by Laurèn Lee
A Dangerous Road
Laurèn Lee
R.K. Gold
Copyright © 2018 by Laurèn Lee
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
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About Laurèn Lee
About R.K. Gold
Also by Laurèn Lee
Also By R.K. Gold
1
The stars sparkled overhead while the crickets rubbed their bodies together and whistled in the darkness. Lexa gathered dry sticks and stacked them atop each other for a fire. When the sun disappeared below the horizon, it took the warm temperatures with it. The little water they had left in their canteens would freeze if left outside their tent.
Rocky finished pitching the tent while Ivie sorted out the rations for dinner with a haughty groan.
“Nuts and berries again,” she said.
“It’s better than nothing,” Lexa countered. “We could be starving.”
“But I am starving,” Ivie whined.
Lexa shook her head as she tossed her dagger up in the air and caught it by its worn handle time and time again.
“You’re going to cut yourself eventually.” Rocky swiped the dagger in mid-air.
“In your dreams,” Lexa said.
Lexa wrapped her arms around her body while Rocky stared at the weapon. He touched it and lingered upon the spot where Lexa’s father engraved her name into the wood.
“I miss your dad,” Rocky said.
“Me too,” Lexa replied solemnly.
Rocky tossed the dagger back to Lexa and sat down beside her. The side of his body pressed against hers for warmth, and she immediately felt less chilly. At first, Lexa didn’t want Rocky or Ivie to come with her to help save the village and look for a new water source. She felt she needed to do it alone, but in a short amount of time, she realized she couldn’t do it by herself. She realized there was no shame in having a little help from time to time. And, yeah, she worried about Rocky and Ivie getting hurt, but they were strong. They could handle just as much as she could. Rocky, maybe more.
Rocky handed Lexa her dinner ration, and their fingers touched during the exchange. Lexa’s cheeks flushed, and she quickly pulled away.
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
Rocky smiled and ignored the awkwardness ebbing and flowing between him and Lexa. She wished he’d stop looking at her altogether. She couldn’t let her emotions sweep her up into a sea of distraction. She had a mission, and she needed to stick to the plan.
Ivie hummed to herself while she chewed on almonds and dried cranberries they found along the way. She closed her eyes while she ate, and Lexa knew her baby sister was trying to imagine the meek meal into a feast behind her eyelids. They all dreamed of a hearty meal, but they had to settle for what they had, even though it wasn’t much. Lexa set a few traps, a skill her father taught her as a child, but they weren’t successful yet.
An owl hooted in the distance, and the moon shone brightly in the zenith of the sky. Lexa yawned and stretched as she popped the last almond into her mouth.
“I’m wiped,” she said.
“You’re going to bed already?” Ivie asked.
“One day when you’re a little more grown up, you’ll get tired more easily, too,” Lexa said with another yawn.
“Lame-o,” Ivie muttered under her breath.
Lexa ignored her and hoisted herself up. Rocky stood, too. Lexa narrowed her eyes and watched as Rocky studied her.
“Can I help you with something?” Lexa asked.
Rocky glanced at his feet. “I was going to go to bed, too. Is that okay?”
Ivie looked to her sister, then to Rocky and back again. “What’s going on with you two?”
“Nothing! Mind your business,” Lexa said and stormed to the tent.
Ivie glanced back at Rocky, and he shrugged. “I’d be careful around her if I were you. She’s cranky.”
“Don’t stay up too late, okay?” Rocky said to Ivie while she stamped out the flames.
“I know, I know,” she sang.
Rocky thought about walking straight in, but then quickly changed his mind. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Can I come in?” His heart pounded against his chest, and a stray drop of sweat slithered down his temple, despite the cool air surrounding him.
“Yeah,” Lexa called back unenthusiastically.
Rocky unzipped the tent and crawled in. Lexa lay burrowed in her sleeping back with her long hair tossed in a messy bun atop her head. Sleep had already begun to take hold of her, but she kept her eyes open.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I’m really tired,” Rocky said. He reached across the tent to unroll his own sleeping bag. He’d found it abandoned on the side of the road. It carried a faint smell of blood, but it was better than having to sleep with nothing. Ivie would share Lexa’s sleeping bag once she came to bed.
“Don’t be weird,” Lexa whispered.
“Weird? What do you mean?”
Lexa shifted in her sleeping bag and rested on her elbows. “I don’t know. You’re just being weird.”
“Just excited to be with you,” Rocky said.
Lexa’s eyes bulged out of her head.
“I mean, ya know, helping you and Ivie,” he recovered.
“I don’t like you like that,” Lexa blurted.
Now, it was Rocky’s turn to feel taken aback. He coughed and focused his attention on a blood stain splattered across his sleeping bag. “I don’t like you like that either.”
“Glad we got that out of the way.” A pit in her stomach opened up, and she thought back to earlier in the night when Rocky’s hand brushed against her own and how badly she wanted it to happen again.
