The Eyes Have No Soul

by Matthew W. Harrill

  “Failure to choose may become the choice we have to live with,” she wondered aloud.

  “Never were truer words spoken,” Terrick agreed. “Not all these churches spend every waking moment denouncing each other.”

  Clare reassessed her opinion of the First Unitarian. She was slowly failing, her body crumbling from within, yet she had chosen to act with positivity. She would live with that.

  “I've made the right choice,” she declared.

  “So you have, girl. You're believin' that now, for real. They said only tell you where we're goin' if you came to some kind of decision. You're not capable of drivin' across the state in your condition and they wanted me to help.”

  “Religion helps put it all into perspective. This is certainly no kingdom of heaven, not with monsters like this left to roam free and kill at will.”

  “Be that as it may, there's still no guarantee you'll catch it. We're headed into the Leominster State forest.”

  “Oh joy,” Clare groaned, “back into the woods again. What's there?”

  “It's a commune where we'll find you help.”

  Clare thought for a second. “The Rainbow Warrior Writing Retreat?”

  Terrick shrugged. “Maybe, I was just given directions. It looks like we aren't the only ones headed that way either.”

  Clare watched the wing mirror as Terrick edged the car over to the side of the road. In the distance she saw a silver car. “How can you tell?”

  “They've been changin' speed as I've done so. Up and down both. They stay the same distance. They caught us up just before Fitchburg. Got close then edged back. Happy to sit there unless we do somethin' drastic, I'll bet.”

  “Who are they?”

  Terrick laughed. “Damn, girl. What am I, psychic? Why don't we just stop and ask 'em?”

  “Might not be the best idea. They must be from Ashby. What plate was on the car?”

  “It's unmarked. When they caught us up, I spotted four heavies in there. You know, like the size of the deputies that used me for field goal practice. Maybe they worked us out and are lookin' for a nice quiet spot of revenge. Harley left more of 'em up here than we thought if they're free to chase us down. If I were you, I'd loosen that toy gun o' yours in its holster. You might yet get some practice. Just do it real subtle, like.”

  Clare reached down to the foot well. “I've already got it.” She placed the Walther in her lap. It felt reassuring to have the compact weight resting on her thighs. While she wasn't likely to sign up as a member of the NRA, in this situation she felt better for having a means of self-defence. With her deteriorating state of health affecting her insecurity, it was doubly welcome. “Now prove it to me. I wanna see them react.”

  Shaking his head, Terrick eased the car to a halt. “It's a bad idea. Just don't stare at them.” At first the unmarked car began to follow suite, maintaining distance. As it became obvious they weren't going to sustain the facade, the silver car sped up and overtook as Terrick signalled off the road. Clare tried to get a good look as it shot past; several large men filled the car. One watched them from the front passenger seat. Their eyes made contact and in that instant Clare came to a realization. We're being hunted. Their pursuers turned off at the next available junction.

  “Too crowded,” Terrick observed. “Too near population. They'll catch us again in the forest.”

  “Then make sure they don't.”

  Terrick pulled back onto the road, accelerating past the road where the silver car was mid-turn. There was a distinct squeal of tires as the driver sought to join the chase.

  “East Princeton,” Terrick muttered as a sign flashed past. “We have to go left.”

  “Where does this lead us?”

  “We go through the forest which means windy roads and less visibility. There's a very distinct white house down this road a few miles on the left. We turn right there. Then a mile down that road there's a crossroads just after some open land with a hill to the right. If I don't make it, you have to go up that road onto the hill. You need to get up that road. You got all that?”

  “White house, turn right. Open land on a hill then crossroads. Go up the hill. Got it? Don't do anything suicidal and let's hope it won't come to that. You got it?”

  Before Terrick could answer, his wing mirror exploded.

  “They're shootin' at us, girl.”

  Clare turned. Behind, the silver car was closing on them. She could now see the four men silhouetted inside, though she could not be sure they were the same deputies. One of them was attempting to get a bead on them, his gun waving around as he coped with the wind. He fired again, the bullet ricocheting off the trunk and out of danger.

