Run With Me

by Shorter, L. A.

  Then I realize. My tracker – the red light on my lap – is missing. It must have fallen off me, down onto the ground below. Suddenly I feel awake again as I worry that the signal's been lost. That maybe it's been damaged or shut off as it fell. I drop my eyes to the floor and search for the red dot in the darkness below. Nothing. There's nothing.

  As I look down something strange happens. The patch below, which is completely dark, suddenly grows in a pale light. It lights up so briefly and then once more grows dark. The light – it's coming from the left. I turn my gaze and peer through the foliage, and that's when I see it. The light, same as before, swinging from side to side as it moves up the hill, accompanied by the light sound of movement through the wood.

  A fear rampages through me and I almost fall backwards off my branch. It's him. He's back again. The bear didn't kill him, only scared him off and slowed him down. He knew I was up here before, and he knows I'm up here now. I have no choice now. I have to get out of here.

  I make the decision so quick that before I realize it my feet are already dangling off the side of my branch and reaching for the closest foothold below. I feel that familiar surge of adrenaline course back into my veins as I clamber down the branches in the dark, using my touch and feel as much as my limited sight. I almost slip and fall a couple of times but, if anything, that speeds my descent. Soon I'm only 20 feet from the ground, then 10, until I reach the bottom branch, still marked with my blood. I drop to the floor and crouch as low as I can, just before the flash of light crosses over me. I feel quickly for the tracker, frantically dragging my hanging fingers around the base of the trunk. There's nothing, nothing but leaves and twigs and fallen debris from above. Not even the light is visible now, and I assume that it's been broken during the fall.

  Broken or not, there's no time for me to keep searching. I rise up onto my knees and check back down the hill to see the light still moving forward. That silhouette, the one that hunts me, floats behind it like a phantom. I begin crawling backwards away from the light, steadily rising to a crouch to speed my retreat.

  I move away from the tree straight up the hill before veering to the right. As I turn I twist my neck back and see the light moving upwards now into the trees. It moves from one to the next as it approaches the tree I was in, occasionally swooping back along the ground to scan the area. Each time the light swoops in my direction, I fall flat on the dirt and stop moving. Once the light has passed, I stand to a crouch once again and continue to put as much distance as I can between us.

  It's hard going in the dark. My heart jumps every time I make the slightest noise, stepping on a twig or a pile of dried and crunchy leaves. There are roots and other obstacles littering the forest floor, stubbing at my toes and scraping my shins as I scramble by. Each time I fear I may have disturbed the silence of the forest enough for him to hear, I stop and look in his direction. When the light fails to shine towards me I breathe a sigh of relief and keep going.

  Soon I've moved a couple of hundred feet to the right away from my tree. I look back and can see the man beneath it, examining the lowest hanging branch. He looks for a moment at the patch where I hit my head, before suddenly shifting his light up into the branches. Then I hear him shout out in the darkness, his voice cruel and course: “I know you're out here girl. You can't hide from me forever.”

  Suddenly he's more frantic, moving quickly around the base of the tree and shining his flashlight up into it from various directions. Then he swings it to the next tree, and the next, rushing through the forest at double the pace as before. His calm seems to fade and I can sense a frustration getting to him as he crashes around. I see him trip on a root and curse loudly, his voice ringing through the trees. He stands and paces, roaring through the wood and scanning a full 360 with his flashlight.

  I drop to the ground and hold my breath, waiting for the light to pass. It lingers in my direction for a moment before moving once more up the hill. Then, suddenly, the light goes out and the forest goes quiet again. I can no longer see him. I can no longer hear him. Has he seen me? Is he covering his attack now? Trying to creep up on me without me knowing?

  I twist in each direction, working out a plan. Where do I go? Deeper into the woods? Down the hill? Up another tree? I start moving away, in the same direction as before, still figuring out what to do.

  Then I remember. The car – Dale's car. It's still down there, parked near the cabin. If I could get to it, I could escape, put miles between us. He won't have a way of following me then, not on foot.

