Chapter Twenty-Five
Pursuit
Nearly blind with panic, and with no clear idea of where she was going, Cindy ran for all she was worth.
Doubled over, she clamped her swollen left wrist tightly against her side as she ran up the gradually sloping hillside, ducking and dodging low-hanging branches and clumps of pine and beech trees and other brush. Flaming pain shot up her arm like a hot spike to her elbow. Her pulse was like sledgehammers in her ears, drowning out nearly every other sound except the crunching leaves underfoot and her heavy breathing, which came hard and fast, rattling with phlegm in her throat. The cold morning air made her eyes tear up and set her lungs on fire. Several times, her footing slipped, and she almost fell and twisted an ankle, but she pushed herself all the harder knowing that Alex must be following close behind. It took every reserve of strength she had to keep going, but she knew she was going to have to save herself before she’d be able to do anything to help the kids.
Her kids, by Jesus!
She had never forgotten that they were Alex’s and her dead sister’s children, but after everything they had been through, she couldn’t help but think of them as her own. One of the clearest thoughts in her pain-wracked brain was that she had to do anything and everything in her power to keep them away from their own father.
But what could she do?
She had no idea how long she’d been running, but her body was wrung with exhaustion, so she slowed her pace a bit once she realized she must have gained some distance on Alex. There was no indication that he was close behind… not yet, anyway. And even if he was, she was within the relative safety of the dense woods; he wouldn’t be able to get a clear bow shot at her unless he was very close. She still ran, but at a steady, if awkward jog, stumbling on the uneven terrain. Her panic lessened slightly and her mind gradually began to clear—at least enough so she could start to think about everything that had happened and what she should do next.
There was no doubt that Alex intended to kill her. She realized that it may have been a mistake to leave Portland and come to an isolated place like this, but it was too late now to change that. Alex could easily fake her death to look like a hunting accident and leave her body out here in the woods to rot. It could be months, possibly years before anyone would even find her; and by then, Alex could be back in Nebraska with the kids, and the authorities would have no idea who she was or low she had died. Besides, now that Debbie and Alice and Harry—the three most important people in her life—were dead, who would miss her?
Dead! How can Alice be dead? I saw her just the day before yesterday! she thought.
Sweat streaked her face, and cold, tingling chills raced up her back and shoulders.
Could it REALLY be true, or had he just been making that up to torment her before he killed her?
Well, at least as of right now, the kids were safe; but she had no doubt that, once Alex had finished her off he would turn his sick anger against them… especially Billy. He had said as much back at the camp. Cindy felt especially badly for Billy, who had to stand there and listen to his father—his own father!—berate him like that, calling him a pansy and then slugging him. The blow to the head had to have hurt, and if that’s how his father treated Billy and his sister, no wonder over the past few months she’d heard so few complaints from either of the children about wanting to go back home. And if Alex was capable of killing three people, as he had so gleefully admitted, what would stop him from beating and possibly killing his own children?
Cindy knew the answer to that.
Nothing!
And although she had to do something to save them, she also knew that it would be absolutely foolish to go up against Alex directly… even if she didn’t have a broken wrist or was in as much pain. He still had his hunting bow and a handful of arrows, and she knew ii he caught even a glimpse of her he’d kill her on the spot. So she had to come up with something!
She was panting so hard her throat made loud, gasping sounds as she ran. She kept on a straight course parallel to the dirt road. In between breaks in the trees, she caught flashes of the dull gray lake off to her left.
Think of something!… Come on, damnit! You’ve got to think of something!
She couldn’t very well leave the kids behind and run just to save herself, but what in God’s name could she do?
The most obvious thing would be to head out to the main road, which considering how far she had run, couldn’t be more than a mile or so more through the woods. There she would eventually find a house, hopefully with somebody home so she could use their telephone to call the police. If she had to, she was determined to break in to use the phone. The situation warranted it. So if she could just stay close to the road o she would see if he left in the van with the kids, she just might have a chance of stopping him before he got away. She had to hope that he was so angry he wouldn’t think clearly and would come after her, forgetting for a few moments about the kids in the van.
