Project Karna

Chapter 1: Carly

Carly's feet crunched on the gravel path with every step she took. Arms pumping, legs screaming from the effort of running up the hill. Her breath came in short bursts and she tried to control it, breathing through her nose like Uncle Ian had taught her.

It was nearly sundown on the fourth day of September. Summer heat still clung to the air like a stifling wet blanket. So humid it felt like she was trying to inhale steam straight from a tea kettle rather than life affirming oxygen.

At the top of the hill, Carly stopped running, gazing down at the world below. The golden pink glow of sunset shone down on the quiet dirt road that turned to asphalt as it bent around the corner in the direction of town. 

The little house tucked between the grove of trees that was their most recent home. The black slate roof, white vinyl, and green shutters looked like any other house she and Uncle Ian had ever lived in, but it felt about as much like home as a cardboard box on the side of the road. Still new. Still unfamiliar, even after six months of living there. But Carly didn't really care about that. In another six months, she figured they'd be gone anyway. Uncle Ian would make some excuse, a new job (even though she'd never known him to actually have one), a better neighborhood (despite the fact that they always lived in the middle of nowhere, away from towns and people), or any number of myriad reasons why they were, once again, leaving.

Carly had learned long ago not to tie her sense of place to a house. Uncle Ian was her home. Their books, their belongings, the routines they shared that never changed no matter where they went. That's what home was.

Carly stood at the top of the hill just long enough to get her lungs to stop screaming, then gathered herself and took off again in the direction of the house. Evening runs were a part of the routine Uncle Ian had ascribed to her as soon as she was old enough to be trusted out on her own.

"Physical fitness is essential for people like us," he told her. A mantra he'd touted ever since she was small. He meant it too, enforcing evening runs, weekly swims, and all kinds of lessons when she was young. Gymnastics. Self defense. Fencing. Even ballet.

Carly didn't know what he meant by "people like us" and had never asked, assuming it was just another one of his eccentricities. Uncle Ian was, after all, the most paranoid person she had ever met.

Breathing came easier as she flew back down the hill towards home. So fast it felt as though her feet barely touched the ground. As though she really were flying. She kept running as the ground leveled out, using the momentum to carry her all the way back home. Cool shade and dampened light greeted her as she slipped between the trees that lined that path to home. Up ahead she could see that Uncle Ian had already flipped on the porch lights. She picked up the pace, knowing he'd be mad if she was out too long after the lights came on.

"It's not safe after dark," he often said.

"Why not?" Carly had asked.

"Coyotes." His reply was always the same, even when they'd lived in places a little less remote.

That had worked when she was younger and didn't know better. But now that she was nearly eighteen, she wondered what he was really worried about. There were never any other people around wherever they lived. Wasn't that why he picked those places? Homes far outside of any towns, void of neighbors, void of danger.

As Carly drew closer to the house, she stopped running. A sensation of sudden tension made her hesitate. Like the smell of smoke in the air or a shift in the wind before a coming storm. Intuition. Hyper-awareness that told her something was amiss, but she didn't know what that might be until she saw the car parked next to the shed.