The Shed by Erin Cecilia Thomas

So Lima Bean and I are hiding here in the old shed that Wolfe built, way out behind the empty horse barn, and if I can trust you not to tell anyone we’re in here I’ll keep talking.
Mom died two months ago and since then, when Wolfe slaughters, he does it so it seems like he’s enjoying it and I hate that. I don’t even want to eat animals anymore, and when Mom was alive she said that was okay. But now Wolfe doesn’t want to hear about it. He’d be angry if he found out I’m hiding one of our chickens in here. He might do something terrible.
Don’t worry, Lima Bean. I won’t let anything happen to you. If it hap-
pens to you, it happens to me.
The shed is about six feet by seven feet, and I know this from step-ping around the walls with one foot lined up directly after the other.
There is:
One window
Rusted tools in a couple of stacked milk crates
Two wooden barrels, empty
A blue tarp, bunched in a corner
Three metal milk pails
Shovels with chipped edges and long splintered handles
A tiller with sharp curling claws
Rope

These last three are hung on hooks along one wall. The other wall has the window, which is blasted with dirt and streaked with old rain. You can hardly see anything through it, but the sun filters in and dust dances in the golden bars. The shed is built of unstained and unsanded planks of wood, and nail heads stick out of the walls like it was put together in a rush. But the floor is soft, like years of being stomped on has worn the hardness right out of the wood. It gives under my weight when I lay on my back and the two stones of my shoulder blades push into it. The floor is good for LB, who’s used to her soft dirt. I’m spending most of my time here watching her peck around. She raises her small head and blinks her tiny hot pepper eyes. A chicken can go on living once their head is cut off, but I don’t know if that head, thrown aside into the grass, keeps blinking its eyes.
I roll onto my belly and prop myself up on my elbows. I’m already covered in dust. It catches in the straw-colored hair on my arms and clings like lice. I wriggle closer to Lima Bean and squint into her face.
LB, you have gorgeous features.
LB, you’ll make a rooster real happy someday.

