by B.R. Paulson
Chapter 15
The party over Jeanine’s death faded minutes after starting. Like a sample of what was to come, the intensity of the search for Mom and I increased. Palpable, like a mist in the air, the hunt fever drenched the woods, soaking us.
Thankfully Mom didn’t make any more noises. I’m not sure if this was a good thing or not from a medical standpoint. Coming from our position, her silence worked for the time being.
I turned to kneel beside the wagon, checking her wound for more bleeding. The blood didn’t gush or even seep fast, but the dampness covered the area like it bled some here and there.
Setting my pack down, I used the bulk as a pillow. Pine needles and spring growth weren’t my first choice as a bed, but I’d take what I could get. We weren’t going to get very far in the dark, not with a frenzied hunting party after us or with Mom injured like she was.
I wrapped my arms around my waist, holding my stomach and staring into the black, star-speckled sky above me.
Boots stomped on gravel all around us, the startling nearness deafening and incapacitating.
The roundabout branched out in four different directions – the direction we came from, and three others. At least a dozen men paced and walked around the center island searching for a clue as to which way we had gone.
Nothing would move me from my spot. I could stare at the sky and no one would see the shine of my eyes.
Every time they called to each other, I flinched. Would they wake Mom? Would she make a sound? Fear enhanced selfish thoughts. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want Mom to either. If she stayed asleep and quiet, our chances increased by the minute of surviving until morning.
What would they do if they did find us? Would they shoot us, like Jeanine? Or would they take us back and do worse things?
Included with our nightly instructions, Mom would always warn me about the good, better, best phenomenon which applied to even the bad, worse, worst alteration.
In theory, things worked like this: Events start out good/bad like someone gets a job or gets a cold. In the next step of better/worse that job would come with a huge salary and the cold would turn to pneumonia. In either situation, the person would be thinking “how could things get better or worse?” And then the best/worst would come like a promotion or bonus and death.
Before being able to go the other way on the spectrum, their circumstances had to go to the extreme of best/worst.
So even while lying with my mom shot and men chasing after us, I wasn’t stupid enough to believe things would get better so soon. We still hadn’t survived the worst.
I just didn’t know what the worst could be.
Death? Or was surviving the worst and death would be the better?
Even as the men continued searching, I couldn’t fight the pull on my eyelids anymore. I slept.
