So this is probably the most physical exercise I’ve had in years. And it shows.
My lungs are in constant pain, causing me to wince with every labored breath. I don’t even know how long I’ve been running now. It could be fifteen minutes or it could be five hours — either way, I cannot wipe the fear out of my mind that my would-be attacker is just a few steps behind the whole way. I hope, vaguely, that I am running in the direction of help. Out here, in as close to the middle of nowhere as you can possibly get in the industrial state of New Jersey, it’s hard to find your way back to the road. At first, I took off into the woods, not thinking clearly enough to have a real destination in mind. But slowly, cautiously, I’ve made my way back in a loop toward where I think I parked my rental car.
Somewhere in the back of my brain, there’s a shrill voice screaming at me. How could you possibly lose your car? What kind of idiot are you? But at last the glint of something like polished metal flashes in the watery sunlight just ahead and my heart soars.
A sleek, unobtrusive, little green Ford Focus. My rental car. Thank God!
Somehow I manage to wrangle my aching, half-responsive arm into the back left pocket of my jeans to fish out the keys. With all the momentum I’ve been building up, I all but slam into the driver’s side door, shaking violently as I fumble to fit the key into the door. Finally I allow myself to look around, my eyes blinking and wide as I scan the area for my pursuer. He’s nowhere in sight, but that does little to satisfy my fear.
“Come on, come on,” I mumble nervously. Then the key wiggles into the hole and I turn it to unlock the door and fling it open. “A-ha!”
A-ha? What are you, a magician? I think to myself in annoyance. I jab the key into the ignition and turn the engine over, immediately throwing the car into reverse and peeling out in a sharp, backward semi-circle before switching to drive and jerking forward. With my basically-bare foot shoving the gas pedal down to the floor, the Focus plows down along the dirt road I took to get here, barreling away from the warehouse, away from this nightmare.
The trees blow past, leaning narrowly into the pathway as though half-heartedly trying to guard me from leaving. As I drive along at a definitely-illegal speed, I notice that my toes are regaining feeling — and that the thin hosiery has worn through. It probably disintegrated some ten or fifteen minutes ago from being pounded into the wet, rocky ground. Another pair of pantyhose ruined in the name of journalism. What a shame.
When I reach the main road I suddenly slam to a halt, unable to decide which direction to go. In my panic to reach safety, I have been laboring under the assumption that I would drive straight back to my hotel and lock the deadbolt. But it dawns on me now that my plan may be flawed. There’s no guarantee I’d be safe at the hotel. God knows it isn’t exactly the fanciest or most secure accommodation I’ve stayed in. And besides, if I am being followed — and I feel pretty damn confident I am — do I really want to lead them straight to where I’ll be sleeping tonight? The thought of those guys hounding me, maybe chaining me up in my own hotel room, is enough to make me gulp.
Hell no. Plan B.
Instead of taking a right, I slam the gas pedal down and spin the wheel to the left, the tires squealing and emitting the sour odor of burnt rubber as I turn the car in the general direction of the coast. I don’t know what I’ll find there, but some ancient, long-buried memory reminds me that there are usually cops stationed out by the water. By the docks.
I can hardly remember it now, as so much time has passed and I’ve done such a good job of burying my past self. Thinking of the docks now — it’s like looking through a foggy window.
Running up and down the beach, chasing the seagulls and singing old Britney Spears songs from the CD with the flower on it. The memory of the time I scraped my knee on a piece of driftwood and an older neighbor girl scared the hell out of me telling me I was going to get tetanus and die. The sound of my father’s voice, buffeted by the coastal breeze, calling out to tell me it was time to go home. That lump in my throat is getting all too familiar. I’m going to have to let myself break down and cry sometime soon.
And a boy… a boy with scraggly dark hair and a charismatic smile. His hands plunging down into the blue depths, grasping for my arms just as my chest goes tight and the world starts to fall into darkness around me. His fingers locking around my wrists, tugging me up out of the churning white foamy water and urging me to breathe, breathe, it’ll be okay, just breathe. The tickle of sand dragging along my spine, my wet clothes weighing me down. My eyes blinking open and burning with saltwater, focusing hazily on the stormy, purple sky high above me and then closing again just as the boy whispers, “You’re safe now.”