“He’s coming,” the cadaver whispered. “Run.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sam launched herself out of the bed, a scream held at bay behind tightly squeezed lips. She hit the cabin’s wall and turned to face the bed.
The corpse was gone.
Sam gasped. Her heart thundered as she rubbed her sweaty palms across her jeans. A dream. It was just a dream. Calm down.
And yet, there was a strange smell about the room, like dirty water and organic decay. It felt thick in Sam’s lungs and was somehow familiar.
Sam swore under her breath. She snatched the walkie-talkie off the bedside table and pressed the button. “Brandon, are you there? It’s Sam.”
The crackling static answered her. Sam waited for nearly a full minute then pressed the button again. “Brandon? Hello?”
She listened with increasing frustration to the background noise then paced to the balcony and looked outside. The sky was still dark and swirling, creating strange patterns on the water’s surface. Sam tried to guess the time, but that was nearly impossible without the sun.
Then she heard the faint click of a closing door. Sam’s heart froze, and she turned towards the stairs leading to the ground floor. She raised the walkie-talkie to her mouth and pressed the button.
“Brandon?” She didn’t dare raise her voice above a whisper. “Please, please answer me. He’s here.”
The only reply was static.
Footsteps echoed through the floor below then stopped. Sam imagined the man standing in the centre of the room, his grey eyes scanning the myriad of paintings depicting him. Would they confuse him? Disturb him, even? Then the footsteps resumed, leading across the room and towards the stairwell.
Panic flooded her, lending her tired limbs strength. Sam cast around for some type of defence. She’d left the knife in the downstairs room, and there was no other weapon in the bedroom. Nowhere to hide, either.
The footsteps changed timbre as he began climbing the stairs. Sam clamped both hands over her mouth, trying to muffle her frantic breathing, as she searched with increasing desperation for some kind of rescue. Her eyes landed on the window.
Sam crossed to the balcony’s bannister and looked over the edge. She hated how far away the ground seemed, but there was no time left to find any other option. She swung her leg over the wooden barrier, and her heart jumped as the wood swayed under her weight. The footsteps were nearly at the top of the stairs.
There’s no time. Do it now!
She dropped over the outside of the bannister and lowered herself until her hands clung to the wooden struts and her legs dangled over the drop.
The man appeared at the top of the stairs. His wild, steel-grey eyes fixed on Sam for a split second before she let go.
Impact forced Sam’s breath from her as she hit the ground. Pain shot up her right leg, and, for a moment of blind panic, she thought she might have broken it. It still moved, though, and could take enough weight to let her scramble on her back away from the foot of the cabin.
The man stood on the balcony, his bony hands gripping the rail she’d just released. Sam hadn’t realised before just how tall he was; he seemed to fill the entire doorway, and sinewy muscles bulged under his dirty shirt. He had a rope coil slung around one shoulder, and she thought she saw the edge of the axe under his dark moleskin coat.
Sam stared, transfixed, at the furious grey eyes that had haunted her. They seem so much more malevolent in the flesh.
The man’s lip curled into a sneer, and he turned back to the room. He wasn’t reckless or desperate enough to follow her over the bannister, which meant the climb down the stairs would buy Sam a few seconds.
A few seconds for what? My car won’t start, and there’s not enough time to hide.
Sam scrambled to her feet, wincing as pain flashed up her injured leg. She turned in a semi-circle, searching for an escape, and caught sight of a dark car parked twenty meters away, near the path that led towards the entrance to the park. Its driver door stood open.
Did the grey-eyed man drive here? I didn’t see a car on his property, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have one. If he left the keys in the ignition…
No matter how repulsive she found the idea of touching his property, Sam knew she couldn’t reject the only lifeline offered to her. She made for the car as quickly as she could, gritting her teeth against the pain stabbing through her leg.
She’d nearly reached the vehicle when she caught sight of the emblem emblazoned on the door. Harob Park Ranger’s Office.
“Brandon…” Sam threw herself towards the driver’s side.
