All three looked at her.
‘Tell me you don’t agree with them,’ Kim said. ‘It’s suicide.’
‘It isn’t suicide,’ Tim said. ‘It’s the most sensible thing to do. Look, Ashley, I know this place, I know how to get us through here quickly. There are more clearings ahead where we can take breaks if we need to. We then move on again to the next clearing. Rinse and repeat.’
‘But how long till we’re out of the woods?’ Kim asked.
Tim shrugged. ‘Depends on how quickly we go. If we push it, and I mean really go for it, I’d say no more than six hours.’
‘Six hours? That’s a long time to be in these woods with whoever it was did that to him,’ Kim said, pointing to the body. ‘You’re crazy.’ She looked to Ashley. ‘You have to see that.’
Again, everyone’s eyes fell to Ashley, and it seemed she was tasked with casting the deciding vote. She didn’t like it.
‘Look,’ she said, holding up her hands, ‘I don’t know. This is all beyond me. I know we need to keep moving, but I have no idea which way is best.’ She looked to the ground and shook her head. ‘I just don’t know, so don’t make me pick.’
‘Then it’s two against one,’ Craig said.
‘Bullshit,’ Kim snapped back. ‘Ashley, now isn’t the time to shrivel away like a mouse. You have a voice, you have an opinion. Fucking use it.’
‘You won’t be saying that if it doesn’t align with what you want,’ Craig said. He turned away from Kim, knowing she would yell again, and once more looked at the body. Then, Ashley saw his head cock to the side, like a confused dog.
‘Ashley,’ Kim snapped, ‘will you please grow a pair and think for yourself?’
The comment hurt Ashley, maybe because she saw some truth to it, a truth she didn’t want to face, but she was more focused on Craig’s growing curiosity. Had he noticed something?
‘Guys,’ he said.
‘Shut up, you,’ Kim said. ‘You’ve said enough.’
‘No,’ Craig replied, ‘that’s not what I mean. I think…’ he stepped forward, leaned in closer to the faceless man.
‘What is it?’ Tim asked.
‘I think he’s breathing.’
The collective group held their breath, trying to register what Craig had just said.
‘He’s breathing?’ Ashley asked. ‘He can’t—’
She didn’t finish her sentence. The man suddenly jerked upright into a sitting position with an ungodly roar. His arms quickly reached out and, though they were still bound at the wrist, quickly found Craig’s throat and clamped down.
Chapter 8
The scream Kim had earlier refused to let out now burst free, piercing and unstoppable.
A sense of panic and adrenaline surged through the group as they tried to register what they were seeing. The man, faceless, eyeless, and by rights one who should be quite dead, had his hands wrapped tightly around Craig’s neck.
After a moment of surprised inaction, panic set in, and Kim’s first instinct was to dart to Craig’s aid. Despite the arguing, she found herself by his side before she could even think about it, trying to pry the man’s grip loose. Craig’s mouth was opening and closing, struggling for breath, but no sound came out. It reminded her of a goldfish out of water, uselessly trying to suck in what it needed to breathe. The crazed attacker made a strained, gurgling sound as he squeezed tighter.
Despite her best efforts, it seemed futile. Kim simply didn’t have the strength needed to break the man’s hold, so she began clawing at his skin.
‘Stop,’ she heard Ashley yell. ‘Sir, please stop, we’re trying to help you.’
It confused Kim. Why was Ashley trying to reason with a man who was, at that very moment, trying to kill Craig? Then it struck her. She looked up to the man’s wrecked face, the red holes where his eyes used to be, and realised. He was blind and probably had no idea who they were, so he was fighting out of instinct.
She pulled harder as Craig fought for breath, both of them trying in vain to break the hold. Another thought struck her; where the hell was Tim?
She cast a quick glance up to see him standing motionless, his face blank, obviously in shock. But now wasn’t the time for that, they didn’t have that luxury.
‘Hey!’ Kim yelled up at him. ‘Could you fucking help us?’