She was near collapse; so she slowed her pace and looked back the way she had come. Right now, for all he knew, Alex could be trailing after her, steadily closing the gap between them. She realized she might never even hear him over the noise she was making, panting like a race horse as she plowed through the thick underbrush. Whether she saw him or not, she could feel his presence closing in behind her like the swelling, dark pressure of the rain storm that was bearing down on the lake. She had no woodland skills and wasn’t any good at running silently or hiding in the forest; she knew she was leaving a trail even an idiot could follow, so—for now—the best she could hope for was to keep moving and try to outdistance him.
If she could.
But as she ran, with branches swatting her face like stinging whiplashes and exhaustion burning in her lungs and leg muscles, she began to have her doubts. She knew that what she hoped to do was probably the most obvious thing, and Alex was no doubt smart enough to second-guess her on it. The dirt road was her easiest and, possibly, her only way out of here short of hiking—how many miles through the woods? As exhausted as she was, she wouldn’t get very far, so all he had to do was make sure she didn’t get out to the main road. Christ, he might already be stationed up where the road first turns onto Campbell Shore Road, just waiting for her to show up so he could finish her off.
So maybe she should consider something else—something that might have an element of surprise to it.
Maybe, if she could elude him by hiding and staying quiet until he passed by, she could circle back around to the camp and get the kids out of the van. Her car was still parked down by the camp. She always kept a spare key under the floor mat on the passenger’s side. As long as Alex hadn’t taken the time to sabotage her car, they could leave.
She ran on, knowing that Alex might be only a few paces behind her. She expected, any second now, to hear him call out her name and feel an arrow pierce her from behind, bringing agony and death.
Sharp, stinging waves of pain consumed her left wrist, radiating all the way up to her shoulder. Her scalp felt like it was bleeding, and her neck and back throbbed in time with her racing pulse. Sweat ran down her face, stinging her eyes. There wasn’t a square inch of her body that didn’t feel bruised, sprained, or bleeding.
Still she ran, pushing all the harder, but after a while, as exhaustion began to set in, she slowed her pace to a fast walk. Then, casting fearful glances behind her, she stopped and leaned over, bracing herself with both hands on her knees as she panted so heavily her throat made raw, choking sounds.
Be quiet … Be quiet, goddamnit! she told herself.
Her breath wheezed in and out of her throat as she looked all around, scanning the suddenly silent woods. A gentle breeze stirred the yellowing beech leaves overhead, and through the leaves she could see splashes of the overcast, gray sky. There was a hushed calm in the air that she should have found soothing, but it was fraught with pressing menace. She cringed inwardly, imagining that—at any moment—Alex would suddenly appear
from behind a tree or bush, aim at her and shoot her with one of his honed arrows. But, except for the distant squawking of a blue jay and the hissing rustle of leaves overhead, the woods remained perfectly silent.
No thrashing of dead leaves.
No snapping of branches.
Moving closer down the slope to the road, Cindy strained to hear any indication that Alex was nearby. She suspected, if he was after her at all, that he was a stealthy hunter who was sneaking up on her silently. She probably wouldn’t even know how close he was until she heard the twang of his bowstring and felt the piercing sting of his arrow. After several seconds of agony, she started to wonder—and fear—if he might have already decided to hell with her and had left with the kids.
Her kids!
Sweet Jesus, what would she do then?
She would have to go to the police and report Alex now, but even in spite of what he had done, what kind of case would she have to keep the children? No matter what Alex had done to torment her, she couldn’t very well expect the authorities to let her keep Billy and Krissy. No doubt they’d be turned over to the state. Then again, she had a confession from Alex’s own mouth that he had killed Alice as well and his own wife and her husband back in Omaha. The newscaster had said the Portland police chief would like her to call again with more information, and by God, she would have to do just that. Why, she could give him the name, address, and complete description of Alice’s murderer!
