I looked up at the sun. My face burned. I was in a stream, and water rushed into my ears. I sat up, choking and spewing.
Good thing I didn't land on my face. How long was I out? Fear hit me. How CLOSE was the witch? She was looking for me – I
knew it!
Run, run, run.
I stood up and fell back down. My body wasn't listening again. My knees complained. I tried again. Each step felt like I was setting off little firebombs in my knees. I looked up the hill. No way was I going up it, not with these knees, so I decided to just walk along the stream. After an hour of that, I had to rest my legs. Hungry, I entertained the idea of trying to catch a fish. Maybe I'd eat it raw, I was so hungry. No. I had to keep moving. I had all the time to eat once I was home. The old aswang was looking for me...and she was pissed off and determined, for sure. Walking along the stream was not the best way to hide from her, so I bit the bullet and chose to go up that hill.
It looked more like a wall.
I grabbed weeds and bushes and hugged trees, pulling myself up. I sat on the mud and took a little breather, looking over to the mountain across from me, across the river. She was in those trees, that old witch. I could smell her, or maybe I was smelling myself? Then the idea to bath in the stream came, to wash away any foul odors so she couldn't smell me. I cursed the thought out. Too late for that now. I'd have enough time to wash away my stink when I got home.
IF I got home.
The suspicion made me want to cry all over again, but I fought the urge. I had to be as quiet as possible. What time was it? I looked up at the sun. I guessed...three o’clock? I had no idea. Who was I? Crocodile friggin' Dundee? I had to hurry into the woods. I had to hide before it got dark. Maybe I'd make a little house of sticks. How hard could it be? If those fools in Survivor could do it, so could I. And I'm talking about the TV show, not the band.
So I's tried to make a stick house, and it's impossible. Frakking impossible. Nothing worked. I needed strings or glue or I don't know what. I certainly couldn't waste time and dick around with a stick house. If it came down to it, I'd just sleep and hide under a stack of leaves and mud. Anything was better than freezing and getting the gangrene and losing my toes.
What happened to Vol?
Was she alive?
Vol saved me. She bought me time to get away. She must've jumpkicked Granny right on the back. Vol sacrificed her life for me – FOR ME. How could someone do that? It was suicide. How does someone do that for another? And all I did was run, just like she ordered. I figured the was the best way to honor her now was to stay alive, or it was all for nothing. Ignore this paralyzing guilt. Just stay alive. Keep moving. Keep cliiiiimbing.
My knees were at an all-time burn.
I tripped on a rock and slid down the hill, screaming. I saw myself hitting that stream, my neck turned all the way around with my eyes all shocked at how bad a climber I was. But that didn't happen. Luckily, a tree hit me right between the legs. I was saved. Sore, but saved.
Almost to the top. The first thing I thought of doing, once up there, was killing a rat or something and eating it. No, not a rat. I wasn't starving that much. Maybe a squirrel. They looked cuter. Cleaner. I'd hit it with a rock, and there would be no guilt. It was just the way of the world, the circle of life. What was the alternative? Death? So the squirrel lives but I, a being of higher consciousness, die?
Pfft. I don't think so.
Wait. Did we even have squirrels in Hawaii?
I was losing it.
I had to keep my mind straight.
The hunger made my head dizzy, weak. I climbed. How was I even moving? Maybe aliens were controlling me, or at least shooting me with a kind of power beam. Of course! Yes! That had to be the answer. Thank you, aliens...you humanoids...you Andromedans...thank you! I know you're in the Bible. I know you helped make the great pyramids. You care about me. Thank you!
The sun bit into my face. No skin cancer, please. I could hear my face sizzling. I scooped a handful of mud and smeared it all over my skin – arms, neck, face. Should I eat the stuff, too? I was so thirsty. That stream. Damn. I should have drank something – filter the salt through my shirt. That works, right? Sounds like it might. Maybe I could do that with the mud, and it worked! Sure, they were little drops, but they helped. No time. I had no time. I was shaking all over.
So close to the top then. Food splattered into my mind like shit hitting a fan. All the time, just food, drink, food, ice cream, soda, cakes, rice, rice, rice, SPAM.
