Sixteen
We should have left Charleston as soon as we got home from the hospital. We should have come back to the motel, gathered up our things, and left town forever. That would have been the smart thing to do. You gave them your real name. I should have made us run right away but I was afraid. I was afraid of what might happen if I made you run again. Fear had been my ally for so long, I didn’t know how to act once it became our enemy. Fear equalled stress. No one knew that better than me. I lost focus. I was afraid of what fear might do to our son. I just wanted you to be able to relax. I wanted everything to be calm. I wanted our son to be safe. So I tried to act like everything was fine. Everything wasn’t fine. You had given the hospital your real name. I knew deep down that now it was only a matter of time.
It’s only been five days since we left the hospital. So much has changed already. We made it almost four months in Charleston before we had to run. Maybe we’ll make it even longer this time. I try to stay positive for you. I keep writing in this journal because I can tell it things that I’m afraid to tell you. I can tell it how scared I am right now. One day I’ll give you this journal but I want our son to be born first. I want to know that he’s safe first. Until then, all I want to do is protect the two of you. There are things you should know about Charleston, about how we left Charleston. There are details that I kept from you because I didn’t understand them. I still don’t.
After we got home from the hospital, I knew something was going to happen. I just didn’t know what and I didn’t know when, so I waited like a fool. It could have been worse. If we hadn’t gotten that phone call, we might not have even made it out of our motel room.
I woke up that night before the phone even rang. I can’t explain why. Something was wrong. I could feel it. I might have started ignoring some of my instincts but they weren’t dead yet. My body was drenched in sweat. My heart was racing. I tried to catch my breath. I could feel you move beneath the covers next to me. You moved a lot in your sleep now, trying to find a comfortable way to lie despite your ever-growing stomach. I took a few long breaths. You didn’t wake up. Not yet. I glanced over at the window, trying to remember what woke me up. Our blinds were drawn. A pair of ugly yellow drapes covered the window overlooking the motel parking lot. I began to think that someone must be out there. Someone must be waiting just outside our window. I must have heard them and that had to have been what woke me up. I thought about walking over to the window to look but I didn’t want to wake you. I couldn’t afford to frighten you unless I was certain we were in danger. Besides, if they were outside, it was already too late.
So I just lay there, paralyzed by some sort of irrational fear that turned out to be all too rational. I could feel a large weight pushing me down onto the bed. I lay there and waited for something to happen. I glanced over at the clock beside the bed. It was two-thirty in the morning. The room was dark. All I could see was the light creeping in from the crack just below the curtains. My eyes scanned the ceiling and the walls. I watched a cockroach run from one end of the ceiling to the other. I couldn’t see any signs that something was wrong. It was just my instincts running amok.
I heard a clicking sound come from the phone before it started ringing. It was just the slightest noise but I heard it. Then the phone rang. I leapt across the bed and reached for the receiver. I picked up the phone before the second ring. I had no idea what to expect. All I wanted was answers. I held the receiver to my ear and sat straight up in bed. You barely budged.
“Hello?” I whispered.
The voice on the other end was muffled but it spoke with urgency. “You’ve got to get out.” There was something that I remembered about the voice, something that I recognized. It was a voice that I’d heard on the phone before.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“Joe,” he replied, “you’ve got to get out of there.” It clicked when he said my name.
“Brian?”
“Don’t say my name, Joe. Don’t worry about who I am or why I’m calling. Just go. Go now.” I could hear the fear in his voice. It was real.
“What’s going on?” I asked, confused. I was sure it was Brian. I just didn’t understand why he was calling me. I’d been cut loose.
“They know,” Brian replied. “They know where you are, Joe. They know everything. You don’t have any time. You’ve got to get out of there.” His voice quivered. It finally sank in that he was trying to help me.
“Where can I go?” I asked, hoping that Brian would have more answers, that he would have some sort of plan. I was hoping Brian would tell me what to do and where to go just like he used to back when things were simpler.
“I can’t help you, Joe. If they even find out I called you, I’m a dead man. Just go. Please go. I can’t talk anymore. Just go and don’t look back.”
“What do they know?” I asked, trying to get as much useful information as I could before he hung up.
“Everything, Joe. They know where you work. They know what car you drive. They know everything and they’re coming. You’re not safe. They’re coming for you right now.” I wanted to ask more. I opened my mouth but before I could say anything else I heard a clicking sound and then a dial tone. Brian had hung up. Either that or somebody had disconnected us.
I held the phone to my ear for a few more seconds, listening to the drone. It was time to run again, only this time the stakes were raised. This time, our son’s life was on the line too. I looked down at your body as you slept. I didn’t want to wake you up. I didn’t want to make you run again. But I knew that the only thing riskier than running was standing still.
I stood up quickly. I grabbed a duffel bag and began throwing everything I thought we might need inside of it. I went into the bathroom and reached under the sink and grabbed the cash that we had stashed there. We had been able to save up some money over the past few months. We spent a lot of our savings on your blood pressure medication. There wasn’t a whole lot of money left but I had to hope that it was enough to help us get away. I opened a drawer, pulling out clothes and throwing them in the duffel bag too. Then I grabbed the gun. I held it in my hand for a second. I hadn’t held it since I shot that kid in Ohio. The gun felt good in my hand. Whatever the reason, the weight of it in my hand calmed me down.
