Now back in her room alone, Sara Beth heard her phone chime and saw it light up as it lay on her desk. She walked over and saw a snap from her friend Jessica. The three of them – Jessica, Katia, and Emily – were making duck faces to the camera as they held various shades of lipstick in their hands. The text bar across the picture cut off the bottom of their hands.
GETTING READY!! R U?!?!
Sara Beth let out a little huff, annoyed. Another shameless sales pitch, she thought. She walked over to her mirror, snapped a selfie as she held up her middle finger, and sent it back.
HOW DO I LOOK?
She sunk into her bed, lying on her stomach with her phone beside her and turned on the TV. Flipping through the channel guide, she put on an episode of Gilmore Girls when her phone buzzed again.
“Unfucking believable,” Sara Beth stammered to herself.
But it wasn’t one of her friends. Not one of her girlfriends, anyway. It was a text from Kevin Polk.
Hey, u comin out 2nite?
Sara Beth studied the text message with suspicion. The timing felt like one of three certain girls put him up to this.
She responded. Why? Who’s asking?
A message shot back. I’m asking…who else?
Butterflies churned in her stomach as prying suspicion gave way to the uneasy feeling that came when you felt as though you’d just said something profoundly stupid. The quandary of how to respond consumed her until she heard her mother shout from downstairs.
“Sara Beth!”
“What,” she yelled back, rolling her eyes.
“It’s your night to take out the trash. Please do it before you go to bed,” her mother answered.
Oh, I’ll take the trash out, Sara Beth thought, then I’ll fucking keep on going.
“Fine,” she shouted back.
Her phone buzzed again with another message from Kevin.
Come out…it’ll be fun!
“Fuck it,” she said to herself. She was going.
She went downstairs, pulled out the kitchen trash bag, tied it up, and took it out back. As she did so, she surveyed the lower floor. Only her father was downstairs. He was laid back, watching a college basketball game on TV, already half asleep. Her mother must’ve gone up shortly after yelling up to her.
Sara Beth took out the trash, came back inside and returned to her room where she began working on an outfit for tonight. Another hour or two and both of her parents would be sound asleep.
As long as she was quiet, she thought, neither of them would hear her sneak out the backdoor.
5
Jackson sat perched behind a shrub and large oak tree atop a hill that overlooked the cabin in front of him. Weather-beaten planks that had seen better days made up the cabins siding, framing the building’s equally ramshackle windows and doors. A roof with visible holes did its best in its late age to keep out the rain that was now falling.
Somewhere in that mess, Jackson thought, the person he’d come for was waiting.
He’d taken the gully next to the trail to where it joined a larger ravine. That ravine took him down the side of the mountain. From there, it was only a short hike through the Shenandoah backcountry to the hill he had set up on.
There was no car in the carport next to the cabin. Jackson had expected that, but it also meant he couldn’t make his move yet. The person he’d come for wouldn’t be the only one here tonight. The other – the one that had taken her and brought her here – would be coming back. That’s when Jackson would strike.
Jackson took a swig from his water bottle as he continued to watch the property. The sun had set and now only a cloud-covered twilight hung in the sky. The initial onslaught of rain had yielded to a moderate drizzle. Jackson sat motionless, a boulder in the rainstorm.
His gaze moved farther out and he surveyed the narrow valley beyond, first with the scope attached to his Winchester rifle, then with the FLIR monocular. His eyes moved slowly, watching everything from the pasture of overgrown grass to the dirt road to the trees that dotted the opposite mountainside. Nothing.
As nightfall crept ever closer, the house was dark. No exterior lights had come on and no interior lights shone from inside. In an hour or so, you wouldn’t be able to see the house at all unless you were looking for it. It’s probably what the man who wasn’t here had counted on.
