(no subject)

[trollverine]

He bought a 1998 Ford F150 outside Yonkers, paid in cash. It had a GOD BLESS AMERICA decal in the back window and it smelled like smoke, but now wasn't the time for Jaguars and Porsches. He smiled through the sale: no, he hadn't brought his own license plate, but he was going straight to the DMV in town.

As soon as the house was out of sight he threw the title in the glovebox and turned around. Upstate, then west: back roads only.

It took him days to reach the plains like that. He subsisted on country store sandwiches and bottled water, flipping through a big atlas as he drove, listening to the news when he could get it. No police, no incidences. It almost made him feel lucky.

When he got close to the Saskatchewan border he took his money--stuffed in a duffel bag--and left the car by the side of the road. They'd find it and tow it and impound it, and it wouldn't be his problem.

Five hours of walking later, he made it to the farmhouse. It was there for a reason, at the end of a dirt road not far from the border: no neighbors, no towns close by. There were ATVs and two motorcycles in the barn. The key was hidden under a stepping stone in the garden, now obscured by weeds and overgrown hydrangeas. No one had been here to keep up appearances for at least a year. The only other people who had known about the house were dead.

He tossed his duffel bag on the kitchen table and headed out to see if either of the bikes were usable.

The nearest town was small, but he had what he needed when he got back. He slept a full night for the first time in a long time, suspecting nothing. Even when he woke up, there was no reason to think he wasn't completely safe. He was alive, and no one knew it.

The radio in the kitchen was old, with knobs that turned right or left: left was country and religion; right was sports and oldies. That was it.

He left it on Tina Turner and fired up the stove, feeling pretty good about everything.

Comments

[excision]

Laura lay on her belly in the woods, 25 meters across from the kitchen window echoing with a song that she did not recognize. The singer she knew, but could not name; the last time she had heard her had been at a truck stop slash diner in Nevada.

It had been 10 hours since she had first arrived to the farmhouse. She had been careful to keep out of sight, careful to tail him in such a way that he would not know he had been tailed. It had been obvious that he felt safe, shielded by the news of his death; still more now, cooking as he was with the radio up and the windows bare. He was foolish. That had not changed.

But he was alive. It mattered. She lay still for a moment, watching the house, and then stood, slow and silent. Ants skittered down her legs, biting the flesh beneath her jeans, but she barely registered them.

It was impossible to predict his response to approach; it was most probable that he would attack, and that the night would end in blood. But she did not want to leave. Not yet.

She began to move out of the trees and toward the back door.