The Road Less Travelled

The man in the fedora went on ahead of me into the woods in a low crouch, his trench coat sweeping the rocks of the dry riverbed as he kept his gun trained on the road to our right. We’d waited inside the culvert until a vehicle had raced overhead, too fast to notice the pair of barely visible tracks leading off the road through the dry grass. The SUV we’d left behind was hopelessly jammed into the culvert, its suspension likely damaged from the crash and the ordeal of driving nose-first into a craggy streambed, its front bumper and radiator a crumpled, smoking mess.

Wherever we were headed, it would have to be on foot.

“Could you at least tell me your name?” I asked the man who I’d once thought my adversary, and who now seemed to be my savior.

“Kelly.”

“Kelly…?”

“Just Kelly.”

“What’s all this about? What did those men want? Why are you the only one who can see me?”

Kelly straightened a bit and picked up the pace, now keeping his eyes on his footing as he broke into a brisk stride. “Do you ever wonder,” he said, “how people ever discovered we have a blind spot? You can’t see your blind spot. Your mind covers it over with the illusion of perfect, uninterrupted sight. Even after someone says you have one, you can’t believe it. It seems like something you’d be able to see, right?”

“What’s that got to do with—” I heard what sounded like a buzzing insect, and almost immediately afterward the distant crack of a firearm. It took me a second to realize the two sounds were connected, and by then, Kelly was on the ground, pressing a hand to his side, wincing in pain.

The men in suits. They’d doubled back on us. How did they know?