by Asher Ellis
Sam’s bit his lip and nodded. “Yes, they were. Well, the younger-looking man on the left was. Dale Preston. It was left to him and his sister after his parents passed away. Least that’s what the papers said.” He extended a finger toward the bearded man. “That was the sister’s husband. Something Hogan, I can’t remember.”
“Red,” Leigh replied. Before he could inquire how she knew such a thing she added, “It’s written on the back of the photo.”
Sam rotated his arms backward in a shoulder-popping stretch that reminded Leigh of the cabin’s creaky front door. “Yeah, that’s him.”
A disgusting wet belch erupted from their right. Rob lazily slouched in a chair at the kitchen table, crushing the now-empty can in his grip. For a guy from the suburbs, Leigh thought his uncultured mannerisms might fit in quite nicely around here. “How’d they die?” he asked between hiccups.
Sam grimaced. “I suppose I wasn’t being entirely accurate before. But I didn’t want to have to explain the whole thing while we stood in the pouring rain and got soaked. Anyway, died isn’t the best way to put it.
“More like they disappeared.”
Leigh slowly turned away from the photograph to see if he was kidding. By the look in his eyes, he wasn’t. “Disappeared?” she echoed in disbelief.
“Crazy, right? Two veteran hunters, born and bred, spent their entire lives here. You’d never think they would be swallowed by the forest like Hansel and Gretel. But last week they went into the woods for bow and arrow season and…” Sam trailed off, as if lost for words. He sighed. “…and never came out. Not a trace. No bodies, nothing.”
Leigh was speechless. It was exactly like every horrible ghost story about the deep, dark woods she had ever heard. If Sam was trying to scare her, he was doing a terrific job. But the grave expression on his face said he was simply relaying the truth, or at least what he had heard.
“Well,” Rob said, kicking his feet up onto the table. “That’s not gonna happen to us. Because unlike those two poor sons of bitches, we got ourselves an expert guide to lead us out of these scary woods. Ain’t that right, Sammy?”
Sam looked away into the corner of the room. “Yeah, sure.”
But Rob continued, now speaking with a mock hillbilly accent. “And if anyone tries to mess with our womens, my man Sir Sam is going to set them straight. I’ll tell you what!”
“You’re hilarious, Rob.” Leigh shot Rob the dirtiest look she could muster but it didn’t seem to have any effect. He just replied, “I know.”
She turned to Sam. “If you care to join me, I’ll be on the porch. I want to watch and see if the rain lets up.” She walked away, making sure to shove past Rob in the process.
God, Rob was such a dick!
But on the other hand, Leigh questioned if she would’ve had the courage to invite Sam out onto the privacy of the porch had Rob not been there to provoke her.
But that’s just an excuse, isn’t it? Something to hide yourself from the fact that maybe Sam just isn’t that interested in you.
Leigh was considering naming her inner voice “Ms. Benedict Arnold” in honor of its turncoat ways—supportive one minute, unmercifully crushing the next. Between her psychology studies in school and the time spent with her therapist, Leigh thought one day she might be able to not only confront her demons, but destroy them. Instead, she was starting to seriously believe she was messed up beyond repair.
Leigh took at a seat in one of the two rocking chairs positioned under the roof’s overhang that shielded the porch from rainfall. Shaking her head, she promised she’d analyze herself to pieces once she was back in the safe confines of her dorm room. She had to remember she was not alone, and the last thing she wanted was to be caught in an “Is something bothering you?” moment with anyone here.
Especially with Sam.
And there he was, invading her thoughts again. But if she were to stop and actually think about it, was he really the right match for her? From what she’d seen, he was just a knife-carrying, lock-picking, junior college student who kept up on the recent obituaries and beat people up to the point of suspension. When presented that way, Sam suddenly bore very little resemblance to the Prince Charming she’d been fantasizing about since she was a little girl.
Why, why did she have to overthink things so much? Her restless brain brought her excellent marks in school, but always seemed to bring more problems than it was worth. Though not a religious person by any means, there was one Bible passage that Leigh always appreciated for its undeniable truth:
He who increases knowledge, increases sorrow.
