Billy laughed. “Need to hurry. She ain’t got no feeling in her arm. Gotta move before she gets it back!”
He was wrong. She had plenty of feeling, all painful.
Quickly, he dislodged the remaining two nails in her other arm, blasting her arm with two arctic shots of pain. The arm dropped like a balloon that had just been popped. Now both arms swayed at her hips.
“All done. You’re coming with us.”
Missy released the one leg and was starting to stand when Rusty, noticing that Missy had done so, let the other leg go. The idea to retaliate had hardly registered in her mind when she rammed her shoulder into Billy’s midsection. The force of the hit knocked Billy back.
Megan put her back against the tree for leverage and kicked Rusty on the chin. Then she threw up a knee, catching a distracted Missy on the cheek.
Megan moved in swift surprise but she realized she had a problem when her momentum continued to carry over. She toppled over Missy’s shoulders. Her back slammed the ground. She watched her stretched legs cut through the air as if she were doing a cartwheel. Her left leg crashed onto the ground first, the right landing on top of it.
Air shot out of her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, and her butchered leg screamed. On her back, she stared up at a brilliant blue sky with fluffy white streaks. She wanted to lie there, enjoying the view and a few minutes of rest. She didn’t have those minutes, she didn’t even have seconds.
Megan needed to keep moving. Now, while they were down.
She rolled onto her stomach, pushing herself up with her hands. Her breast tumbled out of the stretched top. The slit nipple stung when air hit it. As she got to her knees, she stuffed her breast back behind the shirt.
Megan pushed her wild hair out of her eyes and checked on the hillbillies. Missy lay beside her, slightly stirring and groaning. Rusty was on his side watching her, his hand rubbing his chin with a grimace twisting his face. Then she looked over to where Billy should have been. She was prepared to find him holding his stomach, coughing as he tried to take in air.
His spot was Billy-less.
Where…?
She looked behind her and found him standing there. The hammer poised above his head.
“Damn…” she muttered.
The hammer came down.
18
Amanda gaped at the crude structure in revolted awe. A shelter of some kind erected with old tarp and camouflaged in leaves and sticks. It looked like it had been here for a very long time. How could something like this have existed without any of the rangers being cognizant of it?
She’d followed the girl to this spot. She was probably supposed to keep going, but after spotting this little shanty, Amanda had to stop and observe it. She could feel the sheer surprise on her face like an uncomfortable mask.
Gun drawn, she crept forward. She kept the pistol angled down and away, moving like a cop about to raid a meth lab. Approaching the shelter from the side, she noticed the tears, the destroyed rear wall. The gaping hole, and tattered pieces weaving in the gentle barely extant breeze.
“What the hell happened here?” she asked the trees around her.
She moved around to the backside, facing the giant gap, and peered inside. It was too dark to see anything. She shrugged the backpack off her shoulders, letting it fall to the ground. She unzipped the pack and rummaged around inside until feeling the cool metal surface of her mag-light. Then she tugged the light out of the bag, clicked it on, and aimed it into the black hole.
A runnel of light stabbed the darkness, the round disc illuminating the furnishings inside. A table cluttered in a wide assortment of objects, filthy laundry.
The light landed on someone.
A gasp of fright brushed the back of her throat. She staggered back a couple steps. “Who’s in there?” She waited another moment then asked again. The silence in the air was thick and uncomfortable. After she still didn’t gain a response, she moved back to the torn tarps with caution. The gun was ready to go bang if she needed it too.
She peered into the crudely made structure, the barrel of her gun aimed inside. She wiped the light from wall to wall. The person still sat where she’d first spied them, slightly leaned forward, their yellow hair tangled and wild on their head.
“Ma’am? Are you okay?”
Amanda was about to go inside but noticed the woman’s skin on her shoulders. It was the color of stained wood and horribly dried out. Amanda thought if she were to touch the skin it would feel like a leather jacket that had been in someone’s attic for a decade.
A corpse.
Another dead body. Number three in the same day. But not the one she was looking for. Judging her looks, she’d been out here a long time.
After another swipe of the interior with her flashlight, Amanda decided it was the only body to find. Everything else seemed deserted.
She wanted to do something about the lady inside, but there was nothing she really could do. She’d have to leave her behind, for now. When she decided to go back to the tower she’d make sure to report it before they fired her.
A trickle of sweat slid down her cheek. She wiped it with the back of her hand. Even after the sweat was gone, she continued to rub her face, as if she might be able to wipe away the character of the shelter.
Amanda sighed. She felt awful. This woman hadn’t deserved whatever had been done to her. She wondered if the pot farmers had done this, too, or if she should start to suspect someone else was haunting these woods.
Haunting?
On that note, Amanda glanced over shoulder to check the way ahead. She saw the dead girl waving her forward before trotting away, holding her head upright by the hair.
Amanda shuddered so hard she felt a cramp in her stomach. She thought she might have pulled a muscle.
I’m following a damn ghost.
Sounded crazy even in her mind but she believed it. A ghost was leading her to the missing girl. She felt an empty tug in her bowels, a twinge of dread.
Amanda quickly gathered her things, then got back to hiking.
