by Cari Hunter
It happened almost before she knew anything about it. There was a rustle of cloth above her, a slithering of mud and small stones, and a hand that clamped across her mouth. An arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her close while a second hand gripped her wrist. She struggled briefly, straining to wrench free.
“Shh.” Little more than a rush of breath against her cheek. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
A woman’s voice, young, and sounding as scared as Sarah felt. She shuddered once, fatigue and relief draining all the fight from her. The hand covering her mouth was cautiously lowered, and she relaxed her own hold on the shard of rock she had readied as a weapon.
“Hey, Sarah.”
The whisper was only just audible. Sarah turned her head slightly but could still only sense rather than see the woman’s smile.
“My name’s Alex. It’s good to finally meet you.”
Chapter Six
It had all been due to dumb luck in the end. Both Alex and Merrick had heard the rattle of stones as Sarah moved, but from her position twenty yards behind him, only Alex had seen the flash of black and yellow on the sole of Sarah’s boot. Unable to pinpoint the source of the noise, Merrick had eventually walked on to continue his search. Alex had waited for him to move out of sight and then waited a few minutes more before she dared to approach Sarah’s hiding place. Now, pressed next to her in a water-worn hollow at the base of a rock, Alex listened to Sarah’s labored breathing and tried to figure out what to do next.
“Are they still out there?”
They were the first words Alex had heard Sarah speak, and she found herself smiling in surprise at the British accent.
“No, I think they’ve gone. How you doing?”
Sarah laughed quietly, as if unsure exactly how to answer, but her hand flew to her side and the laugh turned into a moan of discomfort. “Oh shit, I’ve had better days.”
Her hand was freezing cold when Alex squeezed it. Trying not to show her concern, she edged around until they were sitting side by side.
“Sarah, how badly are you hurt?”
When Sarah tipped her head to look at Alex, the hazel-green of her eyes was the only color that remained in her face. “I don’t know,” she admitted a little sheepishly. “I thought if I could still run then it couldn’t be so bad, but I can’t get it to stop bleeding for long.”
“So we need to find somewhere we can patch you up, then.” Alex realized that she did have a plan after all; she just wasn’t sure exactly what Sarah would think of it.
*
“You want to go back up?” Sarah sounded exhausted by the very idea, and Alex shook her head quickly.
“Not all the way up. We just try to keep following the river and then go up to here. See…” She traced her finger along a blue line on her map and stopped at a small black square. “I’m not sure what this is. It may be an old lookout post or logger’s hut.” She could sense Sarah watching her as she refolded the map, and she swallowed hard, hating what she had to say. “We can’t keep going down, not yet. Not while Merrick is looking for you. Most of the access roads are blocked, no one can get in to help us, and you look like you’re gonna fall over as soon as you stand. We need somewhere we can hole up for a while. I don’t…” She opened her hands, unaccustomed to feeling at such a loss. “I don’t know what else to do.”
Sarah took a measured look at the cramped space they had been sharing for the past hour and then held her hand out to Alex. With a grin, Alex carefully helped her to her feet, wrapping an arm around her when she wavered.
“Do me a favor?” Sarah said, once she seemed confident of staying upright.
“Sure. What?”
“Carry that for me?” She toed a bag that Alex hadn’t even noticed. “I can manage your pack, but that’s really bloody awkward.”
The bag was a small duffel bag, difficult to carry for any length of time and not the type of pack an experienced hiker would be using. Slightly confused, Alex passed her pack over, wincing in sympathy as Sarah shouldered it. She swung the other bag onto her own shoulder.
“This yours?”
Sarah shook her head. “No. I sort of nicked it.”
“Nicked?” Alex couldn’t place Sarah’s regional accent, but it certainly wasn’t one typically found in British costume dramas.
“Sorry, I stole it. When I, after they―” She shivered and wouldn’t meet Alex’s eyes.
“It’s okay, you don’t need to…I know what he did.”
For a second, Sarah looked utterly lost, but then she straightened her back and nodded at Alex. “We should go.”
For almost four hours, they walked in silence. The wind whipped away anything they did try to say, and the effort that the trek was demanding and the fear of being discovered stopped them from attempting to shout over it. There was no path, just the line of the river and landmarks they had both memorized before setting off. They had been walking for little over an hour when Alex realized that Sarah had stopped taking notice of their route, as if only sheer force of will was making her put one foot in front of the other. Alex stayed close by her side, not close enough that Sarah would notice but close enough to catch her if she fell.
*
“Okay, easy, easy. Sit here for a second. I just need to commit a misdemeanor.” Alex steered Sarah to sit on an old log, then dropped her bag and hunted around for something she could use to smash the padlock on the door of the decrepit-looking hut. “Why the fuck would anyone lock this?” she muttered, selecting a decent-sized rock and eyeing the best angle of attack. With a hard swing, she smashed the rock against the metal and then stared open-mouthed when the lock disintegrated immediately and the door swung open.
“Oh.” Hearing something that sounded suspiciously like a stifled giggle, she turned to find Sarah bending double with laughter. Alex smiled. “Think I overdid that?”