  The decision snaps me into action and I stand quickly, knowing that without the light my movements will go unnoticed this far away from him. I begin moving more quickly now, still veering slightly right but moving down the hill instead of sideways across it. I watch the ground closely for anything that might impede me or give away my position, carefully stepping by bushes and over jutting tree roots.

  The density of the woods begins to thin as I see the edge of the treeline in the distance. The clearing – it's the start of the clearing. I find myself rushing more now, my feet dancing over the dirt. I reach the treeline and stop, briefly, to look back. I see nothing. No light, no pursuer. My eyes move towards the cabin ahead of me and the empty patch surrounding it, checking for movement. Again, nothing.

  Now I run, fast as I can, straight towards the cabin. I reach the back and move round towards the front door, which is splintered and broken from its hinges. I pounce in and snatch my bag, snared on a piece of wood by the window, before turning and running in the opposite direction.

  I can see the car there now, with the shadow of Dale still inside. His body sits slumped as before, his head forward on the steering wheel. I rush forward, reaching the door and pulling on the handle. I try not to look at Dale as he appears in front of me, the back of his head still dripping blood. Any queasiness I might usually feel at such a sight it shrouded by my fear, by the drive inside me to escape. I pull at his arm and feel his weight slide towards me. One more tug and his momentum causes him to fall awkwardly into the mud.

  I don't have time to rearrange his position or make him look more noble. I have no time for anything but my own self preservation now. I step behind the wheel and see that the keys are still hanging in the ignition. I turn them, quickly, and the engine rumbles to life. When the lights burst on I see the clearing and cabin up ahead, half expecting a man to come bursting from the woods. But there's nothing, no sign of him.

  I put the car in reverse and lurch backwards, my frayed nerves causing me to stall. I start the car again, my heart beginning to go out of control, and reverse once more. This time I manage to turn sufficiently to put the car in drive and begin moving forward. I lock my foot down on the accelerator and burst away down the track, the truck bouncing over indentations in the road and skidding through patches of mud.

  I don't slow down as I see the cabin disappear in my wing mirror. Not until I reach the gate that leads onto the mountain path heading down into Concrete. I pull to a brief stop at the edge and finally allow myself to breath. Only now do I realize how much I'm shaking, how fast my heart is pumping. I take my hands off the wheel and hold them together, trying to calm my rattling digits. Then I let out what can only be described as a moan of total fear and relief bundled into one. Tears spill out of my eyes and I feel my breathing rise to short, sharp bursts. But I'm safe. I've escaped.

  Then I feel a sharp pain in my right shoulder, followed quickly by a sensation of total calm. Accompanied with it is a voice, and the sight of a shadow rising behind me from the backseat.

  “Got you,” growls the man as he pulls the syringe from my flesh.

  I feel no fear now, no sense of dread. I can do nothing but watch as the world turns black and my eyelids slide shut. He got me all right. Time to die now.

  Chapter 17 - Colt

  Colt

  I spend the next few hours tracking back and forth through the woods, hoping to pick up some sign, some signal, of Kitty's whereabouts. I move ou
twards from the base of the tree where I found the tracker, exploring my way further into the forest before returning and moving in a different direction. My blanket search of the immediate area surrounding the tree brings up no clues, and a sinking feeling begins to labor at my chest.

  I call her name now, louder and louder, my voice growing rough and course. If she'd have heard me, she'd return at the sound of my voice, and in the quiet of this secluded wood, my words will travel for miles. I know then, that she's either left the scene, or is unable to answer. I don't know whether that means she's incapacitated or dead.

  The blood on the low branch of the tree, and the tracking device, discarded to the mud, are the only clues I have. She must have lost the tracker, or perhaps it was taken from her and then thrown to the ground. In that case, surely he'd have turned it off? Or maybe not. Maybe he forced the truth from her – that the tracker would draw me near – and so left it there as a lure? But that makes no sense either. If he wanted to lure me to this spot to kill me, he'd have been here, waiting. He'd have set a trap to take me out as soon as I arrived. So, the only logical conclusion is that he knew nothing of the tracker, which means that Kitty either put it there herself or lost it.

