Clutch

By Jason Funk

A hand reached out from beneath the brush and clutched Karen’s ankle. She twisted, pulled off balance. Her stomach punched up as she fell. Pain erupted at the back of her head like a firecracker exploding in a bathroom. A dark void swallowed her consciousness.

Earlier.

“I’m going to destroy that bitch,” Karen said, swiping the text message on her phone. The bitch she planned on destroying was Mindy Stone, an uppity millennial who threatened her board seat. Karen had held that seat for years. The housing development around Sunflower Gulch and the wildlife preserve she helped establish, had all been her ideas. Karen, not Mindy, made that happen.

What kind of name was Mindy? A child’s name; a disrespecting brat. All these millennials acted like the world owed them something, a participation ribbon just for showing up. Karen didn’t owe anyone anything. She’d clawed her way out of poverty and made her own place in the world. No, Mindy would be just another conquest for Karen, in a long line of conquests.

Karen inhaled the cool morning air, tasting sweet springtime dew. She expelled a controlled breath and with it, all thoughts of Mindy Stone. Cool air tickled her bare skin and she shivered. She tapped her phone, turning on the heavy rifting of Metallica, her favorite band for running. Slipping the phone into her back pocket, she turned and sprinted down the hiking trail.

Sunflower Gulch Preserve was her idea. A national shampoo company housed its research facility nearby and used the land as a dumping ground for waste. The chemicals and waste nearly destroyed the marshy lowland. The company began laying off workers in preparation of an offshore move. The CEO made no attempt to sugar coat the companies motives. Federal EPA regulations and rising worker wages were forcing them to move manufacturing to a more hospitable country. At the same time, Corporate waste had become a public point of contention and the shampoo company found itself locked in legal battles.

James, her husband, had just graduated from law school. Two career paths lay before him. The first was with the local District Attorney. He could start as a public defender, and as he proved himself capable, could move directly into the DA’s office. This path could lead to a career in politics, with a potential governorship in the future. The second was with a corporate firm based out of New York City. The firm had a reputation for taking on sticky corporate problems.

“I could really do some good at the DA’s office,” James said as he poured his coffee. He took a sip and squinted down at the two offers. “And one day maybe governor.” He peered up over his round spectacles at Karen, the corner of his mouth bent up in a playful smirk.

“True,” Karen said slowly. “And I would love being a governor’s wife hosting elaborate dinners and rubbing elbows with the elite.”

“Imagine being able to influence the system from the inside.” He muttered, his eyes twinkling from behind his glasses. This was the passion that had originally attracted Karen to James in the first place. He had this infectious positive attitude coupled with an almost child like ideology about the world. But James could be optimistic in that regard, he never really had to struggle. His father was a doctor with his own family practice, and his mother was a well-respected accountant. Ivy League and success were always James’s future.

Karen, on the other hand, had struggled. She lived in a forgotten neighborhood in what could have been any city in America. She went to a school where the girls carried box knives and pepper-spray alongside tampons in their purses. Her father drank most nights. He’d pass out watching sitcoms, exhausted from a day of hard labor. Her mother drank more, becoming bitter as her body betrayed her and her hopes for any social life suffocated under the sound of her father’s drunken snores. School clubs became the lifeline Karen grabbed onto to avoid drowning in the muck like her mother. She met James through one of these clubs, specifically debate club.

Karen stood in the shadows next to the brightly lit stage. A quiet murmur ran through the audience anxiously waiting for the students to perform. Her parents were not among them. Karen felt like her intestines were being twisted around a rock in her gut. She knew her material, and she knew the rush of adrenaline would kick in as soon as the debate started. Then the audience wouldn’t matter, they’d fade away and it would just be her and her opponent.

“You nervous?” A tall skinny kid asked as he stepped next to her.

“No,” She said, fidgeting with the debate card in her hands.

“I am,” He didn’t sound nervous. “I’ll have butterflies in my stomach until the debate starts.” Karen smirked at the cliché, but before she could respond, he added, “But once we start, it’s all energy flowing. It’s like all that anxiety is expelled and laid between me and my opponent, and we get to shape it into something new and unique.”

