Chapter 3 - The Cold Dirt Crawl
The cold hit me before the rain did.
It rushed through the square dog-door opening like an icy slap across the face, smelling of saturated mulch, soaked asphalt, and rot. I pushed my head and shoulders through first. My chest scraped against the rough edge of the splintered wooden frame, the jagged remains of the rusted screw gouging deep into the meat of my lower ribs. I didn't care. That sharp sting was nothing compared to the dead, heavy fire in my left leg.
I planted both palms onto the slick, mossy concrete of the back patio.
Pull.
My torso slid across the threshold. The cold night air swirled around my wet collar, soaking through my thin cotton pajamas in seconds. Rain pelted my scalp, plastering strands of matted hair across my eyes and lips.
Then came the lower half of my body.
My right knee cleared the wood easily, finding leverage against the textured patio stones. But my left leg hung uselessly behind me, a limp, twisted sack of ruptured muscle and shattered tibia. When my ankle dragged over the raised threshold lip, the jagged ends of the fractured bone sheared against each other inside the swelling tissue.
The pain didn't just hurt; it detonated behind my eyes in blinding flashes of neon violet. My jaw clamped down so fiercely I felt the enamel of my molars groan under the pressure. A muffled whimper leaked through my nose, swallowed instantly by the roaring North Carolina storm.
I fell forward onto the drenched concrete, lying flat on my stomach.
I was outside.
Above me, the back patio awning groaned under gallons of surging stormwater. Water cascaded over the aluminum gutters like a waterfall, splashing violently against the patio furniture. Behind me, the dark void of the house remained quiet. The kitchen light was still off. Nobody had shouted. Nobody had heard the wood splinter.
They think I'm lying docile on the floor, I told myself, blinking stinging water out of my eyes. They think they've broken me.
I looked across the expanse of the backyard. The manicured lawn of our cul-de-sac home was surrounded by an eight-foot wooden privacy fence—the very fence Andrew had insisted on building two summers ago to keep neighbors from peering into our private life. Now, it was a barricade keeping me trapped inside their hunting ground.
There was only one way out: the narrow side gate near the air-conditioning compressor units, leading toward the front gravel driveway and the suburban street.
That gate was forty yards away. Forty yards of sodden lawn, muddy topsoil, and decorative landscaping stones.
I couldn't walk. I couldn't even crawl on all fours; attempting to support weight on my left knee sent electrical shocks of pure torment straight up into my pelvis, making my stomach convulse with violent nausea.
There was only the belly crawl.
I dug my fingernails into the soggy turf. Rain had turned the lawn into a swamp of black soil and chopped grass clippings. I pulled with my elbows and my right toe, inching my torso forward twelve inches at a time. The grass tore out in wet clumps under my fingers.
One foot.
Two feet.
My wet clothes grew impossibly heavy, weighted down by gallons of absorbed water and clinging mud. Every drag forward left a flattened trench in the manicured grass. My broken leg trailed behind me like an anchor, bumping over garden borders and exposed tree roots. Every microscopic jolt sent a fresh wave of sickening heat radiating through my groin and lower back.
Halfway to the side gate, the kitchen floodlight snapped on.
I froze, pressing my entire body flat into the pooling mud beside Margaret’s prized hydrangeas. The bright halogen glare spilled across the wet lawn, illuminating the driving rain into thousands of falling silver needles.
Through the pouring sheet of water, I saw the rear patio door.
The white plastic grate was missing. The dark hole at the base of the door gaped wide open.
A silhouette appeared behind the glass panes above the flap. Tall, broad-shouldered. Andrew.
He stood perfectly still for three agonizing seconds, looking down at the empty space on the kitchen linoleum where his battered wife was supposed to be waiting for morning.
Even from twenty yards away, over the thundering crash of the rain, I could feel the sudden, explosive rage radiating through the glass. The deadbolt rattled violently. The brass knob twisted back and forth in frantic fury. He had locked the heavy exterior deadbolt from the inside earlier that evening and hidden the key; now, he couldn't get through his own security door without running back to the front foyer for the master ring.
The silhouette vanished from the window.
He’s running to the front door, the thought screamed through my brain. You have thirty seconds.
The hesitation vanished. The agony in my leg ceased to matter. Survival stripped away every human instinct except raw, feral panic.
I didn't crawl with my elbows anymore. I lunged forward like a wounded animal, throwing my forearms into the mud, ignoring the sharp rocks slicing through my knees and chest. Mud coated my chin, my cheeks, my eyelashes. I threw myself past the hum of the roaring HVAC unit and reached the wooden side gate.
My hand slapped against the cold iron latch.
It was a gravity latch, mounted high on the inside frame. I stretched my arm upward, water cascading down my sleeve into my armpit. My fingers caught the bottom of the lever.
I shoved it upward.
The metal clicked. I threw my shoulder against the wet cedar boards. The gate swung outward with a wet, heavy creak, opening directly onto the inclined concrete driveway that led down toward the suburban roadway.
As the gate swung wide, the front door of the main house flew open with a thunderous slam against the brick siding.
"EMILY!"
Andrew's voice ripped through the rainy night like a siren. He was barefoot on the front porch, clad only in sweatpants, holding a heavy tactical flashlight. The beam cut through the storm, sweeping across the driveway, slashing over the parked SUV, searching for the broken woman he thought couldn't move.
May you like
I rolled sideways off the driveway pavement, tumbling down the short embankment into the deep drainage ditch that bordered the neighborhood road.
Water was rushing through the ditch at knee-depth, cold and wild. I hit the swirling current with a heavy splash, submerging beneath the muddy water just as the blinding white beam of Andrew's flashlight swept across the grass directly above my head.
