I don’t know how long I was there in the hallway, kneelin’ down in front of the keyhole but not really lookin’ through it anymore. It was almost like the whole world just kinda stopped when I saw Mr. Carl shoot my Mommy: I wanted to cry but couldn’t, wanted to scream at him through the door or just pound away on it ’til my fists were all bloody. But every muscle in my body felt like it’d just froze in place.
After a while, I thought I heard Mommy’s voice, only it seemed like it was somewhere inside my head and not comin’ from the other side of the door.
“Run baby.” She told me. “He’ll kill you, too. Run!”
So I stood up and started running as fast as I could down the hallway only I was in so big of a hurry that I bumped into a little table and the vase that was sitting on it crashed to the ground.
“Jason!”
It was Mr. Carl’s voice behind me, loud and booming and I could picture his gun pointing at me but didn’t take the time to turn around and look.
“Jason, no!”
I crashed through the door and was outside again. For a second I just kinda stood there, not really knowin’ which way I should go but I could hear Mr. Carl’s footsteps runnin’ down the hall so I knew I hadta go somewhere, anywhere… I couldn’t just stand there and let him shoot me like he had Mommy.
So I ran across the yard as fast as I could, jumpin’ over flowerbeds and these little pink birds that were stuck in the ground all over the place.
“Jason, come back!”
Mr. Carl’s voice was getting’ softer each second and I kept expectin’ to hear the boom of his gun but kept right on runnin’ anyway. He might’ve killed me, but I wasn’t gonna make it easy for him that was for sure. I remembered something I’d seen on TV and started zigzaggin’ back and forth as I ran to make it harder for him to shoot me, which is probably why I never did hear a shot.
And then I was back in the woods again and I felt a little safer cause I knew the trees would help protect me from his bullets and stuff. But I still kept runnin’ though cause I didn’t want him catching up to me.
“Jason!”
And my Mommy would have been so proud of me. I kept runnin’ and runnin’, just like Forest Gump, and before too long I couldn’t hear Mr. Carl hollerin’ for me anymore so I started slowin’ down a bit. My legs were hurtin’ real bad and my heart felt like it was gonna beat right outta my chest so I stopped for a second and sat down on this old tree that had fallen over.
I was catchin’ my breath and listening to the wind in the leaves when I started thinking about Mommy again. I kept hopin’ that I’d see her walk through the trees, her arms spread out for a hug, smiling so big that her eyes would look kinda squinty.
“I was just foolin’.” She’d say. “Just trickin’ Mr. Carl so we could get away, baby. And you did good. You did so good.”
Only part of me knew this wasn’t gonna happen. I could sit there and watch the woods until all the nighttime creatures started comin’ out and I could holler for her until I couldn’t holler no more and she’d never come. And it was all his fault.
If it hadn’t been for him, Mommy woulda been there and she woulda been able to tell me exactly what I needed to do. She woulda knew where to go next, where to get food and stuff. But most importantly she woulda been able to hold me and rock me in her arms like I was just a little baby and tell me everything was gonna be all right. And I wanted that more than anything else in the world. To smell the perfume I’d gotten her last Christmas and that she wore every day, for her to kiss my forehead and sing me a little song.
Now, I’m in the woods too only all those blurry people are around me again. We’re still walkin’ and it still hurts every time my feet hit the ground but I just can’t stop and rest like I did the day Mr. Carl killed my Mommy. I just hafta keep going on, like someone else is in control of my body and I don’t have no choice or nothin’.
It’s almost dark but up ahead I can see someone. It looks like a woman and she’s got her back turned to us and I can’t really make out what she’s doin’ but she’s kinda crouched down.
We get closer to her and I can see these little sparks as she runs her knife across a rock or something’. There’s a little pile of twigs and old leaves in front of her and every time she scrapes the rock, the sparks fall down onto them and she starts blowin’ like she’s trying to cool soup or something.
I feel really excited when I look at this woman, like I just wanna run up to her for some reason, only at the same time I feel really angry and I wonder if it might be because her hair kinda looks like my Mommy’s. But all of the blurry people around me seem kinda worked up too because they’re walking a lot quicker now.
And I start wonderin’ if maybe the real reason we’re trying to get to this lady as quick as we can is because she isn’t blurry and fuzzy like everyone else. I can see the checkerboard pattern on her coat just as good as I can the trees and bushes around me and I can see every piece of hair on her head too and the way leaves are kinda stuck to it in places.
And she has this smell that’s kinda like a mix between old fruit and sweat and the smell makes me even more madder, but I don’t know why ’cause it’s just a smell.
We’ve almost made it all the way to her when she hears us behind her or something. She stands up real quick and spins around and her face looks like she just saw a ghost as she starts backin’ away real slow. At the same time, she’s lookin’ around like maybe she’s lost something and the blurry people are all rushin’ toward her now and I am too.
She starts screaming and her voice hurts my ears so bad that I just want her to shut up, to stop yelling and be quiet, and it makes me even more mad that she won’t.
She kinda dives toward this really long knife like the one jungle explorers use to cut through vines and stuff and she just touches its handle with her fingertips when all of the sudden we’re all piling on top of her.
I can hear her clothes being ripped as we claw at her and she’s still screaming and for a second I see her boob only I don’t feel all embarrassed like that time when I walked in on my babysitter changin’ clothes.
She’s still screaming and kickin’ and tryin’ to push us away but there’s too many of us and I start seeing blood squirtin’ everywhere. It smells rusty and salty at the same time and its warm on my face and chin, so warm that I didn’t realize exactly how cold I was before.
And I’ve got something rubbery in my mouth, something that tastes like I bit down on an old penny or stuck the tip of my tongue against a battery. But at the same time, I like the way it makes my mouth feel nice and toasty and as soon as it’s not warm any more all I want is another piece, a little bit more make my tongue feel like it’s a cat sleepin’ in sunlight.
The lady isn’t fighting as hard now. Maybe she realizes we just don’t wanna be cold no more and that she can help. Or maybe it’s ’cause she’s startin’ to get a little fuzzy now herself. It’s almost like her face is melting in front of my eyes, her nose and lips and ears kinda smoothing out into one big blur that starts to go down her body, covering everything in its path.
By the time the lady is just as blurry as everyone else, she’s stopped moving altogether and I don’t feel that excitement any more. None of the others seem to either ’cause we’re all standing up now and starting to walk away. When we were with the lady, it didn’t hurt no more but now I can feel it starting again, like little needles bein’ shoved into the bottoms of my feet. And my eyes are starting to sting and my skin feels like its shrinking and crackin’.
Maybe she didn’t want to be alone anymore or maybe she was starting to feel cold too, but the lady in the checkerboard jacket stands up and for a minute it almost seems as if she’s about to fall down again. But she doesn’t and she just kinda falls in with the rest of the group, just like kids used to do when we had to go back inside at the end of recess.
And I can feel that tugging again only its stronger than what it was before. It’s almost like I’ve got an invisible rope tied around my waist and am being pulled through the woods by something a lot stronger than me. My new friends follow along behind me and I don’t know if they feel it too or if they’re just kinda playin’ Follow The Leader.
Either way, I don’t really care. All I know is that I want to be warm again, that I want to find someone else who’ll share their heat, that I want the hurting to go away. Even if only for just a little bit.
And I somehow know that out there in the woods, hidden by the trees and rocks and shrubs, there are others like the lady in the checkerboard jacket. All I need to do is find them….