The ranger lay slumped across the steering wheel, one hand thrown over the dash, the other lying limply in his lap. His face was turned towards the door as his dark eyes gazed sightlessly out of ashen skin and his mouth hung open in an expression of surprise.
“Brandon!” Sam pulled open the door and shook the ranger’s arm. He slid a few inches sideways before catching in his locked seatbelt. Something dark protruded from his back. Sam’s hands fluttered towards it, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch the knife embedded between the man’s shoulder blades. “No, no, no, please, no—”
She turned to face the cabin, forest, and lake as she fought to draw breath. She couldn’t see the man. Is he still inside the cabin? In the woods? Why hasn’t he followed me?
The answer came easily. I have no way to escape. He knows he can take his time stalking me. That’s what this is for him—a hunt… and he doesn’t want it to end too quickly.
Sam turned back to the car and brushed Brandon’s chocolate hair away from his face with shaking fingers. A sob stuck in her throat, but she pushed it back down and blinked to clear her eyes. Focus. Find a way out.
Sam looked in the ignition, hoping it might still hold the keys, but the man had taken them. She then leaned over Brandon’s shoulder to look into the backseat.
A first-aid kit, an animal trap, a thick guidebook, spare boots, and a jacket were scattered about the back. If Brandon had brought any weapons, the man had taken them. A blanket lay crumpled on the car’s floor behind the driver’s seat, and Sam stared at it. That morning’s events were slowly falling into place.
Brandon had said it would take him an hour to reach Sam, but the ranger’s office was more than two hours away, at the entrance to the park. That meant he must have already been in the forest when Sam contacted him. He’d probably been checking the park’s traps for animals to tag and monitor, if the cage in the back of the car was any indication.
Is it possible the grey-eyed man had a walkie-talkie? Or had he been near enough to Brandon to listen in on our conversation? If he’d heard us, and if he’d gotten to the car before Brandon did, it would have been all too easy to hide under the blanket in the backseat. He’d have an easy ride to the cabin before attacking his unknowing host.
Sam squeezed her eyes closed, fighting her grief and fear, and stepped back from the car. A spot of rain hit her arm. She turned in a semi-circle, fruitlessly searching for the man. He’ll be somewhere he can watch me without being seen. He wants to see what I’m going to do. What am I going to do? I could go into the cabin and get one of the paring knives out of the drawer… as though that would be any sort of defence against an axe. Or I could go into the forest and try to outrun him… but I’d have nowhere to go, and he’s more familiar with the woods than I am. Or…
Sam’s eyes landed on the canoe, its tip barely dipped into the water. There aren’t any other boats. If I got onto the lake, he wouldn’t be able to follow me.
Thunder cracked overhead. Sam ran, moving her pained leg as fast as she could, towards the water’s edge. She didn’t let herself think about what she would do once she was on the water or how she hoped to escape from the forest; everything else was secondary to her immediate need to put as much distance as she could between herself and her stalker.
Sam was nearly at the canoe when the man burst from the forest’s edge. He kept his body low a
nd moved lithely as he arced towards her. She caught a glimpse of his eyes, manic with excitement, his hungry smile stretching the scar across his cheek. Then Sam’s hands hit the canoe’s end, and she shoved it into the water with all of her strength.
It was heavy and ground forward slowly. Sam poured every bit of adrenaline into the task, fighting against gravity and the boat, until it was waterborne and rushing across the lake’s surface. Sam continued pushing it until the water reached her thighs, then hauled herself over the edge of the canoe. It nearly overbalanced, but Sam threw herself towards its opposite side to right it, then grabbed the paddle and plunged it into the water.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the man had paused on the edge of the lake. He held his head high, and a cruel delight stretched his lips into a grin.
Sam pulled the paddle through the water, and the canoe spun. She quickly changed sides, trying to temper her frantic energy to a more efficient level. She didn’t dare look behind herself again, but she could hear the man moving; the dirt crunched under his boots as he paced along the shore. He was moving languidly—confidently—and Sam didn’t like it. She focussed on drawing her paddle through the water, moving the canoe farther into the lake. Farther from him.
