Alaskan Run

It was a beautiful, Alaskan sunrise. The sun’s rays were just peaking the ice-capped horizon, and the holy, green pines stood tall against the sky, lightly blushing in the coming grace. Vibrant clouds wisped – just above their tips – amongst departing stars, shooing them away with their vivid tails. And with a small, coming breeze, few flakes of purest snow flew and danced over their sleeping siblings. Then as they settle back down to nap, all was calm again. But this peace fall to chaos as a figure moved upon the horizon. It obstructed the sun’s bright light, and drew a dark shadow across the tame landscape; one that reached as far back as those large, high trees. Its heavy feet broke through the gentle snow, leaving giant craters in its wake as it ran down to the valley below.

It was a woman; one who’d been nearly stripped to her innocence. Her bare skin was pale and white, having taken the brunt of nature’s merciless assault. Her chopped, golden locks shone like a halo upon her scalp; and her eyes were wide and blue. Her breaths were a mist in the air as she huffed out exhale after exhale.

She stumbled down as her numb feet lost their balance atop the slick snow and fell deep into its chilling arms. As she began pulling her weakened body from the sleet—Bang!

The unforgettable sound of a rifle.

The woman collapse as an outline of red took the place of the white around her. Her body hadn’t the time to still as the red water leaked from the fresh hole in her back. Before it hit the ground, she was gone. And the person who’d taken the shoot that stole her life was pulling himself from the trees, seeking his physical reward.

Two weeks later:

I still waited for the phone to ring. To hear her voice on the other end, telling me she was safe. But the phone remained silent and I remained where I absently sat. Pulling my thinned nails from my lips, I awoke my phone again for the hundredth time, checking if in the seconds I had waited, I somehow missed her call. But the colored screen lit up and the calls claimed their blankness. My fingers returned to my teeth as my thoughts gathered. I told her not to. I told her it wasn’t safe. I glanced around at our electricity-lacking apartment, but she knew we needed the money. I also knew if she didn’t return, I would be forced to follow in her footsteps.

I scoffed at the selfishness. I was more worried about working for money, then a missing friend. Margaret. I had on numerous occasions questioned calling the police, but they didn’t care about people like her. Their stereotype had already sentenced them.
ɸ

I stood, huddled, on the street corner and pretended I knew what I was doing. Glancing around the empty road beside me, I deduced maybe I didn’t. Seconds away from hurrying towards the light of the inner city, I saw a truck turn.

My heartbeat stuttered.

It slowed.

The high beams dropped before blinding me.

It stopped.

I took a few steps towards the idling vehicle and leaned in the gaping window. “What can I do for ya sir?” I asked.

The man behind the wheel smiled. “How much you charging’?”

Shit.

“Depends on what ya want.” I mustered.

His smile widened and he reached for his passenger door. “Well let’s negotiate, then.”

I walked around the hood of the truck, trying my best not to hyperventilate. Running my fingers along the rust-coated navy paint of its side, I pleaded with myself to be strong. Once at the gaping entry, I lifted into the seat, and with a heavy conscious, heaved the door back into its socket. I sat there beside him for a moment, knowing I should turn but at the same time, desiring nothing more than to return back out into the frost.

His fingers curled in my hair as I did, and I tried my best not to cringe.

“There’s just one thing.” He explained.

I managed a glance and a nod—

My skull smashed into the dashboard with the force of his hand as he brought it forward.

Again.

And over again.

Until finally—

I blacked out.
ɸ

I blinked as consciousness slowly surfaced. It wasn’t immediate that I realized something was wrong. First, I noticed the man that lounged to my left on a decrepit, worn couch. Legs sprawled down onto the polished wood floor; booted feet leaning lazily to the sides. Winter coat removed, and flannel shirt huffing and swelling with every sleep-induced breath. Balding black hair frantic in the dusty air of – I surveyed – the cabin. Eyes closed.

Maybe I could sneak away—

And then, I felt the taut rope around my limbs.

The mere shift of my arms in their bindings – a sixth sense, perhaps – woke him from his slumber; and I met with pale gray eyes watching me from that old couch. In an instant, he was up, standing at my crumbled front. “Good morning.”

