Jake ran west, making his way over boulders and around small firs and seedlings. Once in the cover of the trees, he would veer south, find the boundary fence, and follow it up to the pond and Robbi.
After a quarter mile he considered going back to the house for the shotgun. But if Eckker was waiting for him, he was a dead man. Robbi, he told himself, had the single-action .20 gauge. Once he met up with her,the one shotgun would have to serve them.
Deep inside the first wooded area beyond her yard, Robbi shifted westward. She had to find the fence. Without a guideline she could go in circles, lose her bearings, and become hopelessly lost.
She moved along as rapidly as she could in the dark timberland. Tree branches clutched at her, scratching and jabbing; roots and boulders tripped her up, sending her to her knees time and again. Her ankle, where five weeks earlier she had sprained it on this mountain, throbbed unbearably. She tired easily; her muscles and joints screamed with fatigue. She stopped often to catch her breath, to massage aching tendons, and to drink water from cupped leaves.
She reached the barbed-wire fence and the open meadow at the same time. Locating the boundary marker elated her, yet the vast clearing that she must now cross to reach the pond filled her with trepidation. She would be out in the open. If he had a rifle, he had only to aim and shoot.
She braced herself and stepped out. A streak of lightning zigzagged through the clouds, and she froze in a crouch, her heart slamming in her chest. She could wait here for Jake. He’d have to cross the clearing sooner or later, and she’d just sit tight until she saw him. Unless he wasn’t coming. If he’s dead—no, don’t think like that. He’s coming.
What if he had already crossed? She had stopped so many times to catch her breath that he might have passed her, might at that moment be waiting for her at the pond.
Oh. God. what should I do? Go or stay?
The decision was made for her. Snapping twigs sounded behind her. Someone else was in the woods. Jake or the killer? It was foolhardy to assume it was Jake. She must cross, and she must do it now.
Gathering all her courage, Robbi set out, her steps swift and long. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance. The farther she went into the clearing, the faster her pulse raced. At the point of no return, she sped up.
Off to her left another bolt of lightning lit up the sky. Thunder followed within seconds. She sucked in her breath, inhaling water from the deluge beating painfully down on her. It occurred to her that she was the tallest object in the meadow and lightning could strike her.
Trying to ignore the shooting pains in her ankle, she continued to run. Wind and rain battered at her. She kept her eyes to the ground, watching for obstacles and to avoid being blinded by the lightning.
The next streak brightened the entire sky. Thunder exploded within the light. Thunder or rifle shots? Robbi cried out and dropped to the ground in a crouch. Panicked, too paralyzed to move, she trembled, shivering violently.
Do it. kill me! Get it over with! Then she thought of her sister and she knew she had to go on. She forced herself to get up and run.
Coughing, gasping, she felt she would drown from the water being sucked into her lungs. As lethal as combat fire, lightning exploded all around her, the accompanying thunder giving it the gravity due a force so deadly. The woods she raced toward seemed to retreat with each footfall.
Several times she fell, sharp bits of gravel biting into her knees. She scrambled to her feet and rushed on. The wind and rain shifted direction, at her back now, pushing her, urging her onward.
So intent on clearing the meadow, she had entered the woods some twenty feet before she realized it. A tree loomed in front of her and, throwing her arm straight out, she abruptly stopped herself with her hand and shoulder.
She dropped to the ground, her back to the tree, her breath a ragged wheeze.
The rain suddenly eased. Looking out the way she had just come, Robbi scanned the field. To the northeast, with the dark trees as a backdrop, she thought she saw someone crossing. Only by focusing her eyes a bit to one side of the object could she detect the movement. She stared, mesmerized. The form grew. By his massive bulk, she discerned it to be the killer.
She was so tired. Where would she find the strength to go on? She could hide, then shoot him if he discovered her. But she had only one shell; the others lay on the kitchen floor.
Yet, if he failed to discover her and he went on, he was that much closer to Tobie. Better to have him behind her.