  The only option that seems viable to me is the latter. She wouldn't have thrown the tracker away, they'd be no reason for that. So she must have dropped it as she tried to escape. Perhaps she climbed the tree and it fell from there? The fact that it was half buried into the soil would suggest that it hit the earth with some force. Falling from a decent height up in the tree would certainly be sufficient.

  The conclusion I come to fills me with dread. Either she's escaped from here, or she's been taken. If the latter, she's as good as dead. If the former, how will I find her now? How will she find me? And without Dale, without this cabin as protection, she'll be picked up by the police in no time. Given the other alternatives, that might be a good thing. It may present me with some time to take out Carmine while she's safe in their custody.

  I return to the cabin to look for any further clues. Her bag is missing, suggesting she escaped with it. I see a book lying on the table, one marked with the title “Last Words.” I open it and see page upon page written by hand, most likely others who have been here before starting their new lives. I don't spare it a thought, but check to see if Kitty has added to it.

  She has. I stare for a moment at the beautiful pencil drawing of her, standing, smiling, outside the cabin. She's wearing a look on her face that I'm yet to see – a huge, wide, smile, like she hasn't a care in the world. A hope rises up in me that I will see her like that one day. Yet it's only a weak hope.

  I shut the book tight and continue to explore the cabin. Nothing else catches my eye, and I'm starting to grow desperate. If she's run away, she'll have gone downhill, back towards Concrete. She has her bag, so she has money, and with her altered appearance she should be able to move around slightly more unnoticed somewhere remote like this.

  I decide to drive down to the town and check any motels or lodges she might have decided to rest in. There are only a couple and neither are any help. In any case, she's a smart girl and won't stop anywhere so close to the cabin. No, she'll have most likely tried to get out of town as soon as possible, especially if she thinks it's too dangerous to wait it out for me to arrive.

  The truth is, she could be absolutely anywhere by now. I don't know when she left the woods. It could have been just after she put on the tracker, or just five minutes before I arrived. The only thing suggesting that her departure was more recent was the state of the blood on the branch and Dale's body. Both showed signs that they'd been there for some time.

  In that case, she could be a hundred miles away. From Concrete hitchhiking would have been her easiest way out. Maybe she made it to another town and managed to find a motel there? In reality, I just don't know, and no amount of speculation is going to help me.

  I sit behind the wheel of my rental car and consider my options. Keep searching for her in the vain hope that I'll come across her is one. It's a low percentage move, and I don't even know if she's alive or whether she's been taken. Option two would be to return to LA and continue with my plan, one which is fraught with difficulty in itself. I have to assume that Kitty can fend for herself for now, and the best way for me to help her is to get back to LA and finish the job I started.

  Once I've taken out Carmine maybe she'll see it on the news and will then be able to go to the police and explain everything, omitting my involvement of course. It's the most logical course of action and the one I decide upon.

  It takes me half the day to return to LA, and I push any feelings of guilt I might have at abandoning my search for Kitty so easily to the back of my mind. In any case, if Kitty is on the run again the best thing I can do for her is to kill Michael Carmine. If anything worse has befallen her then, at the least, his death will be some sort of retribution. But that thought, also, has been pushed to the back of my head. I won't believe she's dead. I refuse to.

  I start by returning to the bar to scope it out, just as I did before. I'm exhausted after my night and day spent traveling up to Washington and back again, but I don't allow myself the luxury of rest right now. I position myself in a well hidden spot down the street and set to my vigil, now more in hope than expectation. I know, after interrogating that manager, that Carmine won't be back at the bar any time soon. And if he didn't know I was coming after him before, he certainly will do by now.