I didn’t turn the lights on in case we were being watched. They could have been waiting outside. For all I knew, the flicker of the lights was the trigger that would set their whole plan into action. I wanted to be ready first. I wasn’t trying to be quiet. You were going to have to wake up anyway—better to do it with noise than by me shaking you awake. When your eyes finally blinked open you were staring at me holding the gun.
“What’s going on?” you asked, squinting at me through the darkness.
“We’re leaving,” I replied.
“What?” you asked.
“We’re leaving. Now,” I replied.
“We can’t, Joe. It’s too dangerous.” You looked down at your stomach.
I grabbed a handful of your clothes from the dresser and threw them on the bed next to you. “Get dressed,” I pleaded. “Please.”
“We can’t do this, Joe. It’s too dangerous.” You placed a whole hand over your belly as if trying to protect it. “We have to be careful.”
I walked over to the window. I lifted the curtains slightly and peered outside. I couldn’t see anything. The parking lot was still. Nothing was moving. Everything was where it should be. I tried to glance at the outside of our motel room door. The angle was difficult, but it didn’t appear that anyone was out there waiting for us. Maybe Brian was wrong or maybe it was a trap.
“I got a phone call,” I said to you. “It was a warning.”
“From who?” you asked.
“A friend,” I replied. I had to believe that Brian was a friend. I had to trust someone. “Please put on your sneakers.”
“I thought that you were cut loose. I thought that you didn’t have any friends anymore.”
“Me too” was the only answer I could give you. You sat on the edge of the bed and started to slip your sneakers onto your feet.
“I can’t run, Joe. You know that.” I knew. No strenuous activity. We’d have to get out without making you run.
“We’re escaping, Maria. I’m not asking you to run.”
“Do we even know who we’re escaping from?” you asked.
I didn’t. Brian could have had inside information or he could have heard rumors coming from the other side. We didn’t have time to try to figure it out. “Yeah,” I answered, “whoever is chasing us.”
I looked around the room for anything else we might need. I packed our money and about half of your clothes. I went to the closet and grabbed my tool belt and my tools. I threw them in the duffel bag with our clothes and zipped it up. I felt the weight of the duffel bag. It would have been easier if you could carry it, but it was too heavy. I couldn’t ask you to do that. I slung the bag over my shoulder. Then I checked to make sure the gun was loaded. “We need to get to the car,” I said to you. You nodded. “I’m not sure it’s safe out there.” The doctor had told me to try to limit your stress. Some things are easier said than done.
I held the gun in my right hand and guided you behind me with my left. I opened our motel room door, half expecting all hell to break loose when I did. Nothing happened. The door creaked open. Once the door stopped moving and the creaking sound stopped, it was replaced only by the hollow sounds of night. The moon was about a quarter full but the parking lot outside of the motel was lit brightly from a streetlight. Beyond that, the night was full of shadows.
“It looks safe,” I whispered over my shoulder without looking at you. “Are you okay?”
“I’m trying,” you answered as honestly as you could.
“Here are the car keys,” I said to you, handing the keys behind me. I felt your hand reach out to take them. Your hand was warm. “Stay behind me until we get to the bottom of the stairs. Once we get to the bottom of the stairs, duck down and head for the car. I’ll follow you. I’ll protect you.” We walked slowly together. Once we got to the bottom of the stairs, you dropped your head beneath your shoulders and made a dash for the car. All I could think was, not too fast, Maria. You squatted down by the passenger side door of the car and unlocked it. I walked quickly after you, trying to look everywhere all at once as I ran. All I saw was more of the same, more of nothing. By that point, the nothingness was what began scaring me the most. I threw the duffel bag in the backseat and climbed into the car.
You handed me the car keys. I slid them into the ignition and turned the key. The engine revved up.
I pulled the car out of the parking lot. My mind raced, trying to make some sense of things. I knew that getting away wasn’t going to be this easy. I knew it.
“Now what?” you asked me. “Do we just try to drive away?” I could see in your eyes that you were beginning to question whether or not we even really needed to run away.
I weighed our options in my mind. Brian’s words echoed in my head. They know what car you drive. Eventually we’d have to get rid of the car, but not yet. Our first goal was to get out of town. “That’s one option,” I answered you. “But they know what car we’re driving.”
“Well, do we have any other options?” you asked
“I don’t know.” I didn’t even know where I was driving. I just kept moving forward, turning deeper and deeper into nowhere. The night was still and peaceful. Nothing was moving but us. I drove along the empty, tree-lined street, making turn after turn, and we saw nothing.
“Let’s just drive,” you said. “Let’s just get on the highway and go. So they know our car. So what? There’s nobody here, Joe.” I could see the shadow of each passing tree float over your face as we moved forward, casting your face in alternate strips of dark and light. “How are they going to find us when they’re not even here?”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. It was a relief to even think. Just drive away. “We can abandon the car later. We can get lost again.” I turned the car around another corner, heading us back toward the long two-lane highway running away from Charleston, away from our new life. All I had to do was get on that highway and step on the gas. For one sweet moment it all seemed so simple.
Then we heard a crash. It came out of nowhere, echoing through the still night air like thunder. “What the hell was that?” you shouted, turning in your seat, unaware of what direction the sound had come from. It sounded almost like an explosion. It came from the highway, the highway that we were headed toward.
