NorthWest (John Hazard - Book II)

by Glaze, JH

  Macy contemplated what she would do if they were attacked again. She recalled an old saying, ‘If you and a friend are being chased by a bear, don’t worry about outrunning the bear. You only have to outrun your friend.’ A wicked half-smile crossed her face as she considered her competition.

  If they had to run, she figured John would be out in front. He seemed to be the most athletic member of the team, a survivor and tough as nails. His obvious passion for Emily was his weakness, however, and that alone would be enough to hold him back. If Emily was injured or fell behind for any reason, he would probably rush to save her.

  Eddie, well, he was a sucker for Karla and would die defending her if need be. That left Sherri and Raj with no connection to anyone else here now that Marcus was gone. If one or both of them lagged behind, no one would bitch if they somehow happened to end up sacrificing themselves to slow the creatures down.

  She knew it was a cold and calculating thought, so she kept it to herself. After all, this wasn’t reality TV. This was not a threat concocted by some producer to drum up better ratings. There was no team building, no strategic alliances here. The only connections in this group were natural relationships. She doubted they wanted to play her way or make a plan for surviving that involved sacrificing a few players.

  It didn’t matter. She had decided before planning this trip that these people weren’t all that important. Nothing else mattered but solving the mystery behind her sister’s disappearance, and exacting revenge on their kidnappers. Now she was determined to live. She realized there were not going to be any answers and surely no revenge. There was only a good chance that she and every person with her was going to die if they couldn’t get out of here and get some kind of help.

  Next to her, Raj sat staring at Karla’s gorgeous breasts generously exposed by the low cut of her tight fitting t-shirt and shining like two delicious melons in the firelight. His mind drifted as he dreamed about what he had missed while saving his virginity for marriage. He had decided when he was a teenager that even if his friends were sneaking off to lose their virginity with the whores of his village, he would keep his body clean for his betrothed. What if he died now, a virgin, and never having fulfilled the desires he had saved?

  Watching Eddie use his hatchet, he tried to put such thoughts out of his mind. He couldn’t help but think about the hatchet he had taken out of his cart at the outdoor store, and how he had worried that he would be sorry he had done so. Well, he was sorry all right. If he had that hatchet right now, he could protect himself if some shit went down, and maybe even save Karla. He would have those huge tits rubbing against him out of gratitude. What a thought!

  “It really sucked, what happened to Marcus I mean.” Rubbing her arms to warm them, Sherri broke the silence.

  “Yeah, but that’s what saved us. I wish I could thank him,” said Eddie. “If we had gotten to this camp before they caught up to us, maybe we could have fought them off.” He eyed the business end of the hatchet turning it from side to side as he spoke.

  Karla looked hard at Eddie. “I don’t think so, Eddie. You saw how many of those things there were back at that clearing. You didn’t find that hatchet right away, and they would have eaten us before we even had a chance to look around.”

  Eddie blushed a little. “Well, I think he might still be alive if we had made it this far.”

  John had just returned with a massive armload of firewood and caught the gist of the conversation. He dropped the load to the ground, saying, “Look, even if we had found this place, I don’t know if we could have stopped those things without some kind of sacrifice. Old ‘Ho-Tep’ is with his ancestors now. They’re probably laughing at us there in the spirit world. And here we are trying to figure out how to survive.” He was now wearing a flannel shirt he had found in the brush. “Eddie, put that thing to some use and chop up some of these branches.”

  Eddie reached over and grabbed one of the large branches that John had dragged behind him and began chopping it into smaller pieces. John continued, “We need to have some kind of a plan for morning. If those fuckers are sleeping out there, they might wake before sunrise like the birds do.”

  He took one of the logs from the pile he had just dropped and laid it in the fire pit. It sizzled in the hot flames. Emily added a few more pieces of wood, as he sat down to rest.

  “We got lucky tonight.” John reached into his shirt and pulled out something that crackled like some kind of wrapper. “There was another backpack out there tangled in the brush. I found this shirt, a couple of energy bars and a bag of peanuts. They seem to be in pretty good shape. Anybody hungry?”

  Forty One

  “Hey, boss, I don’t think this bitch is coming back.” The well-dressed man pushed his sunglasses down and massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I ain’t seen nothin’ here all day. How much longer do I have to sit here?”

  The response came quick and loud from the man on the other end of the phone. He held the phone away from his ear as the yelling continued, then put it back against his face as he replied, “Sure, boss. As long as it takes.” He pressed the button to sign off and let out a long sigh, banging his head against the head rest.

  It had been three days since he and his partner had kicked in the door of that girl’s apartment and popped some shots at her from the fire escape. She got away with some man in a car. He had taken a lot of shit for his mistake. Now he was being punished by being forced to sit here staked out in half-day shifts waiting for her to return.

  It was unusual for anyone to abandon their apartment and all of their possessions like that. He had expected her to come by to pick up some clothes or something by now, but she had not returned. As far as he knew, she was never coming back.

