Children of Paranoia

  I had a plan now. Looking at that man dying on the ground had helped me formulate a plan. They knew where we were. That was for sure. They didn’t sacrifice men like that for nothing. They knew they were close. I thought we could use that. We could use that to get some money before we left. We needed the money. We were down to our last few hundred dollars. It would take us a while to get settled in wherever we ended up next, and we were going to have to bring you to the doctor’s if our son was going to survive. “We’re going downtown,” I answered.

  “What? Why?” Downtown wasn’t away. You just wanted to get away. In retrospect, maybe that would have been the right move.

  “I still have my ATM card. We haven’t used it because I was afraid it would give away where we are. Well, they already know where we are. This could be our last chance to get some money for a while. If we do it downtown, they won’t have any idea what direction we go afterwards.” I looked over at you. You looked skeptical. “We need to do this,” I said. You knew I was right.

  “Okay,” you answered, sealing our fate. I stepped on the gas and we sped toward the city.

  During our ride, everything remained calm, almost frighteningly so. Everything was quiet. We could see the city lights in the distance. It was still the middle of the night. The city would be asleep, but the lights were on. We crossed over the bridge leading into the city. My plan was to simply turn down a street with a bank, pull over, take out as much money as the bank would let me, get back in the car, and drive. I had to believe that my ATM card would still work. They would have wanted me to use it, knowing full well that it would give me away.

  The city streets were almost empty. Every few blocks we would see someone walking down the street, heading home from a friend’s house or from a night of drinking. We were in the rich end of town full of big houses and old money. There were highways leading away from the city in all directions. I hadn’t even thought yet about which direction we were going to go in. One step at a time, I thought. You sat silently in the passenger seat of the car. I didn’t know if you were thinking about the dying man we’d left by the side of the road or if you were simply trying not to think at all.

  I glanced down a long street and saw a bank with an ATM machine. I stopped the car on the side of the road, pulling into a vacant spot near the front of the bank. I looked around us after putting the car in park. The street was empty. At least I thought it was. I unbuckled my seat belt and turned to you. “Wait here,” I said. You nodded. “For real this time. Stay in the car.” I opened the driver’s side door and stepped out. I tried moving quickly, jogging to the door of the bank and swiping my ATM card so that the door would unlock. I took one last look back at you to make sure you were safe and then I stepped inside.

  “Come on. Come on. Come on,” I whispered to myself as I slid the ATM card into the slot and punched in the code. The screen came up and asked me how much money I wanted to withdraw. I punched in a thousand dollars but it wouldn’t let me take out that much. Next I punched in five hundred. I waited. I heard the bills ruffling behind the machine. Then it spit out twenty-five twenty-dollar bills. It would buy us a little bit of time.

  I turned to head back toward the car. I could still see you inside. You were okay. You looked safe. I was about the open the bank door and come back to you when I saw the phone across from the ATM machines. It wasn’t just a bank help phone. It was a real pay phone. I decided to keep a promise I had made. I put the five hundred dollars in my wallet and put my wallet back in my pocket. Then I walked over to the pay phone, picked up the receiver, and dialed 911. I couldn’t fight the feeling that I had somehow been through this before. My stomach knotted up. A dispatcher picked up the phone. “There’s been a horrible accident,” I said.

  “Where?” the dispatcher asked.

  “There’s a man,” I responded, “by the side of the road. He was hit by a car. He needs help now.” I told the dispatcher the name of the road where we’d found the man.

  “Can you stay on the line?” the woman asked.

  “No,” I replied. I was about to hang up the phone when the first gunshot echoed into the air. The first shot was crisp and loud. At first, I didn’t recognize the sound. It sounded too much like a firecracker. Then another shot rang out. The sound was less distinct this time, more muffled. It was coming from a different gun. All of a sudden I realized what was going on. I looked out at the car. You were still in the front seat, but you were hunkered down, trying to duck below the window. A bullet had already shattered the rear passenger-side window right behind you. I couldn’t tell if you were okay. I started to run for the door. Just as I did, I heard another pop and the glass in the ATM booth shattered into a million tiny pieces. I kept running for the door, running toward you. I could feel my heart racing. In that moment, if I saw a bullet headed toward you, I would have jumped in front of it. But I wasn’t even close enough to you to do that. There was another popping sound and a bullet ripped a hole in our right rear tire. I couldn’t even figure out where they were shooting from. When I got outside the door, I realized that the bullets were coming from opposite directions. I could also hear you screaming. This wasn’t good. The stress wasn’t good. Unfortunately, the night had just started.