“I don’t know,” I said, slowing the car down so that we could listen better. Seconds after the crash there was the sound of an engine revving, then tires screeching on pavement. It was coming from the highway. The sound started getting louder. Whatever it was, whoever it was, they were headed in our direction. Without stopping the car, I flicked off the car’s headlights. We were driving in darkness. The sound kept coming. It was close now. I yanked the steering wheel to the right and pulled the car off the side of the road, barely squeezing between two trees. Right as I turned the car off, a car sped past us down the road. I watched it in the rearview mirror. It flew by in a blur. Only a split second after that, another car followed, chasing after the first. The second car’s front fender was smashed in. It had hit something. God only knows what. We sat in silence for a few moments before I dared start the car again. Neither of us took a breath.
“Do you think they were looking for us?” you asked. I started the car again, flicking the headlights on. Then I pulled the car back up onto the now empty road.
“Does anything else make any sense?” I answered you. You shook your head. You knew the truth. They were out there. They were close. And they were after us.
“What do we do now?” you asked, the fear that was absent almost moments ago now creeping into your voice.
“That doesn’t change anything. We already knew they were here.” I slowly sped up the car. We were heading for the highway. When we made it to the turn, I looked down the dark highway. It was long and straight and empty. The end of it simply disappeared into the darkness. I pulled our car out onto the highway. All I wanted to do was drive. I stepped on the gas but it only lasted a short moment.
“Holy shit!” you shouted. “What is that?” I saw it too. I barely caught a glimpse of it at the very edge of the light from our headlights. There was something moving off the side of the road. Whatever it was, it didn’t look human. For the second time in minutes, I pulled the car over to the side of the road and switched off the headlights.
“Stay here,” I said to you. You didn’t listen. By the time I got out of the car, you were already standing outside. The air was warm. There was a pungent smell in the air that I recognized but couldn’t place. I pulled the gun from my belt and began walking toward whatever it was that was moving by the side of the road. You walked closely behind me. I could almost feel your body against mine. I could feel your breath on my neck. Before I saw anything, I felt you gasp behind me.
“Oh, my God!” you yelled. I looked ahead of us. The grass in front of us was dark from something. “There’s blood,” you shouted. “There’s blood everywhere.” That was the smell. It was the smell of blood.
“Quiet,” I whispered to you. “No matter what we see, we have to stay quiet.” The trail of blood started at the street and led all the way to whatever it was that we had seen from the road. It was still moving. I took another step closer. I could see it better now. It was a man but he was in worse shape than anyone I’d ever seen before. I’d seen dead men in better shape. He was lying facedown in the grass. He was dressed entirely in black. He was wearing the uniform of an assassin—the same one that I had worn countless times. The movements his body was making were totally unnatural. His arms were moving in directions arms weren’t supposed to move. It could have just been muscle spasms. I couldn’t even be sure that he was still alive. We took another few steps toward him. Then I heard him moan.
We didn’t have time for this. We were being chased. I was certain of that now. This man had something to do with it. How he’d ended up on the side of the road, I couldn’t even imagine. “We have to leave him,” I told you. I turned around and started walking toward the car.
“What?” you asked. “We can’t just leave him here.” You looked over at the body. “He’ll die.” That was the truth. What it had to do with us was beyond me.
“We’re leaving.”
“We can’t just leave him!” you shouted. I held my hand up to my mouth again to motion to you to keep quiet. You lowered your voice. “You promised me there would be no more death!”
“I didn’t cause this,” I said, pointing at the squirming body with the muzzle of the gun. It was a lie. Somehow it was a lie. His groans became louder and more distinctive. He could hear us talking. He was trying to say something to us. The voice murmured through a mouthful of wet grass. I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Then he managed to get out one word that I could understand. “Please.” You looked at me. Even in the darkness I could see the pain in your eyes.
I walked back past you, back toward the body. When I got near you, you whispered, “Be careful.” I stepped up toward the body. You stood only a few feet behind me. I kept the gun pointed at the squirming body. I told myself that there was no way this was a trap. There was too much blood for it to be a trap. I wasn’t sure if I believed it, though. I didn’t know what to expect. The groans had grown quiet, as if the body had used up all of its remaining energy trying to talk to us. Please. Now only soft, quiet moans came from the body as it quivered below my feet. I hooked my foot under one of his shoulders and lifted. He was deadweight. It took all my strength, but I was able to flip him over without getting my hands dirty. He was now lying on his back.
He was covered in blood. I’m pretty certain not all of it was his. His legs were twisted under him, corkscrewing, not flipping over properly with the rest of his body. He couldn’t move them. His neck was broken. Once facing the sky, he opened its eyes. His face was cut up. Blood covered much of it but when his eyes opened they were a bright green. Even in the darkness I could see the color. “Help,” he said now, more clearly. He wanted to say “Help me” but didn’t have the strength to get out the second word. Punctured lungs. Broken ribs. I could diagnose a whole boatload of problems that I couldn’t cure. You stepped around me and knelt down in the grass beside him. You brushed some of the dirt off of his face.
I made eye contact with him. “You were in the car crash that we heard?” I asked. His head moved slightly, as much of a nod as we were going to get out of him. “This happened to you in that car crash?” Another nod. He was clearly the casualty of some chase. “And then they threw you out of the car? They left you here?” Again, his head moved; this time, I could see the sadness in his eyes. You grimaced, not being able to imagine how anyone could be so cold. I knew how. He was deadweight. He was slowing down a mission. Finding us was that mission. When you see death every day, one more death doesn’t mean as much to you. They probably didn’t even think twice before they tossed him out of the car.
“We have to do something, Joe,” you turned to me and said as you held the dying man’s head in your hands. The man looked up at you as you brushed his bloodstained hair off his forehead.