19
Megan was aware of being on the ground. She could feel grits of dirt scraping against her face. Her skin itched from the grass and dried blood. Things scurried across her, ants probably, and mosquitoes most definitely.
Sounding as if coming through a funnel, she could hear voices. Behind her somewhere, garbled and bendy. One voice stood above the others, demanding and barking orders.
Billy…
Now it was coming back in bits and she wished it would just stay forgotten. She wanted to go back to that blank state where she didn’t know anything, where all she saw was black, in a deep sleep where she was oblivious to this madness. They could do whatever they wanted, just as long as she didn’t know what it was. Just as long as she didn’t have to feel any of it.
She cracked her eyes open, just a feeble slit. Blurred, she could see the woods: a haze of green and brown, smudged like a cheap painting. There was movement within. As her vision became more focused, she realized the movement was actually Billy and Rusty walking around. Both had giant black trash bags thrown over their shoulders.
They dropped the bags just inches from Megan’s face. Dirt puffed her face, flaking in her eyes. She blinked them out. A strong herbal scent wafted into her nose, bringing back her vigilance as if it were a smelling salt. It was a smell she recognized, and one she hadn’t been able to enjoy since becoming an ER nurse three years ago.
She saw what had spilled out of the black trash bags was marijuana. Both bags were full of the freshly picked crop. The green arches seemed to twinkle in the sunlight.
Slowly raising her head, she winced, pain punching from the back of her skull. She reached behind her head, feeling a knot. When she brought her fingers back they were wet with blood.
Another wound to add to the steadily growing list.
She groaned.
Carefully, she started to sit up. She’d only gotten up a little ways when something suddenl
y stopped her. She felt a tug at her neck. Looking down at her chest, she noticed a chain trailing between her breasts, pressing the tank-top snuggly against their mounds. She gripped it, running her fingers up the length to where the chain was wielded to an iron collar around her throat. She tugged at the iron choker, but it did no good.
“No need to try, hun,” said Missy from behind her. “It ain’t coming off. Not withouts tha’ key.”
Megan looked to her left and found Missy sitting on an overturned bucket. She was using a giant hunting knife to dig grime out from underneath her fingernails. She must have been sitting there the whole time she was out cold, keeping an eye on her.
Missy hardly looked concerned. “And,” she added with a snicker, “I’m the one with the keys.”
“Where am I?”
“Our spot.”
Megan looked around, taking in the vicinity. She couldn’t see much beyond where Billy and Rusty had gathered. Behind Missy was a large drum on a grate over some firewood. Tubes were attached to the top and trailed down the side into a giant witch’s cauldron.
Megan understood what they were mixing in the pot and it wasn’t witch’s brew.
Moonshine.
This was their still.
“Shit,” muttered Megan.
Missy giggled. “You lookin’ at our still?”
Megan shook her head.
“Whatsa matter? ‘Fraid we gonna kill ya since ya seen it?”
Megan didn’t answer. She stared at the ground to avoid eye contact.
“We ain’t gonna kill you cause of that. If’n you gots into our plants, then we’d kill you deader than a shit stain. But, not cause of the still. Too many’s doing the shine these days. Business is tougher than a two dollar steak cooked burnt. But, we number one in pot, yes’m, you better believe it.” She fell quiet, her attention averted by her fingernails. She went back to picking at the pinky nail with the knife blade.
Megan looked Missy over. She had lemon-colored curls parted in pigtails. Earthy blue eyes, bright and full of dimwitted life. Her skin was tawny and smooth, with little smears of dirt here and there. She wore boots that looked so heavy Megan was surprised she could even lift her feet. Denim pants cut into briefs with the lower cambers of buttocks poking out from behind the frilly strings. She had a flannel shirt tied in front of a bra that struggled to hold back a pair of giant breasts.
Missy was almost beautiful. Compared to the guys, she was a super model.
“What do you want from me?” Megan asked.
Without looking up, “With you? That’s easy. We wants to have some fun.”
Megan practically scoffed, not surprised, and not really bothered.
Frowning, Missy leaned closer to Megan as if to study her. “This is whens they usually go all squally-like.”
“What’s the point?”
Missy looked at the sky as if the answer might be shaped in the clouds. Not finding it, she only shrugged. Then she went back to work on her nails, holding her hand out, with her fingers extended to survey them. She made an approving face.
Megan looked down at the holes in her wrists. She was surprised they weren’t bleeding any more than they had been. It was either a good sign or a very bad one. She didn’t feel like she’d lost too much blood, at least she didn’t think so. They sure hurt, though. If she moved her hands a certain way it felt like he was driving the nails in all over again. And, they were also already becoming infected. Blackening around the inner layers of the hole, slips of green were scattered about. It needed to be washed out, and if she still had her bag, she could squirt giant dabs of disinfectant down in them. She didn’t, so it hardly mattered.
Megan looked back at Missy. “So, did you know that guy?”
“Guy?”
“The one who hammered me to the tree!”
“Oh, him. No. I ain’t never seen him before in my life. ‘S funny, though. A man like that, you would think he’d be easy to spot out here, but I sure ain’t never seen ‘im.”
