Ricky Turner's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Ricky ran until his legs burned. The trees closed tight around him. Their trunks stood thick as barrels, and the branches locked overhead. Only faint threads of light reached the ground. Guater ran at his side, breathing hard. Fletch and the gator crashed through the brush behind them. Somewhere back there, the giant woman dragged herself forward. Ricky could not see her. He could hear her joints grind. "She smells me," Guater said. "She has my master's smell. She will not lose it." Ricky stopped against a wide trunk. His heart slammed. The dog was right. The giant hunted by scent, and Ricky's scent was a straight line through the dark. "Fletch," he whispered. "How do we shake her?" Fletch slid off the gator's back. His long ears twitched toward the sound of grinding bone. "You don't outrun her," the rabbit said. "You break the trail. Mud kills scent." He pointed a paw toward a low black gap between roots. Water glinted there, thick and still. Ricky did not like it. The mud looked like a trap. But the grinding grew louder, and a shape moved between the far trunks, tall enough to scrape the branches. He grabbed Guater and dropped into the water. Cold mud swallowed him to the chest. He smeared it over his arms, his neck, his beard. He rubbed handfuls into Guater's fur. The dog shook once and held still. "All of it," Fletch said. "She wants the living. Cover the living smell." Ricky coated himself until only his eyes felt clean. The gator sank low beside them. Fletch pressed flat against her back. They waited. The giant woman came out of the trees. Her ruined leg dragged a furrow in the dirt. Her green eyes swept the ground where Ricky had run. She stopped near the water. Her head turned. She sniffed the air, slow, then slower. "Living," she said. One flat word. She took a step toward the mud. Ricky stopped breathing. Guater trembled under his hand but made no sound. The giant leaned close. Her sunken eyes passed over the black water and found nothing warm, nothing that smelled like the thing she hated. She straightened. She turned her ruined leg back the way she came and dragged herself off, following a trail that was no longer there. The grinding faded. Then it was gone. Ricky let out his breath. He climbed from the mud, shaking, and pulled Guater up after him. "She's gone," he said. "She lost us." "She lost the smell," Guater said. "She did not lose the hate." Fletch stood and wiped his paws. His excited face had gone flat. "Good. You're alive." He looked past Ricky, into the deep dark of the locked trees. "But you ran the wrong way. The tower's light is behind us now. And I don't know these woods." His ears dropped. "Neither does anyone I'd trust."