The Beasts of Juarez, R.B. Schow [books to read for self improvement .txt] 📗

before sunrise. They did so without issue. Once they crossed the border, they made their way into Ciudad Juárez looking for a hotel or motel they could use as home base.

“I think we picked up a tail,” Estella said. “Black SUV behind us.”

His heart jumped. “Already?”

“It might be this little shitbox,” Esty replied. “We’re not exactly subtle here.”

Cursing under his breath, he checked the rearview mirror. “You’d think that at this hour, with sunrise just minutes away, all the vampires would be asleep in their coffins.”

“Apparently not all of them,” she said.

“We rushed this I think.”

“We didn’t rush anything,” Esty assured him. “Time is of the essence and so we’ll make do with what we have.”

They drove a few more blocks down Federal Highway 45/Av. Tecnologico, and then at the last minute, Yergha made a left turn at Av. Del Granjero. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, which made it easier to see where they were going. They passed by several colorfully painted businesses, their rundown exteriors done in bright greens and oranges with permanent advertisement flags planted along the sidewalks. Lined up for miles along the cracked asphalt streets were crooked telephone poles interspersed with modern-day utility poles. Their various power and phone lines hung over the street in a kind of urban canopy that just might blanket the entire city.

The SUV they feared was following them took the same left turn Yergha had taken. Yergha was moving pretty quickly, but the SUV sped up, tightening the distance between them without actually crowding them.

“I’m pretty sure they know that we know we’re being followed,” Esty turned and said.

Yergha put on a slight burst of speed, watched the SUV behind them do the same thing, and then he braked hard and hung a right on Calle Australia.

The short residential street was lined with a dozen houses made from brick and stucco, each of them boasting iron security gates in the driveways and ornate iron bars over all of the windows. The cars parked along the street got really rundown for a second and then the left side of the street opened into a huge dirt parking lot. The lot was protected by metal pylons strung together with barbed wire fencing.

“Go right up ahead,” Esty said as they came to a T in the road.

Yergha hung a hard right at Nueva Zelanda while going too fast. The back end of their little underpowered hatchback kicked loose just enough for the tires to screech in protest.

“This thing is an absolute bucket!” Yergha roared as the SUV bore down on them.

He raced as fast as he could down the tight two-lane street. With daybreak fully upon them, the city and all of its detail began to unfold in even greater detail. He pushed harder on the accelerator but the pedal was already smashed against the floor.

Sidewalk trees, utility poles, iron fencing, and graffiti-marred plaster walls passed by in a blur as they zipped down the bumpy asphalt street. In the distant light, just above the city, was the outline of the Juárez Mountains. They looked beautiful this time of the morning.

“Intersection,” Yergha called out to her.

Ahead there was a stop sign (alto) on the right, a purple building on the left (Las Cariñosas), and Av. Tecnologico once again. They’d just made a big loop. The traffic on Av. Tecnologico was light but present. He wasn’t sure whether to ride the accelerator into the thoroughfare or to stop and take the chance that the guys in the SUV weren’t trying to rob or kill them.

“Get to the other side of the road,” Esty said, gripping the door and the back of Yergha’s seat for support.

He stayed on the accelerator.

“Are you seeing the traffic?!” he shouted as they bore down on what was the start of a Sunday morning in Juárez.

“GO!” she shouted.

He blew through the stop sign, jerking the steering wheel right and then left. He missed colliding with a subcompact car like theirs but clipped the back end of a Nissan pickup as he cut through the narrow opening in the avenue’s center dividers.

“Stay to the left!” Esty said.

“I know,” he growled, his knuckles bone white on the steering wheel.

At the right moment, he cranked the steering wheel so hard to the left he bumped the inside wall of their back tire off the tall, painted yellow curb, nearly striking another car as they headed deeper into Juárez. When he found an opening in traffic, Yergha put on another burst of speed.

Behind them, the SUV had to slow down to try to cut through traffic.

“Take a right up there!” Esty said, pointing to the first available exit off of Av. Tecnologico.

Yergha hung a hard right on Blvd Zaragoza passing what looked like a fenced-in toll booth that was, in fact, some sort of technology station.

“Where the hell are we?” he asked.

“How do I know?” she retorted.

To the left and right of them were open fields of dirt and scrub brush. He felt exposed as he searched for somewhere to hide. Unfortunately, they got stuck behind two slow-moving cars, each car blocking a lane. Yergha rode up on them hard, tailgating the hell out of them, but they were slow to budge.

“Call Leopold,” he said.

“What for?” she asked, confused.

“We just got into town and now we have company. We need to know if this is random or if someone got advance notice of our arrival.”

She got out her phone, put it on speakerphone so Yergha could hear the conversation, then called Leopold. He answered on the first ring.

“Leopold, it’s Esty. We picked up a tail the second we got into Juárez.”

“Jesus, that was fast,” he said. “Driver, please pull over.”

“Where are you?”

“I just arrived in Virginia, but I’m about to go out of range.”

“Is it possible that we were compromised already?”