Wearily she struggled to her feet. She glanced back once to see the man midway in the clearing, coming at a fast lope. Wanting to cry but swearing instead, she picked up the shotgun, pushed off from the tree, and hurried on, scratching her legs on the prickly manzanita.
FIFTY-THREE
The killer was certain to guess she was following the fence, yet Robbi was afraid to stray too far from it. He knew this wilderness, had roamed the area for years both day and night.
She thought of the night in the woods when he’d turned Maggie loose. Remembered his glee at the prospect of a hunt. She tried to recall his technique and strategy. How did he finally catch her? He’d anticipated her actions. The running, the hiding, the running again until she could run no longer. He had only to look for the white dress.
Robbi looked down at her own clothing. The khaki shorts blended with the surroundings. Her gray athletic shoes, caked with mud and leaves, were dark. But her shirt was white.
She pulled it off, rubbed it in the mud, then put it back on. The mud, acting as insulation, added a degree of warmth.
When a rustling in the brush had her frantically searching for a hiding place—only to realize it was a porcupine—she paused to take stock. Maggie had hidden. Then, like a frightened rabbit, she had revealed herself. He would expect her to do the same.
In this game of cat and mouse, of tactical warfare, hysteria would be her downfall. Only if she continued on in a relatively composed manner to the pond would she have a chance.
One thing comforted her. If he were in the wilderness stalking her, then he couldn’t be in that basement with her sister.
She moved on. Several minutes later she approached her destination. The pond was approximately one tenth of a mile in length and fifty yards wide. The barbed-wire fence split the oval body of water width- wise down the middle. Which side will Jake be on?
There was something familiar, yet alien, about the place. Waves of energy rose from the ground into her body, rising in tingling ripples. She took a step, felt what appeared to be solid ground totter beneath her feet. She jumped back, her feet braced apart.
All was still, the ground hard, unyielding. At the outer edge of a fallen pine tree she tentatively put a foot out and pushed. The ground rocked beneath her foot.
The rain, a mere drizzle now, glistened off the dry red needles. She tugged at the tree; it moved. Robbi pulled, hauling it away. Dropping to her knees, she brushed at the layer of sandy wet soil until she felt the wooden plank. Digging her fingers under it, she lifted.
Roberta didn’t have to see in the hole to know what was there. The stench overwhelmed her. She gagged, swallowed down the bile that rose to her throat. Over her pitiful retching, she heard him coming through the brush.
She dropped the plank. She had to choose now: hide or fight. The killer was closing in at her back, barbed wire loomed to her left, the pond in front, its rocky bank, running to the right. Frantically she looked around.
Eckker crashed through the brush. He had her trapped. She was ahead of him with nowhere to go. With the eyes of a cougar, he searched the landscape.
She was nowhere in sight. Baffled, he looked around, turning his entire body in a full circle. She had been just ahead of him. He’d seen her cross the clearing. He’d heard the manzanita rustling, then the bits of shale sliding down the ridge just before abutting the rocky bank of the pond. She had to be there somewhere.
He crossed a flat boulder to the pond and looked down. Tiny drops of rain peppered
the surface and broke the usually tranquil water into a dark, fragmented pattern. He scanned the pond on both sides of the fence for a swimmer. Except for the rippling water, nothing else moved.
He hurried back to the thicket of manzanita, crashing through it until he reached the shaft containing the bodies. He threw the dead tree aside, bent down, and lifted the wooden cover.
Oblivious of the reek of decaying flesh, he took the penlight from his pocket and peered down into the pit. Nothing had changed. More water filled the shaft, but all was as he’d left it.
He dropped the plywood, scattered a layer of sodden earth, and replaced the tree.
She had never reached the pond. She was hiding somewhere behind him. She was trying to keep him from her sister.
In the dark, with the rain again pouring down, he made his way along the boulders as gracefully as a big cat.
