by Shawn Sarles
Around her the trees crowded in, their trunks swishing by like she was riding in a car, counting the streetlight poles as they whizzed by. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something stir and then spring away in a hurry.
She wondered what it could have been as she continued on.
Her father? A bear? Another deer?
It came back to her then. In one flash. The blank stare in the deer’s eyes. Blood seeping from a fresh curve drawn along its neck.
She picked up her pace, trying to push the image out of her head.
But it stuck with her. And then changed. She imagined opening a blue cooler and seeing a deer’s severed head grinning maniacally up at her. Then it was her father’s head. Uncle Ed appeared next, holding a knife, asking her for the debt her dad hadn’t been able to pay.
She sped up again, careening through the trees now. She weaved through the forest like a downhill skier. She’d never gone so fast.
But she couldn’t outrun her thoughts.
The image shifted again. Charlie looked up at her now, his eyes hollow, a pair of red, angry antlers slashed across his forehead.
No. Not Charlie. She didn’t know what she’d do without him.
Her foot caught on a root and Maddie faltered. She tried to keep from falling face-first on the path, but she was too late. Gravity won. She lost her footing and pitched forward. She hit the ground hard and kept rolling.
The world spun around her, made her sick with dizziness. Instinct took over as she pulled her arms in to cover her head, tucking her legs under her the best she could. She tumbled another few feet and came to a stop, splayed there on the ground like a monster had just chewed her up and spit her out.
She lay there, her chest heaving, not daring to move. Her legs hurt, but maybe that was just from the run.
Slowly, Maddie lifted her head and peered down at her feet. She wiggled her toes and was happy to see them respond. She rotated her ankles. She bent one knee and then the other. Both legs ached, but they moved without a hitch. Everything seemed to be in working order.
She pulled herself upright and noticed the blood trickling down her right leg. She nervously wiped her knee, but it was only a shallow scrape under the dirt and blood. Nothing a Band-Aid couldn’t fix. She tilted her head back and breathed an exhausted sigh.
She sat like that for a while, clutching her knees, trying to steady her breathing. Her heart pounded loud and fast in her ears. The fright of crashing into the earth had scared every other thought out of her head. She closed her eyes and let herself calm down. After a few minutes, she felt normal again. She got to her feet and looked around. Which way was camp?
Nothing looked particularly familiar, but she didn’t think she’d strayed from the path, so she picked a direction and started walking. Ahead of her the path split suddenly. She didn’t remember the fork, but then she had been running the opposite way earlier. She stopped and peered down each path. They looked the same to her.
Damnit. She hadn’t gotten lost, had she?
She chose the left one. The lake was on that side. If she found it, she could find camp.
She walked slower now, scanning ahead in hopes of spotting something familiar. Then something caught her eye, off to one side of the path. Maddie got closer and bent down to examine it.
It was a boot. But how did someone forget their boot in the woods? Her mind flashed back to the night before—to Mark and Aunt Julie.
That was one way.
She picked it up. It was sticky with mud. She peered through the underbrush. Maybe she could find its missing partner.
Sure enough, about twenty feet away she saw the other boot poking out from behind a large tree trunk. She stepped off the path and made her way to it.
She didn’t know why, but something didn’t feel right. She looked at the boot in her hand and then at the one lying on the ground just ahead. A chill ran up her spine. She remembered the campfire stories from the past two nights. The terrible things that could happen in the woods.
Maddie shook the feeling off. Why was she being so paranoid? She kept going, focused on the boot. She got to the tree and bent down. She took hold of the boot and pulled, but it didn’t budge. She tried again but only managed to lift it a few inches. Something was weighing it down. She turned and looked behind the tree.
A scream clawed its way up her throat and crashed through the woods. She screamed again and again. But no matter how loud she wailed, she’d never wake the bloody corpse lying in front of her.
