“Oh—okay.” Megan didn’t know if she could. Her calf was hurt, her thigh was hurt, she doubted she had the strength to do it. To her astonishment, she found she was able to lift herself quite efficiently.
The ranger tugged at the chain, peeling it around the tree, then she dropped the tip down through the loop. All the tension was removed.
Megan fell back against the tree, breathing much easier.
“Better?” asked the ranger.
Megan was about to answer and tell her just how much better it was, but her words turned to a snagged gasp when the blade of a knife burst through the ranger’s forearm, the gun soaring.
Screaming in shock, she held her arm. The pain looked prominent, but it appeared the surprise was even more so.
Where’d he get the knife!?
He probably had dozens of them hidden all over his body. Stupid. We were so stupid to think he wouldn’t have more.
Megan saw he was already approaching, his machete brandished with a clump of dirt attached to the tip of the blade.
He gripped the ranger by the back of the neck in the same fashion he had with Allison. He raised her off the ground. She swatted, punched, and slapped at him to no avail. Her feet kicked off the ground, coming close to his knees but not connecting.
The man studied her in a disturbing admiration. Mesmerized. He could see something inside of her. Something he wanted.
He let her go. She hit the ground, landing hard on her rump. She gaped up at him, huffing. Her hair had fallen out of the tie, strands of it dipping into her face.
The man grinded his hand around the machete’s handle, looking the ranger over. Then he turned to the tree Megan had occupied.
It was vacant.
And the blade of Missy’s knife punched through the front his throat.
25
Amanda shrieked when a knife’s blade ripped through his neck, just under his Adam’s apple. He cupped a hand to his throat, stumbling sideways. He looked back.
Blood spurted from the man’s throat, splashing Amanda in a crimson facial. She held up her arms to cover the raining blood. Turning her head away from her shield of arms, she spotted the girl: crouched down, ruffling her hands through the grass.
They came back with a hammer.
Feral-like, she screamed and lunged for the masked man.
One whack to the head, he whipped and spat blood through the dangling flap of the mask. The girl jumped, bringing the hammer down on top of his head. Then she swung it from one side, and the other, and back again. She continued to do this, growling in raging approval whenever the hammer connected with his head.
Finally he dropped down to a knee. She struck him again. He shoved her back. She landed on her rump, momentarily derailed, but was quick to get back up and rush him again.
Amanda couldn’t take this anymore, not even a man like him deserved what the girl was doing to him. “Stop!”
If the girl had heard the order, she wasn’t giving any indication to it. She swung the hammer again. It caught him on top of his skull. He sank to a crouch, propping himself up with one arm. The other tried to raise the machete, subsequently dropping it.
“Stop it!” tried Amanda again.
Wet punches of the hammer continued, over and endlessly over again. Cracks and crunches resounded in splattering cuffs each time the hammer struck him.
After several minutes, the girl mercifully stopped. She stood before him, the hammer by her thigh, wearing a wet slicker of his blood, heaving breaths. Her hair was wild and tangled in red knots.
He looked up at her, blood streaming from under the masking, flooding over his eyes, through the ragged holes.
Amanda had never seen so much blood shed from anything. How was he still alive? How could he be moving about on his own merit?
The girl flipped the hammer around, claw-end out, and brought it down. Centered on his forehead, the claw punctured inward and stayed there.
His eyes flickered, sputtered. Then he collapsed onto his side, motionless.
Amanda, revolted and dolorous, looked on miserably. She slowly worked at pulling the knife through her hand, not out. More damage could be done if she retracted it the same way it came in. Thankfully, it was a small blade, with no hilt. She cried out, wincing, tears dotting her eyes. Her skin made a sloppy sound like wet paper as the knife made its way through.
When the effort was done, she held it in the palm of her hand, slimy and murky like a slug.
The girl stood with her back turned to Amanda. Her whole body moved with her heavy breaths. Blood-caked from her hair to her ankles, she gave a look back over her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” asked Amanda.
The girl nodded. “Are you?”
Amanda stood up with a groan. She went and retrieved her gun where it had landed several feet away. She looked back to the girl. “Do you know him?”
The girl shook her head.
“I found…your friends, I guess they were. The authorities are probably there now. There’s others combing the woods searching for you, and me too, I imagine.”
“Hmm…”
“We need to get back to my car. It’s gonna take a while to get back there. I don’t know any shortcuts this far out.”