“Possibly, just a little.”
“C’mon.” She tucked her hand beneath Sarah’s arm. “Let’s get you inside.”
Despite the dull light enveloping the valley, it took a minute for their eyes to adjust to the near-total darkness in the hut. Constructed entirely from wood, its single room was windowless and smelled strongly of mildew and animal musk.
“It’s bijou,” Sarah said lightly.
“It has a certain charm,” Alex agreed. She panned her flashlight around the tiny building. A large crate and a wooden chair were the sole furnishings, but against one wall stood a small log-burning stove with a pile of kindling stacked up beside it. “Oh, now, that’s more like it.”
As Sarah sat wearily in the chair, Alex wedged an old ax beneath the wooden crossbeams of the hut door to hold it closed and then turned back to the stove. Newspapers mixed in with the kindling bore dates from the 1980s. Her initial optimism fading, she struck one of her waterproofed matches. Despite the dampness evident in the hut, the small piece of paper she lit burned brightly and smoke curled up toward the chimney. She held her breath, hoping against hope that after thirty years it was still functional. The smoke disappeared within seconds and she rocked back on her heels with a quiet whoop of joy. She selected the driest pieces from the woodpile and soon had a fire crackling in the belly of the stove. Amber light flickered across the filthy floor, revealing a covering of straw and moldy carpet. On one of the walls, hung on a single nail, was a photograph of a stern-looking young woman, its edges smudged by greasy fingerprints as if it had been taken down and put back up many times over.
“She looks like she was loved.” Sarah had followed Alex’s gaze to the photograph.
“Yes, she does,” Alex said softly, but the pang of remorse she felt at trespassing in a stranger’s home was swiftly tempered by the practicalities of their own circumstances.
The hinged lid of the crate was stiff with lack of use, and it creaked noisily as she opened it. Inside, she found three dusty blankets, a pair of overalls, a length of rope, and a set of tin cooking utensils.
�
�What if they see the smoke?”
Her hand poised to unzip the duffel bag, Alex hesitated and turned to look at Sarah. She was watching the fire as if mesmerized, but didn’t seem to want to take advantage of its heat until she was certain that it wouldn’t be snatched away from her.
“The mist should be enough to hide it. Here, stand up for a second.” Alex pulled Sarah’s chair right up to the stove and then nodded at her to sit back down. “They don’t know which direction we headed in, and with the weather this bad it’ll be dark in a few hours. I think it’s worth taking the chance.”
“Oh, okay. That’s good,” Sarah mumbled, her head nodding as she fought a losing battle to stay awake. Alex carefully leaned her forward and took her sodden jacket off. The sweater underneath was equally soaked and Alex could see dark stains on the one wrapped around her abdomen, but she seemed to be comfortable enough for the moment.
Leaving her to doze, Alex turned her attention back to the duffel bag. It had been packed with military precision: packets of dried food stacked above two complete changes of clothing, a flashlight with spare batteries, a generous supply of cigarettes, and a wash kit that included a bottle of hair dye. A Ziploc bag contained a passport, driver’s license, and Social Security card. The photograph on the papers belonged to Nathan Merrick, but all three bore a new name. At the bottom of the bag were a rudimentary first aid kit, a leather pouch, and a filthy oilskin. She unsnapped the fastener on the pouch and let out a whistle as a thick wad of hundred dollar bills fell out first. She set the cash aside and drew out what remained. It was not a handgun as she had hoped, but a handheld GPS device.
“Nice,” she muttered, not needing to be an expert to recognize it as an expensive piece of gear. It turned on with a welcoming beep but then stubbornly requested a passcode. Her optimistic guess of a factory-set 1, 2, 3, 4 was quickly rejected, leaving her with only three opportunities prior to being locked out of the system. She slid the GPS back into its pouch and picked up the oilskin instead. Flakes of dried mud fell off as she untied the leather straps that had been bound tightly around it. The outermost layer of the skin showed some sign of degradation, but when she spread the cloth out, its inner layer was dry and completely intact. The skin had been used to protect a small plastic box, the lid of which had been sealed with duct tape. Slightly wary now, she shook the box. A quiet metallic rattle sounded from within. She peeled the tape off and flicked open the lid before she could second-guess herself.
“What the hell?”
She tipped three small keys into the palm of her hand and then held them up one by one to study them in the firelight. They appeared to be intricately designed security keys, all similar but not quite identical in cut and thickness. Despite her mounting suspicion that Merrick had only recently unearthed them, their condition was pristine. She dropped them back into the bag as if they had burned her, possibilities and theories racing through her mind until only the most obvious one remained. “Shit.” She glanced over at Sarah, startled to find not only that she was awake but that she had been watching Alex empty the bag of its contents.
“It’s not really me they’re after, is it?” Sarah said.
It suddenly all made sense to Alex; that Merrick would be so persistent in hunting Sarah down, when in all likelihood she would have died from exposure or her injuries long before she could tell anyone where he was or what he had done.
