Ever My Love

Scared he'd lose sight of his brother in the night, Peter followed close on John Man's heels. They were in new territory now, miles beyond the boundaries of the Johnston plantation.
John Man reached a hand behind him and Peter stopped. "You hear that?" John Man whispered.
Hounds. Peter grabbed his brother's arm. "John, what we gone do?"
"Likely they's two, three mile away yet. Keep you head."
They ran, the dark pressing in on them. Then the fear pushed them faster and they thrashed through the brush, heedless of the noise they made--the hounds followed their scent, not their clamor.
They struggled up a hill and the woods ended. Headstones gleamed in the moonlight and Peter trembled, dreading the white shadows of ghosts emerging from the graves.
"This way," John Man said, turning right to skirt the cemetery.
Peter's breath came ragged and shallow. "They's louder," he gasped. He could hardly breathe, his chest was so tight.
John Man paused. The hounds were closing in. He stared at the heavens, at the cold, indifferent moon. "We not gone outrun them dogs."
"John, they tear us up, they get us."
"I ain't going back, Petie. They axe my foot, I go back again."
Peter clutched at his brother, the fear sucking at his courage. "I's scared, John."
"Petie, let 'em catch you, take you home to Grand- mama. Hear? Climb up dat sycamore so the dogs don't get you 'fore the men come up behind 'em."
"Don't leave me, John."
John Man pried Petie's fingers loose. "You ain't a man yet, they don't be too hard on you."
"They thrash me, John."
John Man gave him a shove. "Petie, get up dere, now. I's going on."
John Man ran. Peter climbed. Higher and higher up the trunk, the branches smaller and thinner. Dey stop to catch me, dat give John time. Peter kept climbing.
His heart began to steady, his breath to slow. He'd be safe once the men caught up with the dogs to hold them off. Then he'd climb down, go back to Grandmama. After the man cut him with the whip, she'd tend him.
The treetop bent over from his weight. Peter scrabbled for a better handhold, grabbed on to a branch. It snapped, and he grasped at the next one. He missed, his body now tipping farther out, away from the bole. Hands seizing on outer twigs, Peter crashed down and down through the leaves. He bounced when he hit the ground, the breath knocked out of him.
He tried to suck air, but his lungs were stunned. Keep you head. It come back. Wait for it. At last, air. He gulped it in, and sound returned to his starved brain. The hounds were coming. He ran headlong through the gravestones, too frightened to heed the ghostly rising vapors.
John Man had run east, like they'd planned. He'd go the other way, find another tree. Hurry. They coming.
Nothing but brush now as he ran down the hill. Too late to turn back to the trees.
Peter plunged into briars. The baying of the hounds so close now, so close. Thorns clawed at him, cutting and slicing and snagging as he scrambled for the swamp. No thought of the briars, nor of the snakes and gators in the bayou, he knew only flight.
Moongleam on water. He threw himself into the black soup. Too shallow. Running, thrashing and splashing, giving himself away. Panic had him, and he couldn't stop, couldn't think.
A quick look over his shoulder. The dogs roiling the water now, their eyes gleaming yellow in the moonlight. That dream, he lived the dream that haunted him since childhood, his legs churning but going nowhere.
They were on him. The lead hound dragged him down for the others to snap and snarl and tear at. Slashing, gnawing, crunching as teeth found bone. His brain shut off the pain--but not the horror, the terrible keen knowing as teeth ripped at his clothes, at his flesh.
Over the growling and snapping, Peter heard his own scream, far away, high, and without end.