He took another swig of water and tucked the bottle away. A light in the distance appeared moving down the highway from the north. Cars had come and gone sporadically over the hour or so Jackson had been sitting there. This one didn’t seem any different. He paid it almost no mind until, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it begin to slow down. The car came to almost a complete stop before it turned right onto the dirt road that led to the cabin. The headlights were now pointed directly at him.
He shifted from his sitting position, getting up into a crouch leaning against the tree. Opening the bolt of the rifle, Jackson double checked that there was a round in the chamber, then did the same with his P320.
The headlights of the car bounced and swayed with the meandering road. Another 30 seconds and they’d be shining on the car port as the car pulled in.
Here we go, Jackson thought.
6
At ten o’clock sharp, Sara Beth’s phone buzzed. It was a vibrating alarm she had set in case she’d fallen asleep. Of course, Sara Beth never got close to dozing off. Waiting impatiently for ten to come around, her mind had been consumed with what she planned to do. Little details came to her, things to remember to avoid getting caught.
She slipped on an oversized cream sweater and looked into the standing mirror in the corner of her room. Eyeing herself top to bottom, she shrugged, suppressing enough hormonal self-doubt to admit she liked the way she looked.
Holding her boots in her hand, she peeked into the hallway looking down at her parent’s bedroom. The harsh LED light of the television cast an eerie shadow over her mother’s figure wrapped up in the covers. Parent one, check.
From the open door of her room she could hear the television downstairs, still on a college basketball game. Her father probably had drifted off and was still down there. That wouldn’t help things as she tried to go out the back door.
Sara Beth stepped out cautiously and walked downstairs, her thick, fuzzy socks muffling her footsteps as she went. Just as she went to check that her father was, in fact, asleep, a loud snore startled her. She let out a small gasp and then had to cover her mouth to keep herself from laughing. Parent two, check.
Slipping into the kitchen, she grabbed her black and red checkered coat off the hook and took one last look into the living area. The shadows of her father and the recliner flashed with the light from the TV.
“Bye, guys,” Sara Beth whispered.
Closing the back door slowly behind her, she sat on the porch staircase to slide her riding boots on. She paused a moment and listened. There was nothing.
She had made it.
Euphoric, she whipped her coat on and walked briskly down the driveway towards the street. When she got to the front yard, she took one more look at her house. It looked as asleep as her parents did inside it. Turning for the sidewalk, she looked down to hide the proud smile she couldn’t suppress.
Sara Beth made her way to the corner of Wolfe Street. The air was brisk but she was too pumped up to notice. This was happening, it was really happening. Her mind flashed forward to the thought of now surprising her friends. Their faces. The big, cheerful hug they’d give her. What would they even do? It didn’t matter.
At Wolfe Street, she headed east. Wolfe Street would take her closer to her friends, assuming they were downtown. When she was just a few blocks from the area, Sara Beth thought, she would call Emily and the girls and surprise them with the good news.
Walking by house after house, she peered at the shadowy figures in the windows of the few with lights still on. A man sat at a table in one, a couple watched what looked like a cable news program in another, a second couple ap
peared to be working at something on their kitchen counter. Dishes, most likely.
When Sara Beth got to the intersection of High Street, she couldn’t help but to smile again. This was really happening. She was here, on the edge of downtown. Sara Beth. Out on the town. Alone. Not some schlubby teenager in need of a chaperone.
She was looking at her Instagram feed at the light when she saw Jessica had posted a picture. She and Emily had posed for a selfie, holding peace signs up to their eyes. The filter on the photo made their already pale complexions seem ghostlike. But what really caught Sara Beth’s eye was the Taj of India sign lit up behind them. They were on Court Square. She looked at the timestamp of the post. Three minutes ago.
Sara Beth chuckled to herself as she crossed High Street. This was too good. Better than calling them, she would show up and surprise them.
She changed course. Getting to Court Square would be fast if she could cut across the couple of city blocks between it and her. At a parking lot for an appliance repair store she turned diagonally off the street, cutting the corner towards Court Square. As she rounded the backside of the building, she checked her phone to see if her friends had posted anything else. No new updates. They were probably still there.
