In the Woods

by Farrar, M K

  Right now, however, she regretted her decision. Her abductor had clearly rid her of her phone, but he might not have noticed a watch. Some of those watches even had the ability to send messages and receive calls. She imagined how much easier this would all be if she was simply able to call someone and have them come and rescue her. Her stubbornness not to follow trends might just have gotten her killed.

  There was nothing she could do about it now. She couldn’t have been asleep for more than a couple of hours, and it had still been dusk when she’d drifted off. That meant she had a long time to go before it was morning.

  This was going to be the longest night of her life.

  “But at least you’re still alive,” she said out loud, trying to comfort herself with the sound of her voice. “You could be like one of the other women right now, and already be dead.”

  You might end up deciding you’d have been better off letting him kill you.

  The voice was in her head, she knew that, but it had sounded real and clear enough to have come from her left, in the direction of where the first woman had been buried. What had he said her name was?

  Cass wracked her brains, trying to remember.

  Sonja Holland. That had been it. The one with the silkiest, jet black hair and ivory skin. She’d been his first kill, and right now she was buried less than five yards away. Why did Cass think it had been Sonja’s voice she’d heard in her head? It wasn’t as though she even knew what the other woman sounded like, was it? Maybe she’d seen pictures of the first girl on social media or on the news, but she didn’t think she’d ever heard her speak.

  It was ridiculous to even consider the possibility. This was just a case of her over-active imagination playing in the dark and conjuring ghosts. There was no such thing as ghosts—she’d decided that for herself a long time ago. If ghosts, just like aliens and other mythical creatures, were real, they’d have been caught on camera by now. Maybe thirty years ago, before everyone carried video cameras in their pockets, she might have believed, but now there was no way the paranormal existed. Something would have been definitively proven by now. Humans were blood and bone and flesh, and that was all. When they were gone, they were gone.

  She needed to stop getting so spooked out and focus on facts. The dead couldn’t hurt her—it had been the living that had done that.

  In the sky above, another lightning bolt forked across the sky, illuminating her prison. Moments later, it was followed by a second boom, roll, and crack of thunder.

  Ghosts and the dark might not be able to hurt her, but lightning could. While she wasn’t out in the open, and this tree was one of thousands, somewhere in the back of her mind, the knowledge that lightning was attracted to metal popped into her head. Was that true? Could the metal chain act as some kind of conduit to the lightning and attract it to this particular tree instead of one of the others? The lightning might strike, and either kill her or badly burn her, or else it could hit the canopy of the trees and send huge branches down to crush her beneath.

  The sky lit up once more, shortly followed by a crack of thunder, and Cass discovered she was no longer afraid of imagined ghosts, but was instead afraid of the very real thunderstorm. There was barely any time between the lightning and the thunder, which meant it was right on top of her. The rain continued to pelt down, striking her face and shoulders as she stared up into the sky, catching glimpses of the flashes between the branches of the trees above.

  There was nothing she could do to stop the storm.

  Remembering that lightning tended to hit things that were taller, all she could think to do to protect herself was hunker back down against the tree trunk. She edged the chain down the trunk, as low as it could get, and then curled up with her chained feet beneath her body, hoping the position would protect that particular piece of metal from the storm. She couldn’t do anything about her hands, however, and they remained elevated, near her head, since the chain wasn’t wide enough to allow her to pull it all the way down to the ground.

  A leaf bent under the weight of the rainwater and spilled its load directly down the back of her neck. She gasped in shock and huddled in further, wishing she had shelter.

  Wishing she was any place other than where she was right now.

  Chapter Nine

  Eventually, she must have fallen asleep again.

  When Cassandra woke, the darkness had given way to faint morning light, and, to her relief, the rain had stopped.

  She’d survived her first night.

  Her clothes were still soaked through, and most of her body was numb. Her fingers were strangely white, wrinkled and bloated, like those of a corpse. Tentatively, she tried to move her hands, but they were asleep from lack of blood flow and slow to respond. The rest of her body felt the same way. Her back ached, and her legs and feet were soaked and cold beneath her.

  With a groan, she shifted positions, stretching her legs out in front of her. She hadn’t bothered to put her sneakers back on, and her toes looked much the same as her fingers.

  Suddenly remembering the dead man, she shot her head around, making sure he was still in the same place. She didn’t know why she’d imagined he might have moved during the night, but for some reason, the sudden certainty that he could have gotten up and walked off during the storm filled her head. Perhaps he hadn’t been dead after all?

  But no, he was still in the same position as she’d left him.

  Maybe not in exactly that same position. Had the torrent of rainwater moved him a few inches? What about the bag with all the stuff? It was lighter, and so a heavy flow of rain might have lifted it. Of course, that didn’t mean it had moved any closer to her—it was just as likely to move farther away. She also realized the rainwater would have soaked through both the material of the bag and the Magician’s clothes, making them both heavier and harder to move than they had been before.

  The feeling was coming back to her hands and feet—a rush of pins and needles, so strong she understood where the term ‘pins and needles’ came from. It actually felt like someone was stabbing her, and she cried out, sending some birds bursting from one of the trees nearby.

