Pulled: A Flawed Short Story Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  Written by Becca J. Campbell.

  Cover Design by Steven Novak. Edited by Jessie Sanders.

  PULLED

  Published by Surreal Media Studios, 2014.

  First edition. July 1st, 2014.

  Copyright © 2014 Becca J. Campbell.

  All rights reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Also by Becca J. Campbell

  A Flawed Short Story

  Enjoying the Flawed series?

  About the Author

  Also by Becca J. Campbell

  The Flawed Series

  Empath

  Outsider

  Constricted (A Flawed Short Story)

  Foreign Identity

  Gateway to Reality

  The Sub-Normal Series

  Not the Norm

  Unmasked Alloy

  A Flawed Short Story

  It was dinnertime when she jumped.

  Mrs. Harrison, Juniper's foster mom, was calling her to the table when Juniper felt herself being pulled away. It was a sensation so familiar that she hardly remembered a time when she'd found it strange—that sharp tug in her stomach, the ear-splitting, momentary drone of the white noise yelling in her head. And then it was quiet.

  The jump tugged her away from her bedroom in the Harrison house and deposited her on a long stretch of empty grass. On her left, the highway stretched in both directions with no buildings in sight. She saw no cars. This was one of those instances when it was easy to tell who'd pulled her. A lone figure in earth tones with a pack slung over his back walked the shoulder. He, like her, was special.

  It wasn't anything physically obvious—it usually wasn't—but something made him tick just a little differently than most people. She'd never seen the man before, but she knew it to be true because she was here, which meant he'd triggered her jump, and only the strange ones did that.

  For the past three years she'd been repeatedly pulled to others like her. Freaks, or whatever. Like her, they could do things that normal people couldn't.

  She realized she didn't have her pack. It had been sitting on the floor next to her when she'd jumped. Juniper uttered a word under her breath that was not a word for eight-year-olds—Mrs. Harrison would have reminded her of that fact and severely reprimanded her.

  The man glanced over his shoulder, his eyes widening when they saw her. “Whoa. Where did you come from?”

  She'd come from her bedroom in the Harrison's home, which was in a small suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma, but that wasn't what he was asking. What he really wanted to know was how she'd appeared out of thin air. Juniper shrugged at the question that she never had an answer for.

  He glanced one way down the road, then the other. “No cars have stopped lately, or I would've noticed. And I'm dead sure you weren't with me back at the last onramp.”

  She stared him down, not in the mood for this right now. It was time to be eating dinner, not chatting with some strange hitchhiker on the side of the road. She'd rather be sitting in front of the television at the Harrison's house, eating the canned ravioli that disintegrated on her tongue before she had a chance to chew it and listening to Mrs. Harrison complain about everything that was wrong on the news. That was lame and annoying, but this was worse.

  “What's your name?” she asked, hoping she could derail his questions.

  “Stan.”

  As she was forming a reply, a car approached, then slowed. Stan stepped up to the road, eagerness apparent on his face. His ticket out of here had already replaced his curiosity about her. The driver, a man with exaggerated features and the darkest, bushiest brows Juniper had ever seen, rolled down the window. “Where to?”

  “Far as you can take me,” Stan said.

  The driver nodded at the empty front seat. “Hop in.”

  Stan opened the door and lowered his pack, but he seemed to remember Juniper then. He glanced over his shoulder at her, uncertain.

  “She with you?” the driver asked.

  “Uh...” Stan rubbed his stubbly chin.

  The answer was a most definite “no,” but Juniper knew he couldn't abandon an eight-year-old girl alone on the side of a highway and not look suspicious. She could imagine the wheels in Stan's head turning as he tried to put together what his response should be.

  The driver leaned over the passenger seat, his dark eyes trained on Juniper. His lip curled slightly, his mustache twitching at the motion. With narrowing eyes, he gave her a nod. “She can come, too.”

  Stan climbed into the seat and shut the car door without a glance back at her. The car idled as the men waited for Juniper to get in.

  “No, I'm going to walk.”

  The driver's brows arched in surprise, but his mouth turned down in a frown. “Don't be silly. You can't expect us to just leave you out here, all alone.” The way he said the last word sent chills down her back. She needed to get home, but this was not the sort of man she wanted a ride from. She remembered hearing the stories on the news about kids who got into a car with a stranger and disappeared forever, and she was determined not to become one of those.

  She shook her head. “No, thanks. I need the exercise.” She wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but she'd heard adults say it when they were disappointed they couldn't find a close parking spot.

  “We got room for you, and I got snacks in here, too. Do you like Cheetos?”

  She did like Cheetos—it was one of her favorite foods. And her stomach growled in protest of her delayed dinner. But there was no way she was getting into that car.

  “No.”

  “Sweetheart, I'm not leaving until you get into the car.” He said the words through his teeth, not quite angry, more like calculating and determined. She believed him. Fear clawed at her stomach which was still raw from the jump. She felt cold, but her hands were all sweaty. She backed away slowly.

  “Hey, wait! Where do you think you're going?” The driver's door opened. She backpedaled faster, not wanting to turn her back on him. He rounded the car, heading for her. Juniper had only one thing going for her—she was a fast runner, and he was an old man.