Karen was speechless. She stared at the tall nerdy kid and felt something else in her gut, a warmth that seemed to untangle the knot.

“I’m James,” He said, the corner of his mouth twisting into a playful smirk. Karen shied away from his eyes and focused on the debate card in her hand. James was the name of her opponent.

Their debate focused around a local crime bill the mayor was proposing. James felt it would have a negative impact on certain communities within the city, primarily those in poverty. Karen, coming from one of those poverty stricken communities, argued the city needed the crime bill. In James, Karen found a sparring partner who was intellectually equal to herself but lacked the real world experience. In a way that drove her closer to him. Over the next few years, he became a lighthouse for Karen to anchor to, a guiding light out of poverty.

“Of course, there is the pedigree to consider,” James said.

Pedigree. Karen hated that word. James picked it up during his days at grad school. It dripped with condescension and privilege. Karen had always seen it for what it was, an old money insult to the new generation coming in. James started using it as a cynical joke, but it stayed in his vernacular. As he closed in on graduation, it became the period of many discussions about his future. This was the crux of his decision. Take the job in the DA’s office, build his reputation, his legacy, his pedigree and potentially become a political leader. Or take the corporate firm’s offer and become wealthy through the world of corporate law. Karen already knew James’s mind, which is why she chose her words carefully.

“Real change doesn’t come at the hands of the system imposing its will on the people, but at the hearts of the people being inspired to change,” Karen returned his sly smile. “I remember a wise man telling me that once. I wonder what kind of inspiration can be found in working with the real power.” It was a cheap shot, but those had been his words from their first debate. For Karen there had never been a choice, pedigree didn’t mean shit when you were starving.

Two years later, James’s corporate firm was representing a certain shampoo company that was entangled in an environmental controversy. He’d applied his brilliant mind to the problem and created a solution that allowed the company to relocate to a country with far less government oversight. The trade off for avoiding labor and federal fines was a small environmental project, the Sunflower Gulch Preservation fund. Karen, having graduated from grad school with a degree in accounting, became chairman for the fund’s board.

Now.

Karen opened her eyes, and immediately regretted it. Pain throbbed behind her temple. She blinked, trying to push the pain away and flinched at the brightness of the sun. This couldn’t be right, the sun was too high in the sky. She tried to collect her thoughts, but they seemed too shattered and scattered to piece back together. She tried to refocus on her surroundings, hoping to get a bearing on what had happened.

Cold hard earth, jagged with rocks, dug into her back. Sunlight twinkled in bright geometric shapes through the canopy of leaves high above her. She pushed up with her elbows and could see the thick dark brush that covered the swampy land to her left. Cattails and thorny weeds twisted in and out, dotted with random orange and purple wildflowers. Thick blankets of green stocks topped with massive yellow sunflowers stretched behind the tangle, creating inky shadows beneath.

Karen attempted to rise and discovered that something had hold of her right leg. She looked down and tried to process what she saw. A pale white hand, bloated and blistered, gripped her ankle. The milky white flesh was too bright contrasted against Karen’s tan leg. The grip was unnaturally cold and unbelievably firm. She yanked her leg but couldn’t free it from the hand. A bird shrieked in the distance and panic seized Karen’s chest.

“Help,” Karen attempted to scream, but only a dry, hoarse whisper came out. She tried rubbing her tongue against the roof of her mouth to generate spit and found it too thick and heavy. Her head dipped as her mind slipped into darkness. Pain erupted behind her eyes, and she was forced to open them.

She focused again on the hand and this time, the arm it was attached to. Panic spread through her body as she followed the milky flesh pocked with bright red and yellow blisters. At the elbow, the arm sunk into shadows. The shoulder was submerged in black water covered by thin vines and weeds entwined together. Protruding from the inky muck, like an iceberg pushing above the surface of the ocean, was half a pale face.

