by Shawn Sarles
“Maddie,” Charlie moaned, desperate, his jaw clenched as he held the attacker back. “Run.”
And then she heard the heartrending groan, watched as her brother twitched and went slack. His head dropped and then his knees buckled. The attacker pulled his knife out of Charlie’s stomach and quickly raised it, coming to finish her off next.
Her body reacted before her brain had the chance to think. She took off running. It was what she did best. She had to get back to their makeshift camp. There was safety in numbers.
Maddie ran without thinking, without looking back. If she kept going, the truth would never catch up to her, her brother wouldn’t be gone, wouldn’t be murdered.
“Maddie!”
She slowed down when she heard her name and stumbled into her father’s arms without realizing it.
“Are you all right?” He hugged her tight and let her cry into his shoulder.
“Where’s your brother?”
“Gone,” Maddie moaned, the word catching on her halting breaths. “He’s gone and it’s all my fault.”
She broke down then, collapsing into her father’s arms. She cried and cried, holding her hands tight to her chest, gripping her brother’s balled-up Giants hat like it was the most precious thing in the world.
TWENTY-SIX
THEY’D BEEN WALKING FOR HOURS, BREAKING their restless camp the moment the sun had peeked its first rays over the horizon. They slogged through the trees, their number diminished, everyone exhausted, their nerves frayed edges that the slightest snag would unravel.
Feeling empty and broken, like that horse had succeeded in stomping on her head that first day on the mountain, Maddie stared blankly ahead. She kept replaying the previous night’s events, going over it and over it in her head until she started to doubt her own memories.
Abigail’s scream piercing the night. Charlie running into the woods to save her. Maddie blindly and foolishly following after him.
What had she been thinking? Why had she thought she could help? Would Charlie still be alive if she hadn’t gone after him?
He’d leaped at the attacker to save her. To give her time to escape. He’d pushed his body between hers and the knife, taken the blow that should have struck her in the stomach. He’d sacrificed himself. And now Maddie would never see him again.
A fresh set of tears trickled down her cheeks, but she didn’t move to wipe them away. She wanted to feel like shit. She deserved it.
She hadn’t slept at all after her father had carried her back into camp. Abigail had been there, her mother holding her close like she’d never let her go again. Everyone had stared at Maddie. But no one asked what had happened or where Charlie was. Her dad had put her on the ground, and Chelsea had scrambled over to her. She’d thrown her arms around her, but Maddie had shrugged them off. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to curl up and die, to be with Charlie again.
Quietly, her dad had gone around the camp telling them all that the attacker had gotten Charlie. He hadn’t been able to piece together much from Maddie’s ranting, but this he had understood. Just like he’d lost his wife, he’d lost his son. Dylan took the news particularly hard. Her face crumpled in on itself and a howl ripped out of her. She’d run into her tent then, burying herself in her pillow, though they could all still hear her muffled sobs.
Maddie had scoffed at that. Hadn’t Dylan wanted to break up with Charlie? Why should she care so much now?
It was a bitter thought. But in the afternoon light, Maddie found it still true. She knew it wasn’t fair, but she didn’t care. She had earned the right to grieve. She had loved her brother the most.
Her head dipped and she felt another wave of tears coming on.
How had everything turned to shit so quickly?
Because losing her brother hadn’t been the only bad news of the night.
About ten minutes after Maddie and her dad had gotten back to camp, Julie had appeared, shuffling into their broken circle, her flashlight loose in her hand so that it jumped up and spot-lit her face. She had a gash on her forehead and her left eye had already started to swell up. It’d turn black by morning.
Bryan had leaped to his feet and rushed to her.
“Are you okay? What happened? Did they attack you, too? Where’s Dad?”
The questions spilled out of him, but Julie couldn’t answer any of them. Not at first. Bryan had to sit her down and give her a drink of water before she calmed down enough to speak.
“He’s gone,” Julie finally muttered, her voice hollow, dead. Her mouth opened wide around the words, her bottom lip red and cracked open.
