Chapter 15 ~~
Jr didn’t feel his limp body picked up and carried out the door. He didn’t feel being placed in a truck and he didn’t feel it burst into motion. He was, however, shaken from unconsciousness when that growling voice cut through his ear drums.
“How do you turn this damn shit off!!” he heard as he forced his eyelids open. He was afraid of what he might see. Once his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, Jr. found the man pounding away at his extremely expensive stereo system in an attempt to shut off the loud music filling the truck cab.
They were in Jr’s truck, speeding down a highway at incredible speeds. The fact that he was trapped in the car with his attacker sent bile rushing up in his throat as he sat slumped in the passenger side. His seat belt was strapped on him which Jr. knew was only to keep him from sliding off the seat while he was out… out… how long was he out??
Jr. winced as the thugs’ hand made contact with the stereo again and it didn’t go unnoticed.
The man’s face turned to Jr. immediately and laid a glare on him that would melt rock.
“Turn this god damn radio off before I RIP IT OUT!”
Jr. sat frozen for a second, unsure if he would be able to move. Finally he forced himself to sit up slightly to reach the power button.
“Finally! Some friggin silence!” The man screamed while pounding his fists on the wheel. They were on the highway weaving in and out of cars like crazy.
“Glad your awake. I was getting bored. Maybe I shouldn’t have hit you over the head.”
Jr. didn’t reply or even look back at him. His eyes were plastered on the road as they would get closer and closer to someone’s back bumper.
“That’s ok. I don’t expect you to talk to me. Its best you just listen anyways.’ Suddenly the red pick up swerved to the shoulder and around the filled three lanes of cars. The bumper of the big red truck lightly tapped the car next to it, sending it into a spin on the highway. Jr. grabbed the door handle nervously.
“Scared? Ya should be…”
As Junior tried calming down a little, they passed a road sign. His eyes widened.
“You are now leaving North Carolina?” he muttered out loud in shock. Where the hell was this guy taking him?
“So he can speak! Yes we are leaving North Carolina. On to New Hampshire. Enjoy your ride cause it’ll be the last time you’ll get to see this stuff.”
Junior groaned and clutched his stomach. He was afraid of what he was in for and he knew he wasn’t up for a fight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Teresa shoved the key into the lock forcefully. Not caring if it woke him or not. She had been up all night thinking about how things went yesterday. First she felt awful. Now… she was pissed. Junior had to hear her story and that was final.
Once inside she let out what most kids always feared hearing. The dreaded full name.
“Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr.! I wanna talk to you RIGHT NOW!” She bellowed while slamming the door forcefully and making her way around the house.
“Where the hell are you?” her eyes darted all over the house still not finding her stepson.
“You better not be downstairs drinking or something!” Heading towards the stairs to Club E she heard a noise causing her to stop dead in her tracks.
“What the Hell?”
She heard the faint noise again and hauled ass to the bedroom.
“Junior?”
Her ears directed her to the closet door. Scratching noises…
As she opened the door, a flash of fur flew by her and onto the bed.
“BUD! DAMNIT!” She yelled. “Why the hell did he put you in the closet!”
The cat meowed and proceeded to roll and scratch at a spot on the bed.
“Knock if off!” she screamed at the cat. She didn’t want it to rip the sheet.
After Bud wouldn’t stop, Teresa went over to shoo the cat away. Her eyes landed on a spot on the sheets and she stopped dead.
“Oh Jesus…!” Teresa ran her fingers over the spot getting a tiny smudge of blood on her fingers.
She turned heel and took off for the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They had been riding in silence for about 20 minutes now. No talking or music… Jr. was beginning to wonder how long he could stand it.
He had been holding his stomach the whole time after noticing a bloodstain on his white t-shirt. The ripped stitches caused a leak and even though it was only a dull pain he was still worried.
“Nice truck you have here.”
Jr. glanced in the direction of his attacker but said nothing.