Thunder crashed again, and what had been gentle spits of water turned into a downpour.
The footsteps changed from a crunching noise to a quiet thud, accompanied by a strange scraping sound. Sam couldn’t stop herself from looking, and icy-cold fear ran through her chest. The man was pacing down the length of the dock. He’d taken the rope off his shoulder, and a large grappling hook hung from its end, its edges viciously sharp. He let the metal hook drag along the slats to create the scraping sound that had set Sam’s teeth on edge.
He thought I might use the canoe, and he came prepared.
Sam swore and pulled her paddle through the water too quickly, breaking the canoe’s momentum and sending it into a spin. A muted whirring noise replaced the scraping. Sam moved the paddle to the other side of the boat, but overcompensated again, and her vessel lurched. Before she could correct it, a loud clang filled her ears, and she felt the boat rock as the grappling hook found its mark.
Sam turned to see the hook had landed inside the boat, but hadn’t yet caught on the wood. Pure instinct took over and pushed her to fight. She dived towards the hook, intending to lift it and throw it overboard, but just as her hand tightened around the cold, curved metal, the man gave it a ferocious tug.
The force of the pull, combined with the boat’s lurch, threw her off her feet. She hit the rain-dampened hull and screamed as the hook trapped her hand against the canoe’s bow, crushing her fingers.
Sam’s vision blurred as pain overrode her senses. Her fingers felt as though they’d been set on fire. She tried to get her spare hand behind the hook to pull it off, but her stalker gave an extra-sharp tug, increasing the pressure, and Sam cried out again.
The man stood on the edge of the dock, legs braced on the wood, both hands wrapped around the rope as he pulled her closer in long, easy drags. She couldn’t look away. The wolfish, blood-hungry smile dominated his face, as his terrible grey eyes laughed at her while the rain drenched him. She would be at the edge of the dock in a few seconds. What then? Will he use the axe or one of the knives? Will he take my finger before or after he kills me?
She had no energy left to fight him or even to free her burning, trapped hand. Her eyes dropped and widened as movement underneath the dock caught her attention. Bodies were pulling themselves out of the weedy area below the pier, dripping water as they clung to the dark supports. There’s so many of them. Are they all his?
Gaunt, sightless, decaying faces turned upwards, towards the dock, and sallow hands rose to dig their nails into the wood, applying their weight to the decaying structure. Even in the canoe, Sam could hear the scratching, scraping noises they produced. The man heard them, too, and his smile faltered as he glanced towards his feet. He was just in time to see the wood splinter below his boots, then the dock gave out, and he plunged through the hole and into the waiting arms of his victims.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The pressure on the hook slackened, then the canoe bumped into the edge of the dock and rebounded. Sam was finally able to force her left hand under the hook. She pulled as hard as she could, digging it out of the wood until she was able to free her right hand. Then she slumped back, clutching her injured fingers to her chest as she watched the water below the dock froth while the grey-eyed man fought for his life.
She finally let herself rest as the exhaustion from the stress and sleepless night crashed over her. Rain dripped from her drenched hair and ran down her face as she leaned against the boat’s side. She focussed on breathing, drawing ragged breaths into her aching lungs, until the frantic, churning of the water subsided.
The waves spent themselves on the shore, and at last, the lake was still again, save for the multitude of tiny ripples created by the rain. Sam shivered. She couldn’t see any sign of the man or the bodies that had claimed him. Except for the hole in the dock and her aching fingers, it was almost as though the last half hour had never happened. Sam let her eyes close.
She didn’t know how long she stayed there, shivering and nursing her throbbing hand, but the rain had eased to a drizzle when something nudged the canoe. Sam jolted to alertness and grabbed at the boat’s side, afraid she might be thrown out, but the motion was gentle. The canoe slid across the water, towards the shore, until its base ground to a halt in the dirt. Sam craned her neck to look over both sides of the boat, but couldn’t see anything in the murky water.