Tim seemed to snap back into reality, shaking loose the fog of shock that had him rooted to the spot. He quickly jumped in and grabbed the man’s arms. With his added strength, they managed to pull the man’s hands away from Craig, who slipped free and began to gulp in large swathes of air.
‘Sir,’ Ashley went on, ‘please calm down. We aren’t trying to hurt you.’
The man wriggled and writhed, moaning loudly and pathetically on the floor. They all scuttled backwards from him, giving themselves room as his hands thrust wildly in the air, this way and that, searching for something to latch on to.
‘Holy shit,’ Craig said, still pulling in much-needed air. His voice was hoarse and croaky.
‘How can he be alive?’ Ashley asked. Kim had no answer; it didn’t make any sense. She helped Craig to his feet and, once up, he bent double, still trying to get his breath. His throat was red, with bruises already forming.
The man continued to thrash about, moaning and gurgling.
‘Sir,’ Ashley tried again.
‘He can’t talk,’ Craig said, rubbing his neck.
‘What do you mean?’ Kim asked.
‘I saw,’ Craig answered. ‘When he had me, I could see into his mouth. He doesn’t have a tongue.’
‘Jesus,’ Kim said.
‘I think it had been cut out.’
‘Poor fucker,’ Kim said. ‘Someone really wanted to hurt him.’
‘What do we do?’ Ashley asked, raising the obvious point no one else seemed to be thinking of.
‘We keep going,’ Tim said, sternly.
‘What?’ Ashley asked. ‘Tim, no. We can’t just leave him like this.’
‘We have to,’ Tim said. ‘We’re still in danger and we can’t help him. Hell, we don’t even know if we should help him. Did you forget he just tried to twist Craig’s head off?’
The man thrashed again, then slowly rolled himself forward onto his knees, forcing the group back farther.
‘Maybe he’s just scared,’ Craig said. Kim was shocked Craig was still giving the man the benefit of the doubt after what had happened. ‘Given what he’s been through, and not being able to see, he’s probably terrified.’
‘But we don’t want to hurt you,’ Ashley said, raising her voice. She was pleading with the man. ‘We want to get you help.’
‘We can’t help him,’ Tim said again. ‘Do any of you know how to treat wounds like that? Because I sure as hell don’t.’
‘But he’s alive, Tim,’ Ashley said.
‘For the time being. But for how long? And how long until whoever did this comes back? We can’t just wait around.’
‘We can’t leave him,’ Craig said.
‘So what now? Do we split up?’ Kim asked.
‘No,’ Tim said. ‘Does anyone really want to be the one left behind, just to stand around and watch him in this condition? The plan doesn’t change; we still need to go get help. Any way you look at it, we can’t help him.’
The man then pulled himself up, first to one foot, then the other, to an unsteady standing position. Kim yanked Craig back a few feet and Ashley and Tim followed suit. Seeing the man at full height, with his grinning, gore-covered face, was as terrifying a sight as Kim thought she would ever see.
The man then began struggling with his bonds, trying to pull his wrists apart and break what was binding them together. Kim saw the thin, metal wire cut deeper into the man’s flesh as he did, causing blood to spill from his wrists. If he kept going with that kind of intensity then either the wire would give or, more likely, his wrists would. Given what he’d already been through and survived, she wondered if that would even stop him, and if he wouldn’t just
keep going till he had hacked right through the bones in his arms.
The man took another step forward and Ashley shrieked.
‘Stop,’ she pleaded with him. ‘We aren’t the ones who did this.’
The man’s head cocked, as if listening, and his next step was in the direction of Ashley. She shrieked again, and he took another step.
‘Everyone quiet,’ Kim said, and the man turned his horrible face in her direction. ‘He can hear us.’ He stumbled forward a few more steps and the group retreated in kind.
To Kim’s eternal annoyance, Ashley the mouse cried out again, and Kim turned to admonish her, to tell her to keep her mouth shut. But Ashley was not looking at the shambling man anymore, she was looking behind them, over to a cluster of trees.
‘There’s someone out there,’ she said, panicked, pointing with a shaking hand.
‘What do you mean?’ Kim asked.
‘I saw someone. A man, I think, hiding in the trees.’
