Martha paused, one foot on black, grassless earth, the other held aloft, entangled in an itchy green spiderweb. Her arms and shoulders were also caught. She looked around, confused, unsure of the direction she was headed. But at least she was hidden.
Voices, amplified, shouted through bullhorns. They didn’t know where she was, but she didn’t, either.
Don’t rest now, Lovie. You can’t stay here. They’ll drop napalm on this jungle, or spray gasoline. Burn us out.
Martha looked around. The vines were brown and ropey below the canopy, twining like dendrites, confusing. Which way to go?
Away, Martha. Away from them. You’re already convicted, you know. You’ll fry.
“Be quiet, Lenny—I need to think.” Fibers from the kudzu leaves stuck to her sweaty skin, making her itch like fire.
Lenny squatted in a clearing a few feet from her. His knees poked through his torn jeans like white pustules.
They found you last time. Remember the janitor closet?
“I hid there for a long time. They only found me because—”
Because they could see you, Lovie. You didn’t right vanish. You’ll have to do better this time.
Martha clawed at the itchy fibers on her calf. “You shouldn’t be here—you’ve just come back because of the stress, the panic.”
But who else is here to help you? We’re mates, you know. Even your Dr. Trauger said that. Mates for life.
Martha reached down, dug a muddy rock out of the bare earth, and flung it at him. The rock sailed into the center of Lenny’s smirking face. His image fragmented like a broken reflection in a puddle.
She turned her attention to the task ahead—somehow getting out of this jungle without being seen. She tried to stand up, to walk on the ground, but could only make progress by crawling, picking her way through the mass of winding stalks.
Not far away, a familiar voice called her name.
“Martha? Come on out. There’s no use hiding from us. We aren’t going to hurt you.”
She paused. Morris’s rounded intonation, even amplified through a bullhorn, sounded easy and reassuring, paternal. It carried a promise of protection. It was a voice she had once trusted, but, like so many things in her life, she would never trust it again. She pushed vines out of her face and clawed her way forward, toward a small clearing and a dark, round opening. The clearing was strewn with discarded fast-food containers and beer bottles. Beyond that, more kudzu, then the end of a steel culvert poking out of an embankment. Too small to walk through.
Maybe wide enough to crawl through, Lenny offered.
“Martha. This is Aubrey. I’m your friend, I want to help you. Just give me a signal. Let us know where you are. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She was startled by the proximity of the voice, already so much closer than before. She lunged forward, tumbled out of the hammock of vegetation, and sprinted the short distance to the culvert, a few feet above the base of the ravine. Her shoes crunched through broken glass. She untangled the vines from her arms, scrambled up the embankment, and looked into the metal opening. Overhead, a rumble of traffic. Amberleen’s version of rush hour.
“There she is!” a voice shouted—this time a different voice, not Morris. “I can see her…hurry, she’s over there.”
Exposed now, working quickly, Martha put her head and shoulders into the culvert opening and wriggled forward, digging her elbows into the metal ribs. But something was holding her….
“Stop now, or I’ll shoot.”
She glanced behind. No one there, just a tight knot of kudzu wrapped around her foot. Martha wiggled and wrenched free, leaving her shoe behind.
“STOP!” a voice shouted. Morris.
Keep moving, Lovie, else they’ll kill us.
Martha worked her torso into the pipe—then, a sharp sting in her right leg, as if someone had touched her with the lit end of a cigarette. A gunshot cracked the air and echoed through the culvert like a hissing rocket. The pain spread quickly, fanning out into a white, blanching shock through her calf.
She dug her elbows into the steel ribs and heaved forward, wriggling farther into the pipe. She dragged herself forward with the points of her elbows along the slimy base. She got some traction with her left foot and let the injured one drag behind, useless.
They shot me, she thought. They shot me…why, why, why?
’Cause you’re a criminal, Lovie, Lenny’s voice replied, disembodied. And scuffers shoot at bad guys. That’s the long and short of it, innit?
Shut up, Lenny, she thought. Just shut up, shut up and shut up. The culvert wasn’t long; she could see a disk of sunlight at the other side. She crawled toward it, her adrenaline overriding any consideration of her pain from the gunshot wound.
They’ll be waitin’ for you at the other end. You know that, don’t you, Lovie?
Martha reached the end of the culvert and paused. Lying on her belly, she scanned the landscape beyond. No deputies here, no one at all. Not yet. Just another ravine. Crabgrass, litter, and a stagnant stream. At the top of the ravine, a row of old buildings. She recognized the lumpy, worn brickwork—the back end of the historic district. The blacktop overhead hummed with traffic.
She climbed out of the culvert and tumbled into a rancid pool of water. Needles of pain shot through her right leg. She curled into a fetal position and lay there, exposed.
Brilliant, Martha. This is the way to pop your clogs. Like a dog in a ditch.
Martha pushed herself up. Dark red marbles floated in the water. Marbles of blood.
She looked up the slope of the ravine. The base of the cleft was deep enough to hide her from the roadway. And she could see an alley between the first and second buildings. She ape-walked through the crabgrass, climbing toward street level.
At the top, she stumbled across a gravel lot, reached the weathered masonry of the nearest building, and held on to it, tucking behind a steel trash barrel. She glanced back down the slope. The blades of crabgrass were tipped in red, leaving an obvious trail where she had crawled. The globules of blood were expanding in the pool of water. She gripped the corner of the wall, nauseated at the sight of her blood, and took some weight off her injured leg. A hum welled inside her head and white shapes floated before her eyes.
The morning sun had yet to reach between the buildings. A narrow alley stretched for a block before ending in the bright light of the Bay Street business district, where she would again be out in the open. But along the wall were recessed doorways, possibly leading to basements or storage rooms. Places to hide.
Martha heard the thrum of a helicopter somewhere nearby. She limped along the cobblestones, gripping the weathered, edgeless brick with both hands. A Dumpster stood in her path, and she hopped around it, keeping the weight off her wounded leg and holding on to the metal lip to keep from falling. She reached the far corner of the Dumpster and caught sight of a door, a green wooden door with peeling paint, in a recess. She took a hop toward it. Something dark came out of the shadows.
Martha opened her mouth to scream, but before she could make a sound, a warm, soft thing clamped over her mouth. The shape from the shadows was bigger than she was, and it held her in its grip. She felt her weight leaving her feet. She struggled against the shape, tried to see it, but her vision was blocked by swarms of amoeba-like shapes. Then a roaring sound filled her ears and the amoebae multiplied and danced, lining up now, high-stepping like the Radio City Rockettes. The roar engulfed her like a churning ocean wave, submerging her beyond the reach of sight or sound.