Megan noticed Missy was gazing over her shoulder, so she glanced back and saw nothing of particular interest back there.
“I wonder who he was. Shame Billy gunned him down like that. Now we’s won’t never know.” She puckered out her bottom lip. “I wonder if’n he one of those we heard about when we’s was kids.”
Finally, Missy had said something that intrigued Megan to hear more, and she wanted to kick herself for it. Too bad she couldn’t. One leg had a slit calf; the other had a chunk wedged out of its thigh. Now her wrists had a combination of four holes.
That were getting infected.
If she didn’t get help for them soon, she would sure get blood poisoning thanks to the nails’ tarnished metal.
It made the pain worse staring at her wrists, so she looked at Missy. She still had her bottom lip puckered out in a mock pout. Her cheeks were puffy and high on her face like a cherub.
“What’d you hear?” she asked the hillbilly girl.
Missy’s face showed excitement as she leaned in close like she was about to share the utmost guarded secret of the backwoods. “When we’s was little, there was’a this woman that lived way out yonder…” She pointed behind her. “On the opposite side of the gorge, deep into the dark woods. You ever been out there before?”
“No…this was my first time in this section…”
“Ah, well, we used to camp out there with Ma and Papa when we’s wuz little younglin’s, and Papa would tell us this story of old Natalie Gunthrope. People believed she was’a witch.”
Megan made a face.
“I know what you’s a thinkin’, and I can’t blame you one for. But, no she wasn’t all flyin’ around on no damn broom, painting the moon in chicken’s blood or nuthin’ like that.”
Megan felt the corners of her mouth being pulled into a grin, and to her surprise she heard herself lightly chuckle.
Missy, proud of herself for getting a rise out of Megan, grinned right back. “When I was’a girl I would lay in bed at night and be skerred to death that she would fly right by my winder. Swear to God-Almighty I was.” Placing a hand over her heart, she pointed at the sky with her knife. “May He strike me dead if I’m lyin’. Just go head.”
Megan glanced up, silently hoping a single bolt of lightning would lash down from the sky and do just as Missy had dared, but no such luck. She must not have been lying.
“Anyways,” continued Missy. “Papa said that she could do all kinds of curses and spells and magic stuff. The bad kind. Papa also said she was over a hun’red-years-old. You believe that shit? That’s old!” She made a face as if old age was a disgusting disease.
“But…how does that…that psychopath fit into that story?”
“I was get’n to that part, impatient ninny.”
Megan almost laughed again, but stopped herself before she could.
“People used to talk that she had a kid, a boy, a real ugly bastard too…”
“Oh, shut up, Missy.”
Billy.
“No one wants to hear that damn story. We heard it all the time when’s we was kids.”
Billy and Rusty were approaching from off to the side. Megan watched them wearily, anticipating Billy would do something to hurt her.
Missy, angered she was interrupted, shot Billy with a nasty look. “We’s was talkin’ Billy. I don’t care if’n you are my brother, I’ll kick y’ass if you butt in again!”
Brother? These three are related?
Megan wanted to call bullshit because none of them looked even slightly similar. There facial features were different, all of them seemed to have different color eyes. Their bodies were nowhere near identical. Billy was the tallest of the three, gangly with thin arms and giant hands. Rusty was slightly taller than Missy, and a foot shorter than Billy. And, other than Missy, this was a trio of the ugliest assholes this side of inbred mountain.
Billy had a grossed out look on his face. “And don’t talk to her, either. The way you’s two was goin’ on I
thought you might start all lezzin’ out on us. Give me and Rusty a real good show!”
Rusty grimaced. “Ewww, gross.”
Billy looked at Missy, mocking anger now. “See what ya done? And you know how poor ol’ Rusty only likes the cornholes!”
Missy and Billy laughed. Megan was not amused. She felt her stomach twist.
“I do not,” argued Rusty. “I just don’t like the two girls crap. It ain’t right!”
“You ain’t right,” said Billy.
Missy intervened before her brothers’ argument could escalate into something out of hand. “Come on, Billy, lemme finish the story!”
“No. You tellin’ it all stupid, anyway.”
“Then you tells her!”
Billy eyed Megan suspiciously. “Nah. She duhn’t want to hear it none no-how.”
Missy gawked at Megan in pleading agony. For whatever reason she couldn’t understand, she felt bad for the hillbilly girl. Something about her just oozed sweetness. Maybe it was the fact that she was a brainless twit, so stupid that she was cute.
Megan sighed. “I do…I want to hear the story.”
Billy leaned down, putting his scruffy face right at hers. “You sure? Ain’t bullshittin’ just to get Missy all giddy?”
She heard Missy squeal as if she’d heard something to make her blush. Megan slowly shook her head.
Billy straightened, adjusted his belt. “Well a’ight. Billy Judd here will tell ya the story to knock ya socks off!”
“Billy who?” asked Megan. She needed to clarify she’d heard him correctly.
“Billy Judd.”
“Judd?”
“Yeah.” He shared a look with Rusty and Missy that suggested Megan’s ignorance.
“You three…are the Judds?”
“So what if’n we are? Have you heard of us or something?”
She’d heard of the Judds all right, just not this trio. “No.”
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