Page 32 of Here for a Good Time
My kick has left her dazed enough that although she doesn’t drop her rifle, she does fall to her knees. Her eyes glaze over as she tries to recenter herself, but when they meet mine, a chill spirals up my spine.
Angry. This woman lookssoangry, although I suppose getting kicked in the face will do that to you. At my continued staring, her eyes flatten into a sharp glare that makes me suddenly understand where the phrase “shoot daggers” came from.
Before I can take note of any other features, however, I feel two arms lifting me up from under my armpits.
“All you have to do is not let go,” says Zwe’s voice. “Do not. Let go.”
“Wh—”
His hand claws into mine, fingernails digging so deep I would cry out in pain if it weren’t for the context of our current situation.
And then he runs. He runs like we’re trying to outrun a fire, and I’m tripping over my feet with unsteady knees and I want to tell him to slow down but I know that is the exact opposite ofwhat we need to be doing right now so I let him keep dragging me through the trees and bushes and jumble of roots.
We duck when we hear gunshots, but we don’t stop. Part of me is expecting to feel a bullet penetrate my back, and I morbidly wonder if it’d be lodged inside or if it’d be a clean through-and-through.
“Signs!” I manage to say and simultaneously gulp for air.
Zwe looks at where I’m pointing: a pole with arrows pointing in different directions, each one with a trail name written on them.
“Ko. Mo. Do. Trail,” Zwe wheezes.
“What?” I ask.
Despite being in very good shape, running while dragging a one-hundred-and-ninety-pound human being has taken a toll on him too, and I can just make out each word that he huffs out. “Komodo. Trail. We want. To go.”
“There,” I say, feeling somewhat useful when I clock the green letters that sayKOMODO TRAIL.
“Where. Is. There,” Zwe croaks out.
“Two. O’clock,” I reply.
Somehow, once he spots the sign, he starts to run even faster.
And maybe it’s because I hear more gunshots and running and shouting behind me, but somehow,somefuckinghow,I keep up.
I’d blocked out that we would be running into the actual woods, but it’s undeniable almost as soon as the trail starts. Even in the darkness, it’s clear that there are no more picturesque fruit trees or grass that’s mowed on a daily basis.
The first thing I notice are the frogs and the cicadas. I don’t see them, but croaks and buzzes echo all around us in spite of it being an open space, and I try not to linger too long on the question ofWhat if I accidentally step on a frog?The air smells different, too.There are a lot of a few kinds of trees, or a few of many trees, I’m not quite sure. They’re all so tall, though, the kinds of trees where you have to tilt your neck up to an uncomfortable angle in order to see the tops. It’s like I was plucked and transported into a whole new world, one whose scents and sounds and little oddities my brain can’t decipher due to lack of context.
After what feels like miles upon miles, we slow down and eventually stop altogether; we don’t need to talk to know that it’s a mutual decision based less on a sense of safety, and more on the fact that our bodies physically cannot take another step.
I sit down on the dirt, my throat pleading for hydration, my fingers too shaky to even unzip my backpack, let alone open a bottle of water. No matter how deep of a breath I take, it feels like there isn’t enough oxygen to satisfy my lungs. “Safe?” I ask on an exhale.
Next to me, Zwe has his knees up, his head sandwiched between them. “Think. So,” he replies, head still down.
“I saw her,” I say.
“I know.”
My brain has been racing over and over this one thought this entire time, like a treadmill that I can’t get off of. “They’re not going to let me escape now that I’ve seen her.”
“I know,” Zwe says, and the fact that he doesn’t add any logical, levelheaded piece of advice to calm me down is how I know that we’re royally screwed.
He lifts his head at last, and we hold each other’s gaze, still panting, still trying to catch our breath.
A voice in my head screams,Well? We’re here! What do we do now? Tell me what to do now!
But if he knew what to do, he’d have told me. The next thoughtI have isI want my mom,and I want to laugh out loud because look at me, with all of this big talk about being an adult who pays for big holidays on her own, and at the end of the day, when I’m scared, all I want is my mom. My mom, whom I’ve kept putting off calling since we got here. I pull the cord on that train of thought because all it’s doing is keeping my heart rate up. It’s too early for fatalism. I’m going to talk to my mom again soon. I have to.
