Donna wonders whether they take her for some kind of prissy church-mouse school-marm Mid-West mom. Then she reminds herself that that, after all, has been her entire plan, her way of coping with, that is to say, avoiding, life. But it doesn’t take long for her reptile self to reengage. First time, the dude with the Badgers hat and the sexy redhead were neighbors, civilians, just a couple on their way home. Second time, they were what the cops would call people of interest. This is the fourth time Donna has spotted them, and she was never even a lookout when she ran with her bikers, she was a diversion, a moving violation in a skirt up to there and a top down to here, get you an eyeful while my boyfriend raids the till. Are they amateurs? The guy looks like he knows what he’s doing. There’s something evasive about him, as if he knows to keep his face out of the light. But the redhead in the kitten-heel boots and the ribbon of skirt, apart from the obvious, what is she for?
Oh, stop it. They could be here for myriad reasons. They could be a young couple out for a leisurely Halloween walk who want to remind themselves of the joys of trick or treating, this being the only neighborhood in which such a thing is possible. Maybe she’s pregnant, and they’re here to envision the future. Maybe they’re pedophiles, sizing up prey. There’s an innocent explanation for everything.
‘I think we’re done, girls,’ Donna says, tamping her voice down a panic tone or two.
‘There’s a few more houses over there,’ Irene says hopefully, looking towards a section of the estate they’ve not been through.
Donna glances at their bulging tote bags. ‘Yeah, but where would you put the stuff they give you? No more room in those sacks.’
‘You could put it in your pockets,’ Barbara says. ‘Since you’re not doing anything else.’
‘I’ll put you in my pockets. Pumpkin time, princesses.’
‘Are we taking the scenic route again?’ Barbara says.
‘Mud is the new sand.’
‘It’s kind of dark down there,’ Irene says.
‘Well,’ Donna says, ‘that’s what you’ve got those bats for.’
Donna looks behind her several times as they cut down the lane between two houses and down the wooden steps and set out along the path, but she sees no one – no sexy redhead, no guy in a Badgers hat, no zombies, no werewolves. In truth, the walk is quite well illuminated from the houses perched forty or fifty feet above it and from the faint but resilient moon. It is muddy, though: the water level has been high and has seeped through into the path; the trees resound to the mulch and slap of their duck paddle steps and Donna feels the splashes on her cheeks and brow. If only she had a mask herself, she thinks, and not for the first time.
One side is banked high and steep with mud and scrub. Lakeside there are stands of trees and occasional clearings with picnic tables and moorings for small boats. After about half a mile, the path follows the lake away from Ripley Fields and the slope gets a little less precipitous and more trees appear to their right. It’s darker now, without the houses, but they are only minutes from Donna’s house. The girls aren’t minding the dark so much. They are excited and full of plans.
‘If we get two tubs. Do you have two tubs, Aunt Donna?’ Irene says.
‘Tubs. What do you mean, tubs? Like, bowls?’ Barbara says.
‘They’d have to be big bowls, for all this. No, tubs, like you’d put plants in.’
‘They’d be covered in mud. We don’t want tubs.’
‘Basins. I have a couple plastic basins.’
‘That’s what we need. And we can put our stuff in them, separately. And see what we’ve got.’
Barbara always lags behind, and Irene always skips ahead, and that’s how Donna sees Irene stopped, thirty feet in front, a figure approaching her: the redhead from Ripley Fields.
‘Irene,’ she yells, scanning the trees on her right for the guy in the Badgers hat. She spins around to see Barbara halted, staring, then spins back.
The redhead reaches for Irene and it looks like she’s got some kind of cloth in one hand to muffle or gag or subdue her, and the Glock, which has been out of the clutch since they started down the walk anyway, is in Donna’s hand and her hand is pointing at the redhead.
‘Leave her alone,’ Donna says.
And as she speaks, she catches the guy on her right, the guy in the Badgers hat, moving slowly through the trees, heading past her towards Barbara. She sways, trying to cover him too.
‘Get away from her,’ she says, and she can see something glint out of the corner of her right eye, but this motherfucking redheaded bitch has some kind of rag or gag over Irene’s face, trying to chloroform her? She should shoot the guy she thinks has the gun, but she gets things in the wrong order because she is so incensed and shoots the redhead instead, in the middle of her face, and then she nearly has enough time to shoot the guy as well; she wheels around and he is staring at the redhead where she dropped like he can’t believe what just happened, and Irene is screaming, she’s kind of being dragged down by the weight of the dead woman. Donna pivots and brings the Glock up and squeezes the trigger and feels like she’s running in a dream and thinks if I don’t hit this guy God knows what will happen to the girls and sees a firework’s trail across the sky illuminate the leaves on the surrounding trees and these are the last things she will ever feel and think and see.