Town at the Edge of Darkness

by Brett Battles

  “You-you’re really with the police?”

  “I am.”

  The woman threw her arms around Morgan, crying. “Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God.”

  Morgan pulled herself free and put a supportive arm across the woman’s back. “This way.”

  Liesel was closest to where Rosario, Ricky, and Tasha entered the woods, but not close enough to signal them. Since she had an entirely different job to do, she silently wished them good luck and returned her eye to the rifle’s scope.

  “Ten seconds, gentlemen,” Rally said. “Remember, only one trophy per hunter!” He looked at his watch again. “Five, four, three, two, one. Hunt!”

  “The gunmen have been released,” Liesel announced. “ETA at the woods, thirty seconds.”

  “Copy,” Dylan said. “I’ve got my man and am en route to safe zone.”

  “Copy,” Morgan said. “Me, too.”

  A few seconds passed before Liesel said, “Ananke?”

  Another couple of beats. “I copy,” Ananke said. “My target’s being a little uncooperative. But don’t wait for me. Stick to the plan.”

  “Copy,” Liesel said.

  She followed the hunters via her scope for a few seconds, and then looked back at the other end of the meadow, where Rally, Slater, Yates, and the men who weren’t accompanying the hunters remained. Rally was talking to his cousins, waving one arm dramatically in Liesel’s general direction. She memorized everyone’s position, and took her eye off the scope to check on the hunters’ progress.

  They were approaching the woods, only seconds away. She continued watching them until they disappeared.

  After double-checking that the suppressor was properly mounted, she nestled against the rifle stock, did a quick practice run, and reset to position one.

  “I’m sure,” Rally said, annoyed. “I just met her last night! Her name is Caroline Cruz. She was introduced to me as the assistant to Shawn Ramey.”

  “Ramey?” Slater said.

  “You know, the woman in town looking at locations for her company.”

  “The black one.”

  Rally nodded.

  “Do you think they might be the feds?” Yates said.

  “Hell, yes, I think they might be the feds,” Rally said. “That’s why you need to get back to Bradbury and eliminate Ramey before she can cause us any more problems!”

  While Slater agreed the woman had to be dealt with, they needed to be smart about it. “After we bring her in and talk to her first.”

  “Bring her in?” Rally said. “Are you crazy?”

  “Robbie,” Slater said. “Hear me out.”

  Slater had used Rally’s childhood nickname on purpose, not only to get his attention, but as a subtle reminder that Slater was the oldest member of the family present.

  “Cruz and Ramey obviously didn’t come here alone,” Slater continued. “Who knows how many more friends they have with them. The only way we’re going to find out is to make Ramey tell us. Unless you want me to pause the trial and collect Cruz and her friend.”

  He knew full well Rally would never agree to removing a third of the prey from an active trial event.

  Frustrated, Rally said, “Okay. Bring her in. But as soon as you get what you need, get rid of her.”

  “No problem.” Slater looked at his brother. “Do it.”

  Yates nodded. “Give me two hours and I’ll have her back here.”

  “No,” Rally said. “Not here. Take her to the—”

  Without warning, Rally pitched forward toward his cousins, screaming in pain. Slater caught him, and as he was lowering Rally to the platform, Yates said, “Jesus. He’s been shot!”

  Rally’s knee had been ripped apart. The two brothers dove off the platform, and then reached up and pulled Rally down with them.

  Their cousin’s screams were joined by someone else’s. Slater looked to his right and saw Joey Wilson rolling on the ground, his right pant leg torn and dark with blood.

  Rally clutched his leg and continued howling. Slater knew if they didn’t do something quick, their cousin would die of blood loss.

  Slater removed the shoelace from one of Rally’s boots and gave it to his brother. “Tie off his leg!”

  Another person screamed.

  And another.

  “Where are they shooting from?” Yates asked. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “We need to get out of here!” Rally said.

  A fifth wail, this one to their left.

  If they moved from behind the platform, Slater and Yates would be shot next. What they needed was a cover for their escape, and Slater knew just what that could be. He twisted around, looking for someone who could help. Most of his men lay in the field, writhing. But then he spotted sandy blond hair peeking over the benches in the observation area.

  “Cory!” he yelled.

  Cory Reese lifted his head enough to see over the bench. “Mr. Slater. I-I-I thought they got you.”

  “Listen to me. Get the van from over by the cells and drive it out here!”

  “I don’t have the keys.”

  Slater had already pulled the keys out of his pocket. “Here,” he said as he tossed them toward the benches. They landed with a jangle, five feet shy of the tree line.

  Cory looked at them and back at Slater, clearly not wanting to go back into the meadow.

  “Pick them up and get the van!”

  “Y-y-yes, sir.”

  When Cory moved out of view, Slater expected him to reappear seconds later, at the edge of the trees nearest the keys, but the boy remained out of view. Behind Slater, Rally moaned, and seemed on the verge of passing out. He’d lost a lot of blood before Yates tied the leg off. They had medical supplies within the lodge, with plasma Rally needed for a transfusion, but they didn’t have the facilities or the expertise to deal with the minced meat that was once their cousin’s knee, so ultimately they would need to take him somewhere that could deal with it. If he didn’t die first.

