Fatal Intuition

by Makenzi Fisk

  “Are you so stupid you’re talking to a bird?” She must be half insane. It’s just a freaking bird. “I hate birds. If I catch it, I’ll kill it.”

  She squares her shoulders and narrows her eyes at me. That’s ridiculous because she’s just a little kid.

  The bird swoops so close I feel it split the air by my face. I duck into a ball and the kid covers her mouth. Is she laughing at me? I ought to…

  “Someone’s back there.” T straightens his sore knee and staggers upright. The break hasn’t made him any calmer and he’s still sweating like the stinky plumber. “They’re coming for us, Lily.”

  “Bullshit. No one can find us out here. They probably have no idea she’s even gone.” When I was her age, I wandered all through these woods, day and night, and nobody ever noticed. Nobody missed me and nobody will miss her. We can do whatever we want. I take out my phone and turn the camera on her. “Do you have any last words?”

  This gets a rise out of the kid. She stomps her foot and her eyes flash anger. “Auntie Erin and Auntie Allie are going to…”

  I laugh. She’s like a pipsqueak mouse yapping at a panther. I reach out to swat her but T steps in my path. He’s a paranoid freak.

  “She’s right. They’re coming. I can hear them back there. Hundreds of ‘em, with tracking dogs, and the S.W.A.T. team. Is that a search plane? Oh God, they’re coming.”

  I zoom the camera to his face. I can see the whites of his eyes all the way around, and his chest heaves like he sprinted a mile. He’s so pathetic.

  I remember when I made my ex-friend Nina watch a slasher film. I had to walk her all the way home afterward, right up to the window, and then wait until she’d crawled inside. Nina, who turned out to be not who I thought she was. She was like all the rest. Loser. I hope she’s enjoying her life behind bars.

  “You’re going crazy, T. How many of those ADD pills did you take?” I shouldn’t have let him hold the bottle. He’s a pig when it comes to drugs, and he’ll swallow as many as he thinks he can get away with.

  “Not enough.” He pops another in his mouth before I can grab the bottle. The kid’s edging away, trying to use this distraction to escape. I grab the leash and yank her, gagging, to her knees.

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere. You’re my revenge. I’ll film every single thing T does to you and send it to your stupid family. Let’s see how your FBI aunt likes that.” I look in the lens and hold up the gun. “I could shoot you but I don’t have to kill you to destroy your life. When I deliver this to you, it will be the best day of my life.” I throw the rope back to T. “Guard your own prisoner, loser.”

  He snatches it out of the air and drags the kid down the trail, willow branches whipping behind them. He’s a man on a mission, but he doesn’t last long before the pills get the best of him. My own heart is hammering in my chest with only one pill. It’s unreal that he’s still walking around.

  When I catch up, he’s bent over, hands on his thighs. “Are they coming? Give me the gun and I’ll take them all down.”

  “No. There’s only a couple of bullets left. I need them.” He’s one paranoid fucker on this shit. I’ve got the perfect buzz, but I don’t want to take so many that I end up with mashed potato brain, like T.

  “I have to pee.” The kid tugs the leash toward the nearest clump of bushes. “Really bad.”

  “No. Hold it.” I don’t have time for this. “Let’s go. We’re getting close.”

  “Aw, let her take a piss.” T strokes her hair. “You’re gonna be a good girl from now on, aren’t you?” After what she did to his nose, he shouldn't give her any sympathy. He lets her squat behind the bush and eases the weight off his swollen knee, rope held loosely in his fingers. “It still hurts like a son-of-a-bitch.”

  Stealthy feet across moss-covered tree roots make surprisingly little sound. T is still moaning about his knee when I notice the tension in the rope is gone. It hangs from his wrist like a dead worm.

  “You let her go!” I punch him square in the mouth and the pain shoots from my fist to my elbow.

  “I didn’t!” His jaw slackens, as if he’s been sacked in the balls, lifeless rope dangling.

  I grab it up and examine the end where it’s been cut clean through. “The little shit had a knife. Didn’t you check her pockets when you were trying to feel her up? Go get her back!”

