Endurance (A Novel of Terror)

by Jack Kilborn

  I’m not going to get away. He’s going to keep doing this until my whole body is bleeding.

  Kelly didn’t know where to focus her attention, on her footing, or on Cam. She stumbled again.

  He jabbed her a fifth time.

  Kelly didn’t see how she could get away. He was stronger. He had a weapon. It was too hard to run in the forest. Cam would just keep stabbing her and stabbing her until—

  “Be aware of everything around you, and not just what’s in front of you.”

  It was Grandma’s voice. The thought was so strong that Kelly felt like Grandma was right next to her, reminding her of what she’d said earlier.

  “Use your peripheral vision when you’re running over the rocks, so you don’t have to keep your head down. Keep your eyes ahead of you, but not your entire focus.”

  Kelly forced herself to take everything in, not just the ground in front of her. She remembered the trick Grandma taught her, how to see using the whole eye.

  Incredibly, the running became easier. She found her footing without having to slow down, and each step was solid and sure. Listening behind her, Kelly could tell she was pulling ahead of Cam, gaining distance.

  Kelly lengthened her strides, letting her feet find their own way. The incline became steeper, but she didn’t slow down. Along with hearing Cam clomp through the forest, Kelly heard something else in the distance. Something familiar.

  A waterfall.

  She opened her ears, sensing its location, and headed toward it. Within two dozen steps the woods broke into a clearing, and Kelly stopped abruptly, staring over the edge of a steep cliff. Her eyes dropped, seeing the waterfall in the distance, the double rainbow floating in the mist it created. Then her eyes dropped further, staring at the rocks below, a drop of forty or fifty feet.

  Kelly felt like she did while standing on a diving board. Her knees got weak. Her mouth became dry. She hated heights.

  But Grandma came to the rescue again.

  “What do you think you should trust more, your eyes, or the solid ground?”

  The ground. I trust the ground.

  Kelly saw a rock ledge, maybe three feet below her. Narrow, but enough to stand on. It looked solid enough to hold her.

  She turned when she heard Cam come up behind her.

  “You can run pretty fast, Kelly,” he said, out of breath.

  Kelly took a small step back, feeling her heels teeter over the edge of the cliff.

  “But now you don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  You’re wrong. I do have a place to go.

  “I think, this time, I can finally make the screaming stop.”

  Cam moved forward, slow and easy, swishing the scalpel in the air. Kelly waited until he was within striking distance.

  I trust the ground, Grandma.

  She looked down, then stepped backwards off the cliff.

  The cuffs were thick leather, brown and stiff with dried blood. Maria fought while Eleanor buckled them on, kicking and punching, enduring jolt after jolt from the cattle prod from Harry as he giggled and drooled. She finally fell to her knees, weak and shaking, unable to resist anymore.

  Eleanor opened the latch on the banister, swinging the gate open.

  “So feisty,” Eleanor said, her bug eyes glinting. “But I think this first drop will take the fight right out of you.”

  Eleanor began to shove her toward the edge. Maria spread out her feet, grasping at Eleanor’s ankles, but the old woman was too powerful and continued to push.

  A foot away.

  Six inches.

  I’m going to drop. I’m going to drop, and the fall will rip my shoulders from my sockets.

  Maria closed her eyes and set her jaw, trying to prepare herself for the oncoming agony.

  Then there was a crash. A gigantic crash that shook the entire house.

  “Go check!” Eleanor ordered Harry.

  He loped off, and while Eleanor was distracted, Maria grasped her chains and whipped them straight at the bitch’s head.

  Eleanor staggered back, and Maria scrambled away, heading for the shotgun propped up against the wall.

  The old woman recovered quickly, grabbing Maria’s chain, yanking her to a stop. The shotgun was almost within reach. Maria strained for it, kicking out her foot, knocking it onto the floor.

  But then she was being yanked back to the railing. Eleanor reeled in the chain, hand over hand, like a longshoreman pulling in a net. Maria stood up, pulling back, putting her whole body into it. But there was no way she’d win this tug of war. Eleanor was too strong. Too heavy.

  Inch by inch, Maria lost ground. She tried to shake the chains, but it had no effect. She changed positions, draping the chains over her shoulder, leaning in the opposite direction. But inch by terrible inch, Eleanor brought Maria back to the banister.

  “I have royal blood!” Eleanor grunted, grabbing Maria by the wrists. “You can’t defy me!”

  And then she shoved Maria off the edge

  Kelly dropped down off the ledge of the cliff, landing on the ledge a few feet below.

  She didn’t look down. She had no need to.

  I trust the ground is solid. I trust my feet. I’m not going to fall.

  She hugged the cliff face, knees slightly bent, and waited for Cam.

