‘Here, kitty, kitty.’
Her heart stopped. He was behind her. He was gaining on her. Her head darted around. Where the hell was he? She dropped to her hands and knees, crawling into the stalks. She felt a searing pain shoot up her leg, the one with the glass in it. She reached down and felt the open flap of skin on her heel, the warmth of her own blood as it ran out through her fingers. The cane stalks were razor sharp. She bit into her hand and tried to shake off the pain. The bad thoughts returned. The faces of her family reappeared.
At least this way the police will know I was here. They’ll see all the blood and test it and know I was here. I won’t have just disappeared. No one will think I left town, that I ran away from Ginger …
But even as she thought it, she knew it was ridiculous. She could completely bleed out in this field and no one would ever know she’d been here, crawling in the dark, trying to hide from her killers. The rain would wash it all away. The workers who tended these fields would step on her grave and, if the Crazies didn’t leave her body where they killed her, no one would ever know. And if they didn’t kill her here, if they dragged her away to that place to do all the horrible things they had promised to do to her, there would be nothing left in this spot to find at all. Or they could leave her here, chopped into bits and pieces and sprinkled all over, like seasoning, knowing that these fields would soon be incinerated. After the inferno there would be nothing left to find but ash. If the migrants ever did stumble on what remained of her, and if crime scene people like the ones in CSI could actually identify ash and bone fragments, then maybe, just maybe, some detective might try and come out here one day and piece together her final moments. He might try to figure out exactly what had happened here. She bit harder into her hand. But that was impossible. Because no one could ever imagine the moment she was in right now. The horror of it was unimaginable.
‘You know why the dog chases the cat?’
He was feet away. She could hear him even over the screaming of the cane stalks. He knew she could hear him, too – he was yelling, but his swampy Southern voice was calm.
Was she crawling toward him or away from him?
‘’Cause it runs. If the cat don’t run, then the dog don’t chase. The cat and dog – they can be friends, darlin’. But if that cat, well, if she runs …’ His voice trailed off. ‘See, all you gonna do, darlin’, is piss off the fucking dog – get him all tired and shit. So come on out, kitty, before you piss me off. It’s just gonna hurt more, bitch.’
The light sliced through the stalks – up, down, over, across. She stopped crawling and tucked herself into a tight, tight ball.
‘Maybe that cat’s hiding right now. Praying for morning and some Hondurans to come save her.’
The light crossed over to the row directly across from her. She cast her eyes to the ground, so the light wouldn’t catch on the whites of her eyes. In her fist she clenched the stalk.
‘That would be fool thinking.’
His work boots squished in the mud.
‘Dogs have a great sense of smell. There ain’t nowhere that cat can hide, ’cause that dog can smell pussy. Oh yeah. And when that dog finds her, well, he’s gonna tear her limb from limb for making him work so hard.’ He started to chuckle. It bloomed into a frenzied, maniacal laugh.
She put her hands over her ears.
‘You seen her yet?’ It was another voice. It was the second Crazy, speaking over a walkie-talkie.
‘Not yet, brother,’ replied the swamp voice. ‘But this here’s the fun part. This is when we get to find her and teach her why it wasn’t a smart move to leave us none. Whoo-wee, we’re gonna have us a good time!’
She covered her mouth so he wouldn’t see her breath. A loud rumble of thunder sounded.
‘Go over by the tractor,’ said the swamp voice into the walkie-talkie. ‘Make sure she don’t get past that and onto the road. We’re fucked if we lose her to the road.’
Another rumble. She looked up at the sky. Please, please, please – no lightning. It’ll light up this field like the second coming of Christ …
The swamp-voiced Crazy sniffed at the air. ‘But I’m telling ya, I don’t think she’s got that far, ’cause there’s pussy around here somewhere.’
Hot tears ran down her filthy face. There were so many things left to do in life. So many times she’d wished she could start over, because she’d screwed up so many times. Always the big disappointment.
‘Dino trackers still find dino footprints, stuck there in mud. Miiillllions of years old …’
She rocked back and forth, her body tucked into a tight ball, her hands over her ears. Every day she’d tell herself she’d turn her life around – tomorrow. Tomorrow always came and went. Now she knew she would do it. For Ginger, who deserved a better momma. For her own mom, who worried so much about the way she lived her life. If she ever saw another tomorrow …
The light was right in front of her, now, inches from her foot, sporadically slicing through the stalks like the beams of a searchlight would dissect the night sky at the club where she danced. ‘How long you think a footprint stays ’round, darlin’, before rain runs it off?’ It slithered off into the cane, brushing her jeans. The work boots plodded away. Squish. Squish. Squish.
Then he turned, ran back real quick, dropped to his knees, and stuck the flashlight in her face. ‘Hey there bitch!’ he cooed. ‘I got her!’ he yelled out triumphantly.
Not yet. There was still tomorrow. She threw a fistful of mud and rock at his face and stuck the cane into his eyes. When he yelped in surprise, she leapt up and kicked him in the face as hard as she could. She wished she were wearing her boots. Those would’ve taken out a few teeth. Then she could stomp on his ugly cracker head with her stilettos and pop those bloodshot, lecherous eyes. But they’d taken her boots.
He fell to the ground and she kicked him in the face two more times before bolting into the stalks.
‘Bitch!’ he howled.
The clearing was up ahead, she could feel it. The pine was strong. There was still hope. And then, like a miracle, lightning lit the sky, illuminating the path that had been cut through the cane stalks. Jesus had turned on the lights at the right moment and showed her the way out.
‘She’s on the run!’ she heard the swamp-voiced Crazy scream. ‘Fuck me, motherfucker, she stuck me! I can’t see nothing! You better get the car! Don’t let her get into town!’
Faith Saunders felt her eyelids start to slip closed and she slapped herself hard across the cheek. Then she lowered the SUV’s window and stuck her face out into the rain. She had to stay awake. She had to. It was midnight and she still had a ways to go. Stopping was not an option. Not out here. There was no place to stop.
She dried her face with the beach towel she’d found in the back of the Explorer before wiping the fog from the inside of the windshield. On top of all that had gone wrong tonight – and there was plenty – the AC and defroster had stopped working, thanks to the humungous puddle, a.k.a. lake, she hadn’t seen when she tore out of her sister’s development back in Sebring. She sat up straight, stretched her back and leaned on the steering wheel, trying to concentrate through the exhaustion and pounding headache that had been building behind her eyes. Outside it looked the same as it had since she’d left Charity’s – wet and flat and black. Endlessly black. It had been at least a half-hour since she’d seen another car