  “Cory! Goddammit! Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m coming!” Cory shouted. “Just a second.”

  A few moments later he appeared among the pines, on his stomach. But instead of rushing out to grab the keys, he reached out with a large branch and tried to drag the keys to him.

  The tree trunk right above Cory’s head exploded as a bullet slammed into it. To the kid’s credit, it made him pause for only a second before he continued fishing for the keys. Another bullet hit the ground next to the branch, but Cory kept dragging.

  Though Slater couldn’t see the keys, it appeared the boy was making progress. When they were within a foot or two of Cory, Slater yelled, “Just grab ’em and go!”

  Liesel swept the scope across the meadow. She’d disabled Rally and all the young men who’d been holding rifles. That left only four—the woman who had disappeared into the woods, a young man off to the side near the benches, and Slater and Yates, pinned down behind the platform.

  She saw Slater toss a set of keys toward the remaining young man. No mystery there. They wanted a vehicle close so they could get away in a hurry. The only question was, which one would it be?

  She got a better look at the man when he started trying to drag the keys to him with a branch, and realized man was a generous term. He couldn’t be much more than eighteen.

  Though she could have easily taken him out, she aimed for the tree just above him to keep up appearances. She sent another shot into the dirt near the keys. The idea was to divide and subdue, so she wanted him to hurry. It would be great if she could take out Slater and Yates, but chances were the standoff would be prolonged, in which case many of the men she’d already taken down would die from lack of medical attention. The sooner the kid fishing for the keys got Slater and Yates out of there, the sooner she could do the bare minimum needed to keep the others alive. It wasn’t so much an act of kindness as a desire not to lose a potential information source.

  When the man-boy leaned out from what he must have
thought was the safety of the trees, she tilted the barrel ever so slightly and pulled the trigger.

  The ground a few feet in front of him erupted in a spray of dirt. The kid dove forward, grabbed the keys, and scrambled back into the woods.

  Liesel sent a final shot in his general direction to keep him on his toes, and then activated her mic. “You were right, Dylan. They have sent one of their men for a car.”

  “Ha!” Dylan said. “I believe that means you owe me dinner.”

  Monica Slater, known during this month’s trials as Miss Riefenstahl, ran through the woods.

  At first, she had no direction in mind except away from the meadow, but once she had some distance on the gunfire, she stopped to get her bearings.

  Her father had told her long ago that if anything ever went wrong, she was to get out of the situation as fast as she could and head back to their ranch. He’d made her promise that under no circumstances would she stay in harm’s way.

  She glanced back toward the meadow, worried about him. She wanted to go back, see if he was all right, but he would be furious if she did.

  What she didn’t have to do was hike all the way back to the lodge. There were ATVs sitting unused near the building with the holding cells. She veered to the west, avoiding the main trail, and hurried over the small ridge, down to where the vehicles were parked.

  As she started to climb onto one of the ATVs, an Irish man’s voice said behind her, “Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Eduardo was under no delusion that an escape route out of hell actually existed. What he did know was that the people who’d taken him and the others were insane. Hunting people? How could that not be crazy?

  So there might not be a real escape route, but he knew the longer he avoided the hunters, the better his chance of finding a way out of this. As plans went, it was light on details, but better than just rolling over and letting them kill him.

  He’d worked all of this out on the sprint from the platform to the woods. Seconds later, when a woman came out of nowhere to chase him, everything flew from his mind except running for his life.

  He had no doubt she was part of the setup, there to slow him down. Her words to the contrary were so transparent, he dismissed them immediately.

  Racing through the dark forest, he thought he’d be able to lose her. He’d always been a good runner, and she looked older than he was, so she should have quickly fallen behind. But not only did she keep pace with him, his multiple directional changes never threw her off.

  He scanned ahead for anything that might assist his escape. When he saw a patch of trees and brush thicker than the area surrounding it, he decided to turn behind it. If he could use the cover to double back and throw her off, he would be in the clear.

  When he rounded the trees, he realized he’d lucked onto something even better than he’d hoped. The growth had been hiding a streambed sunk into a ten yard-wide mini arroyo, the bottom a good four to five feet below ground level.

  He jumped over the side and landed on the bank. He’d seen enough movies to know that the way to throw off a tracker was to obscure one’s trail in a river, so he ran into the water. After a few steps, though, he realized he had a bigger problem. While he wasn’t leaving any visible steps behind, the water sloshing was just as much a giveaway of his whereabouts.

  He swung left and right, looking for some other solution.

  There!

  The near vertical walls of the arroyo twisted and turned, creating dozens of little nooks. Hoping one was large enough for him to hide in, he hopped onto a slab of rock that stretched all the way to the wall, and rushed toward the nearest crevasse.