  He leaps over the bush and stumbles on his bad knee. “Where’d she go?”

  There’s a flash of light where movement has parted the branches. “There! To your left.”

  He crashes forward and, not smart enough to keep to the more solid footing offered by tree roots, sinks to his hips through the moss. His thrashing and swearing drives him in to his chest.

  “Lily. Pull me out.” He tosses the free end of the rope and it lands at my feet.

  When I was a kid, I watched my mother die. It was a lot like this, but I helped a little. I twist a dead branch loose. If I smash him behind the ear, he’ll go under too.

  “Lily? What are you doing?” T’s eyes are round with fear and that excites me a little. “Help me!”

  I step back to consider my options. He was fun for a while, but now he’s a freakin’ lunatic. If he drowns, the fun will be over, and I’ll be standing here alone with my beer. If I get him out, we can still catch the kid, and I can film him doing what he does. I’ll get my revenge.

  “All right.” I put down the stick and bend a willow branch over so he can reach it. “Pull yourself out.”

  I squat on my haunches to watch. The muscles in his wiry forearms tremble with fatigue by the time he’s out. “You’re an evil bitch, Lily. You really are.” He flops onto his belly. “It kind of turns me on.”

  “Keep it in your pants until we catch the kid. Then you can do what you want with her, and I’ll make you a big star.”

  “Gimme a beer. I earned it.”

  I’m feeling generous because he’s provided me with fifteen minutes entertainment. I twist the cap off one and hand it over. “Fill yer boots.”

  “How are we gonna find her?”

  “Don’t worry. I know every single trail around here, and it’ll be dark soon. Panthers can see in the dark. We’ll get her.”

  “You’re not a panth—”

  “Shut up, Trenton.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Allie gathered an armful of flashlights from Erin’s mom and carried them outside to the makeshift table. “Where did you get all these supplies so fast?”

  “Scouts. One phone call and we’re swamped with volunteers.” Ellen’s face was pinched with worry, but she was not a complainer. “This is a good town.”

  Like an assembly line of elves, Jimmy and Sophie sorted matches, bottled water, whistles, and first aid kits into piles, while Doppler trolled beneath the table for interesting things to chew on.

  Buzzing with energy, dozens of people waited for search instructions. Little kids had been left in charge of the group as a whole, while their parents attended to urgent business. They played on the lawn in packs of two or three, obediently staying within sight of the house. Ladies from the church prayed in a football huddle with their hands on each other’s shoulders.

  Allie skirted around them. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant, that kind of energy always buffeted her like a gusty wind.

  Gina laid out a series of maps, each with a different grid outlined in red marker. She’d copied the animal trails from Gunther’s map onto them with a ballpoint pen.

  “Yo, Tom! Little to the left. Keep ‘er comin’. That’s it,” someone called out as Erin’s dad backed his truck up to his new boat trailer. “Walter’s gone down for his boat too. We’ll launch it right here, if that’s okay with you.”

  “‘Course it is,” Tom hollered back. “It’ll be dark before we know it. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “What about the National Guard?” The man in the bright orange jacket and matching cap would be visible a mile away. “Can’t they bring in air support?”
r />   “Naw,” said a woman with an eager hunting dog. “Too many power lines. Dangerous for choppers.”

  Choppers. Aircraft. Allie turned to Jimmy, who rocked on his heels in anticipation. That was what they needed.

  “We should use my drone to find Victoria,” he said. “It can fly closer than airplanes or helicopters, and it has a great camera.”

  “You’re right.” Allie’s pulse quickened. There was something more they could do, something vital. She motioned for Gina to join them. “Every member of Morley Falls PD is searching the town, but I don’t think that’s where we’ll find her. She’s out there.” She pointed to the forest. “Somewhere downstream, but they won’t find her by boat either.”

  Gina lowered her voice. “Do you know where she is?”

  Allie shrugged. “I don’t have an exact location, but I can feel if we’re onto something, or not. Jimmy’s drone is a good choice. It’s a step in the right direction.”

