The Dark Side

I walked briskly out the door, taking care to lock it securely, and trotted to my Land Rover. There were lots of things to do and not very long to get them done. I expected some former comrades from the police department to be looking for me very quickly—just as soon as Allison roused and dialed 911.

First on my list was to say goodbye to my daughters. I didn't waste any time, but I drove just under the speed limit, not wanting to attract the interest of a patrolling officer.

* * *

"So ... Father, dear! What you're saying is, because you had sex with ... Mother ... you quit your job and you're going to run off somewhere and you won't take us with you! You think that's the thing to do, huh?" Megan demanded.

My pretty, blue-eyed daughters had their hands on their hips and were glaring at me and shaking their heads in negative gestures as they remonstrated with me.

I sighed. This was going to be so complicated. "No, sugar ... you see, I did have sex with your mother, and I'm sorry I told you that. It probably ... no, it was absolutely NOT appropriate to tell you. I apologize."

"But you already did, Daddy!" Megan retorted. She had fire in her eyes and she was not going to be diverted. "So get on with telling us why Evelyn and me go with you! Why do we get stuck with someone who doesn't even know we exist?"

This wasn't going the way I planned it. I'd intended to apologize for having to leave, get some hugs, made some plans to stay in touch through their phones and video chat, and then I'd get on the road. It would have been painful, but doable. Apparently nothing was going to be easy this day.

Pursing my lips and raising my shoulders in a resigned shrug, I gave up subtle and went with the bald truth. "Okay ... what it is, is your mother wasn't exactly happy with me ... doing her. She didn't want me to do it, but I did it anyway," I told my daughters.

According to the calendar, Megan and Evelyn were only fifteen and fourteen, but they were far more sophisticated and responsible than other teenagers with whom I'd come into contact. That was disconcerting at times, because I really wished they'd stayed toddlers full of hugs and kisses for daddy. On the other hand, their poise was a blessing at times.

"Did you hurt her?" Evelyn asked me bluntly. My youngest daughter was baby-faced; she was fourteen, but looked about eleven and a half in the face. She hated that now, but she'd appreciate it when she was thirty-five. Right now, though, her scowl was ferocious. She didn't look a bit like a baby.

"Nope," I replied. "Well ... maybe a bruise or two where the handcuffs were around her wrist ... but that's all," I explained.

Both girls digested that in an instant, then they grinned broadly. "You handcuffed Mom and fu ... had sex with her?" Megan asked. It was plain she'd almost used the F word. "Daddy, you got kinky with our mother?" she continued. She wasn't upset.

"What do you know about—" I cut myself off. I didn't really know how my two darlings knew about such things.

"Daddy...," Megan responded coyly, "there's this thing called the Internet, and...."

"Okay, okay," I interjected hastily. I took a deep breath. "Girls ... the problem is having sex with her when she didn't want to is called rape, and I'll go to prison if they catch me. Understand now?"

"That's stupid," Evelyn remarked. "Heck ... Mom has to be pushed into almost everything fun. You remember when we went to Six Flags and you had to drag her on that ride?"

I did. Allison had been very, very reluctant to get in one of the ride's cars; she'd been adamant, in fact, that she was not going on it. I'd shamed her into it, pulling at her hand, showing her how eager her eight and nine year old daughters were.

"...And then she wanted to go on it again, and again?" Megan reminded me sweetly.

That was quite correct. We'd had to make two detours from our tour of the theme park, going back to that ride to satisfy Allison's newly found addiction.

Evelyn saw I was remembering the event. "I'll bet she liked what you did, Daddy," she assured me. "She'll probably want you to get ... kinky ... again!" she remarked sagely.

"I don't think so," I said slowly. "She was really, really mad."

"I'm sorry girls," I said quietly, "but I'm going to have to go somewhere nobody can find me for a while. But that doesn't mean we can't talk and video chat and stuff while I'm gone." I could make that happen. I'd probably have to relocate every time I indulged myself with a contact with them from wherever I was, but I could do that.

"So ... tell us why we can't go with you!" Megan insisted bluntly. "We don't want to be stuck here with someone with an attitude like hers! Why would you do that to us?"

