The Baby Race

by Tara Wylde

  I edge up to the nearest window, peering through at the most oblique angle possible. My precautions are wasted: there’s nothing inside. Somebody’s stripped this thing to the bones. Even the floor’s rusted through.

  Got to be the cabin, then. If not there....

  If not there, I’m out of ideas.

  They’re there. She’s there. I can feel it. I fade back into the woods, and now it’s really getting dark. Sun sets fast this time of year. It wouldn’t take much to get lost out here, hopelessly turned around. I keep my eyes fixed on the cabin, now little more than a black heap in the gathering dusk. What are we even going to do, if she’s there? Run into the pitch-black forest and hope we don’t break our necks?

  We’ll stick to the road. We’ll be fine.

  Assuming we can deal with Joe—that’s another thing. I didn’t even think to bring a crowbar, or a decent-sized stick.

  The swing set’s between me and the cabin. The chains are swaying in the wind—so, not totally rusted stiff. They’re just hooked on—if I could lift one off without rattling it....

  Yeah. That’s what I’ve got to do. Can’t go in empty-handed.

  My heart’s in my mouth as I stalk toward the swing set. I’m totally exposed. If Joe chooses this moment to open the door or peer out the window, even the dark won’t save me. Something my first-grade teacher used to say pops into my mind: quickly, quietly, and neatly! He said it every time he gave us something to do: and how do we practice our letters? Quickly, quietly, and neatly.

  All right, Mr. Adams. This one’s for you. I suck in a deep breath and hold it, keep it held as I shimmy up the pole. From here, I can just reach the nearest chain.

  The wind picks up a little, sighing in the trees. Now or never: this’ll be my best chance, with the rustling of the forest to cover any sound I might make.

  I let out that breath and lean out into the void. I’m spread out against the last light of day, hanging off the top of the swing set like a demented ape. This is as bad as it gets. I won’t be able to pull myself back once I get that chain in my hand. I’ll have to drop down with it, hope the thump doesn’t carry.

  Metal scrapes on metal as I ease the chain off its hook. I almost let go of it, but I remind myself it can’t be as loud as it sounds in my head. No one’ll hear. Quickly, quietly, and neatly. I roll the chain all the way off the hook, and drop.

  My shoes thud and scrape in the dirt: clumsy landing.

  The chain crumples at my feet. The jingling’s deafening—this was a terrible idea. Katie probably heard it back in Manhattan.

  No time to think: I scoop the chain into my arms, stretched out to keep it from rattling. Four giant bounds take me back to the treeline. I dart behind...something green and prickly? A Christmas tree? Going to call it a fir. I dart behind a fir and wait.

  Nothing happens. They’re not here—they can’t be. If they were... If they were, wouldn’t they have a light on? Or a fire? It’s cold as hell—of course they would. And someone would’ve come out when I went crashing into the dirt. A cold feeling settles around my heart. What if Joe figured I’d check his browser history and sent me on a wild goose chase? He could’ve dragged her off in the opposite direction, or anywhere, really.

  Still, I have to at least check. I take my time looping one end of the chain around my knuckles, and the other over my arm. Maybe Joe is there, and he did see me, and now he’s loading his gun, setting his sights, waiting for me to venture into the clearing.

  I loop all the way around, shuffling my feet to keep from stepping on anything that crackles or snaps. It’s close to full dark by the time I make it. The cabin’s a vague crouching hulk looming over me. And just my luck: when I press my face to the back window, it’s too dirty to see through. Which leaves the front. The front, where I’ve ninety-nine percent convinced myself Joe’s cozied up to the window, double-barreled shotgun poking out of it. Ready to blow me away.

  I’m not sure “Well, I’ve come this far!” really covers this type of situation.

  But... I have come this far.

  I feel like James Bond, sliding around the cabin with my back pressed to the wall, chained fist cocked. Would it even be safe to punch someone with that? Obviously it wouldn’t be safe for them, but I mean—for me? Would I break all my knuckles? Maybe I should use the other end, wield it like a whip.

  It occurs to me I haven’t been in a fistfight since junior high. And I didn’t win then.

  Too late: there’s the window. I can’t see any gun poking out, but maybe it’s inside.

