The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt Page B

crossing the original set. Denis crouched and touched the new tracks, bewildered. The old tracks were dried on the edges, while the new ones were still damp. Someone had driven out of here recently, today, by the look of it.
    With a sinking feeling, a sort of disbelieving dread, Denis followed the new tracks toward their inevitable starting place.
    The mound of mud was still there, but it looked more like a broken volcano now, hollowed out and caved in. A hole gaped in the side of the mound, and the sides and top had fallen into the hollow center. Somehow, impossibly, Jane had driven out of the mudslide. But how could that be? Surely the weight of the mud would prevent any escape, the slickness beneath the wheels would make traction impossible—but he was faced with the refutation of those assumptions. This mound of mud, and no car, and tire tracks leading out and away.
    “Oh,
fuck me
.” Jane was alive. And she knew that he’d left her here to die. What would she do to him? Tell the police? Or come after him herself, attack him, talk to him, try to blackmail him? He tried to figure out which approach her personality would dictate. Could he . . . take care of her himself? Actually kill her, to keep her quiet, to keep his secret? He didn’t think so. The past two days had been hellish, edged with hysteria and denial, and then he’d been guilty only of negligent homicide, at worst. Denis was a creature of habit, and premeditated murder would catastrophically break his routine. To actually murder Jane would probably unhinge him. But there had to be some way to contain this situation.
    His mind refused to function properly. Every time he attempted to think in a rigorous line, he imagined Jane’s car driving out of the mudslide and bearing down on him, running him over, crushing his body into the mud.
    When headlights appeared behind him, throwing the mound of mud into sharp relief, Denis screamed.
    He sucked in a breath and squeezed his hands into fists. Screaming wouldn’t help. Perhaps this was just a random passerby, someone looking for a make-out spot, or even a police officer who’d seen Denis’s car parked off the road. There was no cause for panic yet.
    The car rolled toward him slowly, headlights blinding Denis to any details of the vehicle’s make, model, or provenance.
    The engine sputtered like an arrhythmic heart. Denis thought about walking up to the car, to see what they wanted, but why should he? He’d been here first. The fact that the driver could see him while Denis himself couldn’t see anything but the glare of headlights annoyed him, however, so he shaded his eyes and walked toward the driver’s side.
    The driver’s door opened, and someone stepped out, just a person-shaped blob in Denis’s still-dazzled vision. He blinked, waiting for his pupils to dilate so he could see in the dimness.
    “Denis?” the person said. Denis recognized the voice. It was Jane. Absolutely, no doubt about it, Jane. He took a step back, and she rushed at him.
    Denis threw up his hands defensively, and it took a moment for him to realize that he was being embraced, not attacked. Jane wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. She sobbed into his shoulder.
    What
was
this? Didn’t she understand what he’d done, what had happened?
    “Shh, baby, it’s okay,” Denis said, patting her shoulder. Cool mud smeared under his hands, and he realized she was wholly covered in filth. She’d gotten somewhat muddy during her wish-fulfillment fantasy with him, but her clothes shouldn’t have been so streaked, and the layer of mud on her body shouldn’t feel so
thick
. Why was she dirty, if she’d
driven
out? It wasn’t as if she’d crawled bodily through the mud. The car should be filthy, yes—and he saw now that it was, that her white hatchback had been turned brown by mud, the filth covering everything but a wiper-scraped semicircle on the windshield. Jane must have gotten down and rolled in the mud for some