Just like the hand that gripped her ankle, the face was bloated and scarred with angry blisters. Black slimy hair clung to the wet flesh like leaches. Part of the exposed ear had been chewed away. The lips were so white, they seemed translucent, reminding Karen of maggots. One eye bulged out of the face, the pupil threatening to burst at any moment. The iris was piss yellow and veined with black squiggly lines. Karen mistook them for veins, before realizing with disgust that they were tiny squirming tadpoles.

Bile rose in the back of her throat, a hot burning pain that tasted like vomit. She swallowed hard causing the burning pain to flare. She wouldn’t throw up, though, wouldn’t give into such a primitive response. Whatever had hold of her, she’d not give it the satisfaction of watching her regress. She tried twisting her leg back and forth frantically, hoping to dislodge a finger. The grip only tightened.

She kicked the hand with her free leg. Her sneaker brushed across the knuckles but didn’t dislodge them. She kicked again, and again the fingers didn’t budge. She whimpered a dry sob, more out of frustration than fear. Anger rose hot in her mind. She began kicking at the hand over and over again. Her shoe bounced off the fingers, the knuckles, the hand. The rubber scraped against her own flesh, burning it, then rubbing it raw until blood started percolating through the skin.

“Let go, fucker,” she cursed, her voice still a dry whisper. She braced her free leg against a rock and with all her strength pushed back and up. For a brief moment she was standing up. Her head swam as blood rushed from her brain. The hand tightened and pulled her ankle, throwing Karen off balance, and she rushed to meet the hard ground. Darkness swallowed her once again.

Before.

“I’m bleeding here, sugar.” Roger said, his Louisiana accent slipping in as he became more animated. To Karen, it always sounded fake. He always laid it on thicker when he was agitated. “If I had any other option, Darling,” Darling came out like darlin. Sugar, darling, honey, all his seemingly innocent labels for women he used to degrade them. Roger wasn’t the first man to talk down to her this way. Early in her career, it bothered her, but as she grew older and more competent, she was able to ignore it more and more. Now, though, it scraped beneath her flesh.

“This has nothing to do with profits,” Karen shot back. “Or did you forget that I do you’re books.”

“Now, Honey, don’t,” He began.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” James was leaving for New York, again, and this time he’d be gone for months. Karen knew about his “Jenny” that he was having an affair with. She didn’t know her real name, just had that one picture of them together. James bent whispering in her ear, his hand comfortably placed on her twenty year old ass. Her red lips open wide, teeth exposed, laughing at James’s joke, her hand comfortable in his pocket.

“We could work something else out,” Roger began, putting his bulk between her and the door. He said it almost as a whisper and the stupid look on his pudgy face looked more like begging.

“For fuck sake, Roger,” She pushed him aside and made for the door. Fucking men. They only thought about one thing. She turned back to the man who just fired her and said, “I’ll be back in an hour to clean out my desk. I’d prefer to be alone,” She turned and strode out of the office.

The reality was that she wasn’t upset, with either of the men in her life right now. She’d pushed James into the New York firm. The more time he spent in the city, the more important the pedigree became for him. What hadn’t been important for him was finance. While he built his reputation, earned the admiration and respect of his colleagues, Karen managed all the money. She’d presented him with the contract, a post prenuptial arrangement, alongside the picture of him with his Jenny. They’d fought, one of the worst fights in the totality of their marriage. The only one worse was when she told him she had her tubes tied because she didn’t want children.

In the end, he’d signed her paperwork. The arrangement was simple, when he was home, he was home with her, a loving husband with a shiny reputation. When he was in New York, he could be with the other girl. Karen assumed there were others, more one night stands, she didn’t know about. None of that mattered anymore because she’d guaranteed that James would never leave her.

“I wanted to see you before you left,” Karen said catching him as he closed the trunk of his Tesla. James looked at her with an expression that was neither compassionate nor cruel, only calculating. It was the default for all their interactions now, unless alcohol was involved. Karen understood why this was the case but often wished he would be cruel, to punish her for choosing surviving over living. But she knew he’d never show her that passion again, because he was a caught creature that would forever remain guarded.