  I flatten myself to the wall and ease forward, squinting into the dark.

  Nobody’s there. Probably...maybe... Nobody’s there. I can’t see anything, but....

  I inch closer.

  No one’s in the window, but someone’s in the cabin. I can hear breathing that isn’t mine: heavy, labored breathing. Sleeping breathing, almost a snore.

  I’ve been tiptoeing around like an asshole, and Joe’s... Yup. A glance in the window confirms it. There’s a pale, whitish lump in one corner, which resolves into two figures huddled under a duvet. One’s Joe, and he’s asleep, head thrown back, mouth open wide. The other’s Lina. And she’s looking right at me.

  145

  Elina

  A quick pinch to my forearm confirms it: I’m not dreaming or hallucinating.

  He came—he really came.

  Nick beckons me from the window—c’mere!

  I check on Joe. He looks like he’s out for the count. But how sure can I be? I reach for the rope at my ankles, completely loose now, and he stirs and groans.

  Nick frowns and holds up a finger: wait.

  Nervous energy sings through me. I want to hurtle into the night and never look back. But I’m not sure I could outrun Joe at the best of times, let alone barefoot over dirt and gravel. I shoot Nick a hard look: hope you have a plan.

  He doesn’t look like he has a plan. He’s just standing there, looking from me to Joe and back again. Well, if he doesn’t, maybe I do. I’ve had all day to think about it. I ease my arms out from under the duvet. When I’m sure Nick’s focusing on my hands, I point at the back window. He glances over there, and back at me. I make a mushroom cloud sign, both hands springing apart like a bomb’s gone off between them.

  Nick shakes his head.

  I repeat the mime: Come on! What’s so hard? Go out back; make a noise! Distract the fuck out of him!

  He shakes his head again, and draws his finger across his throat. That’s pretty clear: he thinks Joe might hurt me if he thinks we aren’t alone. Honestly, I’m not sure he won’t. I shrug: Out of ideas, then!

  Nick makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger and ducks out of sight. I hear sneaky footsteps mincing away from the cabin, then sprinting ones plunging into the woods. He can’t be... He wouldn’t just leave me here... Would he?

  No. He made the okay sign. That means... That has to mean....

  I just have to sit tight. He’s coming back. He’s probably... He’s got to be.... What?

  Fuck. I can’t think. I haven’t slept since Joe snatched me. I’m half out of my mind worrying about Mama and Vanya, what they’ve told little Joe—if I’ll see him again, and under what circumstances. It’s too much. I can’t... I can’t hold all that and try to guess at whatever half-baked plan Nick might be cooking up.

  No. That’s not fair. It could be a fully-baked plan. Everything that can go wrong already has. It’s about time something went right, and Nick hasn’t let me down yet.

  I hold onto that thought for dear life as the last of the daylight fades away, leaving me in the kind of pitch dark that doesn’t exist in the city. I can’t even pick up the faint aura of light pollution in the distance, with all those trees in the way. Hell, I can’t even make out the trees, or the wall, or my hand in front of my face. It’s not long, or it doesn’t feel like long, before I lose all sense of time.

  A dumb thought occurs to me: this must be what it’s like to be a hamster in the final moment
s of its life. I read somewhere that hamsters have no sense of past or future, only their current reality. So a happy hamster’s always been happy; a dying hamster’s been dying forever; can’t conceive of a future where it’s free of its final agony.

  How long have I been sitting in the dark?

  Can that hamster thing even be true? I had one as a kid. It seemed to remember me from day to day. But... Is hanging onto a spark of familiarity the same thing as grasping the passage of time?

  What am I even thinking about?

  I ball my hands into fists under the duvet. The sharp sensation of nails biting into skin cuts through my racing thoughts. I’m...scared. Just scared. Not losing my mind. Not floating outside of time. And... And I can actually hear something, a distant purr that wasn’t there before.

  A car! It’s got to be a car. Nick is coming back, and of course I never doubted it. The hum of the engine, the dull crunch of gravel, fills my ears. But Joe doesn’t stir, not even when Nick’s lowbeams spill over the rise. The sound must’ve risen gradually enough that it simply never registered. Even I’m not sure when it began.

