that provided a sliver of shade.
“It’ll be okay Rainey, someone will come.”
“Okay.”
A few more cars went by, they seemed to actually speed up as they whipped past; Caiden’s stomach began to hurt. By the looks of the sun, it was getting close to four o’clock. Well, at least it was cooler than it had been a few hours ago. In the distance Caiden saw an eighteen-wheeler approaching. Rainey had dozed off on the other side of the boulder, completely out of sight. Caiden stuck out his thumb, making sure to stand up straight. The truck edged over to the side ot the road, slowing down. It’s passenger door swung open and a stocky man wearing a greasy cap leaned over.
“You working or you just need a ride?” Caiden didn’t know what that meant.
“Um, we just need a ride; but we can work if you’ve got something for us to do.”
The trucker broke into a grin at that. “Who’s we? You got a dog hiding back there?”
Caiden looked around. “No, my brother. He’s sleeping, we’ve been out here for awhile.”
“All right, well go get him. I’m on the clock here,hurry it up.”
Caiden ran over to where Rainey was slumped over and shook him firmly. “C’mon, we’ve got a ride.” Rainey didn’t know what was happening but he let Caiden take his wrist and pull him up. With their bags in one hand, and Rainey’s wrist in the other, Caiden hurried back to the truck. He threw the bags in first and then climbed up, pulling Rainey behind him. Once they had closed the door the truck pulled back onto the road, tossing them about. Caiden and Rainey looked around. It was Rainey’s first time in a rig but not Caiden’s. The compound supported itself through construction primarily, so there were trucks on the grounds once in awhile. One of their brothers had show Caiden the inside of one when they were loading it up last summer. Caiden couldn’t believe how many button and knobs and switches there were. He thought that he might want to drive a truck one day, if he ever got the opportunity.
“Thanks a lot for picking us up, we’ve been out here for a long time.”
“Looks like it. Where you boys headed?”
“Salt Lake.”
“Well I can take you as far as Holden but I gotta let you off there, heading west after that.”
“We appreciate anything you can do. Are there any boarding houses in Holden?” Caiden didn’t know exactly what outsiders called them, but he knew there were places that rented out rooms for the night. He had read a book once where someone stayed in a ‘boarding house’ so he figured that might be what they were called.
“Nah, don’t think so. Can drop you off a little bit south of that in Fillmore, couple of motels there.”
“That would be good, thank you.” Motel, Caiden hoped that was the same thing as a boarding house. The ride was quiet with the exception of the buzzing and crackling of the CB. The driver’s name was Earl; he was headed to Vegas with a few stops along the way. Neither Caiden nor Rainey knew what Vegas was, but by the way Earl said its name they could tell it was someplace he wanted to be. Earl asked them a little about themselves but they didn’t say much and he gave up pretty quickly.
The boys listened as Earl spoke into his CB radio, only understanding about half of the words he said. At one point he chuckled into it that he had picked up some ankle biters. Caiden wasn’t sure if he was talking about them or if he had snakes in the back. The person he was talking to told him to keep his shiny side up and his greasey side down. Caiden guessed that meant to drive safe and not flip over. From the way Earl drove, Caiden thought it was good advice, the person on the other side must have known Earl.
Rainey had fallen back asleep and was leaning against the window. Caiden was so tired he was starting to see doulbe but he couldn’t leave Rainey alone with this guy so he put his hand under his shirt and pinched at his stomach to keep from falling asleep. The smooth rocking of the truck kept inviting him to close his eyes just for a minute and soon his hand fell onto the seat between himself and Rainey, his eyes dropping shut heavily.
“Well here we are, Historic Fillmore.” Caiden jerked awake and looked out at the weathered, red brick cube that held a welcoming sign by the side of the road. It stood alone amongst sand and sagebrush, not a building in sight.
“The town is about half a mile in, I’ll drop you off at the motel. There’s only one if I remember right.”
“Thank you sir, you’ve helped us out a lot.”
“You just take care of your brother there.” They both looked over at Rainey who was still fast asleep. He looked about ten instead of fifteen.
“I will.” The truck slowed and Caiden gently shook Rainey awake. “C’mon, we’re here.”
“Where?” Rainey was rubbing his eyes.
“We’re getting out, let’s go.” Caiden reached over Rainey and opened the truck’s door. He nudged Rainey off of the seat and grabbed their bags. “Thanks again sir.”
The boys hopped to the ground and the truck pulled away. In front of them stood a group of clapboard, single-story buildings, painted a slate blue. A rusty sign swung from rusty hooks attached to the building, The Stagecoach Inn.
“How much do we have?” Rainey swallowed, he’d been able to get a little bit of sleep here and there but he knew Caiden hadn’t. They had to have enough just for tonight.
