“Yes. Kill us,” she said, and she looked at each one to make sure they understood. Once more she pushed through the pain, the reminder of the last time William had touched her. “You . . . took . . . me. I . . . am his wife. So you will . . . be . . . punished.”
She needed them to understand this, even though they ignored her warnings about the creature in the woods. If William hadn’t been knocked out by the blow Jen had given him with the rock, then he would follow them. He would follow them and take whatever justice he deemed necessary. He didn’t feel himself bound to the same rules as other people. He didn’t consider himself a part of society. These strangers were on his mountain, he would think, and on his mountain, his word was law.
“He can’t just kill people who do things he doesn’t like,” Jen said.
“Yes,” Mattie said.
Jen stared at Mattie.
“All the more reason to move as fast as we can,” C.P. said, checking the compass again. “I’ll keep checking for a cell signal. Maybe we can get a rescue team up here so we don’t have to walk the whole way. Hell, if they know you’re up here, Samantha, there will probably be news helicopters and everything else. In the meantime, we have to move east. Maybe slightly southeast, to see if we can angle away from the cabin.”
He scooped Griffin under the shoulders again. Griffin seemed to be trying hard to stay awake, but Mattie saw his head lolling and his eyes rolling back and forth. They didn’t need to walk. They needed to find someplace safe for Griffin to sleep.
The sound of crackling branches came from the forest behind them, filling the air. Crack, crack, crack. Crack, crack, crack. Mattie froze, her heart pounding so loudly she was certain the creature could hear it.
“What is it?” Jen asked.
“Creature,” she said.
“The cryptid?” C.P. asked, swinging around with Griffin to peer into the woods they’d just passed through. “Damn, I can’t get my phone out to take a picture. Jen, you get yours.”
“No,” Mattie said, giving him a little push. “Go.”
“But I want . . .”
“Go,” she said, and wished she could put more force in her tone.
The crackling of the branches seemed to draw closer and closer, but Mattie couldn’t be certain. Sound echoed strangely on the mountain, and everything was so still that every noise was amplified.
Another cry rent the air, a cry that made Mattie take an involuntary step forward. It wasn’t the creature this time. It was a human cry, a cry of agony so terrible that it curdled the blood. Mattie felt bumps rise up all over her skin.
It sounded like William. It sounded like he was dying.
So the creature was not in the trap then, or it had managed to free itself very quickly. If that was the case then it was unlikely to be seriously injured, and there would be nothing to stop it from pursuing them.
“That sounded like . . .” Jen began, then trailed off.
Everyone already knew who it was, and what it sounded like. There was no need to speak of it. The knowledge was there on their faces.
“What should we do?” C.P. said. “It sounded like he was attacked or something.”
For the first time he didn’t sound excited by the prospect of encountering his unknown animal. He sounded shaken.
“Should we help?” Jen asked.
Help, Mattie thought. Should we help the man who kidnapped me, who killed my mother, who beat me for years, who attacked these people for no reason?
“Fuck that guy,” Griffin said, his words slurred but clear enough to be understood.
They all looked at Mattie, who understood that the final decision was hers to make.
“Go,” she said.
She couldn’t be certain, but she thought they all seemed relieved. Relieved not to encounter William again, or relieved not to face the creature that suddenly seemed dangerous in their eyes?
They began their slow progress again. As they walked, Mattie felt unease bubbling inside her throat. She kept glancing over her shoulder.
“Won’t we hear it coming?” Jen asked when Mattie did this for the fourth time.
Mattie shook her head. “Only . . . if . . . it . . . wants.”
Jen looked skeptical. “Whatever made that noise we heard, that roar—that sounded like something pretty big. I don’t know how it could sneak up on us.”
Mattie thought of her terrible night in the woods alone, how she hadn’t known the creature was there until it was almost too late.
“It . . . can,” she said.
Jen gave Mattie a curious look. “It sounds like you know.”
Mattie nodded, but didn’t try to explain any more. It was too difficult to talk at the moment. She saw C.P. checking the compass he held in his left hand. His right arm was around Griffin, who was barely upright. Suddenly they stopped. Mattie and Jen walked a few feet behind them, and Mattie was too short to see what made them halt.
“Fuck,” C.P. said.
“What?” Mattie said.
He pointed ahead, and Mattie and Jen moved up beside them to see.
There were still several feet of path ahead, but then it ended abruptly in a drop-off.
“That’s the exact direction we need to go,” C.P. said. He gently let Griffin off his shoulder, and the other man slumped in a sitting position on the ground. “Southeast. But unless you’ve got rappelling gear in your pocket, we’ve got to turn around and find another way down.”
“Maybe we can follow the cliff for a while?” Jen asked.
“The face of the cliff is running east-west,” he said. “So either we go directly east, which is really the way we need to go anyway but there’s a supposedly huge killer monster in that direction eating up the guy who tried to beat us with a shovel. Or we go the other way and end up on the top of the mountain where the monster lives, which also happens to not be in the direction of home and/or the police.”
