Big Bad Academy

Ordinary.

I trip, stumbling over something I can’t see, and I catch myself just before I fall, but not before I make a little sound of surprise.

Suddenly, the forests fall silent, and even though I can’t hear the men, I’m very aware of the fact that they heard that sound. Worse: it might very well be my undoing. They heard me trip, and now they’re going to find me.

And I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Think. Think.

I know these woods better than anyone else, but I know them in the daytime. I don’t know them at night. I hold perfectly still for a very long time. My ears are open. I’m listening. I can’t hear them, though. I can’t hear anything over the sound of my own racing heart. Even my cats are silent as I’m standing perfectly still in the darkness of night.

What do I do now?

I look down at Maple and Syrup. It’s dark out and there’s just the tiniest sliver of moonlight shining through the tops of the trees. I can do this, I tell myself. I’ve got this. It can’t be too far to my neighbor’s house. All I have to do it keep moving.

One thing is for certain: standing still and being scared is the fastest way for me to get hurt, killed, or captured. Whoever took me isn’t messing around. He knows where I live, he knows I have cats, and he knows I’m a writer. The fact that he came up to me at the book signing makes my skin crawl. What was he trying to do, anyway? Taunt me before he murdered me?

I take a step forward, and then another.

There.

That wasn’t so bad.

I take another step.

My cats are such good cats. Both of them hold perfectly still as I carefully begin moving again. I just have to get to my neighbor’s house, use their phone, and all of this will be over. Who knows? Maybe it’s all some sort of elaborate prank. Maybe it’s part of a joke I didn’t know about. Is that it? Am I just waiting for the punch line?

I doubt it.

Somehow, even though I don’t have an explanation for what’s going on, I can’t even lie to myself.

Much less anyone else.

I take another step. Carefully, I gingerly place my feet down one at a time. I point my toes, feeling around on the forest floor before dropping my full weight. I’m terrified that I’m going to step on a stick or a branch or something else that’s going to make noise.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

On the fourth step, I do it, anyway. I cringe as my shoe crunches down loudly on a stick. The sound seems to echo for what feels like miles. I stop and stand perfectly still, listening.

Maybe they didn’t hear.

And then I hear a stick crunching to my left, and I know that there’s no such luck.

They’ve found me.

Now I have to run.

I take off, not caring that it’s dark or that I’m making a ton of noise all of a sudden. I just move. I’ve got to book it to my neighbor’s place. If I can just get there, then everything is going to be okay. I hear someone shouting from behind me, but I keep moving. I’m not giving these guys anything that they want. No thanks, no how.

It’s not going to happen.

I run and run, but then I trip. This time, I can’t stop my fall. This time, my cats leap out of my arms as I fall straight down and slam into mud, sticks, and rocks. I drop my hands to brace the fall, but it doesn’t seem to help much. It fucking hurts.

Everything hurts.