  I ran toward the car. I could hear another bullet whiz by my head. I tried to figure out what direction the bullets were coming from. They seemed to be coming from everywhere. The reality was that probably only five or six shots had been fired but I felt like we were caught in the middle of a battle. I reached the driver’s side door and swung it open. “Are you okay?” I shouted at you as I climbed inside.

  “No!” you screamed back at me. I immediately ducked my head down below the window line. Then I turned on the car and stepped on the gas. I just wanted to get us away from the bullets. We’d have to leave the car behind now. We were short a rear tire. They had to have done that on purpose. We couldn’t drive out of the city like that. We could, however, drive it out of the line of fire. Then we would have to go on foot. There was no way around it.

  I stepped on the gas, lifting my head up just enough to see over the dashboard. I couldn’t afford to hit anything. I couldn’t afford another accident. As soon as the car started to move, I could feel the rear tire rattling along the street. People started turning lights on in the houses surrounding the street. I tried to ignore them. We just had to get away.

  We veered back and forth along the street as we lunged forward. I tried to control the steering but the lost tire made it difficult. After four or five blocks, I couldn’t hear any gunfire anymore. I pulled the car off to the side. “We have to get out,” I said to you. You looked at me like I was crazy. “We’re sitting ducks in here, Maria. We have to get out.”

  You reached down and unbuckled your seat belt. Then you crawled over the middle console so that you could climb out of the same door as me. I opened the driver’s side door and stepped onto the pavement. I waited for a split second, expecting to hear another gunshot, expecting to hear another bullet whiz by my ear, but I didn’t hear anything. I grabbed your wrist and pulled you to your feet on the sidewalk and then we ran down the next street. We ran for two blocks before I spotted an opening next to one of the houses. We ducked quickly inside one the few gardens without a locked gate. I lifted my finger to my lips to signal to you to be quiet. I had heard something. Someone was running down the street. I could hear footsteps pounding on the asphalt. We were lucky to have found shelter in the shadows when we did. A man suddenly ran past us. I looked down at his hands as he ran. He was holding a gun.

  “What do we do, Joe?” you whispered to me when we couldn’t see the man anymore.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do we get out of here now?”

  “I don’t know.” I tried to think. We didn’t have many options. “How far is the bus station from here?” I asked you. You knew the city better than I did.

  “About six miles,” you answered. It was far. The night was dark and full of dangers.
Still, it was our only option.

  “We’ve got to get to the bus station,” I said to you. Then I heard something else. I reached out and placed my hand over your mouth to make sure you didn’t speak. Someone else was near us. They weren’t running. They were walking. They were whistling as they walked. We hunched down together as low to the ground as we could. We tried to stay as obscured as possible. He was walking in the same direction the man with the gun had run. He didn’t have a gun. Instead, he had a large knife in his hand. He was whistling the Louis Armstrong song “What a Wonderful World.” We held our breath again as he walked passed us. It took another ten minutes before we felt safe that he was gone.

  You picked up our conversation right where we had left it off. “I can’t run, Joe,” you said, placing both hands over your stomach.

  “I know,” I answered. God only knew what damage we’d already done to our child. We didn’t talk about it. “What time is it?” I asked you. You looked at your watch.

  “It’s four in the morning,” you said.

  “Listen.” I swallowed hard, barely believing I was about to suggest what I was about to suggest. “The first bus probably doesn’t leave until around seven. Do you think you can walk six miles in three hours?”

  “Do I have a choice?” you asked.

  “No.”

  “I can do it,” you said, nodding your head.

  “That’s my girl.” I tried to smile at you. I don’t know how it came across. I wasn’t in the mood to smile. I took the gun out of my belt again. “Take this,” I said, handing you our only means of protection.

  “I can’t take this,” you said, holding the gun loosely between two fingers. “I don’t know how to use it.”

  “Just take the fucking gun, Maria,” I responded, exasperated. “Please, take the gun. It’s easy to use. I disabled the safety. All you have to do is point it at anything scary and pull the trigger.” You looked at the gun in your hand. It didn’t look right. Your hands looked too small for it.

