by ST Branton
“God, how many times did I try to talk you into camping with my family?” Her voice was still several octaves higher than it should be.
“At least three.”
“Try a hundred. Maybe a thousand. Oh, man, Slick, this will be so much fun. We’ll bring a telescope and some marshmallows and chocolate and graham crackers, and…” she started rattling off.
“Bug spray and a lighter,” I interrupted. Ally looked at me with her jaw agape, as if I had besmirched her entire family.
“Bug spray, yes, obviously, but we don’t need a lighter. We can use flint to start a flame. I learned all about starting fires. I have badges and everything,” she said snootily. But I saw the grin behind the snoot.
“Yes, yes, you’re the survivalist girl, I’m only a girl who lived in a murderous prison for a decade. You totally have me on the ‘don’t die’ skills. Seriously, though, I think that after all that time in a dark, dank location, a night under the stars sounds fun. Especially hanging out with you,” I quipped.
“Aww, thanks, bestie.” She nudged me with her hip. “So, fresh air and sunshine aren’t your mortal enemies anymore?”
“We’ll see.” I laughed. We crested a hill and were in a large outcrop of trees that led back down into a gorge ahead. In the distance, there was a clearing that overlooked the area, and I started us toward it. It seemed like the perfect place to stake out a camping spot.
As we neared the area, Ally ran out into the middle of the open space and twirled around, a smile breaking across her face. She was already planning the menu and order of operations for our night camping when I noticed something was wrong. It was Splinter. He stood stock-still several feet in front of me, up on his hind legs, but not like he was begging or looking for something to eat. This was an aggressive stance. A low growl came from deep in his belly.
I turned to see what he was looking at, but the tree line looked empty. The area we stood in was also empty, and there was a gorge on one side. Whatever he sensed, I couldn’t see it, but years of trusting his instincts taught me to be alert. I touched the shield rune disguised as a bracelet on my arm and reached in my pocket for the switchblade. Ally, dizzy from spinning, stopped to look at me. Her face screwed up in the way it did when she smelled something particularly rank. Then her eyes went wide, and her jaw trembled. A hand rose, and she pointed behind me. Splinter shrieked, and I spun in time to dodge a sharpened stick thrown at my back.
It was a dryad, maybe seven feet tall, and he was running toward me. Unlike the dry, gray dead thing with the kind-looking eyes, this one was green and brown and brimming with life in his eyes. He was also determined to end a life, notably mine. With no time to think, I rolled to my right. It took the dryad off-guard, and he stumbled to a stop and turned toward me. As he did, Splinter jumped up and bit him on the ankle. It seemed to have little to no effect, and I activated the shield.
The dryad punched me, but the shield blocked the blow. His hand crunched into the protective magic, and he cried out in pain. Using the shield like a weapon, I swung the energy field up until it crashed into his jaw and sent him onto his back. After flicking the switchblade open, I prepared to move in for the kill when Ally screamed.
I looked up to see the clearing swarming with dryads. Some of them were more tree-like than their companion, and they wore various levels of clothing. While the one on the ground only had shorts on, some of these had t-shirts and long pants. One or two even wore shoes. There had to be ten or more of them, and some were circling Ally. I ran to her, jump-kicking one as I drew near. Without the locket, I couldn’t get as high on my jumps as I was used to and lamely kicked him in the chest.
It wasn’t what I’d seen in my mind, but it was enough to knock him back into a smaller dryad, and they both crashed to the ground. Another reached for me, but I sliced his arm with the switchblade. He cried out and another took his place. I kicked it low but felt like I did more damage to my leg than to him. Switching up my tactic to one that had worked before, I slammed the shield into his chest and sent him sputtering backward.
“Ally, run,” I screamed while trying to fend off the dryads circling us. If I could get her safe, she could get in touch with Archie, maybe find help. Unless the trees killed me. In that case, they would at least know to run and never look back.
Ally took off the way we came, and a huge dryad stepped in front of her. He blocked her movement and reached out to grab her. In my panic, I threw the switchblade at him, and it landed in his shoulder. He roared in pain and fell to his knees. The rest of them closed in on me now, and I ran to the one I stabbed. Ally was now yards away, and I yanked the blade out of his arm. As I did, I turned to follow Ally and met a tree trunk arm that punched me so hard I flew backward into the wooded area. I hit the ground hard, and my vision dimmed. I tasted blood in my mouth, and my body refused to respond.
The last thing I saw was Ally, kicking and screaming while being taken away under the arm of the dryad I had stabbed with my switchblade. My mouth opened to protest, but no sound came, and slowly, my eyes shut.
Chapter Seventeen
Nothing wakes you up quite like sharp little Splinter feet in your face. Usually, I hated it when my animated toilet brush-looking pet decided to do an early morning dance on my forehead to inform me I should be up and giving him something to eat.
He didn't do it often because he was lazy, but when he did, oh, he really got into it. But considering it wasn't morning and Splinter had already eaten plenty, his efforts to wake me up didn't bother me nearly as much. I crushed my eyes closed more tightly for a few seconds, silently evaluating my body to make sure nothing was broken or missing.