  As I suspect, my watch over the bar yields no results. But I have another idea in mind, one I can only put into action once the bar has shut down and gone quiet. I sit, and wait, watching as the place clears out. Only once the dead of night has descended do I step from my car, dress myself in a suitably covert outfit, complete with black balaclava, and venture out towards the bar.

  I know the outside of the bar is rigged with cameras. There's one that looks out onto the street, but I can avoid that one easily enough. Then there's one down the alleyway, the one that spotted Kitty after witnessing the crime that put all of us into this mess. That one won't be so easy to avoid as it points straight down towards the opening onto the street.

  I move towards the edge of the alley and take out a small mirror from my pocket. It's extended onto the end of a handle and can swivel to give me a decent look in any direction. I hold it, just an inch or two, around the side of the wall. In the reflection I can see the camera, hidden inside a brick, invisible to someone not looking for it.

  Aside from the camera, the alley is bare but for an important detail – a light, hanging just above the camera, showering its glow towards the street. The position of the light suggests that the camera itself isn't able to record in the dark, which gives me an idea. I step away from the alley, move across the street to a position where the camera can't see me, and take out my pistol. I'm a good enough shot to take the light out with one go.

  Now I'm moving fast. I dash towards the alley once again, knowing the flash of the bulb will momentarily prevent the camera from seeing much at all in front of it. I move past it as quickly as possible, only slowing to a stop once I'm past it. I have to hope that no one is actually watching and that anything being recorded won't be seen until the following day. I'm sure they'll know just who it is anyway.

  That brings a thought to my head. Is this a trap? It would be a logical move for me to try to extract information from Carmine's office in order to find out where he is, and this is the only one I know of. In fact, I'm surprised there's no security here. That would act as a deterrent. A deterrent, I repeat in my head. He doesn't want to deter me...he wants to draw me in.

  I stop, just outside the stairs that lead down towards Carmine's office, and turn my head. Am I being paranoid here? I can't tell any more if my suspicions are reasonable or just me being overly careful. Is Carmine really trying to trap me? Or is it just that he wouldn't expect me to be so bold, or perhaps that there's nothing in his office to incriminate him anyway. Maybe I'm giving him too much credi
t? No, that's not it. If anyone is as suspicious as I am it would be Michael Carmine. When you're as entrenched in the criminal underworld as he is you have to learn to watch your back in your sleep.

  I stand there for a few minutes, my hand gripped to my pistol, just waiting to hear a car screeching around the corner. But nothing comes. I wait another few minutes, then more until I'm satisfied that I'm safe and no one's coming. I have to be completely satisfied. That's my way.

  Now I step forward, down the rickety metal staircase, and towards the back door that leads into the building. As I expect, it's locked, barred with a heavy padlock on the outside. I quickly shoot out the lock and it falls to the ground with a metallic thud. I pull on the handle, but the door remains tightly shut. Must have a regular keyhole lock as well. I aim my weapon at the keyhole and shoot. The lock immediately caves in and disappears to the other side of the door, which now swings open easily.

  Inside it's dark and has that distinct, pungent smell of alcohol. I stop at the doorway and turn my head inside, searching for more cameras. I can see none, and they're unlikely to be hidden as they are outside. I step forward now, into the dark, and take a flashlight from my belt. Carmine's office, I know, is just at the end of this corridor.

  The room is also locked as I arrive, but it doesn't present any more of a problem than the back door. Once I've shot out the lock I find myself standing in front of Carmine's desk, just as I did a little more than a week ago when I was first assigned to track Kitty down. An odd smile arches on my lips at the revelation that it's only been a week.

  As per usual, I stop and listen for a couple of moments before proceeding. It's completely silent here, so any sound of footsteps or a car arriving down the alley are likely to be easy to hear. The room is simple and bare. Other than the desk and the large chair positioned behind it, there's little more than the barest of furniture: a couple of basic chairs up against the walls either side of the desk; a sofa in the back corner; a filing cabinet behind the desk to the right; a few pieces of art littering the walls. Simple, no nonsense. You'd expect nothing less from the man.