by Jenna Lehne
A subtle breeze carries the scent of roasted flesh over to us. I should be wailing and tearing my own hair out with grief, but I’m completely numb. My skin is vibrating and my insides feel like ice, but the urge to cry is gone. Peyton dying has killed whatever was left inside of me.
I nod. “If we stick to the road, we should catch the gas trucks in the morning.”
If we make it until the morning.
The unsaid comment hangs between us. We head into the house and into a wall of putrid stench. It smells like the bodies of our friends have been rotting for weeks rather than hours. Teddy flicks on the light but they don’t work. Hayley’s body lies splayed out in the middle of the living room, her torn mouth gaping open, her jaw resting on the hardwood.
I grab a cooler bag out of the pantry and load in all the food and water it will carry. Teddy grabs us sweaters, sneakers, and flashlights.
“Let’s go.” He opens the front door.
I stare at Hayley’s body. “It doesn’t feel right just leaving them like this.”
“I know, but we can’t bring them with us,” Teddy says.
“Yeah, I know.” I pull a quilt off the couch and drape it over Hayley. I walk out the door with Teddy and close the door behind me, sealing my friends in their temporary tomb.
We check all the vehicles on my street for gas or keys, but we don’t have any luck, not that I thought we would.
“Stick to the shoulder in case any cars come,” Teddy says.
I veer into the middle of the road and hold out my arms. “We haven’t seen anyone all weekend. I don’t think I’m going to become road kill anytime soon. Besides, I’m not afraid of getting run over. Isn’t that the way this thing works? Only the things that scare us can take us out?”
Teddy grabs my fingertips and tugs me toward him. “Maybe I’m afraid of watching you die. Did you ever think of that?”
Not wanting to pushy my already shitty luck, I take Teddy’s hand and walk with him along the shoulder. The sun dips behind the highest mountain peak, cloaking everything in shades of purple and grey. Teddy quizzes me as we walk, asking me everything from my favorite color to the actor I’d be more likely to run away with. I have the feeling that it has more to do with trying to keep my mind off the past thirty-six hours than it does with getting to know me. I try to ask him questions back but my brain feels fuzzy, like it’s wrapped with a warm towel, fresh out of the drier. I don’t realize how exhausted I am until we’ve been walking for over an hour.
“I don’t suppose you packed a sleeping bag in there?” I yawn.
“Only a couple sweaters,” Teddy says. “How about we get down around that next bend and then we take a break?”
“Does it matter if we just stop for the night?” I ask. “Even if we walk all night, there’s no way we’re going to make it down the mountain before sunrise.”
“I don’t know about you, but I want to put as much space between us and that fucking cabin as possible.”
“Gotcha.” I pick up my pace.
Teddy opens a bottle of water and drains half of it before he passes it to me. “We never really talked about it after Henry, but why do you think we were the only ones on the mountain this weekend?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Even on the quietest weekend, there were always at least one or two other cabins full of people, and that was just on my street alone. Who knows, maybe we’re in some alternate universe or tucked back in bed, sharing the same fucked up dream.”
“That’d be nice,” Teddy sighs. “If that’s the case, I’ll find you as soon as we wake up.”
“You better.” I link my pinky through his and we walk around the bend that signals our first break.
“Holy shit,” Teddy whistles.
We stop walking.
“I guess we’re not dreaming,” I say.
The road ahead of us is washed out in a waist-high sea of gravel and boulders. Tree limbs poke out of the rubble, along with the odd road sign. The debris disappears around the bend. Luckily, the air is settled and clear, so there’s no way this landslide just happened.
“I guess we know why the lake was deserted,” Teddy says.
I hold up my hand and listen. “We should hear clean-up crews. There’s no way they’d let a landslide like this just stay on the road, especially if they knew there were people on the mountain.”
“But they don’t know people are trapped, Murph,” Teddy says. “Your parents don’t know we’re here.”