  “Ashby's finest on their day off,” she observed. “Our secret is definitely out.”

  They were already doing seventy along roads that twisted with frequent irregularity.

  “Feel free to dissuade them,” Terrick suggested. “I'll try to hold her steady.”

  Clare wound down her window and turned, kneeling on her seat, the Walther in her left hand. “I'm right handed.”

  “They don't know that. Just squeeze off a few.”

  Clare waited until a bend in the road gave her a decent view of the car behind, and squeezed the trigger. The right headlight exploded in a shower of plastic and glass, causing the driver to swerve. Unfortunately their pursuers refused to back off, closing the gap until the two cars touched. Clare attempted a shot at the front wheel just as they hit a bump. Her shot went high, hitting the gunman in the arm and causing him to drop his weapon in a spray of blood. Another bump from behind caused Clare to hang on for dear life as she was shunted off-balance.

  “They don't want us gettin' away. Buckle up, girl. We need to make some sort of populated area or they'll run us off the road.”

  Clare secured herself as Terrick upped the speed. The car behind matched them. For the next few minutes it was a dogfight. Both cars swerved across the lanes of the road.

  Please, stay empty, Clare prayed as they hurtled down the wrong side of the road. Another nudge found Terrick compensating the direction, curses streaming from his mouth.

  Clare tasted blood and began to panic until she realized it was just a bitten lip.

  Then out of nowhere buildings materialised.

  “Is this enough?” Clare asked.

  Another bump, this one forceful, caused her head to whip back into the headrest. “Guess not.”

  A fork in the road appeared out of the woodland. Across the road to the right, adults shepherded children in uniform.

  “They're about to cross,” Clare warned.

  Terrick began to honk the horn. “We slow down, we're dead.”

  The children moved toward the crossing, shepherded by their guardians. The scene was on them in moments. The driver behind had no such morality about collateral damage, attempting to pull alongside them.

  Terrick swerved left, still beeping at the schoolchildren. The other car followed but the foremost adult, a man maybe in his twenties, jumped forward as one of the kids attempted to run across the road. With a thump that made Clare wince, the other car hit the man, slowing back as the driver wobbled and lost control in a spin.

  “Did they get him?” Terrick's voice was thick with concern.

  Clare strained to see. “He looks down, but moving. Maybe they just took out his leg. Keep going. They'll be on us in seconds.”

  It didn't take long. “White house,” Clare pointed to their left. Off to the right a narrow road disappeared into the woodland at the bottom of a low, wide hill that emerged above the treeline.

  Slowing only enough to take the sharp right at speed, Terrick allowed their car to drift until the tires gained purchase once more, sending them shooting off into the shady twilight of a road barely used.

  “Too much dust,” Clare said as she looked behind them. “They'll know exactly where to look.”

  “We need to ditch this car and get on foot. We'll have the advantage if we can outpace them. You w
ounded one of them. The rest don't look up to a mountain hike.”

  Clare stared down at her own withered hands. “I hate to be the one to break it to you Terrick but I'm not exactly in shape for a trek either.”

  “Yeah but we know where we're going. They don't have that luxury.”

  Clare took a series of slow, deep breaths, trying to calm her thudding heart, fuelled by adrenaline. “I wish I had your confidence.”

  “We're gonna have to dump the car, or at least hide it. Maybe they'll miss it.”

  The hill rose to the right of them, its lower flanks steep and packed with trees straining toward the light. In what seemed like moments, the forest withdrew, the fields of a farm stretching off to their right. The open space before the crossroad appeared, cattle-trimmed grass and a gradual gradient providing no cover at all. They were running out of road.

  “Nothing there,” Clare concluded after a brief examination. “A couple of barns up the hill. That's about it. We're gonna have to try for the treeline.” As the road swept around the hill to the right, Clare watched for signs of pursuit. No movement. “Maybe they did crash.”

