Silent Hunter

by Maggie K. Black

  Then he hurried in the direction he’d just seen Aaron disappear. “Hey, Aaron. Wait up!”

  No answer other than the sound of his own body pushing through the trees. Branches smacked his face. The path disappeared under his feet. Luke pressed on. His feet tumbled down the hill, propelled by wobbly legs. “Aaron? Hey? You out here?”

  Pain pounded through his head now. The forest melted and shifted around him. Luke stumbled over a log and nearly fell to his knees. He told his legs to move, but they didn’t want to listen. Something was wrong with his head. Something was seriously wrong. He was having trouble thinking clearly, and his body was so sluggish he could barely stumble.

  He wasn’t just tired. Or even sick. This felt more like the hazy, disoriented fog that used to collapse into his brain as a teenager when he stole some of his mother’s sleeping pills to dull his own pain.

  He’d been drugged.

  Luke spun around. He had to get back to camp. He had to warn Nicky. His feet stumbled. His knees hit the ground and he rolled downhill for a few minutes before he could stop himself. The lake rushed up to meet him. A wall of canoes hovered on the sand to his left. He was on the beach, but he didn’t remember heading for the shore.

  A shape loomed ahead of him in the darkness. Camouflage fatigues. Green balaclava.

  The Hunter.

  “Who are you?” Luke struggled to his feet.

  The blow was hard, fast and unrelenting as something hard and heavy smashed against his temple.

  God! Help me. Help Nicky. Help—

  Luke fell forward. His face struck the dirt. Then the world went black.

  TWELVE

  Nicky opened her eyes. Sunlight filtered through the open tent flap. She blinked. Then she tried to swallow. Her throat ached and her mouth felt as though she’d swallowed cotton balls. She hadn’t even kicked her boots off before her body had landed on top of a camp cot. How long had she been asleep? She fumbled for her watch with aching arms that didn’t seem to want to move. It was six forty-five.

  Somehow she’d slept more than ten hours, if you could even call that sleeping. It had felt more like she’d been floating in and out of consciousness, never quite awake and never quite asleep. Weak limbs pushed her body up to sitting. Her head ached. She’d had terrible nightmares, too; their disjointed afterimages still sloshing around her foggy mind.

  Someone had been tearing up the camp...scattering equipment, tossing bags open and knocking over the men’s tent... Gracie had been screaming... Bear was bellowing... Someone said something about stealing a boat... She’d known they were about to leave... They were all going to leave...without her... Then someone had been standing over her... The Hunter... Watching her...laughing... She’d tried to cry out for help but he’d poured something into her mouth... And unconsciousness had pulled her back down again...

  She shuddered. Her body and brain felt as they had one morning after she’d taken a heavy-duty cold medication she hadn’t realized had a sleep aid in it—multiplied by a thousand. She pressed her fingers against her eyes. They stung. Had she been crying in her sleep?

  Gracie was gone, along with her sleeping bag. Nicky grabbed a bottle of water from her bag and chugged it as though she hadn’t tasted water in days. A gentle breeze was whispering at the edge of the open tent flap. The sound of bird song filled her ears. But she couldn’t hear any voices. Nicky forced her sluggish body across the floor and stumbled through the open flap.

  Her hand rose to her lips. What had happened?

  The campsite had been trashed. The men’s tent lay on the ground in a pile of broken poles and canvas. Most of the bags were gone; their contents strewed over the ground. She stumbled through the wreckage. The food was missing. The first-aid kit was gone. So were the tinder box and matches. The water jug had been tipped over and poured out into the dirt.

  Every corner of the camp had been raided as if by scavengers in a hurry to grab whatever they could and run. Someone had even snapped off one of the tent poles. She’d somehow slept through this?

  Prayers poured through her lips, her pleas for the safety of the others mingled with questions she couldn’t even begin to put into words. Who could have possibly done this? Was it the Hunter? Had nobody tried to stop him? Why had she thought she’d heard Gracie screaming? Where was Gracie? And Aaron? And Bear? And Luke...?

