in you—is about to become the first sentence of the last paragraph of my Witness Protection story. I can’t imagine what might exist out here in the middle of nowhere.
The few roads that intersect our abandoned path twist and bend at right angles as though following the original property lines of the farms, delineations set a hundred or more years ago. Right before the road looks like it will narrow into a lane wide enough for only one vehicle, Sean pulls off and parks in a gravel parking lot facing what was once a Baptist church, a dilapidated, red-painted wooden structure missing all its windows. The dust from our sudden appearance curls up into the air and drifts through the gaping holes of the church. Something about this place seems familiar but I can’t immediately place it.
In the distance down the one-lane road comes another SUV, a huge cloud of gravel smoke following it like the vehicle is trying to outrun a twister. As it stops right before the church, the cloud catches up, washes over the SUV, and dissolves as it drifts our way. The vehicle remains stationary for a half minute while Sean communicates with the other driver via dashboard radio. Once the SUV, a glossy Excursion, finally rolls forward and pulls next to us, the picture, the familiarity of this place, takes shape: the black SUV against an empty cornfield with the corner of the red-painted church. I’m staring at the exact spot where Melody was photographed in the arms of Sean, the very first picture in the stack viewed in my father’s kitchen, the image that turned my stomach, that turned my world upside down and shook loose all the dirt and dust.
She was here. So they really did try to convince her. And she really did tell them no, truly came back to me. And now I’m going wherever they took her, having swapped places with Melody in under forty-eight hours.
Then, a blur of commotion: Sean gets out of the driver’s seat, is replaced by one of the marshals from the backseat. The second marshal gets out of our SUV and stands beside it on my side. Sean jogs to the Excursion on the passenger side, which reverses and pulls up next to us on my side. And as the back door of the Excursion opens, the marshal standing outside yanks my door and I’m pulled from one SUV and thrown into the other. As I try to get myself together, the vehicle I arrived in has disappeared behind a new cloud of dust.
Before I’m correctly positioned in my seat, the Excursion is shimmying down the road; I can’t tell our route because I can’t see a thing. The only means of glimpsing the outside is through the windshield—and within seconds it’s blocked from my view by a glass divider. The windows on the side and rear of the vehicle are not darkened, they’re black. No light makes its way in at all. I’m not dead but this sure feels like a coffin.
I hear a switch click and a small beam of light appears overhead. As I snap my buckle, I look up to find Sean sitting next to me, his hand resting on a rifle.
I curl my lip like I just pulled a hunk of rotting meat from the fridge. “You’re still here?”
He stares at me, flicks open one of the brackets that was locking the rifle in place. I wait for some kind of response but he just gives me a look implying hope—that he might find a reason to turn that weapon on me.
The SUV picks up speed as we rumble over the country road. Despite being buckled in, I am being tossed around, jerked forward and backward; because I can’t see outside I’m unable to anticipate curves and hills and braking. A few minutes into our rural ride we take a sharp turn—I go flying into the door—and the road softens to where it feels like we’re floating on air, only the hum of the tires indicates we haven’t actually left the ground.
We drive for another ten minutes before we finally slow, take a few rounded turns before coming to a stop. I hear the marshal doing the driving exchange very muffled words with someone outside the Excursion. Then we’re in motion again—and suddenly drop like we’re riding down a steep hill, drive in a circular pattern until we’ve descended to the bottom of some structure; the squealing tires suggest a