Kim scanned the area her friend was gesturing to, looking as closely as she could, but she could see nothing. And she was still highly aware of the man who was slowly lumbering towards them.
‘What did he look like?’ Craig asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Ashley said, ‘but I saw someone watching us from behind that tree. The big one.’
Kim looked again, to the tree with the thick trunk, one that was easily wider than a person.
‘I don’t see anyone,’ she said. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I think so,’ she replied.
As if things weren’t bad enough, Kim was beginning to feel panic take hold even more. If someone was behind them, and this blind, but enraged, man was bearing down in front, that left them stuck in the middle and royally in the shit.
‘Do we run?’ she asked.
‘Not yet,’ Tim answered. He began to sidestep his way around the blind, thrashing man, who still gurgled and moaned in a pitiful, yet terrifying way. Kim wanted to believe he was just scared and lashing out, but even so he was a monstrous sight.
Tim motioned for the others to follow his lead, which they did, slowly making their way around so that they weren’t trapped between the stranger and the cluster of trees that had so spooked Ashley.
They had almost grouped together when Craig, yet again, took matters into his own hands.
‘Sir, can you hear me?’ he said, holding his hand out before him in what he thought was a taming manner, like someone trying to calm a wild animal. A useless gesture, given that the animal in question was blind.
‘Craig,’ Kim snapped, but it seemed he either didn’t hear her, or didn’t care.
‘Please, I want you to calm down,’ he said. The man slowly twisted his gore-flecked skull towards Craig. ‘Just listen to me. I know you’ve been through a lot, but the people who did that aren’t here, they’re gone.’ The man started to lurch towards Craig, who matched his slow, deliberate steps in retreat. ‘We will help you, I promise, we will get you out of here, but just please try and calm down. Can you understand me?’
The man gave no response to the affirmative, he just continued to follow Craig’s voice, bearing down on him. Kim didn’t like it. If the man could hear, then that meant he didn’t understand what was being said, didn’t believe it, or wasn’t interested in hearing it. It was that last option that worried Kim, and it was the one she suspected may be true. If a man in a state like his wasn’t going to stop, then what good would talking do? A notion hit her; maybe there was a reason they had found him like they had. Maybe he had deserved it.
‘Forget it, Craig,’ Kim said. ‘Tim’s right, let’s go.’
‘Not yet,’ Craig said, backing up again. Before he could say anymore, Kim saw a look of surprise flash over his face.
When backing up, he had not been careful where he stepped, and his foot became tangled in an exposed root.
He fell back awkwardly, letting out a yelp of pain as he hit the floor. As he fell, Kim saw that his foot didn’t rotate with him, still snagged in the root, and it twisted at a bad angle. Kim didn’t hear a snap, thankfully, but didn’t need to. She knew his ankle was going to be fucked.
The faceless man clearly heard, and understood, what had happened. He darted forward with wild, almost excited gurgles, and before anyone could react, the previously slow, shambling figure was upon Craig. He clasped his hands together and brought them down heavily onto Craig’s face like a club, crushing Craig’s nose. The sound of the powerful strike crashing into Kim’s helpless boyfriend, and the crunch that followed, made her stomach lurch.
The attacker then dropped onto Craig, once again going for the throat, and began strangling him. Craig tried to squirm and fight, but he was dwarfed and over-powered, like a fish flapping around beneath a bear.
Kim again wanted to help, like she had before, but instinct had been overruled by self-preservation. The man was now on top of Craig and seemed much more dangerous than before.
‘Help him!’ Kim said, pulling at Tim’s arm. Tim didn’t move, simply watched. ‘Help him, you coward!’ Kim said again, hoping to spur Ashley’s boyfriend into action. He was a big man in his own right and perhaps the only chance Craig had. Tim turned to look at her, his top lip curling up at the insult she had thrown at him. If she was hoping to provoke a reaction, it seemed she had gotten one.
She just hoped it would be directed towards the right person.