The girl nodded in response, again.
“Think you can make it?” asked Amanda.
The girl turned around. Her face, breasts, and stomach were smeared and slick in blood. “Can you?”
Amanda shrugged. “I think so.”
“I think so, too.” She approached Amanda. “But, just give me a second…”
She staggered to a tree, taking an agonizing seat in front of it. She threw the chain over to the side of her body.
“Can that come off?”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know how…”
“I can try and get it off for you.”
“Hell…I’m used to it now.” She pulled off her shoe. Her white sock was stained red nearly all over.
“My god,” Amanda muttered.
“I hadn’t noticed how bad my feet were hurting until now.” She started to cry.
“The adrenaline kept you from feeling a lot of pain.”
Amanda walked over to the girl, but stopped when she started tugging at her sock. It took some effort to remove it. When it was finally peeled away from her foot, what was unveiled was a mangled limb: open sores, busted callouses spewing blood and puss.
The girl sniveled even more, dripping wet tears onto her red painted skin. Clear lines cut through the dark tint.
“Wow, that’s really bad.” Amanda felt stupid for pointing out the obvious to the person who knew exactly how bad it really was. She remembered her backpack tucked away in some brush. “Give me a second to grab something. Will you be okay if I leave you alone for a minute?”
The girl nodded, backhanded her tears. She smeared the blood on her face, making it look like makeup being sweated off.
“Okay…be right back.”
Amanda rushed off. She stepped out of the clearing and immediately regretted having done it. She hurried over to the brush where she’d left he pack. For a moment she expected not to find it. Either she’d forgotten where she’d left it, or someone had come along and taken it.
Who?
Anyone. In these woods, Amanda was quickly starting to understand, anything was possible.
The backpack was there. She sighed a relieved breath as she bent down and snatched a strap in her hand. She threw it over her shoulder, then hurried back to the clearing.
Nothing had changed.
The man was in a bloody, ruined heap to her right and the girl sat on the ground with her foot in her lap, head bent over it. Crying.
“I’m back.”
The girl nodded.
Amanda dropped down in front of the girl, stifling back a groan of pain when the backpack struck the wound on her arm. She noticed through the splashed blood on the girl’s arms that she had a couple holes on each. She wanted to ask her wha
t happened, but didn’t want to risk her acknowledging how much they hurt as well. This disgusting foot problem was bad enough on its own.
She let the bag drop between them, and opened it. Sifting through the inside, she found the plastic baggy with the first-aid supplies. She yanked it out, then tossed the backpack out of the way.
Amanda showed her the bag. “Not really a doctor recommended storage case, I’m sure.”
The girl smiled. It was nice to see. She held up her shoe. “Not made for constant running I guess.”
Amanda frowned. “No, I suppose hiking was about all they were built for.”
“These damn things cost almost two hundred dollars. I bought them two weeks ago and wore them to work to break them in.”
Amanda noticed how the girl’s breasts shook each time she moved. She should probably loan her the shirt tied around her waist. She was hesitant because of the blood, then realized it didn’t matter. She doubted she would be wearing it ever again after they fired her later.
Tugging it off her waist, she leaned up, throwing the shirt around the girl’s shoulders. “Wear this. You might feel, not as exposed…”
“Thank you.” The girl looked at herself. “Oh…I’m getting blood on it…”
“I don’t care.”
Amanda noticed the hole in her shorts. “I don’t have anything for that, though.”
The girl looked down, saw the tear, then rubbed the exposed patch of skin with a finger. “Yeah…” She sighed. “Can you believe a girl did this to me?”
“Are you serious?” She looked at the man. “I thought it was him…”
“No…those hillbillies…”
Amanda remembered the stories, how the farmers liked to take turns on the victims.
“…the sister, Missy. She did this. But, you know…she was such a sweet girl. One of those you couldn’t help but fall in love with…even if she did do this to me…” She looked as if she was about to say more but stopped.
Amanda shushed her. “You can talk about that later. Let’s get you bandaged up so we can get moving.”
“Oh—okay…” She shook her head. “Poor Missy…”
Amanda’s frown deepened. She was surprised how much remorse the girl felt. Not just that, but guilt. She must have been the one who killed her. No way would she feel that bad if someone else had done it.
