by Cari Hunter
“Yeah,” Sarah said. Her eyes were fixed on the path behind them as if she were waiting for a monster to suddenly appear. “We hope we get lucky.”
*
“It doesn’t look too bad.” Sarah peered down the course of the stream. Although swollen by the storm, it would give them a clear and relatively straight track down through the forest. The rocks that crowded in on it were slick in places, but she hoped they would be able to scramble down them if the water became too deep or too rapid to wade through.
“No, it doesn’t.” Alex nodded in agreement.
Sarah felt a small shiver of relief pass through her. She had wanted to take some of the pressure away from Alex, to lead instead of hiding behind the easy option of following, but she had been assailed by doubt as they retraced their steps. The detour she had suggested would eat into what little advantage they had over Merrick, and she knew they didn’t have time to make another one.
“Don’t know about you, but I’m putting my wet socks back on,” Alex said lightly. She was kneeling by her pack and, having pulled her socks from its depths, was now searching through it for something else. When she stood, there was a length of rope in her hands. “C’mere.”
Sarah stepped closer to her and raised her arms so Alex could loop the rope around her waist. “Wasn’t planning on running off,” she said as Alex secured a second loop around herself.
“No?” Alex grinned, testing the knots. “Just don’t want to lose you, is all.”
“So if I go arse over tits, we both go arse over tits?” Sarah asked, forgetting for a moment that the phrase might not mean a thing to Alex.
Alex laughed as they changed their socks; she didn’t seem to have had any difficulties translating that one. “You have such a charming way with words, darling.” The upper-class English accent she adopted was actually quite impressive.
“It’s part of my Northern charm,” Sarah told her with mock seriousness, but then she looked over at the stream and sighed. “So, we should probably do this before we lose the light.”
“Yeah, we should.”
Alex touched her hand to Sarah’s face. Sarah closed her eyes briefly, wishing they were anywhere but here and then wishing that Alex hadn’t already dropped her hand away. Straightening her shoulders, she walked to the edge of the stream, where she weighed up her first move. At a reassuring nod from Alex, she stepped into the water.
Even though she’d endured days of cold and miserable damp, growing somewhat accustomed to it, the water that rushed over her feet was chilled enough to take her breath away.
“Oh God, whose bloody stupid idea was this?” she muttered and heard Alex laugh shortly. The current tugged at her ankles, making her wobble. She put her arms out for balance and felt Alex’s hand on her shoulder steadying her. Pebbles turned and shifted beneath the soles of her boots, and every drenched rock was covered in a layer of filmy green lichen. She knew then, even as her heart beat faster and urged her to hurry, that this was not something they would be able to rush.
“Just take your time,” Alex said, as if she had read her mind. “We get below that point there,” she gestured toward a curve in the stream, “and we won’t be visible from the trail anymore.”
“Okay.” Sarah set off again, her feet already numb and uncooperative. A rock that had appeared to be a safe foothold capsized the instant she put weight on it and only a sharp tug from Alex on the rope around her waist prevented her from falling. “Avoid that one,” she said, altering her route to step around it.
They made painfully slow progress. Reluctant to speak because of their proximity to the trail, they waded down in near-silence, whispering warnings or advice to each other, with one ear constantly alert to any movement above them. When they finally reached the curve that Alex had indicated, Sarah began to breathe a little easier, but her relief was muted by fading daylight and the nagging sense that they simply weren’t going fast enough.
A faint, repetitive, mechanical sound made her instinctively drop low. Behind her, she heard Alex scramble to do likewise, before they simultaneously identified the source of the noise.
“Chopper,” Alex whispered. She tilted her head on one side to listen and try to gauge its whereabouts.
Sarah craned her neck back, straining to catch a glimpse of it, but she knew even before Alex spoke again that the helicopter was nowhere near them.
“I think it’s over the other side of the peak,” Alex said. “Probably heading back in before dusk.”
Sarah resumed the task of picking her way downstream. “At least they’re looking.” She tried to sound optimistic, but the obvious caveat hung unspoken between them: rescue teams wouldn’t be any help if they were searching in the wrong place.
*
Merrick heard the dry snap seconds before he heard Beth’s gasp of pain. He turned to find her sitting on the ground, her left foot twisted awkwardly behind her, her face ashen.
“Nate, I think it’s broken,” she whimpered as he walked over to her.
He could see her ankle now, offset at a strange angle and already beginning to swell. Her foot was still caught up in the tree root she had tripped over. Ignoring her cries of pain, he freed her boot and straightened her ankle.
“Can you walk?” He knew the answer even before he asked the question and was not surprised when she shook her head.
“Please don’t leave me here,” she said. Her hands grasped out for his and he knocked them away impatiently, trying to think what his options were and finding them extremely limited. Beth attempted to stand but fell back the instant she tried to put any weight on the injury.
“Fucking hell.” He stalked away from her and kicked at a diseased piece of tree trunk that crumbled beneath his anger. “You stupid fucking—”
“Call my uncle.”
He didn’t respond to that, continuing to pound his boot against the rotten wood.
“Call my uncle,” she said again, and something, some uncommon note of command in her voice, made him turn around. “Use the radio.” She threw it toward him.