“Do you see something?”
The sound of Sam’s voice practically made her jump out of her skin. Why hadn’t that damn squeaky door given her a warning?
“Oh, um…no.” She realized she had been staring unblinking into the surrounding forest for quite some time now. “I was just spacing out.”
Sam took a seat in the chair next to hers. Out of her peripheral vision, she could see the boy staring at her. “Hey… Is something bothering you?” he said hesitantly, asking the question Leigh had hoped so badly that no one, especially him, would ask.
“I was just thinking about Marshall and Alex.” Leigh was pleased at how easily the lie had automatically fallen from her lips. “I just hope they’re having better luck than we are.”
The wood of the porch rumbled along with the thundering skies under the sway of Sam’s chair as he slowly rocked back and forth. “Hey, they’re not the ones who have to trudge through the cold, wet woods, right?”
“That’s true. But I just wish we could call them. Let them know we’re okay.”
Leigh turned to Sam and felt that same warm tremor she’d experienced when he first boarded their van. Thanks to the “PSY230: Advanced Social Psychology” course she’d taken sophomore year, Leigh knew to be cautious with first impressions. Those initial impressions could affect how you treat people you just met, and that treatment would then affect the way they react to you. Her professor had called it “self-fulfilling prophecies.”
And yet, here she was, throwing all of those trusty textbook lessons out the window in spite of herself. Her therapist would’ve surely been pleased to see Leigh trusting her instincts and letting someone new inside. But her professor? Probably not.
Sam smiled. “I know. It’s too bad phone lines don’t run this far into the woods. But all they have to do is sit and wait for us. I’m sure we’ll regroup soon enough.”
“Yeah, okay,” Leigh answered, thankful to her mouth for managing to form words. Why did she feel like a star-struck girl standing in the front row at a rock concert? Not wanting to lose face, Leigh straightened and jerked herself from her dreamy state. “You’re right, Sam,” she said with conviction. “They’ll be fine.”
Leigh turned her head away so Sam wouldn’t see the worry that was clouding her eyes. She hadn’t thought of her two separated friends since it had started to rain, but now that she had, a frown strained the muscles of her mouth when she pictured their faces. Knowing they had the safety of the van would’ve soothed her nerves if not for having heard the mysterious fate of those two hunters. How had Sam put it?
Swallowed by the forest like Hansel and Gretel.
Leigh pretended to smack at a mosquito on her face, but she was really slapping the ridiculous idea from her head. She was the one trekking through the wilderness on foot, not them. They were on a state-recognized road, safely making their way to the authorities. If anyone needed breadcrumbs to find their way out, it was most definitely Leigh and her team of rag-tag hikers.
Chapter 9
Alex’s watch told her that Marshall had been gone for more than twenty minutes, leaving her standing by herself in the pouring rain. She knew he was milking it on purpose as a way to get back at her, but this was getting ridiculous. In this unforgiving weather, a five-minute wait would’ve been sufficient punishment.
Punishment for what, exactly? Getting angry for my boyfriend�
�s incredible stupidity?
It wasn’t her fault they were stranded out in the middle of God-knows-where. If only they still had a spare! Cell service or not, a call to AAA wouldn’t have been necessary for this one. Even she knew how to change a flat tire.
Alex brushed a lock of wet hair from her eyes and peered into the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of her imbecile boyfriend.
Maybe that’s unfair. You know he’s intelligent.
And that was true, proven by both his decent grades and all those post-lovemaking talks, when she would listen for hours to his philosophical thoughts while wrapped in his arms. Of course, they were both usually high when he went on and on about things like religion and politics, but sober or not, those topics had never been a concern to any of her past boyfriends.
No, Marshall’s problem was also one of his most likable attributes: his willingness to please. In spite of her blinding anger, Alex still knew it had been Rob’s idea to chuck the spare and make room for the keg. Marshall may have even tried to talk him out of it. But she knew her boyfriend, and all it took was Rob saying something like, “C’mon, man, just think of how stoked the girls will be when they see what we brought home!” Oh, she was stoked all right.
