Courtesy Stop

               Darren Kincaid pulled into the rest stop because he needed to piss, and because the dead woman standing beside the vending machines looked enough like his wife to make him miss the exit. He slammed on the brakes. The tires chirped against pavement. “Fucking shit!” Darren looked in the rearview mirror. Empty interstate. He backed into a parking space beneath a flickering light and killed the engine. The woman was gone. “Of course she is.”

               He sat behind the wheel. 2:13am. Southwestern Virginia. He had been driving for almost four hours and still had nearly three to go. Too much coffee. Not enough sleep. That explained it. Maya had been dead for four years. Darren grabbed his phone and stepped outside. Cold air slapped him awake. The rest stop consisted of a brick restroom building, vending machines, picnic tables, and a tourist map nobody had consulted since smartphones were invented. No other cars.

               Darren walked toward the men's room. Then stopped. A woman disappeared around the corner of the building. Blonde hair. Gray sweater. Maya's sweater. “Maya?” He immediately felt stupid. The woman kept walking. “Maya!” Darren ran after her. Nobody. Behind the building stood dumpsters, utility boxes, and a maintenance door. The door was open. Light spilled through it. “Maya?”

               Nothing. Darren approached. A concrete stairwell descended beneath the building. “Hello?” Silence. He should have walked away. Later, Darren would think about that moment more than any other. Not the pain. Not what happened downstairs. The door. The fact that it had been open. The fact that he could have turned around.

               The stairwell ended at another door. Darren pushed it open. He expected pipes. Electrical panels. Storage. Instead, he found a kitchen. Not a commercial kitchen. A home kitchen. Round oak table. Refrigerator covered with magnets. Darren stared. “What the fuck?”

               A hallway extended beyond it. He stepped inside. The door slammed behind him. Darren spun. Locked. “Hey!” He pounded. “Open the fucking door!” Something moved down the hallway. “Maya?” A woman stood at the far end. Gray sweater. Blonde hair. Her back faced him. “Maya?” She turned. Darren stopped breathing. Her face was wrong. Almost Maya. Same hair. Similar cheekbones. But the eyes were brown. Maya's had been green. The woman looked terrified.

               “I'm sorry,” she whispered. Then a man stepped behind Darren and pressed something against his neck. A click. Electricity tore through him. Darren hit the floor.

               He woke in a basement. His ankles were chained to a pipe. The woman sat across from him. Darren lunged. The chain snapped tight. “You fucking bitch!” She recoiled. “What is this?”

               “I'm sorry.”

               “Who are you?”

               “Victoria.”

               “Where am I?”

               She looked toward the stairs. “Courtesy Stop.”

               “What?”

               “That’s what he calls it.”

               “Who?”

               Footsteps answered. A man descended. Late sixties. Boots. Flannel shirt. Gray beard. He carried a tray containing coffee and two sandwiches. “Morning.”

               Darren pulled against the chain. “Let me go.”

               The man set down the tray. “My name is Orson Bellweather.”

               “I don't give a fuck.”

               “I know.”

               “You kidnapped me.”

               “Yes.”

               “I'll fucking kill you.”

               “Possibly.”

               Orson handed Victoria a sandwich. She took it. Darren stared at him. “What do you want?”

               Orson sat on the stairs.

               “Do you know what happened to my daughter?”

               “How the fuck would I know?”

               “June 7, 2010. Interstate 81. She was 23.”

               Darren said nothing.

               “Hit-and-run.”

               “I'm sorry.”

               “No, you aren't.”

               “What does that have to do with me?”

               “Nothing.”

               Darren blinked. “Then why am I here?”

               Orson smiled. “Because of Maya.”

               Darren went still. Victoria stared at the floor. “What do you know about my wife?”

               “Enough.”

               “She fell.”

               “Yes.”

               “Down the basement stairs.”

               “Yes.”

               “I found her the next morning.”

               Orson looked at Victoria. She walked toward the wall and flipped a switch. Lights came on behind Darren. He turned. His basement. Not similar.

               His.

               The green couch. The television. The wooden stairs. Even the stain near the furnace where a pipe had leaked. Darren stared. “No.”

               “Remarkable what photographs can accomplish,” Orson said.

               Darren pulled against the chain. “What the fuck is this?”

               “A reconstruction.”

               “You've been in my house?”

               “No.”

               “How?”

               “Real-estate listing from 2018. Facebook. Insurance photographs.”

               Darren looked at the stairs. At the fourth tread. The chipped edge.

               Orson stood. “You said Maya fell.”

               “She did.”

               “You said you were asleep.”

               “I was.”

               “You said you found her at 7:17am.”

               Darren swallowed. “Yes.”