“No need to be an ass,” Jen said. “I only asked a question.”
“A dumb question,” C.P. said.
“Fuck off,” she said, her face flushing. “What do you want to do, C.P.? We obviously can’t jump off the mountain and land at the bottom, so we’ve got to go in one direction or the other.”
“Why did I get picked to be the captain?” C.P. said, then pointed at Mattie. “Why doesn’t she tell us the best way to go? She’s the one who’s lived here forever.”
Mattie started. She’d felt herself shrinking backward, shrinking inwards while they argued. Shouting meant hitting. Hitting meant pain.
“Don’t try to drag her into your stupidity,” Jen said. “She already said that asshole never let her leave the cabin. She’s a kidnap victim. How’s she supposed to know the best way to go?”
C.P.’s face flushed the same angry red as Jen’s.
Warning. It’s a warning. Don’t argue with him. Don’t contradict. Don’t.
“Don’t,” she said to Jen, tugging at her sleeve, trying to pull her backward.
Mattie stumbled, her heels catching in a protruding root buried in the snow. She fell onto her bottom, and everything spun and ached but she kicked at the snow with her boots, trying to find purchase, trying to move away, away from the shouting and the noise and the place where she would be punished for not knowing where to go and what to do.
“Hey,” C.P. said, his face changing. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
“You were shouting, you idiot,” Jen said, but her own voice was much softer now, her tone gently chiding instead of angry. “And I was, too. I’m sorry. I’m sorry we scared you.”
Jen crouched down in the snow, her hand out, like she was trying to lure a small frightened animal to her palm. “It’s okay now. It’s okay.”
“Hit . . . you,” Mattie said, looking from Jen to C.P. and back again. “Punish.”
C.P. looked out
raged. “I would never hit a girl! Or a woman, for that matter. What kind of man do you think I am?”
“I think,” Jen said, very softly, “it’s more the kind of man that he was.”
Mattie’s heart was still rabbiting away in her chest, but the sense of panic receded. She looked at Jen, and saw something that made Mattie turn her head away in shame.
Pity.
The other woman pitied her.
That pity made everything she’d endured somehow worse than before, made all the years of hurt and fear bloom afresh.
“Sorry,” Mattie said. “I . . . didn’t . . .”
“It’s okay,” Jen said again. “It’s okay.”
“We’ve gotta find somewhere to rest,” C.P. said. “We’re all half out of our minds. I can’t remember the last time I ate, and Samantha and Griffin are dead on their feet.”
“Not . . . cave,” Mattie said. She might not be certain how to get off the mountain, but she was absolutely certain that they should not go in the direction of the caves.
“I don’t really know that the wacko with the shovel is a better option,” C.P. said.
“We’ve got to go in one direction or another,” Jen said. “We might as well try to make some progress going down.”
They both glanced at Griffin, looking for his opinion, but his eyes were closed.
“Griffin?” Jen said, kneeling in front of him and tapping the side of his face. “Griffin, come on.”
Griffin’s eyes cracked open, but it was clearly a struggle. “Want to sleep.”
“You can’t sleep yet,” Jen said. “Come on, you have to wake up. It’s not safe here.”
It’s not safe anywhere, Mattie thought, but as she watched Jen and C.P. try to bully Griffin into waking and standing, she realized they had no choice but to find a place to stop and rest.
But not here. It’s too exposed here. We’re too close to William.
Of course, William might be dead already, killed by a creature that he’d angered with his trap. And even if he wasn’t dead then surely he was seriously injured. He wouldn’t be able to chase after them—at least not right away.
The back of Mattie’s neck itched. She was still sitting in the snow, and she pulled herself up, using a tree trunk as a prop. She clung to the tree, her eyes darting all around.
Something’s near.
Something’s watching.
The woods had gone silent, the way they always did when the creature was close.
Jen and C.P. were loudly cajoling Griffin to wake up, to stand up.
“Shhhhhh,” Mattie said.
She stared up into the heavy canopy of the pines and realized then what good cover it was for the creature—a permanent camouflage, never lost in the winter.
The other three didn’t seem to have heard her.
“Qu-quiet,” she said, much louder than she’d intended.
They stopped their fussing then, and Jen said, “What is it?”
“It’s . . . near,” Mattie whispered.
“The cryptid?” C.P. said.
Mattie put her finger to her lips, then signed that they should both help Griffin up. She didn’t know why she was bothering to be quiet—surely the creature could sniff them out—but her instinct, when faced with danger, was to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible.
Jen moved toward Mattie, to help her, but Mattie shook her head. She still felt wobbly but she thought she could walk—or at least hurl herself from tree to tree as she’d done when William abandoned her in the woods. Griffin, on the other hand, seemed to be unconscious, and C.P. would not be able to carry Griffin on his own.
If I can only let them get ahead of me, they’ll be safe. The creature wants me, me and William. We’re the ones it warned.
(But how do you know it only wants you? The other three went into its cave, too.)