“There’s nothing we can do, Maria.” You knew I was right. Still, your eyes pleaded with me to try. I got down on my knees on the other side of him.
“Can you move your legs?” I asked. I could see the man’s face strain. I looked down at his legs. There was no movement. “Your arms? Can you move your arms?” Again his face strained. This time one of his arms moved. The other lay still. It appeared to be broken. As he moved his arm, he let out another painful moan.
Suddenly, I heard another car coming down the road. There wasn’t any time to find better cover. “Duck down,” I said to you. We got as low to the ground as we could. The night sky flared up with light as the headlights moved past us. The sound of gravel churning grew loader and then quieter again. The car sped away from us. Soon, all that was left was the sound of our breathing and the body’s wheezing.
“We have to go, Maria. It’s not safe here.” I could feel the panic rising in my chest. We were going to get caught because you were too kind.
“We can’t just leave him, Joe,” you answered, tears welling up in your eyes.
“Listen, Maria, you’re going to have to make a decision here. Do you want to try to save this man or do you want to save our son? Because we’re not going to be able to do both.” You understood. I could see it in the expression on your face.
The dying man’s head was still in your lap. You looked down at him. “I’m sorry,” you said. You lifted his head up off your lap and stood up. You were trying to keep yourself from crying, which only led to sobbing. You turned away from the body and started walking back to our car. I looked down at the man, lying there. His eyes followed you as you walked toward the car.
I turned away from him too. I started following you back to the car. Then I heard another moan, this one louder. He didn’t want to be left alone. He must have known that he was going to die but he didn’t want to die alone. I turned back toward the body. “If I find a phone, I’ll send help for you,” I said to him. He slowly closed his eyes, knowing that help was never going to come.
When I got back into the car, you were already sitting inside. The tears had stopped. There was only determination in your face now. I turned the car back on and pulled back onto the highway. We started driving in the other direction.
“Where are we going?” you asked.
I had a plan now. Looking at that man dying on the ground had helped me formulate a plan. They knew where we were. That was for sure. They didn’t sacrifice men like that for nothing. They knew they were close. I thought we could use that. We could use that to get some money before we left. We needed the money. We were down to our last few hundred dollars. It would take us a while to get settled in wherever we ended up next, and we were going to have to bring you to the doctor’s if our son was going to survive. “We’re going downtown,” I answered.
“What? Why?” Downtown wasn’t away. You just wanted to get away. In retrospect, maybe that would have been the right move.
“I still have my ATM card. We haven’t used it because I was afraid it would give away where we are. Well, they already know where we are. This could be our last chance to get some money for a while. If we do it downtown, they won’t have any idea what direction we go afterwards.” I looked over at you. You looked skeptical. “We need to do this,” I said. You knew I was right.
“Okay,” you answered, sealing our fate. I stepped on the gas and we sped toward the city.
During our ride, everything remained calm, almost frighteningly so. Everything was quiet. We could see the city lights in the distance. It was still the middle of the night. The city would be asleep, but the lights were on. We crossed over the bridge leading into the city. My plan was to simply turn down a street with a bank, pull over, take out as much money as the bank would let me, get back in the car, and drive. I had to believe that my ATM card would still work. They would have wanted me to use it, knowing full well that it would give me away.
The city streets were almost empty. Every few blocks we would see someone walking down the street, heading home from a friend’s house or from a night of drinking. We were in the rich end of town full of big houses and old money. There were highways leading away from the city in all directions. I hadn’t even thought yet about which direction we were going to go in. One step at a time, I thought. You sat silently in the passenger seat of the car. I didn’t know if you were thinking about the dying man we’d left by the side of the road or if you were simply trying not to think at all.
I glanced down a long street and saw a bank with an ATM machine. I stopped the car on the side of the road, pulling into a vacant spot near the front of the bank. I looked around us after putting the car in park. The street was empty. At least I thought it was. I unbuckled my seat belt and turned to you. “Wait here,” I said. You nodded. “For real this time. Stay in the car.” I opened the driver’s side door and stepped out. I tried moving quickly, jogging to the door of the bank and swiping my ATM card so that the door would unlock. I took one last look back at you to make sure you were safe and then I stepped inside.
“Come on. Come on. Come on,” I whispered to myself as I slid the ATM card into the slot and punched in the code. The screen came up and asked me how much money I wanted to withdraw. I punched in a thousand dollars but it wouldn’t let me take out that much. Next I punched in five hundred. I waited. I heard the bills ruffling behind the machine. Then it spit out twenty-five twenty-dollar bills. It would buy us a little bit of time.
I turned to head back toward the car. I could still see you inside. You were okay. You looked safe. I was about the open the bank door and come back to you when I saw the phone across from the ATM machines. It wasn’t just a bank help phone. It was a real pay phone. I decided to keep a promise I had made. I put the five hundred dollars in my wallet and put my wallet back in my pocket. Then I walked over to the pay phone, picked up the receiver, and dialed 911. I couldn’t fight the feeling that I had somehow been through this before. My stomach knotted up. A dispatcher picked up the phone. “There’s been a horrible accident,” I said.
“Where?” the dispatcher asked.
“There’s a man,” I responded, “by the side of the road. He was hit by a car. He needs help now.” I told the dispatcher the name of the road where we’d found the man.
“Can you stay on the line?” the woman asked.
