Running Scared

I jolt awake, sweat on my brow and hair in my mouth. Something has woken me up, has bounced against the edges of my consciousness to rouse me. A quickly forgotten nightmare, perhaps?

But no - I spot a movement in the tunnel of the cave and my heart leaps into my throat. I'm only dimly aware of clawing at Grahame's arm, of shaking him out of his slumber.

"W-what?!" he stutters, still groggy from sleep.

"There's - there's someone in here with us!"

He jolts awake, suddenly alert, and peers into the darkness.

"Who's there!" he barks, holding his arm out across me.

The person moves closer, crouched.

She is older than Roger, I think. A slither of pink tongue flicks out to wet her thin lips and she watches us like an animal prepared to attack. It's impossible to tell how long she's been out in the wilderness for; her clothes have been crudely patched up, some places more than once - at her kneecaps, especially. The jacket she's wearing, brown leather, is cracked and beaten from exposure from the weather, her boots only a little better in condition. She edges closer, scuffling on the tips of her toes and the knuckles of her hands. I'm surprised at her agility.

Grahame twitches when she reaches into a pocket of her jacket but she's only pulling out a battered box. She shakes it - cigarettes, I notice - and indicates to the dying fire.

"D'ya mind?" she asks, sounding as if she doesn't care for my reply either way. She's already holding the tip of the cigarette against the embers of the fire, the tips of her lank, steel coloured hair hanging dangerously close to the warm glow.

I grip Grahame's forearm, watch as the woman takes a long drag on the cigarette. It's only then that her shoulders sag and her eyes slip half shut, as if she's caught in a fleeting moment of ecstasy. Her mouth gapes, revealing a gold covered front tooth.

"Bin savin' these fer ages. Bin in my pocket fer months now, surprised they ain't disintergrated from all the rain I've bin caught in." she mumbles, deep and croaky. Her voice shifts to a lower tone; I realise that she's gently humming to herself. "Rainin', it's pourin', the old man is snorin'."

"What do you want?" Grahame demands, glancing across at me, then my protruding stomach.

Black eyes observe us, a slow blink releasing us from their grip every several seconds. She purses her lips to blow a steady trail of smoke from her mouth; It cracks into a crooked smile a moment later.

"Sanctuary." she says, drawing the word out.

"What?"

Her face is engulfed in a cloud of smoke as she sucks on the cigarette again. "Santuary. Used ter be you could claim sanctuary in churches. This ain't no church but it's the closest I got. Lemme rest fer a couple hours. I bin tryin'a shake off some Enforcers fer days now."

"That's not our decision to make. We should get Roger, he - "

"No! Don't need no one else buttin' in. I'll only stay fer a little while."

We fall silent and we watch each other, Grahame and I anxiously. The woman is merely looking at us as if we're inconveniently trespassing on her moment of peace. She eyes the bump in my stomach and her eyebrows shoot up in realisation.

"You won't hurt us, will you?" Grahame asks timidly, an act for the woman's sake. I know that he's already scouted out the closest weapon to us - a skinning knife Stephen left out earlier.

She doesn't answer him, addresses me instead. "Pregnant is a dangerous position ter be in these days. When I was your age, we used ter be able to do what we wanted, had a bit more leniency. Not no more."

"You remember? You remember the old world?" Grahame asks, face flashing with bright curiosity. He can't help himself, he has courted the unknown since he was a boy.

The woman fixes a beady eye on him and shifts a little closer to the fire, the heel of her boot resting almost in the embers. The cigarette is flicked away into a darkened corner of the cave, zapping out of existence in the blink of an eye.

"Wasn't so much an old world, the government was already puttin' their rules into motion when I was a child but it was alright until I was in my thirties. I can recall a few things though - they come an' go so quickly. It's like - like someone is flickin' through a picture book, but they're goin' too fast fer me to keep up with. Still, maybe one day they'll go slow enough for me ter get a good look again but I won't hold my breath."

"But you remember things?" Grahame asks again persistently. I want to elbow him in the ribs but the old woman throws her head back and laughs, displaying a set of gold capped teeth.

"You're a keen 'un." she says, appraising him. He must pass the test though because she blinks an almost fond wink at him. "I 'member giant, metal bird-like contraptions. Airyplans, I think. Hmm...airyplans. They flashed across the sky, catchin' the sun, drawing white lines above the world. Criss-cross." she raises a hand towards the ceiling of the cave, shakily sweeping it across, as if to rub out the cave and expose us to the sky. "Oh, it sure was somethin'." she mumbles softly.