Roberta had no concept of time. It seemed an eternity since she’d lowered herself over the side of the boulder into the pond. The water there was chest-deep. She’d cracked the shotgun, removed the shell, and hidden it in a crevice between two rocks. Then she’d fitted her mouth over the chamber and bent her knees until she was submerged entirely, tightly wedging her body beneath the jutting rock with the end of the barrel just above the surface. She was soaked already from the chilling rain; the pond’s water felt no colder.
Her long hair floated on the surface, but there was nothing she could do about it. In the darkness she prayed it would blend with the water weeds that grew along the bank.
There was no way to tell how far the end of the barrel poked above the surface. She kept the gun at a slight angle to the rock. Several times, from sheer weariness, she lowered her arm, but miraculously no water rushed down the barrel.
Her arms and shoulders screamed in agony. Tiny fish nibbled at her clothes. She shivered, more from fear and exhaustion than from the cold. The shiver became a fierce spasm, convulsing her entire body. She felt the water rush into her mouth, its oily taste acrid on her tongue, yet she was unable to stop its course down her throat. She gagged, choked, and with painful racking coughs she shot out of the water, her arms thrashing the surface.
A steely hand wound around her upper arm and yanked upward, pulling her from the pond. Still holding the shotgun, she flailed out with it wildly.
“Robbi!” Jake’s voice, hushed yet urgent, whispered against her ear as he tried to hold on to her and keep the gun’s barrel from splitting his head open.
She cried out in relief, then clung to him, coughing, sobbing, trying to talk.
He pushed her hair back from her eyes, held her face tenderly, kissed her.
“You’re alive . .. thank God,” she cried. “Bodies, there ... under a pine tree ... oh, Jake, Jake ...” She coughed, clung to him tighter.
“Shhh, don’t think about that now.”
She tried to sit up. “We have to hurry.”
“Robbi... hon, rest a minute.” He held her securely, tried to calm her. “Rest a minute.”
When the coughing was under control, Jake took off his shirt and made Robbi put it on. Although it was damp, it covered her exposed skin, the layers somewhat cutting the wind and cool air.
“Before we go on,” Jake said, “we have to figure out how to do this.”
“I want you to take the gun,” Robbi said. “Divert him in some way. Get him away from the church. Then I’ll go in and find Tobie.”
“I think we should stick together.”
“Believe me, I’d like nothing more, but I have a better chance to home in on her if she’s alone. Do you understand?”
“No, not really.”
“Trust me.”
“Then take the gun. I’m not leaving you totally defenseless.”
“No. He’ll come after you and you’ll need it.”
“What if he goes after you?”
“Then I’ll scream, and you can come and save me,” she said, touching his face tenderly, “... again.”
They found the lone shotgun shell, loaded it, and moved on.
FIFTY-FOUR
Eckker filled the footlocker with food rations, clothing, blankets, the first aid kit, flashlight, and anything else he thought he might need. The white dress went in last. If there was time, he would come back for the phonograph and records and maybe the generator.
He carried the footlocker up the stairs and out the trapdoor into a light drizzle. Hoisting the locker onto his back, he started down the path to his pickup.
Jake and Roberta followed the fence up the mountain, then, to be certain they wouldn’t bypass the ruins, they traveled perpendicular to the fence for several hundred yards and crossed diagonally back to it, employing a serrated pattern.
Jake carried the shotgun. As they climbed he wondered where one aimed a gun to kill a giant. If he hit him at close range with a shotgun blast and the guy kept coming, his life, as well as the lives of Robbi and Tobie, wouldn’t be worth the powder it took to fire the ineffectual shell.
They were midway to the fence when Robbi put out an arm to stop Jake.
“I think she’s close,” she said quietly. “I can sense her.” She started off again. “Hurry.”
In the dark Tobie had paced off the small room. Five by six, cell size. She’d found the suspended bulb in the middle of the room, but when she pulled the chain, no light came on.