               Orson smiled. “Let's see.”

               They broke Darren's legs first. Not completely. Orson was precise. He positioned Darren at the bottom of the stairs. Victoria stood at the top. She had changed clothes. Darren's clothes. “Please,” Darren said.

               Victoria looked sick. “I'm sorry.”

               Orson handed her a wooden dowel. “Begin.” Victoria descended. Darren tried crawling away. She struck his shoulder. “What the fuck!”

               Again.

               His ribs.

               Again.

               Then she shoved him. Darren rolled. His broken leg twisted beneath him. He screamed. Victoria walked upstairs. Turned off the light. Darren lay there crying. Minutes passed. Then the light came on. Orson dragged him back into position. “Again.”

               After the fifth cycle, Darren vomited. After the eighth, he begged. After the eleventh, he confessed to hitting Maya. Orson stopped. “There we are.”

               “I hit her once.” Victoria lowered the dowel. “We were fighting.”

               “About?”

               “Money.” Orson waited. “She called me useless.”

               “And?”

               “I slapped her.”

               “And?”

               “She slapped me back.”

               “And?”

               Darren began crying. “I pushed her.”

               “Down the stairs.”

               “Yes.”

               Orson crouched beside him. “What happened next?”

               “I panicked.”

               “What happened next?”

               “I checked her pulse.”

               “And?”

               “She had one.”

               Victoria closed her eyes. Orson's voice became softer. “What happened next?”

               “I went upstairs.”

               “How long was she alive?”

               Darren sobbed. “I don't know.”

               “Eleven hours.”

               “I didn't know.”

               “You heard her.”

               “No.”

               “You heard her calling your name.”

               “NO!!!”

               Orson struck him. Darren screamed. “You came downstairs twice.”

               Darren stared. “How do you know that?”

               Orson smiled. “Thank you.”

               Darren realized what he had said. “No.”

               “Once at 1:14am. Again at 4:32am.”

               “No.”

               “You brought her water.”

               “Stop.”

               “But not a phone.”

               “STOP!!!”

               “Because you knew if she survived, she'd tell them what you did.” Orson leaned closer. “You did not wait for Maya to die because you were afraid. You waited because you needed her to.”

               The Courtesy Stop contained 17 rooms. Darren learned that over the next six days. Orson allowed him to walk after splinting his legs. Barely. Each room recreated something. A child's bedroom. A garage. A kitchen. A roadside ditch. In one, a middle-aged woman sat behind the wheel of a wrecked car while another captive screamed from a fake passenger seat. In another, a man knelt beside a bathtub while a woman held his head beneath the water.

               “What did they do?” Darren asked.

               Orson shrugged. “Ask them.”

               Darren did. The woman in the car had driven drunk. Her 12-year-old son died. She told police a deer caused the crash. The man at the bathtub had drowned his disabled brother for inheritance money. Another captive had beaten his girlfriend so badly she lost an eye. Another had intentionally left a toddler inside a hot car. One room contained a school desk. Darren never asked about that one. “This isn't justice,” Darren told Orson.

               “No.”

               “You're torturing people.”

               “Yes.”

               “You think your daughter would want this?”

               Orson's face changed. Darren knew immediately he made a mistake. Orson approached him. “My daughter wanted to become a physical therapist.” Darren said nothing. “She loved peach ice cream. Hated country music. Called me every Sunday. Then someone left her dying beside an interstate. I spent seven years looking for the driver.”

               “Did you find him?”

               “Yes.”

               “What did you do?”

               Orson smiled. “Room One.”

               Darren looked down the corridor. The first door was padlocked. “What happened to him?”

               “He taught me what this place could become.”

               Victoria visited Darren every day. Eventually he stopped hating her. Mostly. “You knew about Maya?”

               “Yes.”

               “How?”

               “Orson gives us access.”

               “To what?”

               “Internet. Records. Whatever we can find.”

               “Why?”

               Victoria looked at him.

               “You really don't understand yet.”

               “No.”

               She sat beside him.

               “I've been here 19 months.”

               “What did you do?”

               Victoria stared at her hands. “My daughter was three.” Darren waited. “I had a boyfriend.” Her voice cracked. “He hurt her.”

               Darren understood. “You let him.”

               Victoria began crying. “I knew what he was doing, and I kept leaving her with him because I didn't want him to leave me.” Darren said nothing. “She died.”

               “How?”

               Victoria shook her head. “I don't talk about that.”

               “Then why are you leaving?”

               Victoria looked at him. “Because I found you.”

               Darren stared. “What?”

               “That’s how Courtesy Stop works.” She wiped her eyes. “You don't serve a sentence.”

               “Then how do you get out?”

