Heatwaves in Crime
Shannon stood in front of the cooler in the back of the store and let the cool breeze wash over her. Her uniform clung stickily to her skin, and her usually pale face was flushed red from the heat emanating from outside. It was a scorching 105 degrees, which had resulted in two things; a strong longing to be at home in front of her AC and a minimal flow of customers coming into the gas station.
“One of these things is not like the other.” Shannon muttered as she thought of her predicament.
Her desire to be home would result in her being absolutely alone but comfortable, and the fact that there were only a few customers coming in and out of the double doors at the front of the store meant that she was not only hot but absolutely bored as well. Shannon sighed as she closed the door to the cooler and walked back up to the front of the store. John, the owner of the gas station, would flip his shit if he knew she’d left the counter unmanned. But what John didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him; besides, if he didn’t see this as a reason to upgrade the AC in the store, she didn’t see a reason to care what he thought.
Shannon lowered herself onto the old stool that sat behind the counter. It groaned under her weight, causing her to grimace. All of those evenings spent snacking between episodes of her new favorite crime drama, Crimes of Passion, were catching up to her. Her expanding waistline was evidence of that. If she were home now, she’d be plopped on her couch with her pug, Lucy, catching the latest episode, but instead, she was here sweating buckets in this hot box of a gas station she’d been hired to work at just a year ago. Shannon had done everything in her job description for the day, and now with nothing to do, her mind couldn’t help but bounce between how many minutes were left in her shift and just how much she wished something, anything, would happen. She could feel a headache coming on, and her longing for home grew. Her eyelids were growing heavy, and it wasn’t long before she’d completely zoned out.
In her mind, she was far away from her tiny town, surrounded by palm trees instead of cheap novelties, cigarette packs, and scratch off tickets. She was content with her musings until she heard a loud rapping on the counter in front of her, snapping her out of her daydream. She jumped at the sound, causing the rickety stool to groan again and embarrassment to flood her face. She looked at the customer in front of her, a nervous looking, but otherwise unremarkable middle-aged man.
“I need gas, miss.” He said, his hands tightly balled up on the counter between them.
His voice was soft, and Shannon couldn’t quite place his accent but when she heard it, she was immediately intrigued. It was one she’d only heard once before. Last night, on Crimes of Passion they’d covered the story of a young woman who was kidnapped while on holiday in a foreign country. The kidnapper had been some guy with an accent much like that of the man in front of her. Shannon was tempted to ask him where he was from, but then he gave a nervous shift and looked down at the counter, he opened his closed fist, letting a crumpled twenty-dollar bill fall out as he did so.
“Okay, what’re you driving?” Shannon asked, peering out the window and seeing that there were two cars sitting at the pumps.
She hadn’t noticed the other car pull up, and she wondered how long it had been there. She saw the shimmering waves of gas fumes rising between the pumps and the window, and her mind began to drift as she thought about how strange it was that she hadn’t noticed the other car before.
“Th-that’s me on pump 3.” The guy stuttered.
His voice snapped Shannon out of her reverie, and she looked back over at him, her eyes searching his face. His low eyes raised and met hers briefly, and she shook her head slightly, snapping out of her wandering thoughts of the gas waves, the second car, and of just how much he resembled the killer on last night’s show. She closed her mouth and then opened it again, unsure of what to say to not seem as spaced out as she’d become. Before she could think of anything he spoke.
“Just give me twenty, thanks.” He said before turning and rushing out of the front doors.
Shannon shook her head and turned the pump on, she was never shocked by strange customers, it usually came with the territory, and for once she believed that she’d matched his strangeness with her own behavior. She sat back down and grabbed a magazine she had under the counter. She opened it up, and noticed that the words seemed to be floating off of the page towards her, almost hovering in the air between her eyes and the page. Shannon blinked twice and then shook her head. It was clear to her that the gas fumes must have wafted in through the door when that guy had left so hurriedly. That was the only explanation that made any sense. She put the magazine down, and lay forward to lean on the counter in front of her, her forehead resting on her crossed arms.
She only looked up when she heard the guy’s tires screeching out of the parking lot. As she watched him leave, her eyes glanced over to the other car in the lot, and she saw that it was empty, except for a little boy that couldn’t have been any older than 3 peering back at her with wide eyes. Shannon gasped before rushing outside and seeing that the doors were unlocked, but that there was no one else in sight. She grabbed the child out of the hot car and brought him in. She sat the boy on the stool behind the counter, and wasted no time rewinding the security tapes, wondering where his mother or father had wandered off too. She felt a wave of nausea wash over her, and she closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, breathing steadily through her nose. When she opened her eyes and focused on the video, she saw that it had just gotten to the part she needed to see.
As she watched the tapes, she saw a woman who she presumed to be the kid’s mother, get out of the passenger side of the car and walk around to the trunk. As the woman bent down into the trunk, the man that Shannon had just sold gas to, came behind the woman and hit her in the back of the head. Shannon gasped at what she was seeing. Fear gripped her heart, and she immediately reached for the phone, fumbling as she did so, and placed a call to the police. She continued watching the video, seeing the man pick the woman up and throw her into the trunk of his car. Once he shut the trunk, he headed back around and shut the trunk of the woman’s car.
