by Jack Kilborn
Florence clucked her tongue—something she did when she was displeased. “Let’s go back into town. I’m sure there are other rooms available. I’ll pay for it.”
Letti bristled at her mother’s words, and any doubts she had about this road vanished, replaced by anger. Pay for it? Now Letti was determined to see this through, even if they had to drive over a log jam to do it.
The Audi’s tires dug in and performed as advertised, traversing the bumps, divots, and rocks without getting stuck. But the suspension left something to be desired, the shocks bouncing them around like a carnival ride. Twenty yards into the woods the sun disappeared, forcing Letti to flick on her brights. Though overgrown, the path was relatively straight, and no trees or large obstacles got in their way.
Boy, it’s dark.
In southern Illinois, on the Great Plains, even a moonless night was starlit. But this was like swimming in ink. Letti had the window cracked open, and she could practically feel the darkness seeping in.
Then the car jolted, the front end tilting downward. Letti whacked her head against the steering wheel, causing the horn to honk, and JD bounced against the dashboard, uttering a surprised yelp.
Letti pushed herself back into her seat, but the car still canted on an angle, like they were driving down a steep hill.
“Mom?”
“We went into a hole, or a ditch, or something. Are you both okay?”
JD hopped onto Letti’s seat, his big paws between her legs. He growled at the driver’s side window.
“JD! Down!”
The growl became a sharp bark, and the dog’s entire body tensed. Letti stared where JD was looking, out into the woods. She saw only blackness.
“JD? What’s wrong, boy?”
Kelly patted his head, her voice full of concern. “There’s something out there, Mom. He senses it.”
Letti put a hand on his collar. JD was baring his teeth, and he stood rigid as a statue, his hackles up. The last time she’d seen the dog act this way was a few months ago, when someone tried to break into their house at three am. It turned out to be their drunken neighbor, mistaking their house for his. JD had gone Cujo at the intrusion, leaping at the door with such force he’d knocked out the security window.
She certainly didn’t want a repeat of that right now.
Letti pressed the brake and shifted the Audi into reverse, giving it a little gas.
The wheels whirred, but they remained stuck.
“I can’t see anything out there,” Florence said, her nose pressed to the glass. “It’s like staring into a grave at midnight.”
Letti gave it a little more gas, shouldering JD aside and watching the RPM gage jump.
The car still didn’t move. She wondered if the Audi was on its undercarriage, the wheels off the ground. She would have to go check, see if she could—
JD barked again, clipped and loud, surprising the shit out of her.
“JD! Down!”
Letti gave the dog a rough shove, pushing him off her lap and back into his seat. Then she reached for the door handle.
“Letti!” Florence yelled in her ear. “Don’t get out of the car!”
Her mother never raised her voice. Ever. Not even when Letti was a child. So hearing it now felt like a slap. Letti recovered quickly, turning around in her seat to look at her.
“What’s the problem, Florence?”
“There’s something out there,” Florence said.
“JD has never been in the woods before. It’s probably a rabbit. Or a deer.”
“Or a bear.” Florence looked solemn.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Indulge an old woman. Turn off the car and the headlights for a minute.”
Letti sighed. “Florence…”
“Please. What can it hurt?”
Kelly leaned forward. “What if it’s that guy with the gun, Mom?”
“We’re a long way from him, Kelly.”
“What if it is a bear?”
“Then hopefully he’ll help us get unstuck.”
No one laughed. Sighing, Letti flipped off the ignition and killed the lights.
It seemed even darker now. Darker, and unnaturally quiet. Letti couldn’t see her hand in front of her face.
Then a light came on in the backseat.
Kelly. Holding up her iPod, its screen bright white.
“Turn that off, dear. With no light, our eyes can adjust to the darkness.”
Dear? Florence never called me dear.
Letti chided herself. She wasn’t in competition with her daughter.
The light went off. Everyone waited. Letti wasn’t scared. She never got scared. It was a useless emotion, like guilt, and worry. Even if there was a bear out there, the thing to do was deal with it, not hide from it like frightened children.
“Have we waited long enough, Florence?”
“Shh. I hear something.”
“What?”
“Right next to the car.”
Letti felt the gooseflesh rise on her arms.
“Are the doors locked?” Florence whispered.
Against all common sense, Letti lowered her voice as well. “Why? A bear is going to pull open the door?”
“I don’t think it’s a bear,” Florence said. “I think it’s something else.”
Letti found the lock button, flicked it twice to make sure. Then she pressed her face to the window, trying to peer outside. Slowly, her eyes began to adapt, and she could see her breath fogging up the glass.
Letti wiped it off with her palm.
