The Running Girls
Matt Brolly
Prologue
He couldn’t remember how many times he’d been here or how many thousands of people he’d seen running along the seawall over the years. Until yesterday, no one had come close to that first one, but there she was—and here she was again, twenty-four hours later. How had he not seen her in the past? As he’d hoped, she was a creature of habit, once more gliding along the sidewalk as if she were floating above it, her gait so reminiscent of the first that she could have been her reincarnation.
The gait—the very word itself a siren call—was always the first thing he noticed. The subtle differences were undetectable to most—the length and speed of the steps, the pelvic sway, the elongation of the lower leg—but he discerned each and every variant with a voyeur’s obsessiveness.
And he’d waited so long.
What appeared to be a regular running motion was disrupted every nine or ten steps, when her left leg would drag.
The similarity to the first truly was uncanny.
He’d spent so many months watching the first. Her disruption had also occurred on average every nine steps. Neither woman had a limp as such, but something on their left side had made them weaker. With the first, her deviation was the result of a dislocated ankle. A childhood injury she’d all but outgrown—a detail she’d revealed to him during those delicious few hours they had together. Heat prickled his skin at the memory. It was so long ago now but it was impossible to forget. There’d been accusation in her look, yes, but much worse was the bewilderment. That, he couldn’t shake. The suggestion being that what he’d told her was nonsensical, that his obsession, and subsequent actions, were somehow laced with insanity. That look was burned onto his memory.
But now here was another opportunity.
Why the young woman ran the way she did, he didn’t know. Maybe it was coincidence, or maybe she’d suffered a similar injury to the first. It didn’t matter. She was inches away now. He could reach out and touch her tanned skin, interrupt that delicious gait in mid flow. Yet, although it had been so long since the last one, now wasn’t the time. Slowing his own gait, the hint of the woman’s woody perfume catching on the breeze, he watched her move away along the seawall.
Behind him, the island city continued as if nothing of note had ever occurred on its shore. It was summer and Galveston’s white-gray sand was full of tourists. Things were about to change, and the discovery of the woman couldn’t have come at a better time. With her perfume fading, the air carried a hint of salt and the taste of something danker, indefinable. He was attuned to the island’s signals and wondered if the beach dwellers shared his instincts.
Back along the promenade, the outline of the woman dissolved. She had become one of many shuffling figures, but even from here he could make out her steps. She appeared to glide where others stumbled, the affliction of her left leg more a balletic charm than a hindrance.
He’d been here before, and he knew what was coming.
SUMMER
Chapter One
As the Greyhound pulled into the Houston bus terminal, Frank Randall experienced a surge of anxiety. He’d never really liked the city, and after so much time away the thought of so many people in one place was unnerving.
The trip here had been bad enough. He was used to crowds—fifteen years in a Texas state prison, and six months in a Huntsville halfway house, would do that to a person—so being cooped up for four hours in the company of strangers should have been a breeze. He’d been warned there would be a time of adjustment, but watching the various people board the dirty-blue vehicle had almost made him long for the inside.
He’d passed the miles in silence, the young woman sitting next to him not acknowledging his presence—her focus on the shiny gleam of her cell phone’s screen, her ears plugged with white earphones. As the Texas wasteland scrolled by his window, Randall had searched for clues as to how the world had changed. They’d had television and access to the Internet inside, so the new styling of the motor vehicles, and the haircuts of those riding inside them, didn’t faze him. Even the fascination with screens wasn’t a surprise. He’d read articles about the new obsession with cell phones and tablets. He’d even developed a little obsession of his own, signing up to every educational class he could inside, the majority of which were conducted via online learning.
What use is that learning now, he thought, as he struggled down the stairs of the bus, his right foot catching on the metal lip, jarring his leg—broken inside—and almost sending him tumbling.
The driver made no move to help, his only response an accusatory glare as he pointed to the pile of bags at the foot of the bus, as if he knew where Randall had been these last sixteen years and the reason for his incarceration. Randall hobbled over to the luggage, his leg and back muscles tight. He was about to grab his duffel bag when the young woman who’d sat next to him pushed through to retrieve a pink monstrosity of a suitcase.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Randall, but she was already gone, the suitcase following behind her on wheels.
Like Randall, the bus depot was stuck in time. The fumes of stale diesel and cigarette smoke kindled a memory. He’d made the journey to the city a few times with Annie. Unlike him, she’d liked the hustle of the place. The last time they’d visited they’d spent the night, catching an Astros game before spending a few hours in some trendy bars that had made him feel lost. Annie’s appetite for life had always surpassed his and he’d often wondered how she’d hacked their life together.