But first, she had to get back to the camp and find out if the kids were still there. Beneath all of her frantic thoughts and worries was that clear, overriding concern for their safety and a single, terrifying thought.
What the hell am I gonna do to save them?
A gnawing fear filled her that Alex would be frustrated at not being able to run her down, and so would turn on his kids. He had already committed murder, so maybe he was crazy enough not to care what he did anymore. He might even realize that he had already gone too far, and his only thought now was to kill Cindy and his kids before he was brought down.
“Jesus … Jesus… Help… me,” she whispered, panting heavily. Her ragged voice hissed like a snake, sliding through the dead leaves.
Tears blurred her vision as she looked up at the lowering gray rain clouds and took a deep, rasping breath. Fighting back her tears, she turned and started back down toward the road. Her plan was to go all the way down to the lake shore and then head back to the camp, staying out of sight as much as possible. Maybe, if she was lucky, Alex would be looking for her there. He might still be off in the woods somewhere searching for her. If the kids were still in the van and Alex wasn’t anywhere around, then she would do whatever she could to get them all out of here.
If Alex wasn’t there!
And if he was…?
Well, she would just have to hope to hell he wasn’t!
2
“So what are you gonna do?” Krissy asked.
“What do you mean, what am I gonna do about it?” Billy snapped back. He started to turn to look at her put, ashamed that she had seen him cry, looked away and sniffed loudly as he wiped his nose on the back of us hand.
“What do you think I oughta do?”
“I dunno… but… well… you gotta do something!”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
Billy was sitting in the passenger’s seat of the van. He glanced at the dim reflection of his sister in the windshield. She was sitting scrunched up on the back seat with her feet up on the seat as she hugged her legs protectively against her chest. Billy’s ears were still ringing from the blow to the head his father had given him. His chest hitched painfully every time he took a breath, and tears streaked down his face, making it feel greasy. It struck him as sort of strange that Krissy seemed so calm, considering everything that had just happened, and he was angry that she was seeing him upset like this. Usually, she was the cry baby.
“Well,” Krissy said, sounding almost scolding, “I don’t think you should just sit here doing nothing!”
The trace of impatient anger in her voice bothered Billy, but nothing she said and nothing he thought gave him any idea what he could do. As far as he was concerned, they just had to sit here and wait for their father to come back, and when he did…
Well, he preferred not to think that far ahead.
Sniffing loudly, he slouched in his seat and, hardly blinking, stared out at the front of the van. Off to his left, he could see the flat surface of the lake and the roof of the camp. Straight ahead was the winding stretch of dirt road that led out of here.
He was close to crying again but held himself back so Krissy wouldn’t see him cry.
“There’s nothing we can do,” he said but he spoke so softly, he was pretty sure Krissy didn’t even hear him.
3
Every one of Cindy’s senses was tingling with few and expectation as she crouched behind the trunk of a fallen pine tree and scanned the dirt road in both directions. The heavy gray overcast was steadily thickening. It would start to rain soon. Cindy had the curiously disorienting feeling that she had been running in the woods for hours if not days, but a glance at her wrist watch showed that it had only been a little less than an hour since she had first heard on the morning news that Alice had been found dead.
That’s impossible! she thought, still unable to absorb the fact that death had struck so close to her… again. A wild shiver shook her as she looked down the road toward the camp.
Craning her head forward, she tried to see or hear any indication that Alex was coming after, but the forest was filled with a tense, hushed expectation. Finally, she sucked in a deep breath, coiled up the last shreds of strength, and stood up to run across the road and into the thick brush on the opposite side. When she was in the middle of the road, she paused for a second and looked both ways to see if there was anyone else around. The road was deserted, so she ducked into the roadside brush and, after catching her breath, started walking in a slow, unsteady gait toward the lake.