The next stage was gradually feeling my arms and legs to make sure they were there and intact. I'd like to think I was the type of person who would be able to tell if a large chunk of me was removed while I was asleep, but you can never be too sure.
I was finally confident I was not only alive but still in as much of one piece as when I walked into the woods. I opened my eyes and looked around. It looked like I was still in the same place I was when fighting the dryads. My head rang as I pieced together my memory of the fight, but what I remembered most clearly was watching Ally get dragged away.
I had no idea how much time passed between seeing that and waking up. The light around me was different, and the change indicated I had been out for a while. At least an hour, maybe more. That meant she could be anywhere by now.
Trying to scramble to my feet proved unpleasant at best and jarringly painful at worst. The fight with the dryads left me sore, but not seriously harmed. I couldn't feel any blood running down my skin, and my muscles were all ready and willing to get me moving. It was the pain that made jumping to my feet not exactly the best option for the moment. Instead, I rolled over onto my hands and knees. I wasn't exactly standing yet, but I was no longer sprawled out on the forest floor. I would accept that as a victory.
Splinter scurried over to me and rubbed his prickly side against my face. He made a chattering sound I recognized as happiness and once thought was a potential precursor to him completely snapping and taking us all out. I wouldn't put it past Splinter. I still found him absolutely adorable and loved him dearly, but it didn't escape me that I still had no clue what he was, and therefore didn't really have a frame of reference for how he might behave in different circumstances. It was all about learning as we went between Splinter and me.
"Have you seen Ally? Did you see where they took her?"
Splinter stared back at me without saying a word. He was kind of the strong, silent type that way. It wasn't particularly helpful at the moment. I got to my feet and looked around. There was no sign of Ally or the dryads I had seen holding her. When I first woke up, there was a moment of hope. I thought maybe the blow to my head mixed up all the signals in my brain and I didn't see my best friend getting abducted by bark-covered Farsiders. Perhaps the fight was too intense, and they moved her out of the way because she didn't pose a threat to them.
She could be curled up somewhere nearby, waiting for me to find her.
But then, why leave us? Where were the dryads, and what was the point of the fight?
That wasn't what happened. She wasn't around here anymore for the same reason the dryads weren't. They took her.
My lungs protested as I tried to pull in as much air as possible and hold it. When it wouldn't stay in there any longer, I forced myself to release it in a long, controlled stream. I repeated the action, willing myself to absorb all the anxiety and fear from throughout my body and push it out in the breath. It sounded like one of the completely whacked out things my hippified PE teacher in middle school would have said. I thought it was bunk then, and I still thought it was bunk, but I'd be willing to string myself in crystals and perform a stylized swimming event in a pool of essential oils if I thought it might keep me calm.
I was doing everything I could not to panic. Of course, a surefire way to create panic is to try to convince yourself and others there was no reason to panic. Which was what spiraled my mind out of control. It cycled through a brutal slideshow of my time in The Deep.
Every moment that flashed in front of my eyes was another of the terrible things the Farsiders threatened to do to me during my ten years there. And then some of the things they actually did to me. They might not be serving sentences in The Deep, but I knew other Farsiders were more than capable of fulfilling those threats and various other creative options I hadn't even heard of.
Which meant I needed to snap the hell out of my thoughts and find my best friend before she got ground up by the hoof of a centaur and stuffed into a goblin's intestine to be used as breakfast sausage. That one was courtesy of a particularly delightful troll angry with me for standing in the patch of imaginary sunlight coming through his imaginary window.
I looked around frantically and noticed a small trail leading away from where I woke up. Was that where they went? I couldn't remember if that was the direction they were going when I saw them snatch Ally. Disoriented and confused after hitting my head on whatever I landed on, I could barely process what I saw, much less retain where she was. But a path seemed like the best option. If I couldn't find anything in that direction, at least I'd be able to make my way back and try again.
Splinter ran for all he was worth at my feet as I took off down the path. I ran until it seemed I had gone far enough without seeing any signs of them. Not wanting to waste time, I turned back and started again. I paid close attention to my surroundings. Every time I walked deeper into the woods, I looked around for any sign that Ally might have come this way.
When we were in high school, there was a string of murders in a nearby college town. All the victims were girls in their late teens. It was short-lived and fortunately didn't get any more extreme than three bodies, but it was enough to inspire the motivational speaking cogs of every principal within a thousand-mile radius to go into overdrive.
We thought most of it was ridiculous, of course, because we were teenagers and teenagers know everything. It's a proven fact. Ask the internet.
But one thing we took seriously was the recommendation to have a plan in case we found ourselves in a dangerous situation. They told us to get in the habit of telling people when we were going to leave home, where we would be, and approximately how long we would be gone. That seemed all well and good to us, but somewhat on the too little, too late side for me. After all, by the time someone noticed you weren't back when you were supposed to be, any number of horrific things could have happened. Instead, Ally and I committed ourselves to come up with ways to keep ourselves safe, rather than ways to direct people to find our bodies.