  “Shit, shit, shit! Ah, fuck!” Desperately, she rubbed one hand with the other, wishing the pain away.

  She tried to move her legs, but a cramp took hold of the sole of her right foot, and she screamed as fresh pain shot through her. She couldn’t even reach down and rub her foot better—the distance between her feet and chained hands was too great. Tears filled her eyes, and she gritted her teeth, rocking back and forth as she willed the pain to ease.

  It did, eventually, leaving her with tear-filled eyes and gasping for breath, terrified to move in case the pain came back. But she couldn’t just stay in one spot. She needed to move to get the blood flowing again, no matter how much it hurt. She didn’t know if it was possible for limbs to drop off simply from lack of blood flow, but she was in enough shit right now without adding that to her list of problems.

  Besides, her bladder was aching again, and she needed to pee, and she wasn’t about to do that while sitting in one spot. It was bad enough being damp and cold from the rain, without adding her own urine into the mix.

  At least the pee would be warm.

  No, stop that.

  She shook the voices away.

  Her fingers were finally feeling normal again. Though they were still white and wrinkled, they’d started to pink up, and the painful pins and needles had died away. With a groan and using the chain for support, she pulled herself up to standing. Her legs were weak and shaky, and a bout of dizziness forced her to stop and press her palm to the rough bark of the tree trunk to hold herself up.

  When the dizziness passed, she dragged the chain around to the rear of the tree, and then repeated the process of undoing her pants and poking her rear end out, as far away from the tree as she could get it, before releasing her bladder. The ground was already squelchy from the night’s rainfall, her urine, strong and pungent, joining it.
r />   Cass finished and wriggled her pants and underwear back into place.

  The steady thump of a headache had returned. Even though she’d managed to drink some of the rainwater, it hadn’t been much. By peeing onto the ground, she’d just lost a possible source of fluid.

  She wrinkled her nose at the thought, unsure if she’d be able to bring herself to drink her own urine. Just the thought triggered her gag reflex, and she couldn’t afford to be sick again. At least the night’s rainfall had washed away her vomit, and the blood of the dead man, too. She didn’t dare sniff the air to see if she was able to smell him decomposing or not. She’d learned her lesson the first time, though she figured give it another day or two, especially if it stayed warm, and she wouldn’t need to try to smell anything—it would either be so overwhelming that she wouldn’t be able to miss it, or she’d be the one dead and decomposing.

  She couldn’t keep thinking like that. She wouldn’t allow herself to be here for days. There must be some way out of this situation. She just hadn’t figured it out yet.

  Though she’d already tried, Cass gritted her teeth and pulled on the chains wrapped tightly around her wrists. They locked at the point where her hand widened from her wrist and wouldn’t go any farther. That chain was attached by a padlock to the second chain—which was the one that had already been here when they arrived, circled around the diameter of the tree trunk. That was the chain he’d attached each of the women to when he’d brought them here. Why had he done that? Was it simply to stop them from escaping, or had he liked seeing them like this, utterly helpless and unable to fight back? Only, she had managed to fight back, hadn’t she? She’d been more of an adversary than he’d given her credit for. Not that it had done her any good, however. She was still no closer to being saved.

  Cass turned her attention back to the body. He was starting to attract flies now—fat, black bodies landing on exposed parts of his skin and crawling around. Just the sight of them made her shudder.

  If only he’d fallen just a little bit closer. The key to the padlock was tantalizingly near. She could visualize it in his pocket, small and silver. It seemed crazy how something so small was standing in the way of her living or dying.

  She pulled again at her wrists, giving a growl of frustration as the metal only dug deeper into her skin, leaving red marks. There was no possibility she was going to be able to pull her hands out of the chains. He’d made sure of that. If she kept pulling, she’d only end up hurting herself.

  Hunger made itself known as a hollowness she experienced in her entire torso, as though her lack of food had somehow affected all her other organs. It had been at least twenty-four hours since she’d eaten anything. She eyed the bag the man had placed on the ground before he’d approached her with the knife. She was certain he’d have brought something to eat along with him. After all, kidnapping, rape, and murder would surely build up an appetite.

  Cass snorted back inappropriate laughter. What did one pack up as a picnic for a fine day out murdering and raping? If only she could get hold of the bag, she’d be able to find out.

  She was lightheaded from her low blood sugar. Would she go mad out here? Perhaps that would be better than staying lucid. At least if she was crazy, she might be a little less aware of her own suffering.

  She wondered if anyone had noticed her missing yet. Her manager, Donna, would surely think it strange that she didn’t turn up two days in a row without calling in, and surely her roommate, Lacey, would notice her bed hadn’t been slept in, and that there were no dishes left in their tiny excuse for a kitchen. They didn’t spend much time together, it was true, but Cass was sure she’d notice if Lacey hadn’t come home at all, wouldn’t she? Would she think to call if Lacey didn’t come home, or would she just assume Lacey was an adult and more than capable of taking care of herself? Maybe Lacey thought Cass had hooked up with some guy and was having days of crazy, dirty sex.

  Crazy and dirty might be about right, she thought, glancing down at her mud streaked skin and clothes, but any sex she would have been having, if this guy hadn’t managed to stab himself with his own knife, definitely wouldn’t have been consensual.