“A hundred and seventeen dollars and twenty-six cents.” That seemed like a lot to Rainey but he didn’t know how much it cost to sleep somewhere.
“Well, let’s go in and see.” The boys headed to the door that said Office, Caiden walking in first. There was no one inside, just a gigantic iguana sitting up on a wooden perch. The boys glanced around the wood-paneled room. There was a fan blowing hot air and the artificial plant that hung from the ceiling looked like it was wilting. Rainey turned and looked back at the door they had just walked though. There was a bell hanging from the frame but he didn’t remember it ringing when they had walked in. He opened the door a little bit and shook it some. The bell gave a jingle and soon there were footsteps coming from a room in the back. A lady with deeply tanned skin and a long blonde ponytail walked out, giving the boys a nod.
“How can I help you boys?”
“We…we want to sleep here tonight.”
“Okay then, twenty-nine ninety five a night for a single, thirty-nine for a double.”
“Oh, okay…a single please.” The woman didn’t look up, just took out a red vinyl book that said Reservations on the cover in fancy gold letters. Some of the gold had chipped off but most of the letters were legible.
“All right, I.D. and cash or credit card, no checks. “
“I.D.?” Caiden looked at Rainey, maybe he knew. Rainey looked blank.
“Yeah, I.D., any state is fine. You got I.D.?”
“Um, no. We don’t have that.” The woman looked them over.
“Well all right but without I.D. I have to charge you more. Thirty-nine for the single.”
“Okay.” It didn’t matter, Caiden needed the room. She could have asked them for all the money they had and they would have given it to her. Taking their cash she handed them their key. It was attached to a large red plastic tag with the number four stamped on it.
“Ice machine is in the breezeway and check out is at noon…sleep well.”
“Thank you mamn, we will.” The iguana behind her blinked at them a few times.
Once they were outside they found the room easily, four doors down from the office; it was dim and cool. Caiden fell onto the bed, not bothering to take off any clothes or turn down the covers. He rolled to the edge just in case Rainey wanted to lie down too.
“I’m going to take a shower.” Rainey was already pulling off his shoes.
“Uh-huh,” Caiden was already drifting off. Rainey took the longest shower of his life. About five minutes into it he began to worry that the hot water would run out but he was pleased to find out that he was right about the outsiders, they had bigger water heaters, or less people used each one, or maybe there were just more of them. He didn’t care what the reason was, he was going to stand under the spray until it gave out. Caiden wouldn’t want to take a shower until the morning, the hot water would be back by then. After about twenty minutes he got tired of standing, so he reluctantly turned off the water and got out. He looked at himself in the mirror. He had gotten pink, his nose and cheeks were rosey but he wasn’t sure if it was from the sun or the hot water.
When he walked back into the room he saw that Caiden was out cold, face down on the bed, snoring lightly. Caiden only snored when he went to bed exhausted, on regular nights he slept soundlessly. Looking around the room Rainey saw a white bucket sitting up on a counter, the word ICE printed in block letters that looked like ice cubes. Taking the bucket, he stepped out of the room quietly, the room key clutched tightly in his hand. Down the line of rooms there was an open hallway with a few old metal machines sitting in it. Rainey walked over and inspected them. One machine had pictures of soda on it. He didn’t see any cups and wondered if you were supposed to bring your own. Another one was filled with snacks that were held in place by metal coils. Rainey reached up to touch the glass. Everything looked good, he wished he had some change in his pocket; Caiden was holding all of the money. Next to the snack machine was a dinged up silver contraption that made a humming noise. Rainey opened up the door and saw that it was filled with ice. Was it free? He wasn’t sure but everything else had a price stamped on it. He stood there looking in, deciding what to do.
“You’ll get cooler if you stand in front of the air conditioner in your room. It broken or something?”
Rainey jerked around. A boy about Caiden’s age was leaning against the soda machine, one hand in the pocket of his worn-out jeans.
“Is it free?” Rainey still hadn’t closed the ice machine door.
“Well yeah, comes with the room, just gotta turn it on.” The boy looked amused.
“No, the ice. Is the ice free?” Rainey didn’t know why the boy was smiling. If he just took the ice and it wasn’t free that would be stealing and he didn’t want to steal, not if he didn’t have to.
“Oh the ice. Nah, that’s ten cents a cube. You can pay me.” Rainey let go of the door. He wanted to go back to the room now, he shouldn’t have come out here alone.
Biting his lip he looked down at the ground and took a step away from the machine. The boy smiled even bigger. “Hey, I’m just kidding around with you. It’s free, take as much as you want. You from the compound?” How’d he know that? Was it so obvious? The boy nodded at Rainey’s undershirt, the ‘V’ and reverse ‘L’ clearly visible on his chest. He should have never listened to Caiden. Rainey nodded, afraid to say anything. “Hey it’s alright, I was too.” Rainey looked hard at the boy’s face, he didn’t know him. “Different one of course, but from what I’ve heard they’re all pretty much the same. There are a lot of us out here you know.” Rainey figured that must be true since at least ten boys had left that he could remember. He didn’t know much about other compounds but he did know that they existed.