  Ananke lost the man she was chasing when he made a hard turn to the right into a thick stand of trees. When she reached the point where he’d disappeared, she discovered trees had been hiding a creek flowing down a ravine.

  The man’s footprints showed he’d jumped into the depression, so she followed. She found a few more steps along the creek’s bank and then nothing.

  If the guy had used the water to cover his trail, then she either should have heard splashing or been able to see him, because he would have had to move slowly to mitigate any sound.

  She spun around. Though only about five feet high, the side of the ravine undulated like a twisting ribbon set on edge. Some of the crags looked large enough to hide in. But there were no footprints in the bank leading to them.

  She scanned along the stream and smiled. About ten feet farther down, a slab of half-buried rock extended from inside the water all the way to the ravine’s edge, and on it, water spots in the distinct pattern of steps. The wet footprints continued a good two-thirds of the way toward the wall, decreasing in intensity the farther from the stream they went, until the last were barely visible.

  She studied the wall, and counted at least four different recesses in which the man could be hiding.

  “Just come on out,” she said. “I swear I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help.”

  She cocked her head, listening for movement. Only silence.

  She took a step toward the wall. “The last thing I want is for those assholes to put a bullet in you. But that’s exactly what’s going to happen if I don’t get you someplace safe in a hurry.”

  Still nothing.

  Dammit.

  Guessing he was in one of the two recesses closest to the rock slab, she moved another few steps toward them. “Listen, if I wanted to kill you, don’t you think I would have shot you when we were running? The answer is, yes, I would have. And I could have done it a dozen times, but I didn’t.”

  The babble of the creek but nothing else.

  “Seriously, buddy. We’re running out of time here.”

  Eduardo had been hoping to hear the woman splashing down the stream away from him, and though he did hear a few watery steps, they soon fell silent. He could see nothing from the nook he’d slipped into, and had no idea what she was doing.

  Stay calm. She’ll be gone soon enough.

  “Come on out. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  His breath caught in his throat. She hadn’t left, and was, in fact, close to the wall of the arroyo. She tried tricking him again with her words, but he still wasn’t buying it.

  He heard her take another few steps closer before she pleaded with him again.

  “Seriously, buddy. We’re running out of time here.”

  On that point, he agreed. The other hunters were still out there, and every second he remained in the same spot they gained ground.

  The woman stepped forward again, giving him a much better idea of where she was. He still had a chance, he realized.

  He took a deep, quiet breath, and then eased toward the alcove’s entrance.

  Ananke was only five feet from the wall now, the entrance to one crag directly in front of her, and the other a few feet to her left.

  She took a careful step forward, not wanting to make any noise, and then leaned a little to the right to peek inside the niche. Empty.

  She moved to the left and leaned forward to look inside the other crag.

  Eduardo stepped to the very edge of his nook and peeked out. The woman was about ten feet away, her back to him.

  He slipped out of his hiding place and sneaked down the riverbank, away from her. His stealth mode lasted only a few steps before his fear got the better of him, and he began running down the side of the stream.

  The interior of the niche was coming into view when Ananke heard someone running behind her. She spun around and saw the man racing away from her.

  “Oh, come on!”

  She took off after him.

  Though the side of the ravine where they’d jumped down was too steep to easily climb back up, the man found a gentler slope a dozen yards farther on and was soon back at the forest ground level. Ananke huffed up the side, worried she might lose him again. But there he was, racing through the trees.

  In the most dangerous direction h
e could have taken.

  “No! Not that way!”

  Eduardo ran out of the arroyo and into the woods. Without stopping, he looked around and tried to figure out which way to go.

  The stream had bent a bit, hadn’t it? He thought so, but wasn’t sure. Nor was he sure if he was heading toward the meadow or away from it.

  Behind him, he heard the woman reach the top of the ravine.

  “No!” she yelled. “Not that way!”

  He lost a step, wondering if she was right until he reminded himself her job was to trick him. The days in the trailer behind the semitruck, the drugs they’d given him to keep him knocked out, the sheer disbelief when he learned why he and the others had been brought there, and the constant running since then had turned his mind into mush. The only thing he knew for sure was that if he stopped, he would die.

  Ananke had to admire the guy’s determination to live. But since her warning had done nothing to change his direction, that same determination was going to get him killed.

  Somewhere beyond the man, she heard the snap of a branch.

  Oh, crap.

  One—or more—of the hunters was closing in. Or worse, waiting for the runner to come to them.

  Ananke hit her afterburners, and all but flew between the trees.

  Mr. Huston knelt behind the fallen tree, his crossbow propped on the trunk.

  “You’re in perfect position,” his observer whispered. The man looked at the handheld tablet that tracked the prey’s location.

  Mr. Huston scanned the woods through the scope. It wasn’t true night vision—that would provide too much advantage, he’d been told—but it did have heightened nighttime abilities, so he was able to partially make out the landscape as far as a hundred and fifty feet away. Nothing was moving out there yet.

  “He should be about five degrees right of straight ahead,” the observer said.

  Mr. Huston adjusted his aim.

  “Any second now.”