The ants found me before my parents did, drawn to the sticky sweet blood dripping from my head onto the stump, following the line of my chin. Suicide is nothing to fuck with. I know that now.
I had been drinking peach schnapps and getting gradually braver and more depressed. I looked out the window for the umpteenth time at the ugly sharp stump three stories below. It taunted me.
She laughed when she saw the first one transform. It was just so ridiculous, a trick of the eyes. The laugh died in her throat when the second one hit the side of the car hard enough to put it on two wheels. Without thought, she accelerated. She was able to outrace them because they gave up eventually, but others joined the chase along the route so there seemed to be a never-ending supply. Small trees and shrubs somehow changed into running beasts. Leaves turned to fingers, thorns to talons, roots to legs, all trying to kill her.
