Reincarnage

by Ryan Harding

  Well, she’d take the clippers for now and hope a gun was in the next one.

  She would have to forage sometime in daylight when she could see all the mailboxes. Right now she just wanted to find a straw and hide underwater for about a week, but no way, couldn’t risk getting any rust on her trusty clippers!

  Wouldn’t want to hedge my bets. That would be shear foolishness. I’d really be cutting it close.

  She allowed herself a watery sigh. Adam would have enjoyed the terrible jokes. It had been a long time since someone had been so infatuated with her. Not obsessed like Hoon for selfish reasons of control, but someone who simply enjoyed her company. Pretty remarkable in these conditions.

  She stayed crouched low and crossed to the other side of the street. If he followed the alleys leftward, he might be four of five streets over now. A little more and it might be safe to run. She wanted to hide for the night, and most importantly rest. Maybe she’d do something extreme like find a room at the Morgan Falls Lodge and sleep under one of the beds. Patrick might approve of that. Orange wouldn’t expect her to take shelter in the place they’d tried to burn down, presuming he knew it was their handiwork. Best of all, there might be a new group in there eventually. Well, not so great for them, of course, but she could use the manpower.

  Use…just like Patrick.

  She tried to think of it more like time travel. A redo with different people, knowing a lot of things which would have helped her own group if they had such information upfront. Arm all of them with the bounty of the mailboxes—hedge clippers naturally bequeathed to the weakest link—and it would be twelve versus one to disarm Orange (literally). Chances were good they would prevail and cut him down like a paper doll.

  I can make it through the night. This one and the next one and the next, however long it takes for reinforcements.

  Long as she didn’t have to do it with just these overgrown lawn scissors, she believed it.

  The moon tracked her like a spotlight, now visible again through clouds, turning her sickly white. She noted a stop light overhead, swaying from its wire in the wind, creaking. A street sign informed Gin she stood at the corner of Irving and Wallace. She turned onto Wallace.

  A shadow appeared to her left and she almost screamed—even opened her mouth. Something kept it prisoner in her throat. She bent over to wait for the faint feeling to pass.

  It was a mannequin in the storefront window of a business which had retained only two characters of its sign: An E (more than likely the first letter) and an apostrophe. There were other humanoid forms, and the part of her that still wanted to panic envisioned lurid interpretations—heads replaced by Orange’s trophies, limbless torsos that weren’t actually mannequins, guts draped around the pale figures like garland around a Christmas tree. It had to be a clothing store.

  She pushed the silver bar of the entrance. The door quietly rattled in its frame and did not budge. There were openings in the storefront glass, but nothing big enough. Snatch and grab ops by Stalkers, maybe, who wouldn’t waste their time for a Members Only jacket. The prized artifacts truly suggested the essence of Morgan. This stuff was rummage sale fodder.

  She wished she could pick the lock. Maybe she could connect with a Stalker one day who’d bring her the tools to do it. It wasn’t a fortress or anything, but he might not suspect anyone could get in or think it important enough to trap. Keep up the ambiance of “disrepair chic” and it might be a good hideout. Plenty of Jordache to hang herself if she decided to give up one day, too.

  Gin felt him before she saw him, an electricity in the air, something that made her scalp tingle and raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.

  She didn’t hear the arrow that struck Adam, but she heard this one. The snap of the bow line, the air slicing open in its trajectory and the thunk as it embedded in the knot of muscle on her left thigh. Her knee buckled and the hedge clippers hit the ground with her. The knife slid away.

  The intensity of the pain seemed to illuminate the night. There were heavy footsteps now, still with the same hesitance every other step, and the light rattling of the mace. He ambled up Wallace a block away.

  Gin gave the wound a cursory glance. A small arrow this time, not much more than a dart, but it couldn’t have hurt worse if he set it on fire first. He had effectively slowed her as she did him. She could hobble away, but he’d easily catch up. He had something set on his shoulder, probably his crossbow. He’d pulled it from somewhere around here. Crossbow to his shoulder, spiked ball swinging in the other hand, all the time in the world to kill with a slow shuffle, twenty-five yards out.

  Gin moaned as she retrieved the hedge clippers and pulled herself up. The mannequins watched her from the other side of the glass, offered no encouragement. She raised the clippers overhead, gripping a handle in each palm, and swung the blade against the glass of the door. It cracked slightly. Another swing and the fracture became a spider web.

  A quick look behind. Twenty yards.

  Come on, you bastard.

  She jumped and threw all her weight behind the clippers. The pain pulsed through her leg, jolted as she landed, but the glass shattered into a cascade of pieces like a crumbling jigsaw puzzle. She crouched and hopped under the push bar, using her right leg for balance.

  The darkness swallowed her. She didn’t have long to hide. A wall stood immediately to the right, so she pushed forward and left. Racks of clothes brushed her as she scrambled past, like a red cape across a bull. She put as many of them between her and the door as she could. He’d be able to see her in seconds through the night vision. She had only a dim outline of the racks. She collided with something which crashed to the ground. She took a zigzag pattern away from the entrance to arrange enough obstructions to conceal herself, like a small animal fleeing a predator through underbrush.

