by Harper Lin
“Okay,” Quinten replied, stumbling over a root.
I sighed, reminding myself that I had been in worse situations than this.
I glanced at Martin. Sure, I had been in worse situations. Plenty of times. Except the personal stakes had never been so high.
Descending put new strains on my body. The slippery footing and steep angle added pressure to the back of my legs and, by extension, the small of my back, where Mr. Chong had been sticking his needles.
Now it felt like a dagger had gotten stuck in there.
I thought through the contents of my pack, wondering what I could get rid of, and realized there was quite a lot.
Stopping, I took off the pack and cast aside the tent, ground sheet, sleeping bag, toiletries, a paperback, and a spare set of clothes. I kept the dirty socks in case the ones I had on got wet.
“You want me to carry your pack, Grandma?” Martin asked.
“No, I’m fine now.” I was still tired, but at least my back didn’t twinge anymore.
It might later.
I realized that three days had become my limit for what I used to call “baby hikes.” If we had kept to the itinerary, with no extra ridge to climb or a mine to explore, I thought I would have been fine. Worn out but not in pain.
After I lightened my load, it was a quick descent to where the two trails met.
“There it is!” Martin cried, pointing to a white plastic supermarket bag sitting at the connection of the two trails.
That lifted my spirits. “Let’s see what food Ms. Chipper left us. I could do with a snack.”
My spirits dampened as we drew closer. The bag didn’t look very full.
After another few steps, I realized why.
It lay flat on the ground, weighed down by a fist-sized stone, and appeared to be completely empty. One corner flapped forlornly in the breeze.
Our pursuer had gotten here before us.
TEN
We all realized the same thing at around the same time, except for Quinten, who had to be told.
“It’s a trap,” he said, trying to peer through his foggy glasses. “We should go another way.”
“What other way?” Martin asked.
“If he wanted to make a trap, he would have left the food in the bag, not warned us he had been here,” I said.
“He’s playing with us,” Butch said. He moved closer to his dad. Even though he was nearly a head taller than the librarian, he still looked to him for support. Martin moved closer to me too.
Gripping my survival knife, I moved to the bag, looking carefully around me.
The bag was, indeed, empty. A note written in ballpoint pen was wedged below the rock. Although the paper was soggy from the rain, the writing remained legible, and it was in large enough letters that I didn’t have to embarrass myself in front of my grandson again.
Barbara, Quinten, Martin, and Butch,
We’ve left you a big bundle of snacks and the map. I know my way around, so I don’t need it. You shouldn’t need it either if you keep on the same path we came up, but I’m leaving it just in case you have to avoid whoever killed poor Thomas. We’re going to the parking lot as quick as we can. We’ll send help. Be careful, and good luck!
Marjory Chipper
He had taken the map. The only reason to do that is if he wanted to scare us off the trail and get us lost. Then he could hunt us down at leisure, and the police wouldn’t know where to find us.
Much as I didn’t want to, I told the others what I thought. Quinten looked grim but not surprised, as if he had figured it out already. Butch’s eyes welled with tears, and his lip trembled. Martin slumped and looked at the ground.
“Look, it’s not as bad as it seems,” I told them. “He obviously doesn’t have a gun, or he would have shot us by now. Plus, we’re four against one.” That got me some measuring looks. “It’s only a few hours to the parking lot, and we might even bump into some other hikers.”
“No one’s going to be hiking in this weather,” Martin grumbled.
“Maybe, maybe not. You never know. People might have gone farther into the state park and are now leaving because the weather turned bad. Or maybe Ms. Chipper found a park ranger and told him what happened. We could bump into some help at any moment.”
Martin looked at me. “We haven’t seen anyone all day, and if we do bump into someone, how do we know it isn’t that creep?”
Good point.
“Well, if that creep does come around, we’ll be ready for him.”
I shucked off my backpack, went over to a tree, and used my knife to cut off a straight branch that was about half an inch thick. Quickly, I used the blade to strip off the little twigs and all the bark until I was left with a straight shaft.
“You making a walking stick?” Quinten asked.
“No. Don’t mind me. Keep watching the woods around us.”
I cut off the front end and sharpened the back end. I then pulled out the string from the hollow handle of my pocket knife and lashed the knife onto the flat end.
I now had a five-foot-long spear with a spiked butt. Good for stabbing and even jabbing backward if someone came up behind me and I didn’t have time to turn around.
“That’s epic!” Martin said. “Can you make me one?”
“You don’t have a knife.”
“At least sharpen my stick,” he said, waving the crude club he had been carrying all this time.
“We need to get going, Martin.”
The truth was, I was afraid he’d stab the wrong person with it. Me, for example.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” he asked.
“When I was younger, I did a lot of hiking.” True enough, if you counted wilderness counterinsurgency warfare as “hiking.”
I kept a sharp eye all around us, especially uphill, in case our friend decided to start another landslide. Luckily, on this part of the trail, the slope was gentler, with more trees that spoke of a thicker layer of topsoil. This was not a good place to try such a nasty surprise.