"Girls ... I just don't think...."

"We can get our clothes and get in the truck really fast, Daddy," Evelyn interrupted. Abruptly, both of them turned and raced for their bedrooms.

I was left protesting to the walls, which were paying me almost as much attention as my two daughters were. I gave up. They could start out with me and when they found out it wasn't as much fun as they thought it would be, I could put them on a plane back to Allison.

Twenty minutes later, the three of us had clothing on suitable for a long trip and we were carrying suitcases downstairs to where my Land Rover waited. They'd wanted to go by the house and pick up more of their clothing, but that was a non-starter. I told them we'd buy new clothes to replace what they couldn't go pick up.

They were happy with that. Shopping was always a good thing in their world.

* * *

We drove south, on Federal highways, state roads, and even a few farm-to-market roads leading in the direction we wanted to travel. We stayed off the Interstates because I felt there would be far more cops on it than there would be on side roads.

I wanted to disappear. Allison couldn't come after me for "kidnapping" the girls because, as their parent, I had as much right as she did to take them anywhere I pleased. No one would be looking for me for that reason. But what I'd done to my wife was going to be considered rape, and I was sure the authorities would absolutely do their darndest to find me.

We slept that night in the Land Rover, not exactly comfortably, but we all managed to get a few hours of rest before pressing on the next morning. We paid cash for gas to avoid leaving a trail of debit and credit card transactions and we bought sandwich materials and beverages in small groceries to avoid surveillance cameras at fast food joints and restaurants. I had no doubt someone would eventually be able to puzzle out our trail, but it was going to take time.

The second night, we stayed in a small motel well off the main highways. The night clerk didn't check my ID or even attempt to validate what I put down on the registration card. He had no problem with the extra cash I slipped under the registration card either.

We crossed the California/Mexican border just before noon the following morning, not attempting to hide who we were or conceal much of anything—except for the big Glock .45, and several other weapons, I'd hidden in a compartment on the underside of the truck bed. Whether they were supposed to or not, the Mexican border guards didn't look. Drugs and money were generally smuggled OUT of Mexico from the United States, but seldom INTO Mexico from the U.S.

We'd shown them our passports, my international driver's license and in return, received a permit for the vehicle to enter the country without any problem. I didn't see anyone inspect the passports closely; certainly they didn't attempt to enter data from the passports to a computer system.

Perhaps it was the hundred dollar bill I kept in my passport. I don't know. The bill mysteriously vanished in the process; I don't know where it might have gone. At any rate, we were waved through the border control point without any problem.

...And then we did our imitation of Alice disappearing down the rabbit hole.

CHAPTER TWO

We found a little village nestled up against some low mountains, or tall hills—we didn't know which term applied better. It wasn't much, barely more than a wide spot in the road with a one-pump gas station, a mechanic's garage, and a tiny grocery. The girls and I found a small house on the west side of town which sat a little higher on the slope than the little community.

I found a job working on the nearly antique cars and pickups that abounded in the neighborhood. My father had been a damn good shade tree mechanic and I'd learned from him. I'd only quit working on my own vehicle only when I became a police officer and no longer had time for it. I made a deal with the guy who ran a some-time plumbing shop. I'd get his pickup's motor running like a top and he'd make the ancient plumbing in the house working more than occasionally.

To my surprise, neither Megan nor Evelyn showed the slightest sign of homesickness. They never said a word about going home to their mother and were, in fact, happy with their surroundings. They weren't going to school, they weren't seeing their friends, and there wasn't a cell phone tower for sixty or seventy miles, so their smartphones weren't usable, but we found things to do with each other that more than compensated.

I was learning Spanish quickly—I had to in order to conduct business—and the girls were soaking up the language at a rate that astounded me. Evelyn amazed me with an interest, and a talent for working on old engines. She became my assistant and my official interpreter when I wasn't sure a customer and I weren't communicating effectively.

Megan kept house for all of us, and filled in the hours hiking in the local area using the camera in her smart phone to take pictures of the local men, women, and children along with their animals. Her shots of saguaro cacti with the mountains in the background, and of the local countryside in general, were stunningly well composed and beautiful. It seemed to me she might have found her calling.

