by JC Gatlin
On her back, Rayanne lifted her legs and slammed the door into Luger’s charge. His face struck the window with a sharp thump and bounced back. He hit the glass again. Bared his teeth. His front claws scratched the interior glass.
Rayanne stood. Luger barked, raging in the driver’s seat, his jaws pressed to the window. He was trying to break through and Rayanne wasn’t waiting.
She ran around the front of the yellow Volkswagen.
Luger turned, ripped across the center console, and sprang from the passenger window. Rayanne scrambled to an old army jeep. It was the closest vehicle to her. She climbed into the back. There was no roof. No doors.
Luger hit the ground outside the Volkswagen. He was instantly on his feet, turning toward her. Rayanne looked around. The dog was coming. She couldn’t make it to another vehicle. She needed a weapon. There was nothing in the back.
Luger came to the bumper, growling. He bounded onto the rear of the jeep.
Rayanne climbed into the front seat. Her left hand dropped to the floorboard. Her fingers grasped something hard, smooth. She gripped and held up a tire iron.
Luger stood in the backseat. His growl deepened as he stared. The front of his body leaned down, ready to pounce. Rayanne climbed over the dashboard and onto the hood. She stood, found her footing, and raised the tire iron. Luger inched between the two front seats, then vaulted for the dashboard. His claws scratched the dash as he climbed onto the hood. Rayanne turned and jumped from the jeep to a mound of stacked tires. Her feet slipped into the center holes as her free hand found a rubber flexure above her and gripped it. She climbed.
She could hear the dog behind her, but she didn’t look. Her feet found the gaps, pushing her upward. In seconds, Rayanne came to the top of the tire heap and stood. She turned to see Luger leap from the jeep hood to the base of the tires. His legs slipped through the voids and he struggled to gain his footing.
His front paws hit the edges of the tires above him, as if he was studying the odd hill. Slowly, he pulled himself up, then climbed higher.
Rayanne watched as Luger slinked up the pile toward her. She stood, balancing herself at the top, and clenched the iron. Luger climbed higher, pausing at the upper edge. Rayanne trembled, raising the iron behind her head, ready to swing. Luger crouched, then jumped forward, pushing several tires from the heap behind him with his back legs. He lunged for her. Rayanne swung with all her might. The tire iron connected with the side of Luger’s head, making a loud crack. Slobber flung from the dog’s mouth as his head bolted to the far left, knocking him back. His legs struggled to find footing on the falling tires, and when they gave, he tumbled with them. He hit the ground on his side and yelped. More tires fell on top of him.
Rayanne lost her balance as the upper part of the mound tore apart under her feet. If her leg caught in a center hole as she fell, it would snap in two. She knew it, and jumped, holding the tire iron firmly in her left hand and praying there wasn’t anything waiting to impale her when she landed.
Rayanne fell on her back atop a large rubber tire as several more came tumbling down after her. Quickly rising to her feet, she bounced from tire edge to tire edge till her feet were on solid dirt. Standing, she looked for the dog. She didn’t see him. Trembling, she gripped the tire iron. She held it up, ready to swing again.
Luger whimpered, staggered to his feet, then dropped to the ground. He shook his head, then slowly tried to stand again.
Rayanne moved away from the pile of tires and ran back into the Volkswagen. She slammed the door shut and watched the dog from the driver’s seat.
Luger stopped whimpering, but stumbled again. He shook his head. Turned it. Looked back at Rayanne in the Volkswagen.
Rayanne pressed the center of the steering wheel to blare the horn. The dog jumped backward and fell to the ground.
“Get out of here!” Rayanne yelled at it through the windshield. “Go! Get the hell out of here!”
She mashed her palm on the horn and didn’t let up, giving it one long, continuous blare. Luger jumped another foot away from the Volkswagen, then moved quickly toward the rocky slope, his head down, his stubby tail drooping. Without looking back, he made it to the top of the hollow and disappeared into the trees.
Rayanne blared the horn again several times, then fell forward against the steering wheel and cried. She waited a good hour inside the car before finding the courage to look up again.