“The attacker got him, too?” Bryan didn’t believe it.
“Hah,” Julie cackled bitterly. “No one got your father.”
“But your face…” Bryan trailed off, not understanding.
“He did this to me! I thought you’d recognize his handiwork by now. I tried to stop him from running, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“What?”
“He ran off by himself,” Julie spit out. “Your father’s a coward. He said he wasn’t going to wait around and get killed with the rest of us. He took the rifle, too. Selfish bastard.”
And now they were stranded on the mountain, defenseless, as a killer stalked them, picking them off one by one. Things couldn’t get worse.
Maddie was so wrapped up in her bleak thoughts that she barely noticed Caleb pulling up short in front of her. They hadn’t rested all morning. But now, as Maddie came to a stop, her stomach ached. She unzipped her bag and grabbed a granola bar and her water bottle. As she drank, she could vaguely hear Caleb saying they still had a ways to go, but that they’d made good progress that morning. Maddie recapped her bottle and pushed it back into her bag.
What was the point? It was hopeless, wasn’t it?
Her mind cycled back to the night before, started over at the beginning again—following Charlie through the woods, watching as he grappled with the attacker, bought her time to get away, sacrificed himself for her.
Just like in his story, Maddie suddenly realized.
Had that girl made it out alive? Sadie? Charlie hadn’t said.
Maddie looked down at Charlie’s hat. She’d carried it balled up in her fist the whole morning. He’d worn it everywhere. Having it with her made her feel like she had him there, too.
She unrumpled it and stared at the SF logo, remembering her brother. His laugh and his smile. The way he’d always looked out for her, especially after their mother had died. A sad smile stretched across her lips and a tear slid down her cheek, dropping onto the fabric.
Maddie sniffled and blinked her eyes several times. She tried to shake the memories out of her head but lost her balance instead, stumbling, just managing to catch herself against a tree. As she hugged the tree, her sadness weighed her down. It urged her to let go, to slide to the ground and sink into the earth. No one could hurt her there. She couldn’t lose anyone else.
“Are you okay?”
Maddie looked up and saw Chelsea’s worried face staring down at her.
“I’m—I’m fine,” Maddie replied, pushing off the tree slowly.
“Here, let me get that for you.”
Chelsea bent over and retrieved Charlie’s baseball cap, holding it out for Maddie.
“Th-thank you.” Maddie took the hat from her best friend.
“It’s not your fault,” Chelsea spoke softly. “You know that, right?”
“Isn’t it?” Maddie mumbled, playing with the hat, dusting it off.
“He wanted you to run. He wanted to protect you—to fight for you.”
“And now he’s dead.…”
“But you saved yourself,” Chelsea rushed to assure her friend. “You ran. You couldn’t have done anything to—”
But Maddie wasn’t listening. Chelsea was right. Maddie had always run. And Charlie had always been there to fight her battles for her. But what if…
Maddie remembered her brother’s campfire story. Nicholas had ur
ged Sadie to run. Told her to save herself. But what if Sadie hadn’t listened to him? What if she’d stayed? What if she and Nicholas had fought Red Raven together?
Maddie looked down at Charlie’s baseball cap. She saw the faded logo and knew what she had to do. She adjusted the strap and took a deep breath. She pulled the hat over her hair, the brim blocking out the sun, focusing her eyes on the path ahead.
It couldn’t end like this. She couldn’t give up. She couldn’t let Charlie down.
She wiped her eyes. No more tears. She had to stop running and start fighting. She had to start saving more than just herself. She was getting off this mountain. Alive. And so was Chelsea.
“What’s that over there?” Bryan asked suddenly. Maddie whipped her head around, preparing herself for another attack. But it wasn’t a threat Bryan had spotted. In fact, it could have been the exact opposite. Maddie felt a jolt of hope as she looked at the cabin roof a little ways in the distance.
“Maybe they have a radio,” Bryan said optimistically.