“No,” I replied. I was about to hang up the phone when the first gunshot echoed into the air. The first shot was crisp and loud. At first, I didn’t recognize the sound. It sounded too much like a firecracker. Then another shot rang out. The sound was less distinct this time, more muffled. It was coming from a different gun. All of a sudden I realized what was going on. I looked out at the car. You were still in the front seat, but you were hunkered down, trying to duck below the window. A bullet had already shattered the rear passenger-side window right behind you. I couldn’t tell if you were okay. I started to run for the door. Just as I did, I heard another pop and the glass in the ATM booth shattered into a million tiny pieces. I kept running for the door, running toward you. I could feel my heart racing. In that moment, if I saw a bullet headed toward you, I would have jumped in front of it. But I wasn’t even close enough to you to do that. There was another popping sound and a bullet ripped a hole in our right rear tire. I couldn’t even figure out where they were shooting from. When I got outside the door, I realized that the bullets were coming from opposite directions. I could also hear you screaming. This wasn’t good. The stress wasn’t good. Unfortunately, the night had just started.
I ran toward the car. I could hear another bullet whiz by my head. I tried to figure out what direction the bullets were coming from. They seemed to be coming from everywhere. The reality was that probably only five or six shots had been fired but I felt like we were caught in the middle of a battle. I reached the driver’s side door and swung it open. “Are you okay?” I shouted at you as I climbed inside.
“No!” you screamed back at me. I immediately ducked my head down below the window line. Then I turned on the car and stepped on the gas. I just wanted to get us away from the bullets. We’d have to leave the car behind now. We were short a rear tire. They had to have done that on purpose. We couldn’t drive out of the city like that. We could, however, drive it out of the line of fire. Then we would have to go on foot. There was no way around it.
I stepped on the gas, lifting my head up just enough to see over the dashboard. I couldn’t afford to hit anything. I couldn’t afford another accident. As soon as the car started to move, I could feel the rear tire rattling along the street. People started turning lights on in the houses surrounding the street. I tried to ignore them. We just had to get away.
We veered back and forth along the street as we lunged forward. I tried to control the steering but the lost tire made it difficult. After four or five blocks, I couldn’t hear any gunfire anymore. I pulled the car off to the side. “We have to get out,” I said to you. You looked at me like I was crazy. “We’re sitting ducks in here, Maria. We have to get out.”
You reached down and unbuckled your seat belt. Then you crawled over the middle console so that you could climb out of the same door as me. I opened the driver’s side door and stepped onto the pavement. I waited for a split second, expecting to hear another gunshot, expecting to hear another bullet whiz by my ear, but I didn’t hear anything. I grabbed your wrist and pulled you to your feet on the sidewalk and then we ran down the next street. We ran for two blocks before I spotted an opening next to one of the houses. We ducked quickly inside one the few gardens without a locked gate. I lifted my finger to my lips to signal to you to be quiet. I had heard something. Someone was running down the street. I could hear footsteps pounding on the asphalt. We were lucky to have found shelter in the shadows when we did. A man suddenly ran past us. I looked down at his hands as he ran. He was holding a gun.
“What do we do, Joe?” you whispered to me when we couldn’t see the man anymore.
“I don’t know.”
“How do we get out of here now?”
“I don’t know.” I tried to think. We didn’t have many options. “How far is the bus station from here?” I asked you. You knew the city better than I did.
“About six miles,” you answered. It was far. The night was dark and full of dangers. Still, it was our only option.
“We’ve got to get to the bus station,” I said to you. Then I heard something else. I reached out and placed my hand over your mouth to make sure you didn’t speak. Someone else was near us. They weren’t running. They were walking. They were whistling as they walked. We hunched down together as low to the ground as we could. We tried to stay as obscured as possible. He was walking in the same direction the man with the gun had run. He didn’t have a gun. Instead, he had a large knife in his hand. He was whistling the Louis Armstrong song “What a Wonderful World.” We held our breath again as he walked passed us. It took another ten minutes before we felt safe that he was gone.
You picked up our conversation right where we had left it off. “I can’t run, Joe,” you said, placing both hands over your stomach.
“I know,” I answered. God only knew what damage we’d already done to our child. We didn’t talk about it. “What time is it?” I asked you. You looked at your watch.
“It’s four in the morning,” you said.
“Listen.” I swallowed hard, barely believing I was about to suggest what I was about to suggest. “The first bus probably doesn’t leave until around seven. Do you think you can walk six miles in three hours?”
“Do I have a choice?” you asked.
“No.”
“I can do it,” you said, nodding your head.
“That’s my girl.” I tried to smile at you. I don’t know how it came across. I wasn’t in the mood to smile. I took the gun out of my belt again. “Take this,” I said, handing you our only means of protection.
“I can’t take this,” you said, holding the gun loosely between two fingers. “I don’t know how to use it.”
“Just take the fucking gun, Maria,” I responded, exasperated. “Please, take the gun. It’s easy to use. I disabled the safety. All you have to do is point it at anything scary and pull the trigger.” You looked at the gun in your hand. It didn’t look right. Your hands looked too small for it.
“Why do I need this?” you asked. “Why don’t you just carry it?”
I shook my head. “We’ll never make it the six miles together. We need something else.”
“So what are you going to do?” you asked, sensing that whatever my plan was, you weren’t going to like it.
“I’m going to distract them,” I said. I could see everything you wanted to say to me in the look on your face. You wanted to tell me that my idea was ridiculous. You wanted to curse me for even thinking about it. You wanted to tell me that we could make it together. You hesitated because you knew none of it was true. “Please, Maria,” I said. “I don’t know what else to do. This is the only way.”