The moon hung low in the sky. A coyote howled somewhere out there, but she had no way of knowing where or how close it was. She couldn’t see very far into the surrounding woods.
Still, and she thanked God for it, the dog seemed nowhere in sight.
18
Owen listened to a coyote howl and he shifted painfully in the front passenger seat. He wanted to look out the foggy window beside him, but it was too dark to see anything. He guessed it to be around three in the morning. He wasn’t sure.
Darryl lay huddled in the backseat. Owen tried to turn his head to see his buddy, but his neck had stiffened. Moving his neck even slightly sent a piercing pain shooting into his upper shoulder. He gave up and sank down into his seat. “You all right, buddy?”
Darryl didn’t answer.
Owen tried again. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty. You awake?”
No response. Owen panicked. He cranked his neck as pain flared through his shoulder and down his back. He leaned over the console into the backseat and touched Darryl’s knee. Owen shook him.
“Darryl!” His voice was loud. “Come on, Darryl, wake up.”
Darryl’s leg shifted, then an arm. Another moment and his left eye jittered open. It was darkly bloodshot. The other was swollen shut. The gash on his nose was crusted with dried blood.
Owen smiled. “Stay with me, buddy. Okay?”
“I’m still here.” Darryl’s voice was low and gravelly. He sounded like he desperately needed a drink of water.
“Stay with me, buddy.” Owen turned in his seat, facing the windshield.
Darryl coughed, hacked, turned his head and spit. Bloody mucus splattered on the floorboard. “I’m not going nowhere.”
“Rayanne’ll be back soon,” Owen said. “We gotta hold out a little longer.”
Darryl didn’t answer.
Owen turned his head slightly to look at him again. “You holdn’ up?”
“What time is it?”
“Reckon it’s around three.” Owen turned his head as far to the left as his neck would allow.
Darryl coughed again and Owen saw blood dribbling from his chin. He didn’t want to see that and turned to the front. Owen stared out the windshield, listening to crickets, and laughed.
He reached for the guitar leaning against the edge of his seat by his feet. He brought it up into his lap, strummed the six strings a couple times. He couldn’t stand the pressure on his stomach and let the guitar slide onto the floorboard. The movement brought a fiery pain ripping through his shoulder.
“Dropp’n F.” Owen shut his eyes.
Darryl muttered something, and Owen reopened his eyes.
“What?”
“Why do you say that?” Darryl asked again. “What does it mean?”
“Dropp’n F?”
“Yeah,” Darryl said. “You been say’n it your whole life.”
“I guess so.” Owen stared out at the night through the windshield again, thinking. After a moment of silence, he said, “It’s a guitar term. Tuning the chords.”
“You drop D when you tune.”
“Yeah, well,” Owen said in a low tone, “I drop F.”
Darryl didn’t respond, and Owen took that as an acknowledgment. He cleared his throat. “You remember that redheaded cheerleader back in college? Brandi somethin’. That girl was fine.”
Now Darryl spoke up. “She was out of your league.”
“I know, but I had her.” His grin widened. “I had her a couple times.”
“Brandi Hensley.” Darryl moved in the backseat, and Owen could hear him fumbling. I
t sounded like he was trying to sit up.
After Darryl settled down, he asked, “What made ya thinka her?”
“ ’Cause she had a brother on the baseball team and he had friends—what were their names?” Owen thought about it a moment, then decided it didn’t matter. “When they found out, they beat the living crap outta me.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” Darryl said. “She was a virgin and it pissed off her brother.”
“You had my back, though. Remember? We were at that drive-in and they told me to get out of the car. You got out too.”
“It was my dad’s Mustang.”
“But you got out of the car,” Owen said quickly, emphasizing his point.
Darryl grunted. “They busted the headlights out of my dad’s Mustang.”
“But you stood with me. Side by side.”
“Yeah, well,” Darryl’s voice grew distant. “I was stupid back then.”