“I gave you a compliment boy! You got any manners?” The man’s voice started thundering again clueing Jr. into the fact that he was getting angry. Jr. didn’t want him angry!
“Thanks.” He whispered. His tone was almost too low for anyone to hear yet it satisfied the man next to him.
“Your welcome… Maybe your dad did teach you something of respect.”
Jr’s eyes turned to slits when he heard him talk about his father.
“You have no right to talk about my father. I know you were sending him the same letters you sent me.”
The guy looked surprised at the young Earnhardt’s response.
“It sure was! Too bad I didn’t follow through with my threats to him. But I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. That’s why you’re here with me! Not exactly what I had planned from the beginning but I like how things are turning out!”
“What the hell did you have against my father?” Jr’s blood was boiling.
“Jesus boy! What DIDN’T I have against him! I hated his GUTS! Always ruining it for other people and being so fuckin cocky! He deserved to die! And damn it I wish I had something to DO WITH IT!”
The man’s face started to turn red from strain and his knuckles went white from gripping the steering wheel with such force. But Jr. didn’t care. He wanted to know why this asshole did what he did to him and since he knew the guy was gonna kill him anyways… He had nothing to lose.
“Your insane! You are fuckin outta your mind! My father had nothing to do with you and neither did I! I hope they fry your ass!”
Suddenly a large hand flew to Jr’s shirt, grabbing him by the collar and forcefully jerking him forward till he was face to face with him.
“I didn’t have a problem with you…. I actually liked you…. But this needed to be done… I had to finish what I started… And you are the only Dale Earnhardt left… Of course you had to RUIN my plans by not DYING when you should have!”
The thug pushed Jr. back into the side door and then let go of his shirt. Immediately Jr. grabbed for his stomach to protect it.
“Of course your damn ass friends had to get involved! Had to find you! Had to rush you to the hospital… Your one tough bastard cause I NEVER thought you’d live through that.”
“Sorry I ruined your plans” Jr. mumbled while lifting his hands to see more blood on his shirt. The man saw this too and grabbed Jr’s hands away.
“Lost some stitches there I see. We’ll pull over later and get you cleaned up. You don’t want blood all over ya when you get to New Hampshire now do ya?” The man then leaned over and pulled out a wade of napkins from Jr’s glove box and handed them over. “Use these till then.”
“Why would you care if I bled all over the place? Your gonna kill me anyways.” Jr. said while placing some of the napkins under his shirt.
“Who said I was gonna kill you!?” He said with a smirk.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A loud knock scared the officers inside the car, sending a half full coffee cup up into the air.
The officer reached over and opened the window to find a frantic Teresa Earnhardt.
“Where is he???”
“What ma’am?”
“Where’s Dale? He’s not in the house! Where’d he go!?”
The cop looked confused. He turned to his partner who was busy wiping off coffee stains on his uniform. The cop shrugged his shoulders back.
“He should be in there ma’am. We saw no one leave.”
Teresa turned back around and scanned the property and she finally realized it.
“The trucks gone…. DAMN IT the trucks gone!!”
“What truck?”
“What?? You didn’t notice a BRIGHT RED TRUCK was missing from the DRIVEWAY!?!?”
“Ma’am we just came on duty a couple hours ago and there was no truck here.”
“Look… My Stepson should not be driving right now… I want you to get on that radio and do what ever you cops do and Find him!”
“Mrs. Earnhardt I’m sure he’s fine.”
“I don’t want your opinions! Just get on the radio and find that red truck!”
“Maybe you should wait. He’ll probably be back soon.”
Teresa was getting pissed off and worried as she remembered the blood on the bed. What if Jr. was hurt and tried to drive himself to get help or something! Her mind was racing and the fact that the cops who were there to protect him didn’t know he was gone scared her even more.
“Officer… I found blood on the bed… I’m worried about my stepson... would you PLEASE for the sake of my sanity and your JOBS get on the radio and find that truck!
The two cops glanced at each other and the one sighed.
“What’s the plate number?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“My names Ron….”