Just then her phone buzzed and chimed with an incoming FaceTime. It was Emily. Her friends hadn’t given up on her. Did she answer it or stick to her plan of surprising them? She slowed down, staring at her phone, thinking, when it happened.
Walking around the building, Sara Beth hadn’t noticed the black panel van parked behind the appliance repair shop. As she walked by it, looking down at her phone, she was startled when the back doors of the van abruptly kicked open. Four large, strong arms lurched from the darkness, grabbing her, and pulled her into the van. Sara Beth tried to scream, but a gloved hand covered her mouth. She looked inwards at the interior of the van as a shadowy figure in the driver seat punched the van into gear.
The van backed out, and turned down the street, turning back in the direction she had come. It drove past a crowded brewery. Sara Beth watched helplessly out the back windows as its patrons paid no mind to her abduction.
She kicked and punched and twisted her body trying to pry herself free of her captors. Her phone, she thought. She had to get to her phone.
Pulling her right arm towards her body, she reached in the pocket of her coat. It wasn’t there. She slid her hand around frantically on the cold metal floor of the van as the two people in the back continued to wrestle with her. Her phone wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere. And just as she reached out once more, she felt a prick in her arm.
As soon as the pain had registered, Sara Beth felt disoriented. Her mind slowed. The burn from the prick in her arm lingered and throbbed. She could feel the sting soaking deeper, flowing through the skin and saturating the muscle below. She wanted to continue to fight, but fatigue set in. Sounds began to blur together just before the dark van turned black.
The man driving hung a left and turned south on High Street, heading away from downtown. Buildings became sparse as the city street narrowed to a small two-lane county road. City lights gave way to forest and farmland as the road bobbed and weaved around the encroaching hills. And the black van carrying Sara Beth Parker disappeared into the blackness of the night.
Back in the parking lot of the appliance repair shop, her phone buzzed for a moment on the cold asphalt. The screen lit up with a notification.
Emily – Missed FaceTime call
7
Jackson watched as the man he believed to have taken Ashley Sudfeld pulled into the carport and climbed out. Even from atop the hill in this rainstorm, he could tell it was him. The doughy, hunched physique. The disheveled gray hair. He even had the hitch in his gait described in the police file his connection had slipped him.
Walter Scruggs wasn’t the kind of criminal that elicited empathy from the average person. Not that most did, but Walter was a lifetime predator. He’d spent his years a pariah in the communities where he lived when he wasn’t incarcerated. He hated the world for it, but he also never changed.
So, Scruggs left what life he had and fled. He remembered his mother talking about an old hunting cabin in Appalachian Virginia her family used to have. It was remote, and what people were around didn’t ask questions. It was perfect for him.
His newfound freedom emboldened his behavior. Eventually he would sit in his van and watch as the nearby high school let out. It wasn’t long after that that a girl with baby blonde hair and striking blue eyes caught his eye.
Scruggs became obsessed with her. He stopped watching the school and started to watch her neighborhood. He would follow her as she went for runs or hung out with friends on her front porch.
But his craving grew deeper, and watching from afar was no longer enough. He’d follow the family into the store when they were out shopping or sit on benches around the route she always ran and wait for her to pass by. She would offer him a polite smile. He took it as much, much more.
So, it was on a cold, snowy February afternoon that Scruggs sat on a sidewalk. This time, though, he had a knife. And his van. Ashley Sudfeld never made it back home that day, and she’d be reported missing by her family before sundown.
It was this series of events that brought Jackson Clay to the same secluded cabin in the Shenandoah Valley on this night.
Jackson trotted down the hillside and crouched behind a stack of wooden pallets as Scruggs came around the far side of the van. The rain was driving against Jackson’s body, heavy drops hitting the rigid brim of his ballcap. He watched as Scruggs moved towards the back of the house, walking towards Jackson. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up with surprise. Fearing he’d been spotted, Jackson reached for the gun on his thigh.