“My mom would’ve figured it out by now,” I say. “Trust me. If not, they’ll still be working on getting it cleared. We just need to get over this slide and there’ll be crews, or at least a running vehicle we can take. I just know it.”
“Then let’s go,” Teddy says.
We carefully climb up the side of the gravel and silt, our sneakers slipping and sliding. When we reach the top, I stand up and listen. It’s silent. We walk along the pile until curves around the road again. And that’s when I see the reason for the lack of road crews.
The tunnel, the one we drove through with the old man in the pick-up truck, is completely caved in. Chunks of cement and twisted rebar barricade the entrance, making the very idea of venturing in impossible.
“Fuck,” Teddy says.
“Fuck,” I agree.
Teddy wraps his hands around his mouth and leans toward one of the small gaps in the rocks. “Hello!”
His voice doesn’t even echo. He turns to me. “Now what?”
I look behind me, up the road that leads to the cabin, and then into the forest. “Now we take a little hike.”
Teddy peers into the dense, dark forest that flanks the ruined tunnel. “Seriously?”
“Yup. If we hike up, we can cross over the tunnel and make it to the road on the other side. We can’t risk hiking below it – I’m pretty sure everyone is afraid of getting crushed to death by boulders,” I say lightly. I tighten the laces on my sneakers and take the first step up the steep embankment. My soles shift a little, but I don’t fall.
Teddy follows me and we slowly make our way up the mountain.
“This is going to make me sound like a total pansy,” Teddy pants. “But this is nothing like the hill setting on the treadmill.”
“The thinner air doesn’t help.” I grab a tree branch and use it to pull myself up the hill. I turn around and smile at him. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re a pansy.”
God, it feels good to joke around. Every step away from the cabin seems to make it a little easier to breathe, even though I’ve been winded for the last fifteen minutes.
We climb higher and higher into the dark. The ground is mostly solid, but every so often my foot slips and I let out a string of swears that would make a trucker blush.
“Murph?” Teddy asks, his voice tense with concentration.
“Yeah?” I small step forward. The decline is so steep that if we slip, we’re headed straight for VW bug-sized chunks of limestone.
“Henry was just joking about the bears. There aren’t any around here, right?’
“He was just trying to freak you out,” I say. “Don’t worry.”
I flash him a small smile and subtly scope the woods around us. Henry wasn’t lying, and neither was the skat I saw near the base of the tunnel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Even though the sun is set, the air is still warm and humid. My tank top suctions to my back and sweat drips off my legs.
“How much further up do we have to go?” Teddy asks from a few paces behind me.
I grab hold of a half-fallen pine tree and turn around. “We can start crossing over now. Just let me find the road so we don’t get lost.” I squint but I can’t see anything other than the trees.
Teddy turns around and shuffles down the mountainside a few feet. “Sonofabitch. I can’t see the road.”
“Neither can I, but this doesn’t make sense,” I say. “We came straight up the mountain. We can’t be lost.”
Teddy an
d I carefully make our way down the mountain, but the further down we go, the thicker the woods get. The trees are tall and covered in moss, not broken and bare like the ones we passed on the way up.
“It wasn’t just the cabin,” I whisper.
“It had to be the cabin.” Teddy falls back on his butt and pushes his hair out of his face. “If it wasn’t the cabin, then that means Korku somehow found us.”
“He’s a demon,” I say flatly. “I don’t think tracking us was too tough.”
A twig snaps somewhere in the distance. I pretend I don’t hear it.
“So does that mean a tribe of redneck cannibals are going to swoop out of the trees and kidnap us?” Teddy laughs humorlessly. “Because I saw that in a movie once and it totally freaked me out.”
The hair of the back of my neck stands up and stabs my skin like tiny swords. “I don’t know, but we should keep walking. Let’s start moving sideways and hopefully we’ll find the road on the other side of the tunnel.”
