Darlene smiles. ‘Not if you do as I say.’
Five minutes later she’s running back into the woods with a bottle of Dew, a bag of chips and a couple of Twinkies. She stops and stuffs the food into her mouth, barely pausing to chew. She washes it down with the soda. Thinks.
She doesn’t know how to hunt or fish. And she can’t live like a scavenger, like some homeless bum. She can’t hide here forever.
She knows what she has to do.
It takes a couple of hours to get across the woods to the road that leads to the highway. It’s a hot morning, and by the time she gets there she’s thirsty again, wishing she’d told the girl to fetch her a bottle of water. She’s going to have to get better at this stuff. Learn to think ahead; something she’s never been good at.
She crouches by the side of the road. The sun is bright and hurts her eyes but she is concealed by the low branches of the trees and they provide some shelter. She sits down and feels herself slipping towards sleep. She jabs at her leg with the tip of the knife to wake herself up. Pictures herself jabbing it into the English girl’s soft throat, imagines the sound of her gargling blood. The dad too, he needs to die. Poke out one eye, then the other. Cut out his tongue. These sweet visions keep her going as she waits.
When she hears a car coming along the road, she jumps up and runs in front of it.
The car swerves and screeches to a halt.
It’s a brown car, a station wagon. Kind of old and shitty but she’s not fussy. The door opens and an old man gets out. He’s bald with a pink scalp. She recognises him. He’s the guy who gave that big speech at the resort a few nights back. The one who was boo-hooing about his dead wife.
‘What the hell?’ he says. He stands there blinking at her in the hot sun.
‘Mister,’ she says, stepping towards him. ‘I’m lost and—’
‘You’re that girl,’ he says. ‘The one they’re looking for.’
He puts his hand in his pocket, presumably to take out his phone, but she’s on him before he can get his hand out of his pocket. She stabs him in the belly. He makes this weird gasping noise, mouth open in shock, and she stabs him again, in the chest. He falls and, just to make sure, she drops to her knees and slashes his throat, jumping back to avoid the blood spraying her.
When she’s sure he’s dead she takes him under his arms to drag him the few feet into the trees. At first, she can’t budge him. It’s like he’s this enormous bag of flesh filled with sand. But there’s a trick to it. There’s a trick to everything. Hauling on one leg and rolling him halfway over, then hauling on one arm and finishing the roll. Repeat. By the time she’s done and he’s out of sight of the road, she’s panting and sweating and thirstier than ever.
But there’s a bottle of water in the car! She gets behind the wheel and forces herself not to drink all of it at once. The keys are still in the ignition. There’s a GPS and, hallelujah, a bunch of snacks on the back seat. She’s already taken his wallet, which contains a bank card and almost a hundred dollars.
She pauses for a moment to remember the driving lessons Dad gave her. She’ll be okay, as long as she sticks to quiet roads. She’ll get the hang of it quickly. She’s a winner. She can do whatever she sets her mind to.
She starts the engine and drives a little way along the road. After a couple of minutes she hears another car behind her and, worried it might be the police or someone from the resort who would recognise her, she turns on to the little side road ahead, and pulls to a halt.
The car goes by, not too fast, the occupants not seeing her.
But she recognises them.
It’s the English girl and her dad.
Instinctively, Darlene reaches for the knife, then grips the wheel with both hands and looks for Reverse. She’ll back out of the little road, put her foot down, chase them, run them off the road.
She stops herself.
Think.
It’s more important to get away, find somewhere safe. Somewhere she can get food and something to drink. Maybe find some sucker who’ll take her in, look after her. She bets there are plenty of guys out there who’d do that.
Because what’s the rush? She’s been through that girl’s phone. She knows where she lives, where she goes to school. She knows who her friends are. She’s seen photos of her house and her back garden. The hutch where she keeps her pet rabbit. She knows everything.
Darlene looks over to the passenger seat and finds Buddy there, smiling. Proud of her for not acting on impulse, for thinking about the future.