I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of my own frantic breathing. My lungs wheezed and burned, but I begged them not to fail. If they did, a fate worse than death would befall me.
I was so out of practice in running, but I did it anyway. It was hard and I was scared, but part of my brain flickered with freedom and the rush my limbs got from being able to move the way they were meant to.
My bare feet were cold and numb. I could feel the flesh ripping with every step I took. The rocky, uneven ground tore into my soles like a hungry wolf after the first scent of fresh blood. I kept going, trying not to stumble as I glanced behind me every few seconds.
I heard him yelling, the sound of breaking branches and rustling trees as he lunged after me. He was angry, so, so angry.
I didn’t care. This was my chance, the only one I’d ever had and probably ever would again.
Long-fingered trees reached out to me, my hair tangled in the branches, and I felt it torn from my scalp as I continued to rush. The smell of earth and water was all around, the air tinged with something sweet… something like honeysuckle.
He hollered again, and I tripped and fell. My hands and knees smacked into the ground, the palm of my hand slicing open on a jagged rock. Shoving up off the ground, I continued running, looking for somewhere to hide.
Not far ahead, there was an old hunting stand. I remembered it from the one time I was allowed on this side of the island. I remembered staring up at it, wondering what the view would be like that high above the ground and wondering if I would be able to signal for help.
Glancing behind me once more, I saw he was out of sight. Hope sparked inside me, an emotion I genuinely thought had drained away completely. I surged forward and leapt onto the tree. The ladder leading up was broken, so I had to climb partially up the tree to get to it.
My fingers and toes shredded on the bark, but I clawed my way up until my hands closed around the ladder and I was able to scramble the rest of the way. Once atop the hunting stand, I didn’t admire the view or scream for help. I squished myself as far into the corner, as close to the rotted railing, as I could, rocking back and forth, praying he would forget this place even existed.
The sound of him crashing around below made my body tremble so violently I had to scoot forward so I didn’t fall off the edge of the stand. The view caught my eye, and I noticed the endless stretch of lake just beyond the platform. The sun had nearly set; the hour was twilight, quickly fading into night.
Below, the water was moving rapidly, smacking against itself. The color was ominous and turned up a putrid brown shade.
“Got ya!” he growled, his voice nearby.
A small whimper escaped my throat, and I went to the other side of the platform to stare down below the tree. Our eyes met and held.
He smiled.
I wondered if I would see a pleasant smile ever again. I probably wouldn’t even recognize what it looked like.
“Nowhere to go now,” he intoned and started his climb up the tree.
Frantic, I looked around, trying to figure a way out. But there was none. I was trapped. He was coming for me, and the spark of hope I’d felt only moments ago extinguished.
A tear tracked down my cheek, and I wished for death as I had a thousand times before. Death would be far better than the existence I was sentenced to.
I was young, though, something he loved to taunt me with. As if my age were a weapon. He liked to remind me I still had decades before my body even thought about giving up on me. Decades to be nothing but a prisoner, a slave to be used and abused.
No more. If my body refused to give up on me, then I would give up on it.
He crested the ladder and hoisted himself onto the platform. His dark hair and eyes made him look like Satan. He was practically salivating, and I swallowed back the urge to vomit.
“Stay back,” I warned, throwing out a palm to shield myself.
He laughed. “You’re mine. Mine to do with what I will.”
“No,” I said, rallying from my bone-deep exhaustion to put up a final display of defiance. “Never again.”
He must have seen the look in my eye, or maybe he smelled the death already clinging to my bare skin. He gasped and started forward, but it was too late.
I took a running leap off the high stand, plummeting into the rocky coastline of the lake. Cold water slammed into me, enveloping me. It slid down my throat and into my nose. My body wanted to rise back up, but I forced myself down and found a moment of pure peace, something I hadn’t known in so very long.
Maybe drowning was a peaceful way to die. It was quiet down here. The water didn’t hurt me, but sort of cushioned my body as I waited to die.
I’d daydreamed about killing myself, about dying, so many times. I lived in fear, though. Fear of everything around me, of everything done to me. I had even been afraid of dying.
But now I knew. I knew death wasn’t scary. It was freedom.
My lungs seized, breaking into the peace I reached for. My body began to fight what was happening, and I surged toward the surface. Even as my brain shouted, No! my body took control.
The closer I got to the surface, the clearer the dark figure became. He was here. Of course he was. He couldn’t even let me die in peace.
I hated him.
My head broke the surface, my lungs gulping in giant drafts of oxygen.
“You’re mine,” he yelled, reaching for me.
I kicked and fought, slapping away his hands.
“No!” I went back under, but he grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked.
I fought him again. My wet body made it easy to slip away. I started to tread backward, though my limbs were sluggish and heavy.
I watched him pick up the oar he used to row out to where I’d been. “When you wake up, your punishment will be waiting,” he growled, swinging the wood down.
