SYMPHOBIA - Chapter Three

Pay Jim Inside

The store was abandoned. The door was unlocked. The little bell tied to the push bar jingled as he walked in. The hum of the florescent lights and the soda machine greeted him. The sign on the lone gas pump said, “Pay Jim inside.”

“Jim?” he called out.

He walked up to the counter and leaned over to look past the lotto stands and the rolls of scratch off quick-fixes. Nothing. The register hummed and the display read zeros, but there was no sign of anyone to operate it.

“Hello?” he tried again.

He spotted the restroom door that had both men’s and women’s indicated on the sign, and a piece of paper with the word “either” written on it, taped to the peeling white paint. It was closed. He reached out and knocked on the door. It shook like cardboard, making more noise against its frame than his actual knocking.

“Anybody in there?”

A toilet flushed on the other side of the door and he stepped back. The water ran and then paper towels were cranked out. The flimsy handle wiggled and slowly turned, the door squeaked open, and out walked a boy.

The boy looked up as he threw away his paper towel.

“Can I help you?”

“Jim?”

“Yeah. And you are?”

“Uh… Rod.”

“Well, Uh Rod, what do you want?”

“Oh, I, uh, need gas on pump…” He looked back toward his car.

“We only got one.”

Jim walked behind the counter. His shoulders barely rose above it.

“Right. Then, uh, I need gas on pump one.”

Jim slid a dirty, red, plastic milk crate up to the counter and climbed to reach the till.

“How much?”

Rod stood there looking at Jim for a second.

“How old are you?”

“Eight and a half. How much gas do you want?”

There was a paper plate with a pile of crinkle-cut fries covered in chili and melted cheese next to the cash register and Jim picked one out with his small fingers. The mass of grease above it sank as he pulled the fry. A cheese covered bean fell from the chili glob that had clung to the crinkles and fell to his shirt before Jim got the rest in his mouth. He picked it off of the faded Hulk t-shirt and tossed it back in the pile on the plate.

“Twenty, I guess.”

“Alright,” Jim said. A bit of meat flew from the corner of his full mouth. “That’ll be twenty dollars.”

Rod handed him a twenty from his shirt pocket and Jim hit the necessary keys. The drawer clicked and rolled out, but it didn’t ding.

“Thanks,” Rod said.

“Yep.” Jim sat on the counter next to the chili cheese fries and lifted another messy bite.

The bell jingled again as he exited, and Rod realized how late it was getting. The sun was already below the horizon, and the remaining haze gave the old gas pump an odd personality. It watched him as he drained it of twenty dollars.

Rod replaced the gas cap, closed the fuel door, and climbed back into the aging four-door. He turned the ignition and as he pulled out, tried to think of something in the freezer that he could eat. He should have looked for something at the gas station. Maybe chili cheese fries.

The headlights of a gaining pickup trick made him squint and he reached up to adjust the rearview mirror. He blinked twice before the spots left his eyes. The truck passed him on the left, throwing a stone against the windshield that made him jump and shove the mirror askew. He settled himself and looked up as he pulled the mirror back into place.

Rod’s fingers went cold and he sank three inches further into his seat as his eyes met the reflection of a stare that was not his own. Jim smiled from the back seat. His eyes were wide. Rod turned back and opened his mouth to curse the kid, but stopped. The dull green light of the dash cast a faint illumination over the gun in Jim’s hand. Rod’s head snapped back to the road. He tried to speak, tried to turn the wheel or press the break, but the intensity of Jim’s slicing focus through the mirror paralyzed him. Panic and hopelessness filled him, and he couldn’t even think of the question.

The ring was instant and it covered every other sound. It filled the car and bludgeoned his ears and his head. His thigh burned and he could feel the blood saturating his jeans as his leg clenched and pressed the gas to the floor. He could smell the smoke and taste the iron scent of his own blood as the tires caught the edge of the soft shoulder and yanked the car off the road.