  “Why do I need this?” you asked. “Why don’t you just carry it?”

  I shook my head. “We’ll never make it the six miles together. We need something else.”

  “So what are you going to do?” you asked, sensing that whatever my plan was, you weren’t going to like it.

  “I’m going to distract them,” I said. I could see everything you wanted to say to me in the look on your face. You wanted to tell me that my idea was ridiculous. You wanted to curse me for even thinking about it. You wanted to tell me that we could make it together. You hesitated because you knew none of it was true. “Please, Maria,” I said. “I don’t know what else to do. This is the only way.”

  “Okay,” you finally conceded. You knew that it was the only chance we had to save our son. You were gripping the gun with two hands now. Now it was your protector.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” I asked, stalling before the moment when I left you.

  “Yes,” you answered. Then I remembered the money. I pulled my wallet out of my pocket.

  “Take this too,” I said, handing you almost a thousand dollars in cash. Now I had nothing.

  “We’re going to meet at the bus station, right?”

  “Of course,” I answered, knowing that the odds of both of us making it there were slim. “But if I’m not there, get on a bus. Get on a bus going far away.” I turned and looked down the surrounding streets. They were empty again. I never even heard a police car. Everyone must have thought that the gunshots were kids lighting off firecrackers. It looked clear to go. I turned back to you. “Give me a five-minute head start,” I said. “Stay in the shadows and move quietly. Don’t let anyone see you.” You nodded. “I’m going to try to get them to chase me.” Even as I said it, the idea sounded ridiculous. How long would it take them to hunt me down? For how long could I outrun a bullet? I wasn’t trying to survive. I had to be realistic. I was only trying to survive long enough. I took a deep breath and readied myself to jump out of the shadows and into the light on the street. Before I did, you grabbed my face in your hands and pulled me toward you. You had the gun in your right hand and I could feel its metal on my cheek. You kissed me gently on the lips, then harder. Then I had to go.

  “I’ll see you at seven,” I said. Then I ran. I stepped into the street and I ran like there was no tomorrow because, for me, there probably wasn’t.

  I didn’t look back. I just ran. I ran south, away from the bus station. I needed to give you room. If I got away, I’d have plenty of time to get to the bus station. Only seconds after I stepped out of the shadows, I heard the first set of footsteps chasing me. Each step banged loudly on the street. There was barely any time in between footsteps. Whoever was behind me was moving fast. I didn’t dare look back now. They had guns. All I had on my side was fear.

  I knew I had to stay ahead of the person chasing me but I couldn’t afford to lose him either. I needed him to chase me. I needed all of them to chase me. The only thing that I was more afraid of than getting caught was having you get caught. Then I heard the second set of footsteps, farther back but distinct. It now was like listening to the beat of two out-of-rhythm drums. I wondered how many there were. Were these the only two? Had there been only three of them before they dumped their partner by the side of the road, or were there more? If there were more, were you safe? There was no way for me to know. I had never heard of anyone working in groups greater than four. Even if there were five originally, they had already lost one in their accident. That would mean that there were the two following me and two others, lurking somewhere.

  I expected to hear gunshots coming from behind me, but there was nothing. They must not have wanted to press their luck with the police. They must have thought that I wasn’t going to be that difficult to catch. I had made it about six blocks before I realized that I was about to run into the southern tip of Charleston. When the city ended to the south, there was only water. I had already played that game, hiding in the black water at night. The only reason I’d survived it was because Michael saved me. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. I turned down the next street I could and kept running in a different direction.

  I started running out of energy. My legs, arms, and lungs were tiring quickly. I needed to find a place to hide so that I could rest, even if it was only for a few minutes. The streets were still empty, lit up only by the old-fashioned streetlamps lining the sidewalks. On each side of the street was a line of old houses. The houses butted up right against the sidewalk. Most houses had a locked door leading into their private gardens. The only breaks between the houses were old churches and crowded cemeteries. I hadn’t heard either set of footsteps turn the corner behind me yet. I saw a fence up ahead. It was a tall wrought-iron fence with spikes on the top. It must have been about nine feet high. I took two steps toward it and jumped. As I jumped I reached up and grabbed one of the spikes. I planted my right foot in between the two bars and pushed myself over the top. The left cuff of my jeans got caught on the spike for a moment, sending me spiraling down to the ground. I landed hard on my back. For a second, I couldn’t breathe. The wind had been completely knocked out of me. Then my chest opened up and I inhaled, letting the cool night air fill my lungs. I had to remind myself that they were still behind me.