“I love you,” she said, gently touching his hand. He didn’t respond immediately, and for that Karen was grateful. Whatever he said next would at least be honest, and not the automatic appropriate social response.

“I love you, too,” He said finally, gently squeezing her hand and kissing her forehead.

Karen didn’t know why, but that seemed to cut her deeper than anything she’d experienced. She wished he’d tell her to fuck off, to stop being such a bitch, to rot in hell. Anything other than those four words, spoken honestly, an expression of his own guilt and hurt. She watched him go, deciding not to tell him about being fired until after he reached the city.

She spent the next couple of hours trying not to think about how broken her marriage really was, how alone she felt, how she desperately wanted to cry. After James was gone, Karen went into her little home office with the intent of cleaning up all the paperwork she had from Roger’s real-estate company. He could take all his receipts and shove them up his new little secretary’s twat. She began stuffing all the ledgers into a folder, slowly revealing the topographic map she’d forgotten about.

Sunflower Gulch sprawled out before her in smears of greens, browns and blues. Patterns of wavy lines cut through the landscape, indicating the uneven earth. She and James spent many nights, drunk on victory and wine, musing over what should happen with Sunflower Gulch now that the land would be cleaned and preserved though the protection fund.

“Somebody will just come along and build housing over everything,” she’d said, unable to completely kill the cynical voice in her head.

“What if it was low income housing?” James said, standing up, his wine sloshing wildly in his glass. Karen remembered drops splashing on the paper, staining it red. She touched the two stains, brushing her fingers across them in the same gentle way she’d touched James’s hand. James, forever wanting to be the white knight.

Just below the stains, written in red sharpie, Paradise Builders, Roger and his phone number. She’d written that five years earlier. She’d been looking for a contractor to help develop land near the southern edge of Sunflower Gulch and to aid with the last stretch of cleanup needed to meet the legal obligations of the fund. James’s passion had spurred her into action back then, and she’d come close to building those low income houses near the new Sunflower Gulch Wildlife Reserve.

The memory hardened her resolve. She finished stuffing the paperwork into the folder and headed back to her office. But it wasn’t her office anymore. Roger would put that little blonde concubine of his in there. She pulled into the spot that had been hers for the last five years. The afternoon sun shimmered through the tall trees. She tucked the folder under her arm and went into her old office. She placed the folder on the desk next to the honeymoon picture of James’s wrapping his arms around her. She went to the storage room to find a box and paused outside when she heard a noise coming from an empty office down the hall.

She crept toward the noise, straining to try and recognize what the sound was. At first she thought a bird was trapped. A girl giggled followed by a crash. Karen peaked though the window and discovered something lucky for her, but not so much for Roger. The window had no blinds. Without a second thought, Karen pulled out her phone and began filming.

Now.

Karen woke with a start. This time her eyes flew open, and her thoughts were clear and sharp. She’d been jogging, someone grabbed her, and she’d fallen. The sun seemed to be directly behind the trees overhead. It’s burning light pierced through the shade, blinding her. Despite its warmth, she shivered. That’s when she felt the cold wet water sloshing over her sneaker. She pushed onto one elbow and peered into the dark shadows.

The milky white hand still clutched her ankle. Now, however, the arm was submerged from the shoulder to the elbow. The pale bloated face still floated just above the water, with part of the maggot mouth dipping in and out of the water. The bulging eye focused on Karen, though she couldn’t see any life behind it, like that of a dead fish. She realized with horror that she’d been dragged closer to the marshy waters.

“Help, someone please, I need help,” She yelled, her voice returning to her. Only her own terrified voice echoed back to her. Why would anyone else be able to hear her? No houses had been built near this section of Sunflower Gulch Estates. Only Karen had access to this hiking trail. How had she put it? Compensation for all her hard work.

She kicked and twisted her trapped leg again and again. No use. Panic set in and she sobbed. This time she couldn’t keep her composure. She sobbed heavy and wet, turning the dust on her face to streaks of mud. She lay back and just let it all out. Her whole body shook and shivered as she expelled her fear, her frustration, and her anger.

