Girls Will Be Vigilantes

BY Nora Blake

The truck had been spotted all over New Hickory, Tennessee, trailing after girls walking to and from schools, convenience stores, churches, and fast-food restaurants. No one had been abducted by the battered, black truck, or at least no one who would be noticed or missed had. However, they felt it was only a matter of time before one of them was snatched up by the creeping truck’s driver.

            Thisbe McGowan had been followed by the truck the previous night. She’d been walking home from St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church, feeling like she could walk on water and in awe of God, when she glanced back and saw it.

            The truck had crept after her, dragging its black bulk, its driver hidden behind the rise of the steering wheel and lifted high above her by the grotesquely huge tires. Thisbe tried to shake it, even darting down two dark alleyways and past a bar with smoking catcallers loitering outside, but she failed to lose her pursuer.

            She’d survived that Wednesday night, getting into her house and hiding as the truck slowly drove by. She made a note in her planner to talk to the cop who patrolled her high school, hoping and praying he would help.

            But that Thursday, Thisbe thundered to her group’s table in the cafeteria, rage bubbling over in tears. She slammed her body down onto the seat and glared at the table with scalding hatred.

            Her friends—Blair Danvers, Arden Galbally, Petunia Braidwood, and Mavis Twait—turned to her.

            “Officer Billups didn’t care,” Blair guessed between bites of cafeteria spaghetti.

            Thisbe nodded. Her throat constricted as she dug her nails into her palms, trying desperately to breathe.

            “Not even Principal Giraldo cares,” said Arden. “Nobody is going to do anything until some girl is kidnapped, raped, and killed.”

            Mavis passed Thisbe a cut-off bite of her pie with a sympathetic smile. Thisbe took it and bit down like a guillotine descending. Mulberry exploded in her mouth as she chewed, then she choked it down with a gulp of water. Her breathing steadied.

            Petunia said, “That truck is going to do something soon. It’s followed Karoline, Winifred, Dior, Aless…”

            “It followed your sister?” asked Blair, dropping her fork. Mushy food peered out of her open mouth.

            Petunia nodded, fear flashing in her eyes before her eyebrows descended into a glare.

            “It followed me last night,” Thisbe snarled. “All the way home, too.” She raised her eyes to her friends. “We’ve got to do something about this.”

            “Let’s just try to have a nice lunch,” said Mavis. “We can talk about it later?”

            Arden whirled on her, fury blistering in her green eyes. “Oh, we’ll talk about it, and we’ll talk right now, too. We’ve got to do something, figure out a way to get that fucker off the streets or someone’s going to end up his victim. Either I’ll find a way or I’ll make one—aut inveniam viam aut faciam.”

            Mavis turned to Thisbe but scooted her pie back closer to herself. “How’d you do on that algebra test?”

            “You can’t possibly believe this isn’t sinister,” said Petunia, flinging her hands in the air.

            “Oh, please, let’s not get wound up over this,” Mavis said as she frowned.

            “Just read the news,” Blair said as she twisted her myriad of braids into a bun. “We’ve got damn good reasons to be worried.”

            “Oh, stop, y’all!” said Mavis, disappointment seeping into her words. “We’re not all going to die because of some stupid truck. Quit distorting stuff.”

            Mavis turned to Thisbe, her dark eyes watering with a plea for Thisbe to make their friends settle down.

            Well, the other three were more Thisbe’s friends than Mavis’s. She’d met them in Latin class and introduced them to her timid friend from middle school. Mavis was taking French and had never warmed up to them. Sometimes, Mavis would hint to Thisbe that she liked it better when it was just the two of them.

            Thisbe never hinted that the other three liked Thisbe more when Mavis wasn’t around.

            “Not all of us will die,” Thisbe agreed. “Just the unlucky victim.”

            Mavis stood, gathered her stuff without looking any of them in the eyes, and headed off in the direction of the school library.

            “What a quitter,” Petunia said with disdain dripping from her voice like melting icicles.

            “Maybe she’ll come around,” Blair said.

            “Probably not,” said Arden.

            “We shouldn’t risk it,” Thisbe said.

            They all turned to her.

            “We’ve got to make sure that fucker doesn’t get any girls,” Thisbe said, “and if Mavis doesn’t want any part in it, then fine. We shouldn’t even tell her, just in case she decides to turn us in.”

            Arden leaned closer, a vicious grin brightening her face like a hyena.

            “You think we can actually do something?” Petunia asked, hope or anger blazing in her widening eyes.

“Let’s meet at my house,” Thisbe said. “We’ve got to make a plan.”

            “He’ll never bother a girl again,” snarled Blair.

            “Much less my sister,” Petunia agreed.

            “Aut inveniam viam aut faciam,” said Arden.

            “Yeah. Let’s make our way,” said Thisbe.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

            The cicadas screamed like torture victims in the distance as Petunia strolled down Egret Street. She slapped at mosquitoes, smearing blood into her humidity-induced sweat.

            Hidden in the shadows of the alleyways, Thisbe, Arden, and Blair followed, sweating profusely and wishing they could be cool in the air conditioning; wishing they didn’t have to do this to protect others.

