Amy cut to the side and jumped, heart pounding in her chest. In the corner of her eye, she saw the flash of the snake as it leaped at her. But by some miracle of timing she didn’t feel the hard punch of the snake’s strike. She hit the ground hard and rolled, instantly reaching down to feel her legs, no pulsing injury sending panic up her body.
But the snake was once again wrapped in its coils, only a few feet from her, its reptilian eyes fixed on her, purple tongue flicking to taste the air, and to judge where to place its next strike, this one to be the deadly delivery of its terrible toxins.
Amy’s body was paralyzed, frozen, her soul hypnotized by that slithering dragon as it prepared, rattle getting louder … louder …
But the creature backed off, eyes fixed on her as its body shifted it in a slow and careful retreat. Once it was far enough away, Amy scurried back, finally turning to scramble to her feet and make her way further along the mountainside, away from the cabin but no closer to the main road; deeper into the woods and an uncertain future.
Then she ran straight into Camden’s happy clutches, his smile cradling just a hit of gloat. “Enjoy your little stroll?” Without waiting for an answer, her picked her up. Blood rushed to her head as he hoisted her up and slung her over his shoulder to carry her back up the hill to the cabin.
Once Camden had Amy back up to the cabin he unlocked the door and carried her in, slamming the door behind him and dropping her onto the mattress. Amy couldn’t stop giggling, and she knew she was close to ruining the moment, but that moment was more powerful then her imagination, than their combined perspectives. They lived in the service of that moment and every moment to follow.
The pounding on the door sent shockwaves through her body, another cluster of hard knocks nearly shaking the wall.
Chapter 27
Amy
Amy crawled up out of the bed and joined Camden as he approached the front door. Camden barked, “Who is it?”
“You’re in there with Amy Dey?”
Amy and Camden glanced at one another, neither recognizing the voice. Amy peeked out the window, not familiar with the rumpled man on the other side of the door. She shrugged at Camden, shaking her head. Camden turned and slowly opened the door.
“Who are you?”
The man standing on the other side of the door couldn’t have seemed more out of place in the forest, an ill-fitting brown suit and pale complexion about as unnatural as could be. The man answered, “Amy Dey’s in here?”
“I am,” Amy said, leaning out from behind Camden’s tremendous shoulder. “What do you want?”
“May I come in?”
Camden and Amy shared another glance as they backed away from the door. But Camden had little to fear from any man, and in his company, Amy could share his confidence. And since it was her own name on the man’s lips, Amy was more than curious about who he was and why he was there.
Camden closed the cabin door behind the man as he stepped into the room, looking around at the cabin with a kind of shabby courtesy. “Nice place,” he muttered, “real cozy little love nest.”
Camden asked him, “What’s your business here?”
“Right to the point,” he said, “I like that. Harvey Cox, private investigator; I’m here to look after Miss Dey’s safety.”
“I’m perfectly safe,” Amy said.
“Safety,” Camden repeated. “They sent you to spy on Amy, her family?”
“They wanted to know who she was seeing, yeah. Did you two really think you could run around like this and not get found out?”
Amy stepped out from around Camden, thrusting her chin and her finger at the man. “We’re consenting adults and we’re free to do whatever we want! Why don’t you go back and tell my mother and my brothers that they can go to hell?”
“I could,” Harvey said, “or I could go back and tell them you’re hiring a male prostitute to tie you up and kidnap you.”
Amy blurted out, “How do you — ?” Stopping herself, Amy went on, “What are you talking about?”
“Longshadows, Amy, that’s what I’m talking about. You paid with your American Express black card, it wasn’t hard to trace.” Camden advanced on Harvey, but the smaller, older man pulled a silver single-action handgun from his pocket, its deadly barrel pointed directly at his heart. Amy’s hands grasped Camden’s arm as he stopped, the two of them held at bay.