She took two deep breaths, inhaling the aroma of nature. The wet earthy smell mingled with the almost rotten smell of freshwater fish. The sweet clusters of wildflowers and weeds underlined by the musty scent of dirt. Then the cacophony of wild sounds bombarded her ears. A low roar of buzzing blanketed the entire area, a combination of bees and flies. Above the din, cicadas weaved an electric rhythm that acted as a counterpoint to the low buzzing. Birds screeched and wailed like banshees haunting a forest. The occasional plop from a frog jumping into the water plucked onto the orchestration. And finally, the constant slosh of marsh water rippled through the underbrush. She wanted to laugh and scream simultaneously.

She had to get free, get out of this nature preserve now, or it would drive her insane. She began bargaining with the universe, begging it to shine some benevolent light her way. When the universe didn’t respond she turned to god, who in turn responded exactly like the universe, with silence. Then the thought that was anchored beneath all of her panic surfaced and she spoke out loud.

“I don’t want to die.”

The words freed gave her strength. She sat up, and steeling her nerves, she reached forward and tried to pluck the fingers from her ankle. Their grip was iron, but their flesh was soft and wet, like a water-balloon dipped in lotion. The texture instantly activated Karen’s gag reflex. Bile rise in the back of her throat, again. She tried to grip the first finger, to pry it loose with both hands, but couldn’t get purchase. The flesh was too mailable, to slick. She’d almost squeezed her hand underneath the first finger when one of the blisters erupted and a yellow pussy liquid drenched her hand.

The rotting smell that burst forth was so rank Karen experienced it like a punch. A vile mixture of spoiled flesh, sweet sickly infection and decay was so offending to Karen’s living organs, that she recoiled as if struck. This time the bile exploded, burning and raw. The moist warm smell of her own vomit mixed with the putrid stench from the hand. Never had she experienced a smell so awful. The clarity of her thoughts was gone. Pain exploded behind her temples each time she heaved. Each burst followed by bright blinding behind her eyes. The heaving slowed, then stopped and with it the bursts of pain, until all that was left was a constant throb, and darkness. Exhausted, Karen laid her head sideways and covered her face, sobbing quietly.

Before.

Karen had the map with the wine stains framed. It hung in her home office inside the beautiful home she’d built in Sunflower Gulch estates. The housing project James and her had mused about one drunken evening so many years ago had finally come to fruition. She was a partner with Roger in Paradise Construction and Real-estate, the chairman on the board of the Sunflower Gulch Preserve, and married to a partnered lawyer at one of the most prestigious corporate law firms in the world.

These weren’t the low income homes her and James discussed all those years ago. Instead, they were custom built multimillion dollar estates. The vast majority of the properties surrounded the Sunflower Gulch Preserve completely. With her influence on the board, and James’s legal prowess, Karen was able to create a small, isolated portion of the reserve for public use, while only the residents of the estates could access the rest. And finally, she’d brokered a deal that gave her private access to her own portion of the reserve.

James spent more and more time in New York. Roger had a heart attack that nearly killed him. Deciding he didn’t need the stress anymore, he sold his portion of Paradise Builders to Karen and moved to Florida. Karen had the real-estate company and the Sunflower Gulch board to fill her days, and loneliness and regrets to fill her nights. Most nights she spent alone, drinking wine and staring into the shadows of the reserve. When she was feeling particularly low, Karen would peer out the window in her sitting room. She imagined laborers stripped to the waste, dragging vines and weeds like heavy chains. They’d have them wrapped around their waists and shoulders, pulling them into the eternal inky black.

Mindy changed all that. She awoke something in Karen that was cold and calculating, a hunger that had been sleeping for too long. Mindy was 15 years younger, a slightly thicker girl with big brown eyes and freckles. She moved into one of the newer houses furthest from the reserve. Her husband had been a tech genius and made a fortune at one of those social media firms. All that ended when he wrapped his corvette around a telephone pole. Mindy inherited all his wealth and received a multimillion dollars life insurance payout. Like Karen, Mindy had no children, too much wealth, and lots of free time.