  As a child while out shopping with her mom she used to sneak in the middle of circular clothing racks. It was fun to be so hidden. It was the only thing she could think to do now. She found one and pushed her way inside it, managing to avoid a fingernails-on-chalkboard scraping from the hangers.

  Gin fingered the tail of the arrow in her thigh. It was dry, so she probably hadn’t leaked a trail he could follow. She clenched her eyes shut against the mounting pain and sat perfectly still in complete black, no hint of the moonlight underneath the jeans. An enclosure overhead hid her from all angles. She crouched with one knee down, blades open on her hedge trimmers, listening.

  Shit…I never got the knife back.

  Gin’s eyes burned as sweat dripped into them. She tried to keep still and breathe through her nose. The air was stuffy and her eyes and nose twitched from all the dust, ready to trigger a sneeze to seal her fate. She bet some of the clothes would disintegrate if touched.

  He made no effort to disguise his search. Footsteps clomped to the far corner on the right. She didn’t hear him draw aside any clothes to look. Encouraging, although she didn’t know if anything over there needed to be moved to see.

  The steps got louder in her direction.

  Shit, this is it, this is it, she thought, clenching the hedge clippers tight enough to hurt her fingers. The steps continued, but not a direct line to her spot. He might have seen the rack she knocked over.

  The chain lengths clinked, closer now. He moved nothing for a better look.

  Is he looking for blood?

  She took one hand off the clippers to test her arrow again. Still dry. Touching it seemed to twist it deeper into her leg.

  How the hell will I treat this?

  It was a problem she really hoped she still had to figure out in the morning.

  The clump of his boots trailed away again. He never passed close to her, though she still expected him to snatch a fistful of her hair and yank her out, then slam the mace so hard it caved in her face. She thought of Adam twitching on the ground like a cow on the killing floor. Had he been aware of his pain then?

  Not now. Plenty of time tomorrow when I’m looting pharm
acies for Band-Aids.

  Orange’s movements muffled noticeably. She dared to stick her face through the fabric. There was a rectangle of deeper black to the rear of the store, some kind of back room. She had no way to know how long it could occupy him, or she might have tried to create a fake blood trail to lead him outside (well, fake trail but real blood).

  Gin looked to her left. Something she missed in her initial rush for a hiding place stood in the far corner, one of the better illuminated places in the room. Past the mannequins which startled her in the first place was a bone white spiral staircase. It carried its own risks, but she sure liked how it only had one entrance.

  She slipped out of the rack quietly, wounded leg first to ensure nothing caught on the arrow to wrench out a scream. She continued to hear his faint steps in back, so she hobbled toward the staircase, crouching below the level of the racks. Too late to squeeze back through the entrance, but he might hear the glass crunch on her way out anyway.

  So I’ll just put all my hope in these ancient stairs not creaking on me. Way better.

  She reached the staircase and craned her good leg up three steps, grabbed hold of the iron rail, and boosted herself up. No creak. She repeated the process up two more stairs, which brought her around the first bend of the spiral. She heard a little pop that sounded like a bottle rocket in the heavy silence.

  She was halfway up and about to curve through the next spiral when he emerged from the back. He didn’t rush out on red alert, so she set the hedge clippers on one step, planted her face on the stair above it and pressed her body to the stairs below. The shape of the staircase concealed most of her, although he would be able to see her head.

  Which is all he wants anyway.

  In the night vision, her black hair would just seem a shadow among shadows. She didn’t dare turn her face to him.

  He started to move, and of course it seemed like a purposeful march her way. It took everything not to stumble the rest of the way up the stairs in a panic. Her heart seemed to bounce off the stair wedged against her chest.

  And now I die, halfway to what was probably a dead end anyway.

  His steps were distant, though, and came no closer to her. She tilted her head up. Her hair continued to cover her face, but one eye could see through the strands. She barely made out his shape, momentarily confused when he vanished right into a wall. For an instant, the word ghost flickered like a subliminal message.

  Another back room?

  No, not a back room, she realized. A fitting room.

  GO!

  Her arm felt rubbery as she hauled herself back up. A wave of dizziness nearly put her back. She let it subside, then completed the ascent. He would come upstairs eventually. She just hoped for a better chance up here, either to defend herself or hide well enough he thought she escaped.

  Better moonlight allowed a decent picture of the second floor. More mannequins, which made her think of old atomic test footage. Females modeling mostly knee-length dresses. She would have crouched under a billowy enough dress if Victorian had been the style in the ‘80s. It might have worked.

  There were also more racks. She could slip into one of those again if she got desperate. Women’s shoes dominated one corner, so there might be a stock room up here also.

  There was a loud crash downstairs. Gin jumped.

  What the hell was that?

  Another one followed close behind, and this time she heard the chain. Gin’s stomach knotted up. He was either randomly smashing things in frustration or he was breaking apart those enclosures over the circle racks to scare her out or search and destroy.

  She scoured, desperate for some kind of plan or advantage. She almost ran into a spinning rack of sunglasses. There were racks of purses past that. A row of mannequin heads modeling hats. A spinning case on a countertop with watches, possibly Swatches in inventory. More clothes, more mannequins, more shoes, more absence of anything that made this move to the second floor anything but a delay of her own head modeling the latest in chic decay. She spun in her hopelessness, careless with stealth measures. Another crash below bought her some timely cover.

