Guardian

by A L Crouch

  “A knife!” I squealed. “He had a knife. He tried to get to me . . . again and again. I couldn’t move, all I could do was scream. He wouldn’t stop . . . he wouldn’t stop!”

  “His face! Concentrate on his face! Who was it Alex? Who was it? Concentrate!” Will yelled.

  “No Alexandra,” Donovan called.

  “Did you see who it was? Did you see? Focus!” Will yelled again.

  “Damn it, why are you pushing her so hard!” Donovan screamed at Will, but it fell on deaf ears.

  “Alexandra, you need to get up now. We have to go!” I heard Donovan pleading to me in the distance.

  But in my mind I could see him in the back seat with me, instructing me, helping me survive. “I am with you.” I heard him say, the strumming soothing me. I looked into his face. For the first time I noticed the tears that glistened on his cheeks.

  “You’re in danger, we have to go now!”

  His velvet voice, thick with apprehension, shouted the warning. The urgency of it jarred me from my memories and I opened my eyes to see Will standing over me, his face tense and reddened.

  “You saw something didn’t you? What did you remember?” he demanded.

  “I couldn’t see his face. I was bleeding . . . and the rain,” I managed.

  “You saw him, didn’t you?” he yelled.

  “No, damn it . . . his face, it was covered . . .”

  “Alexandra!” Donovan yelled.

  “Ssshhh!” Will shot up abruptly and held a hand up to motion me to be silent.

  I stood and wiped my eyes. I followed Will’s gaze behind me, but saw nothing.

  “What is . . .?”

  “He’s here,” Donovan said from behind me. “It’s time to go now! This way Alexandra!”

  “Someone’s coming,” Will whispered, not taking his eyes off of the direction we had come. “On my say, run that way along the ridge as fast as you can. I’ll hold him off.”

  Will drew his gun from its holster.

  “What? No . . .”

  “Alexandra!” Donovan pleaded.

  “Go now!” Will yelled and I hesitated for a second before turning to run as fast as I could along the ridge.

  “This way!” Donovan yelled in front of me and I followed his voice into the woods.

  I risked a look behind me and saw Will raise his gun. I turned as a shot ripped through the unnatural silence around us and echoed like the hideous crack of a death drum. I screamed and fell over my feet, landing noisily onto the damp, leaf covered earth. Donovan’s voice was immediately in my ear.

  “Get up Alexandra, you have to run. Get up!”

  I stumbled to my feet, finally getting my trembling limbs beneath me. I looked back at Will, but saw no one.

  “Run!” Donovan yelled again and I took off in the direction of his voice.

  “What about Will?” I screamed.

  “You can’t worry about him right now, just stay with me. You have to keep running!”

  Before I could protest, another shot erupted from behind me and splinters from a nearby tree stung into my flesh as the bark exploded from the impact of the bullet. Screaming, I covered my head with my arms but kept running.

  “This way! Get lower to the ground,” Donovan yelled just in front of me.

  I could feel the warmth of his hand on my wrist, leading me through the trees and brush. Crouching down, I kept my head as low as possible. The footsteps were heavy in the distance behind me, running towards us. I wanted to turn, just for a second, to see who was after me, the need to know outweighing my concern for my life.

  “Alexandra, keep running! Stay with me!” Donovan shouted, anticipating my hesitation.

  I forced myself to not look back, to keep moving forward. Another shot erupted and hit a tree just in front of me, sending more shards of tree bark into my face and arms. Ducking instinctively, I lost my footing and Donovan’s grasp on my wrist. With a scream I slipped over the edge of the ridge.

  I slid down the steep embankment, smashing into bushes and shrubs which snagged my legs and back. Desperately, I tried to grab hold of something, a branch or a root, but I couldn’t. I was moving too fast and with too much momentum. When I came to the bottom of the embankment, my body rolled uncontrollably until I finally came to a rest beneath a damp thicket of dead brush and fallen limbs.

