Best Laid Plans

Ice crystals cling to the inside of my nose, and I blow hot air onto my bare hands as I run.

Perhaps run is an overstatement. My seventy-six year-old body hasn’t truly run in twenty years, and it’s screaming at me to stop doing it now. But the sounds of my pursuers echo through the night as they crash through the underbrush behind me–running is now less of a choice and more of a Pavlovian response.

Even if I wanted to give up–reason with them, bribe, maybe beg–I don’t think I could stop my legs now; they are working on pure fury as a lifetime of memories in this forest flood my cells. The fallen trees; the soft, uneven ground; the loose rocks–I know this place intimately–and it is like a trusted guide right now, reminding me of itself even in the areas where the waxing moon can’t penetrate the inky blackness. She’s helping me, whispering little warnings and suggestions about what will find me just up ahead.

Based on the cracking branches and angry shouts that cut the stillness, it is something the people behind me clearly don’t have. But their discomfort in this environment is their own fault, a result of a lifetime of lazy choices.

In a comic twist of fate; they–and not some frail grandma–may be the thing that brings down their plan to accelerate their acquisition of wealth.

Serves the little shits right.

After my daughter and her husband died, I raised those kids as my own. Gave them everything they could want. I tried to teach them how to connect with the land, how to fend for themselves in life–be entirely self-sufficient. But all they ever wanted was the easy life, and they never bothered to train their attention on anything but the money they would one day inherit.

Evidently, they got tired of waiting.

My feet slow as the frozen earth begins to slope upward slightly, and I can hear them gaining ground on me. In a moment, when I reach the ridge, the lake will come into view and tonight’s slim crescent of a moon reflecting across its surface will function as a massive flashlight, illuminating everything approaching its banks.

The sight of it, greeting me like an old friend, does not disappoint.

But the legs stumbling through the brush behind me are much younger than mine and even though they undoubtedly pound some treadmill three times a week, I’m convinced they are wildly unprepared for the uneven ground they’ve been experiencing tonight. In fact, I’ve been counting on it. Still, they are strong and packed with more stamina than I expected. Based on who I’ve known them to be, I truly expected them to give up after the first ten minutes.

Maybe they’re more like me than I care to admit, since I’m not giving up either. No, if I die tonight it will not be without a fight.

But if I had known all this time that they were conniving and had hatched a plan to accelerate my demise, I might have trained for this moment a bit better. Maybe taken up pilates.

I veer to the right now, away from the house they have every reason to assume I will run toward, and instead I head deeper into the shadows of a dense thicket of old-growth trees. Once I reach the thickest cluster, I step out of the silvery touch of the moonlight and slip behind the largest one. My breath is ragged and I will myself to keep my breath shallow, silent. I place my hand, my cheek, against the rough skin of my hiding place and listen to the fury of my kin.

“Where the fuck did she go?” Avery’s voice has always been surprisingly sharp for a young woman with such plain, unremarkable features.

“The house. She must be freezing by now.” Lance, his words undercut by the wheeze of icy air struggling in and out of his lungs, forever trying to cement his value by stating the obvious.

“I think some of the syringe must’ve gotten in. Her heart is probably gonna stop any minute. This is still gonna work.” Dear Warren. Even as a child, he was always so absolutely convinced of his own cleverness. Of the three, that boy is probably my greatest disappointment simply because he lacks the fundamental capacity to see how average his mind actually is. And yet, he insists on showing up with the puffed up self-confidence of someone utterly convinced of their own brilliance. And now I’m counting on his certainty and bluster to send the siblings running in the wrong direction.

I hear muffled grumbling and a sharp yelp accompanying their receding footfalls as they make their way down the hill and along the shoreline toward my house. Watching them from my darkened hide, I am annoyed to see that they don’t even bother to avoid the moonlight, likely too exhausted and frost-bitten to consider their own vulnerability. Because, after all, why would they need to worry about being seen by their grandmother? To them, I am just an old woman who has resources they desperately want and think they are entitled to.

Entitled enough to justify murder. I snort quietly.

Not tonight, children. Not tonight.

Slowly, I turn and make my way north, quietly picking my way through the darkness over fallen logs and beneath sharp branches. My breathing comes easier now, but my heart is still pounding with a relentlessness that makes me wonder if Warren did get some of that syringe into my system. But I suspect it’s just my aging heart being asked to do the unthinkable. The fact is, I would already be dead if his aim had been any good.

One hundred feet farther along the ridge and I find what I’m looking for. The rope is old and looking none too sturdy these days as it dangles down between two clinging trees, its fraying fibers nearly impossible to spot against their bark. But even after all these years I know where to look and warmth floods my arms as I pull on it with all my strength.

Farther around the lake, the distant lights in my house flick on at almost the same moment that the piercing horn cuts through the air. I pull the rope again, another long burst. I count to five silently then pull the rope again. This time two short bursts followed by one long one. I continue on, the pauses almost killing me, wondering if my grandchildren will piece together the origin of the sound before I can finish.

But when I’m done, I am met by only stillness. Against the sweat on my face the air is the coldest I have ever felt and I know that means dawn will arrive soon. My ability to hide from those little vultures will be reduced to almost nothing once the darkness is gone, but at least now I know, whatever they do to me, they won’t get away with it. And, more importantly, they won’t get a dime.

Because of one thing I’m certain: a series of horn bursts just jolted the chief of police out of his warm and cozy bed across the lake. And all his years in the military means he will recognize and translate the message, even while half asleep, as he climbs into his pants and throws on his jacket. I am also certain, after forty years of friendship–and a couple of years of something we agreed didn’t need to be named–that he is already driving toward our safe spot, a gun on his hip and his mind racing with questions.

And so I make my way up the hill toward the road, parallel to the path I took when I broke free of my grandchildren and ran for my life just over an hour ago. I don’t know if those kids will find me on the road before Chief Barry arrives and frankly, I no longer care because they are well and truly fucked and they did it to themselves. For all their whining about the origins of my money, they were certainly able to see past it enough to want it for themselves. Well, I have freed them from the burden of the internal conflict they would have faced, because now they will never see any of it. No matter what they do to me, there will be an exhaustive investigation and a brick wall between them and any inheritance for one simple reason.

I just reported their crime.

M - U - R - D - E - R

Good luck, kiddies.