At first, Karen thought they could be friends. They went out for drinks together, went to shows together, and organized neighborhood events together. Mindy started helping Karen out with the Preserves bookkeeping. She was interested in the board and Karen enjoyed having someone to share her burdens and responsibilities with. All that changed one stormy night.

Karen and Mindy were at her house planning the annual Fourth of July barbecue fundraiser. Humidity hung heavy in the air and the musty scent of rain threatened a downpour all afternoon. The woman were into their third bottle of wine when the sky broke and the thunderstorm began. The rain dropped from the sky and smashed into the earth like glass shattering. Lightning split the gray sky in violent streaks, followed by thunder that shook the foundation.

The two women froze, wine glasses in hands, staring at each other like frightened girls at a sleepover. Then they erupted into laughter. They put the planning aside and moved to Karen’s back sitting room. Karen sat with her legs tucked under her, pushed into the corner of her plushy loveseat. Mindy sat next to her, leaning forward slightly, her knee pushed against Karen’s. Mindy’s big brown eyes stared at Karen with a strange intensity. Karen felt heat rise in her cheeks and looked away. She pressed the wine glass to her lips, masking her excited breathing. Mindy’s pinky finger touched hers, then closed around it.

“Hey,” Karen turned to protest, but found Mindy’s face close to hers, her breath smelling like wine.

“Can I,” She said, letting her eyes drop to Karen’s lips. Karen half chuckled then answered quietly.

“Yes.”

Mindy pressed her lips to Karen’s. The kiss was warm, exhilarating, and strange. Karen had kissed many boys before James, and they were hard and mostly sloppy. James had been that way at first, too. Over time though, he’d fallen into sync with her. Mindy’s kiss wasn’t too wet, but it was sloppy. And it was soft, so much softer than she’d expected. This made Karen laugh again. Mindy pulled back, a confused look on her face.

“Sorry, I,” She laughed again, “It was softer than I expected.”

“Is that bad?” Mindy asked leaning in closer to her.

“No, just different.”

“How about this?” Mindy lifted her hand up to cup Karen’s breast. Karen flushed, warmth spreading from her stomach out through her thighs and chest.

Mindy spent that night with Karen, and many more after. She started taking on more responsibilities around both the business and the reserve. James only came home a couple of times a year now. Karen found herself missing him less and less. The last time Karen saw James, he’d asked if she was happy with Mindy. Something in his tone made Karen uneasy. He wasn’t cold or cruel. He was concerned. He called her a week later.

“I just reviewed the paperwork, and she’s issued a formal complaint against you." James paused letting the information resonate. "There’s references to accounts and ledgers and she’s claiming you mismanaged the funds for the reserve.” James sounded genuinely concerned. “You didn’t do anything illegal did you?” He asked, then laughed and quickly said, “No of course you didn’t, I forgot who I was talking to.”

“What do you think?” Karen asked.

“I think she’s gunning for the Chair. She want’s your spot.”

“Are you sure, James?” Years of guilt filled Karen’s chest. “You’re not digging because, you know, our thing?”

“When I first realized months ago, I was hurt.” He paused then took a deep breath. “Honestly, I was jealous. She’d awakened something in you I hadn’t seen in years. And you were obviously happy. I threw that happiness away years ago. But then I was just happy for you.” He sighed heavily. “No, I wish I could say I was being spiteful out of some misguided jealousy, but there’s definitely something shady about Mindy. I’m sorry.”

When Karen confronted James about his affairs, she had time to work out her strategy, access to all the financial records, and a plan. When she’d caught Roger with a teen girl under the age of consent, she’d only needed a gentle nudge to get what she wanted. With Mindy, it was different. Karen had no knowledge of Mindy outside of their semi-professional work together or their completely unprofessional romantic entanglement. Mindy had all her financials, but Karen had none of Mindy’s. To make the situation more complicated, the counsel liked Mindy. They assumed Karen hand-picked Mindy to be her successor. Karen had to acknowledge the worse part, that she hadn’t worked out her emotional relationship with Mindy.