In the end, we still planned for the search-and-rescue portion. After agreeing no one would take us out without putting up a hell of a fight, we promised each other if someone ever tried to abduct us, we would leave as much evidence as possible. That meant touching every single surface we could get our hands on, leaving hair in the person's car, and creating a trail for whoever was out looking. But there was nothing around here. No pieces of her clothing, no chunks of her hair. She didn't leave behind any bits of herself, which meant one of two things. Either this wasn't the way she had come, or they incapacitated her to the point of not being able to leave the clues. Neither seemed like a fantastic option. I didn't want to think about her vulnerability.
After several hours, I was still clawing my way through the woods. Experience held me back from screaming for her immediately. It wasn't subtle enough and could put her in more danger depending on who had her and for what reason. Finally, I had to come to terms with reality. I was looking for any clue at all, but there were none. I needed help.
Chapter Eighteen
I was exhausted. Every part of my body protested against me trying to run. The muscles in my legs burned and ached. My joints felt stiff and didn't want to move. Even breathing felt like a struggle as I pushed myself to keep going. But it didn't matter. I wouldn’t stop. Wherever the dryads had taken Ally, she was in danger. I couldn't ignore it or pretend she would be fine. I couldn't tell myself it was all right to slow down and listen to my body trying to drag me back onto the ground because someone else would be there to protect her. I learned many things during my years in The Deep, but one of the most valuable was never to believe someone else would be there to do what needed doing. I had to do it myself.
Even Solon. My trusted friend, my mentor, the one who kept me alive and ensured I knew how to keep myself alive. I could never drop my guard and rely on him showing up or saving me. He taught me that himself. He wanted me to know and understand it from the very beginning. All life is fleeting. Life in The Deep is a continuous gauntlet. Solon didn't know from moment to moment if he would be able to come back and help me, so he taught me it was my responsibility to trust when I could, but never overlook my commitment to myself.
That meant it was up to me to save Ally. Lying unconscious on the soggy ground of the forest was a speed bump in the process. If I'd sustained the head blow without going unconscious, or was able to wake up within a few minutes, it would have been much easier to track her down. But much longer than that had passed, and they had disappeared.
There was no telling how far they'd gotten by now. Dryads could move. Their tremendous height helped them cover more ground, and their strength meant if they wanted to, they could toss Ally along through the forest like an Ally bucket brigade.
I couldn't trust anyone else to step in and figure it out for me, but I did need some help. Ally was tough and was getting stronger every day, but she wasn't a fighter and didn't have anywhere near the necessary experience to help her handle a battle like this against Farsiders. Dryads were extremely tough, and not knowing exactly what they wanted with her made it more frightening. I needed someone with insight into the area and the situation unfolding around us.
That meant I needed to find Jonas. Jonas told Ally that he wasn't from the area, but he was there for an extended work project. He maintained a house near the central part of town so he didn't have to spend his entire life in the hotel, despite its charms. In any of the other places I'd been since leaving The Deep, having only the vague concept that a person lived in the area and knowing I needed to find them would be a daunting, seemingly impossible prospect.
Not so much with Hunt.
One distinct benefit of existing inside a Bob Ross painting of rustic West Virginia was there weren't a lot of options when it came to finding a house. I had a vague idea of where he lived and knew what his car looked like. It was enough for me to go on. But I made a quick mental note to always ask for the exact address of anyone I might need. Possibly GPS coordinates as well.
My exhaustion didn't hold me back as I made my way back through the forest and into town. I made good time getting back into the main part of Hunt and the tiny neighborhood on the outskirts. Now it was only a matter of narrowing down the options and finding which house belonged to Jonas.
It made me wonder about him as I made my way up and down
the streets. He obviously cared about this area and knew a lot about what was happening. But I wondered how long it had taken him to get in touch with Ally. The body lying in the morgue hadn't been dead for long. Maybe if he had acted faster and figured out something sooner, that man wouldn't be dead.
On the other hand, what was he supposed to do? He said he contacted many other people, and no one would take him seriously. There was a little bit of the being chosen last for the game of dodgeball in elementary school gym class feeling to being the last resort, but at least he reached out to her. It was fortunate he did. Any of the others would have been looking for a cult and trying to figure them out. I knew what we were really dealing with. I merely had to figure out what to do to stop them.
I finally spotted Jonas's SUV sitting in the driveway beside a slumbering little ranch in a row of houses that looked almost exactly the same. It had the effect of Christmas cookies lined up for decoration. They all had the same basic shape and some of the same features, but the details varied slightly from home to home.
Some had flowers in the boxes in front, and some had flags hanging by the door. One had a bright pink mailbox festooned with a vibrant glass and metal sculpture of a flamingo, and I wanted to be friends with whoever lived there.
Jonas's house was quiet and plain. No flowers. No flag. Definitely no flamingo. The house sat a few yards back from the edge of the road on a square of grass fading from the season. I looked at the car more closely as I approached to make sure it was the right one. I recognized it as the one he got into at the doctor's office, right down to a sticker in the bottom corner of the back window. This was his house, and he was there.
At least, that was my theory. It got shakier when I walked up the sidewalk onto the front porch and realized the front door was standing ajar. The interior I could see through the gap in the door was dark. Not a single light illuminated any of the rooms.
