Even though I risked turning on my phone to use Open Street Map, it was hard to
Even though I risked turning on my phone to use Open Street Map, it was hard to find Concord Street in the dark, and we accidentally crossed the Mississippi twice on two different bridges before we figured out how to get there. Everyone was in a bad mood by the time we finally found the street and were headed in the right direction through the gloom. It was a potholed two-lane road that had things on it like water treatment plants and junked car lots, along with a few decrepit houses. We kept going, searching for the bait store that Wheeze had mentioned in his letter, until the road suddenly dead-ended, dwindling away into nothing but dead weeds and bare bushes.
“Shit,” Nikko said. He had to back up to find a spot where he could turn around.
“We must have missed it in the dark,” I said.
“Go slow this time,” Bree said.
“I know,” Nikko muttered, inching along. “Is this slow enough for you?”
“We must have gone right past it before. I’m just saying you shouldn’t go so fast.”
They didn’t sound so adorable anymore. They sounded tired and tense. We all peered along the side of the dark road. “Is that . . .”
He started to turn onto a gravel lane, but swerved back onto the road. “Crap. It’s a house. Didn’t he say it was near the bridge?”
“Yeah, but none of the buildings near the bridge were bait shops,” Bree said, making it sound like they were having a fight.
“That bend in the road, up ahead?” I said. “That’s the spot where the road is closest to the rail line. Might be where Wheeze would look for a place to hide.”
“If anyone sees me driving this slow, it’ll look really suspicious,” Nikko grumbled.
“Wait. What’s that?” Bree pointed to a spot where the gravel shoulder widened. “A driveway?”
Nikko pulled onto the gravel, turning the car so that the headlights illuminated a shack. “Could that be it? It looks kind of . . .”
“Like a bait shop closed for the winter.” Bree burrowed into her bag and handed out flashlights. “Borrowed from my roommates. They won’t notice.”
Nikko drove in a little further so a few scraggly bushes screened the car from the road. We climbed out and, by unspoken arrangement, kept our flashlight beams pointed low and away from the road. We followed our pools of light toward the shack, the only sound the scuffling of our boots on gravel and a muted rumble of traffic from the highway bridge. The shack was tilting to one side and had windows boarded up with plywood. Its siding had once been painted white, but was now silver weathered wood with bits of curled paint clinging to it like lichen on a rock. A folded sandwich board was leaning against the shack. I took hold of the hinged end and turned it around to see wobbly letters: LIVE BAIT WORMS MINNOWS COLD BEER. “Wheeze’s shed must be near here,” I said, keeping my voice down.
I looked for a path through the brambles and dead undergrowth surrounding the run-down building. My toes snagged on vines that were climbing up tree trunks and drooping from branches. “Wheeze?” I called out, not ve