  “Hitting a person won't stop people like that, girl. They looked far too determined. They're out there, believe me.”

  The open space ended as they passed the tree-line and just as quickly the junction appeared.

  “Go left,” Clare suggested. “We can stash the car and double back.”

  “Could end up walkin' right into them,” Terrick cautioned.

  “We're gonna have to risk it. You don't want to take the right track and lead them right to the commune. We don't have time to argue.”

  Terrick took her suggestion, easing the car down the slope until a gap in the trees presented itself. Clare grabbed the case of documents and exited the car, being careful to close the door quietly. The leaf litter was deep underfoot, the forest floor twisted and tangled with roots as she squelched and slipped her way through the undergrowth. “Now the hard bit,” she said in hushed tones. Her legs were already like jelly, her head fuzzy with ongoing weariness. How was she supposed to make it up the hill?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They had only gone a matter of meters when Clare's legs began to give way. The irregular surface would have been fine for a fit and healthy Clare Rosser, used to outdoor terrain and a regular hiker since childhood. It was not the case anymore.

  Terrick caught her as she began to crumple.

  “I… I can't,” she gasped, sweat running down her forehead. “It's too much.” A chill ran down her back and she began to shiver.

  “You have to, girl. You stay put and we're done. Your mind is stronger than your body. Remind yourself of that fact and get the hell up.”

  In the distance Clare heard the whine of an engine labouring at speed. Was it the Ashby deputies? Terrick pulled her forward despite her body protesting with shocks of pain. They made it through the trees to within sight of the road they had come. Terrick hissed, “Get down!”

  Clare dropped as much as fell to the ground, laying prone amongst a bed of mountain laurel.

  Terrick cautioned her to silence with one hand and they ducked low behind a clump of ferns. The silver car, dented and scratched down its left side, sped along until it reached the junction. One of the men, the same guy who had kicked Terrick and then driven off in the first squad car the day before, climbed out of the damaged passenger side, his movements laboured. With a groan he knelt down and examined the road.

  “That way,” he called back to the car, pointing in the direction they had taken. The silver car edged forward, allowing him time to get back in, before heading off down the track.

  Terrick watched the car until it was just behind them and pulled Clare to her feet. “We got minutes at most. We gotta get you up that hill, girl.”

  “What if they see us?”

  “Try stayin' on your feet for more than two minutes and leave the what-ifs to me.”

  They emerged onto the road and for a moment Clare was blinded by the glare of the sun as she stared unthinking right at the golden ball of light.

  “Idiot,” Terrick cursed, and dragged her forward.

  With no will to resist, Clare stumbled on, her only conscious contact with the outside world the hand that yanked with dogged determination at her right arm.

  “There's a trail off to the left, where the hill is steepest. Let's hope they think we went to the farm for help.”

  Clare blinked as the dazzle began to lift from her eyesight. She was left with a thumping headache pulsing across her temple. Each 'thump' threatened to collapse her once again but she fought with a primal urge: a survival instinct. One footstep became ten. Ten became twenty. Twenty became fifty. Were they winning?

  “This will do for a moment.” Terrick took them off the track into a part of the woodland where the trees were denser. Pines had bunched together in a near-impenetrable wall. Clare stopped in the lee of one tree that stood out from the rest, wider and taller than its fellows. Leaning against it until her forehead touched the rough bark, she stood there gasping for breath.

  A single gunshot rang out from the slope behind them. Clare's sight had only returned enough that she felt rather than saw a bullet shatter a branch only feet from her head. She lifted the Walther around the side of the trunk with her right hand and squeezed, emptying the clip just as Terrick had instructed her. When she lowered the empty gun and looked to the sheriff, his face was a mask of disbelief.

  “When you can see them…”

  Clare looked to the gun and back to Terrick, not quite comprehending, then around their barricade.

