He grabbed her arm and she tried to pull away. He was much bigger and held on, after a few seconds he grew bolder (stupider) and threw her to the ground. He knelt over her straddling her chest and held her hands down over her head. She stared at him. He grew bolder and with his free hand turned her face towards him and kissed her. Laughing loudly he said “She likes it, just like her momma.” Then he got up and walked away laughing.

She got up, spit on the ground and walked back inside her trailer without a sound. Others who had seen it said something about a snake but wouldn’t explain what they meant.

The next morning as the bus pulled up everyone was standing around. The boy was smirking like he was hot shit when she worked her way up next to him in the bus line. She smiled sweetly and asked “Would you like to share my lunch?” The boy grinned like he was some kind of winner and said “Sure, what you got?” She smiled even sweeter saying “This.” Faster than anyone could measure, she swung her lunch bag towards the boy. The brick inside hit him squarely in his mouth.

Her first swing busted a couple of his front teeth. He fell down. She jumped on him grabbing his throat with one hand and using her other to grip the brick while she kept hitting him in the face with it. If the bus driver had not quickly jumped out of the bus and broken it up she would have probably killed him.

That time the police were called but before they could show up the boy’s family grabbed him, threw everything in a car and hauled ass. Cops later found out that his family had been cooking meth in their trailer. When you do that, then the last thing you want is for the cops to show up. (It took the Savannah police over an hour to get there.) No one at the scene said they had witnessed anything unusual. In Savannah you do not talk to the cops. Ever, ever, ever.

The girl was kicked out of school for fighting another girl the following week. Thomas remembered that he saw her sometimes working at the corner store. He heard that if you paid her extra you could buy beer there underage. He had said “Hi” to her when he went in but that was all he wanted to do with her. She was a little too psycho for him. Later she disappeared and he remembered someone saying that she and her mom had moved to Virginia. But this is a big state, what were the odds that he would see her here? Hell, he wasn’t even sure he remembered her name.

* * *

Officer Danvers watched the car hauler heading by him on Hwy-58. Going a steady clip just below the speed limit. It had Georgia plates and didn’t look like anything special. There were always plenty of speeders along this road, the best ones to get were out of state tourists or the ones with military decals on their cars. Those people seldom showed up in court and paid their fines by mail so he didn’t have to spend time in traffic court on his days off. Locals might show up to complain but few would come back here from out of state. The military people didn’t want their commands to know, so it worked out pretty well for him.