The shed is in a wide stretch of field that’s just grass and weeds left to grow however they want. The shed is up on an incline, the crest of a wave in the earth, and if I open the door LB and I can see out for miles. On our left is the cornfield, rows and rows of bright green stalks with wisps of yellow sticking up like hair, and at the edge of the field is woods. The cornfield is the only way Wolfe makes money, but he always says we don’t need much because the land and house came from his dad, and it’s all paid off. Behind the shed is a small stretch of field and more woods, to our right is the stable and more empty pas-ture and our house and other barns far away. But in front of us, there’s endless, endless land that rises and falls like the creases Mom used to push out of clothes when she ran the hot heavy side of the iron over them. The land is loud with the constant saw of insects in the grass and trees, the thirsty rattling flies hanging over scorched earth. I used to think their wavering tones came directly from the sun, the bright rays of light so hot that they sang.
The Tennessee sky is an enormous stroke of blue that has no end, pocked with clouds that hang low today, their bottoms flat and smooth. We can’t see it too well out the window so that’s why I like to open the door now and then to look. Here, let’s look now. But I have to be slow and quiet about it, and make sure that no one’s out there first.
There.
See way out? Looks like we can see where the earth begins to turn andround off, right Lima Bean?
I’m getting kind of hungry, but I have to save this pear I brought for later. I snuck out this morning while Wolfe and Clyde were still asleep. I ran to the coop and filled one bucket with feed and another with water from the peeling snakeskin hose. I hurried the buckets all the way out to the shed and then went back for LB. She is mellow, a good girl, and she let me scoop her right up and didn’t mind bouncing around in my arms as I ducked around the coop and the horse stable and tripped through the dirt in my nervousness, and then galloped the rest of the way through the field to the shed. When I closed the door and set her on the ground, she cocked her head to the side and looked up at me.
Lima Bean, as you can see, is a beauty. She’s a Barred Rock hen with this soft sweep of feathers that billows out at her behind like the skirts of a queen. See her black and white zebra stripes? They make her seem like a rare wild animal, even though Barred Rocks are common. But they don’t all look like Lima Bean. She’s a peacock com-pared to other chickens, but she’s pretty humble about it.
When night comes, LB and I can run. I’m afraid that LB might be tired after our day in the shed, but I can always carry her a while. I’m not bringing anything else except this little flashlight. Because I’m thinking we’ll cut through the woods. You can keep your mouth shut about that part too.
It’s heating up in here so I think I’ll crack the door again. There’s a storm coming soon. The breeze is strong today and it blows right in and charges up the dust. It blows in the sweet, iron smell of manure that lands in my mouth, and the muck smell of the swampy part of the field that never dries. It also brings in the honeysuckle that lines the edge of the woods. When that thick sweet smell comes in I take deep breaths to trap it in my lungs before it settles. Clyde thinks honey-suckle smells like B.O. but I think he’s just smelling himself.
Clyde is my older brother by two years, thirteen. I guess I’ll tell you that Wolfe is our dad. People in town call him Wolfe because it’s his middle name–John Wolfe Dickson. I call him Wolfe because he’s bloodthirsty. My middle name is Claire–Abigail Claire Dickson–after my grandmother. I guess LB’s middle name is Bean, first name Lima. If you’re wondering why I chose to rescue LB out of all our hens, here’s why:
Last week Wolfe slaughtered one of LB’s sisters right in front of her, and when he did it he let out a bark of a laugh as her body came apart. I was collecting eggs when it happened. I heard the thud of the ax as it hit something, and then Wolfe’s laugh. I peered around the corner of the coop and saw Wolfe bring the ax down again, and the splatter of blood hissed when it hit the dirt like oil in a pan. There was a flurry of feathers and tiny feet as the other chickens rushed around the pen in confusion. I ducked back behind the coop. I started shaking so bad that I couldn’t collect eggs anymore, so I took the big blue egg bowl into the house and up to my bedroom and set it on my pillow. I got under the covers and curled up and stayed that way for hours. Later Wolfe started to get angry that I wasn’t coming down for dinner, and I was afraid of him, so I finally went down and sat at the table. They were eating Chickpea, LB’s sister. I refused to look at the piece Wolfe had put on my plate. Clyde sniggered at me from across the table, Chickpea’s juices dripping down his chin, and I pushed my chair out and ran outside to see LB. I swear, I swear to you that LB had tears in her eyes when I gave my condolences. I had never seen an animal cry before.
So that was the last straw. I was afraid when the other animals were slaughtered, but when I saw the tears in Lima Bean’s eyes, my fear turned to rage, but the kind of rage that would save lives and not take them. I’m only sorry it took me a while to get angry instead of scared.
I stroked LB’s checkerboard feathers.
I’ll make it right, Lima Bean. I’ll get you out of here.
That’s my plan, and if I can get away from here and save myself at
the same time, that’s just one better.

