Run (Part 10)
Minutes went by and the only sound David heard was his own gasping for air and cries of pain with every step he took on his injured foot. He wasn’t trying to hide any longer. Why bother?
He limped on. After about half an hour of silence, he began to believe that he had, somehow, survived this brush with the void. Perhaps Santa Muerte had decided he had suffered enough? Or maybe he wasn’t worth her time?
He began to see the faint outline of the access road he had come in from. He was too tired and injured to celebrate openly, but he rejoiced inside. He knew that, as soon as he exited the woods into the clearing, his grandfather’s truck would be waiting for him. He picked up the pace by a microsecond and turned the corner.
The truck was gone.
From behind, he heard an engine turn over and roar to life, and he recognized the sound like the voice of a beloved family member.
He turned to it as the brights flashed in his face, and instinctively, he covered his eyes with his one good hand. He realized the mistake he had made as he felt his ribs, and innumerable other small bones, crack. The back of his head hit gravel, and he realized through the ringing in his ears that he was done running.
His assassin climbed out of the truck and he heard, but did not yet see, light boots trudge deliberately over the loose stones in his direction. The figure stepped in front of the lights and David squinted enough to make out what he was looking at.
She was a woman. She had a dark complexion and short, brown hair. She was wearing camouflage and carried a shotgun. She was much shorter than he. Her face was impossible to make out in the glare.
There was, for a moment, a curtain of stillness between them. He, a body broken and abused on the ground, she, a goddess of pain. He tore the veil with strangled questions, in a voice he barely recognized: “Who are you? Why are you doing this to me? What did I ever do to you?”
She remained like a statue for a full minute before responding. Her voice was icier than the November cold that surrounded them.
“There ain’t no rapists allowed in these parts.”