Thirty-Three

Mary grabbed Samantha’s hand and pulled her blindly across a scrub-filled parking lot, through a boggy, bad-smelling creek, then surprisingly, into pine trees. They pushed their way through soft branches as they ran uphill, their fingers growing sticky with sap as they slipped on the dead needles from the previous fall. Despite the hard going, Mary wanted to weep with relief. Woods she knew. Though she had no weapon and no real clue as to where they were in North Carolina or North Dakota, trees were trees and would, for her, level the playing field a bit.

Samantha felt less at home. “Can we stop just a minute?” She gasped. “I can’t catch my breath.”

“Okay,” said Mary. “But for not long. We need to keep moving.” She squinted into the darkness and made out a tall hemlock, its branches draping graceful as a skirt. “Come on.”

They ducked under the leafy tent the tree offered. While Samantha crouched down and gulped deep breaths of air, Mary turned and looked back down the hill. They’d put about a hundred yards between themselves and the motel. The back door that they’d just unlocked remained open, spilling a rectangle of pale light on to the ground. In that puddle of light stood the white-suited man she’d seen in her room and two other men who were dressed in black. The two strangers cradled what looked like assault weapons, while the tall man held a single pistol the size of hand cannon. They conferred among themselves, their voices strident as they pointed into the woods. For one awful minute the Russian seemed to look directly at her, then he turned back to the men. From their sweeping gestures, Mary guessed they were probably getting ready to spread out like a grouse hunt, the assault rifles flanking the hand cannon, firing bursts to drive the two of them into his range.

“We need to get moving, Sam,” she told the girl. “They’re fanning out, to come after us.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

Mary parted the hemlock branches so Sam could crawl out, then they went on, scrambling up the hill as quietly as they could. Mary figured the going would be easier at the top of the ridge; if they could get up there before the men caught up with them, they could circle around the motel and start looking for whatever road that led to this place. Once they found that, they could follow it back to some sort of civilization. For a while the idea buoyed her, then she glanced at the young girl beside her. Already Sam was breathing heavily again, struggling to keep up.

“I’m sorry,” she wheezed when they were just yards away from the crest of the ridge. “But I need to stop again. My legs just feel so weak.”

“Just for a minute,” said Mary. “Sit down and I’ll keep watch.”

While Sam caught her breath, Mary turned to peer down the hillside. She thought she would have heard bursts of gunfire by now, but the woods had remained silent. Closing her eyes, she opened all her senses to the forest, but still she heard nothing. This is not good, she thought. Everybody makes some kind of noise in the woods.

She turned back to Sam. Her chest was heaving as she sucked in air. Mary frowned, puzzled. The girl was young, looked healthy. Why would climbing up a ridge turn her into an old woman? Because she’s been locked in a crappy room for two months, she answered her own question. That old motel wasn’t exactly a health spa. She knelt down, touched the girl’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said before Mary could speak. “I know I’m holding you back. I just can’t get my breath.”

“Then let’s try a new plan.”

“What?” the girl asked.

“I’m going to hide you.”

Sam looked at her as if she’d gone crazy.

“I’m going to lead them away from you and get help.”

“There’s nowhere to hide. Just forget about me and get out of here yourself.”

“No—it’s an old bird trick,” Mary whispered. “Lead the predator away from the nest.” She smiled. “From now on, just pretend you’re my little chick.”

Before Sam could say anything else, Mary turned and started back down the ridge. She knew their hunters would head for the ridge top, just as she had. If she could find some kind of hiding place for Sam below them, then the girl would probably be safe, at least for a while. She saw what she thought was a fallen log big enough for Sam to hide beneath when a flash of bright light illuminated the woods a hundred yards to her right. The first loud clatter of gunfire followed, then tree limbs cracked and crashed to the forest floor. Above her, Sam cried out.

Mary raced back to her charge. She needed to get her quiet, fast. She found the girl crouched on the ground, her eyes huge. “I didn’t mean to yell,” she whispered. “It just scared me.”

“Don’t worry,” Mary replied, grabbing her arm. “Come on!”

She pulled the girl down the hill, toward the log. As more gunfire sounded from the left, Mary wedged her under the downside of the log, invisible to anyone searching from above. For extra cover, she started quietly piling leaves and pine branches over her.

“Listen to me, Sam,” Mary whispered as she worked. “You’ve got to promise to ignore whatever happens—gunshots, screaming, people saying they’ll kill me if you don’t come out. Don’t move, don’t cry, and don’t make a sound—somebody will come and help you. It may take a while, but somebody will come. Can you do that?”

The girl nodded.

“Okay. You’ll probably hear gunfire from sides of this hill; the guy in the white suit may come up the middle. It’ll be scary as hell, but if you do as I say, you’ll be okay.”

Sam nodded again, then whispered. “If they catch me, can I use my shard of glass on them?”

“You can use it on anybody but yourself,” Mary replied. She threw a couple more branches to hide Sam’s blond hair, then she made note of a tall sycamore tree that stood about a hundred feet from Sam’s log. That will be my landmark, she decided as she moved off through the trees. If they don’t bring in dogs, if Sam can keep a tight lock on her terror, then we might have a chance.

If any part of her fragile little plan fell through, it would all be over. She and Sam would become just the two latest victims of Highway 74.