“We have to keep moving,” she said. “It could come after us.”
She said “could,” but what she really meant was “it will.” She didn’t doubt that the creature would harry them until they died or were off the mountain.
“Right,” C.P. said, rubbing his face. “Right. We have to get the packs. At least, we have to get mine. And Griffin’s camera, too.”
“I don’t think we should waste time going back for things,” Mattie said. “We’re at the stream now, and we know that the stream leads to the river and the river will take us the way we need to go.”
C.P. looked at the stream. “It goes more or less straight east right here, like the cliffs that were near the place we stashed the packs. That means the stream turns southeast at some point but right now its running parallel to the path we took yesterday. If we collect the packs and then keep going along the cliffside, we’ll run into the stream again at some point.”
“Maybe,” Mattie said. She understood his reasoning, but she didn’t want to risk being away from the only landmark they had.
“Look, I have the compass,” he said. “If it seems like we’re going off track for whatever reason, I’ll get us back to the stream, OK? I’ve got to get Griffin’s camera. It has evidence on it. I don’t want him to have died for nothing. And my pack has a tent, food, warm clothes—things we might need if we have to stay out here tonight. It makes sense.”
It made a kind of sense, but Mattie was starting to feel the press of urgency. The creature could return at any moment. And if they went back into the woods then they would be in its territory again. It could cross the stream behind them and hide in the trees. It could stalk them until night, and no tent or bedroll would be protection.
“I think we should just go,” she said. “As fast as we can, and not worry about the things.”
“Then go,” he said. “I’ll follow our footprints in the snow. They’re here, just like you said. Maybe I’ll catch up to you.”
“No,” Mattie said. “That’s crazy. If we’re alone then the creature could pick us off easily.”
“I’m not leaving without Griffin’s camera,” he said, and started toward the woods.
This wasn’t about an object, Mattie realized. This was about his friend, and his need to honor that friend. It was about trying to make sense of something senseless. She glanced back the way they came. The forest was silent there, no birds twittering. The creature was still there. It hadn’t followed them yet.
She ran after C.P., her stomach churning with anxiety. “Fine, but let’s hurry. Please.”
Hurry, hurry, the monster’s in the woods and it’s coming for you.
Their tracks were clear and easy to follow. Mattie saw the cluster of their footprints—her own, C.P.’s, Jen’s—and just beside them she recognized William’s boots, one of them dragging in the snow.
They were at the cluster of boulders where they’d stashed the bags sooner than Mattie thought. The walk had seemed terribly long in the dark, all three of them afraid and huddled together.
“Awesome,” C.P. said. “That only took like fifteen minutes. Just give me a few minutes to transfer some stuff from Griffin’s bag and we can go.”
They climbed down the boulders and stood in the same place where they’d stood the night before—a lifetime ago, Mattie thought, when they were four instead of two and she ate a Hershey’s bar that had tasted like a miracle.
C.P. rummaged in Griffin’s pack, digging out the camera and a notebook, then transferred the items to his own pack. He slung the bag on his back, adjusting the straps.
“Ugh, I forgot how heavy this thing is,” he said. “Okay, let’s go.”
One moment he was smiling at her and the next moment he was on the ground, and only then did she register the sound of the rifle that had fired a moment before.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thought you could get away, didn’t you, you little slut?”
Thunk-drag, thunk-drag, thunk-drag.
Behind her. He was behind her and C.P. was on the ground. She didn’t see blood but that didn’t mean anything. C.P. could be bleeding to death while she stood there, paralyzed, unable to help him or to turn around, unable to face the specter that she’d called William.
“Found those bags last night. I knew you’d come back for them. I thought I’d catch up to you before that but I made a note. You can’t outsmart me, Mattie girl.”
Think. Move. Run.
(No, don’t run. If you run he’ll shoot you.)
He’s going to hurt you anyway. If you run he’ll shoot and if you stay he’ll use his fists and no matter what he’ll find a way to drag you back to the cabin, to the place you thought you left forever.
She heard his footsteps coming closer and closer, thunk-drag thunk-drag thunk-drag, but she couldn’t make her body obey the screaming in her brain that was telling her to move, to run, to get away before his hands were on her.
Move, Samantha!
Yes, I am Samantha, I am brave and strong, I am not little Martha mouse and he’s not going to take me back to that place, not again, not ever.
She turned to face him, and gasped.
He was a few feet away from her, and she didn’t know how he could be walking at all.
His right leg had been torn by claws, long deep gashes that swept from his hip down to his knee. The gashes were clotted over but his pant leg—or what was left of his pant leg—was coated in dried blood. There were tears in his coat, too, at the shoulder and over part of his chest, and Mattie could see the wounds underneath the ragged flaps of clothing.
And skin, she thought with a sickening realization. Some of those flaps are his skin.
But his body wasn’t even the worst of it. The creature had swiped its needle-sharp claws over William’s face, tearing the flesh from his hairline to his jaw on the right side. The eye was sealed shut by black clotted fluid.
