Roadside Crosses

dark. He’d bicycled back home at 2:00 a.m.
    The next day the police had shown up and asked him where he’d been that night. He’d instinctively lied and said he was at the Game Shed. Which of course they’d found out he hadn’t been. And now they’d definitely think he was the one behind the attack on Tammy.
    Everybody hating me . . .
    Travis now recalled waking up here after he’d been Tasered. The big man standing over him. Who was he? One of the fathers of the girls killed in the accident?
    Travis had asked. But the man had only pointed out the bucket to use for a toilet, the food and water. And had warned, “My associates and I are going to be checking on you, Travis. You stay quiet at all times. If you don’t . . .” He showed the boy a soldering iron. “Okay?”
    Crying, Travis had blurted, “Who are you? What did I do?”
    The man plugged the soldering iron into the wall socket.
    “No! I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet! I promise!”
    The man unplugged the iron. And then clomped up the stairs. The basement door had closed. More footsteps and the front door had slammed. A car started. And Travis was left alone.
    He remembered the following days as a blur, filled with increasing hallucinations or dreams. To stave off boredom—and madness—he played DimensionQuest in his mind.
    Now, Travis gasped, hearing the front door opening upstairs. Thumps of footsteps.
    His captor was back.
    Travis hugged himself and tried not to cry. Be quiet. You know the rules. Thinking of the Taser. Thinking of the soldering iron.
    He stared at the ceiling—his ceiling, his kidnapper’s floor—as the man roamed through the house. Five minutes later, the steps moved in a certain pattern. Travis tensed; he knew what that sound meant. He was coming down here. And, yeah, a few seconds later the lock on the basement door snapped. Footsteps on the squeaky stairs, descending.
    Travis now shrank back on the bed as he saw his captor come closer. The man normally would have with him an empty bucket and would take the full one upstairs. But today he carried only a paper bag.
    This terrified Travis. What was inside?
    The soldering iron?
    Something worse?
    Standing over him, he studied Travis closely. “How do you feel?”
    Like shit, you asshole, what do you think?
    But he said, “Okay.”
    “You’re weak?”
    “I guess.”
    “But you’ve been eating.”
    A nod. Don’t ask him why he’s doing this. You want to, but don’t. It’s like the biggest mosquito bite in the world. You have to scratch it; but don’t. He’s got the soldering iron.
    “You can walk?”
    “I guess.”
    “Good. Because I’m giving you a chance to leave.”
    “Leave? Yes, please! I want to go home.” Tears popped into Travis’s eyes.
    “But you have to earn your freedom.”
    “Earn it? I’ll do anything. . . . What?”
    “Don’t answer too quickly,” the man said ominously. “You might choose not to.”
    “No, I’ll—”
    “Shh. You can choose not to do what I’m going to ask. But if you don’t, you’ll stay here until you starve to death. And there’ll be other consequences. Your parents and brother will die too. There’s somebody outside their house right now.”
    “Is my brother okay?” Travis asked in a frantic whisper.
    “He’s fine. For now.”
    “Don’t hurt them! You can’t hurt them!”
    “I can hurt them and I will. Oh, believe me, Travis. I will.”
    “What do you want me to do?”
    The man looked him over carefully. “I want you to kill somebody.”
    A joke?
    But the kidnapper wasn’t smiling.
    “What do you mean?” Travis whispered.
    “Kill somebody, just like in that game you play. DimensionQuest. ”
    “Why?”
    “That doesn’t matter, not to you. All you need to know is if you don’t do what I’m asking, you’ll starve to death here, and my associate will kill your family. Simple as that. Now’s your chance. Yes or no?”
    “But I don’t know how to kill anybody.”
    The man reached into the paper bag and took out a pistol wrapped in a Baggie. He dropped it on the bed.
    “Wait! That’s my father’s! Where did you get it?”
    “From his truck.”
    “You said my family’s fine.”
    “They are, Travis. I didn’t hurt him. I stole it a couple of days ago, when they were asleep. Can you shoot it?”
    He nodded. In fact, he’d never fired a real gun. But he’d played shooting games in arcades. And he watched TV. Anybody who watched The Wire or The Sopranos knew enough about guns