“We both got black eyes, split lips. We looked like bloody hell … kinda like we look right now.” Owen started to say more, until Darryl coughed again, deeper and more violently. Owen could hear fumbling in the backseat and he turned his head.
Darryl lay face up, his swollen cheek and eye drooping in a way that reminded him of radioactive mutant cannibals from a cheap slasher B-movie they’d watched a couple years back. He chuckled, reopening the wounds across the bridge of his nose and it bled again, streaming down his cheeks.
Owen wanted to do something, but what? Pain exploded through his shoulder again, so he just whispered, “Take it easy, buddy. Help’ll be here soon.”
A coyote yelled and it caught his attention. Owen peered out the window again, but still couldn’t see anything.
Darryl coughed and spit more blood. He sat up, leaned his head on the back door. He glanced over at Owen.
“There’s somethin’ I gotta tell ya,” Darryl said slowly. He moved his arm to reach for his shirt pocket. “Somethin’ you need to know.”
* * * * *
Rayanne stirred in the driver’s seat of the rusted Volkswagen and clung to the tire iron. She looked outside again, into the darkness. Several coyotes were howling. Or maybe they were wolves.
Or werewolves.
She was being silly. She didn’t have the luxury to be afraid of the dark. Pack of coyotes be damned, she was wasting valuable time and she knew it.
Hesitantly, she opened the driver’s side door, poked her head out, and looked around. She saw no sign of the dog. Or the coyotes. Just darkness. Everywhere she looked, darkness. She stepped out of the car, her left foot first, then her right. She stood. This time, she left the car door open.
Moving away from the abandoned cars in the hollow, she climbed the slope and waded through weeds and between the narrow trees, into the night. The blackness seemed thicker, colder, and she knew dawn was approaching. She shivered in Owen’s thin T-shirt as she set foot atop the ravine and continued her journey back to the county road.
Owen was depending on her.
* * * * *
“What is it?” Owen watched him, waiting for an answer.
Darryl shifted in the seat again, scrunching his face, making the glass embedded in his cheek sparkle ever so slightly. The wound bled again and Owen saw the streak run down to Darryl’s neck.
Darryl struggled to get the words out, as if it was causing him pain. “I know,” he said. “I know what those punk kids were talking about. I know what they wanted—”
“They think I stole somethin’ of theirs,” Owen said.
“You didn’t steal it. I did,” Darryl said. “I stole it from you.” Darryl put his hand into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small rabbit’s foot. His fingers caressed the pink fur. “I took this from you.”
“What?” Owen stared at it, squinting. “You took it? Why?”
“I never believed it till I saw what it did.” He held the rabbit’s foot in his bloody hand. “I wanted my chance.”
“Bro, I thought I lost it. My life went to—”
“I just wanted my chance.” He stretched out his arm over the console, into the front seat, and handed the foot to Owen.
Owen took it, stared at it a moment, then clenched it in his hand. He could feel the familiar, soft fur between his fingers, felt the solid splint of bone locked inside it. He squeezed it into his palm so tight his knuckles ached. For some reason, it soothed him.
“I shoulda known you had it. You never been able to pick up a woman in your life and you tell me you landed a Puerto Rican chick in a grocery stor—”
“I took it from you.” Darryl coughed. Blood dribbled on his chin. He wiped it away with his sleeve.
Owen couldn’t take his eyes off the pink, furry foot in his palm. He noticed that his leg no longer throbbed. The wound in his stomach had stopped aching.
“This is crazy. It’s a stupid rabbit’s foot,” he said, shaking his head, breaking the spell. “You think those kids even know about it? Why would they care?”
Darryl coughed again, this time deep from his lungs, and it sounded like he was struggling to breathe. “We’ve both seen what happens when you lose it.”
Owen shook his head. “No,” he said under his breath. “It can’t be real.”
“You know it’s cursed,” Darryl said. “Good luck befalls the owner, and turns deadly when he loses it.”
“Hey, you had the rabbit’s foot in your pocket and you’re worse off than me.” Owen stopped. He looked at Darryl. He handed the rabbit’s foot back to Darryl, saying, “Nothin’s connected here. This stupid toy has noth’n to do with noth’n.”