  She swallowed hard. Please Lord, let Luke be all right. Let everyone be all right.

  Her eyes fell across the empty log where they’d piled the wetsuits and life jackets the night before, and the reality of the situation slipped like oil into her gut.

  Some of the life jackets were gone. What if everyone really had left and they’d taken the canoes?

  Nicky ran through the forest and down the path toward the water, forcing her heavy legs to move until she could feel their strength beginning to return. Finally she could see the crystal-blue water sparkling ahead of her through the breaks in the trees. She stumbled down the hill toward the beach. There was no motorboat tethered to the dock. Trevor still hadn’t returned.

  Luke was lying, fully clothed, on his back in the water. Her heart stopped.

  He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t! She’d just found him again.

  A cry slipped through her lips.

  He raised his head and his weary eyes met hers with an unshielded, unguarded look that was so full of ferocity, affection and relief it took her breath away.

  “Nicky, you’re...” His eyes rose to heaven as a rush of emotion made his voice husky. “Thank You, God.”

  She kicked off her boots and ran to him. Without thinking. Without question. Without hesitation. Her body splashed into the water, barely feeling the cold and damp sink into her dirty clothes.

  He caught her in waist-deep water and pulled her into his arms. Her hands slid around his neck. Tears poured from her eyes. His grip tightened. His lips brushed over her head as he murmured thankful prayers into her hair. Then she titled her face toward him and his mouth found hers.

  She kissed him back sweetly, gently, allowing herself to feel the comfort of his lips and the roughness of his cheeks for barely a moment.

  What was she doing? She was just scared, hurt and relived he was okay. Not to mention still groggy from whatever she’d been drugged with and shaken by the chaos of whatever had happened in the night. But then, why was he kissing her? The echo of their former connection and the attraction they’d once felt for each other seemed to flow through the air around them. She’d felt it. He obviously had, too. But still, they needed to rise above it.

  She loosened her grip. He pulled back. She slid her arms out from around his neck, until they were an arm’s-length apart.

  Luke blinked. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.” He ran two wet hands over his face. “My head’s really foggy. But that’s no excuse.”

  She brushed her fingers against his temple. “You’re bleeding.”

  He touched his head. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Someone knocked me out. The Hunter, I think. But I was drugged with a pretty heavy dose of something before that, so who knows what I actually saw. I only woke up on the beach a few moments ago, too sluggish and thirsty to move. So I crawled into the lake to wake up.” His fingers brushed her hair. “But how are you? Are you hurt? Did anyone...?” The words froze on his tongue.

  “Hurt me?” She shook her head. “No. But they drugged me. I think it was in the stew. I got all woozy and out of it, then passed out and had terrible nightmares. At one point I thought the Hunter was in my tent, standing there, watching me sleep, and that he then poured more drugs down my throat to make sure I stayed asleep. But it’s all very foggy.

  “When I woke up, the campsite was trashed, everything was ransacked and everyone else was gone. I thought for a moment that everyone had just taken the canoes and gone back to the mainland witho
ut me.”

  “They didn’t take the canoes. They couldn’t have.” Luke turned her face toward the shore.

  The canoes all lay on the beach. Someone had smashed them to pieces.

  * * *

  Luke half expected Nicky to collapse into his arms again. But instead she rolled her shoulders back and started for the shore.

  “I honestly thought for a moment that everyone had left without me.” She was repeating herself, and something about it irritated him.

  “Well, that’s probably just a side effect of whatever we were drugged with.” He followed her to shore. “You must have known there was no way I would just leave the island without you.”

  She turned. An eerie calm spread down her face, wiping away any trace of the vulnerable woman he’d been comforting just moments before. “Wouldn’t you? I mean, not maliciously. Not in a mean way. But, if you thought it was the best thing under the circumstances—”

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “No! Of course I wouldn’t!” His voice echoed through the empty beach, only a couple of notches less than yelling. “How could you possibly think I would ever go anywhere without you knowing that you were in danger?”

