Daryl broke off from the group at the corner of Mark and Weatherlow. Didn’t know if he was in one of his moods or if he really thought we would be fine continuing up the street, but everyone else was sure just crossing there would be difficult enough without being seen; the rest of us followed Max. We started to run the moment it was clear, calling back to Daryl as we moved further into the shadows of the next street. He just kept walking, and part of me strongly debated going after him; we’d made it this far. Why would he leave us now? Why would he risk the group this way?
“Just let him go,” Max said, and we kept running.
All the years I’d lived in this town and I’d never been down that side of Mark before. The single, dim streetlamp near the end of the road completed the overall gloom that typically made up a Susanville neighborhood after nightfall. Of course, the darkness was welcoming to us in this instance. But it didn’t help my anxiety when just behind me I could hear Lisa’s breathing start to get heavy. I knew the urgency of the sound from that last New Year’s Day when we went sledding, and halfway up the hill one of us had to run back to the house and retrieve the inhaler she’d forgotten to put in her pocket.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she gasped, “I just need to slow down for a bit.”
“Hey guys, slow down a moment.”
Max and Megan looked back at us and reduced the jog to a fast walk.
I heard a car rushing up Weatherlow and I spun my gaze around to watch it pass our street and keep heading up the block. I really wanted to get out of the road, but there was nowhere to hide.
“You need a piggy-back ride?”
Lisa laughed a little. “No, I’ll make it.”
I’d been serious; Lisa was smaller than me and if she’d needed someone to carry her to the end of the road I would have done it. Especially if it meant us getting to cover faster—but Mark Street continued to stay eerily quiet, and eventually I let myself believe that we were safe for the moment.
When we reached Parkdale I knew we’d have a much better chance; it ran along Paiute Creek and had an entire line of trees with low, leafy branches framing the other side of the street. But as soon as we hit the middle of the road a pair of headlights pulled in from the next block.
We scattered.
Some part of me was aware that Max doubled back while Lisa and Meg headed straight for the tree line. Pure instinct sent me sprinting forward to the nearest bush and before I even knew what my body was doing I was in the air and rolling into what immediately felt like thorns.
Either thorns, or a lost coil of barbed wire; something dug into the calf of my left leg, straight into my lower back, and a few more points jabbed at me from under my elbow. But I lay still in the night, my heavy breathing the only sound apart from the steady roll of tires over pavement as a black car approached our positions and slowed. Between twigs and leaves I watched it stop right in front of me; watched the passenger’s window roll down and a young woman stick her head out.
She started yelling something, but I couldn’t hear over the running engine; didn’t know if I should reveal myself or continue to hide.
Suddenly Max was emerging from the other side of the street and talking to the driver. Only then did I recognize the people in the car. I rose from the foliage and stumbled out, a piece of the spiky whatever wound around my ankle until I kicked it away. Still unsure of the words being exchanged I heard myself calling out, “We’re on your side, we’re on your side,” and pointing to my blue shirt.
That got a nod from the passenger’s seat and soon afterward the black car was continuing up the street and Max and I rushed out of the road.
In another lifetime I was running alone through dark neighborhoods. The anxiety had been stronger then; from my experience quiet freshmen didn’t tend to play Cops and Robbers with juniors and seniors on a Saturday night. And knowing only three people in a large group guaranteed at some point you’d be on your own—everyone else captured while you remained forgotten behind a tree in front of some person’s yard.
There are other times when you’re a little older and you try to lead a couple girls you barely know and who had never played before—and get caught two blocks down. Then you spend the rest of the night in someone else’s car while you circle, wishing you’d done that differently. Feeling like a loser and a failure as a leader. Mostly, just wanting another chance to be out there.
Because really, the best part is the running. All the shadows and the starlight and the journey fill a young body with adrenaline and the feelings of freedom and joy even as the anxiety creeps up behind. It doesn’t matter how you get to Point B, or how fast—what you really want is to have a good run.
And one year you make it to the finish line for the first time.
You’re still alone on the dark streets, but everyone circling you knows your name and knows who they’re keeping eyes out for. And when you get there one of the more casual acquaintances is sitting on the little fence in the Ranch Park entryway and you join him and stare up at the stars and you talk about pretty much anything until he’s not just an acquaintance anymore.
And you wait for others to come.
Daryl had been caught almost as soon as he’d split from us.
During that time in the enemy’s car he betrayed us in Daryl-like fashion, telling Kelsey where he’d last seen us and where we’d probably be going. That must have been around the time we were nearly spotted on Gay Street and I had to circumnavigate a tree in order to avoid detection.
I’d thought for sure that Main would be our downfall but we made it over without any trouble and from there we were on the home stretch to the old courthouse.
When we reached the finish line we discovered that Red Team had won because one of their players made it to the courthouse first—though, personally, I felt the team with the most survivors should have been the winners considering there were four to one—but that wasn’t what mattered.
We felt like we’d won. We were triumphant standing out there on the sidewalk, catching our breath and watching the stars. We did cartwheels on the lawn while we waited for the rest and checked our wounds and hollered at Daryl for being so willing to betray us and then related the night we’d had to him and we laughed. Laughed at thorn bushes and log piles and getting shoes stuck in branches and falling down stairs and hiding behind smelly dumpsters and circumnavigating tree trunks.
We laughed and collapsed on the grass. I felt the small, raw wound on my lower back press against the ground and I knew that life could not get much better than nights like this—than those simple moments of feeling awake and alive. Those moments I could share.
Those times you don’t cross the finish line alone.
— C.M.