“Maybe,” Caleb agreed.
“We should check it out.” Bryan took off without waiting for permission. Everyone followed after him, buoyed by a new sense of hope. Maybe their luck had finally turned.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THEY CRASHED THROUGH THE FOREST, THE sudden, unexpected taste of hope making them lose their senses, forget their caution. Bryan led the way with Maddie taking up the rear. Could they really be saved? A part of her doubted it would be so easy. But there was the proof staring them in the face, the cabin coming into focus as they got nearer, one last tree line blocking their view.
Bryan pushed through the trees first, Kris and Caleb right behind him. Maddie was about to push through herself, but a sudden cry rooted her feet to the ground. It rattled through her bones.
She gulped as a second wail cut through the trees. She knew it’d been too good to be true. But what had happened? What new monstrosity waited for her on the other side of those trees? How many tragedies could she witness? How many bodies did she have to find before she broke?
Another scream scratched its way into Maddie’s ear. She took a deep breath and steeled herself. Then she pushed through the trees. What was one more body?
“Jesus Christ.” Maddie’s dad’s breath whistled through his teeth. He was only a few steps in front of Maddie, blocking her view. Cautiously, Maddie walked up behind him and peeked around his shoulders. Everyone had fanned out around one side of the cabin.
But what had scared them all? Maddie pushed past her dad.
“Maddie, no!”
He tried to grab her by the shoulder, but Maddie’s gasp told him he was too late.
There was so much blood.
Her knees shook. Bile surged up her throat, hot and poisonous. It spilled into the grass where Maddie expected it to smoke and steam. She dry-heaved a couple more times before getting it under control. She wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand and looked up.
Blood was splattered across the cabin wall—two dark-red stains arcing up and then back down.
“Wings—” Maddie whispered to herself as the realization broke over her. She turned and looked back at her dad. He looked equally astonished.
“It—it can’t be,” he murmured. He ran a frantic hand back through his hair but left his thought unfinished.
A body leaned against the cabin wall underneath the bloody wings, its throat slit from ear to ear, the skin on its head peeled back, its scalp missing. Flies buzzed around the fileted skull. That hadn’t been in Charlie’s story, but it was clear this was the work of Red Raven—or a Red Raven copycat.
Julie let out a new shriek and then began sobbing uncontrollably. She tried to cover her face with her hands, but her tears fell fast. Maddie’s dad pulled her close, and Maddie noticed Bryan crouched down near the cabin wall, sitting only inches away from his father’s brutally butchered body.
Ed hadn’t gotten away after all.
Maddie willed her legs to move, and she inched forward. The shock of her uncle’s bloody body had started to wear off. She joined the rest of the group near the cabin wall.
“I’m so sorry, Julie,” Kris said. The women had both lost their husbands now.
“I guess it’s safe to assume there won’t be a radio in there.” Julie turned away from her husband’s body. She’d managed to pull herself together a bit.
“I would guess not,” Maddie’s dad said. “But at least we have our rifle back.” He reached down and picked the gun up off the ground, checking its ammunition chamber. “Only one bullet left.”
“Small miracle,” Kris muttered. It was all starting to get to her. She looked ten years older after just one night, her hair frayed at the ends, the wrinkles on her forehead and around her eyes deep crevices.
“How could this happen?” Maddie asked no one in particular, knowing there was no answer.
That was when Bryan finally made a sound.
His grunt came out as half-sob, half-hiccup. He didn’t turn to face them but only held up a hand, a hunting knife sitting on his open palm. He must have picked it up off the ground near his father’s body. Maddie stared hard at it, taking in every detail. It was covered in blood, with errant strands of hair stuck to it. Bryan shifted it slightly in his hand and she saw it—an odd flourish on the handle. A flourish that she recognized.
“But that—that’s Caleb’s knife,” she muttered in shock.
TWENTY-EIGHT
NO ONE DARED MOVE. OR BLINK. Or even breathe. Maddie’s words had sucked all the oxygen out of the forest.