Then James sent her the text.

James: Did some digging. Turns out, Mindy has no history prior to moving into Sunflower Gulch. Aside from a few superficial social media accounts and a couple of financial accounts started 6 months ago, Mindy doesn’t exist.

Karen: What do you mean?

James: Mindy isn’t who she says she is.

Karen: ???

James: it’s a pseudo name, and get ready for this…

James sent a picture of Mindy, her arm around a man Karen knew well. An editor that worked at the L.A. Times. Mindy was an undercover reporter.

James: They’re doing a big expose piece about companies that trashed the environment then moved abroad. But then I came across this.

Another image appeared on her phone. A headline that read, How the Rich Stole Our Land. Underneath the headline it read: In an upcoming article, we will show you how the wealthy elite use environmental disasters to build private clubs and resorts by exploiting tax money set aside for environmental clean up.

Karen: Thanks for this, it’ll help a great deal. James, I love you.

She ended her message with the heart emoji.

“I’m going to kill that bitch.”

Now.

Karen lost another inch. The sun grew warmer as it moved further west. The shadows crept further from beneath the tangle. Karen lost track of how long she’d been curled under her arms. Now that the panic was fading, her calculating mind began asserting itself again. She did a mental check of her injuries. Her leg was scratch and bruised from trying to kick the hand loose. Her back and tailbone were sore from falling. She reached back and touched the back of her head. Pain shot from the tender spot she touched, and her fingers came away sticky with blood, a lot of blood.

“Come on, Karen, you can do this,” She whispered to herself, adding steel to her voice. She ignored the little voice of doubt in the back of her mind.

Karen pushed onto her elbows and then all the way to a sitting position. Water sloshed over the pale forearm and into her soaked sneaker. The silent nasty lips had sunk completely below the water, which splashed against the cold unblinking fish-eye.

“What the fuck do you want?” Karen said, hot anger spreading into her cheeks. “Answer me you motherfucker. Tell me what you want from me.”

The eye didn’t flinch, and the thing didn’t answer. Karen twisted her leg again, pushing with her free leg and pulling back as hard as she could. The grip didn’t loosen. Ugly red and purple bruising painted her ankle. She whimpered, she growled, tore at the dirt around her, and threw it at the face. It did nothing, and she lost another inch. She looked around her, searching, desperate for something she could use. Her eyes found a solution and hope flooded her chest.

A few feet away lay her earbuds for her phone. How had she been so stupid. Her phone was in her back pocket this whole time. She patted her back pocket, panicking for a moment then relaxing. Her phone was still there. She slipped it out and immediately felt her heart drop. The screen was covered in a spiderweb of cracks. A large dark circle formed in one of the corners. She pressed the power button, and to her relief, the screen lit up. She hit the call history and dialed James.

The screen flashed, then a distorted image popped up, the call could not be completed. She checked the bars for signal. The bars were replaced with two words: No Services. The screen flashed again, and the words low battery appeared. The screen went black. Karen’s chest fell. Tears pooled in her eyes and a sense of hopelessness settled into her mind. She tightened her fingers around her phone, the last of her rage giving way to despair. For a brief moment, she considered throwing the phone at the face. Then, carefully, she set it aside. That’s when she noticed another option.

A jagged rock protruded from the edge of the path. Karen had to stretch and twist to reach it. At first her fingers just brushed the rough cold surface and she almost sunk back into panicking. She twisted again and this time was able to get her hands on it. She pulled with all her strength, but the rock didn’t budge.

She began scraping the muddy earth around the rock. In moments, mud caked her fingernails. She dug faster, harder, a mad woman desperate to escape. One nail broke, then another and another. She continued digging, then pulling on the stone. It shifted, loosened. She dug more, breaking a nail off completely. Bright red blood mingled with the dark brown soil. Her knuckles scraped across the face of the rock, leaving behind bloody streaks. She gripped it again, and again she found the strength in her aching muscles to pull. The rock loosened, twisted, and broke free.

