This was all such a nightmare. She wished that she could suddenly wake up to discover that it truly was nothing more than a horrible nightmare all along. But she didn’t actually believe that would happen. This was real, and she had to come to grips with that fast so she could try to find a way out of this before it got even worse.
“Well? What the hell are you girls waiting for?” asked the masked man.
“What do you mean?” Bree brought her eyebrows together. She didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. None of this made any sense.
“Like I said, we brought you here to play a little game. A very simple game, and a very old game that I’m sure you’ve played before so I shouldn’t have to explain the rules.”
“What game?”
“Hide and seek. You girls hide, and we’ll do the seeking.”
“You’re just going to let us leave?”
“Let you leave?” He laughed and shook his head. “Look around you. We’re in the middle of nowhere, sweetheart. Feel free to run all you want, but we’ll find you long before you find your way out of this forest.”
“And what happens when you find us?” Bree asked, fearing the answer to her own question, but feeling like she had to ask anyway.”
Her captor exchanged a look with his companion before looking at Bree again. “Why don’t we just worry about that when the time comes. Now go ahead. Start running. We’ll give you a healthy head start, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a nice hiding spot. Oh, and you might want to roll around in the mud a little bit. If you girls aren’t afraid to get dirty. Our dogs have your scent already, and I would hate for this game to be too easy. Just a bit of friendly advice so we can keep this interesting.”
Since it didn’t look like they had much of a choice but to play along with this sick and twisted game, Bree turned on her heel and started to run towards the tree line, slowing only long enough to look behind her and make sure that Melissa was following.
Fortunately, she was.
Running at a full sprint down the hill towards the edge of the forest, Bree tried not to think about what would happen if they were found by their abductors. She was trying to stay focused on the task at hand. Finding a place to hide first, and then finding a way to get out of the forest next. Panicking wasn’t going to help anything. She had to stay focused.
But even as she was telling herself that, she couldn’t erase the doubts. She was having a hard time not dwelling on the very real possibility that this night did not end well for Melissa and her . . .
10
“WAIT. I HAVE TO STOP. I can’t keep running like this.” Melissa doubled over with her hands on her knees and panted heavily as if she were on the verge of passing out. “Go on without me if you want, but I’m not running anymore.”
Bree was forced to stop. She turned around and planted her hands on her hips. Although she was out of breath too—her legs aching as if pleading for her to side with Melissa and give it a rest—she knew that they had to keep moving. They had to put as much distance between themselves and those men as possible before they came after them with the dogs. Their kidnappers didn’t tell Bree specifically how long she and Melissa would get for a head start, but Bree imagined that whatever length of time it was, it wouldn’t be long enough.
“Melissa, we can’t stop. They’re going to come after us. They’re going to comb this entire forest for us, and when they find us . . . I don’t know what they’ll do to us, but I sure as hell don’t want to find out.”
“I don’t care.” Melissa sat down on a log. “It’s not like we can actually get away from them anyway. So what’s the point? They’re going to find us eventually. We might as well give up. Besides, this is obviously nothing but a sick prank. They won’t actually hurt us.”
Bree shook her head, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. She continued to glare at Melissa until the other girl finally met her gaze. “Are you kidding me right now? This isn’t a prank. This is real. They could really hurt us. For all we know, they might even kill us. Do you seriously not get that?”
“Why would they want to hurt us?”
“I don’t know, Melissa. They’re sick. They’re insane. They probably get a rise out of this shit.”
Melissa brought her hand up to her mouth and started to nibble on her fingernails while adverting her gaze. “Do you really think they’ll hurt us?”
“Yes, I do,” Bree answered without hesitation. “Besides, even if I’m wrong, and this does turn out to be nothing but a twisted prank, wouldn’t you rather assume the worst just to be safe?”
Even though Melissa continued to avoid looking at Bree, there was no hiding the fact that she was nervous. Terrified was more like it. And as far as Bree was concerned, there was good reason to be.
But now was not the time to fall to pieces.
It was time for them to stick together and find a way out of this.
“Come on.” Bree offered Melissa a hand. “We have to keep moving.”
Melissa only stared at the hand for a moment before she turned away again and shook her head. “No. Just leave me alone. I can’t run anymore. I’m exhausted, and my feet are killing me.”
“I’m not leaving you behind.”
“Why not? Why do you even care? It’s not like we like each other. In fact, I’m pretty sure that you hate me just as much as I hate you.”
Bree was about to snap at Melissa for being so stupid and naïve, but she swallowed her words, took a deep breath to compose herself, and then spoke up again in a much more even-tempered tone of voice. “It doesn’t matter how we feel about one another. What matters is that we’re both in danger here, and the only way that we’re going to make it out of here is if we help each other out.”
Melissa shook her head again. “We’ll never outrun them.”
“Maybe not, but I would rather fail knowing that I tried than simply give up. Since when are you the quitter type anyway? You’re the cheer captain. You’re a leader. And if you didn’t give up on trying to be with Travis even when he was with me, why would you give up on trying to escape from those assholes?”
