Alice

A Story by ben

Sliding down the embankment, her chance of getting away comes bursting in until she pictures Jimmy’s bulging eyes and that long strand of saliva hanging off his lower lip. Letting that freeze frame soak in her head, breaking this off is the man with kind eyes walking over to the left of her while the other stands off to her right. Keeping her eyes ahead to the grass that is almost as tall as she is, the man on her left says to the other, “I have been here before. This used to be a state-run park.” Having a step back, the man toes the ground before he looks up and says, “There’s a campground area over that way.” A drag of silence tiptoes across the room before the other says, “Let’s go have a look.”

Herded to where she is in single file walking over trampled grass the color of sunburnt yellow, the one behind her steps up to where he is beside her. “When we get there, we’ll need some firewood. I imagine you know by now of what to look for.” Shaking her head yes to the brutal honesty of what was said, the man tells her, “We’ll get you fed here in a bit. Just got to wait for Jimmy to get back.” That said to her, most of her wants Jimmy to never come back but that little thing called food has her anticipating the low heat emitting its warmth of their eventual interaction.

Reaching the first designated campsite, the man out front turns to the other, “I’m having second thoughts about this.”

The other says right back, “It’s too late for that.”