Bright sunlight waltzing off the water, chattering birds and the blissful breeze make the walk this morning near perfect. Tara has taken the scenic route; a sulky day is in front of her and there is no rush. This is her favorite place for a Sunday walk. Houses along the river bank, colorful flowers, fancy bird feeders, cheerful garden brunches and the charm of the free Sunday morning is making her ecstatic. This walk brings peace and calms her soul. If only she could make this last all week.
She walks for a mile. Then—a loud snap of a branch to her right startles her. Looking over, she expects to see a squirrel or a bird. No movement and she goes on. Another crackling of branches and a rustling noise come from the right. Tara begins to walk faster, imagining an animal. But she hears voices and they are coming from down the river. She stops walking and listens. The first voice is rough and deep, with a hint of an accent. “Hey, put it down here and cover it up. Make sure it’s covered good.” There is no response from whoever he is speaking to. She hears a second man now. “It’s too heavy to push over there. Let’s just cover it here and leave it.” This one has a husky, cigarette-smoking voice.
“Nah, can’t do that. Gotta get it out of here. Come on, don’t be a slug, help me out here.” She hears grunts and lots of rustling. Curious, she steps closer to the edge and hides behind a tree. What she sees causes her to freeze. Three big and burly men, pushing at a mound of something, she can’t see what. They are too close together for her to see through them. “Move!” She silently shouts to herself.
She is pumping with adrenaline. What on earth has she just seen? What are they trying to get rid of, way down by the river? She wants to get a better look, but fear has her shivering. Her sensible side says to get out of there now! But curiosity is a strong force. She gets even closer to the edge, so she can get a better look. She notices a small truck. And then one of the men glances up her way. Fear seizes her. She jumps back and starts walking away. Now what? They saw her. She tries to regain her calm by breathing slowly. But they saw her! Or at least one man saw her. This was supposed to be a nice morning walk and now look at what she’s done.
Her head is spinning and she realizes she is walking faster and faster. The man’s face keeps appearing in her head. He saw her. He knows she knows. She just wants to get home and lock the door behind her. The sound of her sneakers hitting the pavement is all she hears. She wants to go even faster, but she is careful to keep a steady pace, so as not to attract attention. If a lookout guy is hovering around she doesn’t want him to know of her fear. Anyway, that’s how they do it in the movies. Crazy thoughts all jammed together mixed with panic. She can almost see the body in the tarp, bloody and beaten.
Whoa! She has to stop this horrible thinking. Retrace what she really did see. Some men trying to move a bulky thing under a tarp and put it into a truck. She hears a car coming behind her and she panics all over again. There are very few cars on this road and she realizes she hasn’t seen one all morning. Who is this, then? She can hear them going way too fast for this country road. She braces herself. What if they are driving by to shoot her? No one would see. She envisions a gruesome picture of herself writhing in agony, alone in the dirt, as she tries to stay conscious to cry for help….
Then the car passes and she hears no shots, feels no pain. The car is just a car. She can feel her rampant nerves; the stress inside her is too much. She can barely see straight. She decides to change the route. Suddenly, she hears the roar of a truck behind her. A truck. The truck. The one carrying the loud, burly men, and more specifically the man who saw her and knows that she knows. Here it comes behind her and she cannot outrun it. She waits for the cliché: her life passing before her eyes- but only sees the road ahead her. It is getting louder and louder. The noise is deafening, the rattling and clanging of metal. Tara cringes inside, waits for a shot but the truck passes her.
For a minute she stops walking. Stops and breathes, happy to be alive and apparently staying that way for the time being. Happy to see the back end of the truck as it goes away from her.
She realizes she can read the name on the back of the truck. Henry’s Hauling. There are even pictures of things that Henry hauls, and besides old furniture and broken appliances, one of those things, wouldn’t you know, is a carpet. Harry’s hauls carpets and such! What a perfectly normal thing she saw, workmen hauling away a carpet, just like their truck says they do. Nothing to do with her. Until one thought spoils it.
Would Henry’s be working on a Sunday? Now her mind is busy again. Maybe these men stole Henry’s truck in order to cover up a murder. Just because they didn’t kill her here on the spot doesn’t mean they aren’t going to kill her later. She feels like a trapped animal. Giving up, Tara decides to walk home and take her chances. Home still feels like the safest place to be. She bravely turns and begins the trip back.
Head down, she reaches her home. Suddenly, a vehicle out of no where stops in front of her. Her heart stops but she recognizes the little blue and white truck as the mail truck. Mail? Today? Sunday? Then- it hits her.
It’s not Sunday! It’s Monday. She took today as a vacation day. She is so used to walking this route on Sundays that she has totally forgotten that she gave herself a long weekend. And now again it makes perfect sense. They were working on a Monday.
She is determined now that she will enjoy her day off---even if she dies.