He should have been dead, or at least immobile. His wounds would have stopped a normal man. But William was not a normal man.
And he would do anything, anything, to capture her again, including roam half-dead through the woods in the night. She knew that. In William’s mind, she belonged to him, and he wasn’t about to let his possession go.
“I’m quite a sight, aren’t I, Mattie girl?” he said, and grinned. His grin was hideous, his teeth coated in blood, the claw marks contorting his face. “And you’ve led me on quite a chase. But you should have known better. God made you my wife, and a wife must submit to her husband and obey. You’ve defied the will of God and the will of your husband, but the Lord made certain I would find you again. He knows where you belong, even if you don’t.”
“I’m not your wife,” she said, backing away as he approached her, her hands raised to ward off an attack.
Why hadn’t she taken some weapon from the cabin—a knife, the axe, anything? Why had she let herself think that William might be gone forever? He would never be gone. He would always be there, following, if she tried to run.
“You are my wife. You have lived as my wife ever since you became a woman.”
“No,” Mattie said, and her voice was stronger than it had been a moment before. “You stole me. You killed my mother. You never married me. You only told me you did, told me I belonged to you, told me if I tried to leave someone would only return me to you. You beat me and starved me and made me think that everything I knew, all of my life before, was a dream, something that never happened.”
“Anything I did was only for your own good, Martha,” he said, and his voice was the frozen cold of winter.
That cold would have chilled her marrow even the day before, would have made her bend and submit. But now she saw that she was proof against it, that he only had power because she’d believed it.
“My name isn’t Martha,” she said.
His brows drew togeth
er and his left eye, the one that wasn’t damaged, was a roiling storm of fury, but his voice was still frosted over, calm and cold.
“Your name is Martha and you are my wife,” he said, like his saying it would make it true, would make her believe it again.
“My name isn’t Martha,” she said. “I don’t belong to you.”
She’d backed away from him, moving across the trail toward the cliffs. Now she realized how close she was to the edge, that if she took one step backward her foot would only find empty air.
I could fly away, she thought. I could fly into the sky and William would never be able to capture me again. I’d be free, free as a hawk, and I’d never again be a scurrying mouse for him to snap in his trap.
(Don’t be a little coward)
Samantha again, Samantha always harrying her, always pushing her to be stronger, to try harder, to fight.
I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m tired. I tried to fight him, to get away, and look where I am now.
(Yes look where you are now)
I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to hurt anymore. I just want to be free.
(Look where you are now)
It’s so hard.
(look)
“Come away from there now, Martha,” William said, and for the first time Mattie heard alarm in his voice. “You’re too close to the edge.”
He was closer to her now, less than three feet away. If he grabbed her, if he got hold of her with those powerful hands, then she would be lost. There would be nothing left of Samantha. She’d be crushed beneath William’s fists.
(Don’t let him grab you)
I know, she wanted to shout. I know now what I’m supposed to do. I don’t need a bossy little girl like you to tell me.
(Then do it)
William was closer. She was just about in his arm’s reach. His right eye was horrible, oozing black blood. She remembered her own swollen eye, the one he’d given her, and how she hadn’t been able to see anything on that side of her face, not even the edge of her nose.
William swung one of his big paws—for that’s what they were, they were paws, huge and dangerous, just like the creature’s—but Mattie was already moving, darting to his right side where he couldn’t see her.
Even a mouse has power, she thought. They can scurry so fast that you almost don’t see them, nothing but a flash out of the corner of your eye. And William can see nothing, nothing at all.
Mattie darted to the right and then forward, and then turned again before William realized what happened. She put both hands on his back and pushed as hard as she could.
William stumbled, dropped the rifle to the ground, cried out, “You damned little bitch!” but he didn’t fall.
She almost panicked then, almost ran before he turned and grabbed her, but William had taught her—over and over—that if she started a job then she should do it right, that to give half-effort was a sin.
William started to turn toward her, his left eye blazing, no ice remaining to freeze her heart.
She ran at him, her arms out, and he hadn’t gotten his balance yet, and this time he did fall, his hands grasping for purchase, opening and closing on nothing but empty air.
He fell forward, his upper body pouring over the edge of the cliff, his legs still on the ground in front of her, and for a moment he was balanced there like a seesaw—half of him suspended in air, and the other half clinging to cliff.
“MARTHA!” he roared.
“I’m not Martha. I’m Samantha,” she said, and she kicked him forward.
It was only an inch or two, just enough force to upset the balance, and then it was like the air reached out and pulled him away, and he was screaming, screaming, screaming.
Mattie stood there, swaying, her whole body trembling. Then she fell to her knees, to her stomach, and crawled forward on her belly to peer over the edge.
It was a long way to the bottom, a very long way, and even William couldn’t survive that. But if he did then his body was broken, and he couldn’t move, and nobody would be there to help him and he would die there, lonely and afraid.