She stares down at her hands, scarred and weathered, as if the sight of them can bring back her memories, as if hoping that every blemish and mole and scratch and vein would point her in the direction she desperately wanted to go. She seems to forget that we're here with her, touching her knuckles with unsteady fingers.

"Bertie, he never could remember the airyplans. Said I was mad." she chuckles softly to herself. "How could he 'ave not known them? He was only four years younger."

"Bertie? Is that...is he your friend?" I speak up, catching her startled gaze when she looks back to us.

"Hmm? Oh, no. No, not anymore..."

This woman, she seems so harmless that I find I'm not scared of her anymore. I almost want to protect her. If she wanted to hurt us, she probably would have done it by now. Besides, she's not stupid, she knows that there are others in this cave and she knows she can't take on all of us.

We sit without speaking, the woman sitting with her feet in the fire and her eyes shut. It seems as if hours have passed, with us sat in such a strange circumstance. I find myself praying that no one will wake up until she is gone, so that she can leave peacefully and uninterrupted.

After a time, the old woman opens her eyes and speaks, her voice louder than I expected. "Best be goin', sun'll be up shortly. Gotta make my move before any Enforcers try an' close in, don't wanna be endangering you nice people. Thank you for not killin' me, not many would 'ave let me come in, wouldda killed me on the spot."

There's something sad about the prospect of never seeing this woman again. So peculiar, and extraordinary for being out here on her own for so long, that I feel that she'll go and leave behind nothing but the sense that this was all a confusing dream. I search about, spot the tail end of a scarf I have recently finished knitting and am struck with an idea.

"Please, it gets cold at night, take this scarf." I tell her, grabbing hold of it and gingerly walking over to her. She stares at me, then the scarf, with suspicion. I can sense Grahame shifting uncomfortably behind me, as if he is still wary of the woman. "Please, it will make me feel a little better that you're out there, at least being warmer than you have been."

She takes it carefully, hesitantly. "For me?"

I nod, hug my arms around myself because my hands feel strangely empty without the scarf to hold.

The woman slowly winds it around her neck, clutching the ends tightly to her chest. She looks up at me with bright eyes and I awkwardly offer her a small smile, not knowing what to do now that I've given her the scarf.

"Haven't had a word of kindness from no one, in such a long while. Thank you - thank you both." she says emotionally, reaching to wring both our hands, gripping them tight between her own cracked fingers. "Used ter be a lot more folks like you when I was a kid, now we're all scared of our own shadows. I'm sorry you never got chance to see it back then." she squeezes my hand again, pats a gentle hand against my stomach.

"Where will you go?" Grahame asks, stepping beside me and resting his arm across my shoulders; not to protect me from anything the woman may do, but as a gesture of solidarity. "Do you have somewhere safe?"

She smiles as she adjusts the lace on her boot. "Oh yes, don't you worry, lad. I've taken care of myself fer a long time now. I 'ave somewhere nearby, far enough fer you lot not to worry though. Just a good few miles south down the stream, I got a little hollow tree I like ter rest in."

"That's good, perhaps we'll see you again - "

"Who are you!"

We all three whip around to look at George, standing half concealed behind the curtain of his room. He's trembling, his face whiter than usual, large eyes on the old woman. I wave my arms and indicate for him to lower his voice so as not to wake the others up.

"Shh, it's okay, George. She's - she's a friend." I tell him, glancing back to the woman but she's already slipping out of the cave.

I turn to Grahame and we share a look of regret, of not being able to do more for her.

***

The old woman plunges her foot into the icy water, feeling it seep into her socks and boots, the material of her trousers soaking it up to the knee. It isn't preferable, but it's safe. This she knows, after years of alluding Enforcers by concealing her footprints and tracks by walking through the stream itself. She can always make a fire later in the day to dry her things, where the smoke will be less noticeable to any prying eyes, something she has done many times before. This is routine, this is nothing new.

She clings to the scarf the young couple gave to her, red and a little rough around the edges, the smell of smoke from their dying fire woven into the wool itself, careful to keep it out of the water in fear it will shrink.

Her hands itch for another cigarette and she presses a hand to her chest, to feel the edges of the squashed box in the inside pocket of her jacket for protection against the water. She will not smoke again for a while, she is determined to save them for as long as possible. A cigarette every several months is better than no cigarettes at all.

The day wears on and her progress is slow going; she must climb out of the water every so often so that feeling can seep through her toes again, then the weary process will begin again. Walk, stop, rub some warmth into her feet, eat a snack of dried squirrel meat before splashing back into the water.