It didn’t wipe off.
She rubbed harder, her flesh squeaking on the window.
The condensation stayed there. And as she squinted at it, she watched the fog get bigger.
Hold on… it’s not on the inside.
It’s on the outside.
Someone has their face against my window.
JD went crazy, jumping fully on top of Letti, his claws digging into her thighs, barking and scratching at the glass in full-on attack mode. Letti’s face was buried in his muzzle, fur getting up her nose. She gave the dog a rough shove, turned the ignition, threw it into gear, and jammed on the accelerator.
The engine whined, then the wheels found purchase and the Audi lurched forward, climbing out of the ditch, bouncing its occupants against the ceiling, JD falling into the passenger seat. Letti cut the wheel hard to the right so the rear didn’t get stuck, and all four tires bit into the dirt as she fishtailed. She flipped on the brights, gasping as something darted behind a tree only a few feet away from them.
A man?
Pretty big for a man.
“Mom!”
Letti saw it too; a tree, dead ahead. She wrestled with the wheel, guiding the Audi back onto the trail, the tree trunk banging against the side mirror and shearing it off.
Twenty yards later, the woods suddenly opened up into a clearing. Letti hit the brakes, skidding to avoid smashing into the front porch of the large house that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Then there was a massive BANG! as the front tire popped.
After five miles of driving, the stench of blood began to make Deb sick, and she pulled the Vette over on the side of the road to clean up.
“I have bottled water, some towels, in the trunk,” she said, the first words spoken since they’d left the butchered deer. “I also have some plastic garbage bags.”
“You come equipped,” Mal said.
“It’s a triathlete thing. Never know when you’ll be swimming, or have to hydrate.”
They got out of the car, walked around to the rear. Mal pulled out his suitcase, and Deb pulled hers. She was thinking the same thing he probably was; in the darkness, the only way to change clothes was next to the light from the trunk. She watched him struggle for a moment with what to do, and then she pulled her bloody tee shirt up over her head, revealing her neon sports bra.
“Would you like some privacy?” he asked.
Deb loosened the dr
awstring on her sweatpants. “I wear a bikini when I compete. There’s nothing you’ll see here that you won’t see there.”
She rested her butt against the bumper, then tugged down her pants. Removing them from her legs was awkward, but Deb favored flared cuffs, making the process easier. When she was finished, she stood in her bra and panties, expecting Mal to be staring at her prosthetic legs.
Instead, Deb caught him staring at her breasts, which made her feel wonderfully normal. She tried not to smirk, reaching into the trunk for a water bottle and a towel as he began to unbutton his shirt. Deb cleaned herself off as best she could. When she glanced at Mal again, he was in his boxer briefs. It was obvious he worked out.
“Can you toss me a water bottle?”
Deb thought, staring at his chiseled abs, about asking him if he needed help. But that was totally inappropriate, especially after what they’d just been through. Instead, she went with something banal.
“Do you run?”
“Yeah. Not like you, though. Never competed in anything. After five miles I feel like puking.”
“Everyone feels like puking after five miles. It’s called hitting the wall. You have to run through it.”
“That’s why you’re the athlete, and I’m the reporter. Once I hit the wall, I curl up and start crying.”
“I do that too. But only after the race.”
Deb took a long pull from the water bottle, then dumped the remainder on her prosthetics. Her cosmetic legs, as opposed to her sports legs, were flesh-colored and shaped like real calves, the outer skin latex. Inside each was a titanium bar, which attached to a complicated spring/joint mechanism that functioned as ankles. Her high-top Nikes were specially made to snap onto the ends. Every so often, Deb toyed with the idea of getting a custom pair of stiletto boots. She missed high heels. But walking was enough of a challenge without an extra three inches.
Except for the flesh-colored Velcro straps just below her knees where the prosthetics began, the legs looked real, even close up. But they got dirty very easily, and were a pain to clean. The dried-on blood was proving especially tough, and Deb was worried if she rubbed too hard, she’d rip the latex.
“Maybe this will help.” Mal tugged a bottle out of his suitcase and held it up. Grey Goose vodka.
“Apparently you come equipped, too.”
“I travel a lot, and hate paying twelve dollars for martinis at the hotel bar.”
“I’m not sure getting drunk will help get the blood stains out.”
He shook his head and walked over, kneeling down between Deb’s legs. “Do you mind?” he asked.
Deb didn’t mind at all. She watched as he poured some alcohol onto a clean part of his towel, and then rubbed her prosthetics with it. For the briefest of moments, Deb could almost feel his touch on her missing legs, her brain linking his actions with remembered sensations. She shivered, and told herself it was because of the night breeze and not anything else.