After the first rush of folks needing cheap repairs on their old automobiles, things settled down in the garage to a slow trickle. The girls and I were supplementing what I earned at the shop with small amounts of the cash I'd taken out of my accounts the day I'd found my wife about to fuck that guy in her office, but we didn't need much. The money was going to last a long, long time at the current rate we were using it up.

To fill in the time, I began teaching the girls how to shoot. I'd sneaked a weapon into the country, along with a few others. The .45 caliber Glock was too much weapon for my daughters' wrists to control, but a .32 caliber pistol was just right for Evelyn. Megan could handle the 9mm semi-automatic, so those weapons became their possessions. After a while, the girls became proficient with the firearms. Megan routinely carried the 9mm on her belt as she hiked the surrounding terrain taking pictures.

We had no problem getting ammunition. I'd figured out Mexico had probably the most corrupt society and government imaginable. Literally anything was possible if you had the cash to buy what you wanted—including, according to reports, whole police departments.

Other than target shooting, which no one else in town ever did, we did our best blend in—as well as three tall, blue-eyed Anglos could, anyway. The local population was mostly from a tribe that had been there when many tribes and a few dozen Spaniards under their commander Hernan Cortez outfoxed, then destroyed the Aztecs.

The old ones who came around to sit and swap stories at the gas station looked so ancient, they might have seen the conquest of Mexico firsthand. They sure had stories to tell. My goodness, they had stories. I spent many an evening in the combination cantina and part-time restaurant listening, spellbound. Puzzling my way through their stories was helping me learn the language very quickly, too.

For six months and a bit longer, Megan, Evelyn and I stayed there, soaking up local history, working, and enjoying the heck out of the experience. There wasn't a police officer in the small village. The closest police presence was what everyone called Federales stationed in a town almost sixty miles away. This little community where we lived never saw a policeman. They never came to this tiny place.

My girls and I weren't exciting any official attention whatsoever and we weren't leaving any virtual footprints by accessing the web either. We were well and truly off the grid.

On the other hand, there wasn't much happening on the social side of our life. There weren't any older boys/young men in the community. They'd all gone off to the big city looking for jobs or some high intensity fun. There were a few attractive women there, but they were all married and I wasn't about to go there. The remainder of women in the surrounding area just were not datable material.

To my horror, after our first six months there, the "not datable" women began looking better to me. I was appalled at myself. Then I was ashamed for being so shallow that I thought physical attractiveness was of primary importance. I was more appalled than I was ashamed, though, so I never hit on any of them and I studiously avoided circumstances where I might have to avoid being hit upon.

All in all, the girls and I agreed we'd achieved our purpose with our stay here. We'd intended to disappear from Allison and from the police searching for me, and we'd achieved that. What I'd done to Allison was almost certainly not on the front burner with any law enforcement agency now, and I suspected Allison had probably given up looking for us to serve me with divorce papers. That didn't matter. She could file, claiming desertion without me ever being aware of it.

We stayed alert—we had go bags always packed and stowed in the back of the Land Rover—but we were happy and relaxed.

* * *

The knock at the back door was unexpected, particularly since it was well past the time most folks in the village were in bed and fast asleep. When I opened it with gun in hand, I found one of the oldsters from the cantina standing there, fairly hopping from foot to foot.

"Señor Russ, vienen hombres malos. Vienen por las chicas. Debes esconderte. Deprisa, señor. ¡Por favor, apúrate!" he said. "Mister Russ, there are bad men coming. They are coming for the girls. You must hide. Hurry, sir. Please hurry!"

I understood most of what he was saying. Evelyn supplied the rest.

"Quieren hacer putas de tus jovencitas!" he added. I understood the word "puta" and knew it meant whore. I guessed the rest of what he'd said.

"Tell him we understand, Evelyn," I said. "Tell our friend to run away and hide, himself. I don't want them to see him!"

"Entendemos. Gracias... Muchas gracias. Ahora, debes esconderte. No dejes que te vean, amigo mío," Evelyn rattled off, pointing at me. I guessed she was translating verbatim and she was indicating I had spoken those words. The old man grinned tightly, whirled around and vanished into the night. I guessed he didn't need any advice from me at all.