  Perhaps her boss would look deeper into things. Cassandra’s home address was bound to be in her files. Donna might call the police and explain that she hadn’t been able to get hold of Cass for a couple of days after she hadn’t shown up at work and ask them to drop around and check that everything was all right. Was twenty-four hours long enough for them to open a missing person’s case? Cassandra was an adult, so it wasn’t as though she didn’t have the right to take off, if she wanted to. But the police might be on high alert for missing women because of the Magician, and so they’d pay more attention than normal to a woman who was missing, who was in her early twenties, slim and pretty, like the others who’d been taken. She fit the profile.

  But even if they did report her missing, that still didn’t mean they had any idea where to start looking for her. The police didn’t tell the public how far along they were with a case because they didn’t want to give the killer any ideas that they were on to him. Did they have any idea who he was—or at least, who he had been—and where he took his victims? She prayed they had some idea. Even if they had an inkling about the area, it might be enough for them to send a search team up here.

  Cass couldn’t let herself get hung up on the idea of being rescued. Doing so might be signing her death warrant. As each day, or even hour, went by, she would be getting weaker, and more dehydrated and disoriented, and it would be harder to help herself. She needed to stay strong and keep moving, to make sure her limbs stayed mobile and her mind remained clear.

  Maybe she hadn’t tried hard enough to get the key. She might as well try again. It wasn’t as though she had anywhere else she needed to be.

  “Come on, Cass. You can do this,” she said out loud, fixing her sights on the dead man’s jacket. How could something look so close and yet be so far out of reach?

  She slid down the trunk to plant her backside in the earth. Damp soaked into the seat of her pants, and she grimaced at the fresh hit of cold. Getting as low on the ground as possible, her arms stretched behind her head, she reached out both feet. The chain between her ankles dragged through the earth. She tried not to think about the snake she’d seen, but she couldn’t deny the existence of all the other creepy crawlies she was disturbing. A beetle scuttled over the back of her hand, and an earthworm wriggled through the dirt beneath her. The mosquitos were back as well, buzzing around her head. She’d already been bitten, but in the grand scheme of things, something that would have pissed her off in the real world was now nothing to worry about.

  Her bare toes touched the now damp material of his jacket. She hadn’t been the only one to get soaked in last night’s storm, though she figured he’d have been a lot less bothered by it. Her shoulder joints strained, her arms locking, the chain jammed tight around her wrists. Just like before, she was able to get hold of the jacket with her toes, but she still couldn’t move him. The rainwater hadn’t helped, making him even heavier than he’d been before.

  If only she could get her hands lower on the trunk, so she could stretch her body out farther on the ground. That was her limiting factor right now. She didn’t know if it would be enough, but if she could get her feet around the Magician’s arm and pulled him toward her using that instead of just a piece of his clothing, that was bound to work. Perhaps she could even put the chain between her ankles to good use, hooking it around his body and using that to pull him closer.

  Cass sat up again and moved her focus from the body to the tree trunk and the chain looped around it.

  The only way she could get the chain lower was if the tree trunk was thinner at the bottom, allowing her to maneuver the chain. She bit her lip, thinking, studying the tree, willing for something to come to her. Her gaze traveled higher up the tree trunk, and she clambered back to her feet. Putting out her hand, she touched the areas where the chain sat, the bark
rubbed away to expose lighter grooves beneath.

  How long had it taken for the bark to be worn away? What kind of force had been needed? It had clearly happened while the other women had been chained up here and were trying to escape themselves. They must have pulled on the chain, or circled the tree, or perhaps done a combination of both. Her thoughts went to the other women and what they had suffered. How long had they been kept here before he’d killed them? Had it been hours? Or, like her, had they been chained here for days, tortured by that son of a bitch until he’d eventually had enough and killed them?

  Some of us were hours, some were days, a voice said from nearby.

  Cass jumped, her heart pounding. Her stomach lurched up into the back of her throat. She spun around, as much as the chain would allow her, her eyes wide. She’d heard the voice that time, she was sure of it. It had sounded as though it came from over her shoulder, unmistakably female.

  But no one was there. She was completely alone.

  She’d heard the voice, though. She’d bet her life on it.

  Ghosts.

  No, she didn’t believe in ghosts, and she wasn’t about to start now. This was nothing more than her frightened mind playing tricks on her, just as it had been during the night when she’d thought she’d heard someone say her name. It was normal to start hearing things during times of extreme stress, wasn’t it?

  She had no idea if this was true, but it at least made her feel better. Hearing voices, however, did not make her feel better.

  Licking her dry lips, Cass tried hard to swallow. She wished she’d been able to catch some of the rainwater last night to save for today. She tortured herself with images of tall glasses of iced water, condensation dripping down the sides. Though she was also starving, it was the thirst that bothered her more. The mouthfuls she managed to gulp down during the night hadn’t been enough, and now the sun was out, she was only going to get thirstier. Luckily, the leaves and branches above her head offered some dappled shade, or she’d really be in trouble, but that didn’t stop the dull headache spreading from the front of her skull and wrapping around to the back.