Teddy snorts but he stands up. “I wouldn’t put to much stock in hope, Daisy Grace.”
“Well that’s all we have right now.” I peck him on the mouth and start walking. Each step I take sends a mini landslide of dirt and leaves down the mountain.
“This angle makes me feel like I’m going to fall to my death,” Teddy says.
I turn around and smile at him. “I don’t think the trees would let you get that far.”
We walk for an hour, our only communication coming from grunts and the occasional swear. The snapping twigs follow us, but I can’t tell if it’s in my head or not because Teddy doesn’t say anything. It isn’t until it’s pitch black and I hear the loudest snap yet that he finally acknowledges it.
Acknowledge being the understatement of the year.
Teddy stops walking so suddenly that I plow full speed into his back. He whirls around, steadies me, and then steps in front of me. He holds his arms out at his sides and screams into the blackness, “Hey, why don’t you stop following us and just fight be like a real man?”
“Teddy, stop!” I hiss. I grab his elbow but he shakes me off.
“Come on!” He swings his flashlight behind us, the light cutting through the night but not finding anything. “Don’t be such a pussy!”
I dig my nails into his arm and grab the flashlight. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Teddy turns around and pulls me against his chest. He ducks down and presses his mouth against my ear. “Don’t you feel it?”
A faint snap comes from the dark space to our right.
I cling to Teddy. “What are you talking about?”
Teddy runs his hands over my sweat-slicked neck and down my arms. “Someone is watching us. I feel their eyes burning into my back like fucking lasers.”
Something shuffles to our left. Teddy takes the flashlight back.
“Get ready to run.” His lips glide over my earlobe. He presses a kiss into the spot behind my ear. “And don’t look back.”
They come out of the shadows slowly, illuminated only by our flashlights. Torches flare to life, surrounding us in a circle of fire. I scream and yank Teddy’s arm but there’s nowhere to run.
Our stalkers are dressed in torn, filthy overalls and faded plaid shirts. Most of them are bald, the flames flickering off their scarred and puckered heads. One man’s hair is so matted with dirt and twigs that it looks like a crude hat. All of them are holding a different weapon; the tallest leans on a pitchfork, one passes a crude wooden bat from hand to hand. They spit hunks of putrid black tar onto the ground near our feet. Someone whistles Yankee Doodle while dragging a rock over the blade of a rusted ax.
We all stand completely still. They don’t move toward us and we don’t move away from them.
“Do you see what we have here, boys?” The oldest of them – a man with a chest-length, stringy grey beard asks. “She’s just a young little thing. You couldn’t even call her a heifer…she’s just a little calf.”
The man with the pitchfork runs his tongue over his only front tooth. “I love me some veal.”
All of Teddy’s muscles flex. He taps my hand once, twice, “Run!”
He takes off in front of me and knocks the smallest man out of the way. I race to catch up and grab Teddy’s outstretched hand. Together, we run blindly down the mountain.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves some loose livestock,” the old man says. “Time to round’em up.”
Hoots and hollers fill the air.
The bouncing flashlight beam helps us avoid the trees but the branches bite into my face, chest and arms. Teddy doesn’t let go of me, even though he’d run faster on his own.
I can see the torches out of the corner of my eye. I run faster, my lungs burning like they’re stuffed full of white-hot coals.
They’re not real.
They’re not real.
They’re not real.
A gnarled hand claws at my back and catches my t-shirt. I’m yanked off my feet, my hand wretched from Teddy’s, and land on my back. My breath whooshes out of me so quickly I can’t muster enough air to scream. The stars above swirl and dance until they’re blocked out by the man with the pitchfork.
He’s not real.
I hear Teddy scrambling for me. Mountain men leap over me and rush toward him.
I try to sit up but a knee burrows into my chest.
“Easy there, chickadee,” the man growls. He leans down and all I can smell is tobacco and wild game. He leans down and sniffs my neck.
He’s not real.
Hot breath spills onto my skin, followed by warm saliva.
