The First Horseman (Spy Thriller-Area 51)

Chapter 8

8

Stephen's eyes grew heavy. His only stop had been at a gas bar to fill up and succumb to his bodies demands. He was making good time. New Mexico was passing him by faster than he thought. He felt his heart flutter with anxiety and fear being so close to Nevada again. He would drive straight through and try not to think about being anywhere near 51 again. So much worry swirled around inside him still. He wondered what became of Michael, but in his heart he knew. The sinking feeling of the sacrifice Michael had made upset Stephen to his core. Why had he not followed behind the police cruiser or used the heart-attack gun on the officers. No, he thought, he didn't have it in him to be a killer, but knowing Michael was out there and that he was compromised worried him.

Sipping his coffee Stephen witnessed the desert sunrise light up the deserts of New Mexico. He was closer to Arizona now. Under normal circumstances he would have enjoyed taking it all in, but moments of elation were impossible these days. He pressed on until he was almost near a national park in Arizona. He glanced down at his fuel gauge seeing he had to stop for fuel once more. Then pulling up to a Gas bar so old he felt like he'd gone through a time warp Stephen got out of the stolen SUV. At a focused and brisk pace, he stepped into the little confectionary that doubled as the gas bar. He picked up a packet of jerky and two dark, caffeinated sodas setting them atop the clerk's counter. The clerk was a teenage brunette with shoulder length hair and long eyelashes. She looked at Stephen with utter frustration. As though the presence of a customer had ruined her day. "Is that it?" She rudely questioned.

"Yes."

"Forty-five eighty-seven." She said with a monotone sound of boredom in her young voice.

Stephen handed the young clerk the last of the crumpled bills in his pocket and realized he was out of money. Feeling a sense of defeat, his head sank down as he walked back to the silver SUV. He had enough fuel to make it halfway to slab city California. He thought of what he would do once he needed to fuel up again. Did he run the risk of stealing fuel from a gas station? Most were pre-payed nowadays, but not this little gas bar in the middle of nowhere. Stephen wiped perspiration from his brow, then nervously cleaned the lenses of his glasses with the bottom fringe of the collared white golf shirt he wore. As he put on his black framed spectacles once again, he looked at his reflection in the passenger side window of the SUV. With his newly dyed blonde hair parted to the side he had surprised himself a few times at first glance. Between not wearing his contacts, his changed hair style and the greyed stubble he had growing, he was not as he remembered himself. Subtly looking back at the young attendant through the store window, Stephen saw she was entranced by her smartphone. He also saw that in between the pumps, stacked neatly, were plastic gas canisters. Stephen knew what he would do. Cautiously and shamelessly he walked to pump number four again. Standing there he watched the attendant out of the corner of his eyes. Kneeling slowly, he coaxed an empty canister into his grasp. Quickly he lifted the pump, filling the canister with fuel after he'd unscrewed the lid.

Still the young girl flicked and swiped while Stephen's heart pounded amidst his uncharacteristic act of desperation. Stephen stopped pumping at the swirling sound of the fuel reaching the canisters top. Then placing the pump back in the cradle, he knelt again behind it screwing the yellow cap back on the plastic red fuel container. He popped the trunk of the SUV open and quietly placed the fuel inside, sighing with a hint of guilt.

As he stepped back around to the driver side door, he glanced one last time at the young girl with her eyes glazed over by the technology in her hand. Stephen remembered how his father would mock the younger generation calling them zombies. For a moment as Stephen pulled away without suspicion from the mesmerized employee, he understood his father's mind. The way the old man thought and why he thought that way. Stephen was thankful now more than ever that he had been raised by his mother. She had no idea of the truly vile nature of the man she had married. They had in fact divorced due to his old man's infidelity. When Stephen had turned twelve, he had overheard the climax of an argument between his parents. It had ended with his mother demanding an explanation for all the weekends his father had been, 'At work', but the bank statements said otherwise. Stephen's father was a clever man, but so was the woman he'd married, and when suspicion had grown, she had managed to get a copy of his father's bank statements all in a time before the ease of technology. Money spent at hotels, dinners out, and expenses at lavish jewelers.