Flap (standard:Suspense, 1995 words)
Author: BENTLINK	Added: Aug 27 2007	Views/Reads: 4035/2446	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Not a good way to start a well earned vacation.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

After taking a few deep breathes to clam herself, she got up the nerve
to look into the rear view mirror.  The tarp covered utility trailer 
was being pulled by an ominous looking all black pickup truck with 
darkly tinted glass and it was closing fast so she again ask for more 
speed from the SUV.  The pickup truck and tarp covered trailer whipped 
out into the left lane and passed her as if she was sitting still.  And 
as before the disturbed slip stream of air lifted a flap in the 
tarpaulin and she got a longer and much more gristly look at not a hand 
but a lower leg with the foot turned completely the wrong way round. 

Someone needed to report this to the authorities.  She pushed the hands
free bud of her cell phone into her ear and dialed 911.  After waiting 
for a moment, she got static and a screen message reading “call 
failed”.  As she sat looking stupidly at the message on the impotent 
cell phones screen the Black pickup with its trailer load of God only 
knows how many bodies was steadily opening the distance between them.  
She urged the SUV even faster and hunched forward over the steering 
wheel as if lowering her head and shoulders would somehow reduce the 
wind resistance allowing greater speed.  Just as she was beginning to 
close the distance, the truck swerved from the left to the right lane 
and up an exit ramp.  She was so taken off guard that she almost failed 
to negotiate the exit and did so with SUV's tires screeching in 
protest. 

The black pickup and its trailer drove a few hundred yards from the exit
along the minor two lane highway then turned right onto a gravel road 
that ran for some distance across a newly plowed field before 
disappearing over the crest of a small hill. 

She again tried her cell phone dialing 911 and got a repeat of her first
try.  The truck and trailer were nearing the crest of the hill and she 
would loose sight of them in seconds.  Almost without thinking, she 
advanced to the gravel cut off and turned right to follow the 
disappearing truck. 

She reached the top of the hill just in time to see that the black truck
and its trailer had passed through the gate of a high chain link fence 
and were pulling into the door of a large metal building.  A rusted 
metal sign on the fence read “RESURRECTION FARM”. 

She switched off her headlights then carefully backed the SUV far enough
towards the main road until she out of sight of the metal building.  
She needed to think this through.  What was she doing, sitting here 
with the lights out on a name unknown gravel road in the middle of 
Arkansas stalking what might turn out to be a mass murder.  Was she 
nuts?  What she needed to do was go back to the main road, get back on 
the interstate, drive to the next exit buy some gas, and get her nosey 
ass to the Hot Springs vacation cabin and her family before she got 
herself killed. 

She turned on the SUV's driving lights carefully backed towards the
paved road and was almost there when she saw the black pickup minus its 
trailer top the crest of the hill at a high rate of speed.  She 
completed backing onto the paved road then burned rubber all the way to 
the entrance ramp and the west bound lanes of the interstate highway.  
Thankfully, the black truck did no follow but instead turned in the 
opposite direction along the narrow paved road and disappeared into the 
gathering darkness. 

After driving like a mad woman for several miles, she saw the welcome
lights of a large truck stop just off the interstate and calmed herself 
enough to stop for the needed gasoline. 

As she was topping off the SUV's fuel tank, a Deputy Sheriffs patrol car
pulled to the pump beside her. 

“Excuse me deputy” 

“Can I help you Mama” 

“Well yes.  Now this may sound crazy but I just saw a truck hauling
around a bunch of dead bodies” 

“Dead bodies you say, like dead people?  You mean a hearse or ambulance
or some such” 

“Well yes sort of ...I mean no not a hearse.  It was a pickup truck.” 

Damn this is not going well.  “Look lets start over.  I was driving on
the interstate and saw a bunch of bodies on a truck.  No wait not a 
truck but a big trailer behind a truck.” 

She was sure he would ask her how many bodies or where she had seen them
or something like that but instead he ask.  “What kind of trailer?” 

“What kind of trailer?” 

Flashing a broad smile he said, “Not fair Mama I ask you first.” 

What the hell was there to smile about she wondered. 

“I think my husband called it a “big wheel””. 

“Could your husband have said Fifth Wheel, was the trailer supported by
a big hook that sat in the bed of the pickup truck?” 

At last, he was starting to get it.  “Yes that right and it was covered
all over with blue tarpaulins and you could only see the corpses a 
little and then only when the tarps were flapping in the breeze.  I 
tried to call someone, you know somebody in authority but got call 
failed on my phone and and....” 

The dammed Deputy was smiling again.  “So you decided to stop for some
middle grade unleaded gasoline and maybe a cup of cappuccino.”  He said 
giving her a skeptical look and all the while eyeballing the shinny red 
luxury SUV, her business suit, and high fashion dress shoes. 

“Now look deputy I'm not nuts I saw a hand and a leg and they were a
long way apart on the trailer so I know there must be more than ...Oh 
God could somebody be cut up and spread all over!” 

Then seeing how frightened she was he stopped smiling and asked gently
“Did you get a real good look at the truck that was pulling the 
trailer?” 

“Yes it was a scary looking black thing with all the glass tinted real
dark so I could never get a good look at the driver. But I know where 
their hide out is.  I know where they hide the bodies because I could 
not call anyone I followed them to their hideout and its just off the 
interstate.” 

“Did the truck look a whole lot like that one that is pulling in at the
next pump over there?” 

She turned slowly, her heart in her throat.  “Yes it looked just like
that truck.” 

Now smiling again, he nodded and spoke to a portly older man pumping
diesel fuel into the black truck, “Hello Bob how you doing this 
evening.”  Turning back to her, he said, “Well I guess we can close 
this case because the truck belongs to that guy, Bob Ross.  He has a 
farm just off the next exit east of here.  He and his son do a little 
farming but mostly they collect and refurbish fixtures for retail 
stores over a five state area.  In fact they named their farm 
Resurrection because they give a second life to display racks, 
decorations, and window display items including the stores life size 
manikins.” 


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