Running Away

Nickels ran until his ears hurt and his breath came in ragged, aching gulps.  Bent over, hands on his knees, he hid behind a tall row of arbor vitae and prayed to catch his breath before the sound of him heaving or the mist rising in bursts from his dry mouth would give away his position.  The ringing in his ears drowned out any possible sound of someone following, and he kept himself pivoting to compensate, looking in every available direction.  Slowly, he worked his way backwards to a privy fence perpendicular to the shrubs, and sank to a seated position in the corner.

                Moonlight filtering through clouds revealed a concrete patio several yards away with white plastic furniture, abutting a house the color of which was ambiguous.  The darkened windows revealed nothing of the interior; they were just holes in the façade.  The privy fence ran the width of the property, maybe one hundred fifty yards, with another line of arbor vitae intersecting it at the other end of the yard.  Hardly a blade of grass dared to be out of place in the uniformly dense and green lawn, broken only by two perfect circles of deep brown mulch surrounding young maple trees. 

                As his breathing returned to normal, Nickels palpated the back of his head, feeling for the spot where whatever they had hit him with had made contact.  When his fingers found it, an arc of pain shot to right behind his eyes and he quickly withdrew his hand.  There was no blood, though.  With his legs splayed out in front of him, Nickels felt around in his left pocket for his cigarettes, amazed that with all that had happened, they’d never emptied his pockets.  With his right hand, knuckles still bleeding and swollen, he pulled a book of matches from his right pocket and painfully drew back the flap to reveal only one remaining.  Though his hands shook – with cold, exertion, trauma, or all of the above – he struck the match firmly, shielding it as it flared to life.  No more than two inches from his waiting cigarette, it was blown out, then knocked from his hand as a figure fell through the shrubs and onto him.

                Stifling a curse, Nickels rolled onto the figure and clamped a hand over the mouth.  In the inconstant, pale light, he could make out two wide, terrified eyes above a lightly freckled nose and below a forehead topped with a mass of untamed curls.  She didn’t make a noise, but her eyes darted all over. 

“If I take my hand off your mouth, you can’t scream.  If you make a noise, I’ll have to mess you up.  Blink twice if you understand.”  

                She blinked carefully, deliberately, but without the fear in her eyes subsiding.  Nickels removed his hand slowly and listened.  No sounds but the two of them breathing made it into the yard.

                “Who are you?” he whispered, moving back but keeping himself tensed, like a confused animal.

                She raised herself to a seated position.  “T-Terry. Theresa.  I-I-I live here.”  She stared at him, still looming over her, her eyes racing from his face to his bloodied hand to his torn and dirty jeans and shoes.  “Are you going to… What are you going to do?  To me?”

                “Are you one of his people?”

                “One of whose people?”

                “Burchamp’s.” 

                “I don’t know who that is.”  She wrapped her arms around her knees, hiding part of her face from him.

                “Well, Theresa, I’m going to tell you something,” Nickels said, retrieving his cigarette from the grass beside himself.  “You live in one seriously effed up neighborhood.  I don’t suppose you have a light?” 

                She nodded slightly and twisted herself to dig two fingers into a pocket, exhuming a pink and green patterned Bic.  Before she offered it to him, she asked, “Do you have a spare cigarette?  Some guy just attacked me in my back yard and I’m a little on edge.”

                Resuming his position with his back to the fence, Nickels withdrew another cigarette from his battered and mangled pack.  She took it, moving back towards the fence as well, and lit her own before handing him the lighter.  “You’re awfully calm and accepting for having just been ‘attacked,’ you know.  I can’t say that doesn’t make me suspicious.”

                “Wait, the guy hiding in my back yard is suspicious of me?”  She took the lighter back and replaced it in her pocket as if it were precious.

                “I’m suspicious that you’re not suspicious.  You say you live here?  Why are you sneaking through the bushes?”  He studied her in the glow of the cigarettes; she was shaking, but seemed unaware of it.

                “I’m – I just graduated.  From college.  I’m only living here for a little while.  This is my parents’ house.”  She rocked back and forth, one arm still wrapped about her shins while the other kept the cigarette inches from her mouth.

                “That doesn’t explain why you’re sneaking through bushes at… whatever time it is.”

                “It’s three thirty.  And I’m kinda drunk.  And by ‘kinda’ I mean ‘really,’ which is why I’m trying to sneak in the back door and avoid yet another lecture.  And I also might still be a little stoned.  I’m more accepting of my situation when I’m stoned.”  She pushed a chunk of violently red hair out of her face, only to have it drop back into the same exact position.  

                Nickels watched her stare into the sky above the house before reminding himself of his surroundings.  With a grunt, he raised himself to his feet and steadied himself against the fence, his legs wobbling under him.  “Well, Theresa, thanks for the light.  Good luck with your parents.”  He pinched his cigarette out and stuck the butt in his pocket. 

                “Wait!” she whispered, scrambling to her feet as well and nearly falling over.  “Wait.  Do you want, like, something to clean up your hand?  It doesn’t look good.”  She reached out and took his hand in both of her own, staring at it intently.

                “Why?”

                “Well, it’s all swollen, right?  And bleeding…”

                “No, why are you offering?”

                “Oh.”  She shrugged one shoulder while still holding onto his hand.  “’Cause, you look like you could use some help.  And you’re kinda cute.”  She looked up with a small smile.  “And you have kind eyes.”

                “And you’re kinda drunk,” he said, looking at his hand in hers.

                “But only kinda,” she responded just before pulling herself to him and kissing his lips. 

                Nickels wrapped one arm around her, and felt, for a moment, all of the pain and fatigue in his body metamorphose into a warm wave of contentment, before opening his eyes to see a half dozen men creeping across the yard towards them.

                “Dammit,” he said under his breath, letting her go and turning to run in the same movement. 

                “Don’t go!” she said, holding onto his sleeve. 

                “Get inside.  You’ll be alright.  They’re only looking for me.”  He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

                “We’re all looking for you, Nickels,” she said.  “We want to save you.”

                For a split second, Nickels was actually shocked, before he remembered that he could no longer be shocked.  She aimed a kick at his shin, and he dodged, grabbing hold of her wrist and twisting it as moved away.  He then gave the wrist one strong pull, hurling her into the fence before turning to bolt back through the arbor vitae. 

                “He’s coming your way, Nathan,” he heard her scream as he burst through the shrubs onto the street outside.  “And he’s injured!”

                As dozens of flashlights appeared in neighboring lawns, Nickels ran in a direction that could only be defined as “away.”  His labored breathing filled the quiet suburban streets again.