She thinks then of Albert, affectionately dubbed Bertie, recalls the sound of his whining tone at the prospect of eating more squirrel. He hated squirrel. Loathed it. Said he'd rather eat tree bark than put another morsel of that disgusting meat into his mouth again. They were young then though, she only just turned thirty and he twenty-six. They were free with their criticisms and there were many to be had. They thought they were entitled to it back then, back when the world was perhaps a little richer than it is now. Oh, how they would have shuddered at the thought of eating squirrel in the early days! What, with their crate of tinned goods, so heavy that they needed rest stops every half hour, shaking their fingers, purple and aching. Those rest stops had come less frequently as the months had worn on.

She approaches the hollow tree, one of her safe spots in these woods, almost laughs aloud at how Bertie hated to climb the tree, too. He hated a lot of things during his time out here, he was never completely at home with nature, with the odd exceptions. He did like seeing the birds, of watching deer sprint through the trees. He cried every time she had to kill one for food, sometimes begged her to find something else to eat even though she assured him that that was it.

Her numb feet are clumsy as they try to gain a grip in the footholds on the tree. She manages, after several slippery attempts, to climb closer to the branches, at least she'll feel better to have something stronger to grip onto. She pauses though, looks at the small engravings on the hollow tree. There is a ritual she has to do before entering her hideout.

"Bertie." she mutters, shaking her head solemnly.

She brushes a hand against the carved initials, their last little joke, right before Bertie had caught pneumonia. They were determined to leave their mark somewhere and Bertie thought that it would be tremendously funny that their names were in these woods, where no one would see. Untouched, unseen, but still there. She likes to chisel away at it every few years, to make the letters clearer.

Not for the first time this day, she wishes Bertie were still alive.

"Stop what you're doing! Climb down and put your hands in the air!"

Ah, inevitable capture.

Sure enough, when she squints down past her toes, she can see six Enforcers, guns aimed directly at her. She deliberates for a moment on whether she should just let them shoot her, at least that way she'll feel closer to Bertie, to his hidden grave beneath the magnificent oak tree that he liked to doze under.

She has a longing to see the city again though, her home before she fled with Bertie when the stricter laws came into play; It wasn't a world they wanted to live in and they were scarcely eager to join their peers and comply with such extremities. (Supplying the Enforcers with guns, indeed! It was plain and simple, they were prisoners in their own homes.) Besides, she doesn't want any blood shed in her peaceful place, her special place that she shared with her beloved brother. In a way, she's relieved to have been finally caught, the wait for the inevitable seems so much worse than the thing itself. She feels oddly at peace.

The Enforcer calls to her again, "Your final warning. Get down now, or we will shoot."

The woman sighs, presses a kiss into her hand to brush across the letters of Bertie's initials one last time, before maneuvering the tricky path back down the tree. She slips halfway down, crashes to the forest floor, a surge of pain in her wrist. Probably broken. It doesn't matter now.

The Enforcers immediately draw into a circle around her, two of them roughly grabbing her arms to hoist her to her feet. They seem to know she's going to come quietly, yet handcuff her all the same. She remembers the cigarettes in her pocket, thinks it would be a shame to waste them after all this time preserving them.

"I got cigarettes in my pocket, this one in my jacket 'ere. You wouldn't light one up fer me, would ya?" she asks calmly to the Enforcer on her left. He stares back at her with a blank expression, masking the shock he's feeling well.

"No." he answers coldly, turning his attention back to their path.

The old woman shrugs as best she can. "Worth a try."

As she's led away, she mournfully ponders at who will go over their initials now, who will make sure that they're still there, a blemish on the tree in a forest no one wanders? She feels like she has failed him in this, her last promise to him that she would keep him alive in the world somehow. His dying wish was to be remembered, in this terrible world where everyone is nameless.

"Give me my name back." he'd said, "I want to be someone when I die."

She'd thought he would pull through, she was forever clinging to the desperate hope that he would fight it off and make a miraculous recovery. She still expected it as she woke one morning to find his hand, stiff and cold in hers, his face white and grey, a fly crawling across his open mouth.

She'd cried for a long time, until the day turned to night and back again, yet she stayed by his body in case he woke up. After three days, that hope was futile. She laughed manically at her stupidity, the idiocy of her actions, and set to work to dig his grave, deep so that the animals couldn't eat him. That was the day she let go of her fruitless hope.

Now though, in the arms of the Enforcers and in the face of death, a strangers red scarf wrapped snugly about her neck, the ignition of that hope sparks again as she thinks of the boy and girl in the cave, smiling at the kindness she never thought she'd see again.

She'd had a long life, a lonely one these past years and she was ready to move on.

Perhaps, she thinks to herself hopefully, she will see her brother again.