The first lamp had burned out some time ago, the flame pulling back and then gone. Angie’d slapped around the pine plank to find the box of kitchen matches, struck a match against the side of the box, and lit the next wick in line. The air was so still there was no need for glass chimneys, so she left them off to make things easier when the time came, the torch and jar of oil still sitting right there waiting.
Her thin black skirt was spread over the dirt floor like a beach towel and she sat on it with her legs hugged to her chest, her chin rested on her knees. Her skin was covered with goosebumps and she was shivering cold, having stripped down to her underwear so that she’d be ready to run. She wouldn’t take the chance of getting tangled up again, tripping and falling because of her own stupid clothes.
All her life she’d been fast. She’d never had a long stride, but that hadn’t stopped her from embarrassing every boy in her class at a footrace all the way up into high school. There was something about that place her mind went after the first mile or two, how thoughts gave way to an empty space governed solely by body and breath. She could run for days through these mountains, and as soon as she had her chance, she would.
Suddenly a sound at the door stole her breath. Her eyes opened terrified and she listened with an instinct-driven alertness because she wasn’t sure if she’d really heard a noise or was starting to lose her mind. There was a heavy bang outside the door like metal breaking free and she jumped to her feet, snatching up the torch she’d made and lighting the end from the oil lamp’s flame into a tall fire that whipped about the rafters and filled the room in amber light.
Her hands were shaking when she grabbed the Ball jar she’d filled with lamp oil, and the oil spilled over the rim and greased her fingers. The door started to open and the light outside was blindingly white. Dwayne Brewer manifested out of sunlight as her eyes adjusted to the brightness. Rushing forward, hissing through her teeth, she saw this look of absolute confusion spread over his face as she threw the oil onto him like she was pitching a cup of water into the yard. The lamp oil splashed his chest and soaked his shirt and Angie jabbed the torch at his stomach trying to light him on fire.
There was too much distance between them. Dwayne drove into the room, loping furiously forward. The smell of fuel drenched him like cologne and Angie swung the torch back and forth frenziedly, finally flinging the fire in a last-ditch effort before he reached her. The flames caught the top of his jeans and the fire roared up his chest and arm. He was engulfed, whirling his arm in violent circles and wrestling his shirt over his head. Angie shot for the opened doorway and he traced her arm as she passed. Tearing outside, she ran as fast as her legs would take her.
The air was unseasonably warm and birdsong filled the leafless trees. She glanced around, flustered, not recognizing where she was or having any idea which direction to go. Hillsides rose steeply to each side with outcrops of stone mounting jagged from dark soil, moss and bracken breaking the gray-brown deadness with evergreen. Trees towered high overhead and crosshatched a cloudless sky. There was no obvious trail to discern. Everything looked the same. She ran straight ahead with thin vines snaring her arms and legs like jute twine, briars clawing deep into her skin as she searched for an opening but found none.
Up ahead, she heard water and soon she was upon it, plodding downstream using the creek bed for her path. The stream was shockingly cold and the free stone bottom shifted beneath her steps. Her right ankle rolled hard and a bolt of pain fired up her leg. The water was so clear that judging the depth of her next step became impossible. She plunged into a pool where current wrapped her knees, then stumbled forward, bashing her legs on the rocks. Angie could hear something coming fast behind her, but she didn’t look back. She picked herself up and kept going forward, stumbling now, her shins and knees hot with pain. The banks steepened at the sides into a deep gulley and soon the creek was loud. Water poured over a staircase of blackened boulders slick as glass. There was no way into the valley from here.
Dirt crumbled under her feet as she tried to scale the bank and seized a handful of long-stemmed ferns, trying to claw herself out of the bottom, but their thin roots pulled free. Slipping onto her stomach, she fought with everything in her power to get up the side of that bank, but the land was too steep and the dirt was too soft and there was nothing to grab on to, and that fast he had her. She felt hands clamp on to her ankles like bear traps, and as she looked over her shoulder there he was, Dwayne Brewer shirtless and crazed with burns spread red over his chest, arms, and neck like rash.
He yanked Angie down the bank and scrambled over her body, straddling her chest as she felt something slam into the side of her head like a meteor. Her vision flashed silver and returned in a stupefied blur. Her legs were covered with dirt and the air smelled of loam and moss and it filled her nose with a jarring sort of sweetness when the next blow came. Her head felt empty and she went out for a moment, all of her movements sluggish so that the next fist came without any resistance at all, hammering into her cheekbone. A firework flash of color filled her eyes, ears ringing, a split second of hot-white pain followed by absolute darkness.