Lima Bean, you mother clucker!
She’s made a little chicken poo on the floor. She ruffles her feathers and stares at me. I get grumpy for a minute and tell LB she’s inconsiderate. Especially after the risks I’m taking to hide her here. What Wolfe will do if he finds us here is, well, I don’t want to say because I don’t want to upset LB and make her poo again. Also, I don’t want to upset her because I love her. I stand and crack the door, scraping her little poo out with the side of my sneaker.
Wolfe has never really beat us. He smacked Clyde on the back of his head a few times but not too hard, and sometimes it even made Clyde laugh. The thing that actually makes me afraid of Wolfe now, since Mom died, is the way he takes all that energy he might want to use to hit something and he holds it deep down in his belly. Then when something makes him snap the anger rises up and comes boil-
ing into his head, and he knows he can’t kill us, me and Clyde, so he goes after an animal. He used to slaughter with a kind of respect on his face, and he wouldn’t burst into the pen in a rage and scare everyone, and he’d make sure the animals were comfortable and he’d do it quickly. But that way doesn’t drain the anger that boils up in him like hot slop, so he has to go hacking away, til his arms are splattered and shaking, and sometimes as he’s dragging the animal away to clean afterwards, he leaves some of its chopped parts in the dirt, so I don’t believe he’s just doing it for the meat anymore. I think if Mom could see Wolfe now, she would punch him hard in the face. She would stand between him and our animals like a wall and you can have one guess who would win. But if Mom were here, he probably wouldn’t be so angry in the first place.
When Mom was here, I snuggled up to her like I was a cat. But now I sometimes feel like a wild dog, sniffing around for a place to make my den.
I want to save all our animals. I lie on my side and draw squiggles in the dirt with what’s left of my chewed-down fingernail, and I make a list in my head of the order I’d save them in:
Lima Bean
Ralph and Lisa, pigs
Pinto and Chili, hens
Corkscrew, Thelma and Walnut, more pigs
Coffee and Sugar, cows
The cats

I would save the cats for last because I think they are in the least danger. We don’t have horses anymore. Wolfe sold them after Mom died. I think about these rescue missions, about coming back and taking the animals one by one in the middle of the night, shepherding them through the woods. They would be nervous but they would trust me. I’d be their new mother.

Hold on, I’m going to crack the door again.
See, if you peek around the right side and squint, you can maybe see a car go by on the two-lane road half a mile from the house. It’s far from here, but that black speck out there is a truck, I think. There’s a gravel driveway that gets us from the house to the road. During the school year Clyde and I crunch along the drive and wait at the end for the bus to come. Mom used to walk with us, and sometimes after we got on the bus I would look back at her out the window and I’d see that after we pulled away she still stayed at the end of the drive, staring ahead, like she forgot to turn around and go back home. We’d drive away and she’d become tiny and eventually vanish. I hope that never happens to her in my mind. Because right now when I lie on the soft floor of the shed and close my eyes, I can see every line around her smile and every shade of brown in her eyes. Her face is clear as it floats above me.
I turn on my side again and look at Lima Bean. Her red skeleton feet are scratching around, leaving tiny marks in the dirt. The rustle of her thick feathers and her breath are the sounds of her being alive next to me. I wonder what I sound like when I’m just sitting here being alive. I ask Lima Bean what she thinks Mom was staring at when Clyde and I rode away on the school bus. She just blinks her tiny eyes.
Maybe Mom was looking into the future, maybe at the smoking crush of glass and metal her body would die in, the green of her old car splintered into the white of the pickup truck it hit. Maybe that’s why she filled herself with the pills that helped her sleep, so she would be drowsy and dreamy when it happened and she could just float away like the dust in this shed.
I toss a twig at LB’s feet, and she skips away.
I roll on to my other side, away from her.

I have an idea of where LB and I will run to, but I don’t know if I want to say. I’ve already told you a lot and you might let it slip, even if you don’t mean to. I think for LB’s sake, I won’t say. But I do have a plan.
Wait! Shh. Do you hear that? Like swish swish swish, someone moving through the grass. Maybe I’m imagining it. No one ever comes out this way.
Be quiet a minute, LB. Just a second.
I hear it again. I’m going to look.
Oh! Look! It’s just one of the cats. Pluto, I think. Yes, it’s Pluto, you can tell by the little white spots on her ear. She’s just rolling around in the sun, having a nice time. Her fluffy fox tail is what’s making that noise. See? She’s coming over.
Hi, Pluto, hi! You’re so soft and sweet. Would you like to come in? No? I’ll just keep the door cracked then. I wish I could take you with us. But I’ll come back for you, I promise. You can take care of yourself until then.
There she goes, back into the grass, her big fox tail bouncing. Pluto is one of the cats Clyde used to let in bed with him. He used to cuddle and pet them until they fell asleep in a furry pile. But since Mom died he doesn’t let them anymore. He shuts his door at night and sleeps alone, and in the daytime, he follows Wolfe around like a shadow. Clyde and I named all our animals together, and now he acts like he doesn’t remember their names at all, or that he doesn’t care. When Clyde ignores me, it gives me that wild dog feeling. I can almost feel my teeth getting sharper.
I think I’d like to be quiet for a while now. I’m not going to sleep, but I want to rest my eyes.