“Okay,” you finally conceded. You knew that it was the only chance we had to save our son. You were gripping the gun with two hands now. Now it was your protector.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked, stalling before the moment when I left you.
“Yes,” you answered. Then I remembered the money. I pulled my wallet out of my pocket.
“Take this too,” I said, handing you almost a thousand dollars in cash. Now I had nothing.
“We’re going to meet at the bus station, right?”
“Of course,” I answered, knowing that the odds of both of us making it there were slim. “But if I’m not there, get on a bus. Get on a bus going far away.” I turned and looked down the surrounding streets. They were empty again. I never even heard a police car. Everyone must have thought that the gunshots were kids lighting off firecrackers. It looked clear to go. I turned back to you. “Give me a five-minute head start,” I said. “Stay in the shadows and move quietly. Don’t let anyone see you.” You nodded. “I’m going to try to get them to chase me.” Even as I said it, the idea sounded ridiculous. How long would it take them to hunt me down? For how long could I outrun a bullet? I wasn’t trying to survive. I had to be realistic. I was only trying to survive long enough. I took a deep breath and readied myself to jump out of the shadows and into the light on the street. Before I did, you grabbed my face in your hands and pulled me toward you. You had the gun in your right hand and I could feel its metal on my cheek. You kissed me gently on the lips, then harder. Then I had to go.
“I’ll see you at seven,” I said. Then I ran. I stepped into the street and I ran like there was no tomorrow because, for me, there probably wasn’t.
I didn’t look back. I just ran. I ran south, away from the bus station. I needed to give you room. If I got away, I’d have plenty of time to get to the bus station. Only seconds after I stepped out of the shadows, I heard the first set of footsteps chasing me. Each step banged loudly on the street. There was barely any time in between footsteps. Whoever was behind me was moving fast. I didn’t dare look back now. They had guns. All I had on my side was fear.
I knew I had to stay ahead of the person chasing me but I couldn’t afford to lose him either. I needed him to chase me. I needed all of them to chase me. The only thing that I was more afraid of than getting caught was having you get caught. Then I heard the second set of footsteps, farther back but distinct. It now was like listening to the beat of two out-of-rhythm drums. I wondered how many there were. Were these the only two? Had there been only three of them before they dumped their partner by the side of the road, or were there more? If there were more, were you safe? There was no way for me to know. I had never heard of anyone working in groups greater than four. Even if there were five originally, they had already lost one in their accident. That would mean that there were the two following me and two others, lurking somewhere.
I expected to hear gunshots coming from behind me, but there was nothing. They must not have wanted to press their luck with the police. They must have thought that I wasn’t going to be that difficult to catch. I had made it about six blocks before I realized that I was about to run into the southern tip of Charleston. When the city ended to the south, there was only water. I had already played that game, hiding in the black water at night. The only reason I’d survived it was because Michael saved me. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. I turned down the next street I could and kept running in a different direction.
I started running out of energy. My legs, arms, and lungs were tiring quickly. I needed to find a place to hide so that I could rest, even if it was only for a few minutes. The streets were still empty, lit up only by the old-fashioned streetlamps lining the sidewalks. On each side of the street was a line of old houses. The houses butted up right against the sidewalk. Most houses had a locked door leading into their private gardens. The only breaks between the houses were old churches and crowded cemeteries. I hadn’t heard either set of footsteps turn the corner behind me yet. I saw a fence up ahead. It was a tall wrought-iron fence with spikes on the top. It must have been about nine feet high. I took two steps toward it and jumped. As I jumped I reached up and grabbed one of the spikes. I planted my right foot in between the two bars and pushed myself over the top. The left cuff of my jeans got caught on the spike for a moment, sending me spiraling down to the ground. I landed hard on my back. For a second, I couldn’t breathe. The wind had been completely knocked out of me. Then my chest opened up and I inhaled, letting the cool night air fill my lungs. I had to remind myself that they were still behind me.
I quickly rolled over onto my stomach so that I could look through the metal bars in the fence and listen. I couldn’t hear any footsteps. It was quiet. For a second, I was worried that they’d gone back to look for you. Then I spotted one of them. He was walking down the street, visually searching the alleyways. He wasn’t holding a gun. Instead, he had a knife with a serrated three-inch blade in his hand. It was some sort of hunting knife. I looked around me to see if I could find a better hiding place.
That’s when I realized that I was in a tiny cemetery. I had leapt the fence they’d erected to keep out tourists and ghost tours. There was a grave only a few feet from me with a large headstone facing the street. It would make for perfect cover. I looked at the man with the knife. I waited for him to look away from me and then crawled quickly behind the headstone. I got as close to the headstone as I could and ducked down. I could feel the cold granite on my skin. I looked down at the carving on the headstone. It was too dark to read. I could have been sitting on anyone’s grave. Then I peeked over the headstone again toward the street. The man with the knife was still there, still looking for me. It looked like he was going to give up. He turned around. I thought he was going to go back toward you. I wondered for a second how you were doing, how much progress you had made, how our son was doing. Even more than you or me, I knew that it was going to take a miracle for our son to survive the night. Maybe if you moved slowly and stayed calm, he would be okay. Maybe if I could keep them at bay for a few hours, everything that we’d put ourselves through wouldn’t be wasted. I was just hoping for a miracle.