“You hungry? Here, I’ll get you something.” The boy dug into his pocket and pulled out a few coins. “What do you want?” Rainey looked into the machine, he’d never had anything in there. “You like peanut butter?” Rainey nodded his head so the boy dropped in the coins and pushed the button stamped ‘C10”. A tan and black checkered package with the words ‘Abba-Zaba’ printed on it came tumbling down. The boy reached in and pulled it out, tearing the package open immediately, shoving it toward Rainey. “It’s so good, you’re gonna like it a lot.” Rainey took a bite. It was good, the chewy taffy gave way, and warm, smooth peanut butter poured out of it. “You like it?” Rainey smiled, chewing happily and nodded. “It’s my favorite, and I’ve tried them all.” Rainey kept chewing, he’d never tasted anything so sweet before.
“So how long have you been out here?”
“A few days.”
“That’s all? How’d you get the money to stay here, you with a guy or something?” The boy’s smile was gone.
“Well yeah, my brother. He’s back in the room sleeping.” The smile came back quickly.
“Oh. How old is he?”
“Seventeen. Just turned it though.” The boy nodded.
“Well that’s good, it’s pretty hard being out here on your own. Good that you got someone with you. How old are you?”
“Fifteen, gonna be sixteen in a couple of months.”
“That’s how old I am, but my birthday’s still awhile away.” Rainey was surprised, the boy looked older than that. “So you guys got any money?”
“No, we found a little bit last night but we’re spending most of it on this room. We had to get inside for a little bit, take a shower, sleep on a bed. The lady inside asked us for I.D. We told her we didn’t have that so she charged us more. Do you have that, I.D.?”
“Nah, it stands for identification, you know like a driver’s license?”
“Oh. Well my brother can drive pretty good but he doesn’t have a license or anything.”
“Don’t worry about it. Not too many boys out here do. There are some agencies that will set you up with one but most of us don’t want to get involved with too much of that. Better to just find jobs where they pay you cash. Not like we have cars or anything.” Rainey thought that sounded okay. He didn’t know what an ‘agency’ was but it sort of sounded like the police and he knew that they should stay as far away from them as possible.
“There’s a butt hut not too far from here. About a mile or two.” The boy was pulling more coins from his pocket and feeding them into the machine. He pushed ‘C10’ again and unwrapped this package for himself.
“A what?” This didn’t sound anything like ‘agency’ or ‘I.D.’.
The boy laughed. “A butt hut. It’s an apartment or room that someone rents and lets a bunch of people crash in. A guy from the place that I’m from got a good job painting so he rented a one-bedroom and lets a bunch of us stay there real cheap. I’m sure he’ll let you stay a few nights for free if you come with me. He’s a good guy, tries to help people out when they need it.”
Rainey wasn’t sure if Caiden would want to stay somewhere called a ‘butt hut’ but he sure wasn’t going to tell this boy that. “That’s real nice of you. My brother’s sleeping but I’ll ask him when he gets up. Can I tell you tomorrow morning?”
The boy looked away. “Well, I’m not gonna be here all night but I’ll just give you the address and if you guys want to stay there come on over and tell them that Jason told you it would be okay.”
“Are you Jason?” Rainey got the feeling that he wasn’t.
“No, Jason’s the guy whose place it is. I’m Zach. I don’t have a pen, can you remember numbers? “ Rainey nodded, he’d always been good at things like that. “All right, it’s 603 Mojave Road, Apartment 8. Got it?”
“Yeah, 603 Mojave Road, Apartment 8.” Rainey filed it away in his mind. “Thanks for the candy.” Zach nodded and smiled. “Don’t forget your ice, the water comes out of the tap warm.” Rainey filled up his bucket. It was a good thing the ice was free, with as much as he was taking he would have owed Zach at least five dollars.
When Rainey got back to the room it was darker than when he had left. He could still make out Caiden, fast asleep on the bed so he only poured one glass of water, filling it all the way to the top with ice. It felt good going down but after three glasses he’d had enough. Pulling off his pants and shoes he sat down on the bed gently, trying not to distrub Caiden, who was curled up on his side. Rainey lay down on his side too, facing the opposite wall, and began to rock himself to sleep. The bed squeaked beneath him and he froze as he felt Caiden move around a little bit. Changing his mind, he flipped over and pressed his forehead against Caiden’s back, concentrating on keeping perfectly still. For the first time in his life Rainey let his brother lull him to sleep instead of doing it himself.