She peeked through the gaps, looking for people outside, but didn’t see anyone. Next to the outside wall was a long, upright pole about two inches in diameter that extended from the ground, beyond the roof eaves to an ancient television antenna, and all of it held to the wall by small, one-inch wide aluminum straps screwed into the wood. Fifty yards from the house she made out brush and trees lining a small river that meandered off to her right as far as she could see. Across the stream on the far bank was the big park she’d seen before, with the baseball fields. She didn’t see any houses beyond that, only grass and brush, like down by the river. If they could make it to there, they could hide.
She took off the louvered cover, which let in a good bit of light from streetlights. She walked to Anita and pointed at the rectangle of light, “Come on, we can get out that way.”
Anita came beside her and peeked outside “Where are we going? Oh my gosh, we’re high. How can we get down?”
Kelly put her fingers to the child’s lips, “I’ll show you.”.
She eased her head out of the opening and looked every direction, but saw no others. The antenna pole was an easy reach, and she grasped it with her right hand, shaking it to see how attached it was. The pole seemed solid.
Pulling her head inside, she said to Anita, “Can you get to this pole and climb down?”
Anita looked, first at the pole then down at the ground. “It’s too high, Kelly.”
Someone moved in the house below them. Kelly’s heart beat faster.
She hurried out the opening and held to the pole, with her feet spread on either side and braced against the house wall. “Come on out. I’ll help you.”
Anita looked at the ground, then at Kelly and shook her head no.
Kelly’s nerves were stretched, and she said, as calm as could be, “It’ll be fun, like going down a slide. I won’t let you fall.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Anita came out the opening and Kelly guided her feet and body so she sat in her lap, with both of them facing the antenna pole and their feet braced against the house wall.
Voices reached their ears, voices coming from around the edge of the house.
Kelly put her fear aside and said to Anita, “Here we go, and quiet as mice.” Kelly walked down the side of the house, using her hands on the pole and her feet on either side against the house’s wall, moving them six inches at a time, and slow. It seemed to take an hour, but at last Kelly touched the ground with a foot. Her heart thumped so hard that her shirt moved with every beat.
From around the corner of the house, Nadine said, “We don’t find them, Suretta’s gonna shoot us. Let’s do the search again, and starting in the house.”
Kelly put Anita on the ground as she felt sweat on her forehead and a trembling in her arms and legs, then she moved beside her. “Ready to go?”
Anita nodded. They crouched and hurried toward the brush line by the river.
They made it twenty-five yards when Nadine yelled, “I see ‘em. They’re running for the river!”
Kelly grabbed Anita’s hand and both ran as hard as they could.
A hard bam sounded and Kelly realized Nadine had shot at them. No, at her. Pulling Anita to the right, she headed for a curve in the river where it narrowed to only a few feet wide, and where brush grew thick.
They entered the thick brush and pushed through some of it as they went in a weaving path to go around the others. Some places were so dense that the two girls crawled on their hands and knees to get beyond the worst of it.
Behind them Nadine and the others stumbled and cursed, and when someone spotted Kelly, they fired. The sound of bullets hitting limbs and branches scared the two girls every time, but they continued on, with Anita breathing hard but keeping up.
Kelly didn’t stop at the water, but instead picked up Anita and carried her as they eased into the stream. Kelly put one foot forward, then the other. The water became deeper, and Anita’s eyes grew wide, but she clung to her friend. Near the far bank the streambed made a small dip and Kelly and Anita went into it up to their necks, with the older girl holding the younger one up higher because of it. The water wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t clear, either, and Kelly wondered what was in it,
swirling and swimming around her legs.
A small limb touched her ankle underwater and she jerked, almost dropping Anita into the water. Anita clung to her, saying, “If I fall in, come save me?”
“I will.”
Brush cracked behind them, and Nadine’s angry voice yelled, “You bitches better come back here!”
Other brush made sounds, and Kelly realized there were three out there, two others with Nadine, and all of them hunting two children.