Most Wanted

Chapter Fifty-one

Christine regained consciousness, crumpled on the gravel road. Rain pounded everywhere, pouring from a dark gray sky. Her cheek lay in a puddle; water filled her nostrils. Her clothes were soaked. A bolt of agonizing pain shot through her skull. She willed herself to wake up, remembering what had happened. She had been wrenched from the car, she heard Joan screaming.

Christine lifted herself up on her elbow. She whipped her head wildly around, blinking against the pouring rain. The car had rolled into the cornfield, askew. The engine was running. Her car door hung open. Dom was hurrying around the back fender to the passenger side. Joan was trying to get away, climbing over the console into the driver’s seat.

Christine had to help Joan. She forced herself to move, to act. She staggered to her feet, but in the next moment, she saw Dom grab Joan’s hair and yank her back into the passenger seat. Christine couldn’t see what happened next. Horribly, Joan stopped screaming.

“No!” Christine cried out, horrified. Terror seized her heart. She couldn’t save Joan. She had to save herself. She had to get away. Dom must have followed them from the vigil. He had to have been the serial killer.

She lurched off the road and threw herself into the cornfield. She ran away as fast as she could, whacking the stalks away. There was no clear path to run, she couldn’t see any rows. The corn grew together like a thicket. Stalks sliced at her arms, and legs, razor-sharp. Bugs flew into her eyes. Crackling filled her ears, louder than the rain. She didn’t know if she was running to the right or left. She had no sense of direction. Her head pounded from the blow. She ran ahead as straight as possible. Away.

“You bitch!” Dom yelled, raging. He didn’t sound that far behind her.

Terror powered Christine forward. She couldn’t let him get her. He would kill her. He would kill her baby. She powered through the corn, her legs churning. Rain filled her eyes. She could barely see. The leaves cut like knives. Cornstalks crunched under her feet. She tripped and almost fell.

She realized with horror that Dom could see her head as she ran. The corn only came up to her chest. She ducked her head and ran in a crouch. Her breath came raggedly. She got a stitch in her side. Her thighs burned, her feet ached. She suppressed the urge to scream. She couldn’t waste the energy. There was no one around to hear.

Christine swung her arms like a machete, whacking away the cornstalks from her path. Rain set her shivering. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably. She stayed low so he wouldn’t know where she was in the vast cornfield. Suddenly a flock of huge black crows flew from the corn, flapping their black wings beside her head, startling her.

“I’ll kill you, you bitch!” Dom shouted, drowned out by the rain.

The crows gave away Christine’s position. She couldn’t stop now. She summoned every last ounce of strength, thinking of her baby. She had to save her baby. She was its mother. Her first duty was to protect her child. She thought of the butterfly heart on the ultrasound. The image powered her forward.

She could hear Dom breaking stalks behind her. He was a runner. He would make up for her head start. He was gaining on her. She put on the afterburners and ran even harder. She kept as low as she could, visualizing herself like a prizefighter, punching the cornstalks as she ran. Rain thundered in her ears.

Cornstalks crunched under her feet. Leaves sliced her hands and arms. The stems of the cornstalks were thick and strong. She whipped them aside with a backhand, cracking them in two.

Rain pounded in her ears. She heard the faint sound of traffic. Trucks rumbled ahead, and a horn honked. She angled her run to the left. Route 842 was there, and traffic. If she could reach the road, somebody would see her. Cars would stop. Dom couldn’t slaughter her in full view.

Hope lifted her heart. She protected her belly with her left arm and whacked cornstalks with her right. Tears of pure fear streamed down her face. She tasted blood in her mouth.

“I’ll cut your throat!” Dom raged, louder.

Christine felt a bolt of sheer terror. Dom sounded closer than before. She was losing ground. She panicked, tripping. She fell. She caught a faceful of cornstalks, filth, and bugs. Her hands plunged into mud and dirt. She could hear Dom’s footsteps behind her, the crunching and rustling of the stalks as he ran.

She sprang up, lunging forward, trying to find ground with her feet. It was harder to run on an angle, against the grain of the rows. She threw herself at the cornstalks, desperate. Her breath sounded ragged. The rain poured. She whacked at the cornstalks with both arms. Some snapped back, others sliced her face. She winced in pain. Still the sound of the traffic got closer.

Christine’s chest heaved. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep running. She kept stumbling. Rain and bugs flew in her eyes. Her legs burned, her arms were heavy. She thought of the baby. She remembered she had moved her belt buckle this morning. She couldn’t die. She had to save them both.

Suddenly she heard another sound, a mechanical one. Instinctively she looked up, but raindrops drenched her face. She almost lost her balance and fell again. The sound intensified. A rhythmic thwacking sound came from the sky behind the dense cloud cover. She recognized the noise. It was a helicopter.

“Help, help!” Christine screamed. She straightened up as she ran, waving her bloodied hands. She prayed the helicopter could see her cutting a swath through the cornfield. It sounded closer and closer, a mechanical thumping.

She glanced up, blinking rain from her eyes. The helicopter popped through the cloud cover, its big rotors turning. It was flying low and coming toward her. She waved her hands as she ran. It got closer, and she felt the turbulence from its rotors. Bugs and birds flew everywhere. The helicopter was the corporate green of Chesterbrook Hospital. It was a medevac.

Christine screamed for help, waving her hands in the turbulence. She was going to be rescued. Help was here. She didn’t have to die here, not now, not today. She looked up again only to see the helicopter fly past her.

“No, no, help!” she screamed, running and running. The helicopter choppered to the gravel road. It must have been for Joan. Christine was on her own. She almost cried out with despair. No one was coming for her. She had to save herself and her baby. She didn’t know if Dom was behind her, but he wasn’t shouting anymore. He must’ve realized that he had to stay quiet and low or the helicopter would see him.

Her chest heaved, her lungs burned. She was almost out of breath. She didn’t know if she could go another step, but she kept running, hacking away at the cornstalks, powering herself forward.

Suddenly she heard the faint sound of a police siren cutting through the rain. The police were on their way, coming toward her, but too far away. She had to keep going. Behind her she could hear the crackling getting closer, less than six feet, then five. Dom was closing the gap between them. He could reach out and grab her. He could kill her and get away.

The rushing sound of the traffic got louder and louder. She heard the honk of a car horn. She heard the louder rumbling of truck tires churning on the wet asphalt.

Christine screamed for her life, running and fighting her way through the corn. The rushing of traffic got closer and closer. She caught glimpses of the cars on the road through the stalks.

Suddenly she popped out of the cornfield, staggering to stay upright, her momentum carrying her forward into the road, where cars were rushing back and forth. She screamed as a pickup almost sideswiped her, skidding, but righted itself as she kept running across the road. She reached the other side, just as she heard a sickening thud.

“No!” Christine whirled around from the other side, just in time to see Dom struck by the massive chrome grille of a tractor-trailer that carried him forward before he vanished beneath its chassis.

Christine collapsed to her knees, in a flood of tears and rain. It could have been her, but it wasn’t. She was alive.

And so was her baby.