“Let’s get down to business then,” Harvey said, “shall we? I know what’s going on here, and frankly, I don’t give a damn. Big guy, far as I’m concerned you got the job of a lifetime, my hat’s off to ya. And Amy, hey, I get it. I don’t judge, not at all. In fact, if you ever decide you want to have a different kind of scenario, a daddy thing, maybe a bad-cop interrogation thing, just gimme a call. I’ll be very discrete, I promise.”
Amy sneered, “You make me sick.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Harvey said, “that’s perfect. Then you tell me what disgusting old pervert I am.”
“Why don’t you get to the point?” Camden asked.
“Shut ‘cher hole, pretty boy. I’m running the show now.” Harvey stepped forward, forcing Amy and Camden back toward the center of the cabin. “Oh yeah, I can just imagine what the Deys would make of this.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I shudder to think, tell you the truth.”
Amy knew what that sleazebag of a man was getting at, so she wasn’t surprised when he went on, “They’ll cut you off, Amy, probably your brother Daniel too.” Amy was beyond caring for her family’s money and was fast beginning to fear for her and Camden’s lives. But Harvey added, “There is another way, however. I could go down this hill, tell them I didn’t find anything, tell them that Amy’s just talking it out with her pal Isla, leave it at that.”
Amy and Camden glared at him. There was nothing to say, and only one real question to be asked. “How much?”
Harvey smiled at Amy, proud of her assumption. “Ten grand a month. It’s really not so much; not for you, anyway. And it’s little enough so that your family won’t be alarmed.” A terrible silence followed, Harvey, smiling in anticipation. “You won’t even miss it. And think of what you’re getting in return; privacy, secrecy, as much weird sex as you can manage.”
Camden acted quickly, lashing out with his mighty arms, grabbing the gun with one hand and throwing a hard punch with another, knocking Harvey back, falling hard to the cabin floor. Holding the gun on Harvey, Camden stepped back, Amy clinging to him.
“Alright,” Harvey said, pushing himself to his feet, “okay, so what? What’re you gonna do? Shoot me? Yeah, right. You still gotta pay me either way.”
A low growl leaked into the cabin from outside, sudden and quick to get louder. The hairs on the back of Amy’s neck stood up and she and Camden looked up together, then at one another. The growl came louder, and all three knew what they were facing.
Chapter 28
Amy
The bear’s growls got louder fast, its heavy feet falling on the crackling debris. It grunted, angry and frustrated but not nearly to its limit. Just a casual huff sounded to Amy like a death knoll. Amy asked, “We gotta get to your car.”
The bear was circling the cabin, sniffing and growling, its presence clear, its massive form passing beyond the window, curtains drawn.
“Black bear,” Camden said, “probably a female, the one those hunters were after, looking for food before she hibernates.”
Amy repeated, “Food?” with a whole new fear in her voice. The bear kept stomping around the cabin, the walls shaking as it tested the building’s strength.
Amy asked Camden, “What do we do?”
Harvey said, “You’ve got the gun, Tarzan, just shoot the damn thing!”
“That’s our last option,” Camden said. “Maybe I can scare it off.”
“Brilliant,” Harvey muttered as Camden approached the window near the front door. The bear was just on the other side, its massive body rolling back and forth as if guarding the entrance to the cabin.
Not wanting to open the window, Camden used the gun to shatter the upper pane of glass. Carefully aiming at the trunk of a nearby pine tree, Camden lined up his sites and pulled the trigger twice.
But two stunted metal clicks answered back, shots fired. Two more tries only created the same disappointing result.
“Gun’s jammed,” Camden said, glaring at Harvey, who could only shrug. A few more dry clicks told the story, the gun was useless.
Camden and Harvey exchanged a worried glance. Harvey asked, “There’s no hunting rifle in this shit shack?”
Camden shook his head. “I found a flare gun, we can shoot it with that. Point blank range, that should stop it.”