  I quickly rolled over onto my stomach so that I could look through the metal bars in the fence and listen. I couldn’t hear any footsteps. It was quiet. For a second, I was worried that they’d gone back to look for you. Then I spotted one of them. He was walking down the street, visually searching the alleyways. He wasn’t holding a gun. Instead, he had a knife with a serrated three-inch blade in his hand. It was some sort of hunting knife. I looked around me to see if I could find a better hiding place.

  That’s when I realized that I was in a tiny cemetery. I had leapt the fence they’d erected to keep out tourists and ghost tours. There was a grave only a few feet from me with a large headstone facing the street. It would make for perfect cover. I
looked at the man with the knife. I waited for him to look away from me and then crawled quickly behind the headstone. I got as close to the headstone as I could and ducked down. I could feel the cold granite on my skin. I looked down at the carving on the headstone. It was too dark to read. I could have been sitting on anyone’s grave. Then I peeked over the headstone again toward the street. The man with the knife was still there, still looking for me. It looked like he was going to give up. He turned around. I thought he was going to go back toward you. I wondered for a second how you were doing, how much progress you had made, how our son was doing. Even more than you or me, I knew that it was going to take a miracle for our son to survive the night. Maybe if you moved slowly and stayed calm, he would be okay. Maybe if I could keep them at bay for a few hours, everything that we’d put ourselves through wouldn’t be wasted. I was just hoping for a miracle.

  Then I heard footsteps again coming down the street toward the man with the knife. I looked at him. He heard the footsteps too. He looked up toward them. His face changed. His eyes widened. He was suddenly afraid. He turned and ran. He ran fast, even faster than he’d been running when he was chasing me. If he’d run that fast when he was chasing me, he would have caught me. Only a moment later, I saw another man run by. He had a gun in his hand. It looked like he was chasing the first man, but that didn’t make any sense. Nothing made sense. I watched the second man run by and tried to understand what was going on. My thoughts were interrupted by another sound, a new sound. It was the sound of shaking metal and it was coming from behind me. I looked back across the cemetery, past the hundred-year-old headstones. Someone was climbing the fence on the other side of the cemetery. The headstone that gave me such great coverage in one direction left me completely visible in the other. I hadn’t even bothered to check behind me. They’d seen me. They were climbing the fence, coming for me.

  I looked at the fence, shaking as one man pulled himself up toward the spikes. Another man was trying to help him up, pushing his feet up toward the top of the fence. I could see a gun in the hand of the one nearing the top of the fence. I couldn’t tell if the other one was armed. I was sure that he was, though he didn’t have his weapon handy. I could try to climb the fence on this side of the cemetery again, but without the running start, it would be a strenuous and clumsy climb. I didn’t have time for it. The man with the gun would be able to pick me off the fence with one shot, as easily as if he were shooting a tin can off a fence post. I needed a running start. So I ran. I ran straight toward the fence the two men were climbing over. I saw the man on the bottom look up at me. The expression on his face was utter shock. That’s what I was counting on, shock and chaos. I ran right over the graves in the cemetery, dodging a headstone or two. The cemetery was only one block long, so in seconds I was only a few feet from the fence the men were climbing. The man with the gun had reached the top of the fence before he even noticed that I was headed for him. He was standing on the top of the fence, about to jump down to the ground. I leapt, planting a foot between two bars, just as I had done getting over the fence last time. This time I didn’t grab one of the spikes. Instead, I grabbed the man with the gun. I reached up and grabbed his knee, pulling myself up into the air. As I pulled myself up, I pulled the man with the gun down. He fell quickly. His leg kicked out as I pulled it and his body tumbled down. The back of his thigh hit the top of one the spikes. I heard the sound of the spike puncturing his skin and the cracking of bone. Then I was over the fence. I landed on my feet this time. I didn’t look at the man I’d just impaled on the fence. I didn’t look at his companion either. I just turned to my right and ran again as fast as I could.