  Nick rolls to a stop in the center of the clearing, but doesn’t kill the engine. I hold my breath when the door clunks open, as if I could somehow cancel out the noise by being extra-quiet on my end. Joe groans and shifts against me. Fuck...fuckfuckfuck....

  Stop walking, stop moving, stop taking steps!

  If Nick’s footfalls don’t give us away, the pounding of my heart surely will. If Joe can’t hear that, he must be able to feel it. He must—

  He grips my arm hard, just above the elbow. I gasp so violently I choke on my own spit. The resulting coughing fit might’ve been a good distraction if Joe gave a shit about me, but if I didn’t know it before, the past thirty-odd hours have proven he doesn’t.

  Instead of patting me on the back, he claps his hand over my mouth. “Shut up. Someone’s here.”

  I wheeze helplessly into his hand. His blunt fingers dig into my cheeks. My eyes water.

  “Whoever it is... You’re gonna act annoyed to see them. Tell ‘em we’re camping. Anything else out of your mouth, and you won’t like what happens.”

  I wriggle my feet. The last loop of rope falls from my ankles. This is it. If Joe thinks I’m sitting still for this, he can think again.

  A shadow passes over the window. The ancient porch creaks. Nick’s right on the other side of that door. I almost ruin everything with a crazed laugh, as another silly thought crosses my mind: Tie me up all you want; I serve only one cruel master.

  And then the door flies open. Nick’s a hulking silhouette in the arc of his lowbeams, looming over us with some kind of...medieval weapon? No—just a chain. He’s swinging one end, and the other’s wrapped round his fist. If I didn’t know him, I’d be terrified. Hope Joe feels the same, because this is my chance, and it’s going to go a whole lot smoother if Joe’s frozen with fear. Or at least startled into temporary inaction.

  I throw off the duvet and bolt for the door. Or at least, that’s the idea. Two steps in, a cramp hits, right in my calf. My knees buckle, and I hit the floor hard. I kneel there, stunned, palms stinging from smacking into the floorboards. By some miracle, no hand shoots out to grasp my ankle, no heavy foot comes down on my back. Joe’s cursing behind me, thrashing around. Must be tangled in the covers.

  Nick drops one end of the chain and reaches for me. I grab for his hand like a lifeline, and he tugs me to my feet. I stagger for a moment, careening into his chest. The cramp finally loosens. I nod at Nick, and we race into the night hand in hand.

  Joe thunders after us. Nick’s parked close, and we’ve got a decent head start...but not decent enough. Something hits me on the back of the thigh, sending white-hot pain deep into the meat of my leg. For a moment, I think I’ve been shot; it feels like a bullet. But Joe wasn’t armed. A rock—he must’ve thrown a rock. I stumble again. Nick’s hand’s torn from mine as pain blooms again, tearing up the back of my scalp, wrenching my neck, as Joe yanks me back by my hair.

  “Fuck! Let go!” I elbow him in the gut, and when he just tugs me closer, I throw my head back hard. There’s a crunch as my skull connects with his nose. First blood to me, I guess, unless that rock broke my skin.

  “Lina!” Nick’s circling back, now, with the chain stretched between his hands like he’s planning to garrote someone with it.

  I writhe in Joe’s grasp. He twists his hand in my hair, yanking my head back till I’m forced to my tiptoes. “Ah—stop!” I stamp where I think his foot is. All I get for my pains is a sharp pebble to my heel. I stumble again, tearing what feels like a good chunk of my hair out at the roots.

  The car’s so close. So goddamn close. Ten running steps, and I could be curled up in the passenger seat, with a locked door between me and Joe. All I need to do is break free.

  Somewhere behind us, the chain rattles softly. That’s all the warning I get before Joe whips me around to face Nick. I register Nick’s look of horror, then a sharp line of agony across my waist as the chain whips me a good one. My only consolation is Joe’s distressed shout: it must’ve wrapped all the way around. I grin through gritted teeth: Use me as a human shield, will you? That’s what you get!