“Night, Lexa,” Rocky said as though he were a balloon that had just been popped.
“Goodnight, Rocky.”
Minutes later, Ivie squeezed her way inside the tent and zipped the opening behind her. She crawled toward Lexa and wiggled herself into the sleeping bag with her older sister. Both Lexa and Rocky breathed heavily, feigning sleep, but each of their eyes was open as wide as the moon glimmering in the sky above.
2
Lexa woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of shuffling outside their tent. The last time a surprise visitor showed up outside of Lexa’s tent, it was Ivie and then Rocky. This time, however, it couldn’t be them as they were sound asleep beside her. Could it be an animal? A wanderer looking for shelter? Or could it be someone out to hurt them?
A booming crash sounded outside, which woke Rocky and Ivie. Ivie rubbed her eyes and panicked as she looked at Lexa for answers. “What’s going on?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Lexa said.
Rocky strategically unzipped his sleeping bag so as not to draw attention to them.
“Oowweeee, my foot!” a man with a ragged voice cried.
“Sta
y here,” Rocky mouthed, but Lexa and Ivie vigorously shook their heads, begging him not to go outside.
Lexa crawled out of her sleeping bag despite Ivie’s silent pleas and attempts to hold her back. Lexa finally pried Ivie’s fingers off her and wiggled out after Rocky. Fresh tears sprang from Ivie’s eyes as she pulled the sleeping bag over her head and zipped up the sides.
Outside the tent, Lexa found Rocky grasping his knife and watching as a man without clothes hopped up and down on one foot, clutching his other. Lexa smelled iron in the air and assumed the strange naked man must be bleeding.
Only the moon lit the campsite, and the stranger hadn’t yet noticed Lexa and Rocky watching him. Lexa stepped carefully so she stood next to Rocky. He took another step forward, though, making sure she was a few inches behind him.
Finally, Rocky cleared his throat. “Who are you?”
The man stopped hopping and looked to Lexa and Rocky. The whites of his eyes glowed in the darkness, and he let out an eerie cackle.
“Lookee here. Do we have some little kiddies?” He swiped his long, dark hair out of his eyes and grinned.
A shiver ran down Lexa’s spine, and she pulled out her dagger. Rocky stiffened next to her, both highly aware this man wasn’t a friendly stranger, lost in the woods. Lexa tried her best to avoid looking at the man’s private parts. The man walked toward the friends, but they stood their ground.
“I asked who you are,” Rocky growled.
“I am Mansa, and who are you? You look delicious,” the man added.
Lexa clutched Rocky’s arm. She’d heard of people like this man before, a cannibal, but she never believed they actually existed. How could another person kill and eat a fellow human for sustenance? Did human flesh even taste good? Lexa’s heart thudded against her chest just imagining devouring another person. So many more questions raced around her head. Did they keep the person alive while they picked them apart like an animal? Or if they killed the person first, how long would the meat last?
“We don’t want any trouble,” Lexa squeaked.
“Lookee, a wee lass.” He eyed her up and down under the moonlight and licked his lips.
Lexa immediately remembered Ivie back in the tent and hoped more than anything her little sister had enough sense to stay inside and not come out to inspect the noise.
“Get the hell away from us,” Rocky warned. “We have nothing to offer you.”
“I think you have a few extremities I wouldn’t mind having,” the naked man said as he eyed Rocky’s legs.
“Lexa, go back inside the tent,” Rocky whispered.
“No!” Lexa hissed back. “I can’t leave you here.”
If Rocky were killed by the cannibal, who would be left to protect Lexa and Ivie? No, she needed to stay and help Rocky get rid of the creep. It was the only way to save themselves and keep Ivie safe, too.
“What are the little ones conspiring about?” The cannibal cracked his knuckles and stepped even closer to Lexa and Rocky. He, too, had a knife in his hand, and Lexa could see the dried blood against the blade. She wondered how many others fell victim to him. How much human blood had that knife touched?
“Leave now, or I’ll be forced to make you leave,” Rocky spat at the cannibal’s feet.
Without warning, the naked man leaped toward Rocky and tackled him to the ground. Lexa was knocked over in the scuffle and hit her head on a rock embedded in the dirt. Stars glittered in her eyesight as wooziness took hold of her consciousness. Rocky cried out in agony, and the sound of his anguish rattled Lexa, forcing her to focus on reality and ignore the desire to close her eyes and rest a bit.
She pulled herself up and screamed out. The cannibal latched on to Rocky’s leg, and blood spurted in all directions. Shock and awe froze Rocky in place. Lexa stood, wobbly, and rushed toward the cannibal, tackling him to the ground. He looked up at Lexa, and she saw blood, Rocky’s blood, oozing from the cannibal’s mouth. He swallowed then, and Lexa glanced at Rocky’s leg, which was now missing a large chunk from his calf.
“You animal!” Lexa screamed.
