gunshot.
â
Tom!
â I scream.
I think I hear him answer. It sounds like the word
run
. But the rain is so loud now I canât be sure. My mind screams at me to go down there, to go help him, but already his pursuer is standing up, gun in hand. Ivan will be upon me in a few seconds.
Tom, please forgive me.
I take off running again.
three
I tâs the end of the world.
The cart path veers this way and that as it circles the small hills that provide the golf course with its impressive relief. My feet, barely able to maintain traction against the slick asphalt, pound along as fast as my adrenaline-enhanced legs will drive them. I donât know if itâs fast enough.
Ivan is still behind me.
My father was once a Little League football coach, and he taught me never to turn around when I was running unimpeded for the end zone.
It will only slow you down,
he said,
and that might be the difference between a touchdown and getting tackled from behind.
Sound advice, I suppose, but the survival instinct encoded in my animal brain always overpowered even this simple logic. You want to know who is chasing you, you want to know how close he is, you want to know how much harder you have to run. Or maybe you just want to know when to expect the end.
When I left Tom, Ivan was thirty or forty yards behind me. Since then I have not been able to widen the distance between us. This is disturbing, because I get the feeling Ivan is just biding his time, waiting until I run out of gas. Let the runner tire out, after all, and heâll be in no shape to put up a fight.
Why would Tom tell me to find Crystal? Because she already knew about the transmission machine?
The rain slackens somewhat. Itâs still a downpour, but at least a person running for his life can now see where heâs going. Iâm moving alongside hole six, about halfway to the green, and Iâm losing energy fast. There are no structures immediately in sightâthe last was a restroom stallâand thus there is no one to help me and no place to hide.
I donât know where Iâm going, but Iâm pretty sure Iâm never going to outrun this man. Maybe I should stop right now and try to reason with him. Maybe I should just give up.
My legs pump, my chest heaves. My heart is going to explode at any moment. I havenât run this much since a 10K charity event last summer, and that fiasco laid me up in bed for two days. I honestly donât know how Iâve made it this far. Adrenaline and emotion, I supposeâtwo wells of energy that are going to run dry any moment. The only way to avoid capture by Ivan is to use the only tissue in my body not currently exhausted: my brain.
The first thing I do is veer off the cart path. Any idiot knows you donât run straight ahead when your pursuer is faster than you, and yet this is exactly what Iâve been doing. The cart path still follows the top edge of a small hill, but the drop away from the pavement is less severe now. My feet slide immediately into mud. I nearly fall twice, but somehow maintain my balance all the way to the bottom of the hill. Ivan is not so lucky. As I change directions, I see him slip in the mud about halfway down. His butt hits the ground first, and then he slides for a few feet before slamming into a rock. He flips over and tumbles the rest of the way down in a series of clumsy somersaults. The gun flies out of his hand. It lands about ten feet from his outstretched arms and buries itself halfway into the mud.
I could make a play for the gun, because for a second or two Ivan doesnât move. But as I stand there, his arms and legs dig at the muddy ground, and he manages to bring himself to a wobbly stance. Fuck the gun. I could have run fifty yards while I stood here watching. I turn around and take off once again, paralleling the foot of this hill. My side hurts as if Iâve been punched in the kidneys. My legs are gelatin. When I finally look back
â
Tom!
â I scream.
I think I hear him answer. It sounds like the word
run
. But the rain is so loud now I canât be sure. My mind screams at me to go down there, to go help him, but already his pursuer is standing up, gun in hand. Ivan will be upon me in a few seconds.
Tom, please forgive me.
I take off running again.
three
I tâs the end of the world.
The cart path veers this way and that as it circles the small hills that provide the golf course with its impressive relief. My feet, barely able to maintain traction against the slick asphalt, pound along as fast as my adrenaline-enhanced legs will drive them. I donât know if itâs fast enough.
Ivan is still behind me.
My father was once a Little League football coach, and he taught me never to turn around when I was running unimpeded for the end zone.
It will only slow you down,
he said,
and that might be the difference between a touchdown and getting tackled from behind.
Sound advice, I suppose, but the survival instinct encoded in my animal brain always overpowered even this simple logic. You want to know who is chasing you, you want to know how close he is, you want to know how much harder you have to run. Or maybe you just want to know when to expect the end.
When I left Tom, Ivan was thirty or forty yards behind me. Since then I have not been able to widen the distance between us. This is disturbing, because I get the feeling Ivan is just biding his time, waiting until I run out of gas. Let the runner tire out, after all, and heâll be in no shape to put up a fight.
Why would Tom tell me to find Crystal? Because she already knew about the transmission machine?
The rain slackens somewhat. Itâs still a downpour, but at least a person running for his life can now see where heâs going. Iâm moving alongside hole six, about halfway to the green, and Iâm losing energy fast. There are no structures immediately in sightâthe last was a restroom stallâand thus there is no one to help me and no place to hide.
I donât know where Iâm going, but Iâm pretty sure Iâm never going to outrun this man. Maybe I should stop right now and try to reason with him. Maybe I should just give up.
My legs pump, my chest heaves. My heart is going to explode at any moment. I havenât run this much since a 10K charity event last summer, and that fiasco laid me up in bed for two days. I honestly donât know how Iâve made it this far. Adrenaline and emotion, I supposeâtwo wells of energy that are going to run dry any moment. The only way to avoid capture by Ivan is to use the only tissue in my body not currently exhausted: my brain.
The first thing I do is veer off the cart path. Any idiot knows you donât run straight ahead when your pursuer is faster than you, and yet this is exactly what Iâve been doing. The cart path still follows the top edge of a small hill, but the drop away from the pavement is less severe now. My feet slide immediately into mud. I nearly fall twice, but somehow maintain my balance all the way to the bottom of the hill. Ivan is not so lucky. As I change directions, I see him slip in the mud about halfway down. His butt hits the ground first, and then he slides for a few feet before slamming into a rock. He flips over and tumbles the rest of the way down in a series of clumsy somersaults. The gun flies out of his hand. It lands about ten feet from his outstretched arms and buries itself halfway into the mud.
I could make a play for the gun, because for a second or two Ivan doesnât move. But as I stand there, his arms and legs dig at the muddy ground, and he manages to bring himself to a wobbly stance. Fuck the gun. I could have run fifty yards while I stood here watching. I turn around and take off once again, paralleling the foot of this hill. My side hurts as if Iâve been punched in the kidneys. My legs are gelatin. When I finally look back
Similar Books
