Newlyweds
by Kyle Seibel
I hit my quota with the last sale of the shift, the receipts even out to the penny, and we finish inventory early enough to smoke weed by the dumpsters before I drive Miguel home.
We’re at my car about to leave when we see the U-Haul driving straight at us. Stops just short of where we’re standing. Two people jump out. The truck keeps running. They’re newlyweds. It’s the first thing they say to us. The next thing they say is that there is a man trapped in their U-Haul.
“A man?” I say.
“My ex,” she says.
“I trapped him in there,” the man says. He has a goatee. She has red hair. How do I say this? They look awful. Not ugly, just bad. Old food has this look. Dented. Sour. I can smell them in the late night wet of the mall parking lot.
“Like by accident?” I say. “Like he’s locked himself inside?”
“Well,” she says, pulling on her hair. “No.” She looks over at the man with the goatee. “It’s this whole situation.”
“We’re moving,” the man with the goatee says. “Her ex heard about it and that’s what set him off. He comes over, all fucked up. Corners me in the back of the truck.”
“Threatening him,” the redhead says.
“And then Tammy calls me from inside the house,” the man says. “And I kinda duck past him to go check on her, you know? Then when I’m stepping down off the truck I get the idea to lock him inside. Just pops in my head. So I do it.”
“Can y’all two go in there please?” Tammy says. “Our phones are with him in the back. Can’t call nobody.”
I pull out my phone. I look at Miguel. I tell the newlyweds to hang on. We take a lap around the U-Haul.
“Don’t sound like there’s a guy in there,” Miguel says.
“He’s biding his time,” Tammy says.
“Are you sure about all this?” I ask the man with the goatee.
“Aw yeah,” he says. “He’s in there.”
“Can y’all please go round there and open the door?” Tammy asks again. “He won’t hurt nobody but us.”
Miguel shakes his head. “I knew something fucked up was going to happen today,” he says.
I call the security firm that contracts at the mall and tell the dispatcher about the newlyweds in the U-Haul and the potential for a man trapped inside. She takes in every detail with a mhmm like she’s been expecting this and my call just confirms what she already knows.
“Should we stay here?” I ask her.
“Who’s we?”
“Nobody.” I say. “We work at the cell phone kiosk.”
“Well now we’re definitely sending someone,” she says. “Those roaming charges.” She laughs.
“Ha ha,” I say. “But we can go?”
“Well,” the dispatcher said. “I’ll be honest. That wouldn’t look great.”
⦿
The security guard who shows up introduces himself as Officer Perry. He stares at the truck, asks some questions, writes in his notepad. He doesn’t have a gun. He makes sure to tell us this, like it’d be unfair if he had one. He’s wearing a sky-blue polo shirt. He is the shortest out of all of us and that includes Tammy. He wants to know more about the ex who is trapped in the U-Haul.
“He’s a dumbass,” Tammy says. “If that tells you anything.”
Officer Perry writes something down. “It does, actually.”
Each of us are standing in a semi-circle around the back of the U-Haul. In the few minutes it took for Officer Perry to arrive, there’s been no sound or movement coming from the truck at all. Officer Perry approaches, jingling the car keys the man with the goatee gave him, whose name turns out to be Dane. The security guard presses his ear to the door.
“He’s dead,” Miguel whispers to me. “They killed him.” He stares at the truck. “There’s a body in there.”
“Can’t hear anything,” Officer Perry says, after listening.
“We’re in danger,” Miguel says.
“Oh God!” Tammy says.
“I’m gonna just go for it.” Officer Perry says. “Open her up. And then we’ll just deal with it, okay? Okay everyone? We’re just gonna set a perimeter, okay? Just get on back, please.”
I am thinking about how the first thing they told us was how they just got married. Because it’s wedding season, I guess. Or is it? Probably different for different places. “Like how a group of crows is called a murder?” I say to everyone as we retreat a few steps. “A bunch of weddings should be called a miracle.” I am more stoned than I thought.
“What’s he saying?” Officer Perry brings a hand to his ear.
“He’s saying to be careful, I think,” Miguel says.
“Don’t worry,” Officer Perry says. “I was in Iraq.”
It keeps sticking in my mind that they’re newlyweds because I am too. Last week. Except I haven’t told anyone yet. We’re not making a big deal about it. But it feels weird no one knows.
“Hey,” I wave over at Miguel, who is watching Officer Perry approach the U-Haul door. “Did I tell you that Liz and I got married?”
Officer Perry unlocks and opens the U-Haul door. He shines his light in. He puts a leg on the bumper and hoists himself up. He pokes his flashlight around. “There’s nothing in here,” he says.
“What the hell,” Tammy says, pulling her hair.
“That son of a bitch!” Dane says. “How he steal it all like that?”
Miguel and I jump into the U-Haul to see for ourselves. No body, no boxes.
“The strangest thing,” Officer Perry says.
“The engine’s still running,” Miguel observes.
The U-Haul door closes behind us. We hear the lock click. The security firm will send someone but it’ll be hours before they figure it out and what they find eventually, a few weeks later, won’t be much at all.
Kyle Seibel is a writer in Santa Barbara, CA. His stories have appeared in Pithead Chapel, X-R-A-Y, and trampset. His tweets, which mostly suck can be found @kylerseibel. His debut collection HEY YOU ASSHOLES will be published on Bear Creek Press in 2023.