Alex inhaled a deep breath and released it with a soothing hum. She’d seen Marshall do this exercise plenty of times in the past and it always seemed to calm him. But when the final wisp of air had left her lungs, she knew the method was as useless here as her cellphone. A deep breath wouldn’t change the fact that she was soaking wet, shivering in the cold, and still waiting for a careless boyfriend who had yet to return.
“Careless,” Alex said to herself through a long sigh. “That’s just us, I guess.” Though between the two of them, only Alex knew just how much trouble their free-spirited ways had brought them. Skipping class, getting high, and speeding in Marshall’s Jeep Wrangler were harmless enough. Alex’s secret abortion, however, was a different matter altogether.
She was going to tell him—eventually. But the longer she stayed with the charming surfer from the West Coast, the more she feared that dropping this bomb would scare him away. It hadn’t been easy lying to him when she said her reason for missing school was a bad case of mono, but she swore her intentions had always been good: to protect Marshall’s feelings and save their relationship. But as she stood there, forgetting for a moment about the drops of water rolling down her neck, she began to realize that all her silence had accomplished was to transform a mostly physical relationship into something much worse. Instead of being based on sex, it was now based on a lie.
“God damn it, Marsh,” Alex muttered, now cursing her boyfriend for both leaving her waiting and for playing his part in her unplanned pregnancy. “What’s taking you so long?”
Fed up, Alex took a step off the road and into the long, wet grass that bordered the edge of the forest without thinking it through. If she could bear the hardships of an abortion, paying for the whole thing herself, and never telling a soul, then she sure as shit was tough enough to go into some dark woods and drag her boyfriend out by his balls. It was time they had a little talk.
Alex pushed aside a low-hanging pine limb and entered the forest. She was pleasantly surprised to see that the trees weren’t nearly as dense as she’d thought. On the contrary, the bushy evergreen branches parted to reveal a circular clearing at the base of a fairly steep hill.
“Marshall!” Alex yelled, her voice bouncing off the endless tree trunks. “Can you hear me? Are you all right?”
She waited a moment and received no response. Had Marshall really climbed the entire hill to try to get a single bar of cellphone reception? If so, Alex would be quite impressed. He might be a world-class surfer, but Marshall was far from a mountain man. A mixture of guilt and self-pride sluiced its way into Alex’s mind. On one hand, she felt bad for sending her sandal-clad boyfriend into such an unfamiliar environment, but she also had to give herself props for being able to make a man bend to her will so drastically. After all, there was no way in hell any guy could’ve ever convinced her to brave such a hike.
But perhaps that was exactly what Marshall was trying to do.
“I swear to God, Marshall!” Alex shouted. “If you’re doing this just so I’ll come after you, it’s not going to work!”
Still no response but the infinite patter of rain hitting the ground.
Alex inhaled as much air as her lungs could hold and screamed, “Marshall! Answer me, you bastard!”
Nothing.
“Marshall! Marsh—”
Her shouting ceased when she saw what stared at her only ten feet away. Its soulless gaze made the hairs on the back of her arms stand straight up, just like the fur on the creature’s back. Over the heavy percussion of the falling rain she could just make out the low rumble of its growl.
“Oh my God…”
She was eye-to-eye with a rabid raccoon. Saliva dripped from its bared yellow teeth. Its glassy eyes, wide and black, bulged with insanity. The animal seemed to be looking through her, as if it could see through her skin and bones to the muscles and organs it craved.
Alex slowly shifted to her left foot, but the movement only provoked the mad beast into the swiping the air with its clawed paw. She gasped, frozen, her eyes locked on its infected incisors. One bite and this contagious madness would bury itself under her skin and tunnel its way into her central nervous system. A horrible cry shrieked from the raccoon’s drooling mouth, raking Alex’s eardrums.
It bared its fangs.
And charged.