Mattie’s teeth chattered. Her tongue felt heavy and numb inside her mouth. She didn’t know the right thing to do. She didn’t know how to save all of them, or even herself.
She pointed in the direction of the cliff, then east, the way that C.P. said they needed to go. If they followed the cliff for a while they’d surely find a place where they could turn south again. Maybe they could even find the stream. She knew for certain that the stream ran into the river, and the river would take them down the mountain. Plus, if they reached the stream from here, Mattie knew that they would avoid the cabin and William.
C.P. started dragging Griffin, but Jen didn’t move. She stared at Mattie.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
Mattie waved her hand, indicating that they should go.
“No,” Jen said. Her voice was low but she sounded furious. “Don’t get any funny ideas about distracting it, or sacrificing yourself to save us. You go with us or none of us do.”
Mattie’s fists clenched. Why would these strangers never listen to her? Why wouldn’t they let her help? They had helped her. They’d saved her from William. Now she wanted to return the favor and they were balking.
“Go,” Mattie whispered.
Jen shook her head, and C.P. said, “No way.”
Mattie clamped her lips together in frustration. Her teeth clacked against one another inside her closed mouth. The creature was very close. She could feel it. Her eyes searched the pines, looking for some sign.
The creature’s eyes stared down at her.
Mattie gasped and stumbled back, away from the tree she’d clung to. It was directly above them.
She didn’t know how it managed to heave its enormous bulk up so high, but somehow it did. She didn’t know how it had gotten so close without making a sound, either. They’d heard the branches breaking earlier.
It can move silently when it wants to. It followed you through the woods and you almost didn’t realize at all. You only hear it approaching if it chooses.
She couldn’t see any of it except its eyes, and even that wasn’t exactly right—she couldn’t make out their color or their shape, only the matched gleam of them so far above.
“What is it?” Jen hissed.
“Go,” Mattie said, backing into the three of them, never taking her eyes from the creature’s eyes. “Go, go, go.”
C.P. looked up, squinting into the trees. “Is it there?”
Mattie almost moaned in frustration. They have no sense of self-preservation. When I say “go,” it doesn’t mean “stay and attract the monster’s attention.”
Jen finally caught Mattie’s mood and indicated to C.P. that they should go. The two of them limped ahead, dragging Griffin between them, and Mattie backed away slowly, her eyes on the creature.
We don’t mean you any harm, she thought. Please, leave us alone.
The creature didn’t move. Mattie kept her eyes locked on its eyes until she had to turn or risk falling off the cliff.
Just as she turned she realized something, and the realization made her lungs constrict.
There wasn’t one set of eyes watching them.
There were two.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mattie stumbled along in the wake of the other three. They were moving along the cliffside, and they could see the cliff continuing ahead for quite some time.
Why didn’t they attack us back there? We were vulnerable, injured—surely an animal smart enough to stalk us through the forest would be smart enough to see that.
She didn’t have any answers. She only knew that it had let them go. She couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that it was somehow worse that it had—that there was something more terrible waiting in store for them.
“It’s getting dark,” C.P. said. His breath was ragged. “I don’t want to pitch the tents by moonlight.”
It was getting dark. Mattie hadn’t even noticed the sun going down. Her mind was full of what she’d seen, or t
hought she’d seen.
Two creatures? How?
And where had they come from in the first place? Mattie and William had lived on this mountain for years and never seen any sign of such things. How could two such enormous animals suddenly appear out of nowhere?
You know what William would say. They are demons, sent to test you.
But Mattie didn’t believe in demons.
A rifle shot pierced the air.
The four of them stopped dead simultaneously, as if given an order—or rather, three of them stopped and Griffin lolled in between Jen and C.P. Mattie spun around, certain William would be right behind them.
There was nothing and no one, only the broken trail of snow and the cliff and the trees that never seemed to end.
“I don’t think it was nearby,” Jen said, and pointed. “It sounded like it came from that way.”
If William was strong enough to go back to the cabin for his rifle, then the creature must not have harmed him as much as Mattie had thought—or hoped.
(Die why couldn’t you just die you killed my mother and you stole me away I wanted you to die)
“Hurry,” she said. If they got a little farther then maybe the dark would cover their tracks, make it harder for William to follow them.
“We really can’t hurry,” C.P. said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, our friend has a head injury and can’t walk.”
“Stop being such a sarcastic jerk,” Jen said. “She’s only worried.”
“And I’m not?” C.P. grumbled. “We came up here to do some research and now we’re in a horror movie with a monster and an unkillable redneck with a gun.”
Jen retorted something but Mattie wasn’t really listening. She couldn’t stop herself from checking behind them frequently, looking for William’s silhouette on the trail.
The air was getting colder as it grew darker, but Mattie still didn’t see any sign of clouds. The only way they could hide their trail from William was if snow fell in the night. Without the cover of a fresh layer, then all he’d have to do is follow their tracks.
And the creature can probably track us by sound or smell, so there’s nothing we can do to keep it from us.
Near the Bone Page 15