Unfortunately, the slope did not stay that way. Up ahead, I could see another steep, bare patch of the ridge almost identical to the one where the killer had laid the last trap. We stopped and stared, saying nothing. A trail branched off the one we walked on, making several switchbacks as it went downhill to the river below. We decided not to make ourselves targets and took the lower path.
The trail down to the valley bottom was grueling. Even with my lightened pack, my back and legs were aching by the time we made it to the bottom.
What we saw there made me forget all about my pain for a moment.
The small creek we had glimpsed from time to time from the trail had swollen with the rain and become a wide stream. The trail led right up to the water’s edge then continued on the other side. I imagined that there had been a set of easy stepping stones for hikers to cross, but they were now totally submerged.
Going right up to the water, I stuck my spear down as far as I could reach. It almost disappeared before I touched bottom.
“The stream is a good four feet deep, and considering how fast it’s going, it could sweep us right along if we tried to wade across it.”
“Plus, if we get wet in this temperature, we might get hypothermia,” Quinten said, sneezing as if to add emphasis to his words.
“We can go along the river on this side,” Butch suggested. “All we have to do is follow it until that ridge comes into view. What was it called, Miner’s Ridge? Then we climb that and find the trail again.”
“That’s just what he wants us to do,” I said.
“Then what else can we do?” Martin cried, throwing his hands in the air. “We can’t cross the river, we can’t go back the way we came, we can’t go across that exposed part without getting crushed, we…”
I put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Let me think.”
It was true that we couldn’t cross the river, but could we go back the way we had come? I tried to anticipate our adversary
’s next move. He surely knew the creek had swollen with the heavy rains, and he knew that by setting off that landslide, he’d frighten us away from taking the direct path.
He had sent us down here, right where he wanted us. Our next obvious move was to do just what Butch had suggested: skirt the river to get to Miner’s Ridge and climb over it to link up with the trail again.
Somewhere in the thick woods between us and that trail, he’d pounce. If he could kill all of us—certainly a strong possibility—then he could dump us all in the river. Our bodies might not be found for days or even weeks.
So if he was coming down, the smartest thing for us to do was to go up, all the way back to the top of the ridge. With a bit of luck, he wouldn’t spot us, and we could follow the ridge out of the park.
I peered through the trees to the top of the ridge far, far above. My heart fell. There was no way I could make it all the way back up. I’d start slowing everybody down right from the start as we climbed this damp, slippery slope, and I’d be exhausted by the time we got up the side of the valley, assuming I’d make it at all. After that, we’d be exposed on the valley top, with me most likely not able to continue.
Of course, I could make them leave me, but that was Horror Movie Thinking, as Martin would say, and would put us in an even worse position than we already were in.
“We’ll go up Miner’s Ridge,” I said at last, “but we won’t go on the route he’s expecting us to. Once we get up the ridge, we’ll try and find a way to dodge him.”
“But, Grandma, he’ll be waiting for us.”
“This forest is large and dense. He can’t see far. He’ll wait for us somewhere obvious, like on the trail.”
“Or on top of the ridge,” Martin said. “He could be up there right now.”
“Not yet. He had to set the landslide from above. He’s got a long climb to get down, and then if he wants to get us onto the top of Miner’s Ridge, he’ll have to cut through rough country to make it. That buys us time.”
“Then we better hurry up,” Quinten said.
We set out, following the side of the stream. It proved to be rough going, walking along the slick slope through woods and underbrush, occasionally having to clamber over outcroppings of rock. I could already feel myself tiring.
At least the forest canopy sheltered us from the worst of the rain. Instead of getting struck with a constant rainfall, we got pattered with occasional drops that made it through the leaves or dripped off the foliage. The forest floor was soaked, however, and the going was uneven and slippery.
Then it happened. A step over a log, a rabbit hole, or something hidden under a carpet of leaves, and my ankle twisted. I stumbled, using the butt end of my spear to steady myself. A brief pain in my ankle, followed by a much sharper jab in my back.
I hissed through clenched teeth and hugged a tree, slowly flexing my injured leg. Ignoring the worried questions of my companions, I slowly turned my ankle. Just a bad twist. It would be fine in a minute or two.
My back, on the other hand, was messed up good and proper. I felt tension clamp down on the lower portion, sending stiffness and pain up the length of my spine.
“Help me get my pack off,” I groaned.
Someone did. I couldn’t even see who, not daring to turn my head in case it added to the pain.
“Side pocket—there’s an aspirin bottle.”
“You look like you need something stronger,” Quinten said, pulling out the bottle.
“I don’t have anything stronger.”
When I had first developed my bad back, my doctor had given me a prescription for a popular brand of opioid painkillers, an entire month’s worth of a strong dose with a chance to renew the prescription every month after that.
I had refused. It was a trap. Having spent many years fighting the drug war overseas, I knew enough about the chemistry of the stuff to know not to fall into taking it. Even someone who doesn’t like drugs and doesn’t have an addictive personality will become addicted after taking a regular dose of opioids for a certain length of time. It changes the body’s chemistry, creating a physical addiction. Willpower and self-discipline are worth nothing; your own body betrays you. Once addicted, it is extremely difficult to wean oneself off it. I was appalled that my physician, who certainly knew this as well as I did, would give me such a prescription. I was even more appalled that it was common practice.