  She still couldn’t see everything. Like she didn’t have enough odds stacked against her with the arrow wound and a dumb lawn care accessory versus a psycho who’d done nothing but kill hundreds of people in myriad ways for decades. Gin’s biggest kill was a possum with her dad’s Kia. It seemed horribly unfair not to have a full inventory of options, as if the moon a couple more inches to the left would reveal an anti-aircraft missile launcher next to the Maybelline make-up and perfume bottles.

  She found the backroom but the light didn’t carry far enough to reveal a place to hide or a better weapon alternative. An enclosure in the wall held a fire extinguisher but it would have dried up ages ago, its usefulness expired even as a distraction, and as a potential bludgeon—a guy who pulled blades and arrows out of his brain could handle a bump on the head.

  She waited for another crash from below, which didn’t come with the succession of the others. She frowned; it was like hearing eleven chimes at midnight. Finally there was another rack obliteration, but he must be running out. She had to commit to something.

  Gin maneuvered around another mannequin and her heart jumped as she found a metal door with a crash bar. She could not quite read the letters above it with the available light, but it had to be an exit sign. There was a sticker on the wall, probably to admonish an alarm would sound if the door opened.

  Not these days.

  She quietly pushed until the bar clicked and the door eased open. Available light was sparse behind the building but enough to see a line of steps to the left. She had hoped for access to the roof like a ladder she could defend, but she was happy to get anything.

  More racket downstairs. There wasn’t much time.

  Gin grabbed a blouse from the nearest rack and stepped outside the emergency exit. She wedged the hedge clippers in the doorway, stuffed as much of the blouse in her mouth as she could fit and took hold of the arrow.

  God, this is going to suck.

  She wrenched the arrow free, screaming into the blouse. Between his noise downstairs, the mostly closed door, and the shirt, she thought she would get away with it. She choked on dust, coughing into the fabric.

  She needed a little longer. He would be thorough downstairs, but there were only so many viable hiding places.

  She wrapped the blouse around her thigh and tied a tourniquet, then slipped back inside. She left the clippers wedged and hurried back to the spiral staircase with her accelerated hobble, arrow in hand. The chain sounded close to this corner of the shop. She shook the arrow at the floor as if sprinkling fairy dust. It left black drops in the moonlight. She retraced her steps, marking the way with blood spatters. Her throat felt closed up and she was scared she would burst out coughing.

  Gin created a red trail all the way to and through the emergency exit after collecting the hedge trimmers. She tossed the arrow over the rail and eased the door shut.

  She stuck the point of one of the blades into her pants leg above the knee until she could tear off the fabric. She kicked off her shoes and used the scrap of her jeans to wipe away blood which trickled down to her ankle. She cut at the knee of her pants on the other leg and tossed the severed pieces and her shoes inside one of the racks.

  She pulled a black dress from the rack and slipped it over her head. She thought the tourniquet would keep the dress off the wound so blood didn’t seep through, but best not to take the chance since so much depended on it. The black would cover it. The dress almost reached the floor. She staggered to the mannequin heads and selected a sun hat. The wide brim was what she needed, almost conical. She folded her hair up as much as she could and slipped on the hat. She started back to her place by the exit.

  Wait…the hedge clippers.

  Gin looked from side to side, hoping for some kind of shawl, but if there was anything of the sort, she couldn’t find it. Thumps carried up the stairwell.
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br />   Oh God, here he comes.

  She hurried back to the emergency exit, snatching up a heavy sweater from a table display. It was more than she wanted, but there was no time for anything else. His boots hit louder as he ascended, Death knocking at the door.

  Gin picked up the hedge clippers by the door. It seemed like the best place for her to be when he arrived. He wouldn’t be able to see her yet with so many racks and displays in the way. She made sure the blood trail went through an obstacle course to keep his eyes off her as long as possible.

  She swaddled her weapon in the sweater and cradled it like an infant. She wanted to stand closer to the door but allowed five feet of clearance. The mannequin she’d passed before locating the exit now stood beside her, hopefully enough for her to fit with the décor. Her head seemed full of helium; maybe the hunger, the dehydration, or the terror. She didn’t have to make any move and she still had time to hole up inside one of the racks, but she knew if she had a window of opportunity, she would take it.

  The seconds ticked down.

  Gin tilted her head toward the floor, enough where she would still be able to see him walk past and her face would be covered by the brim of her hat. The hedge clippers nestled in the crook of her arm, covered by the sweater, and she had a firm grip on one of the handles.

  The mace rattled as his footsteps approached. The temptation to look for him was enormous, but she held the fixed position of her “still life” and tried to breathe as little as possible.

  He emerged from the labyrinth of clothing racks as designed by the blood trail, clothes whispering like palm fronds as he brushed past. The spiked ball swung into eye line. She couldn’t see very much of him at the angle—the chain, part of his leg, the gloved hand. The left foot seemed uncertain under his weight, still giving him problems.