It was easy at first. A path of shredded bark wound between the trees behind the cabin, and the underbrush was cut back and thinned, creating a pleasant place for a stroll. I ran down the path. The soft footing muffled my pounding steps.
The rocky terrain dipped and rose among the trees. A couple of minutes of running took me out of sight of the cabin. A couple more minutes and I was out of the nicely cleared part of the woods and into the usual sort: bushes and brambles and vines and trees with low branches to brain you as you ran.
Ahead of me I caught glimpses of Bonnie and my dog. The woman ran like a gazelle. Of course. Emily Ann coursed beside her, circled back to me, then back to Bonnie. Even as I panted along I thought what a lovely picture they made together, gliding through the woods with flickers of morning sun gleaming on their shoulders. Nothing seemed to touch them as they ran.
I huffed and puffed, struggling to get past the blackberry vines that clawed at my legs. I tripped over a rock hidden by a scraggle of grass and careened into a tree trunk, managing to hold the tape aloft so it didn’t get smashed. I felt a sharp pang as something in my back twisted, but somehow I stayed on my feet and ran on.
As I struggled along I thought, I didn’t get to finish my orange juice, and now I'm being chased by that same murdering sleazebag banker through more blasted woods. I felt decidedly put-upon. Bonnie and Emily Ann disappeared into a dip in the land, and I stopped to catch my breath. While I stood panting, I reached around and tucked the videocassette into the waistband of my jeans in back under my sweater, as I'd seen waiters in fancy restaurants do with their order pads.
I heard something crash through the woods behind me.
At once I found I had enough breath to run again. I followed the others into the dip and was met by my dog, running back to see where I was. Bonnie was no longer in sight. The vegetation grew thicker at the bottom, and I discovered a little stream running the length of the hollow. A narrow path followed the stream in both directions. I hesitated, wondering which direction to go. Emily Ann started off upstream, to my left, and I followed. She splashed in and out of the water as we ran.
When I saw a break in the underbrush, I jumped across the stream to head up the other side. Actually, I jumped across most of the stream. My heel landed in gooshy mud and I fell to my knees on the damp earth of the bank.
Before I picked myself up I reached around and to be sure the tape was still secure in my waistband. Then I headed away from the creek. The hill here was much steeper than the way down had been. I was reduced to clawing my way up on my hands and knees at one point, which delighted Emily Ann so much that she gave me a play bow, wagging wildly.
“This is not fun,” I told her between clenched teeth. “Running in the woods is not fun when a bad guy is chasing you.”
I finally gained the top of the hill and rose to my feet. The woods before me were thick in all directions: closely spaced trees and tangled undergrowth, with vines twisted through both. The leaves on the deciduous trees had turned their fall colors and were tumbling to the ground. As I looked around the morning sun shone through a golden leaf as it fell.
I heard shouting from somewhere to my right, first a man’s voice, followed by Bonnie’s. My ragged breath caught in my throat, and my hand closed around Emily Ann’s collar as she pressed close to my side. I felt a shiver go down her body. I started toward the voices, pushing at a tangle of bushes, and found myself inside the Thicket from Hell.
Small multi-trunked trees, or maybe big bushes, rose a couple of feet higher than my head. For all I knew they actually were myanumma bushes or something equally mythical. Some of their leaves had fallen in the October winds and crunched under my feet, but enough still hung from the twiggy branches to form a screen that kept me from seeing anything more than a few feet ahead. Two or three kinds of vines festooned the bushes. I saw withered blackberries on some, and others had leaves turning red. Poison ivy, said some part of my brain that wanted to retreat to childhood rhymes about leaflets three. I mentally kicked myself back to the present.
I stopped and turned in a circle, looking for the easiest way out. There was none. I pressed on, tearing at the smothering vegetation with both hands. I noticed blood streaming from one palm where the talons on a bramble had torn it. It didn’t seem important.
The noise I was making as I beat my way out of the thicket seemed thunderous to my ears, and was compounded by the thudding of my heart, but still I could hear Bonnie’s voice ahead of me. I finally dropped down and crawled, using my head to butt my way through the tangled vegetation, and finally saw light ahead. I kept going, and emerged from the thicket to find I was on a precipice. I inched forward to peer over the edge. Emily Ann glued herself to my side like the sticktights I'd picked up as we fled.
I looked down on what must be Parson’s Lake, though from here it looked more like a river. I could see both a near and a far bank. This must be a cove on the lake’s twisting shoreline. About ten feet this side of the water, Bonnie faced the man we’d seen getting out of his black car by the cabin.
Her fists were clenched and her blonde hair had taken on a life of its own as it became decorated with twigs and leaves on her passage through the woods. She looked like an avenging Druid goddess bent upon the destruction of Evil.
My eyes moved from her to him, and settled on the gleam of the gun in his hand. Definitely not a shiny belt buckle.
“I don’t have the tape!” Bonnie shouted. “And if I did you’d still never get it.”
He laughed, and the sound made my lip curl. “Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie, won't you ever learn I always get what I want?” He sounded amused and indulgent, as though Bonnie were a small child who had stamped her foot at him.
“What I've learned is that you’re an impotent, thieving son of a bitch who would do anything for a buck. I will see you in hell, you murderer,” she snarled. “Too many people know what you’ve done, and I will be the one you hear laughing when they put you in the gas chamber, you—”
Her voice was cut off by the blast from the gun. The recoil flung his hand up at the same moment the impact from the bullet spun her around and slammed her to the ground.
In the extravagant silence that followed, I heard a gasp and a strangled cry. Too late, I realized they had come from me. Carl’s head snapped around as he looked for the source of the sound. I scooted away from the edge, back among the underbrush and out of his sight.
I sat, shaking, barely able to breathe. This was when I realized that for all our talk of murder, it had only been a story to me. Our cozy discussions over bagels and pizza had been a movie I was acting in. But now I had seen real violence. And I would be next. He was going to kill me too.
Emily Ann nosed my cheek and I looked at her. Sitting here waiting for him to come and shoot me was embarrassingly feeble. I forced myself to take a deep breath and crawled back into the thicket, trying to find a hiding place. I looked over my shoulder and saw that my path was obvious behind me. Crawling was not going to get me away fast enough.
I was stabbed with a sudden longing for Bob. He would be as helpless against an armed psychopath as I was, but two of us might have a better chance of taking him by surprise or overpowering him.
Emily Ann was far better than I at sliding through the brush. Her lean body and short coat gave the brambles nothing to snag. A faint glimmer of hope came to me.
“Emily Ann,” I whispered, “come here!” She returned to where I crouched, and I took her face between my hands and looked into her wise brown eyes.