As she explained to the dispatcher what she had witnessed, Shannon couldn’t help but to think that this was a bit more excitement than she’d been looking for. Now she really longed for the comfort of her own home. Once assured that someone was on the way, she hung up the phone and let her thoughts take over once more. The boredom that she’d felt earlier had now morphed into an excitement that was totally unrecognizable to her. One that had her almost unable to stand still. And then suddenly, she was hit with a wave of guilt. Here she was, getting excited over the possibility, no the guarantee, that she and this little boy were the sole witnesses to his mother’s abduction. Not only that, but hadn’t she played a part in the crime? After all, she had sold the kidnapper twenty dollars worth of gas, and that was right before he’d committed the crime. Shannon could feel her face burning with embarrassment. She looked over at the kid and saw that he was staring at the cooler.
“Do you want something to drink?” Shannon asked.
Sure John would flip his shit, but it was hot and this kid was probably thirsty.
Almost as if he could read her mind, the kid opened his mouth and spoke for the first time since Shannon had grabbed him up.
“Juice,” he said firmly, causing Shannon to smile.
She was relieved that he was as calm as he was, being that she was a stranger and his mother was nowhere to be found. She rushed to the cooler, looking over her shoulder a couple of times as she did so, and grabbed one of the juices with a cartoon character on the bottle. She shut the cooler door, and headed back over to the little boy, taking off the safety seal and passing the juice to him. The kid drank as if he’d been thirsty for quite some time, and Shannon watched him, saddened at the thought that this kid would likely never see his mother again.
The sound of sirens wailing loudly and coming closer snapped her out of her trance. Just as Shannon looked towards the doors to see a police car pulling into the station, she saw a woman rushing towards the doors from the direction of the bathroom. The woman made it inside first, and Shannon could see that she was frantic by the look in her eyes.
“Have you seen a little boy?!” The woman asked.
“Mommy!” The little boy yelled.
The woman’s eyes widened and she rushed over to where the kid was sitting, and suddenly the room became very unsteady for Shannon.
“But how did you get out of the trunk?” Shannon asked.
She could see the confusion in the woman’s eyes as she hugged the little boy close.
“What do you mean the trunk, I was in the bathroom, I couldn’t hold it any longer but when I came back he was gone.”
The woman seemed to hold the little boy even closer, and Shannon did her best to keep her cool. If the boy’s mom was in the bathroom the whole time, then who was the woman she saw digging around in the car and then being abducted? She could only hope that the officer would come inside the station soon, as all of this was above her pay grade. She couldn’t help but think that the excitement she’d been hoping for earlier was now more than she’d bargained for. The sound of the door opening caused her to shift her attention from the woman and her young son, who was still happily sipping his juice as his mother clung to him.
Sheriff Grady stepped in and approached Shannon, looking between her and the woman and holding the little boy.
“We’ve set up checkpoints, don’t worry Shannon, we’re going to catch this guy. Did they witness the abduction?” He asked, pointing over at the woman and her son.
Shannon opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it again, unable to form a sentence.
“I don’t know what is going on here,” the woman stated looking between Shannon and Sheriff Grady.
Shannon felt another wave of dizziness and before she knew it, she collapsed to the floor, her world going dark.
Sometime later, she awoke, both Sheriff Grady and Dr. Lipscomb, the head of the emergency department were standing at the door of the room.
“Looks like heat stroke to me, she has all of the classic symptoms.” Dr. Lipscomb stated.
“It’s amazing, we checked the tapes, and there was never any abduction, does this kind of thing cause hallucinations?” Sheriff Grady asked, both of them failing to notice that Shannon was awake.
“It can, and with how hot it was in that gas station, there’s no telling how far things could have gone or what Shannon could have thought she witnessed.” Dr. Lipscomb shook his head.
“It’s a good thing you found her when you did. John really does need to get that air checked out.”
And with that, Dr. Lipscomb and Sheriff Grady walked out of the room.
Shannon opened her eyes fully, and snorted. They didn’t ever have to worry about her and the gas station again, as of today, she quit. She reached up and felt her bandaged head, which still ached but not nearly as much as it had before she collapsed. Of course, now that everybody thought she’d suffered from a heat stroke, or whatever it was, they wouldn’t believe her about the abduction, but Shannon wasn’t so sure that she hadn’t seen what she originally thought she saw. In fact, she was now more determined than ever to prove that something had been off about that guy.
She turned her head and looked out of the window, half expecting to see him peering in, relief washing over her when she saw nothing. She turned her head back to stare at the ceiling, quietly reciting the guy’s license plate number to herself. She’d memorized it when she saw him flying out of the gas station parking lot, just in case.
“When I get out of here, I’ve got work to do.” She said quietly to herself, and then she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.