So instead, I gobbled aspirin like some aspirin junkie, drinking a long guzzle of water and eating some of my small supply of nuts to keep my stomach settled.
I forced myself to relax, trying to will my back into not feeling pain. The aspirin would take some time to kick in, time we did not have. Even now, the man who was hunting us was scurrying down the side of the valley, looking for a good ambush spot.
“We need to get moving.”
Martin tossed aside my pack. “We can ditch this.”
“What about my things?”
“They’re already in our packs,” Quinten said.
I’d been so involved in my own discomfort that I hadn’t noticed them divvying up my possessions among themselves. Bless them.
Lebanon, 1981.
Five fellow operatives and I are sneaking through the rough mountains on the border between Lebanon and Syria. We are being chased by a splinter group of radical Islamic terrorists who think the more mainstream terror groups are too soft. They want to kill more people quicker, and that’s what they set out to do, at least until we took out their main bombmaker. The region’s school buses are safe again.
We are not. The Islamists have figured out who took out their man and have tracked us. They’re only a mile or so behind us: two dozen heavily armed fighters who aren’t afraid to die, searching for us.
The night is moonless, but the rocky hills are all but barren of vegetation. There is nowhere to hide. Only distance and darkness will keep us from getting killed.
And I know they’re gaining on us. Two of our team are wounded, including myself. I’ve taken a flesh wound in the thigh that makes every step an agony. The other operative took a gut shot and lies groaning on a makeshift stretcher carried by my husband, James, and another man. They’re strong, the wounded man is light, and they are making good time.
I am not.
I’m using my M16 as a crutch and hobbling over the rocky hills at a slower and slower rate.
The terrorists are no doubt moving much faster, scouring the hills in a search that will inevitably lead them to find us.
We all know it, and yet I cannot go any faster.
Not until James hands his end of the stretcher to a female operative and comes back to me.
“I can’t—”
I don’t get to finish my sentence. Without a word, he pulls out a small photograph from his pocket and shoves it in my face. Although it is too dark to see, I know what it is.
A photo of Frederick, our chubby little toddler, playing happily in my parents’ home.
“Move.”
That’s all James says before he goes back to help carry the stretcher.
That’s all he needs to say.
I find the strength within me to carry on, and we get away, out of Lebanon, out of the mission, and back home.
Home to my son.
Right now, that same son, grown from a chubby toddler to a chubby adult, was waiting unaware at home, thinking he would see his own son and his mother in a few hours.
“Let’s go,” I said, using my homemade spear as a crutch as I walked at a normal rate through the woods. The others, surprised at my sudden move, hurried to join me.
I was still in pain. I still had limited movement, but I was not going to let that stop me from getting my grandson safely back to Frederick and Alicia.
ELEVEN
To keep my mind off the agony of my back, I began to grill Quinten and the boys, hoping to find some more clues to the identity of the man hunting us.
“Did Thomas ever come into the library at other times?” I asked Quinten.
I could hear how strained my voice sounded. The librarian was courteous enough not to point it out.
“Not that I can recall. That’s why I remembered it, because it was so unusual. Several of the teachers are regulars, checking out books to design assignments for the kids or for their own personal reading. Thomas had never come in, or if he had, he certainly wasn’t a regular.”
“So he wanted to look at something without leaving an Internet trace. He wanted to look at old local newspapers and some legal books and didn’t want anyone to know.”
“He sure didn’t appreciate my presence. I could feel that right off.”
“Do you think he recognized you as a parent of one of his students?”
“I don’t think so. I’d never met him personally, just saw him introduced on stage at that big parent-teacher meeting.”
“Have you ever seen him anywhere else around Cheerville?”
“Not that I can recall.”
We must have been getting close to Miller’s Ridge. I told everyone to be extra aware of our surroundings. The ground was growing rockier, thinning the trees and reducing the underbrush. That would make us more visible. It would make our enemy more visible too. He was out there somewhere, searching or waiting.
Next, I turned my attention to the boys.
“You mentioned Thomas had a bad temper. Did he ever have arguments with any of the other teachers or staff?”
“No,” Butch said. “He was always grumbling about stuff, like the school not ordering things or the state ripping us off.”
“Ripping you off?”
“Like, not giving funding and stuff. He always said the politicians didn’t give a damn about education.”
Actually, he didn’t use the word “damn.” I was in too much pain and we were all in too much danger for us to care.
“Did he use such language in front of the students?” Quinten asked.
“All the time,” Martin said with a chuckle.
“Never when other teachers could hear,” Butch said.
“No,” Martin agreed.
The ground began to rise, and the stream cut off to our right. The ridge appeared through the trees, a rocky slope dotted with trees and small bushes. Too exposed. I couldn’t see where the stream went. I supposed it cut around Miller’s Ridge at some point in a hairpin turn and continued down the valley as the larger stream we had seen at the beginning of the hike. I was tempted to continue skirting the stream, but the way looked rough, and I couldn’t tell how long it would take. Better to go up and over the ridge.