EIGHTEEN
MADDIE BLINKED. THEN BLINKED AGAIN, PRESSING her eyes closed for ten full seconds. She had to be seeing things. But when she opened her eyes, it was still there in front of her. It wasn’t a dream or her imagination or some post-run delirium.
It wasn’t ketchup.
She gasped and dropped the boot. Blood stained her fingertips. She wiped her hand frantically against her shorts and then looked back down at the dead man.
His face was blanched white in the places that weren’t covered in blood. His head was still attached to his body, thank God, but someone had sliced his neck open, a stroke that reminded Maddie of how Caleb had put that deer out of its misery the day before.
And then on his forehead—the antlers. The jagged lines had been carved carefully, a perfect match to the ones that had appeared on his tent that morning.
Mark.
Who could have done this to him?
Behind her, Maddie heard someone crashing through the trees. She spun around and there was Caleb, red-faced and out of breath. She ran into his arms and hugged him tight, forgetting about the night before, her bombed pickup line. She buried her head in his chest, warm tears trickling down her cheeks and staining his shirt.
“I heard your scream and got here as fast as I could.” Caleb returned Maddie’s hug. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“I—I—” Maddie couldn’t speak. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I found him… after my run.”
Caleb looked over her shoulder and saw Mark’s body propped up against the tree. He pressed her head deeper into his shoulder, hugging her tighter. Maddie’s whole body trembled in his arms. The shock was wearing off, and terrible thoughts were rushing into her brain.
What had happened to Mark? How much had he suffered? When had he been killed? And most importantly, who could have done it?
There was more commotion, and Charlie emerged from the trees, followed closely by Maddie’s father. Dylan, Ed, and Bryan were right behind them.
“Oh, my God,” Ed had spotted Mark first.
“Dad?” Dylan uttered in disbelief. She mumbled it again. And then shrieked it the third time. Charlie grabbed her as her legs collapsed underneath her. He set her on the ground gently and held her tight. He covered her eyes and murmured something in her ear.
“What happened?” Maddie’s dad was the first to speak.
“Maddie found him.” Caleb spoke for Maddie without loosening his grip on her.
“Are those—antlers?” Ed had inched closer to the body.
Bryan pushed his glasses up on his nose and peered in after his father.
“I think so.”
“Just like in—” Maddie’s dad eyed Caleb in disbelief.
“My story.” Caleb finished the thought for him.
“But you said—you said this morning that that wasn’t real.” There was accusation in Ed’s voice.
“It isn’t,” Caleb confirmed.
“But the antlers on his tent,” Maddie’s dad sputtered. “And now this—”
“How do you explain it?” her uncle demanded.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t?” Ed raised his voice. “It’s your story. You’re the only one who can explain it.”
“Look.” Caleb let Maddie go and turned on Ed. “I’m as much in the dark here as you. The Mountain People, that’s just a stupid legend that you hear around the campfire all the time.”
“So that means it could be real.” C
harlie joined the conversation, still holding on to a weeping Dylan.
“No,” Caleb said, though there was less certainty in his voice now. “They can’t possibly be—”
“Aren’t most legends based on some nugget of truth?”
There was a weirdly optimistic note in Maddie’s dad’s voice. Faint, but there. They hadn’t run into a soul out here in the woods. If the Mountain People didn’t exist—well, then one of Mark’s fellow campers had to be the murderer. And no one wanted to think about that possibility.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
Dylan spoke so softly that no one even heard her. She pushed away from Charlie’s chest, a glazed look in her eye.
“We’ve got to get off this mountain!” She screamed it this time and everyone paid attention. “We’ve got to leave before they do the same thing to us!”
NINETEEN
FEAR RUSHED THEM THROUGH THE FOREST, Dylan’s words echoing in their ears. Her frantic shrieks couldn’t be forgotten. Someone had brutally murdered Mark. There was no getting around that. But no one paused to worry about who as they raced back to camp. If they thought about that, they’d have to admit that that who was still lurking out there somewhere. And that that who might just be one of their own.
