The Wall

IV

Raymond Denton was running. As fast as his feet could carry him. He wasn't sure if he was still being pursued or not, but he didn't view that as a reason to run any slower. If The Goons weren't still behind him, they'd find him eventually. The only shot he had was to get out of town as fast as he possibly could. He'd go home, leave everything behind except for his dog, Bobo, a box of mementos and handmedowns from his father (which included his emergency stash of cash), and his car - and even that he would have to ditch as soon as possible. That was regrettable; he really loved his Shelby.

Where to go was the only uncertainty Ray was still concerned with. He couldn't contact anyone he knew - they'd be looking for him with his family and friends first. That was okay. There was no one in his life he was particularly attached to except for his mother. He felt kind of bad about that, but there was nothing he could do about it now. It was as much for her safety as it was for his that he didn't see her. He needed to go somewhere unpredictable. Somewhere he could disappear, become someone else. A place where people didn't ask uncomfortable questions. Maybe somewhere in Alaska, Ray thought. Some remote Alaskan village. You don't need a lot of money to live there, as long as you don't care too much about comfort.

Ray spied a path in the woods to his right. He was in an unfamiliar neighborhood of apartment buildings and townhouses. When he'd seen The Goons outside of the small cafe where he'd had his secret meeting (which was evidently not a secret), he just started running. He took every turn he saw, heedless of the direction he was going, trying to be unpredictable. As long as he remained unpredictable, he had a chance.

A small chance.

Ray darted into the blackness of the path. Night had fallen and there were no street lamps here to light his way, but he was not afraid of the dark. He relied on his senses to light his way - the darker blackness was the path rolled out before him, a branch brushing by his ear meant he was straying too far to the side.

After about thirty seconds' sprinting on the path, Ray saw a looming black mass to the right that he assumed was a large tree. He ducked behind it and bent over, hands on his knees, while he tried to catch his breath and ease the burning in his lungs. The last thing he wanted was one of The Goons to shine a flashlight down the path and see his yellow hyde streaking into the woods.

When Ray finally opened his eyes, he saw an unexpected brightness and backed up into the tree as if trying to become part of it. They are still behind me! he thought and started to panic. Shitshitshit!

But as Ray began to search his surroundings for a way out of this Situation, he realized that he was not standing in the beam of a flashlight, but rather the forest around him was lit up with a sort of gauzy grayness that reminded him of a cloudy afternoon. He also realized that he was not alone.

Across the path, crouching behind a tree, was a woman. She was trembling like a leaf in her t-shirt and jogging shorts, both caked with dirt and grass stains. Her arms, which she wrapped around herself like a vise, and legs were equally dirty and scratched, as if she had wandered through the woods for miles, lost like little Gretel without her bread crumbs. Her eyes, bright green and wild as a predator's, stared at him with a strange mixture of emotions from behind a tangled mass of red hair. Fear was evident, yes. But also strangely, relief. For a moment, each stared at the other without moving, processing this most recent development in their own vignette.

Suddenly the woman sprang at him. She was across the path in a blink, her fingernails digging into his arms as she grabbed him, shook him.

"How did you do it?" She demanded. "How did you get through it?"

Ray, who was thrust back into the tree, grabbed the strange woman by the shoulders in an attempt to control her, but she was far stronger than he expected. She invaded his bubble, attacked him with her words and her hot, desperate breath.