He caressed my cheek and I no longer held back my flinch. Keeping his fingers on my flesh, he smiled. A gentle smile that one would give a child. But one that refused to match with the gleam in his eyes. “You never told me your name.” He fussed.

I was stunned into silence.

And this too, seemed to amuse him. He reiterated. “Your name?”

My voice squeaked sharply as I opened my mouth. “What’s the point of telling you my name?”

His smile deepened. “I always like to know the women I hunt.”

Hunt?

Hunt?!

“Well if you won’t tell me your name, let me tell you something of me, then.” He uttered with a huff of annoyance. “I used to be left-handed once,” He expressed, lifting his right hand as though in comparison. “But mother never allowed such a thing in her house. Beat me every day I forgot…” He trailed.

I scratched at the rope around my legs, searching for an end, anything that would free me from this menace, as he spewed forth his words, his life. And I found myself luck, the man, lost in thought, was oblivious, as I worked. “…Other kids mocked me back then; if only they could see me now.” He howled a sick, twisted laugh. “Actually, one already has.”

I stopped my struggle as his gaze turned towards me, his sickening laugh suddenly cut and his attention fully drawn.

“And now you too.” He whispered. Instantly, yet again I was lost to him as his eyes glazed over in thought and he began to move about the cabin. After endlessly pacing the way, he paused. Then, he stepped towards the dresser to his right, fingered the necklace that hung from the handles before opening one. “And you have too.”

Margaret’s necklace: crystal pendant dangling from a wire chain; blue beads tied on each side. I recalled her pulling it from her nightstand – “Mother’s gift to me; it’ll be good luck” – before she left.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was howling. “What did you do?! What did you do to her?!”

He hollered back. “You think she was the only one?!”

He fiddled with bracelets. Pulling out necklaces and rings and earrings from the drawers of his armoire. Handfuls and Handfuls. Slamming them down, piling them together on the wooden table top beside him, until finally when everything was collected, set at his hands, he suddenly relaxed. Began to comb through it. Slowly. “What I keep.” He explained softly.

I stammered in disbelief.

He moved from his place at the table and slid behind me. I felt the tug of his hands on my binding, but only slightly, as if he were pulling something—He removed my bangle from my wrist, gently brushing flesh against mine, causing a shudder. As he pulled back, he rubbed the worn metal between his fingers. “To remember you all.” He cooed.

And in the absence of his emotion, my fury extinguished and fear took its place in my heart.

It was hours before he responded to me again. Simply a prop as he readied himself. Rifle: cleaned and loaded; pistol as well, secured in its belt clip. Knife. Boots – polished. Thick, wool gloves. And as he prepared, I sat in my bindings, pretending as I always do: that I would stay invisible.

And suddenly, it was as though a silent alarm sounded. His head rose and he glanced towards the curtained window near the front of the house. “Almost sunrise.” He murmured. He turned towards me with new-found interest. “Time for the game.”
ɸ

He drug me to the field before the trees, miles from the house I’d awoke in. Void of trees, its pure body sparkled slightly in the coming sun. And the chill that came off it crept instantly into my bones.

Tugging away my bonding, the man pressed his mouth to my ear. Whispering that foul breath. “You can’t run. You can’t hide. This is my domain. Yours is the streets. You won’t last long. They never last long…” The last of his words almost sounded disappointed, as though he truly wanted a victim to escape, to have someone to fight. With my appendages free, he tossed me back down into the snow, and with a cock of his gun, there came one final sentence – “Two minute head-start” – before the game started.

As the heavy-sounding numbers broke from his lips, I ran. My instincts already guided me towards the line of pine to my right.

Two minutes.

Two minutes.

Two minutes.

My breathed heaved itself from my lips as I scurried past tree and past tree, all of which looked the same.

Two minutes head-start.

How many seconds were left?

“This is my domain…You won’t last long…”

He was right.

Two minutes.

I was already as lost as I was on the street the night he took me. I slowed as I surveyed my surroundings. Trees. Trees and snow. Bare branches. And white powder broken in the line of my running gait.

I huffed out a sob.

How on Earth was I supposed to escape when he could simply follow my tracks?

Think.

Think.

But my mind stalled as I thought of my situation.