She was freezing; the rain had sapped all of the warmth from her body. She pushed herself to her feet and stumbled out of the boat, willing her shaking legs to take her weight.
The surrounding forest seemed alive in a way she’d never seen it before, as though the rain had woken a multitude of hibernating beasts. Birds chattered amongst themselves, and farther up the mountain a wild animal called out. Sam stood on the shore for a moment, uncertain about what she should do, and where she should go.
“Sam.” The voice was raspy and faint, as though its owner was speaking through a damaged larynx. Sam turned and saw the corpse, her companion for the last three days, standing half a dozen paces behind her. The hollows where his eyes belonged watched her carefully, and he seemed to have posed himself to look as unthreatening as possible.
Sam let her eyes rove over him, taking in the tattered hiking clothes, the shoulder-length bronze hair, and the skin that she thought must have been pale even before his death. She took a half step towards him. “Ian? Ian McKeller?”
The cadaver’s cracked lips twitched into a smile, and he gave a small nod, then held his closed fist towards her. “We found these in his pocket.”
Sam held out her hand, and Ian dropped the ranger’s car keys into it. His fingers, clammy and spongy, brushed her hand, but Sam found it less repulsive than she’d expected. She swallowed thickly as she stared at the keys. “Thank you. For saving me. For everything.”
Ian turned his sightless eyes towards the car. “The ranger is still alive, but not for much longer. I treated the wound as well as I could, but… it’s becoming harder to remember… who I used to be… what I used to know…” He exhaled a lungful of sticky, moist air and shook his head. “You’ll need to hurry, Sam.”
“Okay.” Sam took a step backwards but couldn’t bring herself to turn away. “I’ll make sure your… your body is found. And the others. You’ll have a proper burial.”
Another smile fluttered across the corpse’s face, peeling up the edges of the decayed skin on his cheeks. “You know, all of that becomes surprisingly unimportant when you’re dead. But I would be grateful if my family knew what happened.”
“Of course. I’ll make sure.”
“And you’re welcome to use the paintings. They’re as much yours as they are mine.”
Her drained mind couldn’t understand what he meant, but she
nodded anyway.
The corpse gave her a final, gentle smile. “Goodbye, Sam.”
The rain had settled to infrequent spits, but it was still enough to make Sam shiver as Ian turned and started towards the lake. She stared at the car keys in her hand, blinking back tears, then drew a shuddering breath as Ian’s words filtered through to her. Brandon’s still alive.
She ran to the car. Brandon had been moved to the passenger seat and leant against the door. Ian had cut off Brandon’s shirt and turned it into bandages, which had been wrapped around his torso. Sam held a shaking hand in front of his open mouth and felt his breath—weak but enduring—on her fingertips. She slid into the driver’s seat, buckled the belt, and put the keys into the ignition. As the car’s motor roared to life, she glanced back at the lake.
Sunlight had broken through the rainclouds and painted large golden streaks across the water’s surface. The cabin, beautiful and rustic, was as much a part of the lake as the rocks. It watched over its surroundings. Ian knelt on the dock’s edge, in his familiar crouched pose. He turned towards Sam and raised a hand in farewell. Sam returned the gesture, and the corpse slid forward, over the edge of the dock, to plunge into the water.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When arranged in order, the paintings had a startling impact. They started with brief glimpses of the man moving like a wraith through the trees, then focussed on his face and his harsh grey eyes. From there, the paintings moved on to show his victims fighting for their lives, and ultimately losing. The finger was cut off. Then the bodies were thrown off the dock, plunging below the lake’s surface, where they would become tangled in weeds and consumed by fish and insects. The narrative was brutal and shocking, but it also held something of a distorted elegance: man pitted against man in nature’s arena.
Sam stood with her back to a pillar near the centre of the spacious, well-lit room, her right hand discreetly held behind her back so that the splint wouldn’t be too obvious. The grey-eyed man’s grappling hook had broken two of her fingers. Looking at the paintings, though, Sam could only feel grateful for how lightly she’d escaped.
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