  “I’m fine,” I gasp. I start to struggle and fight in earnest: the more of a handful I can make myself, the harder it should be for Joe to keep me between himself and Nick. I feel like bees are stinging my scalp, and all the way down my neck, but the pain only pisses me off. I thrash my head from side to side, throw elbow after elbow, till Joe pushes me down in the dirt. I land badly, scraping the skin off my palms, tearing the knees out of my pants, but I couldn’t care less. I’m scrambling for the car before I’m even on my feet, crawling till I get my legs under me.

  Behind me, I hear Nick and Joe come together in a clash of fists and yelling. Can’t tell who’s punching whom, what happened to the chain, but—

  “Fuck! You bit me!” Nick’s outrage would be comical in any other situation. Right now, not so much.

  I tune them out—concentrate. Got to concentrate.

  Nick’s left the keys in the ignition. I grab them and hit the trunk release. Got to be something in there I can use—a crowbar, a bag of oranges; shit, I don’t care! Anything I can hit him with, anything—oh, for fuck’s sake!

  This—this situation, right here—is why you don’t use your car as a garbage can.

  If we get out of this alive, I’m cleaning it for him. He’s got half his life back here: the child seat, a fire blanket, two crates of bottles and cans—bet he set out to recycle those months ago. There’s a math book Katie’s probably looking for, a jar of artichoke hearts, and there, half-hidden under a pile of glittery kid drawings, a road flare kit.

  Now, that has potential.

  I hear someone scream in anguish, a sound so strangled I can’t tell whether it came from Joe or Nick. One of them must’ve got the other between the legs. Or at least, I hope that’s all it was.

  Concentrate.

  I’ve never used a flare before. Not even sure how they work. There’s instructions on the inside of the box, but I can’t make head nor tail of them in my state of panic. Remove plastic lid; twist off cap, but do not discard—there’s a lid and a cap? I stare stupidly at the flare. It’s too dark to see. I’ll just have to—

  I hear running footsteps, and a hard thump. I glance up to see Nick with his face in the dirt, Joe’s arms wrapped around his legs. He must’ve tried to run. Nick rolls over and reaches for something just outside the headlights’ glow. But Joe’s grabbing for something too, and fuck, not good—what’s a rock that size even doing in the middle of the clearing?

  I yank at the end of the flare. Something pops off—got to be the lid. So the cap has to be.... I twist, and fuck, fuck... It’s stuck! I can’t—

  There’s a sharp yelp of alarm, and something slams into the dirt. I glance up: Joe’s hunched over Nick, whose head is canted sharply to the side. Good thing it is, or that rock would’ve cracked his
skull like an egg.

  I grip the flare between my knees and twist hard. This time, the cap comes off. What’s next?—Gently strike the flare with the scratch surface of the cap.

  So...like lighting a match?

  By some miracle, the flare whooshes to life on the first attempt. I run back around the car. “Hey! Asshole! Over here!”

  Joe freezes with the rock above his head. I whip the flare at him with all my strength. He drops the rock—not on Nick, by some mercy—and throws up his arms to protect his face. The flare hits him square in the chest. He shrieks, hitting a high, inhuman note. Nick bucks him off. I watch just long enough to make sure he’s getting away, and dive into the car. Nick joins me a second later, breathing hard. He’s got the beginnings of a spectacular black eye, and there’s a bloodstain spreading on his sleeve, but he doesn’t look badly hurt.

  “You all right?”

  Nick nods, still catching his breath. “You?”

  “I...think so?” Going to be bruised all to hell tomorrow, and I could easily sleep for a week, but nothing feels bloody or broken. I buckle my seat belt.

  “Should we—“

  “Wait—hold on.” Shit. I can’t see Joe any more. “Where’d he go? Is he—?” We can’t just leave him here, if he’s hurt, or blinded, or—

  Something slams against the passenger-side window. We both scream. Joe’s right there, bashing his shoulder into the window, like he thinks he can break it. And maybe he can; maybe this nightmare will never end.

  “Fuck! How the hell’s he still standing?“ Nick slams the car into reverse. My stomach drops as he accelerates into a grit-spraying U-turn. Moments later, Joe’s dwindling in the rearview mirror.

  Nick glances at me. “We’ll send the cops after him, yeah? I don’t think... Do you want to go back for him?”