  “You want to use his toy helicopter?” Gina tilted her head as if she hadn’t heard quite right.

  “It’s not a toy helicopter.” He crossed his arms. “It’s a professional grade aerial drone, and the video images are high definition. I can control it with a smart phone.”

  “But there’s no cell service past town,” Gina said.

  “It doesn’t matter. It establishes its own connection and orients itself using satellites.”

  “Don’t you sound like a little pilot.” She tousled his hair.

  He stopped her with a stern look. “I’m not so little.”

  “You’re right. I’ve been noticing that you’re getting more grown up.”

  He blushed.

  “Is that a mustache on your upper lip?”

  “Boss! Come on. You know I’m only seven.”

  “Seven is the right age for this.” She mussed his hair before he could dodge. “So, will you lend us your professional grade magic flying machine?”

  Allie rested her hand on his shoulder. “Please show me how to fly it.”

  This was likely the hardest decision of his life, to part with his prized possession, a grownup purchase he shared with his uncle Thomas. Finally, he straightened his hair. “It takes a lot of practice. I need to come with you.”

  “You know I understand a lot of what you do when you fly. We can’t let you come. Not this time. It’s too dangerous and I won’t put you at risk.”

  He shuffled his feet. “But Uncle Thomas said…” Doppler circled him and sat on his foot, wagging his tail.

  “What would Uncle Thomas want you to do?”

  He looked at the little dog. “He would say we need to do everything to help my sister.”

  Allie exhaled. “Yes, I’m sure he would.” She’d have to be a quick learner.

  “But you have to take Doppler with you.”

  If those were his terms, she’d accept in a heartbeat. “Let’s unpack that drone and you can give me some pointers.”

  After most of the volunteers had left for their respective search grids, Jimmy cleared an area on the far end of the lawn. He held his smart phone out in front of his chest. “You have to wait until it establishes a GPS connection with at least six satellites.”

  “Six!” Gina peered at the illuminated screen. “There are that many up there?”

  He nodded, and snapped the phone into its onboard bracket. “Eight is better.” He flipped a switch up and down a dozen times until the LED light turned solid yellow. “This is how you calibrate the compass.”

  The futuristic little machine rested on the lawn a few feet away, green lights blinking. He raised it horizontally, and rotated it in a full circle until the light switched to solid green. He repeated the same thing vertically. The light went off.

  “It’s ready.” He placed it on the ground and switched on the remote controller, pulling both sticks to the bottom corners to start the motors. Like a tiny alien spaceship, it lifted off the ground. A few years ago, neighbors would have called in UFO reports if they spotted something like this in the sky. An aerial view of the property showed up on the smart phone’s screen.

  “Cool,” Gina said, leaning over his shoulder. The image detail was impressive.

  Doppler ran to where it had taken off and circled, barking at the white dot against the sky. Jimmy shrugged. “He always does that. Maybe he wants to catch it.” He reluctantly handed the controller to Allie.

  “I’ve seen you do it many times, but remind me how the fail-safe works.” She manipulated the controls to rotate the airborne drone, and Gina waved when the video camera looked down on them. She decreased motor speed until the machine softly landed.

  Jimmy nodded his approval. “On a full charge, you get about twenty-five minutes flying time and we already used four, so…”

  “I won’t waste time,” Allie finished.

  “I’ve never flown more than a mile or two.” Jimmy packed it up and reverently handed over the box. “Please be careful.”

  With equal respect, she placed it on the Jeep’s back seat. She would do her best to return it to him undamaged.

  Doppler sat on Allie’s lap and lolled his tongue out the window while Gina drove the Jeep. North was all they knew, so Gina hit the old logging road until it narrowed into a double set of tire tracks through the field. The jagged fingers of stunted trees scraped paint from her doors.

  “Faster. Drive faster.” Like smoke trails hugging the ground, Allie envisioned the urgency of Victoria’s fear mingled with the dark oily smear she recognized as Lily’s hate. There was one more trail, male, whose energy vacillated. Disorientation, paranoia, and a driving desire for the child. A sour taste rose in Allie’s throat. He meant to do Victoria harm.

