Chapter Three
MELINDA HAD HOPED to at least get to the edge of the corn before they were seen. They were moving quickly, without disturbing too much of the corn, but it will be obvious which path they were on.
She turned into a bare row where they had laid down the water lines this year and followed that. They were a little noisier -- there was less room -- but the tassels overhead were still and that’s what mattered.
In the distance, she heard men shouting. Keep running, keep running. Her legs burned, but she willed herself on. A stitch knotted in her side, stabbing pains shot through her with every step. Nobody ever died from pain, she told herself. Right?
Caleb managed to keep up with her as they turned onto another footpath. She didn’t know the corn fields that well that it made her nervous not to follow the original path. Gabe would be expecting her to come out at one spot -- if he’s there. It was the only part of her plan that she could not prepare for. It was the only part of her plan that must not go wrong.
It was too late to turn back.
They ran. The darkness carried the menacing roar of diesel engines being revved.
Oh, fuck.
And suddenly there was no more corn, just grass. They had made it out of the fields, but she could tell by the sound of the engines that they were going around the corn. They had gotten only a few minutes, at the most, before the men caught up to them.
That was when she took Uncle Josiah’s Zippo lighter out of her pocket, lighted it, and waved.
And a good 300 yards away, it was answered by a flicker of headlights. Her legs nearly melted with relief! Behind her, there was shouting -- the men in the cars had seen her signal. They must stay still, though -- Gabe couldn’t see them in the dark. If he ran them over then everything would be useless...
And there he was, not a hundred feet away. A burst of adrenaline hit her and she jerked Caleb, and together they ran towards it.
“Open the door!” she screamed. “Open the door!”
Gabe got out. He had gotten taller since she saw him last, and ganglier, and there’s a stoop to his posture that suggested crushing burdens. But he was here, that was all that mattered now. He flung open the back door of his Jeep. It was a new car. When she was still living in the outside world, he was driving a Ford Escort. But that was a minor detail.
“Go! Go! Go!” she yelled, though what she really would have wanted to do was to kiss him senseless for being here. “They’re coming!”
The first of the headlights popped out from behind the far edge of the corn field.
“Shit!” Gabe said. “Hang on!” he shouted. He gunned the engine and they rocketed backwards. She and Caleb fell to the floor in a pile of limbs as her arm slammed against the divider between the front seats.
The jeep bounced up and down, throwing the two of them into the air. But even in this desperate state, Gabe had the sense to lock on his seat belt. He threw the car into gear and they shot forward, heading towards the interstate.
“I hope they’re empty,” Gabe muttered.
The jeep had higher ground clearance but it was slower in four-wheel-drive. The cars the men were driving sent beacons of light bouncing wildly through the Jeep and those beacons were getting brighter. As they rumbled forward, she pulled herself up and looked out the rear windshield. She was nearly blinded by the headlights.
“Yeah, wouldn’t do that,” Gabe said, the nervous edge in his voice the only indication that he knew that they were there.
“Can’t you go faster?” she pleaded.
“Not if I don’t want to roll over.”
“They’re catching up to us!” she shrieked.
“They’ll definitely catch us if we roll.”
The blast of a shotgun caught Melinda’s throat as she began to reply. There was no tearing of metal or shattering of glass, though. It might have been a warning shot or it might not have been -- the cars were bouncing too much to be certain. For the first time that night, Melinda sensed the hopelessness of their situation, a falling sensation that crushed the breath from her. She watched in horror as the cars spread out behind them in a line.
And then Caleb’s aura became a blinding light to her even though Gabe was as insensitive to this glow as he was to the headlights in his rearview mirror. The kid's coal-black eyes began to glow red, and then white. And as she watched, he spread his ethereal wings and said something unintelligible, yet the anger in his words was unmistakable.
Lightning flashed from his eyes and a red glow came out of his mouth.
He was all aura now -- a beautiful, terrible creature whose sole purpose was death.
Terrified, Melinda covered her ears and closed her eyes tight as a wall of orange light and heat hit and surrounded the Jeep. But she had to look back to see what was happening.
The line of cars had become a wall of flame... a solid wall of orange light occasionally broken by a grill.
Caleb slumped to the floor of the Jeep, unconscious and drained.
Gabe, in his usual, tight-lipped manner, said only, “Well, that was something.”
"Yes. Something. Oh, thank God!" She breathe a sigh of relief.
Gabe drove on until they reached the Interstate and they headed south.
* * *
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