Alex didn’t make it a single foot before she tangled her ankle in the gnarly grasp of a tree root and was yanked to the ground. Her scream died as the solid ground knocked all of the air from her lungs. Dazed, she lifted her head to see a ball of mangled fur just inches from her face. She raised her arm to guard her head and neck, knowing this pathetic attempt would offer little protection.
She squeezed her eyelids shut and braced for the pain.
But instead of feeling her flesh break beneath puncturing teeth, she heard the raccoon give a furious, startled screech.
Alex opened her eyes to see a long metal chain wrapped around the animal’s throat like the leash of a common house pet. Her eyes followed its steel links to the hand of a man stepping out from behind the thick trunk of a nearby oak tree.
“Don’t worry, little lady!” The skinny stranger in dirty mechanic’s overalls parted his lips to reveal brown rotting teeth. He licked them.
“No need to be afraid of Cooney here. I got him under control.”
Alex pushed herself up into a sitting position, freezing again when the movement caused the raccoon to thrash and flail on its chain. Her eyes darted back and forth between the beast and its gaunt, filthy owner. She couldn’t decide who looked more threatening.
Another disturbing smile crossed the man’s face as he loosened his grip on his pet’s metal chain. The raccoon surged forward another inch, prompting a shriek from Alex’s mouth, before being yanked back.
“Whoops!” The stranger bellowed, laughing. “Sorry about that, ma’am. I’m all thumbs today.”
Alex’s body quaked, tears now pouring from her eyes as she struggled to speak. “Please…”
The man threw up a hand to his ear. “What’s that?”
“Please. Leave me alone.”
“Ha!”
Alex winced as her captor coughed up a ball of viscous phlegm and spat it in her direction, the disgusting wad just barely missing her arm. He scratched his crotch and said, “Come on now. Don’t be like that. Cooney here is real nice once he gets to know you.”
He eased the chain a little more.
“Stop!” Alex wailed, wiping away the salty tears that were clouding her vision. The raccoon continued to hiss and gnash its teeth so closely that she could actually smell its rancid breath. “Please! Go away!”
“Go away?” The man’s scratched his neck. “But we haven’t even been formally introduced.” Dirty fingers gripped the
rim of his brown baseball cap and tugged it downward. “They call me Bugger, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss… What might your name be?”
Alex didn’t hear the question. She was too distracted by the snarling raccoon’s yellow fangs. It hissed at her again and she scurried back, trying to distance herself from its snapping jaws. But when she felt her back brush the rough bark of a tree trunk, she knew she could go no further. The trunk stretched from shoulder to shoulder, an obstacle far too wide to get around before the man and his best friend would be upon her. She began to sob even harder, and an awful wet warmth began to spread across her groin.
The man who called himself Bugger shook his head. “Ah, now don’t cry. You’re too pretty to cry.” His right eye twitched. “So pretty…”
He released the chain.
Alex, so overcome with fear and adrenaline, wasn’t even aware that her hand clutched a short, thick tree branch until she was swinging it at the charging raccoon with all the strength left in her shaking body. Luckily, the makeshift weapon found its mark, slamming into the charging beast’s skull with a sickening crunch. The raccoon released a short yelp before slumping to the ground, limp as an old teddy bear.
For a solitary second, both Alex and Bugger stared at the creature’s still body.
And then Alex was on her feet, sprinting through the forest’s tangle of bushes and branches, taking advantage of her captor’s state of shock. But the distraction didn’t last long. Alex could hear the booming voice of the raccoon’s enraged owner as if he was speaking right into her ear.
“Hey! You killed Cooney! You fucking bitch!”
The scream was followed by accompanied by something even more terrifying: the pounding of Bugger’s approaching footsteps. Alex, teary eyed and wailing, ran as fast as her boots would allow. Branches whipped at her face, cutting her cheeks and whipping past her eyes. She had no idea which direction she was heading. All she cared about was getting away from the psychopath chasing her. He was closing the distance, expertly making his way through the thick underbrush with a native’s knowledge of the terrain. Alex knew she wouldn’t be able to keep up this game of cat-and-mouse for much longer.
