A Garden of Vipers

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“Are you sure he ran this way? I don’t see anything.”

“Keep your damn voice down. Don’t touch the blood. And just use light when you need it.”

Lucas heard voices in the distance and his eyes snapped open. The world was spinning slowly, like he was caught in a syrupy vortex. Lucas threw his arms out to hold on and felt his fingers touch grass. It was night, but he saw the dark shadows of nearby trees. Comets were spinning between their trunks, blinking on and off: comet, no comet. It smelled fresh here in cometland, like dew and wet leaves. A very peculiar effect, he thought. Also peculiar: a single star straight up in the sky, flashing, like the comets and the star were conversing.

“I see a car! Hidden behind the trees, branches over it. He’s around here.”

“We’ll have to get rid of the car. Fast. Call for a trailer.”

Lucas closed his eyes and took a deep breath of cool air. The solitary star blinked. Another comet flashed across the sky. No, not comets, his clearing mind registered; it was flashlights pressing through fog. He was in a field beside a woods, lying in damp weeds bristling against the sides of his face. Why was he in farmland? Why were there flashlights?

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