I thought he was going to hoot with admiration.
He didn’t.
“I read that book about it, and I thought, this…now, this guy is the guy.”
He said nothing more.
Not finishing with, to beat.
Or, to match wits with.
Not throwing his head back and unleashing a maniacal laugh.
Not anything.
Just this guy is the guy.
That was it.
It was just a game.
It was just a senseless, foul, despicable may the best man win.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
I didn’t know what to ask next.
But even if I did, he was done with me.
I knew when he looked at his watch and murmured, “I gotta go get Shelly.”
Then he reached in his pocket and took out a penknife.
My mind raced, mostly with the sudden and gripping fight to stay present.
To stay there.
Not to retreat.
Not to check out.
Not to become invisible.
Which would only make me stop existing.
Literally.
But like I had before in times of extreme stress, I felt it happening.
So I focused.
I focused with everything that was in me.
My hands and ankles were tied.
We were in the middle of a forest with nothing around us.
The day was waning.
It was getting cold, the mist was…
The mist!
He opened his army knife and looked at me.
“So, this is the thing. I’m gonna be cool and give you two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds. That’s what you got.”
He yanked the strap of the shotgun off his shoulder, held it by its forearm, pumped it one handed and concluded.
“Then, I come hunting.”
And with that, he cut the rope at my ankles, cut the one on my wrists, I was already poised for flight, and I flew.
I had no idea, but probably at least sixty of those seconds, I just ran as fast as I could.
But then I remembered.
There was mist.
The air was cold.
The ground was also cold, it was January.
But the lake was hot.
Wherever we were, with that mist, I knew we were close to the lake.
If I could get to the edge of the lake, I could follow it.
Follow it home.
So I ran into the mist.
And I kept running.
I wished I did not slide.
I wished I did not fall.
But I slid, repeatedly.
I also did a slipping fall down an incline, slamming into my hip and descending into the fog, falling so far, I thought I’d hit lake in the end.
I slammed into some rock, my ankles buckled, and I fell to my knees.
I felt nothing.
I just surged up and kept running.
The problem with the mist was, you couldn’t see anything. I had visibility maybe five, six feet in front of me, then it was obscured.
I didn’t know if I was running to the lake, from the lake, beside the lake, deeper into the forest.
I didn’t pause to ponder direction.
I just ran.
I hit an incline and had to climb up. It was steep. I skidded down some loose gravel and found it difficult to get a foothold to keep climbing. It seemed to take a year before I caught an outcrop with the sole of my boot, and heaved myself up, scrabbling on hands and toes.
I made it to surer footing, took my feet and kept running.
I was out of breath. A hitch was slicing through my side.
And I heard, “For an old bitch, you got a great ass!”
“Oh God,” I whispered, pushing onward.
But he ran like the wind, and I was making a lot of noise and…
I slammed into a tree.
I careened off it, lost balance, threw my arms out, my body twisting in a way I didn’t want it to, and I saw him through the mist, gun butt to his shoulder, taking aim.
At me.
The memory of Bohannan’s voice thundered through in my head.
Down! Bellies!
I threw myself down.
The roar of a shotgun blast that seemed preternatural, like it was not one blast but two, pounded my ears.
I closed my eyes tight.
But…
Nothing.
I opened my eyes, turning to him, pushing up on a hand and arranging my feet to launch off again…
And through the mist I saw a man standing over Ray, who was down on a hand and his knees. The man had his shotgun lifted vertical in both hands above him. He brought the butt down on Ray’s head.
I could swear I saw a spray of blood and Ray collapsed to the needles.
The man hit him in the head with the gun again and then immediately tucked the butt into his shoulder, took a step back and aimed it down at Ray.
“You’re good, gal, you’re good. Just sit tight,” he called to me. “Don’t run. You run, you could get lost in these woods forever.”
I was gasping for air, on a hand and hip, staring through the mist at an old man aiming his shotgun at a prone Ray.
Still keeping his eye on Ray, he asked, “You got a phone?”
I pulled in another shuddering breath, then pushed out a “No.”