by Farrar, M K
She needed to get her head together and get on with this. The sooner she got the key out of his jacket pocket, the sooner she’d be able to free herself. She knew it would be a risk trying to find someplace safe to go when she had no idea of her location and was surrounded by hundreds of miles of woodlands. But she didn’t have any choice in the matter. It wasn’t as though she could fly the plane out of here. She’d be likely to get herself killed. But maybe the plane had a radio so she could call for help. Or perhaps there would be supplies she’d be able to use, or at the very least it would mean some shelter. But hiding away in a plane wasn’t going to get her rescued. Besides, that was nothing more than a pipe dream for the moment. The first thing she had to do was get herself away from this fucking tree and the graveyard the Magician had created.
Cass focused on his body.
Her hands were chained to the tree, so she couldn’t reach out and try to grab his jacket. She had a few inches of give where the chain was loose enough to move up and down the trunk, but that was all.
Taking a deep breath, swallowing down her revulsion, she stretched her legs out toward him again. She needed to grab hold of a part of him with her feet and pull him closer. She still wasn’t quite sure how she was going to reach inside his pocket and take out a tiny silver key when her hands were chained halfway up a tree, but getting the body closer was the first step.
She jerked back, her pulse racing. Did he just move? Did she see it, or was she imagining things?
With her breath trapped in her chest, she stared at the man. Frozen, forgetting even to blink, she waited.
Nothing happened. She must have imagined it.
Realizing she had more dexterity without her shoes, she pushed off her sneakers with her heels. She wriggled down as low as she could go on the tree trunk, so the middle of her back was scraping against the ground. But the trunk grew wider the lower she got, and the chain jammed and wouldn’t go any lower. Could she reach now?
She let out a low groan, wishing there was some other way around this. She didn’t want to touch a dead body, even if she hated the person the body belonged to.
Her shoulders were wrenched behind her in this position, but it allowed her to wriggle a little farther down. Leaves and twigs caught the backs of her thighs, digging into the flesh of her bottom. She tried not to think about the insects that might be creeping and crawling beneath her, the possibility that they might have bred using the decomposing bodies of the murdered women.
“Come on, come on.”
Her feet scraped soft, buttery fabric. His suede jacket. She needed to curl her toes, to try to hook the material and pull it toward her. Biting down on her lower lip as she concentrated, Cass managed to grip the material, the edge of the jacket squeezed between her toes and the fleshy fronts of her soles. With her brow furrowed as she focused, she slowly bent her knees, trying to pull both the jacket and the body toward her.
The jacket slipped out of her grip, and her knees jerked back into her body.
“Fuck!”
Cass growled in annoyance, but she couldn’t give up after one shot. She couldn’t give up at all. She needed to get the key.
Sucking in a deep breath and exhaling slowly to focus herself, she tried again. Her arms were held above her head, the chain straining against her skin as she edged back down. Every millimeter she could get would give her a little extra leeway, allowing her to get a better hold.
She managed to catch the jacket between her toes again. Holding her breath and squeezing the material as tightly as possible, she carefully pulled.
The jacket slipped out of her grip once again, and Cass shrieked with frustration. It wasn’t getting hold of the jacket with her toes that was the problem. It was that the body was too heavy. Any amount of pulling using only her toes wasn’t going to shift it. If it was only the jacket she was trying to pull, there wouldn’t have been a problem, but not the literal dead weight of an entire adult male. She didn’t have enough strength in the grip of her toes to do that.
Her ankles were still chained together, though she had about twelve inches of give between them. Would it help to grab the jacket between both of her feet instead? It was certainly worth a try.
Her shoulder joints screamed with pain, so she pushed back on her heels for a moment, wedging herself higher up the tree trunk. The slack in the chain wasn’t much, but it was enough to allow her to lower her shoulders and roll out her neck. Her fingers had grown cold and numb, even though the weather was still warm, and she wiggled them around, clenching and unclenching her fists to get the blood flow back into them. The chains had cut hard into her skin, creating deep, red grooves, and she used one hand to rub away the pain on one wrist and then repeated the action with the other. It was a small amount of comfort, but she had to take what she could.
When she felt like she was loosened up again, she squirmed her way back down the trunk, ignoring the rough bark scraping her skin, and the sharp twigs and hard pieces of stone stabbing into the backs of her thighs and backside. Like a ballerina with pointy toes, she stretched out both feet, her thigh muscles straining. She was doing her best not to think about the fact this was a dead body she was trying to reach.
The key. Focus on the key.
That was the most important thing in all of this. Without the key, she couldn’t see how she was going to free herself. But with it, she could simply unlock the padlocks and set herself loose. What came after that, she wasn’t sure. But anything would be better than this.
He might have a cell phone in that bag, a little voice spoke up in her head. Or even in another pocket.
But you don’t know where you are.
She’d been unconscious for the majority of the flight. They could have been in the air for thirty minutes, or three hours—she had no way of knowing.
Can’t the police trace mobile phone numbers these days? All you need to do is call nine-one-one, and they’ll be able to track where you are.