She racked her brain, trying to think. Had she seen Caleb the night before, when Abigail’s scream had woken them all? Could it have been him out there in the forest, attacking her brother?
She couldn’t remember. Damnit. It’d been dark and everything had happened so fast. She’d raced off after Charlie without a thought. And the attacker had worn a ski mask. It could have been anybody.
Bryan’s hand went limp and the knife fell with a thud.
Then chaos erupted.
In a whirl of thrashing arms Maddie’s cousin clawed his way up from the ground. He ducked his head and launched himself at Caleb. Their bodies collided with a ferocious crash, and the guide fell to the ground a second later, Bryan on top of him.
His fists rose and fell frantically as he tried to pummel every inch of Caleb’s face. Bryan ripped at Caleb’s blond hair and tried to scratch out his eyes. There were no rules to this kind of fight—only survival.
Maddie winced each time Bryan landed a punch. Not Caleb. Not his beautiful face.
But why was she rooting for him? What about his bloody knife?
Bryan had surprised Caleb when he’d tackled him like a linebacker on steroids, but Caleb was stronger. And he knew how to fight. As soon as he’d hit the ground he’d pulled his arms up to protect his face. Bryan’s blows were hitting him, but none were landing squarely.
“Get off me,” Caleb tried to shout over the volley of punches. “It wasn’t—”
But Bryan’s attack trampled his words.
The younger boy was breathing hard, though. Sweat started to splotch his face. His glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose as he wore himself out. Meanwhile, Caleb still had plenty of fight in him.
Between punches, Bryan paused for a second to push his glasses back up his nose. It was reflex, and all the time Caleb needed.
The guide thrust his torso forward, a sit-up with such force that it sent Bryan flying backward and onto the ground. Caleb scrambled to his feet. His hair mussed, a small line of blood dribbling from one corner of his mouth. Other than that he didn’t look too banged up. Bryan, though, had crumpled into a disheveled mess. His glasses were twisted and barely fit on his face. Bruises and scrapes covered his knuckles. Caleb looked down at the boy with a menacing stare.
“Listen to me.” Caleb’s voice came out powerful and angry. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Stay right where you are.”
/> The shout came from Maddie’s dad.
“I’m trying to tell you,” Caleb spun around to face Mitch. “I didn’t—”
But the words died in his throat as he spotted Maddie’s dad, the rifle trembling in the man’s unsteady hands, pointed directly at Caleb’s chest.
“I said, don’t move.”
Caleb’s hands went up in surrender.
“Let’s be careful now, Mitch. You don’t want to do something you’ll regret.”
Maddie didn’t know how Caleb could speak so calmly. Her dad had a gun pointed at his chest. And he didn’t look like someone who could be reasoned with. Not right now.
“Not another step.” Maddie’s dad shook the gun’s barrel at Caleb and he stopped inching forward. “That’s your knife, isn’t it?”
Caleb’s face looked pained in admitting it, but he knew he couldn’t lie.
“And how do you explain it getting out here, if you’re not the one who killed Ed? Killed them all?”
“I—I—” Caleb grasped for a reason but couldn’t come up with one. “Someone must have stolen it from me.”
Maddie’s dad pursed his lips and then farted through them.
“That sounds awfully convenient.”
“I—I can’t explain it. But I didn’t kill them.”
“Right. Just like you didn’t kill Mark or those poor boys. My son.”
His arms shook less as he rattled off Caleb’s victims. He gained confidence as he got used to the gun in his hands, the certainty he felt in Caleb’s guilt. He still had a crazy look on his face, though. He was wired, like he’d gulped down six cups of coffee one after the other. His shoulder twitched, and Maddie yelped, sure that her father was about to fire.
“Come on now, Mitch,” Caleb pleaded. “I would never hurt you all. You can put the gun down and we can talk this—”
“Shut up!” Maddie’s dad was really cracking up now. “You’re not going to kill anyone else.”