  Nicky picked her boots up off the beach and pulled them on swiftly, balancing on one foot as she did so. Then she wrung the water from her hair and tied it into a bun with an elastic she pulled from her pocket. One moment she’d been tumbling into his arms with the same youthful abandon she used to all those years ago. Now she looked ready to take on the world, singlehandedly.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. Obviously something happened to the others, and they’re gone.” Nicky strode down the beach. Red fiberglass splinters crunched beneath her feet. “Hopefully one of these canoes isn’t too badly damaged and we can patch it up with a piece of tarp and duct tape.”

  She stopped by the first canoe. It looked as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. Her tongue clicked over her teeth. “Ideally, if we get one of them seaworthy, you can paddle to shore for help.”

  It was as if she was determined to ignore the fact he’d just said he wasn’t about to leave her. He didn’t know if it was because she wanted him to go or if she was just trying to prepare herself for what she thought he was going to do anyway. Would be nice if she had a bit more faith in him. He flipped over the second canoe. It had been hit so hard it had practically split down the middle. “And, hypothetically, where will you be while I’m paddling to shore in a patchwork canoe?”

  She picked up pieces of a broken paddle. Someone had snapped it in two. Nothing they’d seen so far looked salvageable. “The campers are obviously still on the island somewhere, and I’m going to try to find them. Hopefully, Trevor just reverted back to his lazy, slow-moving self last night and is going to come boating back to us as soon as he wakes up this morning. George would never let him leave us like this.”

  Luke shook his head as though there was water in his ears. “You want me to paddle for help, while you stay here alone?”

  “Yes, while I search the island for Aaron, Gracie and Bear.” She sucked in a breath. “Oh, and Russ, too. He must still be on the island, because all the canoes are accounted for.” She moved on to the third canoe.

  “Nicky. Stop. Listen, I am going nowhere—nowhere—without you. I know this isn’t the situation either of us would have chosen, but I’m the guy God’s apparently dropped here to help you get through this alive. So, whatever happens next, you and I are in this thing together. I am not going anywhere without you. Trust me on this.”

  She ran her hand all the way down her arm from shoulder to wrist, as the professional mask slipped from her eyes just enough to let him see the mixture of fear and courage brewing inside.

  “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I never should have kissed you like that. Maybe this isn’t fair of me—and maybe the sleeping pills in my system and the fear of the past couple of days are hitting me harder than I realized—but whenever you say stuff like that I’m always going to remember that you’re that same guy who looked in my eyes and promised me all kinds of things and then left without even saying goodbye.”

  He felt the words drop into his gut like stones. “That’s different.”

  She turned her back to him and started for the next canoe. “I know. But sometimes it feels exactly the same.”

  “Trust me, it’s totally different. That time, I was in jail!” He crossed the space between them in two strides. His hand brushed her shoulder. “Remember how I told you I was a runaway? Not to mention an all-around lousy person? Well, that night I broke into the lodge and stole the camp cash box. That’s how I met George. He caught me stealing, dragged my sorry hide off to the police, then came back to bail me out the next morning. And I’ve done everything in my power to pay him back for that mercy.”

  She still hadn’t turned. Her arm was rigid under his touch.

  He sighed. “Come on, Nicola. Can’t you see it’s a good thing I didn’t come back after that? You deserved so much better in your life than a guy like me. The healthier I got and the more I grew up, the clearer and clearer that became to me.”

  She turned slowly. The color had drained from her face. She tried to speak, but the sounds choked in her throat. She stumbled forward and suddenly Luke could see the blood-stained sand spreading out beneath her feet. There was a body lying on its back, eyes staring unseeingly at the skies above. One rigid hand grasped the deadly arrow embedded deep inside his chest.

  It was Russ Tusk.

