Friday Snippet

His hand dived in the pocket, curling around in dangerously tight spacebefore reappearing with the key ring dangling from his meaty fist. Momentslater we were standing in the cabin's tiny kitchen/living room. "Nice place,"he observed before pushing me down on the lumpy couch. "How did you find me?" I really needed to know what mistake I'd made thatallowed him to track me down."Just a hunch." "A hunch?" I stared at him in appalled disbelief. "How could you findsomeone with a hunch?"He opened the old-fashioned icebox and helped himself to one of my sodas.Twisting the cap off, he took a hefty swallow before turning to face me. "Istudied your file. You seem to alternate the types of locations you choose.Your last one was urban so the next would be rural. Then I drew a circle thatcovered the territory you could travel in two days. After that, I eliminatedplaces that were too similar to other locations you've chosen in the past." Hetook another long drink. "You were too well prepared to run so I reasoned youprobably had somewhere to run to.""Bullshit.""Nope. Everyone in the world has a pattern to their lives. Even the oneswho deliberately try to eliminate patterns. It was just a matter of figuringout what your pattern was." He squatted in front of me, caught my chin in hishand and stared deep in my eyes. "I found you once. I can find you again. Soyou might as well tell me what the hell this is all about. No one spends theirlife scrambling from one place to another without good reason."Impatience and irritation rose up within me. "I told you. There arepeople after me. They want me dead.""Yeah. According to you they want your blood first, though. What arethey? Vampires?" I didn't like the way he was looking at me."They're one of those neo-supremist groups," I snarled. "And they nodoubt followed you here. Now I'll have to leave my gardening stuff behind andall my plants will die. Thanks a lot!""That's what you're worried about? A few plants?""When you don't have much, every little bit counts." Something—a shift in light, a change in the insect hummingoutside—something tipped me off and I dove off the couch taking him to thefloor as the window exploded. The whine of shots whistled overhead. "Staydown," I yelled as I rolled across the floor toward the tiny bedroom, steadilycursing under my breath at the hand cuffs. In the doorway I paused long enoughto wriggle and hunch until I wrenched my arms over my feet so they were atleast in front of me. Then I was up and running bent over for my bugout bag. The cop was right behind me as more shots and the sound of tinkling glassfilled the air. "You don't follow directions very well." I jerked my shotgun from thebag, as the front door slammed against the wall. "Down!"He dropped to the floor as I pulled the trigger.   
©Anny Cook 2012