But Scruggs turned away from Jackson and towards the back door. He was carrying a small bag of groceries in one hand and a bundle of firewood in the other. If he had seen Jackson, he certainly wasn’t letting on. Scruggs got to the stoop of the backdoor and dropped everything. He reached in his pocket for his keys, fumbling in the darkness for the right one.
Jackson rose slowly, spotting the opportunity. He could hear Scruggs cussing to himself as he struggled to find the key. Jackson slowly unclipped and drew his P320 as he stepped out around the pallets, taking one slow, careful step after another.
Scruggs found the right key. He slid it into the deadbolt, turned it, and opened the door.
Jackson struck.
Covering the remaining fifty feet in just a couple seconds, Jackson hit Scruggs from behind with the entire force of his body, sending the two barreling through the door.
Jackson pushed himself to his feet as Scruggs was reaching for a knife on his belt. Jackson stomped on the arm and drove it away as Scruggs hollered in pain. Jackson took the knife, secured it in one of his pockets before rolling a writhing Scruggs onto his belly, putting his arms behind him and binding them together with zip tie handcuffs.
“What the hell do you want man,” Scruggs groaned.
Jackson ignored him.
He drew a flashlight, lifted up his P320 and looked into the rest of the cabin. He moved down the hallway, clearing each room with the surefooted precision of a Ranger in the heart of Fallujah. There was a small den, a bathroom, and lastly a bedroom all the way at end. Nobody. It was clear.
Jackson moved back to the kitchen and stood Scruggs up.
“Where is she,” asked Jackson.
“Where is who,” Scruggs asked back.
Jackson swung Scruggs around and slammed his torso down on the table. He grabbed Scruggs’ right arm and yanked it upwards. Scruggs screamed again.
“Listen to me,” said Jackson, “This is going to go badly for you either way, the only question is how badly. I’m only going to ask one more time. Where is she?”
“I don’t know who you’re tal---”
Jackson didn’t wait for Scruggs to finish his lie. He grabbed the zip tie cuffs around Scruggs’ wrists and used leverage to
direct him towards a support beam dividing the entry way into the kitchen. He pulled out two more pairs of zip tie cuffs, using one to secure Scrugg’s ankles then another to bind the two sets of handcuffs together around the support beam.
“I don’t know what you want, man,” offered Scruggs, “I haven’t got mu—”
Jackson scanned the area again, looking for something he missed.
“Trust me, I know what you have,” said Jackson.
Jackson stepped out of the kitchen. He knew something was wrong. There hadn’t been any other doors in any of the other rooms or in the hallway. Could he have a basement with access only from the outside? Possible, but it seemed unlikely.
Jackson moved his flashlight over everything in the hall and the kitchen once more. The light passing over a sink, a refrigerator, an oven, and then a door. A door. He had seen it the first time he searched the kitchen but assumed it to be some sort of pantry. Now, however, he looked closer. There was a key hole in the door knob. Pantries didn’t need to be locked.
Walking over to it, Jackson put the light on Scruggs’ face to see his reaction when he showed him he had spotted the door. Scruggs looked back at him with a blank stare.
Placing his hands on the countertop, Jackson bucked his left foot backward and booted the door open. He turned around, his P320 drawn, and looked. There was a rickety staircase leading down and a faint glow of light emanated from below. It appeared to be an unfinished basement. Jackson moved down the stairs slowly, his gun drawn.
The basement was little more than a 10’ x 20’ room with slab concrete for a floor and unpainted cinder blocks for walls. In the middle of the room was a rusty iron support beam. The light came from a camping lantern sitting on the floor. Next to it, the figure of a teenage girl lay on a mattress that looked like it had come from a dog kennel.
The Woodsman (The Jackson Clay & Bear Beauchamp Series Book 1) Page 2