  For several seconds I was afraid to move, or even to breathe. With my eyes closed, I searched the silence surrounding me for the strumming. I heard it, felt Donovan’s warm touch on my forehead, but it was different somehow. The strumming came slower, and seemed fainter than before.

  “Alexandra, are you alright? Open your eyes for me,” Donovan whispered into my ear.

  I wanted to get lost in his velvety voice and could almost feel him as he knelt beside me in the muck: solid and strong and in the flesh. When I opened my eyes, I saw him kneeling there, looking down on me. In that instant, I could see every feature of his magnificent face, his raven black hair and those magnificent eyes. I could see into their haunting blue depths as they looked over me with warmth and worry.

  Startled at the revelation, I shot up and winced at a new, sharp pain in my right thigh. I looked down and saw a red gash through a fresh tear in my jeans. Straightening out my leg, I moved it around. Once I determined that it was not broken I tuned back to Donovan, but his figure was gone. All that remained of his presence was the strumming, slow and faded. I choked back a sob and started to get to my feet.

  “No, wait!” Donovan warned.

  I froze and listened. I could hear a shuffling of feet traversing the embankment above us. My heart dropped and I looked frantically around, desperate for an escape route. I knew I wouldn’t be very quick on my feet if I tried to run and the ground was littered with fallen debris, dead leaves, and shrubbery. Any kind of movement would be easy to hear and to track. As the shuffling grew louder my chance to escape diminished. Out of options, I decided to make a run for it and began to rise.

  “No Alexandra! Lay back down. You need to sink into these dead branches and leaves! Hide yourself in them,” Donovan instructed, his voice confident and firm.

  Without hesitation I laid back down and scooted into the pile of fallen brush as far as I could where it was damp and muddy. I frantically covered myself with branches and debris, digging into the moist earth with my legs and arms.

  “That’s it, good. Cover your face. Hurry!”

  I pushed a branch in front of my face. It was covered in dead, soggy leaves and smelled of mold and wet earth. The world around me grew dark as I covered my head as best I could. Bitter panic rose in my throat as I remembered the last time I had wedged myself out of reach in the damp darkness.

  I clung to the strumming in my mind, but didn’t dare let my sight wander from the fissures of daylight seeping in through the cracks between the branches and leaves.

  “Good, now stay very still. I need you to remain absolutely silent. Do not move!” Donovan whispered urgently beside me.

  He was with me inside this murky, dank sarcophagus. I could feel the warmth of his arms around me, steadying me as the shuffling turned to heavy footsteps that jogged the remainder of the embankment and then began to stalk towards us.

  I didn’t dare move, didn’t dare blink. I could only lie there motionless, listening to the heavy footfalls as they approached and grew louder with every crunch of dead foliage. I strained my eyes to see something, anything through the minuscule cracks around my face.

  The footsteps came to a rest a foot from my head and I thought for a moment that I might throw up, the fear manifesting as a whirlwind churning inside of my abdomen. I tried to focus on the strumming, on the gentle “ssshhh” against my ear and the feel of Donovan’s warm arms around me, but I was distracted by a flickering of light that danced in the shadows of my organic tomb.

  Following the flicker with my eyes to a crack just above my face, a twinkling caught my eye. I stared at the play of light until my eyes focused. When they did, my heart stop
ped and my body stiffened uncontrollably. There shimmering in the daylight, inches from my face, was a knife – its serpentine handle twisted around a gloved hand.

  Chapter 12

  “Ssshhh, it’s okay Alexandra. You’ve got to stay completely still. It’s almost over. I’ve got you.”

  I focused on Donovan’s voice and realized with shock that I wasn’t breathing. Worse still, I was shaking. In my panicked state I didn’t dare take a breath for fear that the use of even that much muscle would make the shaking worse. Maybe it would be better if I just passed out, I thought as the light from the cracks ebbed and rippled in my vision. Yes, just slip into a deep sleep and escape the terror around me. Escape it all . . . perhaps for good.

  “Stay with me Alexandra, stay with me!” Donovan’s words came out rushed and tortured.

