David Wiltse - Into The Fire

Also, Eddie had broken up with her twice already. She wasn't entirely certain that they weren't broken up right at the moment. Eddy was nonattentive as he was at the best of times, it was hard to tell.

It might be time to give up on Eddie, she thought. There were times when a girl wanted to feel that she was free to explore other opportunities.

Karen Crist couldn't hate her that much without some good reason.

The girl was worse than useless to him. Every time he took his hand from her mouth she started crying again, and the crying soon built into wailing, no matter how many times he told her to shut up. When Cooper asked her to help him, all she did was wail some more, so he hit her because he didn't know what else to do. He hurt his knuckle on her head, hurt it badly and he had to drive with that hand pressed against his lips while she continued to cry, moaning now along with it. It was driving him crazy.

She made so much noise that he didn't,hear the police sirens as soon as he usually would have and he almost didn't make the turn into the woods in time. The police went speeding past the access road, and Cooper drove as far as he could on the rutted path until it seemed to stop of its own accord at the base of a hill where two small streams joined together.

Cooper could hear sirens u ulating in the distance as the cop car bounced on the narrow path. He grabbed the girl with his left hand because one knuckle on his right was now hugely swollen and very painful. She clung to the steering wheel, howling, and Cooper was forced to squeeze her throat until she let go. She was still after that and he tossed her over his shoulder and started up the hill. Her silence was such a relief.

The hill was steep and Cooper's knuckle throbbed painfully with every step. Running down the other side was even worse, as each step jolted his legs and ran straight through his arm. The terrain changed on the far side of the hill and the clay soil of the woods gave way to a sandy loam that grew wetter with each step. He had gone only a few hundred yards before his shoes sank up to his ankles in muck, and each stride was accompanied by a loud sucking sound.

Cooper was well into the swamp before he realized that he could no longer hear the sirens behind him. He paused, listening to hear if he was being pursued, but it took him several moments before he could hear anything over his strained breathing. After a time he could discern voices, several people, yelling at each other, but they were too far away for him to make out what they were saying.

He continued, using the voices as a guide, heading away from them.

Otherwise there was nothing to serve as a landmark, no way to tell where to go, just funny-looking trees and weird grass that looked solid but wasn't.

Sometimes his legs sunk as deep as his calves and sometimes they barely dipped below the surface at all and there was no way to tell which it would be ahead of time.

He sucked on his knuckle as he trudged ahead, trying to remember what someone had told him once about telling direction by the sun. He could find the sun all right, but he didn't understand what it was supposed to be telling him. He decided the best thing would be to just head straight for it. He changed his course, veering towards the sun, and noticed that he was walking straight into the shadows. They were drawn as straight as lines, like arrows showing him the way. Cooper realized he had discovered the secret. He would simply follow the shadows and the sun would take him away from his pursuers and towards safety.

His shoes had been sucked off by the mud long since and when he lifted his knuckle to his mouth he noticed that his entire right hand was blown up to twice its size.

It hurt anywhere he touched it and it even pained him when he waved it in the air to aid his balance. He stumbled crossing a small pond and fell to one knee and the girl's body slid off his shoulder and into the water. Cooper was surprised to see her; he had forgotten about her, forgotten the added weight on his back. He studied her for a moment, trying to remember why he had brought her with him. He had wanted her to help him, but he couldn't see how she could help him now.

She wasn't so pretty now with her face and hair wet and muddy and the big, darkening bruise on the side of her forehead. One eye was swollen shut with a lump that reminded Cooper of his own hand. She was the reason he hurt himself, he realized with sudden anger. It was her fault that he couldn't use his hand. It was her fault that the police were chasing him. He ought to kill her, he ought to yank her head right off.

He ought to push her under the water and leave her there, stick her head right down into the mud with her feet in the air like a fence post.

He reached for her throat with both hands before he realized what he was doing, and the pain in his right hand was so great that he dropped to his knees again. He cradled his bad hand across his chest and rocked back and forth, moaning. In the distance, but closer than before, he heard the voices calling to each other. Cooper lurched to his feet and marched in the direction the shadows showed him.

The shadows had grown very long when Cooper slumped down at the base of a tree. He was exhausted from fighting against the muck all day and very hungry.

He tried to remember the last time he had eaten and he couldn't. The swelling from his hand had increased and the skin looked so tight he was afraid it would just pop open all by itself. Any motion of his arm burned like fire now and he had to walk with his left hand clamping his right arm against his body as if he were holding himself together. As a result, his balance was bad and he fell often. He was covered with mud and his body itched from head to toe.

He was miserable now, but he hadn't been happy since he left prison. He missed his punk, who took care of him whenever he hurt himself or didn't feel well. The punk was as good as a nurse, fluttering around and feeling Cooper's forehead for a fever and giving him rubdowns and making sure he was warm enough, and then telling him stories and talking to him for hours, which was something no nurse would ever do. He never had to worry about his meals in prison, either. He knew when they were and they were always there when they were supposed to be. The servers always made sure that Old Coop got an extra-large helping, too. Everybody took care of him in prison, in one way or another, and everybody knew him.

He hated it on the outside, Cooper realized. It wasn't home, it wasn't anything like home. The only good thing he could remember since he got out was the time in the car with the girl but then she even went and spoiled that the second time by acting like she didn't know what to do.

The punk always knew what he was supposed to do, and he always did it right or else Cooper kicked his ass.

People on the outside never seemed to do anything right, whether he kicked their ass or not.

He thought again of the punk. Swann, that was his name. The punk would be pleased that Cooper remembered. If they sent him back to Springville, he would want to have the punk in his cell again. Those things could be arranged. Cooper knew how to do it. If someone else was living with Swann, Cooper would kick his ass until he gave the punk back to Cooper.

The punk belonged with Cooper. He would be happy to see Cooper again, there was no doubt about that, and they would have a lot to tell each other after Cooper's visit to the outside.

He couldn't walk any faster than he was going, but no matter how fast he went, the voices seemed to get closer.

He thought he could see higher ground in the distance.

Maybe that meant he would get out of this swamp and onto dry ground again. Then he could steal a car and get away from them that way. He didn't understand how they could all walk so much faster than he could, but he didn't think they could drive any faster.