Then I heard footsteps again coming down the street toward the man with the knife. I looked at him. He heard the footsteps too. He looked up toward them. His face changed. His eyes widened. He was suddenly afraid. He turned and ran. He ran fast, even faster than he’d been running when he was chasing me. If he’d run that fast when he was chasing me, he would have caught me. Only a moment later, I saw another man run by. He had a gun in his hand. It looked like he was chasing the first man, but that didn’t make any sense. Nothing made sense. I watched the second man run by and tried to understand what was going on. My thoughts were interrupted by another sound, a new sound. It was the sound of shaking metal and it was coming from behind me. I looked back across the cemetery, past the hundred-year-old headstones. Someone was climbing the fence on the other side of the cemetery. The headstone that gave me such great coverage in one direction left me completely visible in the other. I hadn’t even bothered to check behind me. They’d seen me. They were climbing the fence, coming for me.
I looked at the fence, shaking as one man pulled himself up toward the spikes. Another man was trying to help him up, pushing his feet up toward the top of the fence. I could see a gun in the hand of the one nearing the top of the fence. I couldn’t tell if the other one was armed. I was sure that he was, though he didn’t have his weapon handy. I could try to climb the fence on this side of the cemetery again, but without the running start, it would be a strenuous and clumsy climb. I didn’t have time for it. The man with the gun would be able to pick me off the fence with one shot, as easily as if he were shooting a tin can off a fence post. I needed a running start. So I ran. I ran straight toward the fence the two men were climbing over. I saw the man on the bottom look up at me. The expression on his face was utter shock. That’s what I was counting on, shock and chaos. I ran right over the graves in the cemetery, dodging a headstone or two. The cemetery was only one block long, so in seconds I was only a few feet from the fence the men were climbing. The man with the gun had reached the top of the fence before he even noticed that I was headed for him. He was standing on the top of the fence, about to jump down to the ground. I leapt, planting a foot between two bars, just as I had done getting over the fence last time. This time I didn’t grab one of the spikes. Instead, I grabbed the man with the gun. I reached up and grabbed his knee, pulling myself up into the air. As I pulled myself up, I pulled the man with the gun down. He fell quickly. His leg kicked out as I pulled it and his body tumbled down. The back of his thigh hit the top of one the spikes. I heard the sound of the spike puncturing his skin and the cracking of bone. Then I was over the fence. I landed on my feet this time. I didn’t look at the man I’d just impaled on the fence. I didn’t look at his companion either. I just turned to my right and ran again as fast as I could.
Now I knew that there had been at least five of them. I had seen five. Two of those five were out of commission now. The man by the side of the road was as good as dead and the man on the fence, even if he survived, wasn’t going to be chasing anyone else tonight. I was trying, Maria. I wanted to call out to you. I wanted to tell you to just keep moving. But I hoped that you couldn’t hear me, that you were too far away.
I tried to figure out how much time had passed. Twenty minutes? A half an hour? Longer? I didn’t know how long I’d lain there in the cemetery. I looked up at the sky. It was still pitch black. I turned another corner to see if I could catch my breath. I found a shadowy indentation in between two of the houses and stepped into it. It didn’t give me complete cover, but it would have to do for now. I tried to slow my breathing down. Then I saw another one. He was walking down the other end of the street. He had on a black pair of jeans and a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head. He had a gun in his hand. I tried to remember if he was one of the men I’d seen before, but I didn’t think he was. That meant there had been at least six of them and there were at least four left. Six. Why would they send six people after me? It didn’t make sense.
I stayed quiet and watched the man as he walked by, hoping he wouldn’t notice me. As long as he didn’t turn down the street toward me, I thought I’d be okay. He walked by and disappeared around the corner. I had seen six people. I told myself that there couldn’t be any more than that. If I was right, then all the able-bodied ones were down here with me. If I was right, then maybe you were safe.
I listened. The night was quiet again. I stepped out of the shadows and began to walk slowly down the street. I tried to walk quietly, hoping that I would hear anyone before they saw me. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I couldn’t keep running all night. I didn’t have the stamina for that. I began to wonder if I should go out looking for them, if I should start hunting them. I didn’t have to wonder for very long. It wasn’t that easy to simply become the hunter when you were the hunted.
I was lucky that I saw this one seconds before he saw me. He turned down the street I was standing on and started walking toward me. I had just enough time to duck back into the shadows of a doorway before he looked in my direction. He started walking closer to me. If he got too close, I was a dead man. There was no place to hide on the street. I thought about running but if I did, I’d run directly toward the others. I was trapped.
I reached behind me in the doorway I was standing in and grabbed the doorknob. I began to twist it. Mercifully, the door was unlocked. I opened it a crack and slipped inside the house. It was dark and calm inside. Even through the darkness, I could see the kitchen and the living room from where I was standing. Toys were strewn about the living room floor. I stepped forward, walking deeper into the house. I was still looking for a place to hide. There was a coat closet in the living room. I opened the closet door and stepped inside. Instead of closing the door behind me, I left it open a crack so I could see out. My heart was pounding in my chest. Waiting was almost more strenuous than the running. I could see the front door through the crack I’d left in the closet door. Slowly, it began to open. The darkness outside the door matched the darkness of the house. The man who was chasing me stepped quietly inside. He held the gun in his right hand up near his ear so that he could aim it quickly if he needed to. He did a quick visual scan of the rooms. I looked around to see if there was anything that I could use for a weapon, like a bat or a frying pan, anything. There was nothing. Then I noticed a light switch only a couple feet from the closet door. It was my only chance.