  Just then, all of the light from the crevices vanished as my pursuer took a step forward and blocked what little daylight shone on us through the blanket of trees above. I forced my eyes upward, intent on seeing, on knowing who was out there before I lost consciousness. All I saw was blackness. I closed my eyes and let it consume me. I longed to slip into it, to rest at last. The end.

  “He’s leaving. You did it Alexandra. Hang in there just a few seconds longer.” Donovan’s voice pulled me back.

  I forced my eyes open and when I saw that daylight again permeated the darkness around me, I fought to keep them open. Donovan’s smooth voice spoke calming words to me as I thought about that night, all those years ago, when his voice had been the only light in an impossible darkness. It had sustained me then, and it sustained me now.

  A great heaving sigh of frustration erupt from the stillness around us, and then heavy steps jogged off through the brush, crunching and snapping violently. I took a deep, ragged breath but remained still, all my senses alert and vibrating. The footsteps disappeared into the distance and I waited, rigid, until several minutes had passed and I heard nothing. Only then did I allow my muscles to ease as I panted for breath until it seemed my lungs would explode from the amount of air I sucked in.

  “He’s gone, you did it. We should move, try to get to safer ground,” Donovan said and the warmth around my arms lightened and faded.

  I was too afraid to uncover myself, my body remaining one with the muck and moist earth. My mind refused to process relief.

  “It’s okay, he’s gone. Trust me Alexandra,” Donovan whispered.

  Donovan’s voice pulled me from my shocked state. I brushed the branches and mangled leaves from my face and limbs. My muscles ached and I noticed for the first time that I was cold. My jeans, now wet and clinging to my skin, held the frigid dampness against me, chilling me with each new gust of autumn wind. I stood on shaky legs and took stock of my injuries. Aside from the gash on my thigh, I was relieved that I had suffered only a few scratches and scrapes during my fall.

  “You’re hurt.”

  The worry in Donovan’s voice made me take a closer look at the gash in my leg. It was deep, but had stopped bleeding.

  “It’s just a scrape, I’ll be fine,” I answered, my voice quivering.

  “We have to keep moving, he might decide to double back. Can you walk?”

  “Yes, let’s get out of here,” I nodded and followed Donovan’s voice which came from the opposite direction from where my attacker had disappeared.

  I took wide steps, which stung, in order to avoid the cluttering of downed branches and thorny bushes.

  “Wait,” Donovan said and I halted mid-step.

  “What is it? Is he coming back?”

  “No. Take off your sweater,” He urged.

  “What? Why?” I was confused, it was freezing.

  “It’s bright red. You’re easy to spot you out here like that. You have to get rid of it. Bury it under some of this debris.”

  I hesitated for a minute but pulled the muddied sweater over my head. The cool air nipped at my bare arms, but I was grateful that the tank top I wore beneath it was dry. I jammed the sweater beneath a pile of dead branches and covered it with leaves until the red was no longer distinguishable from the shades of brown covering it.

  “Good, now let’s go,” Donovan urged and we plunged ahead.

  We traveled for a while wordlessly, me tripping over shrubbery and branches, but eager to get somewhere where I could rest. The forest went on forever in a million different directions, and the sunlight was dipping further and further beneath the tree line. I was exhausted and worried about Will.

  “Shouldn’t we go back up towards the road?” I paused to catch my breath.

  “No, he would have thought of that. That’s the first place he’ll look,” Donovan answered a few feet ahead of me.

  “But it’s also the first place anyone will look, right? The police . . . Will?” I urged.

  “We don’t know that anyone beside this man is out looking for you yet.”

  “But Will’s car is up there. Will could be up there waiting for me to come back. He could be hurt,” I pleaded to the trees before me, wishing I could see Donovan’s face. “What about Will?”

  “We can’t worry about him right now, Alexandra. He doesn’t matter right now.”

  I recoiled, his words stung as if he had stabbed me with them.

  “How can you say that? Is this because you don’t like him?”

  Donovan sighed and his voice got closer. He spoke from right beside me now, his tone urgent and all business.

