Page 11 of Left Behind

Seconds later, she heard someone pounding on the front door, and then loud voices. Billy was yelling at someone, and they kept shouting something about acting on orders, and Billy was yelling back and said a word that sounded like gunny, or money, and the other person said something about invading someone else’s territory, and then a gunshot, followed by a horrifying silence. That’s when Carey knew Billy was down. That’s when she got up and ran.

Every step she took across the yard, she imagined that it would be her last, but that didn’t happen. She made it to the car and sped up the driveway, in a panic to put as much distance between her and the man who’d just shot her brother. She glanced up once and caught a glimpse of a man running out of the house, then stomped on the accelerator, heading back toward the little town just as the sun was going down. If she could get out of sight before he caught up, she might be able to get away. She was scared and crying now, fearing that what had happened to Billy was going to happen to her.

She blasted through the suburb, ignoring the speed limit, and made an instant decision not to lead him straight to her house. Johnny was already hurt. The last thing she wanted was to get him killed, so she took a turn that led her away from the city. Barely two miles further, she drove into the storm. The rain was a deluge. Wind was blowing it sideways, but since she couldn’t see a car length behind her, she reasoned the man wouldn’t be able to see her either and kept driving.

About a half hour later, she finally accepted she was lost and called Johnny just to let him know what had happened. When he didn’t answer, she guessed he was still asleep and left a frantic message about where she’d gone, what had happened, and that it was raining so hard, she couldn’t tell where she was. She was crying when she said, “I love you,” afraid that she’d never see him again.

***

Two hours later, she was driving down a two-lane road on a mountain she’d never seen before, and as lost as she’d ever been. All she saw behind her was the horizontal rain and a night so dark there was no definition. Had it not been for the car’s headlights, it would have been like driving into oblivion.

She shifted slightly in her seat and, as she did, glanced up in the rearview mirror again and caught a flash of light a distance behind her. When it disappeared, she guessed the car had just taken the curve on the road that she’d left behind only minutes earlier.

She panicked, and then immediately began trying to reassure herself.

Calm down. It could be anyone. But her gut instinct was to speed up. She stomped on the gas, and when she did, the car fishtailed slightly. She overcorrected, hydroplaned, and all of a sudden, she was off the road and heading straight for the trees looming in her headlights.

She screamed, and then IMPACT!

The world was spinning, the rain was still coming down, and through the illumination from the headlights, she could see the wind whipping the tree limbs. She was hurting all the way to the bone when she remembered the car behind her and looked back, just as headlights became visible in the distance.

In a panic, she began scrambling to get out and then couldn’t move. It took her a few moments to remember she was still buckled in.

Seat belt. Seat belt.

Her fingers were shaking as it came undone, and then her door was jammed and wouldn’t open. In a panic, she pocketed her phone, grabbed the flashlight from her console, then crawled over it and out the passenger door that had come open upon impact.

Despite the pain, she was still mobile, and she took off into the forest without turning on a light, blinded by the wind and rain. She looked back only once and saw a light bouncing around the crashed car, and then gasped when the light moved into the woods.

Oh God! Somebody was following her! It had to be him!

She turned left to dodge a tree and increased her speed and, as she did, realized she was running up an incline, going back the way she’d come. She didn’t know what was out here in these woods, but anything was better than what was behind her. In her panic, she ran headlong into brambles before finally tearing herself loose, then a hundred yards farther, nearly knocked herself out when she ran into a low-hanging limb. She didn’t know if she’d lost him. She just kept running with the wind and rain blasting her, knowing the storm was drowning out all sound.

***

When Lonny Pryor came over the hill and saw taillights off the road and into the trees, every thought within him focused.

I’ve got her.

He pulled off the side of the road and, as he did, saw a flash of movement and then nothing. He pocketed his weapon, grabbed an LED flashlight, and got out and started toward the car. He was so focused on the taillights that he didn’t see the ditch until he stepped off into it and went belly down in the mud and rain.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelped as his knee landed on a rock, but he was back on his feet and moving within seconds.

When he reached the car and found it empty, he cursed again and aimed the flashlight down, catching a glimpse of footprints washing away in the rain. But they were going into the forest, and he had no option but to follow. This night just kept getting worse. What should have been an easy job had turned into a clusterfuck.

Nobody told him Billy Eggers had a woman. Nobody even warned them of the possibility of one. He hadn’t gone there to do anything but ask Eggers if he knew anything about a new crew dealing drugs in town. But Billy had been confrontational, telling him he knew nothing and to get the hell out of his house. In frustration, Lonny pulled his gun, just to threaten him. He hadn’t expected Eggers to grab the gun Lonny waved in his face, and the rest was history. He didn’t know anyone was in the house until he saw the woman running across the front yard. When she jumped into Eggers’s car and sped away, he was in shock.

That was over four hours ago, and if he hadn’t taken Eggers’s phone to use as a GPS locator, he would never have found her. Only now the car was in the trees, and she was long gone. All he could do was keep running, in hopes she’d hurt herself bad enough in the wreck to finally stop on her own. He was dodging trees and undergrowth, but his knee was throbbing, and when he fell and banged it again, he got up slower, cursing.

After that, it was slow going, looking for any kind of sign that the rain couldn’t wash away. Ten minutes into the search, he found a small piece of cloth hanging from a bramblebush. The same color as the jacket the woman had been wearing. He was on the right track!

A short while later, he found another piece of denim fabric hanging from a broken branch on the trail. She’d been wearing jeans! It appeared he wasn’t the only one falling. Ignoring the pain, he hastened his speed.

***

Carey’s head was throbbing so badly she couldn’t think. She turned on the flashlight to get her bearings and then reached for her head. Her fingers came away red with blood, and then she watched in horror as the rain swiftly washed it away.

Am I running for nothing? Am I going to die from a head wound and blood loss before he catches me? Why, God? Why me? But she knew the answer before she took her next breath. Because I was there.

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