On the driver’s side.
The car, still picking up speed, started to gain on Sandy.
She stepped on the gas.
How can that woman see where she’s driving?
Sandy raced around a curve and lost sight of the car.
A few seconds later, it showed in the rearview mirror.
It didn’t make the curve.
Didn’t even seem to try.
Just sped straight on and leaped off the road as if somebody’d decided on a scenic detour through the forest.
Sandy felt a chill prickle its way up her back.
She muttered, “Holy crap.”
The headbeams pushed their brightness into the trees.
Sandy steered around another bend. After that, she could see nothing behind her except the dark road and the woods.
She listened for the sound of the car smashing into a tree.
Any second, now.
Would there be an explosion? She hoped not. If the car exploded, the forest might catch on fire.
She imagined a fire spreading over the wooded hills. And surrounding her trailer. She pictured Eric asleep in his crib as fire closed in.
No sound of a crash came to her.
I’m just too far away to hear it, that’s all. There bad to be a crash by now. How the hell far can you go speeding through the woods?
She imagined the car with its front crushed against a tree trunk, flames lapping up around the edges of its hood.
She picked up speed.
She should be at Agnes’s house in a couple more minutes. But getting the woman to answer her door might take a while.
Then Sandy would need to explain things, get the keys to the pickup truck, head back with it...
Maybe to find herself in the middle of a forest fire.
She stopped the MG, killing its engine. But she started the engine easily. In first gear, she made a U-turn.
She had no trouble finding the place where Bill’s car had gone off the road and plunged into the woods. She pulled over to the side, stopped, picked up the butcher knife and climbed out.
Standing by the road, she stared into the trees.
Not much moonlight made it down through their heavy canopy of branches and leaves.
She couldn’t see Bill’s car.
She couldn’t see flames, either.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t on fire.
Sandy put her back to the road and ran into the woods.
She knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to run. Though she’d never put on the MG’s headlights and her eyes were pretty well adjusted to the darkness, she could see almost nothing in front of her—just a few speckles and patches of moonlight, almost like bits of snow scattered here and there.
Running through the dark, she might trip and fall.
She had a knife in her hand. If she fell on that...
In her mind, she heard her mother warn, “Be careful, you’ll fall and put your eye out.”
Mom.
Don’t think about her The bell with her. The traitor.
Sandy hated it when she happened to think of her mother.
Who needs her, anyway? I’ve got Eric.
She ran faster, pumping hard with her arms, flinging her legs out, her bare feet punching the mat of pine needles. Her breasts, swollen with milk for Eric, bounced and swung wildly. Her dish towel bib flapped up and down, twisted, and soon ended up draping her right shoulder.
Where the hell’s the car?
Though bushes sometimes whipped or scratched her legs, she realized that she wasn’t dodging trees. The dark trunks flew by on both sides of her, but none was in the way.
Can’t last long. just a fluke.
Maybe there was a road here once.
But how could the gal steer through all this when she couldn’t even see out her...
Something snagged Sandy’s right foot. Though she jerked it free, she couldn’t swing her leg forward fast enough. She fell headlong. On the way down, she stretched out her arms so the knife in her right hand would be safe overhead.
She landed on the damp carpet of the forest floor. Her breath knocked out, she skidded on her bare skin. Then she lay there, sprawled out, struggling for air.
The ground beneath her felt springy with layers of soft pine needles. They were wet with dew, and didn’t feel too bad. Prickly, here and there. She also felt some twigs and pine cones pushing against her. She didn’t like how they felt.
When she was able to breathe again, she stood up. Keeping the knife low in her right hand, she used her left hand to brush the clinging forest debris off her chest and breasts and belly.
She bent down and rubbed it off the front of her shorts, her thighs and knees.
She still felt wet and dirty.
A lot of good my shower did.
At least I’m not bloody, she told herself.
Not that I know of.
As she started walking again, she took the towel from around her neck and used it to mop herself dry. Then she put it back on. It felt damp against her skin. She made a face.
I shouldn’t even be out here, she thought. There isn’t any fire. And if there is, what am I gonna do about it—beat it out with my wet dish rag?
She kept going, anyway.
She was pretty sure she wouldn’t find a fire. But what would she find?
Nothing real cheerful, that’s for sure.
As she hurried along, she realized that she needed to know what had become of the car, the woman and Bill. She had to know where they’d stopped—if they’d stopped.
Sure they did.
But she needed to see for herself. Otherwise, she might always be haunted by the idea of the car speeding through the night woods with Bill sticking out of its windshield. Going on and on...
She quickened her pace. Though tempted to run, she sure didn’t want to fall again. She’d been lucky with the last fall.
Next time, she might land on a sharp stick or something.
But I can’t spend all night at this...
She started to trot. Slowly, at first. Then faster. Then even faster until she was racing along full speed.
Find that car and get out of here, get on over to Agnes’s house...
The ground suddenly dropped out from under Sandy’s feet.
Not again!
Plunging headlong down a slope, she stretched out her arms and saw lights off in the distance: the red ovals of a car’s taillights and the white beam of a single headlight reaching into the woods.
Sandy hit the ground and sledded down on her chest until her shoulder hit a rock. She cried out. The blow turned her body sideways and she rolled, flipping from front to back to front to back, glimpsing the lights of the car with each rotation Instead of rolling straight for the bottom of the slope, she took a diagonal route. It ended when her left hip struck a tree. Still rolling fast, she grunted and rammed her belly against the trunk. And stopped hard.
When she could breathe again, she flopped onto her back and groaned
At least I found the damn car, she told herself.
And she still had a grip on her knife. She was fairly sure she hadn’t cut herself with it.
She turned over, pushed herself to her hands and knees, then stood up. Her body hurt in many places, but her right shoulder seemed to have the worst injury. It burned from its collusion with the rock. It felt as if it had been pounded and scraped raw. She hoped it wasn’t broken. It still seemed to work.
She’d lost her dish towel somewhere on the slope.
Have to look for it on the way back up.
In the meantime, she didn’t much care about the loss of the towel. She was too hurt and filthy all over to bother cleaning herself with it. And she didn’t need to worry, down here, about being half naked.