LITMIR.BIZ

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here — who else could it be? — standing close. He had stepped up onto the running board and pulled the door wide open, letting in the wet, chilly night. The man leaned in, asking Lance in a kind voice if everything was all right. But it wasn’t kindness, really. It was sugar-coated sarcasm, and Lance redoubled his efforts to get his buck knife.

      The glovebox hatch flipped open, but too late. He felt the weight of the man leaning in as though to climb on top of him, felt fists grab the leather of his jacket and tug. Lance gave up on the knife and flipped around with a rough idea of kicking the man off, shouting, “What the fuck d’you want, man, wha’d I do?”

      He was dragged out into the night and released. He staggered upright.

      “I was about to ask you the same thing,” the man said. He stood too close, eyes fixed and intense. “What’s with the follow?”

      He was a stocky white guy, a few inches shorter than Lance. But a bull. A fine drizzle touched Lance’s face. His truck was idling at his back, and up the bank and across the road the Hummer was, too. He could smell the drift of exhaust, could see the confusion of headlights and tail lights, and the SUV’s hazards blinking. He could hear his own door alarm pinging. The lights lit up the forest downslope behind them. The trees stood about like a crowd of cold-hearted onlookers, tall, dark figures topped with shuddering leaves.

      There was a third person here, he realized, giving her a double take. She stood just up the bank. He couldn’t see her face, but her presence lifted his spirits. Women always kept the peace. She wouldn’t let anything bad happen. He gave her a weak smile. He flagged her a signal to say he was innocent, that he really could use some help down here.

      She didn’t move.

      He tried for a chummy tone with the guy. “I’m new in town, man. Electrician, just starting up. I was heading out to Horseshoe Bay to meet buddies, right? Took the wrong turnoff.” He forced a laugh. “It’s a friggin’ maze, this town. All these ramps look the same. Figured we’d loop back down to the highway soon enough. Latched onto your tail lights, hoping you’d lead me out. Can’t blame you thinking I was following you, bud. Just a misunderstanding.”

      “Except I seen you before,” the man said. “Didn’t I, now?” He was older than Lance, in his mid-forties, probably, and carried a big gut. He had a round, buzz-cut head and fussily groomed beard. The fat gold chain around his neck, the diamond in his ear, and the glossy black SUV up on the road said he was over-the-top flush. He was also angry, and maybe stoned, too. Eyes fierce but empty, like an overdosed gamer after an all-night binge. But it wasn’t games he was whacked on. Definitely some chemical worming through his brain. And that was bad news.

      Lance looked at the woman in the shadows, about as helpful as a hood ornament. He said to the man with the diamond in his ear, “No way, man. Wasn’t me you saw, or if it was, I sure wasn’t following you. Company I work for, we got a huge fleet.”

      In truth, it was a fleet of two: the canopied Chev he drove and Sig’s Ford.

      He slapped at the logo on the door of his truck — L&S Electric, which stood for Lance and Sig, two prairie guys trying to break into the big-city market — and made up a number. “Yup, twenty-four of us out there on a slow day.”

      The man said, “Give me your phone.”

      “Why?”

      “’Cause mine’s dead, and we gotta call you a tow truck, don’t we?”

      His manner had changed, relaxed, lost the sarcastic edge. He sounded amused, and it dawned on Lance that he was just another shit-for-brains bully, pushy but harmless, playing mind games. Even the spooky-eye thing was an act.

      “Hey, not necessary.” Lance tried for a chuckle as he straightened from what he only now realized was a cower. He adjusted his twisted jacket. “Was a huge misunderstanding, man. You guys go on your way, and I’ll call me a tow.”

      “Yeah, but listen, I’d feel a whole lot better if you did it now. Don’t want to leave you in the lurch down here.”

      The guy sounded apologetic now, smiling. Maybe he was afraid of a lawsuit, wanted to leave things at a no-hard-feelings level. Lance gave an uneasy shrug. He pulled out his iPhone and keyed in the code. The phone unlocked, and he opened his contact list for the BCAA number, to call for road service — and only then it occurred to him that no man with a diamond in his ear, driving a top-of-the-line Hummer, would let his cellphone die. Guy would have it hooked to a charger like life support. And the girlfriend would have a phone on her too, wouldn’t she? Pink, studded with rhinestones. These were not phoneless people. The thought came simultaneously with the grab. The phone was taken from him, and he couldn’t grab it back. “No,” he moaned, understanding the enormity of what had just happened. He had surrendered all his contacts to this freaky bastard, handed Sig over on a platter. Worse, much worse, his home address, Cheryl and the kids. His darling Cheryl, his beautiful tot Rosalie, and his little boy, Joseph.

      The man was waving the phone overhead like a winning ticket, looking up at his girlfriend. She shouted something, and it sounded like either go on or don’t.

      Lance received a rough shove and stumbled away from his vehicle.

      Another shove, and he was careening through tall shrubs, low weeds, down on his knees, up on his feet. Pushed again, and he was into the trees. He fought back, swung loose and hit nothing. He turned to flee, but all too late. He wasn’t a fighter or a planner, and this guy was. The guy was telling him as he dogged after him that this was what he got for messing with people’s lives. Lance tried to bellow, but it came out a whimper: “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was backed up beside one of the huge trees, straight as a telephone pole. No branches within reach to grasp for leverage, nowhere to hide. “You gotta believe me, mister. I’m from Airdrie. I’m an electrician. I don’t know you from a hole in the wall, I swear.”

      The man reached out, grabbed him by the ear, and shoved his head sideways into the tree.

      Stars showered against crimson. Lance heard himself scream out in pain and terror. He flailed his arms, tried to kick or step back, but he was dazed, and the man had that hellish grip on his ear, and was saying again this was all his fault. Lance cried out to be left alone and instead was pushed again into the tree, hard. His right ear and scalp were hot and wet, beyond pain now, and he knew the man was going to slam him till his skull cracked open and his brains spattered like a melon against the corrugated iron of the tree trunk. His legs buckled. He felt himself sag, his body parts thud to earth, and sprawl. He lay a moment on the sloping ground, trying to curl into himself, to protect his body from whatever would land next, a boot or fist or rock. His thoughts raced and scattered. He was done for.

      The impact didn’t come. Just a pattering of words. The man leaned over him, a dark shape without definition. He was saying something low and complicated, almost conversational. Lance could make no sense of it. He closed his eyes, and now there was silence, a nothingness. Then the swish and crunch of feet wading through weeds, uphill and away. The man was leaving.

      Maybe to grab a gun, to finish this off.

      Lance blinked furiously to clear the blur, but the blur remained. He heard two car doors slam. And, God, he heard the SUV drive away. Hope flowed over him like a cool tide.

      He gave himself a minute to lie still, reflecting on this clean slate, his mistakes and resolutions, and how fiercely he would be hugging his family tonight.

      But what was that? Again he held his breath, tilting his head to listen. There, a new noise that didn’t fit with the shush of grasses and leaves rustling in the wind. Not close, but not far, a furtive crunching heading this way. He became stone still. Something was down here with him. A creature, a killer dog released by the man in the Hummer? He blinked again. He could make out nothing but a blue-grey haze criss-crossed with grass blades, and the shapes of bushes. The thing came slowly, snapping branches underfoot, and it wasn’t a dog. By the sound he knew it was big as a rhino. Bigger. It was a mastodon, and he lay in its sights. Maybe it was harmless. Maybe if he yelled, he would scare it off. He tried to scrabble his legs, but

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