Instead, they thought about survival. Of getting back to camp and calling for help on their emergency radio. It was their only way off the mountain. The tour company had taken the horses after the first day. The campers weren’t supposed to have needed them for an entire week.
Breaking through the tree line into the clearing, they came upon an empty camp. A hook snagged Maddie’s already pounding heart and wrenched it down into her stomach.
Where was everyone? And more importantly, where was Chelsea?
“Julie!” Maddie’s uncle yelled for his wife. “Julie!”
Ed’s shouts carried through the clearing, but his wife didn’t immediately appear. That’s when Dylan realized that her mom and sister were also missing.
“Mom! Abigail!” Dylan shrieked. Her desperate cries cut through the morning air. She kept screaming over and over, her voice quickly growing hoarse. She sank to her knees, and tears streamed down her beet-red face.
“Where—where is everyone?” Maddie turned to Caleb.
The look that Caleb gave her told her everything she didn’t want to believe. But before he could speak, a loud metallic clang interrupted him.
It clanged again, getting closer, and everyone spun around to see Julie and Kris sprinting up from the lake. Between them they carried the big metal pot they’d made dinner in the previous night.
“What? What’s the matter?” Julie huffed, seeing everyone’s concerned faces. “Is everything okay?”
“Is Chelsea with you?” The words flew out of Maddie’s mouth. Her aunt cocked her head to one side and looked at her oddly. Maddie thought she would explode if her aunt didn’t answer her right that second.
“She’s right behind us,” Julie said.
And then Chelsea appeared, carrying a stack of plates. Maddie rushed to her best friend and threw her arms around her. She didn’t care about the plates clattering to the ground or about how silly she might look. Chelsea was okay. That was all that mattered.
“What’s gotten into you?” Chelsea yelped, taken by surprise and nearly falling over under Maddie’s crushing hug. But before Maddie could respond, Kris’s voice brought everything crashing back down around them.
“Where’s Mark? He hasn’t gone and shot something else, has he?”
Tension clogged the air. Not a single person laughed as Kris had expected. Instead, the adults all looked at one another, as if drawing telepathic straws on who would have to break the terrible news.
“Kris,” Maddie’s dad took a hesitant step toward her. He had his arms out in comfort, so different from what Maddie had witnessed just an hour ago.
A worried stitch creased between Kris’s eyebrows as she started to realize that something was up.
“What’s this about? Where’s Mark? Did something happen to him?”
Maddie’s dad hesitated. He shot an unsure look at Ed and Caleb. How did one deliver this kind of news?
“He’s dead, Mom.” Dylan blurted out the truth. “Dad’s dead.”
“Oh, honey. Don’t be silly. Your dad’s not—”
“He is! I saw it. His throat—there was blood everywhere—and antlers—” Dylan couldn’t get it out fast enough.
Kris’s hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes cast around the group, bewildered, until they finally landed on Maddie’s dad.
“No,” she muttered in disbelief. She tried to laugh it off as another prank. “Mark’s not—no. That’s silly. He can’t be.”
“I’m sorry, Kris.” Maddie’s dad’s voice was somber, and Kris finally understood.
“But—but—” she stuttered. “How? Did he fall? Was it a bear?”
“Someone—someone—” Maddie couldn’t imagine how hard this was for her father. “Someone killed him. They slit his throat—and the antlers—the antlers from Caleb’s story—they were there on his forehead.”
Kris couldn’t speak. Her mouth fell open and her eyes got far away and blank.
“I’m so sorry, Kris.” Maddie’s dad approached her slowly and put his arms around her. Kris stood there in his embrace for a moment, but then she squirmed. She pushed out of his grip in a hurry, anxiously patting at her hair as her eyes flitted around the group.
“I’ll check the radio,” Ed said, clearly uncomfortable. He took off toward the equipment shed.
“Good,” Caleb said. “Leave a message with the park rangers. Let them know what’s happened. They’ll send help. Everyone else, get to packing. It shouldn’t take them long to get here.”
