knew it was a regular type of car. Or wagon, or SUV. She just felt it was Mark inside. Running away, she thought, the first time he passed. But evidently not, because he came back again.
Maybe it wasn’t Mark after all.
She couldn’t find the quad-bikes. She didn’t think they would be deep in the trees. The spaces were too tight. It would be too easy to get wedged in forever. So she confined her search near the edges of the track. She expected to find them parked side by side, maybe backed half into the bushes, maybe angled, as if ready for action, but also leaving space for others to get by, as a courtesy, if they wanted to. But she found nothing.
She stopped walking. She was already a long way from Shorty. She didn’t know how much further she should go. She looked ahead, carefully. She was growing accustomed to the night vision. She turned around and looked behind her. The glow in the sky was bright again. Too bright to look at directly. She half turned back and checked to the south. She saw a small nocturnal creature skitter across six feet of open ground, and dive into a pile of leaves. It was lit up the same as everything else, a pale, wan, scuttling green. Probably gray in real life. Probably a rat.
She turned all the way back around.
She looked ahead again.
There was a man in front of her.
The same as before. The same nightmare vision. Out of nowhere. Out of nothing. Just suddenly there. With a bow held ready. The string was drawn back. The arrow was aimed. But not the same as before. Not at her legs. This time higher.
No Shorty behind him.
Not the same as before.
The nightmare vision spoke.
“We meet again,” it said.
She knew the voice. It was Karel. The weasel with the tow truck. From the Yugoslav army. Who looked like a blurry face in the back of a war crimes photo. She should have known. She was stupid.
Karel asked, “Where’s Shorty?”
She didn’t answer.
“Didn’t he make it? Or maybe you don’t know for sure. Maybe you went your separate ways. You ain’t a pair right now. He ain’t up ahead, because I checked. He can’t be behind you, because that would be neither use nor ornament.”
She looked away.
“Interesting,” Karel said. “Is he back there for a reason?”
She didn’t answer.
He smiled under his glassy snout.
Wide and delighted.
He said, “Is he wounded?”
No reply.
“This is exciting,” he said. “You’re out gathering roots and berries, to make a potion, to heal your man. You’re worried. You’re anxious to get back. This is a truly delightful situation. You and I are going to have so much fun.”
“I was looking for a quad-bike,” she said.
“No point,” he said. “My truck is parked in the way. No one gets out of here before me. I ain’t dumb.”
He lowered his aim.
To her legs.
“No,” she said.
“No what?”
“Yes, Shorty was wounded. Now I need to get back to him.”
“How bad was he wounded?”
“Pretty bad. I think his thigh bone is broken.”
“Shame,” Karel said.
“I need to go see him now.”
“The game says freedom of movement depends on not getting tagged.”
“Please,” she said.
“Please what?”
“I don’t like the game.”
“But I do.”
“I think we should quit. It has gotten way out of hand.”
“No, I think it has gotten to the good part.”
Patty didn’t speak again. She just stood there, with her flashlight in one hand and her arrow in the other. It was the working flashlight, not even the weapon. The arrow would be good for slashing or stabbing, but the guy was ten feet away. Out of range.
He drew back the string an extra inch. The arrowhead moved backward, the same inch, toward his hand, clenched tight around the grip. The bow curved harder. It sang with tension.
It was the working flashlight.
All in one movement she dropped the arrow and found the switch and lit up the beam. It was like she remembered, from the first time, checking on the Honda’s heater hoses. A bright white beam of light, hard and focused. She aimed it right at the guy. At his face. At his big glass eye. She lit it up and pinned it down. He flinched away and his arrow fired wide and low and thrashed through the undergrowth and thumped in the ground. He ducked and squirmed and twisted. She chased him with the beam of light, like a physical weapon, jabbing, thrusting, aiming always for his face. He fell to