  In the front passenger seat, Stan craned his head out the window. Then he sneezed.

  The car's engine sparked suddenly, then went dead.

  “Crap,” Stan said, so low she could barely hear him.

  So that was his ability. Stand didn't look happy about killing his own ride, and Juniper guessed that like herself, Stan couldn't control his ability. Instead of jumping at random like her, he had allergies that made him break electronics—or something like that.

  When the driver realized his car's engine had stopped running, he momentarily halted his pursuit of Juniper. “What the... What just happened?”

  “Uhh...” was Stan's ingenious reply.

  The driver turned and pointed a finger at Juniper. “You just stay put, missy. We're in this together.” He pulled a phone out of his back pocket. “I'll just call roadside—Hey, my phone's dead, too!”

  Juniper didn't wait any longer. She ran.

  She ran fast but not as hard as she could. He wasn't chasing yet, and she didn't want to run out of steam. His shouts of protest followed her, but she ignored them. Even if those men got the car running, there was a guardrail all along the median, so they couldn't turn around and follow her. As long as she just kept going, she'd eventually be safe.

  But she had a suspicion the car wouldn't be working anytime soon. Stan's sneeze had happened at too perfect a moment for it to be a coincidence. She'd never met someone who could stop a car's engine with a sneeze, but it didn't surpr
ise her. After what she'd seen in all of her jumps, it would take a lot to shock her.

  When running tired her, she slowed, taking a moment to look behind her. The two men and the car had disappeared long ago, and she hadn't seen a tow truck, either. A few cars had passed without stopping, but they made her realize that if one did pull over for her, she might have to deal with another creepy guy. She broke away from the road, walking in a shallow ditch far enough out that she wouldn't be easily spotted. The idea of traveling on foot to the nearest town didn't thrill her, but she decided she didn't trust any stranger enough to get in a car with him.

  Her back was aching and her feet were sore. She'd never walked so far in her life. Usually her jumps happened in the city where she could just run into a store and call home, but this time she didn't even see the lights of a town until the sky had turned from gray haze to the blackest of blacks. She was almost ready to give up and hail the next car, though it'd be hard to get anyone to spot her now, and she hadn't even seen one in a while.

  Still she walked on.

  When she finally approached the edge of the town, she didn't recognize it. The streets were deserted of the regular city traffic she was used to. She passed houses and walked through an intersection with a single, blinking red traffic light. A few blocks down she found several darkened buildings, one of which building labeled Inola City Hall, and a marquee that told her it was 10:17 PM. She'd heard of Inola, Oklahoma from weather forecasts, but she'd never been here. Her mind tried to recreate the TV radar map she'd seen whenever there were storms. She was fairly certain Catoosa was just a little way west of here. But what was normally a little way in the car would be very long on foot.

  She continued down the street, passing a sad excuse for a shopping center with a single pizzeria that was closed, then a gas station that was also closed. She didn't even know there were gas stations that weren't open twenty-four hours. Nothing farther down the road looked any more promising, and she was beginning to get dizzy from hunger and exhaustion.

  Hunger drove her back to the pizzeria. The doors were locked up, but the smell of fresh dough lingered, teasing her. She noticed the dumpster near the side of the building. Anticipation pulled her feet, carrying with it only the slightest thought of revulsion. She needed food.

  Finding a foothold, she climbed up the side of the overflowing dumpster and discovered a few smooshed cardboard pizza boxes on top. Grabbing at the corner, she pulled the box down, discovering half of a pineapple and Canadian bacon pizza. She would have preferred anything—even anchovies—to pineapple, but though it was cold, dumpstered, and her absolute last choice of toppings, she devoured all four pieces.

  With the pizza gone, thirst reared its ugly head. She searched around the building, but there was no source of water. Rounding to the back, she glimpsed rows of houses, most with darkened windows, only a flicker of blue light from a television every now and then.

  Glancing around cautiously, she realized there was no one to see her. She went for the first house, triumphant when she found a garden hose hooked up to a spigot in the backyard. She unscrewed the hose, turned on the water, and drank greedily for several minutes, only pausing to catch her breath and let the liquid fill her belly before drinking more.

  Now she needed rest. An enclosed twisty slide at the playground was the best place she could find to sleep for the night. At least it was covered and no one would spot her.

  After all the walking, sleep crashed hard over her. She awoke when a kid's feet clobbered her in the head, and realized it was daylight out.

  The next day was a series of discouragements. When she called the Harrison's from the corner drug store, there was no answer. Juniper couldn't believe they would've gone to work with her missing. Maybe they were out looking for her. After living with them for only three weeks, she still hadn't memorized either of their cell phone numbers. Feeling her pockets, she realized she'd left the paper with their contact information in her other pants.

  She wouldn’t go to the police after what she'd had to endure last time. That left her on her own. After scavenging breakfast from a dumpster behind the grocery store, she considered her options. No strangers. No police. No money for the bus—if the bus even came way out here.

  When she passed the middle school, she had a brilliant idea. Five minutes later she'd snagged a bike that was only slightly too large for her and began her way west, hopefully toward Tulsa and Catoosa, the suburb where the Harrisons lived.

