The Blue Mountain Review Issue 7

Sean Hastings Blue Phoenix Ed racked his shotgun the moment Joseph started running. He aimed and grit his teeth as his finger coiled the trigger. Joseph’s feet propelled pebbles and dented the ground with his steps. He turned seconds before Ed fired, the pellets barely missed him.

“Damn it,” Ed muttered.

Joseph’s heels kicked up gravel as he fled the destroyed mountaintop. The floodlights turned on by Ed were the only reason why neither man fell to his death. Nowhere to hide, the only choice was flight.

He racked the pump and aimed once again. He took two heavy breaths before pulling the trigger. The blast sent ripples through his flabby jowls and echoed through the Appalachian valley.

But Joseph was kept running.

“Shit.”

Joseph slid down a man-made hill and passed a backhoe. Ed held the shotgun upward in one hand and used the other to stabilize himself as he followed Joseph down the hill. He racked the pump a third time and shouldered the weapon before Joseph reached a gigantic dump truck and ran behind its boulder-sized wheels. Ed lowered the shotgun and started running again.

The dump truck was so big, so wide that Joseph hardly had to crouch to go underneath it. On the other side, Joseph tried to slide down another man-made hill but slipped and rolled most of the way. Ed saw him enjoying an all-you-can-eat serving of dirt while following him down. At the base of the hill, Joseph landed on his back–clothes, face and hair covered in soil–and saw someone standing before him; a nineteen-year-old girl with brown hair and too much damn makeup.

Joseph blinked and she was gone. Ed’s feet crunching on gravel reminded him to get up and run.

Instead of going down the hill, Ed ran alongside the main road and passed a sign saying, “Blue Phoenix Mining Industries.”

Joseph hid behind a tree, tried to get his eyes clean but saw the girl, again.

“Sooner or later, God’ll cut us down,” he remembered her saying.

Joseph’s body snapped when a twig broke and started running again. Ed sprinted after him, running faster than he had in the decades since he had left school. Joseph crashed through bushes and kicked up leaves while his heartbeat increased. He was in better shape than Ed, but the fact the chase had gone on for so long was beginning to scare him. He did not know how much longer he could keep running from Ed in this forested, hilly terrain. All Ed needed was time and stamina, then the shotgun would do the rest. Every passing second made Joseph think more and more about the fact he could die.

Sooner or later, God’ll cut us down.

“Why is that?” he replied, at the time.

“Cuz…” she replied. “I mean, He always does. Especially round here.”

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