  He had been told that a couple of guys had been sent to stake out the airport. The perky bitch at the airport had told them the girl had probably taken off in some plane. It wasn’t clear if Ms. Sparks was going to be gone for a day or a week. The boss clearly didn’t give a shit. Until she returned home this was his hell, sitting on some boring street, bored out of his fucking mind, watching a boring apartment building.

  The sound of his stomach growling mocked him for not taking time to pick up some food on his way here. It was too late for that now.

  Forty Two

  The energy bars and peanuts that John had found in the woods didn’t even come close to taking the edge off the hungry growls from their stomachs. Divided equally, it had amounted to a small handful of food for each of them. As Emily distributed the snacks, John had reminded them, “This could be the last food we have for the next several days. It would be good to eat half of it now and save the rest for later.”

  Everyone stared back at him. How could they think of saving something for later when there wasn’t even enough for now? John ate half of his ration, returned the rest to an empty wrapper and shoved it into his pocket. He noticed Emily doing the same. She smiled back at him as she realized he was watching. The rest of the team was slowly chewing the remains of their portion, savoring the flavor, and leaving nothing in reserve.

  Eddie’s fire building skills were well appreciated and a large campfire was still crackling in the pit while the group huddled around taking comfort from the glow. They seemed almost at ease. Perhaps the warmth of the fire and little bit of food had given them some small hope that they might actually survive this ordeal.

  John understood that hope and faith were crucial to survival, but he also recognized that he was surrounded with some of the most self-absorbed, unrealistic and helpless people he had ever been involved with. It was, after all, a class from a community college not a crack military unit, and there was still an undercurrent of tension in the group.

  “How long do you think it will take before they realize we’re missing and start to search for us?” Eddie’s question came like a shot out of the dark, breaking the silence.

  “Is that all we are? Missing people? I think we have bigger fucking pro
blems than that, jerk wad.” Raj’s words lashed out, but no one reacted. Everyone was fully aware of the deep shit they were in. No one felt any need to respond to Raj’s outburst.

  John had been mentally reviewing the events of the day, trying to recall anything that might be important to help them escape the trouble they might face tomorrow. “You know, Macy, I just thought about something from the alien death camp back there.”

  Macy took offense at the tone of his question. “Oh yeah? What’s that, Mr. Hazard? The part where several of us pissed our pants?” She eyed the men and touched herself to draw attention to the fact that she had not.

  “No, not at all, Dr. Renner,” he sneered back at her. “It was something you said to that fucking alien while I was trying to cut myself free, remember? So I could save your ass?”

  “And just what would that be? I don’t remember doing much talking. We were all more concerned about dying.” She backed down a little.

  “Well, you didn’t seem to be afraid. In fact, it sounded like you were asking that fucker about someone named… Mary, I think it was.” He paused as she sat there glaring at him. “You said something about being taken to a ship? And I don’t think you were referring to the Queen Mary. Is there something you would like to share with us, Dr. Renner?”

  “Fuck you, John! You wouldn’t understand.” She put her finger in her mouth and dug something from between her teeth and spit it into the fire. Suddenly, she had shifted from college professor to a streetwise punk girl with an attitude. “You don’t need to be all up in my business. You’ve got your own shit to worry about, Hazard.”

  “Oh, and what would that be? The fact that we are stranded in these woods with no food, aliens out to eat us, and little hope of a rescue? You’re right. I do have my own shit to worry about!” He was getting a bit tired of her smartass comments.

  “I guess that’s true, what with all your focus on getting you and your… your girlfriend there out of this place without getting your asses eaten, and to hell with the rest of us.” She was starting to panic a bit and wanted to keep him distracted. What did he know, anyway? She decided she’d better back off the attitude. She wasn’t ready to spill her guts to these people.

  “Well, Macy, you do know my background, right? I mean...”

  She couldn’t help herself as she cut him short. “Oh yeah, John, you were some big detective somewhere and then some crazy shit happened and you don’t want to tell anybody the details and blah, blah, blah!” She smiled hoping she was getting the upper hand and distracting the others from the question he had posed earlier. Then John dropped the bomb.

  “Yes, Macy. I was a good detective. And once you get the nose for it, you always got the nose for it, which is why I investigated you before I signed up for your course. And you know what I found, Macy? Anyone?” There was no response from the gallery of golden faces who were all waiting for John to give the answer.

  “Fucking say it, asshole!” Spit shot out from Macy’s mouth as she shouted.

  “John, what the fuck is going on?” Emily asked.

  He started out slowly. “Remember when Macy told us if we had any weapons, we might want to bring them for protection against the bears, wolves and such?” Heads were nodding.

  “Well, when we were stuck to those trees earlier, Macy here was asking that alien fucker about her sister. If you haven’t heard about Mary, she was Macy’s twin sister. A sister who disappeared somewhere around the age of ten. Isn’t that right, Dr. Renner?”

  “Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean shit! A lot of people go missing every day. Hell, right now, we are missing.” Macy was trying to figure out how much he really knew and convince the others that he was way off base.