Oh, Lima, hi. I must have dozed off for just a second. Everything okay?
Oh, it’s getting dark out.
See, that’s why she poked at me like that. To let me know it’s al-
most time to go.
Since it’s almost time, I think I’ll tell you where we’ll go. We’ll go to Jessie’s house, in Hopewell, which isn’t too far. My mom and Jessie were best friends for Mom’s whole life, and Jessie still calls sometimes to see how I’m doing. She hangs up if it’s Wolfe who answers the phone, because they don’t like each other, but if I’m the one who picks up her voice sounds relieved and she calls me Little Woman and asks how it’s going. Wolfe always blamed things on Jessie because Jessie was a bad influence. She wasn’t married and didn’t have kids and she took my mom out dancing, and sometimes they even went to Nashville to sing karaoke. Wolfe says it’s Jessie’s fault my mom started taking the pills she was on when she crashed her car. But I don’t know. After the accident I screamed into my pillow IT’S YOUR FAULT, IT’S YOUR FAULT over and over again, but I was talking to Wolfe and not Jessie.
Jessie is nice to me, like the day she came over and hugged me.
It was a week after Mom died, and I sat on the front porch with my legs hanging over the side. I swung my legs and let my heels hit the crisscross wood, harder and harder as I stared toward the spot at the end of the driveway where Mom stood and watched Clyde and me on the school bus. The hard wind whipped my hair around. Clyde was locked up in his room and the house behind me was quiet, but off near the woods I could hear Wolfe hacking at trees with his ax. He’d been chopping all week, and once I snuck up and watched him. Instead of the clean, direct cuts he used to make, he let the blade hit the wood all over, chipping off jagged pieces of bark, not really caring if he brought the tree down. Every time the ax hit, it made a hollow knock like a fist against a door that wouldn’t open.
I was kicking my heels against the porch when Jessie’s apple-red pickup truck pulled into the driveway. The tires crunched over the gravel as the truck slowly came towards the house. Knock, knock, knock came Wolfe’s ax through the wind.
When Jessie’s boots hit the ground she looked like an angel – her long blonde hair blowing around her, her freckled face pink and alive. She closed the door of the truck and let her arms fall to her sides,
and she stood there just looking at me, her eyes getting shiny and wet. I jumped down off the porch and ran to her. I fell into her arms and she caught me, strong and warm like Mom.
I cried and she told me Shhhh and stroked my hair. I was buried so deep in her cable knit sweater that I didn’t hear Wolfe’s steps until they were too close. He grabbed a bunch of my sweatshirt and yanked me back. Jessie was so surprised that she lost her grip on me and stumbled backwards.
“Get out,” Wolfe told her, the ax hanging at his side. He gave me another tug when Jessie took a step towards me.
“Get out of here. You stay away from my family.”
Jessie didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes on me.
“Did you hear what I said?” Wolfe’s voice rose above the churning
wind and made me jump.
Jessie still did not look at him. She slowly knelt in the dirt so we were at the same height. If we had reached our arms out, our finger-tips would maybe just have touched.
“If you ever need anything, Abby, you just let me know,” she said, and her tears started falling down over her rosy cheeks. “You call me and let me know.”
I nodded and Wolfe dropped the ax to the ground with a thud.
“You’ve done enough here,” he spat.
He picked me up and took me up the steps of the porch while I
kicked and screamed. Jessie was calling my name. Wolfe took me into
the house and locked the door behind us.
I kept hoping with all my strength that Jessie would be waiting for him when he went back out, holding his ax in her hands, raising it and letting it fall into him like he was a tree. But when I peeked out the window, the driveway was empty and the day was getting dark.