The man stepped farther into the house. He tried to walk without making any noise. He looked like he was going to walk right past me toward the kitchen. I didn’t believe it, not for a second. He was only a few feet from me now. I could see his face. It looked pale in the darkness. I knew that he knew where I was. I knew that he was bluffing. I looked at him. I committed his position to memory, where he was standing, how he was standing. Then I reached outside the closet. I ran my hand along the wall until I reached the light switch. Then I flipped on the light. In a flash, the room was bright. I had counted on the brightness. The pale man tried to aim his gun at me but his eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the light. He was virtually blind. I couldn’t see anything but flashes of color, either, but I didn’t need to. I stepped out of the closet, lifted up my right foot, and stomped down into where I remembered the side of the man’s knee to be. I felt his knee buckle instantly and he fell to the ground. As he fell, he squeezed out one shot from his gun. I heard glass shatter as the bullet went through the kitchen window. Then, lights at the top of the stairs came on. I heard screaming. My eyes finally began to adjust to the light. I looked up toward the screaming. A woman was standing there in a nightgown. She was holding on to the railing at the top of the stairs and screaming at the top of her lungs.
I ran again. I began to feel like nothing more than a walking disaster, running from place to place, wreaking havoc everywhere I went. I began to feel like this night was a metaphor for my entire life. I ran out the front door. I ran from the woman screaming at the top of the stairs. I ran from the now crippled man with the gun. There was too much commotion this time. The others would hear it. All of them sneaking around in the darkness would be drawn to this one spot. I had to get away. I made it out to the street and started to run south again. The sky was beginning to change color. It was a dark purple when I stepped out of the house. Dawn was coming. I made it two blocks before one of them was chasing me again. He was running toward the house as I was running away from it, but when he saw me, he changed direction and started coming for me. I recognized this one. It was the second man at the cemetery fence. I wondered if he’d left his colleague behind like they’d left the man behind on the side of the road. My legs were heavy now. I’d been running for a long time. I couldn’t run for much longer.
It didn’t matter. There wasn’t much more room to run. There’s a park at the southeast corner of Charleston with oak trees and a small gazebo. Closer to the water there are old cannons and a large Civil War commemorative statue. After that, there’s the water. By the time I got to the water, by the time I had run out of anywhere to run, I was exhausted.
The man chasing me had closed the gap between us until he was no more than ten yards behind me. When I got near the edge of the water, I turned to face him. I didn’t recognize him. He didn’t look like anyone I remembered. He didn’t look like anyone I’d killed. I could have asked why he was chasing me. I could have asked him why he was willing to risk so much to kill me. I had asked that kid in Ohio. Now I was too tired to care.
The sky around me was turning from a dark purple to deep red. Soon the sun would come up behind me. The man lifted his gun and aimed it at me. I wondered if I’d bought you enough time. I wondered if our son was hanging on. I imagined you getting on a bus alone and riding west. I imagined you getting off the bus with no one chasing you. It made me happy to think about you getting away, but it made me sad to think that you’d be alone. It made me sad to think that, if our son survived, I was never going to get to meet him. What I would have given at that moment for even one day with our son. I looked up and stared into the barrel of my killer’s gun. I remembered the last time I’d been this close to death, floating in the water off Long Beach Island. I remembered the pure instinctive drive to live that I had felt then, even though I couldn’t think of one reason why I wanted to live so badly. Now, not only did I know that I wanted to live, but I knew why. Our son made the prospect of dying so much worse.
I didn’t say a word to my killer. What was there to say? He didn’t say a word to me. I just heard the gun fire and I felt nothing. Then I heard it fire again. And then again. I still felt nothing but the breeze blowing by me from the water. I opened my eyes. The bullets weren’t meant for me. The first two shots struck my killer in his chest. The third hit him in the head. I opened my eyes to see my killer still standing there, blood dripping from his fresh wounds. His gun slipped from his hand. We made eye contact for only a moment before he fell to the ground. He didn’t look scared, just confused. He didn’t know why this was happening any more than I did. I looked around me. I couldn’t figure out where the shots had come from. I didn’t see anyone. For some reason, I had been spared when so many people had already died around me. For some reason, knowing why didn’t seem to matter much to me at that moment.
I started running again, refreshed, revived. For the last time that night, I ran. It was a good seven miles to the bus station now but I knew I’d make it. I had been given another chance.
You were at the bus station when I got there. You were hiding in the corner, trying not to be seen. Two buses had left already but you had refused to get on them, waiting for me, holding out whatever slim hope you had that I would make it. Somehow I did. I didn’t tell you what had happened. How could I tell you when I didn’t know myself?
The next bus was headed to Nashville. We got on it.
007
You slept almost the entire bus ride. I asked you how you were feeling. You told me that you hadn’t had any cramping and only a little bleeding. Then you told me that during your walk to the bus station, you felt our son moving for the first time.
I couldn’t have gotten more than two hours’ worth of sleep during the bus ride. Every time the bus stopped, I found myself eyeing each person who got on. I was sure that one of them was going to turn on us. They never did.
We didn’t stay in Nashville for any longer than we had to. As soon as we got there, we bought another car. I found us an old beat-up Chevy for three hundred dollars cash. The guy who sold it to us promised me that the engine was in good condition. We didn’t have time to haggle. I figured we’d drive it as far as it would take us and settle down wherever it finally died.
This time we’d go west. I wasn’t going to stop driving until I physically had to. You had already been through too much for someone in your condition. It was time for you to rest.