               “You replace yourself.”

               Darren felt cold. “With someone worse.” Victoria nodded. “Orson decides?”

               “No.”

               “Who does?”

               “We do.”

               Darren stood too quickly. Pain shot through his legs. “You picked me?” Victoria nodded. “You fucking…”

               “I spent four months looking.”

               “You bitch!” Darren grabbed her. Victoria did not resist. “You brought me here!”

               “Yes.”

               “You stood outside dressed like Maya!”

               “Yes.”

               “Why me?”

               Victoria looked directly at him. “Because my daughter suffered for 43 minutes.” Darren released her. “Maya suffered for 11 hours.”

               Victoria left the next morning. Darren watched from the maintenance stairwell. Orson returned her phone. Her wallet. Keys. Clean clothes. “You just let her go?” Darren asked.

               “She completed her stay.”

               “She killed her fucking daughter.”

               “No. She failed to protect her.”

               “That's better?”

               “No.” Orson opened the door. Morning sunlight entered. Victoria looked back. At Darren.

               “I'm sorry.”

               “Fuck you.”

               She nodded. “I know.” Then she walked outside. The door closed. Darren stared at it.

               “How long?”

               Orson locked it. “How long what?”

               “Until I can leave?”

               “That depends.”

               “On what?”

               “You.”

               Orson handed him a laptop. Darren looked at it. “No.”

               “You can remain as long as you like.”

               “You expect me to kidnap someone?”

               “I expect nothing.”

               “What's the standard?”

               “Excuse me?”

               “Worse than me. What does that mean?”

               Orson smiled. “That is the interesting part.”

               Darren refused. For three weeks. Then five. Then nine. Every night he went down the stairs. Every night another captive played Darren. Every night he became Maya. Sometimes Orson changed details. A glass of water placed beyond Darren's reach. A phone ringing upstairs. Footsteps overhead. The basement light turning on. Darren begging the person at the top of the stairs to call 911. Eventually he stopped insisting Maya had been unconscious. Eventually he remembered everything. Her asking him for help. Her saying she could not feel her legs. Her promising she would tell police it was an accident. Darren sitting beside her. Holding her hand. Then realizing she might live. Going upstairs. Closing the door. At 4:32am, she was still breathing. At 7:17am, she was not. On day 71, Darren opened the laptop.

               He searched obituaries first. Then court records. News archives. Missing persons. He hated himself. Then he became good at it. There were so many people. A nursing-home aide suspected in three unexplained deaths. A father acquitted after his infant son died. A contractor whose employee disappeared after threatening to expose fraud. Darren submitted names. Orson rejected them. “Not enough.”

               “How the fuck do you know?”

               “Because suspicion is not guilt.”

               “You kidnapped me on suspicion.”

               “No.”

               Darren looked at him. “What proof did you have?”

               Orson smiled. “Maya.”

               The woman Darren eventually selected was named Beth Larkin. Forty-two. Married. Two children. Elementary school secretary. Six years earlier, Beth's elderly mother disappeared. Beth claimed she wandered away during the night. No body was found. Darren found financial records. Property transfers. A deleted neighborhood forum post. Then photographs of a concrete patio poured behind Beth's house three days after her mother disappeared. He submitted everything. Orson read it. “No.”

               Darren exploded. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

               “Certainty.”

               “How?”

               Orson closed the laptop. “Find certainty.”

               Darren contacted Beth anonymously. He pretended to know where her mother was buried. Beth responded. That was enough to begin. Three weeks later, she admitted everything. Not directly. But enough. Her mother had dementia. Beth was exhausted. One night her mother wandered outside. Beth found her in the backyard. She could have brought her inside. Instead, she locked the door. January. Nineteen degrees. Her mother froze to death 20 feet from the kitchen.

               Beth buried her beneath the patio. Darren brought the messages to Orson. Orson read them. Then shook his head. “No.”

               Darren stared. “Why?”

               “She's not worse than you.”

               “She murdered her mother!”

               “She made one terrible decision and panicked.”

               “So did I!”

               Orson looked at him. “No, Darren.” Silence. “You made the same decision for 11 hours.”

               Four months passed. Then six. Darren became thinner. Quieter. He stopped asking when he could leave. One night, he sat in Maya's reconstructed basement alone. The light was off. He knew every inch of the room in darkness. Footsteps descended. Orson.

               “How long have you been doing this?” Darren asked.

               “Sixteen years.”

               “How many people left?”

               “Twenty-eight.”

               “How many died here?”

               “Eleven.”

               “How many are downstairs now?”

               “Sixteen.”

               Darren thought. “Seventeen with me.”

               “Yes.”

               “Why?”

               “Why what?”