“Why the fuck would I want to do that?” He made no move to pick up the radio. “Your uncle is sitting pretty in Seattle waiting for us to bring him something we haven’t got a chance in hell of finding right now. You think he’ll be happy to hear we have even more fucking problems?”
Beth held his gaze unflinchingly. The set of her face had changed, making her unrecognizable as the timid girl who had obeyed him without question for months.
“He’s not in Seattle,” she told him calmly. “He’s already in the park.” She laughed then, and a cruel smile twisted her lips. “You actually believed that he trusted you? You actually believed that I would ever have noticed you at that rally?”
Despite the horrible expression on her face, Merrick found himself unable to look away. He had been utterly confident that he was in control, that he had manipulated every stage of this perfectly, and instead it had been Deakin who had reeled him in from the outset.
“How many times have you spoken to him?” he asked, his voice strangled. He nodded toward the radio, the occasions he had come close to catching her in the act now so obvious in his mind.
“Twice a day. The search parties are slowing him down some, but he could still be here within a couple of days. Leave me some supplies and go on without me.”
His answer wiped the smile from her face. “No.”
For the first time, she looked uncertain. “What do you mean, no?”
“No,” he repeated, and as she lunged for the radio, he kicked it beyond her reach. He picked it up, clipped it onto his belt, and took hold of his gun. “Reckon by the time Uncle Nick catches up with me, I’ll have thought of a decent explanation, some tragic accident that befell his favorite niece.” He pointed the gun at her head and she stared up at him, hatred burning in her eyes. “Cat got your tongue?” he asked, and moved his finger to the trigger.
*
The crack of a gunshot was so sudden and so close t
hat it startled Sarah into losing her footing. Her arms flew out as she slipped, her hands grappling for purchase on the rocks. She landed heavily on her side and began to slide, water soaking into her pants and the sleeve of her jacket just before the rope around her waist was pulled taut and she was jerked to a stop.
“Sarah?” Alex hissed. She sounded frightened and short of breath.
“I’m still here.” Sarah realized her own voice was just as tremulous as Alex’s. She took a quick physical inventory and found nothing more serious than a bump to her thigh. “Thanks.”
“Welcome,” Alex said. She splashed down beside her and pulled her into a hug. “Sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.” Sarah nodded against Alex for extra emphasis. “If that was him, he’s right behind us.”
The shot had sounded from the level of the trail, toward the direction of the landslide. She felt nervousness twisting her stomach into knots as she looked over Alex’s shoulder. They were only just below the point where the stream dipped out of sight of the trail; as Merrick reached the landslide, they would have no way of knowing which route he chose, no way of knowing if he was in front of them or behind them.
“He can’t have been shooting at us,” Alex murmured, as if she were musing aloud rather than inviting debate. “So I guess that leaves animal or girlfriend.”
“We’ve not seen anything big enough to be a threat,” Sarah said, knowing that the man she had watched calmly shoot a kneeling victim would be more than capable of killing his girlfriend. She didn’t want to think what he might do to her and Alex if he caught up with them. That spurred her to move, and she staggered to her feet, wincing at every splash she made and every pebble that shifted and clacked on the streambed. Above them, the sky was aflame with pink and orange, the sun dropping low behind wisps of cloud that weren’t going to be substantial enough to prevent a frost. Even now, their breath was visible as they began to walk, and she flexed her fingers repeatedly in a vain effort to regain sensation in them. The only part of her body that she could really feel was the hot area of bruising forming on the outer side of her thigh. She took a perverse sort of comfort from it; it reminded her what it was like to be warm.
The scramble downstream became an annoying stop-start of leaving and then reentering the water. Unlike walking on the trail, which had been, for the most part, reasonably clear, it was impossible to find any sort of rhythm in the water, and she had to force herself not to slam her hands against the rocks in frustration. She felt a gentle tug on the rope around her waist and tugged back to acknowledge Alex’s unspoken reassurance. It wasn’t the first time Alex had done it, and she always seemed to sense exactly when it was most needed.
“About another fifty yards, then we’re good,” Alex said.
Sarah nodded, fumbling for the next step even as she warned herself to go slow. Less haste, more speed, her mum had been fond of telling Molly. It was a proverb that had never really made sense to Sarah and one that had been gleefully ignored by her younger sister. She repeated it to herself now, soundlessly forming the words. They still didn’t make much sense to her, but they stopped her from thinking about Merrick and how long it would be before he found them.
After judging the distance to be about right, Alex gave a quick pull on the rope.
“Here,” she said.
Sarah didn’t stop, didn’t even seem to have heard her.
“Here,” Alex said again, giving a little pull on the rope for emphasis.
“Wha—Oh, sorry.” Sarah stood still as if in a daze and automatically tucked her hands beneath her armpits to try to warm them. She was shivering violently, the chattering of her teeth audible as Alex took up the slack from the rope and then began to untie the knot at Sarah’s waist.
The sun had all but disappeared, taking with it its meager warmth. Alex fumbled with the knot, her fingers stiff and clumsy. Stepping out from the water really didn’t help much; her boots and pants were saturated, and the material began to feel even colder against her legs as the cool air circulated around her.