Harvey shook his head. “You’ve seen too many movies, partner. Unless you nailed it in the head, a flare would bounce right off that fatty hyde. Not to mention how pissed-off the thing would be.”
“We’ll shoot it in the head then. We’ve got two shells.”
Harvey asked, “And what if you miss? That’s our only weapon, we need to hold onto it, just in case.”
“In case of what? A second bear? Godzilla?”
“You’d need to be at point-blank range, big man. If you miss, you’re dead. Not that it means much to me.”
“I don’t want you to leave me with him and a flare gun,” Amy said.
“What am I gonna do to you,” Harvey snapped, “besides cash your check?”
“You can forget about that,” Amy said.
The bear roared again, and Harvey had to admit, “At the moment, it’s the last thing on my list, honey.”
Camden paced around, scratching his chin even as the bear kept grunting, louder with every pass, roars rising up from its terrible, hungry throat.
Harvey asked Camden, “You really think it’ll attack? It’s probably just used to finding garbage cans to raid. Give it a few minutes, it’ll go away.”
But with that unseen monster circling their cabin, stronger and more powerful than all of their combined efforts, also graced with the advantage of being in its own territory, its own place of power. Amy, Camden, and Harvey were strangers in a strange land, virtually unarmed, cornered.
The door lurched with the bear’s weight, angry growls propelling her growing fury.
“Can’t just wait,” Camden said. “She’s making her way in.”
Amy’s blood ran cold as she and the two men looked around the room for some way to repel the creature before it was too late.
“All right,” Camden said, “I’ll sneak around, distract it, then you two make it out the door and get into the car.”
“I’ll drive,” Harvey said, “I’ve got an SUV, that bear will rip your Toyota to pieces.” Camden looked Harvey up and down, but Harvey said, “What am I gonna do, drive us off a cliff? I wanna get off this fucking hill too.”
Camden thought about it, finally nodding.
“Camden, no,” Amy said, “that thing’ll eat you alive!”
“Only if she can catch me.” He turned to Harvey. “When you hear me call out you’ll know I’ve lured her around the corner, the backside of the cabin. You hustle into the SUV.”
Amy asked, “What about you, Camden?”
“I’ll come back in through the window, run out the front door. So don’t drive off until … ”
A sad silence passed before Amy said, “Camden?”
“Until you know for sure she’s got me. Then drive the hell outta here, fast as you can.”
“No,” Amy said.
Camden turned to Harvey. “Got it?”
“No, Cam, you’re not doing this!”
Camden turned, the bear now pounding against the other side of the cabin. “There’s no other way.” He set his hands on her arms, Amy looked deep into his eyes. “I’ll see you in the SUV.”
“No,” Amy said, “you won’t, that thing’ll kill you, Camden!”
Camden looked deep into Amy’s eyes, their faces nearing, lips slowly drawing toward one another for a slow and supple kiss. It said everything she wanted to say and everything she needed to hear him say. Even as the bear cried out with increasing anger outside the cabin, Amy felt strangely at peace, at ease.
In love.
Camden said to Harvey, “Make sure she gets out of here.”
“I will, Camden. Good luck.”
Camden nodded, then slipped out the window, Amy gasping and reaching out before Harvey led her toward the center of the cabin for a quicker escape.
Chapter 29
Camden
Camden jumped out the window and crept around the back of the cabin, the smell of the bear ripe in the breezeless air around him, musky and damp, the smell of pheromones, of aggression. The animal’s growling became louder, clearer as Camden crept around the cabin, twigs and leaves crackling beneath his feet.
The beer stopped growling, growing eerily quiet. It senses me, Camden realized, it can smell me outside the cabin. It knows we’re up to something. How long before it figures us out and beats us to the punch?
Camden crept closer to the edge of the backside of the cabin. The bear was somewhere around the corner, maybe fifteen feet away, maybe fifteen inches. It could be circling around the side of the cabin to attack me from behind, Camden cautioned himself. No way of knowing without stepping around this corner …
Camden thought of Amy, the only face to register in his mind’s eye. He didn’t hear their screams, no sounds of a slaughter inside the cabin. She’s still safe, he told himself, for now. But for how much longer? I can’t let her get hurt.
