Page 106 of One Step Too Far

“Terrible... bedside... manner.”

“Rob needs you. Bigfoot needs you. I’m going to patch you up. You’re going to live.”

“Tell Rob I love him.”

“Shut up!” I’m beyond furious. I’m livid. I’m enraged. I ransack Neil’s pack, discovering a small first aid kit and yes, two tampons and two maxi pads, which I will never look at the same way again.

“Now, you listen to me, big man. This is gonna hurt like a mother. I don’t have time to be gentle.”

Bob stares at me through glassy blue eyes. “Find it.”

“Find what?”

“Whatever it is... you’re really searching for.”

“Shut up! Look at Miggy. Right now. Look.”

Bob turns his head. I jam in the first cotton plug. His entire body bows. But he doesn’t scream. Doesn’t so much as whimper. He doesn’t want to call attention, I realize. He’s afraid of summoning the hunter back.

Now I am sobbing. I can’t help myself as I tear open more packets, and I curse him and clutch at him and just plain beg him to live as I pile gauze on his wound and tape it savagely in place.

Only then do I remember the exit wound.

Finally, I get it. Except I don’t want to get it. What Bob had been telling me.

I stop studying the pale hairy torso in front of me; I inspect the ground beneath.

The earth has turned black with blood. Pints of it. Gallons of it. Too much of it.

“Please,” I try. To Bob. To the universe.

“Tell Rob... I love him.”

And then. Then...

—

Eventually, Miggy is there. Miggy tugs at me. Miggy slaps my face.

“Frankie,” he says. “Let him go.”

Then: “Frankie, Scott and Neil still need us.”

Then: “Frankie, get the fuck up and move. Time to run.”

So I do.

CHAPTER 36

We’re sprinting. No, we’re slipping and sliding, slamming into pine boughs and scraping off our skin on tree bark and smashing our shins against rocks. But we don’t stop. We crash and careen, swallowing our screams and ignoring our pain as we race on.

I trip. Stumble down several feet, whack my shoulder against a boulder. I might be sobbing in terror. There’s so much snot and sweat on my face it’s impossible to tell.

I can’t think. I can’t process. I can only move, so I stagger up, stumble on, Miggy right in front of me.

We’re not on any trail. Just somewhere in the middle of the woods. We turn in any direction that leads down, the steeper the better. We’re probably lost. We’re probably about to be shot in the back. We can’t worry about such things.

The hunter won. Our brilliant plan failed. And now we’re the deer, fleeing before the predator’s advance.

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