"Jackets, boots, guns—whatever else you want and can get to in three minutes—Land Rover!" I snapped in Megan and Evelyn's direction. They turned and raced into their bedrooms while I did the same thing I'd admonished them to do.

My bag of extra clothing was behind the living room couch. I grabbed it and threw it at the kitchen door. Jumping up two rungs on the attic access ladder, I pulled down the big duffle bag holding our stash of twenty-dollar bills and tossed it into the kitchen too. I belted on my holstered .45, dropped an extra magazine and a couple boxes of cartridges in my jacket pockets and laced up my hiking boots. We already had more ammo and bottle water stored permanently in the Land Rover.

We'd practiced this. We'd timed grabbing our "go bags" and whatever else we wanted/needed from what we used on a daily basis and running for the truck. Three minutes was all we allowed ourselves for preparation, and sometimes we didn't even give ourselves that.

I dumped every bit of food in the kitchen into a burlap sack and put it near the back door. We were all done at virtually the same moment. We'd practiced often enough and the drills were paying big dividends now.

After dousing the lights in our tiny living room and kitchen, I slipped out the back door and stood to one side of the doorway with gun in hand, listening to the night. I could hear yelling and screaming in the distance, but nothing nearby—not yet, anyway. I hissed to get my daughters' attention and they filed out of what had been a pretty good home for us.

I'd long since disabled the overhead light in the Land Rover's passenger cabin, so when we carefully opened the doors, there was no splash of light to draw unwanted interest. We closed the doors softly. Our house was fairly high on a slope over the town, beyond which was an indifferently paved road. I left the engine off for now and let the Land Rover coast slowly downhill through uninhabited streets. We almost got all the way down to the road.

Ahead of us was a large step van facing the same direction we needed to go. It was not quite blocking the whole of the narrow street. I could get by, but there was a tall, big-bellied man standing at the rear end of the van with a pistol of some sort thrust behind his belt buckle. My daughters and I could hear the sound of wailing and crying coming from the interior of the vehicle.

We couldn't possibly get past the guy unnoticed. There was also the fact that we'd been a part of this community for a while; acquaintances and friends we'd made here were under attack. And ... I'd been a cop working to protect members of society for too many years. I couldn't NOT do something about this. We rolled to a stop at what would have been a short city block away in a real town.

"Megan, get your 9mm ready," I whispered. "Evelyn, you need your gun too. I have to take this guy out before we can go anywhere." I paused. "If any of these guys comes up to the truck, you're going to have to be strong, girls. Aim the muzzle at their chest if they come close, pull the trigger and keep pulling it 'til the bad guy goes down, okay?"

They murmured their understanding in the darkness. There was no crying or panic. I was so proud of them.

"I'll be back in a minute, girls," I said softly.

"Be careful, Daddy," Megan cautioned me quietly. Evelyn added her admonition half a heartbeat later.

I opened the door and got out quietly, closing the door behind me with a soft click. I motioned for Megan to lock it, then did my best imitation of a phantom gliding down the street. I didn't have the woodsman skills to move silently, but I did my best. It helped that the van's engine was running and a breeze was blowing, moving shrubbery and making branches of the stunted trees bump around. When I got close, I could see the obese man standing at the rear of the van, facing it, and away from me.

A part of me was aghast at what I was about to do. I was, or had been, a sworn officer of the law, a cop, for a hell of a long time. Good cops didn't even think of doing what I intended to do to this guy. Another part of me was perfectly fine with it. Whoever he was, was part of a gang who would rape and enslave my daughters. I wasn't going to allow that.

There was a length of 2x4 leaning up against a house I passed. I picked it up in my left hand, keeping my .45 ready in my right. Twenty feet behind the man I was stalking, I saw him patting his pockets and looking down at himself. I was putting my feet down softly, making sure there wasn't anything that would roll under my shoes or make any kind of noise if I stepped on it. A few more quiet steps and I was very near him. He was illuminated in the glow of moonshine, but I was in a deep shadow thrown by the nearby building. I waited for ... something ... I didn't know what.