He’s not real.
I wretch away from him but I can’t move. Twigs and pine needles dig into my skin.
A rough, calloused hand slips up the front of my t-shirt.
He’s not real.
I close my eyes and try to block out the sounds of fists meeting flesh. Teddy isn’t making a sound. I slowly move my hands into the shadows and search for a stick or something. My fingers wrap around a large, jagged rock.
“I’m going to take you home and skin you like a cat,” the man growls in my ear. “But I’m going to mess about with you first.”
“You’re not real!” I scream and slam the rock into the side of the man’s head. He falls to the side and I struggle to my knees.
A deep cut tears through the man’s cheek. He’s on his back but his eyes are open. He opens his mouth and lets out a gurgled laugh. “I like when they put up a fight first.”
I bring the rock down again, directly into his cackling mouth. The rock blasts through his mouth, breaking off his teeth, leaving them in jagged points.
He laughs harder, specking my legs with hot blood.
“You’re. Not. Real.” I punctuate each word with another smash of the rock. I desecrate his nose with the first, flattening it into his face. I crush his orbital bone with the second, and indent his forehead with the third.
He’s finally quiet.
Suddenly, hands grab me by the armpits and haul me to my feet. I whirl around, gore-covered rock ready, and come face to face with Teddy.
“Teddy!” I drop the rock and throw myself at him. “I thought-”
“I know,” he says. He presses his lips to mine and looks over my shoulder. “Shit.”
I turn around and my stomach twists and turns. If I had anything in it, it’d be on Teddy’s sneakers. Before I can even dry heave, the carnage disappears.
“Oh no,” I moan as my nagging fear turns into an undeniable reality. It wasn’t just the cabin.
“He’s here,” Teddy whispers. “Korku is here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Teddy half pulls, half drags me down the mountain for the next twenty minutes.
“Where are we going?” I ask for the fifth time. My shoe catches a rock but Teddy steadies me before I fall.
“I don’t know, but we’re getting out of this fucking forest.” Teddy wipes his face with the back of his hand. My flashlight beam catc
hes of smear of blood.
“Hold on a second.” I dig my heels into the dirt until Teddy stops walking. I turn him around and shine my light in his face. “You’re bleeding.”
I touch a cut above his eye and another along the bridge of his nose. I trace a welt rising off his cheekbone.
“They got a few in before they hit the ground.” Teddy is stiff for a second before he leans into my hand. “I didn’t think I was going to make it to you in time.”
“I wasn’t worried,” I lie. Truthfully, I thought the sounds I heard was Teddy being beaten to death, not the other way around. “Why don’t we stop here for a little bit and sort each other out?”
“We can stop once we find the road,” Teddy says. He shines his flashlight down the mountain before letting loose a string of curses. “Of course it’s not there.”
“Maybe it never was,” I sigh. “Maybe there was a gas leak at the cabin and we’re just wandering around the basement, bumping into each other and-”
“Bashing our friend’s faces in?”
I cringe and my stomach somersaults. I had almost forgot about killing the redneck-who-never-was.
“I’m sorry, Murph.” Teddy wraps his arms around me and squeezes. “Let’s stop here for the night. There’s no chance we’re going to find this stupid road in the dark anyway.”
“Thank God,” I murmur into his chest. “I was seconds away from begging.”
Teddy’s low, slight chuckle rumbles through his torso. “Do you want to dig around the backpack? I think there’s some water left.”
“Now is so not the time to screw with me,” I say. I reach up Teddy’s back in case he’s joking, but there’s nothing there.
Teddy gropes my back and groans. “We must have left it back with the hillbillies.”
I collapse onto the ground and wrap my arms around my knees. “This night just keeps getting better.”
Teddy crouches next to me. “I was in boy scouts for a few years so I can try and make us a fire. That’ll keep us warm until the sun comes up.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about that,” I say. “I’m still sweating.”