Karen pulled the large stone into her lap, its cold weight a blissful reminder that she was still alive. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Karen smiled, then laughed. She took the rock into both hands and scooted to the edge of the path. She pulled her free leg’s knee to her chest, her trapped leg twisting sideways like a yoga pose. She raised the heavy rock above her head, the jagged edge poised to come down on the vile disgusting hand.

Karen let out a savage roar. The sound was the most natural, most visceral expression she’d ever made. Never before had she felt more honest, more alive, more animal. The rock came down on the hand, glanced off, and smashed her ankle. The pain that followed erased all previous understanding of suffering from Karen’s memory. Like lighting shooting across a thundering sky, the surge of pain shot up her leg, into her abdomen and nearly caused her to vomit again.

The hand’s grip remained unchanged.

Karen's body shifted again, losing another inch to the black water. She sobbed and moaned, rage and despair dancing in her mind. She took several violent breaths and raised the rock again. She cried again, and the rock fell again. Smashing into the hand, crushing both it and her ankle. The pain was there again, but now Karen wasn’t sure if she felt it anymore. It was like her brain processed it, then turned those receptors off. Karen stared at the putrid hand holding her bloodied and broken ankle and she understood what she had to do.

She raised the rock above her head a third time. With another savage roar, she plunged it down as hard as she could. She didn’t aim for the hand this time, and the sharp edge smashed into her thin ankle. She felt her bones snap, her flesh tear. Blood spread out into the black water, somehow darkening the already pitch black marsh. Karen lifted the rock again, pulling her leg back and bringing the rock down again. The sharp edge sheered what was left of any flesh, any tendons, any bone. Karen let out a primal screech filled with pain and rage.

Karen fell back exhausted. She stared up at the canvas of leaves where a slight breeze caused the afternoon sun to twinkle. She was free. She began laughing uncontrollably. Several thoughts bombarded her mind all at once. She still had to move. She had to stop the bleeding. She had to get that bitch, Mindy. She took several hard shallow breaths and sat up again.

The hand still held her ankle, chunks of flesh and broken bone protruded from the water. The fish-eye, unblinking, now half covered in water continued to focus on her. Karen cocked her head to the side violently, cracking her neck.

“Fuck you,” She said, then kicked at the face with her good leg.

Before she had time to pull it back, something in the shadows moved too quickly to be human. It reach out and clutched her ankle. Karen felt her legs sink into the cold, filthy water. Then her waist sunk. Then her belly. She twisted and tried to claw at the path, pulling up clumps of mud and weeds. Her chest slipped into the water, then her neck. The black water splashed into her mouth. It tasted like dirt and fish and blood. The black swamp pushed into her nostrils and Karen tried to hold her breath, tried to keep the swamp out. The marsh water burned her sinuses. Then she was beneath the surface, in the darkness, and she could no longer keep the water out.

Later.

“Still no word?” James asked, looking at the newspaper laid out on his desk. “No, that’s all. Thanks Roger.” He clicked the call off and set his cell next to the paper.

The headline read: Sunflower Gulch Preserve’s Chairman Goes Missing.

The article explained how Karen used the fund to finance her expensive lifestyle, how James used his legal connections to protect her, and how the shampoo company used everyone to cover up its dark history; a conspiracy that involved an umbrella of smaller companies. The article claimed that the company’s bioweapon division had experimented on humans and dumped the waste in the Sunflower Gulch reserve. Instead of the fund cleaning up the gulch, it just covered up the waste and financed the multimillion dollar housing development.

James sat in his plush leather chair. He leaned forward over the paper and folded his hands together, as if in prayer. In a slow lingering glance, he measured up the woman sitting across from him. Younger, a millennial, with big brown eyes and freckles. She was dressed in a smart suit and skirt. She held a cell phone up like a reporter from an old movie might.

“So, about that quote,” She said.

End.

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