Hush Hush by Erik Carter (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

Gasping, she fumbled with the seatbelt. Two attempts. Three. And she got it unlatched. Threw open the door.

Outside. Earthy, moist air. Crickets. Frogs.

Her left leg spasmed, and her knee bent. A hand on the car, its sheet metal slick with humidity, kept her from tumbling over.

The bright sky showed the endless expanse before her. Everything blue and glowing. Spiky palms. A few pine trees. Grasses.

And fortunately, little water. She’d found herself in an area that was mostly dry, aside from the puddle in the ditch.

She bolted down the embankment. Her left leg gave out, and she fell, landing on her shoulder, yelling out.

She rolled, tumbling twice, and splashed into the water.

Her mind went to alligators. She knew what this water looked like in daylight—all green and murky—and her thoughts changed to those of bacterial infections.

She scrambled to her feet, which sank into the mud. Feeling the presence of the men at the road above her, she willed her legs to move, especially the left one, and she splashed out of the water and into the marsh.

Grass. Brushing against her jeans, tickling her hands.

And a palm tree. The only bit of height nearby. She ran toward it.

Car doors slamming shut behind her. Footsteps. Voices.

But still no gunshots.

Her left leg spasmed. Her knee gave out. And she fell again, into the grass.

Damn leg. Goddamn leg!

Her eyes filled with tears. Her stomach roiled.

Focus. Get through this. Think.

The tree. She saw the fronds ahead of her, through the grass. Maybe having fallen wasn’t such a bad thing. Now that she was on the ground, she could crawl to the tree and—

No.

No, they had seen her going for the tree. And what kind of plan was that, anyway? What exactly was she going to do once she got there?

She scanned her surroundings. A large indentation in the earth. About ten feet away. Some brush beside it—dried palm fronds, pine branches.

The men would think she’d still be going for the tree. That had been her plan, after all, and she had been running that direction when she fell.

They would think she would crawl to the tree, that she would use her fall to her advantage, hiding in the underbrush as she moved.

But she was going for that indentation.

Footsteps closer behind her now. Closing in.

But she could make it. There was just enough time.

Her knees dug into the earth. She clenched the grass with her good hand, using it to pull her to the indentation.

And then she was there.

She rolled herself in, grabbed a hold of the brush, covered herself.

And listened.

Footsteps. Even closer.

Very close.

Approaching.

Within feet of her.

Her lips trembled, and her chest shook. Her leg spasmed.

The footsteps continued on. Growing a bit quieter, a bit more distant.

And stopped. The men were beside the tree.

They’d fallen for the ruse.

A long, mostly quiet moment, punctuated by the small sounds of shifting weight in the underbrush.

The footsteps started again, moving in circles, stomping at an urgent pace. Then they slowed. And there was a voice.

“Shit! Where the hell did she go?”

The man’s voice frightened her more than anything so far. It wasn’t particularly loud or deep or menacing. But it personified the forces that were pursuing her. These were actual people who had chased her into the wild.

People who couldn’t find her.

She tried to contain her shuddering breaths, which she felt warm and wet against her cheeks, bouncing back upon her from the scratchy palm frond lying on her face.

Slow. Slow the breaths down.

If she could do that, she just might make it out of this.

Chapter Two

Two months later.

Silence Jones stared into the darkness. Somewhere in there was his target.

Somewhere…

But it was so damn dark. Only the tiniest indications of shape, infinitesimal grays.

Then there was a flash. Two minuscule, glistening spots of light, appearing for just a moment. Eyes.

Got you now.

Silence reached out.

And something small and soft and loaded with four razor-sharp points smacked him across the face.

Silence yelled. He instinctively jumped away from the bed, going from a hands-and-knees position to landing on his back. The round area rug absorbed the blow, but his weight brought the rug sliding back on the hardwood floor, and he bashed into the nightstand, his head smacking a drawer handle.

He grunted and put one hand to the back of his head, the other to the wound on his cheek.

A deep, hate-filled, almost prehistoric growl rumbled from beneath the bed.

A moment of grimacing, then Silence took his hand from his cheek, examined it. Two tiny spots of blood.

Baxter’s usual temperament was the feline equivalent of Mr. Rogers coming out of heavy sedation. But when a veterinarian visit was in order, the cat transformed into a beast worthy of Roman mythology.

Naturally, on such occasions, Mrs. Enfield called her next-door neighbor for assistance, and Silence dutifully marched over, even though it was a forgone conclusion that Baxter would beat the shit out of him. He simply had to help. Mrs. Enfield—and Baxter, too, for that matter—had been incredibly good to him for years. And one doesn’t turn down a blind elderly woman’s requests for help.

Silence leaned his head back against the dresser and looked at the bed. The black strip of shadow beneath the box spring taunted him, particularly since the grumbling, popping, sinister growl persisted—one long, unending note.

He took a deep breath, catching a whiff of old lady smell mixed with the scent of the house, which was even older than Mrs. Enfield herself, amazingly enough. It was a nineteenth century beauty, one of many in Pensacola.

Along with his deep breathing, Silence closed his eyes and did a quick meditation. C.C. had taught him the importance of presence. His energy was horrible just then, filled with anger, and there was a frightened animal who needed him. He had to realign.

Looking into the warm nothingness of the inside of his eyes, Silence listened to the ticking of the clock at the bedside, the cat’s growling. He sensed his touch points, where his body came into contact with the world around him—the back of