I never did let Jessie know that LB and I are coming, but I think
she’ll be glad to see us anyway.
It’s going to rain soon, I can tell. I think this will be good news for us. Everyone will be inside and we can sneak away in the rain. I don’t mind getting wet, and I can maybe use this tarp to wrap around LB. Wolfe will probably assume I’m in my room and won’t notice I’m gone until tomorrow when I don’t show up at the bus stop. He might not even notice then. Clyde will notice, but he probably won’t care. We used to be friends, but we’re not anymore.
The only thing I’m kind of worried about here is if Wolfe wants a chicken for dinner, and if he goes to look for LB and she’s not there. That might cause trouble.
Lima Bean, you must be hungry. Here – a scoop of feed for dinner. Let me know if you want more. When we get to Jessie’s house I’ll make you all your favorite things – beans and berries, cabbage and carrots! We’ll eat matching plates of rainbow food every day, and we’ll live to be ninety-nine.
I’ll have to convince Jessie to build a coop in her backyard, and probably a barn too for when I bring Coffee, Sugar, and the pigs. I’ll get a job to pay for it so all she has to do is help me cut some of the wood and hammer the nails. I think she will like doing that. It’s time to eat my pear so I can get some energy. It’s bruised from when it was in my pocket but I don’t mind.

I think it’s almost time. Let’s open the door and see where the
storm is.
Oh! Do you smell that, LB?
The faraway rain makes everything smell strong – the straw in the barns coming all this way, sharp and brittle, and the soapy smell of the magnolia trees. And the fishy smell of the dogwoods. The early fireflies are waking up too – see, they’re like embers lifting from the grass. They better get moving because the rain is coming and it’s gonna put them out.
Lima Bean, come sit with me. Let’s wait and watch as the storm moves in.
Here it comes – across the fields you can see it. The heavy clouds dip lower and lower until they almost touch the ground. They’re moving in, huge and gray. See how the wind touches the tree branches and makes them sway, one by one down the line? That’s how you can tell it’s coming for us. The leaves ripple like the swell of the ocean toward the shore. I saw the ocean once, the Atlantic. Mom took me and Clyde to New Jersey, where we stayed with her sister until she decided that yes, we would go home after all.
The clouds keep moving, crouching down over our land. The last bit of sunset is a sick-looking line of yellow right at the horizon, and above that is all gray and black and blue. And there’s the rain – the blurry wall like coal smudged with a giant thumb. There’s thunder like bombs coming down far away.
Sit closer to me, LB. Open your little yellow beak and taste the rain.
Even from this far away I can smell the bits of earth the raindrops
have pounded and broken and caught up in the wind. The storm com-
ing in fills the pores in my skin so I feel full, almost like I’m drowning.
Take a deep breath, LB. This is our last moment to be calm before we run.