“And I’m sure you hate my guts because you blame me for ruining your prefect relationship with him, don’t you?”
“None of that matters now and you know it. So are you coming with me or not?”
Melissa only rolled her eyes and shrugged.
“You are really unbelievable.” Bree shook her head in disbelief. “You’re actually going to give up without a fight just because you have an issue with me? That’s pretty pathetic.”
Melissa sprang to her feet. There was a fire burning behind her eyes. She opened her mouth—undoubtedly to retort—but didn’t say a word. The color drained from her face and she looked around frantically.
“What is it?” Bree asked anxiously.
“Don’t you hear that?”
Bree listened closely. It didn’t take long for her to pinpoint the sound that Melissa was referring to.
Dogs barking.
It was distant.
But they were clearly getting closer.
“We have to run,” Bree said. “Now.”
There were no arguments from Melissa this time. She didn’t say a word. She simply started running. Despite claiming that she was exhausted and sore, Melissa seemed to have no trouble managing a full sprint. In fact, Bree had trouble keeping up with her, which she attributed to the fact that she didn’t exercise regularly or eat a specially tailored diet to keep herself in superb condition for cheerleading like Melissa did.
But as long as Bree didn’t lose sight of Melissa altogether, it was fine. At least Melissa was actually running now, which suggested that she did in fact realize how dire their situation truly was.
Bree had to push herself harder than she could ever remember pushing herself before in order to keep up with the more athletic Melissa, but with adrenaline coursing through her—fueling her survival instincts—it didn’t feel as difficult as she thought it wo
uld be.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard the two of them ran, Bree could still hear the dogs, and she could tell that they were getting closer. The barking was soon joined by the sound of rustling in the bushes behind them.
Their pursuers were closing in fast.
Even if they could keep up this pace—and Bree was certain that she couldn’t at least—it wouldn’t make a difference. They were fighting a losing battle. It was only a matter of time before their pursuers caught up to them.
Bree looked over her shoulder. She didn’t see the dogs or their handlers, which was a relief, but when she looked up ahead again, she made a disturbing discovery. She only looked away for a second, but that was long enough to lose sight of Melissa.
Bree was tempted to call out to Melissa. To tell her to slow down. But she knew better than to do that. Shouting would alert their pursuers to her location. It was very possible that they already knew exactly where she and Melissa were, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
So instead of calling out to Melissa, she simply kept on running, hoping that she hadn’t lost sight of Melissa for good. As much as she didn’t like the girl, she knew their chances of making it out of this were better if they stuck together.
Bree carried on running until bursting through a thicket of bushes. She found Melissa on the other side. Only Melissa wasn’t running anymore. She was standing perfectly still. Bree hurried up behind her and grabbed her arm.
“We have to keep moving. There’s no time—” Bree didn’t finish her sentence. She was about to keep on running and drag Melissa along with her, but it suddenly dawned on her that there was nowhere left to run.
If Melissa hadn’t held on to her, Bree would have gone right over the edge of a cliff.
Thirty feet down at least.
Straight into the pond at the bottom.
How deep was that pond?
Bree wasn’t in a hurry to find out.
“Thanks,” Bree said to Melissa while pressing her hand to her chest to feel her rapidly beating heart.
“Don’t mention it.”
The barking of the dogs was still consistently getting louder. They had to be close. It could be only a matter of seconds before the dogs charged out of the bushes behind Melissa and Bree.
“We have to jump,” Bree realized while staring at the pond below.
“What? We can’t do that. We don’t know how deep that water is. We could be jumping to our deaths.”
“We either jump or we allow ourselves to get caught and just hope that those guys won’t harm us.” Bree looked at Melissa. “I know what I would rather do. What about you?”
Unsurprisingly, Melissa did not look overly thrilled with taking a leap of faith, but after a few seconds of deliberation, she finally said, “Fine, let’s do this.”
“Alright. On three, okay?”
Melissa nodded.
“Three . . . two . . . one.”
They both jumped over the edge.
11
MELISSA WAS COUGHING VIOLENTLY TO expel the water from her lungs as Bree helped her out of the pond. The dogs could still be heard, but they were up above them. Surely, those men wouldn’t dare leap from the cliff in pursuit of them. Bree figured it was better that they not allow themselves to be seen just in case.
“We need to hide,” she told Melissa.
“Hide? What the hell are you talking about?” The fit of coughing went on as Melissa stood there shivering with the murky pond water up to her ankles. “Where are we supposed to hide?”
Bree looked around. There probably wasn’t enough time to run for the trees. They might be seen or heard, and hiding under the water was no good. They would only be able to stay under for a minute or two. Almost certainly not long enough to remain hidden from those men if they gazed over the side of the cliff.
Her search for a hiding place eventually drew her eyes to a large patch of reeds nearby. They were densely packed together in the shallows of the pond. It just might work, and with no better option available as far as Bree could see, it seemed she had no choice but to go for it and hope for the best.