Then my ears played tricks on me. I heard electricity snapping.
I stopped, and my heart beats were in my throat.
A thing was moving at the top of the hill, behind the trees...searching and stepping on branches. I was found out! I hit the dirt. She was going to splash her big mouth on my head and take my scalp off. My face would be in her pot, looking all sad. I wished her away. I prayed to the aliens for help. All I had to do was hold my breath and stay put. I'd just stay there all quiet-like.
Then I heard a second person, and that made my eyebrow raise.
“She'll come through here, I know it,” said the woman.
“Yes, ma’am,” said some guy.
“Where are the others?” the same woman said.
“I did just like you asked and sent them all throughout this area.”
Hands were on me.
I screamed as someone scooped me up. I was under the arm of a beefy man that stank cologne.
“Lookie what I found!” he said. “Can I keep it?”
I was horrified. “No!” I said. “Put me down! She'll get you! Let me go!” Again, I felt like I was just wasting time. I had to keep moving. No one could protect me. Only Mandy's mum mattered. Only her arms around me would keep me safe. I had to get out of there. I beat my hands on his back.
The man grunted.
“No hitting!” And he put me down.
I looked around at five people all dressed in black leather and utility belts, all carrying guns. Weirdos! I was surrounded by Gothic-wannabe freaks. Nowhere to run. The beefy man looked past me.
“I always wanted a kid,” he said. “Would prefer a boy. Meh,” he shrugged. “Can I keep her, boss?”
“No,” that woman said. She walked through the gang, and it was my asshole mum. She didn't seem at all surprised to see me.
Nothing. Except, well...she looked a tad irritated. She had two pistols, one at each hip. They looked like pirate guns.
Mum had a big ole cigar between her teeth. Her clothes were not what I call normal for her. She reminded me of a gogo dancer at a club for lonely businessmen. Something was very gross about her. I mean, more than usual.
Mumma clapped her hands.
“Ladies and germs...my daughter,” she said.
Everyone whispered. The beefy man says, “Ohhh, so this is the one that got you in so much trouble.”
I backed up.
“I can't stay here. Pleasure meeting you all,” I said. “And Mum...I'll see you at home.”
“Girl, don't you walk away from me.” She said it with such sass.
I kept walking backwards. “Sorry. I have to go.”
Mum looked to her army.
“See what I have to put up with?”
Mum's men stood in my way. She walked towards me.
“How did you escape Thedral?”
“Who?”
“The aswang that took you.”
“The old lady? Granny? We tried to make our escape, and...”
“There's more of you?”
“Yes, there are more of us. She has all these kids, all locked up. Had me in some dark meat room with this other girl. She saved my life.”
Beefy-man raised his hand.
“The aswang saved you??”
I looked at him weird.
“NO. My friend saved me. Vol saved me. And now she's dead with the other kids.”
Mum's eyes widened.
“Where are these kids? These little cash cows?”
“They'
re all at Granny's trailer home.”
“Granny?”
“Thedral,” I said.
Mum walked up and put her hand on my shoulder.
“Take us there.”
“NO! I'm not going BACK!”
I tried to break free. Her hand turned into a vice. I cried out, “I'm not going back!”
Mum shook me.
“Take me to her! I'll kill her! Take me! You listen to your mother, or I'll shake the shit out of you!”
The others looked away, embarrassed.
I pointed back the way I came.
She tossed me to the side, then paced around with her hand to her chin. I cried, yeah, but it was because I landed on a rock, right on my ass. I wanted her to go to the monster. Let her see for herself. Let her die. What did I care then? Mum.
It was just a word. She was dead to me.
Beefy-man walked up to Mum.
“So this turns into a rescue mission?”
Mum stopped walking back and forth.
“No,” she said. “They didn't pay us extra for that.”
She ordered them all to move out. One of her crew – a woman wearing shades – pulled on a rope, and three old women (looking like they were in their 80's) came out of the woods, all nude, all tied around the neck. Prisoners, I guessed.
Aswangs. Beefy-man took my hand, and we were off, back down that hill, toward the stream. There was no point in struggling. This was it. I was being dragged along, and there was nothing I could do about it.