Just your eyes, playin’ tricks on you
Cate steeled herself. She had something important to do. The task wouldn’t get easier, and the sky wouldn’t get lighter. She made her way to her mother’s grave, and its smooth rose marble seemed to glow in the lessening light, as if the memorial had managed to marshal every last particle of luminescence.
Cate blinked back tears, feeling more fully than ever how much she loved her mother, and how sorry she felt for all her suffering, so needless. Even now that she knew her secret, and her sacrifice, too.
“You should have kept this, Mom,” Cate whispered, bending over and plunging her fingers into the cold snow, then burrowing deeper, until she hit earth, scratching a tiny hole. Then she took the small black box containing the engagement ring and placed it inside the hole, burying it with snow. “I love you.” She wiped her eyes and turned to go. It was getting dark fast, and colder, and she was beginning to feel woozy and nauseated from the gas.
Good-bye, Mom.
Cate made her way down the road, her feet getting colder in the soaked sneakers. She reached the gates and headed toward the car, digging in her pockets for the keys. Smoke rose around her, and she held her nose, accidentally dropping the keys. Damn. She squinted at the snowy ground in the dark. A wave of smoke obscured her view, and she got a powerful whiff of toxins. Cate waited for the nausea to pass, but it didn’t. She bent over but couldn’t see the keys in the snow, even though the black plastic should have been easy to spot. She plunged her hands into the nearest snowdrift as she heard the sound of a car coming up the road.
Two headlights, on high beams, appeared over the crest of the hill, and Cate took advantage of the temporary illumination to search the snow. She kept fishing and heard the sound of the car as it accelerated. She looked up, struck by a vague sense of alarm. The car was going too fast to make the sharp turn down the new part of Route 61. She could get hit if it didn’t turn soon.
Cate straightened up, and what happened next went so fast she couldn’t do anything but react. The car gunned its engine, accelerating. The dark hood sped toward her with frightening speed.
Cate heard herself scream and sprang out of the way, diving headlong into the plowed snow by the side of the road. She rolled away just as the car zoomed past her, spraying snow and salt into her face, aiming straight for the Mercedes.
Metal crashed into metal with an ear-splitting bam! The dark car slammed into the Mercedes’s trunk. The impact sent the car sliding into a snowbank. Exhaust filled Cate’s face, and she screamed again, scrambling frantically away. She popped bolt upright in time to see the car’s red taillights as it sped away, careering crazily down Route 61.
Her heart jumped through her coat. She was too stunned to think. Her stomach roiled in protest. She scrambled to her feet, brushing wet snow from her cheek and digging a clump from her neck. Snow soaked her sweatpants and covered her coat. What was going on? She could have been killed. Hadn’t the driver seen her? Was he drunk?
She ran to the Mercedes and saw its back end smashed. The trunk lid had popped up, but the front end of the car looked untouched. She could still drive it if she could find the damn keys. She had to get out of here. Her phone was locked in the car. There were no police in Centralia. She was too far from any of the few remaining houses, even if they were occupied. Her car would signal Roadside Assistance, but it could take forever for a tow truck to get here.
Suddenly she heard a car coming back up the road. Her gut tensed. Two headlights popped over the crest of the hill from the other way. She couldn’t tell if it was the same car. If it was the same driver, he already knew she was here. If it wasn’t, she’d get the help she needed.
“Help! Help!” Cate hurried around the Mercedes and waved her arms frantically. It was a dark car. She couldn’t tell the make. The driver switched his high beams on. She waved, ducking behind her car just in case. “Please! Help!”
Suddenly the dark car charged the Mercedes, its engine roaring.
“No!” Cate screamed at the top of her lungs, jumping backwards as the dark car barreled into the Mercedes. She was almost pulled under her car as it piled her way, but staggered backwards. She caught a glimpse of the driver, his teeth clenched in rage. Russo.
“Help!” Cate screamed at the top of her lungs, her desperation echoing through the hills. He must have followed her up here.
She took off in sheer panic. Smoke wafted around her. Muddling her thinking. Intensifying her nausea. The car gunned its engine, and she ran for her life, stumbling in her wet sneakers. She stopped screaming. No help would come. She’d have a better chance if she didn’t betray her position. Her breath went ragged as it hit the icy air, mixing with a swirl of toxic fumes.
A phosphorescent sign stood in her path. DANGER! GROUND PRONE TO SUDDEN COLLAPSE! DANGEROUS GASES PRESENT! The sign stood at the north end of the old Route 61, now closed off. Cate knew the old route by heart, and it gave her an idea.
She ran past the sign, her breathing labored in the poisonous air. Russo must have been reading her mind, because in the next second, she saw his car, visible by its headlights, driving over the hump placed as a barrier at the head of the old Route 61. The car’s grille bounced as it bounded past the sign, spraying snow from its tires. Russo was going to run her down or get close enough to shoot her. But Cate knew this terrain. She fought to think through her confusion. She could see the stripped tree trunks in front of her, black shadows against the snow. She prayed the ground didn’t collapse beneath her.
She bolted behind the cemetery, her hands hitting stray branches. She fell in the snow, then got up. She climbed higher up the hillside she knew was there. It was the only point on the summit higher than the cemetery. She’d played on it all the time as a kid, since it was so near school. She tried to run fast and lightly, so the ground wouldn’t give way under her. Darkness descended, the higher she climbed. The only illumination came from below, the headlights of the dark car as it swung around. The high beams swept beneath her, cutting a lethal swath through the smoky air.
Go, go, go. It was pitch black, no streetlights or highway lights. No moon. Nothing to delineate the terrain to anybody who didn’t know every inch of it. Her heart hammered. She kept running alongside the hill, not wanting to go too high, because the land fell off behind. She prayed she was remembering right. Fumes filled her nostrils. She couldn’t think.
Russo drove below, going straight, approximating the road she knew curved sharply off to the right. He wouldn’t see that. The road followed the curve of the mountain. He wouldn’t anticipate that. It was her only chance.
Cate watched him slow his speed, looking for her. Smoke surrounded them, obscuring everything. The mine fire raged underneath. Russo stopped at a smoking rent in the road, the asphalt ruptured like an earthquake. Cate prayed he fell in from his car’s weight. She covered her nose to keep her wits about her.
Russo careened around the steaming fissure. Cate bolted along the hillside, bracing herself on dead trees, trying not to breathe too deeply. Russo caught up to her on a parallel track. Almost time to put her plan into action. Soon Russo would get out of the car and hunt her down on foot. She ran harder, panting.
Now!
Cate ran down the hill in the dark, wet and bedraggled, kicking up snow all around her. She cut the mountain at a diagonal toward the car, then half-ran, half-stumbled down onto the unplowed road.