Wait. What’s that? Who’s out there walking? I think I see two figures moving along the edge of the woods. What are they doing? No one ever walks through our land. So that must mean it’s Wolfe, and is that Clyde? The wall of rain is closing in on them, but they’re not running. Clyde keeps looking back, like he’s scared. He’s ducking his head. They’re getting closer.
LB, get back away from the door.
Wolfe hunches his shoulders and stomps his feet like he’s trying to tame the grass, and Clyde hangs his head and shuffles behind him. What have they got? Long slender poles or something. I’m going to close the door to just a crack, but slowly so they don’t notice. Look, the storm is just at their feet! Wolfe’s got his big flashlight, he’s whipping the beam around, shining it into the woods now. My heart pounds against the floor as I lay on my belly and watch them. Oh! The rain has hit and they’ve gone into the woods. Now they’re behind the storm and I can’t see them anymore.
The heavy raindrops are ten feet away from the shed now, hitting
the ground like bullets so big you can see the holes in the dirt, then five feet away, then two, the air so strong and heavy it pushes against the door.
Step back, Lima Bean!
As soon as I slam the door, the rain hits. It pelts the window in
rushes and makes it like we’re underwater.
We have to sit quietly now until the storm calms down. We’re not taking any chances especially since I know they’re out there. I guess they’re looking for Lima Bean. With the door shut now and the storm over us, it’s dark in here. The pails and barrels, the tools in the milk crates, the tarp and the rope, all huddle as nothing more than dark shapes in the corners. The shovels on the wall hang like long gray bones.
Come here, LB, so you won’t be scared. Get in my lap. There, that’s nice.
I’ll hold you.
The rain is so loud against the roof that it blocks everything else out, and it feels pretty safe in here. Even though this place is old, it holds up. The wooden planks moan and creak, but not a drop of water gets in.
You’re so soft, Lima Bean. Such a good girl. I bet Wolfe and Clyde have run away back to the house by now, don’t worry.
Remember earlier when I said I won’t let anything happen to you? I defi-
nitely still mean that, Lima Bean.

Mom and Clyde and I used to sit on the porch when it rained like this. We would wrap in blankets and look out into the wall of water coming down just feet away. I wondered if I stepped right through that wall, would it still be raining on the other side? Maybe while the rain came down another world that usually stayed hidden showed itself, and there were other people and animals, another house and another car, all dry, right on the other side of the solid inches of water. From the porch, I squinted into the rain until I swear I saw shadows moving on the other side.
“What’s out there?” I asked Mom. “Behind the rain?”
“Everything, Abby. Everything’s out there.”
Clyde snuggled up closer to Mom and closed his eyes. “But let’s stay here, okay?” Mom put her arm around him, then leaned forward and rubbed my back.
“Okay,” she said. That was the last time the three of us sat on the porch together. Two weeks later, she was gone.
I think now that on the other side of the rain is just the world – there’s our fields and the empty horse barn and the chicken pen, and miles of land and woods. If I jump through the wall of water, I might jump right into Wolfe and Clyde and the long chestnut polished poles they carry.