“Dammit.” She took Sarah’s hands in her own and rubbed the ghost-white skin, hoping the friction would restore some warmth to it. Sarah’s face was pallid in the moonlight, and when Alex looked at the sky, she was almost dazzled by the vast array of stars. It was too dark now to continue much farther; she knew they had to find somewhere to shelter for the night. Nocturnal animals were beginning to stir among the trees that crowded in on the stream. Their movement made fallen leaves crackle and rustle intermittently, jangling Alex’s already frayed nerves. The forest was no longer clinging to the mountainside at such an acute angle, but even so there was no light within its depths, and using a flashlight would be an open invitation for Merrick to come down and find them.
“Shit.” The flashlight wasn’t the only thing they would have to forsake that night. She rocked back on her heels. Her socks squelched, and icy water seeped between her toes. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“A-Alex?” Her name came out in a staccato from between Sarah’s still-chattering teeth.
She swore again, berating herself for having spoken out loud. “Nothing, it’s okay,” she said, but she could see that Sarah was far from mollified. She pulled Sarah’s hood up, tucked her hair into its confines, and then drew the hood tight around her face. Sarah smiled fondly at her, which made what she had to say all the more difficult. “We won’t be able to light a fire tonight. Not with Merrick so nearby.”
“I know that,” Sarah said. She seemed completely calm, as if resigned to whatever fate had in store for her.
Alex squeezed her hand. “Walt showed me a few tricks.” She managed to sound more confident than she felt. “We’ll be all right, I promise.”
Sarah nodded and gave a low murmur of agreement, but the look in her eyes implied that Alex should be careful of making promises that she might not be able to keep.
Chapter Ten
“Bugger, didn’t see it. Sorry.”
Sarah took the hand that Alex held out to her, lifted her boot from the small hole it had vanished into, and then scrambled back to her feet. She made a half-hearted attempt to brush dirt and dried leaves from her filthy pants but quickly gave up, seeming to realize that a large quantity of the forest floor was already clinging to her clothes.
For close to an hour, they had been walking in the dark with only occasional light filtering down from the moon to guide their path. Alex had tried to give Sarah an idea of what they needed to look out for, but she knew they had probably already walked blindly past several areas that would have been ideal.
They had continued for an additional half hour beyond the point where Sarah had tripped over, when Alex grabbed her arm to get her attention and then gestured ahead of them.
“There, see? That’ll be perfect.”
Sarah nodded a little uncertainly. Alex wasn’t sure that she really did appreciate the potential of the dead tree in the clearing, but the relief on her face was easy to distinguish.
“Just tell me what you need me to do,” she said as, weariness pushed aside, they jogged across to the tree Alex had spotted.
Alex ran her hands over the rough bark of the fallen spruce. The tree’s skeletal silhouette had been clearly delineated by the moonlight reaching down into the tiny clearing. The tangled deadfall of the tree’s upper branches would give structure to the shelter she planned to build, and for the first time since they started to walk through the forest, there was enough natural light making it through the tree canopy for them to work by.
“Ditch the bags here,” she said. “We need insulation for the base of the shelter; spruce branches, bracken, whatever you can gather.”
Sarah’s lips moved as she repeated the instructions over to herself.
“Sarah?” Alex waited until Sarah looked up at her properly. “Stay within the clearing where I can see you,” she said gently, and smiled when Sarah gave her a crisp salute.
Several branches had snapped cleanly off the tree
as it had fallen. Alex began to collect the more manageable ones together. She leaned them up against the deadfall and used those that were still full and green to plug the gaps in the walls she was gradually constructing. She had only seen Walt demonstrate this skill once, when he had invited her to accompany him as he and Marilyn ran a weekend course on wilderness survival. It had been the height of summer. The sun had beaten down relentlessly on a group of city thrill seekers who had subsequently gotten back into their air-conditioned SUVs secure in the knowledge that, if they ever deigned to set foot in the wilderness again, they would know what to do should someone steal their Winnebago. Alex had built her own shelter a short distance from Walt’s, and Marilyn had stayed late into the evening to share hotdogs and the remnants of the brownies she had baked. Kip, excited to have someone new to play with, had slept with Alex that night, and it had been almost too warm in the shelter for her to bear.
She forced her fingertips beneath another piece of bark that was still stubbornly clinging to the tree trunk and pried it loose to use as a shingle for the roof. With frost already making the grass and ferns glow in the moonlight, she realized that she would give an awful lot right now for a shelter that was half as snug as the one she had shared with Kip.
A swishing noise made her turn around sharply and she saw Sarah staggering toward the tree. Her arms were laden with greenery, and she was simultaneously dragging several larger pieces of spruce that she had hung from her belt.
“I tried to get dry pieces,” she said as Alex took some of the load from her. “Oh hey, that looks good.” She gave the shelter an appreciative once-over.
“I went for windproof over waterproof,” Alex told her, patting the sides where the insulation was thicker. “I don’t think it’ll rain tonight.” The sky was crystal clear, but a nasty little breeze was making the frigid air feel even colder. “Come on. Soon as the floor’s done we can get in and get warm.”
