Jack ran across the steep backyard, weaving between a clothesline, a brick barbecue and a small shed. He slipped into the trees edging the property. The rain was heavy, almost gelatinous, and already poured down the hill in rivulets. Jack splashed through, trying to keep his balance, but it was hard to run handcuffed. A bullet whizzed overhead.
The slope of the hill forced a diagonal path down: before he knew it, Jack was out of the trees and running across a bare hill-flank of sodden grass that dropped down quickly to the coastline and then vanished into a grey mist of rain blowing off the ocean. There was nowhere else to go. Not without a helicopter. Or a hang-glider.
Another gunshot. He heard the bullet smack into the soggy ground somewhere nearby. Fuck. He ran down the slope.
Three seconds later, over he went. He hit the ground, rolled like an unfurling carpet, then began to slide. The ground split open beneath him, he fell, but the ground came back again and he hit it hard with his hip, and slid some more on his side, like a human luge. His mouth was open but it did not help slow him down. Then something caught the handcuffs and nearly ripped his arms off.
Jack’s wrists were torn with pain. He closed his eyes, tried to rein in his breathing. In a few moments he got it down to a steady shit … shit … shit. He could feel cold air blowing up from beneath his feet. He could hear waves crashing. He understood that he was dangling precariously somewhere. At least the rain had stopped.
It did not take Annabelle long to get there. She looked down at Jack hanging by his handcuffs and did not say a word. And there it was. The nobody-home eyes. Ziggy’s seven veils look, just like he had warned Jack all that time ago.
“Hey, listen,” he called out. “What do you say we get married? Right now? We could kidnap a priest and bring him back.”
Annabelle pointed the gun at him, fired a couple of times, missed because of the acute angle. She kept the gun pointed. When Glendenning called out she did not hear him, not even when he fired into the air. She took a step, down the slope leading into the ravine, tried to angle the gun. Fired again. Took another step: but this time found nothing beneath her foot. Her scream lifted all the birds in the trees. They flew across the sky like a torn black curtain.
Jack ducked his head, braced. Annabelle’s body thudded into him, mostly catching his right shoulder. The handcuffs held. Her body flipped over his back. Jack stretched his head around and caught a glimpse of the silver lightning strike on the side of one of her shoes. Then nothing. Darkness. She had fallen off the end of the earth.