No Escape

“Every bone in my hands aches!”  Genevieve grimaced as she held her curled fingers in the direction of her lover. 

            “I know.” Jake cradled her hands in his as he looked down into her gentle green eyes. “But it’s hot on our trail.  We have to keep moving.”  He wrapped her arm around his neck and helped her up from the grassy ground with a wince.  

            Those gentle eyes filled with concern as she looked at him.  “How’s your back?” 

            “Could be better.”  

            She tried to take more of her own weight.  “Last time he caught us was rough, huh?”  

            “Could‘ve been worse.”  

            She took her stiff fingers and turned his face toward hers.  “You put up a brave front, Mr. Middleton.”  Her soft smile expressed her appreciation of his strength. 

            Jake barely smiled and continued helping his wife along the indistinct pathway in the dirt. He looked ahead of them, as far as he could see.  “We’ll be exposed out there in the wilderness.  See those rocks and gorges over there?  If we can make it there before dark, we can probably rest in peace through the night.  In a little cave or crevice, it’d have to get really close to be able to see us.”  

            Genevieve nodded and they walked on.  “Jake, do you think we’ll ever be rid of it for good?  I’m so tired of running.  Won’t we ever be able to stop and settle down and just enjoy what we have?  Maybe—maybe go back home?”  

            He hated to answer with the truth.  “I don’t know.”  

            “Jake, tell me honestly.”  

            He sighed.  “Honestly, I don’t know.  I don’t think so, but there’s always hope, darling.  Don’t think about it now.”  

            “I miss the kids.”  

            Jake darted his eyes in her direction and nodded.  “We did what we had to do.”  

            “But other people don’t run like we have, and they’re no worse off, are they?”  

            “Do you really want to wait around and find out?” 

            Genevieve’s longing quickly died.  She shook her head.  “No.  We did what we had to do.  Leaving them behind and leading the menace away was best for them.”  Curiosity crawled through her mind like a restless serpent. “But what if it catches up with us and then just goes back for them?  Wouldn’t it have been better if we’d all stayed together?”  

            “We couldn’t stay, Gen.  You saw what it was doing to us.  We had to keep moving.  The kids were safe.  Somehow unaffected by this thing.  You saw it with your own eyes!  They weren’t in any real danger.”  

            “I suppose.”  

            The rest of their day’s journey to the gorge passed in relative silence.  Jake fashioned a makeshift bed for them from the meager supplies that still remained in their packs.  He saw Genevieve settled comfortably and then built a small fire.  He built it up hot while it was still daylight and then let the flames die so the smoldering would be less noticeable between the dark crevices. 

            The cave he picked for them was far back in the labyrinth of the gorges.  It would be impossible for the menace to see them from across the wilderness, and it would take him the majority of the night to cross the barren wasteland.  The menace needed to destroy to survive.  He may even divert from them and find other victims in the meantime.  Either way, Jake was sure they were safe to sleep for at least four to six hours.  He gathered some small kindling for the fire as Genevieve drifted into dreamland.  

            Where were they going?  He wished he knew.  Genny was right; he was tired of running, too. But what other choice did they have?  He couldn’t let the menace catch up or it would be the end of them.  They would never see their kids again.  They would never see so many other dreams fulfilled.  They weren’t being fulfilled now, but at least staying ahead of the menace kept them alive.  He bent over and reached for a small twig.  A pain seized his lower back.  He moaned and grabbed the sensitive area.  Well, alive, but not necessarily healthy.  

            Each time the menace got too close, some extensive damage was done.  Last time they barely escaped.  Genny’s hands were now so stiff and sore that sometimes they barely functioned, and Jake had taken a beating to the back that could be completely debilitating if he moved in the wrong way.  The time before, the menace attacked Jake’s left knee, and strange markings began to appear on Genny’s face and hands.  