“I think I can take it from here,” she said, holding her hand out for the vodka.
He looked up like a guy ready to propose marriage, which was something Deb knew she’d never see. The tiny flirtatious spark she’d felt a moment ago became resentment. At herself. At her legs. And at Mal, for daring to treat her like a normal person.
Scott, her boyfriend once-upon-a-time, didn’t react well to the loss of her legs. It freaked him out, and he didn’t act the same after the amputations. He alternated between treating her like a fragile China doll that might break, and acting like she was deformed. The one time they tried to have sex, and the comments he made, was so upsetting she dumped him right there, and hadn’t been with a man since.
She’d dated again, eventually, after getting through rehab on her own. But in Deb’s experience, all men were in one of two groups. Those that wished she had legs, and those freakazoids who had a thing for women without legs. Deb made the mistake of joining an amputee forum on the internet, and later an online dating service. In both cases, the only men she attracted were weirdoes with a stump fetish.
Mal, treating her like she was 100% normal, was messing with her head.
Deb wasn’t normal. She never would be. And if he didn’t stop staring at her with that sly grin, she was going to smack him.
“I said I got it, Mal. Back off.”
He raised his hands in supplication and quickly retreated.
Deb took a big swig from the bottle, feeling it burn down her throat, coming to rest like a hot coal in her belly.
Damn him for being cute, and damn him for being nice.
She poured more vodka on her towel and began swabbing her legs again. The alcohol worked fine at dissolving the blood. It also got rid of the blood caked under her fingernails, which was important considering she paid a hundred bucks to get them done. Still, she couldn’t wait to find this stupid inn and get into a bathtub.
Deb hoped it had bathtubs. She wasn’t good with showers.
Mal seemed to take the rejection in stride, hopping on one foot to get his fresh jeans on. Deb went with a pair of nylon snap pants, the kind basketball players used. They had snap-on buttons along the outside and inside of each leg, so they could be torn off quickly. That was a nice function, but Deb preferred them for the opposite reason; she could put them on by using the snaps rather than stepping into them.
“Have you done any climbing since the accident?”
She shot him a look. “Speaking of non-sequitors. Are we starting the interview now?”
Mal was buttoning up his shirt, another light blue one. “I figured we have three things we could be talking about. The deer.”
Deb shook her head. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.”
“Me neither. That leaves the interview, and getting personal. And I assume, by the way you told me to back off, you aren’t all that interested in getting personal.”
Deb capped the bottle and tossed it to him, perhaps a bit too hard. “No, I haven’t done any rock climbing since I lost my legs.”
She shivered again, and this time she was positive it was the night air. Deb pulled a hoodie out of her suitcase and wrestled that over her head.
“Is the accident too difficult to talk about?”
His voice had a hint of challenge. Deb relaxed a notch.
“Not at all.” The only thing that scares me is flirting.
She threw the wet, bloody towel and the empty water bottle into the trunk, and watched Mal muscle his suitcase up and place it next to her sports legs.
“You’ve got three pairs of prosthetics in here,” Mal said. “What are each of them for?”
An easy question. Deb got asked a lot about her various legs.
“The ones that look like skis bent into question marks, those are my Cheetah Flex-Sprints. They’re made of carbon fiber, curved backward the same way the legs of a gazelle are curved, which transfers energy better than a human knee and ankle.”
He reached for one and asked, “May I?”
“Sure.”
He picked up the Cheetah. “Wow, they’re light.”
“Try to bend it.”
Mal placed the rubber tread attached to the curved bottom in one hand, and the stump cup in the other. It really did resemble an upside-down question mark, and when Deb wore them she thought she looked like a satyr—a woman with the legs of a goat.
Mal flexed, and the leg bent slightly.
“Strong,” he said. “And springy.”
“Very springy. With a running start, I can jump high enough to slam dunk a basketball.”
“What about these?” he said, replacing the Cheetah with a titanium bar with a clip on the end.
“I call those my Long John Silvers.”
“Because they’re sliver?”
“That, and they look like old pirate peg legs. The clip onto the bottom of the pylon hooks on my bike pedals. They’re shit to walk in, but function the same way as a tibia does, without any spring. Direct energy transfer from my thigh to the pedal.”
“I actually have a pair for swimming, with fins on the feet, but they’re for training and recreation and I left them at home.”
“So what are these?”
He picked up another leg. Like the Cheetah, it was a thin band, wide as a ski. But it wasn’t as curvy. Rather than a question mark, it looked more like the letter L. And instead of a rubber tread foot, this one ended in a rubber knob with small metal spikes. Sort of like the bottom toe of the L had a sea urchin on the tip.