I love her. And she deserves love, and life, and happiness, all the things she came here to find. I won’t let her be denied those things now, even if I have to deny her the one thing she thinks she wants above all else.
Me.
Camden peeked around the corner of the cabin. The SUV came into view, the front of the cabin, but nothing else as Camden reached out further for a better view. The bear was nowhere in sight, no sounds to signal its lurking presence.
Must have given up, Camden thought. Can we be that lucky? Doesn’t matter, don’t question it. Just get Harvey and Amy and get the hell off this mountain.
But Camden knew he couldn’t rely on that. And he loathed to run from the bear or from anything. If it were a man or even several men, Camden knew he could take them with his bare hands. He could kill a man before he hit the ground and had done so several times in service to his country.
But he wouldn’t stand a chance against a full-grown bear and he knew it. The only logical thing was to go ahead with the plan and draw the bear to the back of the cabin. But Camden couldn’t resist looking around the cabin, hoping to find something, a rock or a fallen branch that might repel the bear, send it back into the woods. There was a broken branch still clinging to the trunk of a pine tree, perhaps broken by the bear herself the night before. Camden charged the broken branch and it cracked again, bending at a sharp angle but still holding tight, fibers connecting the would-be cudgel. He pulled and twisted the branch, one stubborn twine of wood holding the branch tight.
Camden finally managed to peel the branch away, leaving the strand to dangle off the side of the trunk as he turned. The bear was still nowhere in sight, but Camden felt better with that heavy branch in his hand. He felt even better to come to the comforting realization that he probably wouldn’t have to use it.
Camden crept back around the side of the cabin toward the front. It was eerily quiet, only the sounds of his own footsteps and the song of a nearby skylark to underscore the tension. Every footstep brought Camden closer to the front of the cabin, to the bear, to his destiny.
To his fate.
Chapter 30
Amy
Everything outside the cabin was quiet; too quiet. Amy and crossed to the window near the front door and peered out. “I don’t see it.”
“We have to wait for the signal,” Harvey said, crossing to the kitchen.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for something, anythi
ng we can use against that damned thing. Camden said he found a flare gun, but he didn’t say where.” Harvey was sliding drawers open, then slamming them shut. “Well don’t just sit there, help me look!”
Amy sprang into action, scurrying across the little cabin to the convenience kitchen to start searching through the cabinets.
“Bingo!” Harvey pulled an orange plastic square case from under the sink and popped it open. A black metal gun with a short, wide barrel sat with two cartridges locked in place.
“Load it,” Amy said, “shoot that thing before it kills Camden.”
“That’s not the plan. We improvise, it could get your boyfriend killed. If you wanna live through this, if you want us all to, you’ll do what I say when I say it.”
“Okay, fine. You don’t have to get all huffy about it.” The bear roared outside the cabin, a bolt of panic shooting through Amy’s body, muscles tightening. She ran to the window to see a flash of the bear running toward the side of the cabin. “She made her move!”
“There’s no signal!”
They waited, the bear roaring and growling, even more muffled. “She’s killing him!”
“No,” Harvey said, “no, he’s fighting it off somehow. That goddamned lunatic’s gonna get himself killed. Okay, let’s go!”
“But … the signal.”
“Okay,” Camden’s voice shouted, as clear as Amy could make it out. “Get outta here, go!”
“That’s it,” Harvey said, “we gotta move!” He grabbed the flare gun with one hand and ran across the cabin, Harvey grabbed the front door and pushed, but the door wouldn’t budge. He pulled it too, getting no movement.
Amy said, “It’s locked! Unlock it.”
But Harvey shook his head. “No, it’s jammed. Bear must have shifted the wall, it’s wedged into the jab!”
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