Tara heard the gunshots from the front seat of Terry's truck, and then the shapes of four men emerged through the smoke-laden air.
"Get down," she said, and pushed herself off the front seat, onto the floor of the truck. She tucked her head down, beneath the glove compartment. The floor was damp, mud-stained, and littered with the plastic wraps of granola bars. She could see specks of dirt living beneath the seat, crumbs dotting the grey fabric.
Tara held her breath, and tried to hear through the truck's metallic shell. A flashlight cut in through the driver's side window, and she saw the beam cut across the driver's seat, then her own, and then it was out of sight, and she thought it must be on her back. She thought she could hear the muttering of men, low voices utter phrases to one another from outside the truck.
Someone tried to unlatch the door handle near her, and then a palm high-fived the glass. Tara jumped, her back flexing out, and then she felt herself flush, water emerge onto her face.
A crack came from the back of the cab, on the small rectangular window where Hardy lay under, covered in a hand-stitched quilt. Then another crack, louder this time, and Tara heard the crash as something came through the cab window.
Blood dripped onto Tara's chin from her bottom lip, and she released the clamp her front teeth had put on it. Licked her tongue on the front part of her face, tasted the warmth of her own blood.
Something was rattling around in the back, and Tara realized that someone was fumbling their hand around inside the truck, looking for the lever to open the door. There was a scratch sound, and Tara imagined it was Hardy beneath the quilt, quivering, inching away from the door.
Tara crept her forehead up an inch, and peered into the back cab. Light filtered in from the crack in the window, and she could see the bumps in the quilt where Hardy's head, breasts might be. But there was no hand in the window.
She crept upwards another inch, and then there was an explosion next to her face, fragments of window collapsed onto her head, her face.
Tara screamed, and popped the door handle open. She fell backwards onto her butt, and then kicked with both heels, driving the door open. She heard the smack as it collided with someone outside, and then they were swearing and she could hear Hardy moving around in the back, kicking her own door open.
Tara leapt from the compartment inside the truck, and body checked the door. She hit the ground hard, elbows, palms slapping the dirt, and saw a body roll backwards, off the road and into the ditch in front of her.
She flicked her head skywards, and a man was standing in front of her, and then his hands were around her throat and she barked as he lifted her off the ground that way. Her head hit some part of the truck and she smelled the fermented-coffee-tinge on his breath and saw the way his pupils pooled outwards like his brain had been shot up with the feel good hormone.
Tara worked her fingers onto his tattooed hand, wishing the grip to let go, willing the air into her lungs, and then there was a quilt on the man's hand, and she saw this through a narrowed vision, Quilthead clouded and blurred.
She slumped to the ground but came to right away again, a knife-pain worming through her head, the wetness of the asphalt sinking into her exposed calves, and then Hardy leaped over her head from the bed of the truck, and landed behind the man. He ripped the quilt off his head with the arm he had used to choke Tara, and in the same moment Hardy stepped off to the left and uppercutted her right knee between the man's legs.
He sunk down an inch, his knees coming together, and Hardy reached up with both hands and pulled his weight backwards, over her ankle, and rolled him onto the ground; Tara was between his legs and onto his chest and then her elbow hammered flat against his nose and the bone cracking off was the last thing she heard before the sound of Hardy's night-running. The night reared up before her and her legs rushed that sulphur smell into her mouth, her nose, her lungs.
*
YOU ARE READING
Escape From Norriswood
Mystery / Thriller"Naughty girls can make a lot of money," Bobby had said again. Click. "And we're going to make you a lot of money. Enough to pay your way through college." He brought the Polaroid down from his eye. "Now let's get some shots of you in the bedroom."...