This couldn’t be happening.

But it was…

How many seconds left?

Not enough.

I took off running, once again, into the icy, white abyss before me.
ɸ

It seemed a short eternity before I heard his voice again. Shouting to be heard beyond the distance that separated us. “You have no idea my childhood. Being mocked, day in and day out.” He continued his story: both his tales of woe and revenge. “Always on that bus. To school. And back. No relenting. Everyone. And the driver did nothing!”

I ran into the heavier line of pine. Just running. Keep running. But even from behind, I swore I heard the pounding of feet against frozen ground. But if I could just lose him, then I could—that unforgiving voice called, echoing closer than I would have wished. I scampered behind a nearby tree as his voice again broke the morning air. “I burned all the buses after that. And they never caught me. Just like they’ll never catch me now.” He paused before falling back to his original statement. “If only there had been people on those buses. That w-would have made things so much sweeter.”

His speech fell to a close. The cold silence of the surrounding woods engulfed the space his words had left like a wave. And even seemed to overthrow the thrum of my heart that beat in my ears so fiercely.
ɸ

I ground to a halt as my breath faltered in my chest. Leaning down into my knees, I sucked in the ice of the air.

How much? How much farther?

But as I ponder this, I also have to pondering the inevitable as well. How much farther until what? What is the future of this predicament and is it one that I can truly see coming forth?

I’m going to die…

The bark of the trees beside me erupted as the shot ricocheted off their coarse bodies.

I stifled a scream, ducking instinctively in my place.
No.

“Used….married once.”

I caught glimpses of his words on the wind as I again began to run.

“Th-…years.”

My numb feet splashed into the sludge of water and nearly took me down.

“Divorced that…”

I gripped the tree beside me as my feet returned beneath me.

“Now…just…this.”

I started my race again.

“…You girls…”

Another shot rang on in the air, sending me sprawling towards the ground.

Scarce birds scattered above me and the shallow footsteps of deer dispersed off towards my left. I huddled on my stomach, hands shielding my head, breath heaving.

Breath Heaving.

Listening.

Waiting.

Silence.

I started to my knees, pulling myself up slowly; ears still heeding to the warning sound of Death, while I sprinted.
ɸ

I saw them before I heard them. Little bugs miles in the distance, speeding past on sleet-covered roads. Cars. Few and far in between, but following each other in regular intervals.

The Lord’s pray on my lips, I stumbled down the slope, losing sight of the vehicles, but not the fresh hope blossoming in my frozen core. The trek now seemed a short hike with my destination in mind. Keeping in the direction I’d spied the cars, I made my way pass the trees. Each of which almost seemed to point. Over there. Almost seemed to say. Just pass us. You can make it. As the hill narrowed down into the valley belly, the snow deepened slightly, drawing up to my knees. The cold was a shock and nearly stopped in my tracks. And again I watched my bark-covered friends. Pointing. Calling. Almost there. Almost—

I pushed my feet through the powder, relying on the simply mental image of those cars. Seeing one pick me up. The warmth of the interior. The police. Seeing that man behind bars—

I faltered as his form appeared before me, pulling out from behind a pine. I collapsed, dragging myself back to reverse my run as he trained his barrel at me. “I’ll be nice with you.” He promised, swaggering my way, “Bury ya right next to your f-f-friend, up there by the neck of the river.”

I pulled myself up as his weapon fired.

I found myself back on the ground before I could blink, now with fire igniting in my leg and a stain on the white snow below me.

“Please…”

My plead only reached my ears.

“What was her name?” His distant thoughts came through a hollow moan as his footsteps crunched closer. “Ah, yes. Margaret.”

Margaret…

“Come on, girl, we’ll make it through this. Whatever it takes.”

But you didn’t.

And as I stared up at the man above me, I knew I too didn’t.

The kick of his boot forced me to my stomach, setting my leg ablaze but oddly stultifying the rest of my body.

“Just the two of us. Against the world.”

“You left me.” I whispered.

“Game over.” Replied the voice above me.

I closed my eyes as the barrel jolted against my shoulder blade. “But that’s alright, Margaret. I’ll find you.”

Bang!

“Whatever it takes.”

“Promise.”