  John set his chin in his hand for a moment and curled his finger up over his upper lip. He took a deep breath before continuing, “You know, I should have put two and two together a couple of weeks ago when you were talking to your assistant about making sure we had a guide who didn’t mind if we killed some animals, vicious ones, if we had to. You weren’t talking about your regular forest-type animals, were you, Macy?”

  “What are you trying to say John? What is this?” Sherri asked.

  “What I’m saying is that I think Macy was expecting to find aliens all along. I think her sister was taken by some fuckin’ aliens like those when she was a kid. Right, Macy? And she was bringing us up here to help her look for them. This whole class field trip thing was just a ploy.” He glared at Macy as he made his claim. “Wasn’t it?”

  “That’s absurd, John. How could I have known anything like that?”

  “Yeah really, John. That’s a stretch, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t it?” Karla looked back and forth at the two of them.

  “Right, and if that’s a stretch, then there’s no reason why she was asking that alien where her sister is, right?”

  “Did you really say that?” Raj asked Macy in disbelief.

  “At this point, do I have any real reason to make shit up?” John brushed a large bug off his pant leg as he spoke. “It was something like, ‘Where the fuck is Mary?’, or something like that.”

  “You moron, you don’t even know what I said. I asked if it was the one who took h...” She stopped mid sentence and looked down at the fire as some of the others stood with their mouths open. “Shit!” She kicked at the dirt beneath her feet.

  “So you did know, you fuckin’ bitch!” Emily grabbed a thick piece of firewood and was standing to use it when John rose and put his hand out to stop her. “Out of my way, John. People died here! And I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for this... this….”

  “Lyin’ bitch?” John asked, finishing her sentence.

  “Right, this fucking bitch who lied to all of us and brought us out here to die!” She still had the piece of wood in her hand, her arm cocked to use it.

  “Now wait a sec, Em.” John was still holding on to her arm. “You were in deep shit at home, remember? You weren’t even going to come until those gang bangers came after you!” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Emily’s arm had begun to lower when Karla freaked, jumped forward, and grabbed the wood from Emily’s hand. She raised her arm and brought it back to hit Macy in the side of the head. The impact landed hard enough that it sounded like the crack of a bat on a baseball.

  “You fucking, stupid, ugly whore! I’ll kill your ass!” She smacked Macy in the head again before John and Eddie caught hold of her arm on the third swing. Sherri sat with her arms wrapped around herself, rocking back and forth, and crying out, “No, no, no, no! Marcus died for this. And the pilot… No!”

  Macy had fallen to her knees and there was a large gash in her forehead. Blood was running down the side of her face. “Ohhh, my head! Please, don’t,” she moaned holding a hand up to try to protect herself from the next impact.

  “Serves you right, you stupid cow!” Raj was livid. “I could be at home with my parents right now where some nice girl is waiting to marry me. Now I’m gonna die out here in the woods like a stupid animal, part of some sick buffet for some fucking aliens! Fuck you very much!” He was hysterical now, walking around flailing his arms.

  “Everybody please!” John raised his voice above the rest. “We’re stuck here now. We need to figure this out and make a plan to survive. Focus on that.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “While I get this bitch tied up.” He walked over to the shredded tent and cut a piece of nylon rope from one of the bent poles. “I think we got us a decoy,” he said as he came back to the fire.

  Forty Three

  By the light of the fire, the team was able to forage enough small pieces of wood from the immediate area to keep it going without taking any more chances out in the darkness. Occasionally a coyote could be heard howling in the distance. The discussion around the fire had turned from what to do with Macy to what to do at sunrise and back again to Macy. While they debated, the professor sat tied up in the firelight glaring at them like an escapee from an asylum.


  “We could have finished our class with a trip to a haunted house, or some other known paranormal phenomenon,” Raj pointed out. “But she had to bring us all here telling us it was some kind of graduation requirement when all the time she had her own selfish motives and was just using us to assist her.”

  When a vote was finally taken, they held Macy entirely responsible for their current predicament and, because of the danger they believed would come with the morning, they decided that John should lead them and Macy should bring up the rear. Her hands and feet would be sufficiently bound leaving enough slack in the rope to allow her to walk as though she was wearing leg shackles similar to convicts being transported.

  That way if the aliens attacked again, Macy would be their first bite and that might give the rest of the team a enough time to escape. Of course, Macy was not too fond of the plan and voiced her opposition strongly as soon as it came up. “You can’t do that to me, I’m a human being! I’m a woman! I’m an American citizen, I deserve a fair trial!” She pleaded.

  To which John replied, “Shut the fuck up!”

  What they needed now was to get some rest or they would not be able to get through the next day, especially if they had to run to keep ahead of the aliens.

  “We should sleep in shifts, don’t you think?” John suggested. “Two people at a time can stand watch while the others sleep.”

  “You and Emily can be the first to watch,” Eddie said. “Then Raj and Sherri. Karla will take the last shift with me, okay?” He looked at Karla who was already heading to one of the tents that was still clean enough to sleep in. With about two hours watch for each pair, that would just about take them to dawn.

  “Fine by me,” said Emily.