Mattie’s heart swelled with a fierce gladness, a happiness she had never known.
“He’s gone,” she said. “He’s gone.”
And then she was weeping, and her body was shaking, and she didn’t know what to do because the boogeyman was killed, she killed him and he would never haunt her steps or her sleep ever again and she was free.
She inched backward, pushed herself up on her hands and knees, and then managed to get to her feet though every part of her was trembling. Her eyes went black for a minute, like she was about to faint, but she breathed deep and managed to stay upright.
C.P. was still lying in the snow, but he wasn’t facedown anymore. He’d turned to his side, and his eyes were open.
“C.P.!” she said, and hurried to him.
There was blood in the snow but not as much as she expected, just a little blot of red against white. “I thought you were dead,” she said, and then she was crying again.
“Hey,” he said, flapping his arm at her in a gesture that was probably meant to comfort. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. I saw what you did. You were so brave. The bravest girl I’ve ever seen.”
“You don’t think I’m a coward anymore?” she said, sobbing.
“Ah, well. I never should have said that. I can be an absolute jerk sometimes.”
“Okay,” Mattie said, crying harder.
“I mean, you don’t have to agree with me,” he said. “Listen, do you think you can help me get this pack off for a minute? I feel like a turtle stuck on its shell.”
Mattie wiped her face with her mittens and then helped him ease the strap off his right arm. He pushed off his side then, leaving the pack behind in the snow as his left arm came free. Mattie saw the place where the bullet had entered his left shoulder then, the blood staining his coat and the stuffing leaking out of the hole in the jacket.
He followed her gaze and said, “It’s actually not that bad, I think. I don’t want to be stupid manly about it but I’m pretty sure that guy didn’t hit anything vital. He was aiming for my heart, I’m sure, and with that giant elephant gun he would have made my heart explode without a doubt. But I don’t think he could see too well, with that fucked-up eye. And I think this puffy coat probably saved me, too—it makes me look a lot bigger than I really am. It seems like the bullet just skimmed through the top of my shoulder, but I’m not going to take my jacket off and check it out right now.”
“We should bandage it,” Mattie said.
“No, we should get the hell out of here before something else happens,” he said. “That guy might be gone, but the monster is still in the woods. And if you’re right and it’s picking us off when we’re injured . . . well, as the injured person I vote we get out of its territory as soon as possible. The bad news is that I don’t think I can carry that pack now with my shoulder the way it is, and it’s way too heavy for you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mattie said. “We won’t need the tent. We’re not going to sleep. We’re going to keep moving until we’re safe.”
“Okay,” C.P. said. “I’m on board with that plan. But let’s put Griffin’s camera and notebook in that sack you have with the food, all right? I still want to take those with us.”
They transferred the camera and notebook to Mattie’s bag. The camera did make the bag heavier but not too much. C.P. offered to carry the sack but Mattie shook her head.
“I can manage, and the strap would irritate your shoulder.”
Then she remembered William stumbling forward, the rifle clattering to the ground. “The rifle!” she said, and went back toward the cliff’s edge.
It hadn’t fallen off the cliff with William, as she feared. Mattie picked it up. It was heavy, and she didn’t know if it still had ammunit
ion inside, but if it did then they might need it.
She brought it back to C.P., who checked to see how many shots were left.
“Looks like ten. He probably had extra ammo in his pockets but we’re not going to climb down to check. You still have those keys, right?” C.P. asked.
Mattie felt for the string around her neck and pulled the key ring out to show him.
“Damn, I really hope we find that guy’s car,” C.P. said. “I have never wanted to not walk so much in my entire life.”
“We should go back to the stream,” Mattie said. “It’s not far from here, and we’ll know for sure that we’re heading in the right direction. And we won’t be under the trees.”
C.P. cast a wary glance at the tree branches hanging over them. “Right. But we’ll have to go through the woods again to get there.”
Mattie had thought of this, had realized that the creature could have crossed the stream and picked up their trail again already. She listened hard, and heard the sound of birds.
“It’s not here yet,” she said. “There are birds nearby. Let’s hurry.”
They climbed back up over the boulders and into the woods, C.P. moving very slowly.
“I really want to say it’s just a flesh wound,” he said, “but it hurts, goddammit. I will never believe anything I see in a movie again.”
“What do you mean?”
“In movies guys are always getting shot, but in conveniently non-vital places. And they’re always like, ‘It’s nothing,’ and then spend the next hour sprinting around and punching bad guys like they’ve had no blood loss whatsoever. Well, I’m here to tell you that even this little wound makes me want to sit down for at least an hour, and also I want two meatball subs and a beer, not necessarily in that order.”
Mattie didn’t know what a meatball sub was, but she understood the impulse to sit down. The rush of fighting William and winning had passed and now she was more tired than she’d ever been, so tired she thought she could close her eyes and fall asleep standing up.
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