Chasing Sunshine | JJ Maybank

15 // The Forbidden Zone

"Do you have the right numbers?" Pope asked urgently, watching JJ tug on the padlock for the second time. He hesitated for a minute, then stepped away from the storage container defeatedly and crumpled the scrap piece of paper in his fist.

"So I may have the wrong numbers," he muttered.

I ran my tongue along the tips of my teeth. "You had one job," I hissed, all too-aware that without the proper combination, we had done all of this for nothing.

John B ran his fingers through his hair in the same manner of frustration as Pope exclaimed a little too loudly, "Damn it!"

I was about to suggest we sneak out while we still could, re-group, and come back another day when a very big dog, with even bigger teeth came peeling around the corner barking aggressively. The four of us swore in unison, backing up instinctively as it moved closer and effectively pinned us against the corrugated metal siding. John B saw an opportunity and went for it, quick-stepping around the corner of the unit and running in the opposite direction.

JJ wasn't much help either, raising his hands in the air and calling out to it while he inched his way around Pope, "Oh hey no, stay there!"

The dog focused on Pope and I, leaving JJ in the clear to high-tail it out of there as well. "Holy shit," I squealed when it lunged forward again, making Pope throw an arm in front of me and push us even harder against the storage unit.

He then reached to quickly grab a metal pipe from one of the work tables next to us, swinging it in a wide arc around the two of us and shouted, "Back off, back off!"

His actions caused the dog to back up a few paces hesitantly so I began to make a break for it around the same corner that John B had. However, my movements sparked a renewed effort in the animal and it cut me off with a narrowly-avoided snap of its jaws.

Perhaps ridden with a guilty conscience, JJ circled back to help us out, this time waving an old red rag in front of him and enticing the dog to look back at him. "I got a toy boy!" he called, which did indeed redirect the animal's attention only to have him take off after JJ. "Wait, no! Just kidding, shit!"

The dog followed after JJ's retreating form, leaving Pope and I free to escape in the opposite direction. My brain didn't even pause to think about what had become of John B or JJ until we approached the front gate, which was wide open and missing one security guard. Kie saw us coming and began madly ushering us towards her car. We bolted across the open ground and practically dove into the back seat as she hopped behind the wheel to twist the ignition.

"What happened, where's everybody else?!" she asked frantically, glancing behind her to back the SUV and trailer onto the road rapidly and making gravel fly from her tires.

"We got separated," Pope wheezed, still trying to catch his breath, "They probably went back to where we stashed the van."

The notion made sense, and we were all expectantly silent for the five or so minutes it took for Kie to drive us to that spot. But the rusty Volkswagen proved to be empty and there were no signs of either of them, which made my anxieties spike to newfound heights.

Kie looked from Pope to myself, then back to Pope again with concern etched into every line of her face. He held out his hands in a placating gesture to the both of us, accurately sensing our trepidations and began to say, "Okay, let's give them a minute to-"

He cut out in the middle of his sentence when something caught his eye over Kie and I's shoulders. We whirled around to see John B jogging towards, dragging a yellow case on wheels behind him as it bumped along obnoxiously on the ground.