We crossed the Burlington-Bristol
Bridge behind a flatbed
eighteen-wheeler. I shuddered at the sight of oncoming traffic
almost kissing bumpers with us on the narrow bridge as they passed and
I was grateful we were behind the truck. It cut a wide swath
before us as the traffic slid over to the far left.
“You want to throw the quarter in the basket at the tollgate,
Bobby?” Nick eyed me in his rearview mirror as he slowed behind
the truck.
Mom looked at me questioningly and smiled her permission. I
looked at the other cars in front of us. The driver’s side
windows were rolled down in each of them and as they approached the
tollbooth they tossed their money in a white basket resembling a
funnel. When it registered, a green light lit up a “thank you.”
“Okay.”
We pulled alongside the eighteen-wheeler. As it moved forward,
spumes of thick, black smoke belched from the chrome exhaust pipes that
rose vertically behind the cab.
Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.
“Here, Bobby, hurry up.”
I stared at the quarter pinched between the Nick’s thumb and forefinger.
“Take the quarter,” Mom said. “Hurry up. We’re almost
there.”
It was the truck. The exhaust fumes, they thickened and
blackened. And they were gathering around the tollbooth, drifting
across the lanes.
“Roll the window down, Bobby.”
I hesitantly spun the handle to lower the window. The semi spewed
more fumes into the air. They seemed to congeal around the
tollbooth.
“Those trucks should be outlawed.” Mom mockingly coughed and
waved her hand in front of her face.
I reached up and Nick dropped the quarter in my palm. Memories of
a harsh, rasping voice surged within me.
Time to pay the
toll,
Bobby.
Diesel fumes stung my nose. The man in the semi paid his toll and
pulled off, sending out another black cloud to drift across the toll
plaza.
You oooowwwwwwe me,
Bobbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
This wasn’t real,
I told myself. It’s all in my
head. It’s all my imagination. There is no TollTaker.
I don’t owe any tolls.
The car swung alongside the booth and I held my tremulous hand out the
window to drop the quarter in the basket. Nick stopped in front
of the basket and a face popped out of the window beside it. It
was Rudy standing there in a dapper uniform with his shiny safety badge
hanging on his shirt.
I gasped.
A blackened hand reached out of the window and tried to grab my
wrist. My SafeKeeper! He--it--was trying to take my
SafeKeeper.
I screamed and yanked my arm back into the car.
“What’s wrong with you, Bobby?” Mom asked. “Give him the toll.”
She was in on it! She knew about the TollTaker all along!
She wanted me to pay the toll, too!
“I won’t!” I screamed. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!”
I jumped to the other side of the back seat and huddled against the far
window. “I’m not paying
him and you can’t make me.”