  THIRTEEN

  They covered Russ’s body the best they could, burying him in chunks of broken canoes like a funeral mound. Then Luke dropped to his knees in silent prayer beside the body. Anger burned in his chest. A man was dead. Shot down like an animal for what? Because of the evil in another man’s heart? Had Russ been in league with the Hunter? Or had he just been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Either way, he didn’t deserve for his life to end this way. God, have mercy. Please bring this man’s killer to justice. Don’t let another person be hurt by his cruelty. Nicky knelt beside him for a moment. Tears trickled lightly down her cheek, and everything inside his chest ached to wipe them away. “We need a plan for getting off this island.”

  She nodded, then stood and wiped the dirt from her jeans. “No amount of duct tape is going to make one of these seaworthy. And you’re right, we’re probably safer sticking together. Until right now, I thought the Hunter was only out to sabotage things and wasn’t actually trying to kill anyone. I was obviously wrong. Our best option now is to scavenge what we can from the camp and the obstacle course to build a raft. If we can find the others while we’re at it, all the better.”

  They turned and walked back up the path toward the camp. “Also, I’m still not giving up hope that Trevor decided yesterday that taking a couple of people to hospital was a reasonable excuse to take the evening off, and he’s going to eventually get back here with that motorboat.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Trevor? Nope. Not as far as I could throw him. But I trust George.” She cast him a dry, sideways glance. “Sounds like you do, too.”

  In the aftermath of finding Russ’s body, they hadn’t paused a moment to talk about Luke’s confession about the stolen camp cash box or ending up in a jail cell. Maybe there wasn’t much to say.

  “We should also search the island for the Hunter’s boat,” he said. “He must have some kind of watercraft moored here somewhere.”

  “Agreed. I just can’t imagine where.”

  They kept walking. With every breath that filled his chest, Luke could feel the desire inside him to protect the wild, tenacious beauty walking beside him. Nicky deserved a life—a life every bit as wonderful as she was, filled with all her ambitious, creative dreams coming true.

  Lord, You know I’d do whatever it takes to make
that happen. But how can I protect her when I can’t even see the danger?

  For a moment he almost wished he hadn’t left his own handmade bow back in the car. Not that a six-foot-tall wooden bow was the right weapon to go stalking through the woods with, or that any of the purely recreational arrows in his quiver would’ve been good against a human target.

  The trees parted and the campsite came into view. Wow. She wasn’t kidding. The place was such a mess it looked as though a herd of wild animals had gone trampling through it. They started scouring the ground, working without talking, turning over every package and piece of equipment they could find.

  “So what would you have done with this place?” Nicky bent to pick up the remains of her bag.

  “You mean the island?”

  “Yeah.” She dumped the contents out on the ground. A pair of jeans and two T-shirts tumbled out. She frowned and stuffed them back in the bag. “Because of location and logistics, we’ve only really used the island for staff training and a few off-season camps. But like I said yesterday, George’s dream was to turn this into a place for the kinds of teens who are either in trouble with the law or at risk of going that way.”

  The ones like him in other words. “This would actually be a good place for a camp like that,” he said. “No cell phone service means no quick phone calls to your drug dealer. There’s nowhere to run away to and nothing to steal.”

  She started picking through the broken tent. “Obviously if the Hunter scares future campers and donors away, this camp is dead in the water. Unless God gives me a sudden fortune to buy this place from George myself, which somehow I don’t see happening. But, say I do still get to dream, the top things on my list for the island are to improve the beach, make the caves safe for spelunking and clear the water under that big rock so people can dive off it safely. So, as a former petty thug turned sports reporter, what kind of activities would you run?”

  He grinned. That was one way of putting it. “I like archery a lot actually. Not the fancy tech like the Hunter’s using. But the old-fashioned, wooden bows back at camp, where you really feel the draw and need to focus all your energy on making the shot. It’s a lot harder to hit the target, but it teaches discipline and consistency.”