Junior was shaken from his daze.
“Thought you should know the name of the man who is doing this to you.”
Jr. sighed. “Thanks I guess.”
“Look! I’m trying to be nice right now! If you want me to beat up on you a little more I will!”
Jr. kept his mouth shut and closed his eyes. He was starting to get sharp bolts of pain in his stomach and a dull headache was forming over is eyes. He needed to take something for the pain soon.
“Ya know boy? I really don’t wanna do this. I didn’t want to stab you.. I don’t want to be doing what I am right now either… or what I’m gonna do later… but I need closure… I need to finish what I started… even if its not your father. You understand right?”
Junior couldn’t’ believe this guy would think he would understand! Ron was definitely insane.
“ Sterling and Shrader should have gotten medals for what they did. But I wish I was part of it. Then you came along… got the spotlight… It was then I knew that taking care of you would give me closure for not being involved in your dad’s death.”
Bile started to rise in Jr’s throat. He couldn’t’ stand listening to his mad man any more! His eyes landed to the door handle. Should he? He had too… he had more of a chance hitting the pavement then with this mad man.
As quick as he could make his body react, he grabbed for the door handle and pushed as hard as he could into the door. It popped open and Jr. was about to fall out when he felt an arm on his wrist holding him in place.
“Where the HELL do you think your going?” and with that he yanked hard on Jr’s arm causing him to slam the door shut and end up back into the truck cab.
‘Your insane!” He yelled at Ron while rubbing his sore arm.
“I think you got that wrong kid! You just tried to jump out of the damn truck! Just sit there and shut up or you might not even make it to New Hampshire!”
Jr. caught Ron, out of the corner of his eye, pull something out from his pants and set it on his lap. Jr’s eyes didn’t move from the shiny object especially since it was pointed right at him.
“Don’t worry kid… you be good and I wont have to use it.”
Junior never let his eyes leave the metallic looking gun. Now he couldn’t help feeling like he was in great danger.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Well?” Teresa stood next to the police car with her hands on her hips.
“A truck with that plate was spotted going north on the highway. Apparently it was all over the road and spun a couple cars.” The officer said while writing something down.
“Spun cars?? What are you talking about?”
“Your stepson’s truck forced the other cars on the highway off the road.”
“Junior wouldn’t do that…” She mumbled.
“There was two people in the car. Maybe he wasn’t driving.”
Teresa looked up at the officer that was still writing a report and a light bulb went on over her head. She reached into her back pocket for her cell phone and started punching numbers.
After spending time on hold at DEI, Teresa finally got the numbers she wanted and soon was listening to the phone ring.
“Yo yo yo!”
“Kevin?”
“Yep who’s this?”
“Its Teresa Earnhardt. Do you know where Dale is?”
“Jr.?”
Teresa sighed at the stupid question.
“No Kevin… Jarrett… YES Jr.!”
“Uh… no Teresa. He should be home.”
“Well he’s not. He didn’t mention coming up this weekend for the race did he?”
“Nope he never said a word. He would have told me if he was gonna come up. Oh... Hold on Teresa… Tony Jr’s walking by.”
Teresa heard shuffling on the other end before she heard a deeper voice come on.
“What’s wrong Teresa?” Tony Jr. asked somewhat concerned.
“Well I hope nothings wrong! I cant find Jr. and I’m kind of worried… I wont make you worry about it now but I was wondering if he said anything to you guys about coming up today.”
“No he didn’t say anything to us.”
“Alright well look… if any of you talk to him please let me know…. I’ll discuss everything later… I have to go.” And with that Teresa hung up the phone and ran to her car.
~~~~~
“What’s going on?” Kevin looked at Tony jr. for some sort of answer.
“Teresa cant find Junior…”
“Did she check Club E?” Kevin let out a soft giggle before noticing the concern on the young Eury’s face. “Umm… I’m gonna go ask the others if they’ve talked to Jr..”
Both men walked in their separate directions as their minds swam with places Junior could be.