“Come on.” Bree took Melissa’s hand and dragged her over to the reeds. “Get down low in the reeds and don’t move a muscle. If we’re lucky, they won’t see us.”
“And what if they do?” Melissa asked. “What do we do then?”
“We’ll worry about that if it happens.” Bree lay down in the reeds with only her head out of the water. She could only hope that the reeds were enough to keep them from being seen.
Melissa got down next to Bree. Also with only her head out of the water.
Then the waiting began . . .
Lying on her back so that she could look up at the cliff face above, Bree didn’t see the dogs—or their masters—but considering how loud the barking was, they had to be very close.
She remained perfectly still while she waited, but was also prepared to move in a hurry if she needed to. If their pursuers spotted them, they would have to make a mad dash for the trees to have any hope of escaping.
And even then it was a long shot.
Just then, Bree spotted the trio of dogs poke their heads over the side of the cliff. They were looking around and sniffing the air, but were no longer barking. Had they lost the scent? Did the escape attempt actually work?
Shortly after spotting the dogs, Bree noticed someone else peering over the side of the cliff. One of their two abductors. He had a rifle in hand. He looked over the cliff side for a few seconds longer before he turned away and dragged the dogs away with him. Bree thought that she heard him say something, but she couldn’t make it out. The dogs were soon barking again, but the sounds were growing distant.
But Bree wasn’t ready to be optimistic.
She stayed hidden in the reeds until the dogs could hardly be heard. Then she got to her feet and helped Melissa do the same.
“Come on.” She led Melissa to the water’s edge. “We have to get moving.”
“And go where?” Melissa’s teeth were chattering as she spoke.
She was obviously freezing.
Bree was freezing too.
But there wasn’t anything they could do about it right now. They had to keep moving, and they would hopefully dry off as they ran.
“You know that I don’t have an answer to that question.” Bree stepped out of the water and on to the muddy banks. With no idea which direction to go in, all she could do was pick a direction pretty much at random and hope that it eventually led them out of this forest. And if it didn’t, she would just have to hope that it led her and Melissa as far away from their abductors as possible.
She was about to choose a direction when she noticed her feet sinking into the mud. She recalled what her abductor told her about using mud to mask her scent from the dogs.
Was that true?
Would that actually work?
She wasn’t so sure . . . but under the circumstances, she supposed she should do anything and everything that might help.
Getting down on her knees in the mud, Bree scooped up handfuls of the stuff and started to smother it all over her body.
“Um . . . what the hell are you doing?” Melissa asked in obvious confusion. Her arms were wrapped around her body as she shivered.
“The mud. Rub it all over yourself. It will keep the dogs from smelling us.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“We have to. Do you want them to find us?”
“Of course not.”
“Then do it.” Bree carried on covering herself in mud. “Don’t make me do this for nothing. Either we both mask our scent or it means nothing since the dogs will still be able to track one of us.”
“I’m already freezing and soaked. Do I really have to be covered in mud too?”
“If you want to avoid being found then yes you do.”
Melissa frowned as she stared at the muddy ground around her feet. Then she looked up at Bree again and shook her head. “No, I don’t
want to do it.”
“I don’t care if you want to or not. I don’t want to do it either. But we’re both going to have to do things that we don’t want to do if we’re going to survive this.”
Fortunately, Melissa’s fear of their adductors turned out to be stronger than her reservations about getting dirty. Voicing her displeasure with a groan, she fell to her knees beside Bree and got started lathering herself up with mud as well.
Bree could only hope that they weren’t wasting their time with this, especially when there was no saying how much time they had. Just because they eluded their pursuers once did not mean they eluded them for good. There was no telling when their luck might suddenly run out.
***
Although Bree had hoped to move at a good pace once they started moving again, she and Melissa were hindered by the cold and limited by their own weariness. They could only push themselves so far. Constantly moving did help with the cold—although only marginally—but the cold prevented them from moving with any real pace. Running in such frigid temperatures was unbearable. It made Bree feel as if there were tiny icy needles puncturing her lungs from the inside.
Although it was frustrating, Bree knew it was better to keep trudging along slowly than to push the pace. It wouldn’t do any good for them to tire themselves out.
She estimated that close to an hour had gone by since they left the pond, but she couldn’t say with any real certainty how long it had been. It was definitely possible that less time had passed. But regardless of how much time had elapsed, they didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the edge of these woods, which could go on for miles for all that Bree knew. They might actually be heading deeper into the woods and getting themselves even more lost. She tried not to dwell on that possibility, though. She knew it was important to retain some level of positivity if she wanted to keep herself—and Melissa more importantly—from losing hope entirely.
That positivity soon paid off when Bree emerged from the dense and seemingly endless foliage to discover a road. It wasn’t a real road. Just a muddy path that cut through the forest, wide enough for a single vehicle to travel. But there were tire tracks, and they appeared to be fresh.
Hide and Seek: A Suspense Thriller Page 7