            They had all gone to a sleepover at Arden’s house, then left their phones on mute in her room as they went for a nighttime walk to pick up snacks at the nearest convenience store, which could only qualify as nearest in that the others were even further away. They’d switched clothes before leaving, each wearing another’s dark outfit, colors ranging from navy blue to sin black to shadowy green. They each wore short scarves that they could wrap around their faces and carried gloves in their purses emptied of identification.

            This was the third weekend they’d done this. The past two nights, they hadn’t even seen the truck. But the rage persisted, driving them to try one more time. They only needed to find him once.

            Petunia walked past St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church’s old graveyard. No one new could be buried in it, but the stone statues of Jesus Christ crucified and Saint Maria Goretti the martyr were carefully maintained.

            Thisbe averted her eyes from the statues. She stared at her running shoe-clad feet, forcing herself to ignore their reproachful stares. For the third time, she was starting to wonder if she was doing the wrong thing. Maybe Mavis was right, and they were distorting the truth. Or maybe it wasn’t the truth they were distorting. Maybe they were just distorting what they should do.

            The truck pulled out of the church parking lot, trailing after Petunia as slowly as an opossum, but with a more sinister motivation.

            Thisbe barely contained the snarl inside her as her doubt vanished like the puff of exhaust from the truck. God forgive her, but if she was bad, then this man was all the circles of Hell worse. Didn’t she have a civic or religious or some kind of duty to prevent greater danger to others? This was devilish work, but it had to be done.

            Besides, she didn’t want to be Mavis, who’d started hanging out with Winifred instead of them. It showed her lack of moral character: defending a creep, being too weak to support her friends, then changing sides to the girl who touched Petunia’s afro despite Petunia telling her not to, and on numerous occasions, too. It was not the most despicable thing to have ever happened—this truck creep was worse—but it was still awful.

            Petunia glanced over her shoulder a few times, each time speeding up slightly as she led the truck into the old business district by the train tracks, now seldom used. The few businesses still left alive after the recession and overseas-shipping of jobs would be closed for the night.

            Thisbe slipped into the alleys and ran until she was ahead of Petunia. She crouched behind a rotting shoe repair store, waited for Petunia to pass, then tossed handfuls of nails and screws into the street. Her glove tore, drawing blood, and she stifled a curse.

            The truck rolled over the trap, having sped up to keep up with Petunia. Blair whistled, and Arden’s brick sailed through the air and smashed against the side panel of the truck.

            Thisbe wanted to curse at Arden’s bad aim, but it was too late to back down. She sprang forward and leapt onto the running board. She slammed her own brick into the driver’s window.

            The man inside shouted and cursed. Through the cracks in the window, Thisbe was surprised to see what the man looked like, but she continued to hammer the brick against it until it broke, raining shards onto him.

            He looked—there was no other way to put it—normal. He did not have a bald head shiny with grease, nor a scraggly goatee or a suspiciously stained wife-beater. He wore a light T-shirt and jeans, and his eyes were blue and wide. He even had chestnut-colored hair like Thisbe’s; he could have easily passed for handsome.

            There was no outward sign of his grotesqueness. The only evidence was his truck, creeping after girls trying to make it home safely.

            The man hollered curses at them as Arden clambered up over the tailgate like a soldier going over the top of a trench. Blair leapt onto the other running board, screws between each finger like a claw, and Petunia pounded a rock against his hood, forming crater-like dents.

            The creep swerved and Thisbe flailed, dropping her brick as she fell. A sharp pain shot through her calf as she fell onto a screw, blood warming her jeans, but with a scream of anger she pounced back onto the truck.

            “This is why you shouldn’t stalk people!” Thisbe hissed while Arden broke the back window. Blair scratched his truck with screws, a scraping sound worse than a screeching woman dragging sharp nails across a chalkboard. Petunia kept banging on the hood, shouting threats—no, promises of violence against more than his truck—if he kept stalking girls.

            The man leaned on the horn with one hand, swatting at the girls with the other. He bellowed curses at them for wrecking his truck.

            A siren roared to life, red and blue lights illuminating the truck and the ambush as a cop car turned onto the street.

            Blair took off without a second thought, followed closely by Petunia. Thisbe and Arden grabbed each other’s hands and ran into an alleyway.

            A cop shouted as they vanished into the night. The group split up, each going down different paths to Arden’s house. Thisbe prayed the cop wasn’t a K-9 officer and that he was more concerned with the man than the fleeing girls.

            They regrouped outside Arden’s house, hiding in the thick bushes and weeping willows of her backyard. The girls clambered through Arden’s window. Arden locked it, then closed the curtains as Blair collapsed on the bed and Petunia and Thisbe rolled on the floor. They all let out a collective breath, but their satisfied smiles slid away.

            Tomorrow, the last newspaper in town would probably report on teenaged hooligans wrecking a truck and scaring some decent citizen of New Hickory. The paper would not mention his truck following middle and high school girls to their houses or through an abandoned warehouse district.

            Maybe Mavis would connect her friends to what the papers would call a crime. Maybe she would snitch. Maybe she would stay silent. Maybe she wouldn’t figure it out. Maybe she wouldn’t even hear of it.

            They’d done a good thing. Maybe not the right thing, but it was good enough. They’d probably saved the life of another at only the cost of bashing up a truck.

            Hopefully, that was the truth, undistorted.