            They’d been running for years, but Jake could still remember the very first encounter they had with the menace.  None of them even saw it coming.  It was an invisible horror only legitimized by the effects in its wake.  It was in their very home the first time Jake realized what was happening.  He woke up one morning, ran his comb through his hair, and there, in the teeth, were stands upon strands of his thick dark waves.  Genny’s side effects were minor that first time, and the kids were seemingly unaffected.  

            The second time was worse. They were on a family outing when the menace, like a wind, grabbed Jake’s lower back and knocked him from a tree limb where he was retrieving his son’s kite.  Jake fell at least twenty feet to the ground and never had the same vigor.  Within the next few days the hair on the top of his head was completely gone, and Genny had developed a strange but subtle sagging in her skin, all over her body.  

            Each encounter brought upon them more severe effects than the last until they finally decided that to stay in wonder of the next attack was too torturous.  They would try to outrun the menace together until, well, Jake didn’t know when it was going to end.  And they were getting weaker and weaker all the time.  It was getting harder and harder to keep distance between them.  

            Jake made his way back to their tiny camp.  He fed the fire and settled in next to his beloved wife.  They’d been running for so long, he could barely remember how many years it had been. 

            A few hours later he woke up to the sound of Genny crying softly in front of the tiny shard of mirror she’d salvaged in her bag.  

            “Genny,” he rolled toward her and rubbed the grogginess from his eyes. “Genny, what is it?”                 “Jake, Jake, he was here.  He hit us while we were sleeping and we never even knew it.” 

            Jake looked around the near darkness as he moved toward his wife.  

            “I heard a whistling.  Just a soft whistling, like the wind.  Then it became a low howl.  I woke up and sat up and felt suddenly very weak.  I knew something was different, but I didn’t know what.  I looked down at you, sleeping, and that’s when I noticed it.”  

            Jake could finally see her more clearly by the glow of the embers.  He gasped. “Genny!  Your—” 

            “I know.  And yours, too.  What little is left of it.”  She handed the broken glass to him and he examined himself.  

            “But—how did he do it?  And why?  What’s the point of turning our hair white?  Something worse is going to set in soon, isn’t it?”  

            Genny shook her head and shrugged as her soft sobs continued.  

            Jake wrapped his arm around her.  “Come on, honey.  Maybe that’s all there is to it this time.  Maybe it couldn’t get to us very well because of the rocks and caverns.  Come on, Genny.  Let’s try to get some more sleep before morning.  I think we’re better off here than trying to get anywhere in the middle of the night.”  

            He coaxed her back to their bedding and she finally fell asleep in his arms.  

            They packed their things the next morning, and Jake pulled on his pack.  “I’m going to take a look around out there.  Make sure everything is safe and see what direction we’re going.”  

            “Be careful, Jake.”  

            He kissed his wife and walked through the narrow passages until he was full in the sun.  He called back toward her, “Aw, Genny!  It’s a perfect day!  And there’s a woods not too far ahead.  It’ll provide good cover as we travel, and the trees will help us hear the menace if he’s coming.  Genny?  Genny?”  Jake waited, listening intently for sounds of her.  He turned around and walked a few feet into the shadows of the rocks.  “Genny?  You can come out!”  

            Suddenly an invisible force gripped his torso so hard he could barely breathe.  He gasped for breaths, but he couldn’t get any in.  He was pulled backward, into the light, and pain surged through his body in every direction.  His head felt heavy, and his chest constricted.  He fell to the ground.  

            He could just hear the faint sound of Genevieve’s voice as his eyes closed.  “Jake!  Jake!  The menace!  It’s here!”  She gasped frantically when she saw his state, and she threw herself on his body.  

            The menace returned quickly and she felt invisible hands around her throat, cutting off all hope of inhalation.  She squirmed, but she couldn’t get away.  Within minutes she was lifeless beside her husband’s body.  

            The ghost-like horror hovered above their corpses momentarily, as if briefly mourning his own handiwork.  Slowly the gossamer figure turned from them, and then as fast as a flash of lightning disappeared through the sky leaving only a faint outline in the dust beside them that read T-I-M-E.