It’s so dark now it’s like a big tent has been draped over the shed. I can’t see anything out the window but blackness. I would turn on my flashlight but I’m worried about attracting attention. Soon I’ll have to check, though. We have to get going.
The rain is little more than a pitter patter now. Now would be the best time to go. Okay, LB? I bury my face in her musk one more time and give her a squeeze. I hope this makes her feel confident in me.
I lift LB off my lap and put her on the floor next to me, where I hear in the dark that she’s found some leftover feed to munch on. I check my pocket to make sure the flashlight is still there. I reach over to the bucket of feed and scoop out a handful to put in my other pocket, for LB to eat on the trip. I know for sure I’ll have to carry her now because we might get separated in the dark, so I have to keep my hands free. I think we can make it to Jessie’s by tomorrow night if we leave now.
Just as I take a deep breath and think that I’m ready to grab LB and swing the door open, I hear them. Their footsteps come through the soft fading sprinkle of rain, slapping down the wet grass, sucking at the mud like it’s molasses.
“They’re probably gettin’ ready to come back out now that the
rain’s passed,” Wolfe yells.
He knows. Of course he does. How could I be so dumb to think
he wouldn’t notice LB and I were missing?
Their feet come closer and closer, and the wind makes it sound like they’re surrounding us on all sides. I squint through the darkness and can just make out Lima Bean next to me. I put a finger to my lips to warn her to keep her trap shut. She ducks her head three times like she’s nodding and her red wattle dances. I hold my breath as the squish of their boots gets louder. They’re probably going to throw the door open any second and see us. The only thing we can do is hide.
I grope toward where I know the tarp is crumpled. I feel its dry dusty plastic and grab a handful of it, pulling it slowly toward us. I put my arm around LB again and bring her closer, curling myself into the smallest ball I can, and I cover the lump of us with the tarp.
It seems dangerous to keep talking now, but I’ll whisper. Just remember that if you tell on us, you’ll really be sorry.
When the tarp goes over us, the darkness becomes total and complete. The heavy plastic smells like dirt and dry grass, and when I exhale it throws my breath back at me like we’re in a cave. The thunder pounds in my ears and I hear every tiny rustle of our bodies. Lima Bean is holding very still, but I can still hear the mouselike scrape of her feet on the floor when she readjusts herself. I stroke her feathers, and it sounds like the rush of a waterfall. Even the strands of my hair against the tarp sound like dry scratches of hay. My heart is calming down. I like how all I can hear is the two of us made louder. I wish we could stay under here forever. For the first time today I’m thinking that maybe this plan of mine is not so good. Maybe I should have just called Jessie and asked her to come get us. But then Wolfe would have started a fight, and this way, if he doesn’t see us, he can only fight himself.
“Keep your eye on the edge of the woods,” Wolfe calls out, and they’re right outside now. “But don’t shoot just any moving thing you see, or you’ll scare them away.”
Shoot
I imagine Clyde pulling himself through the grass and mud behind Wolfe, clutching the long dark pole that is actually a rifle that’s too big for him, getting ready to raise it and shoot. Why are they going to shoot? Why don’t they just let us go? My stomach clenches and twists and starts to feel sick, but I can’t bring myself to open the door and surrender. I hold my trembling bird close and hope with all the strength in my muscles that they’ll go away.
the strength in my muscles that they’ll go away.
“That’s how coyotes are,” Wolfe is saying. “They’re not afraid to
sneak into your yard and take something that belongs to you, but at the smallest sign of chase, they run and hide like cowards.”
Coyotes.
They think they’re looking for a coyote.
And why wouldn’t they? I almost laugh. After our old guard dog died, we never replaced him, and sometimes Wolfe does catch coy-otes lurking around the chicken coop. He thinks one finally got in and snatched LB, or maybe LB somehow got out and wandered too 19 close to a den. I shouldn’t be surprised that I don’t come into their thoughts at all.
Wolfe is dangerous when he decides he wants revenge. It’s like he’s just been waiting around for some living thing to cross him so he can take his guns down from the cabinet in the living room, even if it’s just so he can fire into the sky. Maybe Wolfe wants to find a coy-ote and shoot it, but I know Clyde doesn’t want to kill anything. The only things he’s ever killed are bugs, and that was because they were in the house and they had too many legs. Clyde might be different now, but he’s still my brother and I know that about him. It hurts my stomach to think that, if Clyde were still himself, we could be run-ning away together.
It’s okay, Lima Bean, it’s okay. We’re getting close. Any minute now it
will be safe.
I pull the tarp down off my head and squint through the dark-ness again. My heart is pounding and I clench my hands to stop them shaking.
Their footsteps are going faster now, away from here.
CRACK.
Shit! They shot something! They’re yelling now but their words
are garbled.
Lima Bean, we’re gonna make a run for it, while they’re distracted. We have to go fast, because if they see anything moving, they’re likely to shoot, no matter what Wolfe says.
I toss the tarp back into the corner where it lands like a heavy skin.
It sends a shiver down my bare arms and legs.
Listen, LB and I are going to run. You have to promise not to tell.
I crack open the door and peek out. Miles of black land and dark sky hanging above. The occasional patter of straggling rain hitting the earth. The storm has rinsed the dust from the fields, and I smell the clear sharp night with the nose of a dog. A far-off flash of lightning sparks the sky purple. The wind could bring the storm back at any moment. I lift Lima Bean into my arms and hold her tightly, and her feet claw against me.

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Erin Cecilia Thomas’ work has appeared in Arts & Letters, Redivider Journal, Passengers Journal, Oyez Review, and the anthology Archipelago from Allegory Ridge.