Of course, none of that mattered if he didn’t even have a cell phone on him, and it mattered even less if she wasn’t able to get hold of the key and free herself from this goddamned tree.
Cass closed both sets of toes onto the edge of his jacket and closed her eyes briefly. Please, please, please. With her teeth gritted, she held down as tightly as she could and pulled.
Once more, the body remained exactly where it was, not even shifting a matter of millimeters, and the jacket slipped out of her grasp.
She screamed at the futility of her situation, and beat her chained fists against the rough bark of the tree behind her. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
This wasn’t going to work.
The gravity of her situation suddenly sank in, and cold rushed through her.
Oh, God. She was out here in the middle of nowhere. No one knew where she was. She had no way of undoing the lock which held the chains to the tree.
Her breath left her lungs in little gasping pants, the world spinning. She scrambled to her feet, pulling the chain circling the tree up with her. How the fuck was she going to get out of this?
Panic rose inside her.
“Help! Someone, help me!”
The total isolation seemed to tunnel in on her, as though she could see herself from above, the one living human being in miles and miles of wilderness. The tears came now, streaming down her face, and she screamed and shrieked and wailed, bashing her hands against the tree trunk and stamping her feet, like a toddler having a meltdown.
“Help! Please, help me!”
The all-encompassing terror held her in its grip, minute after minute. She may have lost her mind for a while, unable to think past her desperation to be free and have someone help her.
But no one came.
She was all alone.
Chapter Six
Cass didn’t know how long she’d been screaming when her strength eventually gave out.
She slumped down to the ground, her face wet with tears, her throat raw from her cries for help. Her
entire body trembled from fear and exertion, and she was dizzy and weak.
The sun had sunk lower in the sky, dipping beneath the canopy of trees. She shivered, her shoulders shuddering. If she didn’t figure out a way out of this soon, she was going to be spending the night here. How dark was it going to get? She couldn’t remember how full the moon had been the previous night. The idea of spending the night out here, chained to a tree, while surrounded by the corpses of seven murdered women and the body of the man who’d killed them chilled her right down to her soul. Could she survive a night out here?
It wasn’t only the dead she was frightened of. There were wild animals—black bear and moose, and maybe even wolves. If a predator smelled her, it might seek her out. Her gaze landed on the body in front of her. It might not even be her a predator would smell. It might pick up the scent of the dead body and be drawn in by that. Could she smell the blood? From her position against the tree, it seemed like bucketloads had soaked into the ground.
She craned her neck and sniffed, and instantly regretted it.
The stink of something filled her nostrils, and she turned her face away, trying to avoid it. Metallic, mixed with the earthy odors of the forest. And something else underlying it, putrid and dank. The body. She was smelling the body, and the blood that had seeped out of it and mixed with the forest floor.
No, it was too soon. She had been here for several hours, but she was sure it took longer than that to be able to smell a decomposing body. Or maybe it wasn’t only his body she was starting to smell. Only a matter of ten feet or so away, the last girl—blonde haired, twenty-year-old Anna Whittle—had been buried, and that had been a couple of weeks ago now. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed the smell before, but the killer’s death had made her focus on the aroma of death, and now she was smelling it, she couldn’t stop. It was as though her olfactory senses had honed on the stench of blood and death, and now she couldn’t escape it.
Bile rose in the back of her throat, scorching a fiery track up her gullet. Cass coughed, her throat irritated by the acid, and as she did, a surge of vomit rose. She had no control over her body’s reactions. Leaning to one side, as far as the chain would allow her, she puked a hot stream of the water she’d drunk from the bottle earlier, together with her stomach acid.
She coughed and spluttered, her eyes streaming. She retched again, but this time nothing came out. Her forehead prickled with perspiration and clear snot ran from her nose. Well, she guessed that meant she hadn’t managed to eat breakfast this morning. There certainly hadn’t been any sign of it on the way back up. Normally, she didn’t bother eating before she left her apartment. She worked in a coffee shop, and it was just as easy getting breakfast there. Besides, she never much felt like eating at five in the morning. She certainly wasn’t hungry now either, especially not since she’d been sick, and she was convinced the stench of death still hung around her.
How long would her lack of hunger last, though? Maybe she wasn’t hungry right now because she’d been pumped full of drugs and put through one of the most terrifying times of her life, but eventually she’d start to get hungry. Even worse, she was going to be thirsty. She already had a hideous taste in her mouth from the vomit, and while she hadn’t managed to keep the last drink of water down, she already wished she had something to drink.
Her gaze traveled across the body of the man toward the bag he’d left sitting on the forest floor. He’d had supplies in there. She’d seen the bottle of water, and she bet he had snacks, too. It wasn’t as though he could pop to the local store to buy anything, and she was sure he spent time out here with his victims, enough that he’d need refreshments. A shudder ran through her at the thought. However horrifying her current situation was, it could have been worse. That son of a bitch might still be alive, and he’d be busy raping and cutting pieces off her by now. No matter how bad things got, she needed to keep that at the forefront of her mind. There were seven other women around her who hadn’t been so lucky.