Darryl held up his hand, refusing it. “It’s yours. I give it back to you.”
Owen closed his fist around it, squeezing it. “It’s a superstition.”
“Connor drowned within twenty-four hours after I took it from you.” Darryl looked at him, eye to eye. “He’s dead ’cause of that superstition. ’Cause of me.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Owen choked out, and he shook his head. “You hear me? Don’t even think it.”
“It’s cursed.” Darryl lay down as his voice trailed off. “You lost it and you lost your job. You lost your house. You and Rayanne are headed for divorce. Connor …”
Owen laughed. “We’re fools, you and me, you know?” Owen squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his head against the cold windowpane. “It’s just a damned rabbit’s foot. We ought to throw it in the lake.”
Owen’s leg throbbed again, and his shoulder ached. His stomach, where the knife had cut him, was on fire. He tried to ignore it. He opened his eyes and looked back. “You swiped it from me in Vegas?”
“Where’d you think that hot streak I was on came from?” Darryl was talking with his head back, his good eye focused on the liner above his head. “It dropped out of your pocket in the casino.”
“Damn it, Darryl. Why?”
“You weren’t paying attention.” Darryl coughed again, leaning forward. Then relaxed. “If I hadn’t picked it up, someone else would of.”
“I can’t believe you stole it.” Owen sounded upset. “Damn it, Darryl. I thought you were my friend.”
“I never really believed in it till I saw what it did for you.” Darryl’s voice sounded stronger, as if the blood and seepage in this throat had cleared. “Brandi Hensley. Rayanne. The basketball scholarship to Duke. You were the worst player Eastlake ever saw.”
“Still—”
Darryl wouldn’t let him object. “I didn’t know what it—I just didn’t know.”
“It don’t matter. What’s done is done.” Owen shook his head. “I know you’re my buddy.”
Darryl was still explaining himself. “It was like you said, irresistible. I couldn’t help myself. I had to have that rabbit’s foot.”
Owen wasn’t listening, and muttered again. “In fact, you’re the best friend I ever had. And we’re going to Australia when we get out of here.”
Darryl was talking over him. “… never meant to hurt you and Rayanne.”
�
��You hear what I said?” Owen leaned back, shut his eyes.
The coyote was howling again and another one seemed be answering it.
“We’re going to Australia. You and me.” Then Darryl’s voice trailed off again, becoming weak and distant. Barely loud enough for Owen to hear, he mumbled, “I get why you took it from Grover Lott.”
19
Dawn broke, but hadn’t yet burned away the fog that settled between the trees. A white mist surrounded Rayanne as she continued her grueling hike through the woods. She couldn’t see anything but white, and she gripped the tire iron in her left hand tighter. It provided little comfort, though.
Predators hunted at dawn and she could stumble upon a bear. Startle it. And it would roar at her, baring its massive teeth, then charge.
Or a boar could come raging out of that fog. The sheer impact of its solid head ramming into her would knock her to the ground. Hopefully the force of it would mercifully slap life and breath from her body, before the boar could get hold of her. She saw a nature program where an angry boar tore into a hunter. Its tusks ripped the man’s legs open, crippling him. Then it charged again, pinning him to the ground and, using its tusks like swords, it disemboweled him. One of his companions shot the boar with a bow and arrow. She didn’t know if the hunter survived. She’d already changed the channel by then.
Now she imagined boars and bears, or worse. Luger could step out of the fog. If that happened, she’d have to stand her ground. There was nowhere to run and she was vulnerable. She knew it. Holding the tire iron, she moved faster, not running but not walking, either. She didn’t have the confidence to run through the fog. Blind, she’d smash into a tree or fall into a sinkhole. Still, as best she could, she picked up her pace.
Rayanne thought she was headed to the dirt path. After trudging along for what felt like an hour, she was certain she either missed it or was headed in the wrong direction. By the time she reached a thatch of wild grapefruit trees, the late-morning sun had climbed high in the sky and the temperature was rising.
