One sound. One cough, one gasp, one shifted piece of gravel crunching too loudly beneath my weight.
And this little hiding spot, this dark and reeking pocket of borrowed time, wouldn’t mean a single, goddamn thing.
Forty Six
No Dead Is My Favorite New Thing -Finn
Under the trailer, time ceased to exist. It stretched and folded, losing all meaning as my muscles cramped one by one.
I counted breaths, lost count, started again, and lost count again. The dull pull in my left calf escalated into a biting pain, preventing me from straightening my toes without tearing deeper.
The sounds outside shifted, diminishing but not disappearing. Dragging footsteps drifted further, growing fainter. The shuffle of dead feet on gravel receded from an immediate threat to a distant, almost manageable presence. The wet, choking sounds thinned, replaced by distance and wind cutting between the trailer skirting and the soft, steady slap of water.
I waited, forcing myself to. Digging my fingers into the dirt, I held my position, ordering every screaming nerve to shut up andsit still. The line between life and death depended on patience—on remaining motionless until I knew, not just hoped.
Slow. Slow. The ground isn’t going anywhere.
Finally, I shifted slowly. Every joint was a negotiation, every muscle a complaint. The returning blood to my legs felt like frozen needles.
“Alright, buddy,” I whispered to the carrier, my voice barely audible above my own breathing. “We’re making a break for it.”
Doc Fluffbutt blinked up at me through the mesh, pupils wide, ears pressed flat, but silent—still silent, holding on to the deep-wired instinct that had kept him quiet through the worst of it.
“Stay quiet,” I added, shifting onto my elbows and pulling myself forward. “If I get you out of this, you’ll get all the fish you can eat. Deal?”
He didn’t argue.
Good cat.
I moved on my forearms, slowly, pulling the carrier beside me. My own breathing sounded enormous in the dead air beneath the metal—each exhale a broadcast, each scrape of fabric against dirt a transmission.
Reaching the gap, I stopped, pressing my face close to the opening, one cheek in the dirt, and listened. I let the sounds of the outside world filter in, sorting them into categories: threat, distance, direction.
A couple of them still wandered nearby. I heard the uneven shuffle of feet dragging through gravel, the occasional bump of a body colliding aimlessly with something solid—the car, a post—without slowing or reacting. Drifting. The restless, mindless patrol of things with nowhere to go and no capacity to stop moving.
But not close.
Not pressed against the skirting, with their faces in the dirt and their hands reaching.
Now or never.
I slid my fingers under the loose piece of skirting and lifted, slow, steady, controlling the movement with everything I had. The metal shifted upward, its edge dragging against the frame with a soft, sawtooth scrape that cut through the quiet like a blade across glass.
Too loud.
Way too loud.
I froze, holding the skirting motionless. I didn’t breathe.
One second. Two. Five.
Nothing rushed me. No footsteps quickened. No hands clawed through the gap.
I didn’t wait for a second chance.
I slipped through the opening in one fluid motion, shoulder screaming, the carrier clutched against my chest. I rolled onto my knees in the gravel outside, staying low, pressing myself against the car. The air hit my face, and I almost gasped at the difference.
I moved fast but with control, keeping low, one hand locked on the carrier handle and the other bracing against the car’s body as I edged along the passenger side. My eyes swept the lot in quick, practiced arcs—checking corners, checking gaps between vehicles, checking the spaces between buildings where shadows pooled thick enough to hide anything.