Cass barked laughter at the thought of this being lucky. She’d been abducted and chained to a tree in the middle of nowhere. No one knew where she was, or where to start looking for her. Did anyone even realize she was missing yet? It was later in the day now—she could tell by the position of the sun—but had she been missed? Her boss at the coffee shop would have realized she hadn’t come to work, but Cassandra couldn’t even remember if she’d opened up or not. She was wearing her sneakers, and not her work shoes, so that made her think she hadn’t gotten that far, but her memory of that morning was murky. If she hadn’t opened up, her manager, Donna, would have assumed she was sick or had forgotten her shift, and probably would have called her cell phone to see what had happened to her. Obviously, she wasn’t going to answer. Cass didn’t even know what had happened to her phone or her purse, so would the alarm be raised right away? Or would Donna just leave a pissy message on her voicemail, demanding to know what had happened to her, and leave it at that? Maybe if her purse and phone were found, someone would realize something bad had happened to her, but if it wasn’t, no one would even know she was missing. Her roommate, Lacey, would be at work, too, and she was used to Cassandra not being there when she woke up. Chances were, Lacey would end up going out for drinks after work, too, so might not even notice when she got back that Cass was still missing.
A solid rock formed inside Cassandra’s stomach and sank low. If her boss didn’t raise the alarm, there was a good chance no one would even be looking for her yet.
She couldn’t stop her thoughts going to her family. If she had more people in her life who cared for her, maybe things would be different. Parents who messaged her, or siblings who might pop into the coffee shop to see her at work, and realize she was missing, or even a boyfriend who’d know something was wrong if she didn’t answer her phone.
Her homelife had never been a happy one growing up. Where many people could recall their childhoods in detail, she found she was only aware of small chunks of hers. It was just snippets—like a birthday or a trip to the beach. Things other women her age remembered clearly, such as when they’d had wobbly teeth as a small child, or even when she’d gotten her first period, she simply had no recollection of at all. She remembered her parents fighting, however. Remembered sitting on the top of the stairs, her arms around her skinny knees, listening to them screaming at one another.
She hadn’t always been an only child. She’d had a brother, a long time ago. She was six years old when he died, and he was only three. Just like with the rest of her memory of childhood, he only existed in tiny glimpses of time. She remembered him climbing into bed with her and them hiding under the covers together, giggling at their game, pretending they were in a cave. She remembered how soft and fine his hair had been under her nose, and the way he squealed if she tickled him.
That loss, and the repercussions of that day, had been a black hole in her life, sucking in everything that might have been good.
No, she didn’t want to think about him right now. She didn’t want to think about any of her time growing up. Life was hard enough in this moment without dredging up any of that shit. She’d moved away the day she’d turned eighteen and never looked back. Thinking about it all wasn’t going to help her.
Cass’s mouth was horribly dry. She wished she hadn’t thrown up. She’d wasted the small amount of water she’d managed to drink that day. The rucksack containing the bottle taunted her. She might not have been able to move the body toward her using her feet, but was there any way she could get the bag? It was far lighter than the body, but it was also farther away.
Was there any way she could reach it?
There was no possibility she’d be able to reach it with her hands, but she still had her feet. She hadn’t bothered to put her sneakers back on after she’d tried to reach the jacket with her toes. Perhaps she could hold something between her toes and use it to hook the bag?
Frowning, her lips pressed together, she looked around at the vicinity where she
was standing.
The ground was scattered with the usual debris she’d expect to find under a tree—fallen dried leaves, covering a carpet of mulch, which in turn covered mud. Twigs and small rocks jutted out from the forest floor. Moss covered the lower part of the tree trunk, and a couple of smaller ferns grew from where the thick roots penetrated the ground. Overlapping clusters of fungi protruded—some like discs embedded in the side of the tree, and others the classic mushroom shape, like little umbrellas. Cass didn’t know enough about fungi to be able to identify them, but she was fairly certain the ones with the red caps and white spots would have a good chance of killing her if she attempted to eat them. The yellowy orange ones growing in tight clusters from the roots of the tree didn’t look quite so threatening, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Or at least, it wasn’t right now. Who knew how she would feel if she was still out here in several days and was literally starving to death.
She spotted what she’d been looking for—a longer branch about an inch in thickness. It wouldn’t be too heavy for her to lift with her feet, but should be strong enough to hold the bag, if she was able to reach it.
The stick was half buried beneath the leaves and mulch. Unable to use her hands, Cass lowered herself to her bottom again. She stretched out her feet toward the stick, grabbing it between her soles. She gave it a yank, pulling it out from beneath the undergrowth
A dart of movement shot out from behind the stick.
Cassandra froze, her breath locked in her chest. A snake with a tan head and darker brown markings slithered through the leaves.
Copperhead!
The snake’s body undulated in strong, defined movements toward her. If it touched her, or slithered over her leg, she thought she might scream. Screaming was a bad idea, as was making any kind of fast movement. These snakes were known for biting rather than running away, and even though their bites weren’t as venomous as some, she couldn’t take the risk of having a snakebite to deal with on top of everything else.