Where was she? Who was this creepy guy who’d snuck up on her at the pond and tried to choke her? What did he want with her? He knew her name. He’d called her Tobie. She shivered.
Blanketed by the blackness and the confined quarters, Tobie felt panic rising. She’d heard of claustrophobia, but until now she had no idea how debilitating it could be.
A scream was forming in her throat when the door suddenly swung open. Wan light from an indirect source glowed faintly, illuminating the big man as he entered, shoulders hunched to clear the top of the doorway.
Tobie’s heart thumped insanely.
He tossed her her shoes. “Put em on.”
Tobie tried not to stare at the commanding giant, yet she found it impossible to look away. He terrified her. A filthy dark stubble made his craggy features even more menacing. His hair, dirty, greasy, burrs locked in, was tangled like a mangy dog. The bandage on his hand was gray with grime, the dried blood black and stiff. The foul smell of him overpowered her.
They stared at each other as she quickly pulled on her shoes.
“You and me, we like the same things,” he said in his deep voice.
“I want to go home.”
“We’re going home. A new home.”
He grabbed her arm and took her out of the room, out from under the stairwell into the main room. He looked around as though double-checking for something. Then he led her up the stairs.
Above their heads on the ground floor she heard something thump against the structure.
The man paused, looked upward, listened. More thuds, sounding heavier, coming more frequently now.
Tobie’s eyes darted upward. “Robbi?” she whispered.
He started back down, pulling her behind him. “I gotta do something first.”
“No!” Tobie screamed. “Robbi, I’m here!” She twisted free, caught him off guard. He stumbled down several steps as Tobie scrambled upward. She reached the trapdoor just as his massive hand curled around her ankle. She kicked out at him. He fell on top of her, knocking the wind out of her. Beneath his oppressive weight, she struggled for air. Frantic now, she bit, clawed, and kicked. He began to shake her. Her head whipped on her neck, cracking against the wooden steps. Tobie cried out, fought harder.
His repulsive face pressed close to hers, his hot breath enveloping her with a nauseating stench.
“Tobie. Tobie, please,” he said, “I don’t want to hurt you.” But his expression belied the soft words. His eyes were maniacal, his face contorted with rage. “Sweet, sweet Tobie, don’t fight me.” He continued to bang her head on the steps until light exploded in her head, then nothing.
> Jake climbed the steep bank, using his feet, his hands, and at times the shotgun barrel to loosen boulders in his attempt to create a series of mini- landslides. For the most part, the sodden ground hampered the descent of the tumbling rocks.
A moment later a hollow thumping echo floated up the mountain. A boulder or two must have found its mark.
The rumbling grew louder. Behind the church, up the tree-studded slope, rocks and debris tumbled down.
Eckker burst through the trapdoor. He looked around, listened. More rocks descended, thudding against the back of the ruined church, causing what was left of the decrepit structure to groan and tremble.
He cursed. Nothing would stop him. He’d waited too long. He’d had to kill his own grandfather to keep her. He would annihilate everyone on the mountain to keep her. The meddling sister would be the first to go. He would not leave this mountain until she was dead.
He started up the slope in the direction of the rock slide. At the deer trail he knelt, took in the single tracks of a shoe within the thin beam of his penlight. Not the same tracks he’d followed across the meadow. The man was above him. The woman was somewhere else. He turned and started down.
Roberta crouched in a thicket of manzanita, staring at the church. She clutched her stomach, sick with anxiety. In her mind she had seen the killer shaking her sister, had felt the hard wooden riser beneath her head.
Several moments later she saw Eckker appear out of the ground from a trapdoor. He hesitated, then moved out of sight behind one of the building’s remaining walls. He reappeared on the slope, heading up toward Jake. She lost track of him a dozen yards farther up.
She watched. Waited. If she was going in there, she’d have to do it now. She hurried out of the thicket and ran the fifty feet to the ruins. She was well inside the shell when she stopped to listen.
Night Prey Page 27