  A pointed rock screeched when it scoured the bottom of the Jeep, and suddenly she knew exactly where they were. “I’ve been here before.”

  “Is this the blueberry picking road?” Gina swerved to narrowly miss a boulder, like an iceberg jutting up from the dirt. Foxtails, with their bristly heads, swished against the undercarriage.

  “No, but the river is up ahead. I came out here with my Mini Cooper once.”

  “The same car that got fried when my store burnt down?”

  “Uh-huh, and then your light-up fish sign crashed through my sunroof when the fire truck backed into it.” Sometimes Allie missed that car, missed cruising down Toronto’s Yonge Street, dodging traffic and sipping a frothy latte. She didn’t miss the virtual cacophony of noise in her head from so many human beings. It was much quieter here, easier to think, to focus.

  “Yeah, that.”

  They had a shared experience in common. Lily had permanently scarred them both. Over coffee, they’d talked it to death, going over the details until, one day, they’d decided it was enough.

  Bonded as friends, Allie confided in her about her gift. How her mind was a wide-open receiver, collecting unbidden signals like so many radio waves bounced off the ionosphere, how she was left to sort through the atmospheric noise, and somehow make sense of everything. The frustration of her gift’s unpredictable nature.

  They’d leaned on each other and healed, physically and emotionally, but now Lily was back and the scars were torn open. She could tell by the lines creasing the downturn of her mouth that Gina felt the same.

  Foliage swept overhead as they passed through an overgrown section of the path. Doppler, head out the open window, yelped when a branch snapped his muzzle.

  “Sorry,” Gina muttered.

  The dog withdrew his head, tucked it under Allie’s arm, and she riffled her fingers through his fur, warmth seeping to her core. She closed her eyes. Which way do I go?

  If she believed in God, or some supreme being, she’d pray for Victoria’s safety right now, but she’d never been sure, never felt that spiritual pull the way others described. What she felt was constant, and unyielding. Sometimes a pull, and other times, more of a push. Right now, it was as if she were drawn, at breakneck speed, by a powerful magnetic force. Fear crawled across her scalp an
d made the little hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Was it Victoria who drew her in, or was it Lily? Was there such a thing as destiny?

  They reached the end of the road and stopped. Ahead was the boat launch, a dirt road that disappeared into the water. Anyone could drive straight in, and Allie had once done that, in this very spot. She’d needed to find Erin, and had driven her Mini Cooper into the river until it had sunk to its hood in the mud. The fire and the falling sign had damaged the car, but it had been the mud that had finally rendered it irreparable. That had been a hard one to explain to her insurance company. Afterward, she’d taken then four-year-old Jimmy’s advice and purchased a vehicle more suited for the local terrain.

  She stepped from the Jeep and followed Doppler to a clump of weedy poplar trees with an odd shape. The very air jittered in anticipation.

  Gina hurried to follow. “Where are you going? Should I bring the pack? The bug spray? Hey! Wait up, girl.” She dashed through the grass to where Allie stood, inches from a shiny bumper protruding through the mound of hastily thrown tree branches.

  “This is it.” Allie grabbed the first branch and heaved it aside. Together they uncovered the rest of the stolen truck.

  “She’s not here,” Gina called out when she pulled open the door. She picked up a coil of rope. “They better not have…”

  Allie ran to the Jeep for the walkie-talkie Jimmy had tucked into their back pack. He’d told her it had a range of ten miles, but probably less in the woods. She clicked the button and waited, as he’d instructed, for two seconds before she spoke. “Jimmy, are you there?”

  “Home base here.” He sounded like a professional.

  “Can you get a message to Erin? Tell her to come to the public boat launch.”

  “Which one?” He was so excited to have such important news to relay, he forgot his own radio rules and spoke too soon, cutting off part of his first word.

  “Tell her it’s where I drowned my car. She’ll know.”

  “Ten-four,” he chirped, this time a little more controlled.

  “We’re going to send the drone up soon. Yes, I’ll be careful. Over and out.” She tucked away the radio.