My body sank with the force of the hit, the dark, cold water claiming my body as unconsciousness claimed my mind.
In the end, it hadn’t been a bad way to die. Life had been far, far worse.
I didn’t die.
I’d merely fallen unconscious, carried away by the overzealous current, then floated to the surface where I bobbed and drifted to where Eddie had been walking.
He’d been trying to knock me out so he could tow me back to shore. He hadn’t tried to kill me.
I did. I tried to kill myself. I actually prayed for death.
All this time, I’d been running from a killer, terrified they’d come back to finish the job.
I was running from myself. Scared of myself.
Oh, I was so much more fucked up than I ever could have imagined.
“Amnesia!” a familiar voice yelled in the distance. “Amnesia!”
I perked up, forgetting momentarily about the memory swamping my brain. “Eddie!” I screamed.
“Shut up!” Widow West shrieked and swung the oar at me again.
I was ready for it this time, though, and caught the end before it could smack me. The force of the blow rattled my body and made my arms ache, but I held firm, stopping the hit and throwing all my bodyweight into shoving her and the oar back.
She stumbled and tripped over the side of the canoe, her body making a splash when she hit.
“Eddie!” I screamed again before turning back to where she fell in the water.
“Am!” he roared. “Where are you?”
The widow was sputtering and splashing around. Her angry yells barely registered as I scouted around the bottom of the boat, feeling through the darkness for anything I could use to signal where I was.
The low hum of what sounded like a motor sounded in the distance, and hope spread through my chest that it was him and he was coming for me as fast as he could.
Hope. Not a feeling that was gone forever after all. Maybe all I needed was to forget how it felt to have none at all.
My hand closed around something slim and cold. A sound of triumph slipped from my lips as I found the button and clicked on the flashlight.
“Here!” I yelled, waving the light around madly, trying to signal where I was.
The boat rocked, and I fell backward. The light slipped from my hands, dropping into the bottom of the boat. Widow West was attempting to pull herself over the side. Grappling for the flashlight, I used it to smash down over her hands.
She cried out in pain and dropped back into the water. Clicking the light, I glanced around for the second oar so I could use it to get away from her. But there wasn’t one; the one and only oar had gone overboard.
Using the light to create a spotlight on the dark, murky water, I sought out the paddle. It wasn’t hard to find. The widow was using it as a floatation device as she stared daggers at me.
“Give me the oar,” I ground out.
She laughed.
I reached for it, trying to pull it from beneath her, but she swam backward, out of arm’s reach. Frustration welled in me, but the sound of a boat drawing closer made me forget about it. I surged around and began waving the light again.
A shape appeared in the dark. It was a light spot against all the black, and my heart leapt. I screamed his name and waved my arms wildly, ignoring the dizziness in my head and the pain in my crushed fingers.
The canoe began rocking as the boat approached, made a wide turn, and the engine cut. Silence settled over the night, with the exception of the moving water.
“Am,” Eddie called across the short distance. “Thank Christ. Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. What about you?”
“Fine now that I have eyes on you,” he said. “I can’t get much closer,” he explained. “I need you to swim over to me.”
I nodded, tossed down the flashlight, and prepared to jump in.
The widow emerged from the depths, somehow throwing herself into the canoe. I stumbled and fell under the unsteady movements of the boat. Mrs. West leapt on top of me, her hands going to my throat.
“I don’t care what he says!” She raged. “I’ll kill you!”
Her eyes were nearly popping out of her head, the wet strands of her hair in clumps around her face and shoulders. Her icy fingers wrapped around my neck. It was as if she were coming apart right before my eyes.
I felt sorry for her. She was evil and nasty, but I knew she was a victim. Just like me.
Clawing at her hands, I tried to buck her off. The boat rocked madly, and Eddie called my name. There was a splash off to the side, and I knew he abandoned his boat and leapt in to come to my aid.
Fear she would hurt him again provided me a surge of adrenaline, and I rolled, knocking her sideways, sliding out from beneath her. I jumped up, ran to the end of the boat, and searched for Eddie in the dark.
“Here!” he said. “C’mon!”
He was only a few feet from where I stood, motioning for me to jump. I did, but an arm snaked around my waist and yanked me back.
Frustrated, I yelled, swung around, and grabbed handfuls of the widow’s hair, shaking her violently. Our struggles were no match for the unsteady boat, and the entire vessel flipped over, plunging us both into the murky waves.
Water tugged at my clothes and hair, wrapping around my limbs in a caress, as if it were trying to convince me to stay.
Maybe once upon a time… back when I was a different girl. Back when I had nothing to live for.
That was then. An entire lifetime ago.
I had so much to live for now.
Kicking my feet, I surged upward, feeling a little out of sorts as I searched for the surface. Everything looked the same down here; the surface was just as dark as the depths.
Panic assailed me. I was lost, unable to find my way to the top.
Just as I realized how badly I wanted to live, death was reaching out its greedy fingers as if it decided it was finally my time to die.