  Down the hill behind them there was movement. Some, if not all of the Ashby deputies stalked them. Clare had trouble focusing on the distant woodland with the way her head was throbbing.

  “Move up the hill, real slow like,” Terrick whispered. “I'm gonna see if I can get round and hamstring them. They won't see you from here, as long as you stay low and stay quiet.”

  “Terrick that's insane. There's four of them and one of you, and they have guns.”

  Terrick pulled his own gun from his belt. “I fancy my chances, girl. Just make your way back there.”

  Not giving her a chance to respond, Terrick silently disappeared into the woods. Clare remained where she stood, trying to decide if moving was a good choice. Surely staying still just presented her as an easy target so she decided to try it.

  “Sheriff,” boomed the deep voice of a man down slope. The word echoed through the woods. “We've no quarrel with you. Just give us the girl and you can go.”

  “Ain't gonna happen,” Terrick's voice bounced back from Clare's right. A barrage of gunfire erupted from down the slope a hundred metres or so from where Clare hid, tearing into trees in the direction from which the sheriff's voice had been heard. Even from this distance the noise was deafening. Clare put her hands over her ears.

  The gunfire ceased; the silence was deafening. “Sheriff, give it up. You guys got nowhere to go. If we don't get you, the wilderness will.”

  A single shot rang out from higher up the hill. There was a yell and the crash of a sizeable body dropping to the undergrowth. The gunfire erupted once more from downslope. This time it was sustained.

  Clare took this as her cue to drop back from her hiding place. Damn, Terrick can move fast, Clare moved toward where she guessed the shot had originated.

  Some of the shots from below strayed in her direction and Clare froze for a moment. Down the slope the three remaining Ashby deputies climbed the hill, unloading clip after clip from their assorted arsenal of handguns. What sort of manhunt involved such firepower? Was she really worth all that noise and destruction?

  The woodland opened out into a glade, at one end of which rested a large granite slab. Trees grew to either side, the branches giving her hand holds to pull herself up. Clare feared she didn't have strength sufficient to the task. She pulled out the phone Tina had given her, looked at it for a moment then depressed the speed dial
. Before the number had even completed she cancelled it. What good could her friend do for her out here? Clare was alone.

  Behind her there was a rustle of foliage. Clare turned to find a fourth man stalking her, cradling his right arm with his left. A large patch of red stained his plaid shirt. Despite this he grinned through a heavy brown beard at her.

  Clare backed up to the granite face, not taking her eyes off the man, reaching about with her hand in a futile effort to find a loose piece of granite for a weapon.

  “This is the end of the line, girl,” he taunted. “You got nowhere to run. You look about ready for the creature. Nice and scrawny. That's how he likes 'em. Still, ain't nobody as said we had to deliver you whole and unsullied. He just wants what's inside you. I figure fluid's fluid. What matter if some of it's mine?” The grin became menacing. “Those three are off huntin' your friend. It's just you an' me, girl.”

  He moved forward, spreading his arms with a grunt. The pain from his wound was obviously an issue but the lust in his eyes was stronger. Clare had seen that same look far too often in her job, contained on the faces of the old-man cops in Worcester. She prepared to mentally isolate herself. He was right; it was just fluid. Survival was what mattered.

  A single shot rang out and her barrel-chested antagonist stared down at the hole in his chest in momentary confusion. His mouth gone slack, he looked toward her, his face questioning. Blood spittle dribbled from one corner of his mouth and his good hand came free, touching the red plaid of a shirt now darkened with blood. He pitched forward, landing face-first on the trampled tracks of countless small footprints that made up the glade's floor with a lifeless thump.

  Another shot and another scream. Clare turned to run but as she did so, a gloved hand clamped round her mouth, leaving her unable to call out. Worn leather assaulted her nostrils.

  “Don't make a sound,” whispered a female voice directly into her ear. A woman with such strength would easily subdue her in her current state. “There're more of them out there, many more than were just chasing you. Your friend's in peril. Stay quiet, don't move and you might both get out of this alive.”