NANCY
cantered through the woods. Pine needles and stones crunched beneath her.
Trunks parted ahead and her breaths snatched. But exhaustion hit her too soon.
She resorted to putting one foot in front of the other. She repeated. The
limo’s tortured bulk skulked in the trees. She couldn’t get away from it. No
matter how far she walked, the monstrous bin-liner would follow. It had the
power to catch up or sneak past her without her notice. She feared the
Cycloptic glare would find her on the other side of the trees.
She
took assurance from the strobes’ decreasing brilliance. She must be gaining
distance from the site. But even from here, she could just make out the soft
orchestra of collective engines. Nancy ducked behind a hillock before her
senses had processed what she’d heard. Thirty yards to her left, two officials
tramped through a thicket. Stalks splintered their lurid jackets. A man’s voice
called out. Nancy lowered herself. She entered a trance and a wormhole into the
past. She gazed at the twigs on the floor in the same way she had gazed at a
stretch of carpet behind the sofa or a pile of toys in her bedroom. Her trance
helped time pass. It provided an emotional shell and rendered her invisible.
Voices
kept coming back and Nancy preserved her trance. She would wait. She would
remain still for as long as she had to. Her vigilance compressed time into an
instant. The thicket no longer betrayed movement. Only a pearlescent flicker
rebounded against the trees.
Nancy
was walking again before she knew it. Plastic straps chafed her toes and the
chill cramped up her calves. But Vince’s coat radiated her heat back into her
midriff. She fancied a morsel of his had been trapped within the lining. The
sleeves being too long enabled her hands to keep warm and she sought comfort
from the coat’s weight.
She
paused when noting she’d heard the passing of a train ahead. She forged on,
pushing through the thicket at the fringes of the culvert. Hooped wire slashed
across the ditch. Nancy looked back and could still make out the pulse of
distant strobes. The crash site would remain active for some hours, it seemed.
Mists shrouded saplings below, telling her the way would be impassable. She
burrowed into the thicket where twigs snagged the lapels of her coat. But the
black monstrosity was waiting for her. Its single headlamp would pick her out
of the gloom the moment she entered a clearing. Drizzle smeared her vision. She
blinked and realised the damp had been her tears.
A
scar on the ground assured her she must be going somewhere. The hooped wire
dipped just ahead. Nancy pushed through a kissing gate in the hedge and
followed overhead wires. Discarded coke cans and sweet wrappers clued her in on
recent activity, but what lay ahead, she couldn’t be sure. She realised she had
nowhere else to go but Glebe Hollow. No one knew her name but the pap had her
photos. Witnesses would detail on Nancy et al having a blast in the Nexus night
club; the police would have a lead beginning with Bex’s tits. Still, Nancy
hoped the small matter of a double hangover would buy her some time.
Soda
lights fizzed beyond a brambled dip. Thorns chafed her ankles and her breaths
vapored in the chill. The contorted wreck was still awaiting her. She could
sense it beyond the trees. It would forever skulk just out of sight, but the
bulk was there, as real as the mud caking her heels. Nancy pushed up the slope
and disappeared through a slit at the top.
The
station comprised but a stretch of tarmac and a footbridge. Nancy planted
herself upon a sheltered bench in front of the sign Hampton in Arden. The
lights flickered above this apparent tramp. She lifted her heels, curled up on
her side and tucked her feet beneath Vince’s coattails. Before she knew it, her
sensations had faded into the distance.
The
cab was immaculate; burnished leather and black alloy. Moonlight glided over
streamlined fascias. No occupants, no combustion, yet the limo was cruising
straight ahead. Everything within had been molded to her needs, no one else but
for her. But Nancy didn’t want to be sitting inside. Night smothered the
windows yet something was coming. She could hear it.
Nancy
prized an eye open. The seat’s struts pinched her skin at her joints. The horizon
had bruised up and a carriage was approaching. She peeled herself from the
bench and retrieved a fallen stiletto.
Nancy
didn’t recall getting inside. She was the sole occupant. The carriage rocked
and shadows slithered. She readied her purse for the conductor but no one came.
Her form had impressed upon no one. She perceived herself as a ghost. She
shouldn’t be here. She should be dead.