  “Kelly?” she heard him say, giggling. “You did not just jump down there.”

  A moment later, she saw Cam’s face peer over the edge.

  “Whoa. We’re pretty high.”

  Then Kelly started screaming. She screamed loud and long. Over and over.

  “Shut up!”

  Cam slapped his hands to his ears. Kelly screamed even louder.

  “Why did you kill me, Cam! Why didn’t you let me go! I’m your best friend!”

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  Cam got on his knees, scalpel in hand, obviously desperate to silence her.

  Kelly jumped up, snatching Cam’s hair, holding on while trusting her feet would find the ledge again.

  Momentum took him off the edge of the cliff and right over her head. Kelly’s feet landed solidly.

  Kelly didn’t bother watching him smash into the rocks below. But she heard it. A long, fading wail, ending in a sound like a belly-flop.

  I did it.

  I’m alive.

  I’m alive!

  Then Kelly chinned-up to level ground and then ran into the woods, anxious to find Mom.

  Felix climbed out of the truck. Driving through the front door of the Inn had done quite a bit of damage to both the vehicle, and the building. He also could add whiplash to his shopping list of injuries.

  He looked around the room, and felt his heart skip a beat.

  This place is a slaughterhouse.

  The dead were strewn about everywhere, and a large cloud of flies buzzed about, hopping from one bloody treat to the next.

  Is Maria one of them? What happened here?

  Most of them looked deformed. Felix wondered if he should start searching corpses. Then he had something more pressing to deal with.

  Harry.

  The harelipped man jogged down the stairs, running right at him. Felix backpedalled, but Harry was too fast. His huge hands wrapped around Felix’s throat, completely encircling it. Harry giggled, spit and snot dripping through the split in his face, and then began to squeeze.

  Felix instantly saw stars. He swatted ineffectively at Harry’s face, then made a half-hearted attempt to scratch at the giant’s eyes. Harry began to shake him, and Felix felt the edges of his vision begin to dim.

  Weapon. Need a weapon.

  But he had no weapons. The only thing he had on him was his cell phone. The phone he’d carried with him every day since Maria disappeared. The phone with her last text message to him on it, that he’d read over a thousand times.

  The phone.

  Felix fumbled for his ripped pocket, digging out the phone with his thumb and pinky.

  Choke on it, asshole.

  Then h
e shoved it right down the massive hole in Harry’s face. Felix pushed past his squirming tongue, fitting his whole hand inside the split palate, jamming the phone into Harry’s throat.

  Harry’s reaction was instant. He dropped Felix and clawed at his own face, digging his fingers into his mouth. But his fingers were too large, and the phone was down too deep.

  Felix picked himself up off the floor than stared up at Harry as his face turned red enough to match his eyes.

  And then Felix saw something else. Something above Harry. A woman, hanging from the railing up on the third floor, her feet dangling down.

  Maria?

  Maria!

  Felix ran around Harry as the giant keeled over, ignoring all of the pain in his body, bounding up the stairs with energy driven by love, flying up the first flight, the second flight, desperate to reach her before she fell.

  Save her. Got to save her. Got to—

  “Sorry, lover boy. Y’all don’t get to be the hero.”

  Felix stared at Eleanor. Stared at the shotgun in her hands.

  The sound was thunderous.

  The shot slammed Felix into the wall.

  For a moment, he felt a stabbing, white-hot pain.

  Then he didn’t feel anything at all.

  Millard dropped his overalls to his ankles, revealing a pair of filthy tighty-whities. His head was leaking blood like a sieve, but it didn’t stop him from smiling. He tugged a packet out of his breast pocket and dusted powder all over his face, making him look like a ghost.

  Letti’s broken arm hurt like crazy, but she wasn’t thinking about herself. She was thinking about Kelly. And Mom.

  I’ll get him for you, Mom. Maybe not today. Maybe not next month. But I will kill this son of a bitch.

  Millard spat out pink clumps of styptic.

  “You like eatin’ dirt before, whore? Maybe I give you a bit more to snack on.”

  Millard bent down, reaching for the earth, and then he doubled over in a blur of blood and fur.

  JD!

  The German Shepherd locked his jaws right between Millard’s legs, shaking his muzzle back and forth, trying to rip his manhood free.

  Two tugs later, the dog did.

  Millard rolled around on the ground, holding his crotch with both hands, swearing and moaning. JD went for his throat, but Letti called him back.

  “JD, sit! I got this one.”

  It took Letti a minute to find a suitable rock. Big enough to do the job, but not so big she couldn’t lift it one-handed. Once she made her selection, she stood over Millard, whose red eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

  “Eat dirt?” Letti asked. “Eat this.”

  She smashed the rock down onto Millard’s screaming face. Over and over and over.

