Page 52 of Dearly Departed

This would be easier if I could yell for Catherine. I can’t. Raymond Harris might hear, and then we’d be screwed.

Which way did she go?

I spy a few grains of rice at the base of a tree on the righthand path—the one that goes northeast—but just as I’m about to take the first step, something else catches my eye.

Something small and black and outdoorsy.

I’m almost on top of it when I understand what it is.

Catherine’s compass. She found it in the bag with the radio.

I pick it up out of the mud and wipe it off. It occurs to me slowly, through a kind of sick, indignant rage—why didn’t I go with her in the first place?—that this path is…rough. The mud is churned up twice as much as the righthand fork.

I have a sudden vision of Catherine, fighting.

This is where she might’ve dug in her heels. This is where a man might’ve dragged her through the mud.

This is where Raymond Harris might’ve dragged her.

The pain in my legs and my torso and my head gets worse, then separates from me completely. It’s irrelevant. It belongs to someone else. It’s not mine, and I won’t stop for it.

I charge through the trees, gripping the knife in my right hand. The land slopes down. Down again. Trees whirr by without making an impression.

The forest ends before I’m ready for it, and I burst out onto the beach with the worst side stitch I’ve ever had in my entire fucking life, my vision going gray.

I hate that I have to stop and breathe.

I only stop hating it when I catch sight of Raymond Harris.

He stomps around on the sand, dragging driftwood into a pile.

Where the fuck is Catherine?

Harris is saying something, his face contorted with frustration, but the wind off the ocean blows the words away.

He hasn’t seen me yet.

I stay close to the trees. My heart can’t withstand this much longer. It’s desperate for me to run to Catherine. The caffeine pills and adrenaline are on the same side.

I can’t run to her. If I do, I’ll probably collapse before I can save her. This could only get worse if she had to watch Raymond fucking Harris kill me on the beach.

It’s hell to move slowly, stopping whenever it seems like he’s going to look in my direction. It’s torture beyond torture. I don’t know how I’m going to hold myself back until I get to his pile of driftwood.

The wind changes, and Raymond Harris’s voice rises.

I hear bitch.

I hear pay.

I hear slowly.

He disappears from view for a few seconds and reappears with his hand on Catherine’s arm.

When his other hand comes up in a fist, something snaps in my head. I think it’s my sense of humility. Whatever it is, everything that made me a civil member of society breaks with it.

My body forgets that it can’t run. It forgets that it can’t breathe. It forgets that it’s in pain.

I sprint across the sand and rocks, gaining speed until it feels superhuman. Until it feels impossible. Until I have to have become someone else.