She cut through the thick underbrush for a few hundred feet, and then the woods began to thin out, opening up into the yard of one of the neighboring imps. After checking all around her again, she darted cross the clearing to side of the camp, flattening herself against the rough wooden shingles. From there, she made her way down to the water’s edge.
The lake’s gray surface was ruffled by a steady, icy rind from the north that made it look like a wide sheet f pebbled aluminum. Circling in the sky high above one of the small islands were several white birds that looked like seagulls. The distant, echoing cry of a loon wafted to her on the wind, rising and falling, sounding almost like the lonely, plaintive howl of a wolf.
Please, God, please let him not be there!
As she started along the shoreline heading back toward the camp, her heart was pounding heavily in her neck. She moved carefully along the water’s edge, walking in a crouched position and cradling her injured hand across her stomach.
At least this way, she told herself, she wouldn’t have to worry about looking all around her. The danger was, Alex found her down here, there was no place for her to run. She certainly couldn’t dive into the lake and swim away.
The going was easy along the small stretches of cleared beach front, but in between each camp’s property there was a thick stand of trees and brush, no doubt left uncut to ensure privacy, that made the going tough. A few times the brush was so dense that she had to walk out into the lake, balancing on slick rocks that stood up out of the water. Tiny waves lapped at her feet, soaking her sneakers and socks. She was just rounding a small spit of land when she saw something at made her jolt to a stop and squeal with surprise.
A huge, black, bloated shape had washed up halfway into the shore. It took her a moment to realize that it was a dead animal of some kind. The belly was rounded, swollen with trapped gases. Stringy tatters of rotting flesh waved like kelp in the lapping currents of water. The closer Cindy got, the stronger the nauseating stench became. She shuddered, think
ing how bad it would be if that gas-inflated belly were to burst. The creature’s face—she had no idea what it was—had been stripped clean of flesh, exposing a snarling, grinning row of sharp teeth. Fat white things—slugs or maggots—wiggled inside the nostrils and empty eye sockets, making the beast’s features look almost animated. Cindy cringed away from the carcass, half expecting to see it suddenly lurch to its feet and snarl at her.
What the hell is this thing? she wondered, knowing that she was either going to have to step over it or else go a long way around through thick underbrush to get past it.
The dead thing looked big enough to be a deer or moose, but Cindy, cringing inside, inched her way toward it and leaned down to inspect it. She realized that it was—or at least had once been—a dog of some kind. Its matted, patchy fur had the markings of German shepherd.
Stepping carefully from one stone to another, she skirted around the carcass, taking careful steps on the water-slick rocks.
Jesus, that could be me! she thought. An icy shiver wracked her body, and her empty stomach gave a cold, twisting turn.
When she was standing beside the dead beast, balanced on a pointed rock, she glanced down along the shoreline and saw Harry’s uncle’s camp no more than a hundred feet away. Her racing heart skipped a beat when she saw that there was no indication of anyone there… at least not in the back yard.
“Please let the kids still be there,” she whispered softly, ducking low and hoping the brush would screen her.
She was focusing so intently on the camp that she forgot where she was for a moment. When she shifted her weight, her foot slipped on the wet stone, and she started to fall. Choking back a high screech, she twisted around, waving her arms frantically for balance as she tried to stop her fall. When her leg slipped into the ice cold water almost up to her knee, her foot got caught between two submerged stones. A numbing chill gripped her as her momentum carried her around and she pitched forward, falling into the water. Her knees and hands hit the rocky lake bottom hard, splashing water up into her face and soaking her. She was shivering and sobbing hoarsely as she lunged blindly for the shore. Instead of hitting solid ground, though, her hand slapped against the bloated carcass, and with a blubbering noise that sounded like a roaring fart, a cloud of noxious gas erupted through the punctured skin as it exploded outward.
Ghost Light Page 42