“No, I don’t think it is.” Alex looked uneasily at the keys. “Before I found you, Walt—the guy I work with—spoke to me on the radio. He told me Merrick was pretty heavily involved with white supremacist organizations. They were probably the ones who busted him out of jail.” Even this little information seemed too much for Sarah to take in, so Alex simplified things for her sake. “I think he’s out here looking for something,” she said, as Sarah nodded reluctantly in agreement. “And I think you might have stolen his map.”
*
The rope had been long enough to stretch from one side of the hut to the other, and Alex had hung their coats to dry. Their boots and socks sat steaming in front of the stove, and a pot of water was heating slowly but surely. Curled up on the floor beside the boots, Sarah was fast asleep. Although Alex had tried her hardest to delay what needed to be done next, she had just about run out of ways to procrastinate, and she was concerned enough about Sarah’s condition to put a hand on her shoulder and gently wake her.
“No. Don’t.” Sarah lashed her hand out to slap Alex’s away.
“Hey. Sorry, I didn’t mean…It’s just me.”
“Alex.” Sarah pushed herself up to sit with her back against the wall. “Shit, was I sleeping? I don’t remember falling asleep. I was going to help you.” She looked around and nodded with admiration. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”
“Why, thank you, ma’am, but I’m not sure you’re going to love me for this.” Alex held out a first aid kit. “You’re still bleeding, Sarah.”
There was a small, fresh pool of blood where Sarah had been lying. She hurt too; that much was obvious in the tight lines drawn across her face and the stiffness that pervaded her movements. She didn’t say a word as Alex helped her to take her sweater and her tank top off, but just shivered once as goose bumps rose to cover her torso, and then she dropped her arms to her sides to allow Alex to untie the sweater around her midriff. Her hands curled into fists as the material came loose.
Murmuring a stream of apologies, Alex cast the sweater aside and brought the flashlight closer. “It’s a through-and-through,” she said, mostly to herself. “God, what a mess.” She leaned back slightly and studied Sarah’s face. “You managed to run down half a mountain with this?”
“Yeah.” Pulling the sweater away had caused the wound to open up, and Sarah was absently watching blood streaming freely again from the ragged hole the bullet had torn in her right side. “I’ve had worse.”
There was no appeal for pity in her tone; it was just a matter-of-fact comment she had made without really seeming to think about it. The piece of gauze Alex was using to clean the streaks of blood from her abdomen gradually revealed a raised spider’s web of silvery scar tissue, but Sarah didn’t offer any explanation, and, conscious of how exposed she already was, Alex didn’t ask the obvious question. She of all people understood Sarah’s desire for privacy.
“Oh hell.” Now that she had a clearer view of what she was dealing with, Alex realized it wasn’t just the bleeding that was going to be a problem. “Sarah, there’s a piece of your sweater in here.” She could see the small piece of navy blue fabric folded deep within the injury. The cavity originally caused by the bullet’s track had collapsed around the cloth, wedging it firmly in place. Alex felt her palms begin to sweat as she considered it. She wasn’t a medic, and she didn’t really have a clue what to do. Applying pressure to the bleed wasn’t stopping it, but for the moment at least, it was giving her time to think. She was still watching stark crimson leak into the white of the gauze when a quiet metallic clink made her look up.
“Wash your hands as best you can and sterilize these.” Sarah was holding out a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit. “The cloth has to come out or it’ll cause an infection, and then I think I’ll need a few stitches.” She kept her voice light, but her hand trembled almost imperceptibly as Alex took hold of the tweezers.
“Are you a doctor or something?”
Sarah shook her head with a desperate gasp of laughter. “No, I saw it in a movie once.”
Alex stared at her dumbfounded for a moment before she too began to laugh. “You saw it in a movie?”
“Yeah.” Sarah shrugged. “Hey, it worked. The guy lived. I think he went on to save the world.”
*
“You comfortable?”
“Mmhm, I’m fine.” Lying on her left side with her head pillowed on a blanket, Sarah nodded at Alex. “Ready when you are.”
“Okay.” Alex tried to ignore the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. “Let me know if you want me to stop.�
�
“Don’t stop,” Sarah said immediately. “Please, whatever you do, don’t stop.”
“Right. I won’t stop. Ready?”
“Yep.”
For what seemed like the longest time, there was nothing but the sound of Sarah’s teeth grinding together and Alex cursing as she worked to get a firm grip on the tiny circle of cloth. The tweezers were awkward things to maneuver, sliding and jarring when she tried to open them in the right place, while rivulets of fresh blood worked to conceal the old scar tissue as quickly as she wiped it clean. Eventually, with a sharp tug that owed more to luck and frustration than judgment, the cloth came free, and she clamped a thick wad of gauze in place to stanch the bleeding. She looked down to see Sarah’s face pressed into the blanket, her upper arm hiding what little of her face would have been visible, her body shaking as she tried not to cry.
“I got it, Sarah. We’re halfway there.”
Back when her hands were steadier, Alex had threaded the needle she always kept in her kit for emergency repairs, although she had never envisioned using it for this sort of emergency.