Thankfully, it was. Tim walked forward with purpose, fists clenched, then broke into a sprint. He ran up behind the faceless man and wrapped a thick arm around his neck, locking in, and yanking back. However, the man didn’t relinquish his hold on Craig, whose face was now beginning to turn blue as his eyes bulged in their sockets. Tim gave an almighty, guttural roar and pulled again, harder this time, and finally succeeded in heaving the man backward, away from Craig. Tim’s balance gave out and he sprawled to the floor, still clutching the man, who had now fallen on top of him.
Craig rolled away, once again gasping for breath, as the two larger men wrestled and struggled on the ground. Tim still had his arms wrapped around the man’s neck in some sort of sleeper hold as the faceless man attempted to slip free. Thankfully, Tim’s grip held tight, and he managed to lock his legs around the man’s waist, restraining him further.
Craig was free, but now Tim was in a fight, and Kim had an awful feeling that things were about to spiral out of control. Tim needed help, she knew that, but she had no idea what to do. She turned to Ashley, who looked absolutely terrified and was casting nervous glances over to the large tree where she claimed to have seen someone hiding.
‘Ashley,’ Kim said, grabbing her friend by the shoulder, trying to get her to focus. ‘We need to help him.’
Ashley tensed up. Kim knew her friend was scared, she was as well, but they couldn’t just stand by and leave Tim to it. It may have taken some prodding, but he had stepped in and saved Craig. Eventually, to Kim’s relief, Ashley nodded.
‘What do we do?’ she asked.
Kim had no answer, but she pulled Ashley along behind her and ran over to Tim and the stranger nonetheless.
The faceless man was writhing with a renewed vigour, and Kim couldn’t understand, considering his injuries, how he still had the energy and strength. He managed to drive a hard elbow into the ribs of Tim, who let out an audible cry. Tim’s grip loosened slightly, which seemed to be the opening the man needed. He slipped from Tim’s grasp, swivelled, and was quickly atop him, now in the dominant position, and began clubbing at Tim with his clasped hands, like he had done to Craig. Tim brought his hands up to his face for protection, but the blows found their mark. The terrifying man seemed to act with an almost renewed rage, and Kim was sure that the gargled nonsense the man was spewing was now more focused. It was almost as if he was trying to speak, but what he was saying was completely unintelligible.
Now that the man was free, helping Tim was going to be much more difficult, if not impossible. She knew Ashley was thinking the same thing, but Kim was not a
bout to give up.
Then she saw it, close to where Tim lay struggling as he tried to avoid the repeated blows the faceless man rained down. Laying amongst the dead leaves was a thick branch. Kim ran to it and heaved it up, feeling its substantial weight. If she swung it hard enough, then the man was certain to feel it.
She hoisted it back, preparing to strike, and built up a primal scream in her gut, ready to unleash it at the same time as the blow in order to exert every ounce of energy she possibly could.
But the makeshift club was snatched from her grasp.
Shocked, she spun to see Craig holding her weapon. He was on his feet, red-faced with one hand on his neck, and he was balancing on one leg.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’
Craig ignored her and hobbled past, making his way over to the attacker and Tim. He brought the club up and swung at the man.
Kim wanted to scream at him and how useless he was. Craig’s aim was poor, and any power he tried to exert was clearly hampered by his injury. The strike connected feebly with the man’s back. Given the size of the club, it still landed a heavy hit, but it served to do no more than irritate the faceless man.
Kim’s aim would have been for his head, as hitting him full force there would have given Tim the best chance of escape. It may have killed the man, but better that and saving Tim than what Craig had accomplished in only angering the attacker further. The man turned and lurched forward, grabbing wildly in Craig’s general direction.
And it was enough.
Yet again he found Craig, who cried out, and pulled him to the ground. He crawled over Craig like a spider covering its prey. Yet again, Craig had landed himself in a dangerous position, but this time Kim had half a mind to leave him to it.
‘Please, no,’ Craig pleaded and fought back, hitting out at the man. It made little difference, and he soon had Craig pinned beneath him. He straddled the young man and again began to club at his head.
Kim looked around; the branch Craig had wasted now lay under him, jutting out from under his back, out of her reach without getting too close to the faceless attacker.
The Extreme Horror Collection Page 4