“I hate Moses,” Randy muttered, disturbed by his unsuccessful search for that man and woman. Why did we want to find them? He was fast losing hatred for this Pharaoh too. Slitting his gut was not important to him any longer. What was important to Randy was his warm, comfortable bed he had left behind at the hospital. He missed gobbling good food as much as he wanted and drinking soda pop whenever he wanted. He longed to hoe in the garden, to spray the plants with water again and to feel proud when he made flowers grow. Most of all, he missed his television programs, cartoons, football games and cops shooting bad guys. He wanted to talk to that doctor again, even if he did get too nosy sometimes. The doctor would let him complain about his mother all he wanted without accusing him of being bad for not loving her. But he could never talk to the doctor again because that stupid Moses made him slit his throat. People at the hospital would not give him his bed back or let him work in the garden again after killing the doctor.
“I hate Moses.”
Something slinked across his mud-spattered tennis shoes, causing Randy to jump, grab his knife and throw it down at the retreating snake. Spitting in disgust for missing his target, he bent over to pick up the knife stuck in moist ground.
***
Jill clinched her jaw as she watched the boy crouch in front of her. When she recognized him to be the thin, angry one, she closed her eyes and prayed he would not see her. Hearing the knife’s being withdrawn from the earth and the boy’s footsteps as they faded away, she thought she was safe for now. That was all she could expect. Again her thoughts went to her grandmother, imagining how she must have sighed, “Safe for now,” every time the topic of Hitler or Nazis was dropped in a conversation. She must have been relieved every time a former member of the Third Reich was caught in another part of the United States and sent back to Germany, thinking at least it was not Heinrich this time. Safe for now. If she survived this night, Jill promised herself she would give her grandmother a big hug and say, “Now, I understand.”
***
Bob strained to look at the face of his watch. It had been some time since he last heard John or the boys. An hour might have passed, but he realized he could not have been under the bush that long. Yet he could not shake the small hope lingering inside him, that the three escaped mental patients had given up and left. He wanted to venture out to check, but he remembered his own instruction to Jill to stay hidden until dawn. Bob told himself not to blow it, not like he had blown so many other things in his life.
A voice broke the silence.
“Bob Meade. We have your wife.”
His eyes widened.
“It’s foolish to resist. If you want to see her alive, come back to the parking lot immediately.”
“Oh, no,” Bob whispered.
“Bob Meade. Caleb has already slit the doctor’s throat. You don’t want the same fate for your wife.”
He sighed and decided he could not take the chance of having Jill’s lifeless body being rolled down the embankment. He barely survived guilt of pulling away from his dying mother. Knowing his cowardice caused his wife’s throat to be slashed would destroy him. Bob decided it was better for them to die together than for him to hate himself the rest of his life for allowing Jill to be murdered.
“Don’t hurt her,” he yelled as he stepped from behind the prickly bush. He shuffled his feet in defeat toward the embankment, pausing for a moment to wince again at the sight of Harold’s bloodied body before climbing up toward the paved path to the parking lot.
***
Jill furrowed her brow as she heard Bob call out. She was still secure under her rock. Didn’t Bob realize John was lying? Of course not, remembering Bob’s greatest fault was his conviction that everyone was as honest as he was. She loved that shortcoming in him, but at this moment, she feared it might kill them both.
“Here goes nothing,” she said, crawling from beneath her rock in hopes of catching Bob before he climbed the embankment.
***
As Bob reached the top he saw the shadowy figures in front of him. He began counting. One, two, three…
“Bob! No!” Jill shouted.
His head jerked away to look down the slope just as Jill emerged from the woods. He turned back to the three escapees. Mike’s brawny shoulders shook as he laughed. John smiled with smugness, tapping Randy and nodding toward Jill. The boy scrambled down to grab her.
“How’d you know they’d come out?” Mike continued laughing.
“I am Moses.”