She raised her dagger above her head, ready to strike like a cobra in action. The cannibal cowered and wiped more blood from his chin with the back of his hand. Now closer to him than before, Lexa noticed the stench emanating from the man. Body odor, rotting flesh, and vomit hung around his aura. Lexa could have thrown up if she wanted to. Rocky cowered by the tent, trying to stop his leg from bleeding any more. He ripped the shirt off his own back and wrapped it around his calf like a tourniquet.
Just as Lexa was about to rain down with her dagger and strike the cannibal at her heels, a loud crack sounded as Ivie smashed open his skull using a long hammer with a wooden handle. Lexa's jaw dropped nearly as fast as the cannibal’s body fell limply to the earth. The cannibal continued to breathe, but he was almost definitely dead in all aspects of the definition. His body breathed, but brain matter seeped out of the newly formed crevice in his skull. After a few moments, his breathing stopped, too.
Ivie made her first kill, right before Lexa’s eyes.
3
Ivie dropped the hammer to the ground, and it landed on the dirt with a hard thud. Her eyes were vacant, as though she was conscious but asleep at the same time. Rocky rocked back and forth holding his leg, not quite yet aware of the situation before them. All he could pay attention to was the blood seeping through his shirt and dripping onto the ground.
Lexa dropped her dagger and stumbled over to her younger sister. Adrenaline coursed through her body, and Lexa felt as though she could lift one of the abandoned cars she’d seen before along the road. And still, Ivie didn’t move.
“Ivie, are you okay?” Lexa asked.
“Uh, huh.” She nodded.
Rocky looked up, and the realization of what happened flooded his mind, reflecting onto his panicked expressed.
“Did that just really happen?”
“I think so,” Lexa said.
Ivie turned on her heels and strode back into the tent without another word. Rocky and Lexa looked to each other in awe. The moon above slowly made its journey across the sky, signaling to Lexa that dawn would be coming soon enough. The cool air had a stillness about it, as though the universe knew a little girl’s innocence just vanished, and it couldn’t think of what to say next. Lexa didn’t know what to say or do, either.
“I’m going to go talk to her,” she said to Rocky, who nodded. “There’s a first aid kit in my bag. Make sure you clean that thoroughly. Who knows where that creep’s been?”
Lexa didn’t wait to hear Rocky’s response before trotting toward the tent and plopping inside. Ivie had resumed her position inside the sleeping bag, and Lexa could see her eyes were firmly closed.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ivie said point-blank.
“I think we should, Ivie,” Lexa replied. “You just killed a person. I think that’s serious enough for us to talk.
“There’s nothing to say.” Ivie turned away from Lexa, facing the opposite side of the tent. Lexa’s body shook as reality set in and the shock of what happened wore off.
“There’s a lot to say. Iv, look at me.”
“It had to be done. He would have killed you and Rocky.”
“You don’t know that. I was about to do it myself,” Lexa explained. She scooted closer to Ivie until she was able to rest a soothing hand upon her sister’s back. “I never wanted you to have to do that.”
“Well, I did it. Can I go back to sleep now? There are a few more hours before the sun comes up,” Ivie said.
“Ivie, I just want to know that you’re okay,” Lexa said, desperation swimming in her voice.
“I’m okay. Promise.”
“I’m here if you want to talk. Okay?”
“Okay.” Ivie yawned, and after a minute or two, her breathing grew heavy and steady.
Lexa crawled out of the tent and zipped it up behind her. She found Rocky finishing cleaning the bite and dug around her bag frantically.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“The needle and thread I put in here,” he said. “I need a few stitches.”
Lexa squeezed her eyes shut, using all of her strength to forget the sight of the naked cannibal sinking his teeth into Rocky. The sheer pain and shock of Rocky’s cry sent another wave of shivers down her back. She opened her eyes after a moment and pulled her bag out of Rocky’s hands. After ruffling around, she pulled out a sewing kit the camp used for both stitches and clothing. It wasn’t the most sanitary operation, but it wasn’t like needles and thread could be picked up at all hours of the day from the store across the street. Hint: there wasn’t a store near Lexa’s camp, anyway.
“Let me,” Lexa offered.
Rocky conceded, extending his leg onto Lexa’s lap. He looked away and bit his lip.
“What, you don’t like blood?” Lexa asked.
“Not particularly,” Rocky answered.
Lexa snickered as she slowly removed Rocky’s shirt from the wound. By then, the bleeding had somewhat subsided. She used the moonlight as her guide as she steadied her hands to put the thread through the eye of the needle. She dumped a little alcohol on the needle and took a deep breath.
“Don’t you think we should light a fire or something? So you can see what you’re doing?” Rocky asked.
“I can see okay. It’s a full moon tonight,” she replied.
“No wonders the crazies are out,” Rocky mumbled.
“You ready?”
Rocky’s hairline showed signs of perspiration forming. His hands quivered, and if Lexa didn’t know any better, she’d swear his face had a slight twinge of green.
“Are you scared?” Lexa asked, smiling.
