Finally, I could hear it too, though barely, through the rattling of the cicadas.  The smooth jingling of the creek somewhere deeper into the forest, but nearby.

“There,” Julika whispered. Her breath was warm on my ear, but I couldn’t see where she was pointing.  She pinched at my wrist, and whispered again: “Run.”  We ran.  She ran and I followed her.  Within seconds, I could barely see her.  I crossed my forearms in front of my face and ran, the little branches banging against my elbows and breasts; the brambles grasping and scratching at my shins.  With a splash, I landed in the creek and then ran through it, the water sloshing around and through my boots, soaking my socks and feet.

I could hear them following.  The same branches and brambles snapping and slapping at their bodies.  They followed with urgency, perhaps even panic.

I lost sight of Julika but I could still hear her, calling for me.  “Molly! Here!  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck . . . .  Over here!”  I saw her. She was at the edge of the forest, peering into a clearing.  “Here!”  I caught up to her, and looked into the clearing.  There was the truck, sitting at the side of the road, at the top of the hill where we had left it.

“Do you have the keys?” she asked.

“Yes.”  I was breathing loudly; I could hear myself exhale and feel my heartbeats thundering through my chest.  And I could hear the buzzing of the cicadas, and the hurried crunching of twigs and sticks in the forest.

“When we get there, I will look for the gun and you just start driving.  Now!”

We ran through the clearing and up the hill.  We made it to the truck and I ran around to the driver’s door and jumped in.  Julika had already pulled herself into the bed of the truck and I could hear her crawling around, searching clumsily in the dark for the shotgun.  “It’s here,” she shouted as I turned the key and put the truck in gear.

It was a two-lane highway. I accelerated as fast as the truck would allow, with Julika still in the bed.  A shotgun blast sounded from back of the truck, and then another, and another.  In the rear view mirror I could make out Julika’s head and shoulders curled around the barrel of the shotgun, her hand pumping the barrel rapidly as three more shots boomed through the night.  She bent over to grab more shells, and began to reload.  All I could see of her were the wild tangles of blonde hair barely illuminated by the headlights of the vehicle pursuing in the distance.

The gunshots began again, and in the mirror I could see her body slightly recoiling with each shot.  And, with each shot, I could hear her body bumping against the rear window.  One of the shots was followed immediately by a long, wheezing screech accented by the scraping of metal against asphalt, and then slowly the rear window went dark and I couldn’t see anything in it other than the hazy silhouette of Julika’s head against the purples and grays of the Carolina night.  “Keep driving,” she screamed through the window.  I kept driving.