Short Stories II

Evangeline

Evelyn woke up that evening with cold toes sank into warm hearth, her Carmel hair slicked dry with mud and fungi. Raising a hand to her head slowly, the surface area surrounding her began to focus, and she noticed the disappearance of the family cars. Furrowing her eyebrows from a strong headache, she limbered along the Cambodian campsite, tracing the watered down tracks of her parent's camouflaged trucks. She shuffled her feet through heavy mud and oil spill, not riveting once at the dank smells around her. She continued shuffling forward instead, aware of the muddy streaks down her cheeks, but numbed to the concern of it all. She couldn't seem to care less how she looked anymore.
Flashy broken glasses, broken down military vehicles, Crazy Jim lying half awake in a slump of his own debris; The place was a mess, and Evelyn couldn't help but wonder why her parents would leave her in this dump.
"Hey, you!" Crazy Jim's brother, Steve, wandered out of the old shack, a tiny building built off the side of a forest cliff. There wasn't much to go off of here.
"You know where your parents be?" Steve asked. His beer belly piled over his waistband and fishing hat lay diagonal across his face, making it hard for Evelyn to conversate.
"No, it looks like they're gone," Evelyn commented, her stringy auburn hair flying through distasteful winds.
"You wanna go on a little adventure with me?" Steve asked, spitting into a tin cup before planting his hands on his meaty hips. Evelyn didn't have much to lose at that point.
"Yeah, whatever."
If her parents ever did come back for her, they'd either find her dead by the fingers of Steve or dead by malnutrition; either way, dead was dead, and Evelyn was willing to have fun with it while she could.
"Okay, get in the car," Steve waved her over, grumbling through his horse Texan accent as they loaded into his gulf cart. The crew (Steve, Jim, her parents, and Evelyn) had all been assigned this dirt patch of a landfill to stake out, and Evelyn had nowhere to go but with both of her Marine parents. Out in the middle of a suspicious, low income country with slushy water and dirty toilets.
Half way through the drive, Evelyn finally raised the question.
"So, where're we going Steve?" She asked. Not particularly wondering, but the dirt roads were bland to her attention. She needed a stimulus.
"To the fishin' shop," Steve grumbled again. His fishing hat began falling down so he raised it again, obviously hung over and very weary.
"Steve, do you want me to drive? I know where the tackle shop is," Evelyn asked. She felt very sarcastic in almost everything she said from this point on, because her life was meaningless anyways. She'd die out here at some point, and she knew that for a fact.
Evelyn parked in the shabby lot outside of Fish-n-Tackle, leaning over the drivers seat to look at Steve seductively. There wasn't a bit of intelligence in that brain of his, but if she was going to die alone out here from starvation or disease, she was going to do it on a good note. Even if that meant with an old stink like Steve.
Evelyn shuffled her legs underneath her.
Gaping her lips opened wide, she stroked the sternum running down her A-cup breasts, drawing a heart around where she thought the mysterious organ was. It wasn't actually where she pointed it out to be.
"Do you wanna kiss me, Steve?" Evelyn asked. She slipped her tongue out, briskly running in along the lining of her mouth, leaning into Steve's oblivious face with extra seduction. However, Steve still looked like a moth repeatedly running into a bug zapper lantern, so she figured he wasn't getting the sign.
Evelyn groaned in frustration, turning away from the man to notice a military truck pulling into the lot.
"What in the actual fuck?"
Eve's mother stepped out of the car with quick agility, stomping to the gulf cart with explosive steps.
"What are you doing?!" She shouted at her. She looked at Evelyn with an exasperated look before prying open the gulf cart door, nodding to Steve who stared at her with a blinded expression. A moth in a bug zapper lantern, again.
"I thought you weren't coming back!" Evelyn cried out, trying to release her mother's hold on her wrist. She knew that her mother cared about her dearly, but to be left alone in the Cambodian jungle with a couple potential pedophiles? That was the ultimate sign of betrayal.
"Honey, of course I was coming back!" Her mother grunted, stopping in her rigid march to look at her daughter directly.
"I was called out at 3am in surprise orders..." Her mother explained, the rims of her eyes growing teary and red.
"I wasn't able to tell you or take me with you because they thought that somebody had a bomb, honey, you have to forgive me," She insisted to Evelyn. She took her daughter's hand in hers and kneeled before her, kissing the top of it in sincere apology.
"I didn't think you'd assume I'd abandoned you," Her mother mumbled, several tears falling from her eyes, her forehead crinkling in guilt.
"Mom... mom, don't worry about it, okay? I'm sorry,"
"It's not about you mom, I trust you..." Evelyn cooed, rubbing her mother's shoulders softly.
"I just have a hard time trusting people," She breathed, reaching down to her mom's level to give her a hug.
"I know you do."