Everyone scrambled into action. Maddie watched as Kris pulled Dylan into a fierce hug. Tears ran down both of their cheeks. Maddie turned away quickly. She couldn’t watch. But she couldn’t block out their pitiful, sad crying.
In front of her, Aunt Julie looked just as torn up even though she didn’t weep aloud. It was almost worse, though, this silent display of grief.
Caught between two mourning families, Maddie didn’t know what to do. She should probably help her dad pack. But as she turned to go, the equipment shed door banged open and her uncle rushed out. A panicked look obscured his face, and he had something black and mangled cradled in his arms. It looked like he’d picked up some kind of roadkill, with fuzz and guts spilling out everywhere.
Of course, it wasn’t an animal at all. But their radio. Someone had smashed it to pieces.
Ed looked stunned. His mouth hung open, but no words came out. One by one, they all turned and looked at him, as if sensing the moment, drawn to the devastating blow. They dropped their backpacks, hands flew to their mouths, and panic welled up behind their eyes as they realized what the mangled radio in Ed’s hands meant.
They were stranded. Stranded on the mountain with a killer.
But before anyone could let this new fear loose, Kris’s voice pulled them all back.
“Where—where’s Abigail?”
Everyone turned from the broken radio and stared at Kris. She still had Dylan pulled close to her with one arm, but where was her other daughter?
“She wasn’t here with you?” Maddie’s dad asked. Kris shook her head frantically and then rushed over to Abigail’s tent, clawing the flaps open. The girl wasn’t inside. Kris turned back around, desperation in her eyes.
“I think,” Chelsea swallowed as everyone turned to look at her. “I think I saw her walking into the woods. Maybe ten minutes ago.”
“By herself?”
“Well, I think—I think she might have—” Chelsea faltered under Kris’s frantic gaze.
“Jason’s here,” Maddie jumped in. Kris only blinked at her, though, as if she didn’t recognize the name.
“He and one of his friends followed us up here,” Maddie tried to explain. “They set up camp about a half-mile away. Abigail’s probably sneak
ed off to see them.”
This, Kris seemed to get. She blinked, and her eyes regained their focus. Her lips returned to their familiar stern set.
“Well, why are we standing around?” The edge was back in her voice. “Let’s go find my daughter and get off this godforsaken mountain.”
TWENTY
“I THINK IT’S THIS WAY,” MADDIE said uncertainly, turning back to look at everyone else. “Or maybe…”
She stopped and tried to get her bearings. She spun around, but all she saw were trees, trees, and more trees. None of which looked particularly familiar.
A dull ache started knocking on her forehead. She felt frustrated. She couldn’t think straight. It would have been hard enough to retrace her steps to the boys’ camp, but then throw in Mark’s grisly, lifeless body and the fact that someone had intentionally stranded them on the mountain… Maddie was lucky she could walk at all, much less lead everyone back to Tommy and Jason’s camp.
But they needed to get to the boys—for more reasons than just finding Abigail. When Ed had discovered their radio smashed, they’d all whipped out their cell phones and tried in vain to get a signal. One bar and any one of them could have called down for rescue.
But they’d all come up empty.
Now, the boys’ radio was their only hope, the only way they could alert the police, get someone up to help them before… before it was too late for them all.
Maddie didn’t want to think about it, but she couldn’t ignore the reality.
They were stranded, days away from civilization. Someone had murdered Mark and probably had more in mind for them. Why else smash their radio? The killer had to have a plan. And he wasn’t done yet.
Maddie shivered at the thought. Was he out there right now? Watching them? Enjoying his game of cat and mouse? Who would he come for next?
The thoughts swirled above Maddie’s head like vultures. They were dead if they couldn’t get off the mountain, if she couldn’t get them back to the boys’ camp. She spun around again, but still, nothing looked familiar. Her head throbbed. She wanted to scream.