  “I never said I didn’t like him. What I said was that I don’t trust him and I don’t. Neither should you. Did you hear how hard he was pushing you back there?” Donovan paused and took a loud breath before going on. “It doesn’t matter if I like him or not. None of that matters right now, do you understand? All that matters right now is you, YOUR safety. Nothing else matters.”

  I could imagine him there, looking into my eyes, making sure I understood what he said next. I glared ahead in defiance shaking my head. Donovan sighed again and his voice softened.

  “Look, we have think strategically about this, okay?” He said. “Whoever is after you will be expecting you to go back up to the road, back to the car. He will be expecting you to go back and look for Will or flag down some help. HE will be waiting, and it’s not worth the risk of going up there in the hopes that he is not the only one.”

  Huffing, I lowered my eyes. He was right, but damn it, I didn’t want him to be. I wanted more than anything to go back and find Will and make our way back to the station. But he was right. Whoever was out there would be waiting for me there.

  I threw my hands up in frustration, but knew I had only myself to be angry with. It had been my idea to come out here. I hadn’t listened to Donovan or to Sulley and now my life was on the line and Will could be out there injured or worse. It was all my fault.

  “Damn it. So what do we do? Where are we going? It’s going to be dark soon.”

  Donovan’s voice came as calm as a whisper. “We keep moving, until we find a safer place to wait.”

  “Wait for what?” I shrugged, defeated and exhausted.

  “For the Calvary,” Donovan said.

  My shoulders dropped. The thought of being stuck in these woods in the dark with a madman after me made my stomach twist around itself.

  “Come on, let’s keep moving.” Donovan said, his voice moving in front of me.

  I sighed and hurled myself forward. Every step made my legs ache and tremble and my arm muscles seized with the dropping temperature.

  “You’re doing great. Just keep moving forward,” Donovan encouraged and I brooded.

  “Easy for you to say,” I grumbled but continued on. “You’re celestial.”

  The journey through the thick, damp brush seemed interminable and my arms and fingers had gone numb long ago. The sun dipped below the tree line turning the evening sky an iridescent swirl of coral and blush. The shadows of the forest crept up from the ground, their black fingers extinguishing the remaining sunlight seeping in through the leaves. Soon the sun
would vanish entirely and the forest around us would be lost to the oppressive dark.

  I continued to follow Donovan’s voice as he encouraged me to keep walking, pausing only for a minute when my legs started to throb, and then feeling his warmth on my hand, forced myself forward. I tried not to think of Will or how panicked Sulley must be by now. The guilt was almost unbearable. How could I be so stupid, to get us all into this mess? Why didn’t I just listen? I prayed that Will would be found, and soon.

  When it seemed my legs could move no further and exhaustion began to overpower me, a bed of moist leaves and soft earth sounded inviting. I considered dropping where I stood and closing my eyes until the sun came up, but I heard Donovan call out suddenly.

  “There!”

  I looked ahead through squinted eyelids in order to see in the waning daylight. There was a clearing ahead. The trees thinned and the foliage dispersed to either side of browning meadow. Weaving through the middle was a thin trial leading off into more densely wooded terrain.

  “A trail?” I asked, knowing I didn’t have the strength left to hike even a marked path.

  “It’s a game trail. That means . . .” Donovan’s voice trailed off ahead.

  “That means what?” I asked following behind, not understanding the excitement in his voice.

  The black of night was closing in. There was no chance of me following the small trail into another stretch of wooded hell.

  “There! Up there. Come on!” Donovan called ahead.

  I looked up into the trees and at first saw nothing, but as I followed Donovan’s excited calls, a structure took form among the shadows. Hobbling closer, I froze when I came to the clearing and looked up at the hunting platform. It poked out from among the branches of a large pine tree just off the game trail. From the platform, one would have a clear vantage point of the trail and the woods surrounding it. Donovan’s excitement made sense, but I felt apprehensive.

  “We’re going to spend the night way up there, aren’t we?” I shuddered.