  Hours later, sometime late in the afternoon, exhaustion and fatigue began to take its toll. She stopped for a nap under a cluster of bushes where she wouldn't be seen.

  The rain woke her. Big drops splattered on her face and in her hair. Crawling out from under the bush, she realized that not only was it pouring down, but she'd slept through the rest of the day, and it was now dark out. With no other options, she crawled onto the bike and began peddling, wondering how many miles were left.

  Hours later, she recognized the Catoosa exit. Relief flooded over her. She was almost home.

  When Juniper arrived at the Harrisons's front door, drenched and tired, it was locked. After stashing the bike behind the shed around back, she scurried back to the front door and rang the bell. The rain had turned to intermittent drops, and she waited, shivering for several minutes until Mrs. Harrison finally answered it.

  Mrs. Harrison's face was a blend of shock and fury when she saw Juniper. “Finally decided to come back, did you?”

  Juniper thought of all the times she'd tried to explain herself. Of all the teachers, child service workers, and foster parents who had yelled at her, accused her of lying, and labeled her an ungrateful runaway. Before moving in with the Harrisons she'd decided she was done trying to explain herself. It wasn't worth getting into it all—she had hoped this would be the family that accepted her despite her flaws. So she didn't answer, just walked hunched under Mrs. Harrison's arm and into the foyer.

  “Stop. You're tracking dirty footprints all over my rug. Leave your shoes by the door.”

  Mr. Harrison stumbled out in his robe, his eyes squinty from sleep and hair crazy like a mad man. “What's going on?”

  “Juniper's back,” Mrs. Harrison said.

  “Oh?” He blinked groggily. “Where was she?”

  Mrs. Harrison closed the front door and folded her arms, staring Juniper down. “I don't know. Where were you?”

  “Inola, I think. The next town over...” Juniper thought and pointed east.

  “Inola?” Mrs. Harrison shot Mr. Harrison a look. He sobered a bit.

  “Why did you leave?” he asked.

  There it was, again. The question Juniper could never answer.

  “Of course she won't tell us,” Mrs. Harrison said. “Just like last time.” Then, to Juniper, “You have some nerve, coming back at this hour. Don't you know it's one o'clock in the morning?”

  Again, there was nothing Juniper could say to make it better. Trying to explain would only make them angrier at her—adults always got angry when they thought you were lying.

  Mrs. Harrison let out an overly dramatic sigh and cinched her robe tighter. “Just go to your room. We'll deal with you in the morning.”

  Juniper pulled off her shoes and headed down the hall. She stopped after turning the corner, listening.

  “Three times in three weeks, Bill! This is just too much!”

  “They warned us she had a history of running away. At least she changed her mind and came back.”

  “I can only take so much. Showing up in the middle of the night, soaking wet—”

  “Would you rather she not come back?”

  “Maybe. She'd be out of our hair, at least.”

  Mr. Harrison made a noise of noncommittal agreement.

  “I'm finished. My nerves can't take this, and she won't even talk to us. How are we supposed to get through to her if she won't tell us anything?”

  “She told us where she was; that's more than before.”

  “Inola? How d
o we even know that's true? Why would she go there?”

  Mr. Harrison had no response.

  “First thing in the morning, we're calling her social worker. I'm done.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. Let someone else try to figure out how to deal with her.”

  Juniper tried to swallow, but her throat was suddenly dry. Eyes burning, she ran to her room and quietly shut the door. Pulling a pillow to her face so the Harrison's wouldn't hear her, she sobbed, waves of hot frustration shaking her body.

  Two hours later, she left the Harrisons’ house for good.

  Despite what her records might show and what all her previous foster families thought, Juniper had never run away for real. But she wouldn't go back to child services, and she wouldn't be taken in by another family only to experience the same outcome. They already thought she was a runaway, so she might as well embrace it. She was done relying on others. Taking care of herself seemed like the best option, eight years old or not.

  After Mr. and Mrs. Harrison drifted back off to sleep, she'd raided the fridge, devouring as many of the leftovers as she could. She stocked her backpack with items from the pantry, including several bottles of water. Her personal items were few—a tattered sketchbook and her colored pencils, a change of clothes, and a hoodie. Nothing else in the house held value to her.

  She had no money, but remembered the change jar where Mr. Harrison kept quarters for the car wash. It was heavy but small enough to fit in her backpack with the other items. The change wouldn't buy her much, but a little money was better than none.

  When she slipped on her shoes and silently cracked the front door, the rain had stopped. Pulling the door shut, she didn't stop for a last look, only hurried around back and scooped up the bike she'd stolen. Not having one of her own, it was her best option for transportation.

  Where to go? She had no destination in mind, only escape. She finally decided to go west because it was the opposite direction of Inola and would give her more time to get away. If they even went looking for her.

  The sky was calm and the air was that almost-eerie after-storm quiet that might normally have relaxed her. Instead, the emptiness of the sleeping town had a haunting quality. It made her think not only of her ordeal the past few days, but of all that she'd been through since her jumps had begun. Those thoughts only pulled her back to when it had all started: the day her mother had died.