               “Why keep doing it?”

               Orson sat on the stairs. Darren expected a speech about his daughter. Instead, Orson said:

               “I don’t know.”

               That frightened Darren more than anything else.

               Nine months after Darren arrived, a car pulled into the rest stop at 1:48am. Darren watched through the security camera. A man got out. Forties. Business clothes. He walked toward the restroom. Darren recognized him. Ray Jivard. He had spent three months researching Ray. Two wives. Both dead. First fell from a balcony. Second overdosed. A girlfriend disappeared. Another survived carbon-monoxide poisoning after someone disabled the detector in her home. Darren had spoken to the survivor. Ray thought she was dead when he left. She remembered him watching from the doorway.

               Darren looked at Orson. “This one.” Orson nodded. Darren changed clothes. He walked upstairs. Cold air greeted him. For the first time in nine months, Darren stood beneath the open sky. He could have run. He could have screamed. Ray walked toward the vending machines. Darren remained hidden. Then a woman stepped into the light. Blonde. Gray sweater. Maya. Not Victoria. Another captive. Ray noticed her. She disappeared behind the building. Ray followed. Darren opened the maintenance door.

               At sunrise, Orson returned Darren's belongings. Wallet. Phone. Keys. His car had been maintained. Darren stood outside. Traffic whispered along the interstate. He could leave. He looked back at the brick building. “That's it?” Orson nodded. “What happens to Ray?”

               “That depends on Ray.” Darren stared at the maintenance door. He thought of Maya. Victoria. Beth Larkin. The 28 people who had walked away.

               “How many of them came back?” Orson said nothing. Darren looked at him. “How many?”

               “Three.”

               “Why?”

               “Different reasons.”

               Darren waited. “What happened to them?”

               “One asked me to kill him.”

               Darren swallowed. “And the other two?”

               Orson looked toward the interstate. “They help.”

               Darren stared at him. A pickup entered the parking lot. An elderly couple. Orson smiled politely. “Safe travels, Mr. Kincaid.” Darren walked toward his car. He opened the driver's door. Stopped. Nine months ago, he would have climbed inside. Nine months ago, he would have driven home. Nine months ago, he still believed Maya's death was something that had happened to him. Darren closed the door. Orson heard it. He turned. Darren walked back toward the rest stop.

               “What are you doing?”

               Darren looked through the glass doors. At the ordinary hallway. The vending machines. The tourist brochures. The fluorescent lights. Thousands of travelers stopped here every year. Most pissed. Bought a Coke. Stretched their legs. Called home. Then continued driving. Some carried things with them. Things nobody knew. Things they had buried. Things they had left freezing outside. Things they had left at the bottom of stairs. Darren looked at Orson. “You're 68.”

               “Sixty-nine.”

               “You can't do this forever.”

               “No.”

               Darren glanced toward the maintenance door. Ray was screaming somewhere far below them. Then Darren asked the question that had been waiting inside him since Victoria walked away. “What happens when you die?”

               Orson studied him. For a long time. Then he reached into his pocket. He removed a ring of keys. Darren stared at them. Orson held them out. Darren did not take them.

               Not yet.

               A minivan pulled into the parking lot. Family of five. A little girl jumped out and ran toward the restroom. Her father followed, laughing. Normal people. Probably. Darren watched them disappear inside. Then looked at the keys again. “No,” he said. Orson lowered his hand. Darren turned toward his car. He took three steps. Stopped. Behind him, Ray screamed again. Darren closed his eyes. He remembered Maya at the bottom of the stairs.

               Please.

               He remembered turning off the light. Darren turned around. Orson was waiting. This time, Darren took the keys. “Just until you find somebody else,” Darren said.

               Orson smiled. “Of course.”

               Darren looked down at the largest key. Stamped into the metal were two words.

               ROOM ONE.

               “What’s this?”

               Orson's smile disappeared. Darren remembered the padlocked room. The driver who killed Orson's daughter. The man Orson claimed had taught him what Courtesy Stop could become. “You said he was the first.”

               “Yes.”

               “What happened to him?”

               Orson looked at the key. Then toward the maintenance door. “He's still here.”

               Darren stared. “Sixteen years?”

               “He hasn't found anyone worse.”

               Darren felt suddenly cold. “You never let him search.” Orson said nothing. “Did you?” Silence. Darren understood. There had never been one rule. There had been two. One for everyone else. One for the man who killed Orson's daughter. Darren looked at the keys in his hand. Then at Orson. For the first time, he wondered who would decide when Orson Bellweather had found someone worse than himself. The sun rose over the interstate. Another car turned toward the rest stop. Darren slipped the keys into his pocket.

               And waited.