Page 56 of The Spiral
The sound of gun fire from my left infuriates me further, and the squeal of a pained yelp following the noise makes me desperate to get to her before she kills my hopes.
“Madeline, stop shooting,” I yell, crashing through more rough brambles.
She doesn’t, and as I break out into open ground, the rapid fire of another two shots followed by the vision of hermanaging to make ground on the last dog makes me charge at her.
Her eyes widen as I storm towards her, fingers fumbling over the barrel as she tries to keep running and aim. His feet scuttle through the undergrowth, branches swinging back in her face as I strengthen everything I’ve got to get to her and cut across the outskirts of the bog.
“I’ve got to stop them. I’ve got to end this,” she calls, her body disappearing behind the bank of trees.
My feet quicken until I’m within meters of her, mud sluicing the dirt she’s already run through, and I grab out at her. She damn well swerves before I have a chance to get her in my hold. I snatch out at a trunk, levering myself over the boulders that she’s managed to veer off around, and then scramble though the small brook passing along the bog’s edge. She bolts right, jumping to gain distance and refusing to look at me as I keep calling her name.
“Stop, Madeline.”
She doesn’t stop. She runs with renewed vigour, somehow increasing her pace and steeling her resolve to help the bastard in front of us.
The next shot makes me sneer and reach for her swinging coat regardless of the distance between us, desperate to stop her before she gets to the lead dog. He’s going mad with his howls, and the sounds of terror splay the darkness as I begin to hear the abuser pleading for his life up ahead somewhere. He cries out, pain evident in his tone, and then he begins begging as uselessly as he’s probably lived. Snivelling and shouting. Whinging. Whining.
I snort and let the pained sounds of death mix with my images of Selma’s prone body. It slows my pace as I blank out what’s around us, choosing to see the bloody form of my wife rather than this insidious little hunt that’s continued. Good dogs. They’ve paid their dues, given their all so our lives can entwine again.
My feet walk on, blind to where they’re heading until all becomes still again. There’s no sound at all for me, just the ground beneath me ghosting by gently, occasionally gifting whispers of Selma’s voice. I’ve no interest in catching Madeline anymore. It’s done. Finished. Over. She can find what’s offered by her protectors and then we’ll find our path together. Selma will show us. But first they can both see the chaos these dogs can cause. Let them see what they did to her on that fateful night.
Words whisper to me again, talking of harmony and love, passion and forgiveness. I can almost see her travelling through the mist to get to Madeline, sense her leaving the part of me she clung to through this chase. She looks beautiful as she walks slowly, her white dress layering out behind her and brightening this murky land we’ve run over.
I look to where Madeline was. Still she crashes onwards, and I watch her hurtle silently through the wooded space as if she’s run it a thousand times before, intent on stopping what’s already happened. She has. She’s had me chase her through it. Walked it with me side by side, holding hands. We’ve even made love just over there on the far bank of headland, watched the moon rise above our bodies as we did.
She’s known this space around us for longer than I have.
Selma.