  After the tenth or eleventh blow, his head split like a cleaved watermelon.

  Letti dropped the bloody rock and spat on his corpse.

  JD limped over to her. She could see a gash in his leg. It looked pretty ugly, but Letti vowed right there to get him the best vet in the country.

  “Good dog,” Letti said, patting his head. “You are one really good dog.

  He wagged his tail and licked her face. Then his ears pricked up, and he bounded off into the woods.

  “JD!” she yelled.

  “Mom!”

  Kelly!

  Letti hurried after the dog, and found him running circles around her daughter. Kelly hurried over to Letti, embracing her, and Letti hugged her back despite her broken arm. Love was the best pain reliever in the world.

  “I followed your footsteps, Mom! That’s how I found you!”

  “I love you, Kelly. I love you so, so much.”

  Kelly buried her face in Letti’s neck. “I love you too, Mom. Where’s Grandma?”

  Letti gripped her daughter tighter. “Grandma didn’t make it, honey.”

  Kelly pulled away. She looked older. Much older. And Letti saw a glimpse of what her mother told her. Of the amazing woman Kelly would grow up to become.

  “She saved me, Mom,” Kelly said. “Grandma saved my life.”

  Letti blinked back the tears. Tears of pain. Tears of loss. But mostly, tears of pride. Pride in her daughter, and pride in her mother.

  “She saved us all, baby. Your Grandma saved us all.”

  Hanging from the banister, Maria heard the shotgun blast. And she knew whom Eleanor had shot.

  Felix. My Felix.

  He came for me.

  And she killed him.

  The anger in Maria took over, like a monster invaded her body. It worked into every pore, every cell, filling her with such all-encompassing rage that Maria felt like she could put her fist through a brick wall.

  Maria hooked a leg up on the bottom of the railing, pulling herself onto the third floor. Eleanor swung the gun around, but Maria was already running at her, the chain wrapped tight around her fist.

  She punched Eleanor in the nose again, doing even more damage this time. Eleanor moaned, and Maria tore the double barrel shotgun from the old woman’s hands. She aimed at the bitch’s diseased head and pulled both triggers.

  Nothing happened. The gun was empty.

  Changing her grip, Maria brought the gun back like a baseball bat, swinging with everything she had, cracking Eleanor across the head so hard it could be heard in neighboring states. Eleanor collapsed, but Maria’s attention was already on Felix, the blood spreading across his chest.

  Maria tore at the buckles on her wrist cuffs, using her teeth, pulled her hands free. She patted down Eleanor’s body and found a packet of QuikClot. Hurrying to Felix, she lifted up his blood-soaked shirt, dumping the powder on him, pressing it into the jagged buckshot wounds on his chest and shoulder.

  “Please,” she said. “I’ve waited so long for you. Please don’t leave me, Felix.”

  She put her fingers on his neck, trying to find a pulse, but her hands were shaking too badly.

  “You can’t die, honey. You can’t. Not now. Not after all of this.”

  She put her ear to his chest, couldn’t hear a damn thing. Not knowing what else to do, she wrapped her arms around him, pressing his cheek to hers, rocking him back and forth.

  “I love you, Felix. I love you so much.”

  This isn’t how it’s supposed to end. After all of this, it’s supposed to end happily.

  A whole year I dreamed, prayed, for this moment.

  This can’t be the end.

  And then Felix mumbled something.

  “Felix? Oh my god, Felix? What did you say?

  “I love you too, babe,” he said. “God, you’re so beautiful.”

  “I missed you so much.”

  “I missed you too. You think you can get me an aspirin?”

  Maria began to laugh so hard she wept.

  Deb splayed out her arms, trying to palm the sheer face of the rock, but she kept sliding. The metal spikes of her prosthetics skipped across the surface of the shelf, not any better at traction than the climbing shoes she wore years ago when she was in this very same situation.

  Above her, the cougar watched her slow descent with narrow, evil eyes, swishing his broken tail back and forth.

  It’s happening again. I’m reliving my worst nightmare.

  And Deb knew, from past experience, that she only had six seconds left. Then she’d be over the edge, and even Mal with all of his good intentions wouldn’t be able to catch her when she fell.

  Strangely, mixed in with the terror was a bit of melancholy.

  Is this what I was meant to do in life? Make the same mistakes?

  “Use your leg!” Mal yelled up at her.

  I can’t use my leg, you moron. They keep slipping. What I need is longer arms to grab onto that outcropping just out of my reach.

  Oh, son of a bitch!

  Suddenly understanding Mal’s advice, Deb reached down and hit the button on her right stump cup. The air hissed out, breaking the suction, and she tugged off her leg.

  Only a few seconds left! I only
have one shot!