She took the tube of antibiotic ointment and squirted some cream onto the palette of sores and went to work. Using cotton swabs, she smeared her foot in ointment. She moved to the narrow slit at the back of her calf, and moved up to the chunky crater on her thigh.
“You are one tough cookie,” said Amanda. “You know that?”
The girl smiled. “I don’t feel like it right now.”
“You are.” She ripped off a bandage from the small roll of gauze and applied it to her thigh. “I’m Amanda by the way. Don’t know if you remember me.”
“I do. I’m Megan.”
Amanda almost snapped her finger and shouted: That’s it!
Megan winced, sucking in a sharp breath.
“Sorry…” said Amanda, adding tape to the gauze to hold it in place. Finished there, she wrapped one wrist, then the other.
Megan looked at Amanda’s arm. “You’re hurt pretty bad, too.”
“It’s okay. It looks worse than it feels.”
“Still, that’s pretty bad. Is there going to be enough of this stuff for you?”
Amanda shrugged. “Don’t worry about me right now.”
“I hope these fuckers didn’t have any diseases because if they did, I have them now.”
“We both would.”
“That would suck for us.”
“Sure would.”
“That’d be a fitting end to all this, huh? We get out alive and turns out we’re dying of AIDS.”
Amanda resisted a shiver. She wished Megan wouldn’t talk like that. She understood why she was saying it, though. She was scared. Simple as that. Talking it out made her feel better, so Amanda would let her.
Megan continued to ramble on about diseases as Amanda moved on to her foot. She used what was left of the roll mummifying her foot, then grabbed the other roll to finish.
“Thank you for doing that,” said Megan.
“You’re welcome.”
“I see there’s some left. Let me wrap your arm.”
“It’s okay…”
“Please. I’m a nurse, okay?”
“You are?” She made a nonbelieving face. “Sure you’re not just saying that.”
“I’m sure. I work in the ER.”
“No shit.”
“No shit at all.”
“All right, then I’d be honored to have you wrap my arm.”
They both laughed, and Amanda assumed Megan was just as clueless as to why. Nothing funny had been said.
“You have hand sanitizer in here?”
“No.”
“Damn. Wish there was some way I could rinse out the wound.”
“That’d be good, but I don’t have any and didn’t pass a stream on the way in.”
“I can’t remember if I’ve seen any…”
“It’s okay for now.”
“It’ll have to do is more like it.”
Amanda nodded. “True.”
It was Amanda’s turn to wince when the cream filled the hole like cement being put into a cavity. Megan squeezed the tube flat, getting out all that was left, which wasn’t much.
“What about your other foot?” she asked.
Megan shook her head. “We’ll leave it. I’m ready to get out of here, but want to make sure you’re somewhat taken care of.”
“I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through.”
Megan stopped a moment. “Yeah…” She got back to work, rolling the gauze over her arm like a half-sleeve. She took the tape and stuck the tip to the rest. “I can’t even remember what yesterday was like, before all this happened. It seems like I’ve been stuck in these damn woods all my life.”
Amanda smiled. “I know what you mean.”
“You’re all set.”
“Ready to go?”
“More than ready.”
Amanda stood up, holding out her good arm for Megan.
Megan smiled. “I appreciate the offer, but if you pull on either one of my arms, I might pass out.”
Amanda felt like an idiot. “Sorry…I forgot.”
“It’s okay. I’ll manage.”
“No, I’ll get behind you.”
She walked around to the backside of Megan and slid an arm under her. As Megan strained with her legs, Amanda hefted her up. Once she was on her feet, Amanda held the shirt so Megan could slide her arms through. Then, like Megan was her child, she stepped around the front of her and buttoned the shirt up.
Amanda nodded once. “Now we can go.”
26
The sun was birthing night, discharging a swath of warm colors across the flattening sky. The last half of their trip through the woods had to be monitored with Amanda’s flashlight. They’d stopped only a couple times to sip from the bottle of water in Amanda’s bag and nibble on some beef jerky.
She’d done a good job keeping Megan going; without her support and constant tugging, she would have surely given up fifteen minutes into the hike.
They exited the pitch-black woods to a landscape filtered in orange and red. Only half of the sun remained above the shadowy peaks in the distance. Megan was bowled over by how lovely of a sunset it was. In its lovely hues, she saw something in it she had forgotten existed after the day’s dealings. Hope. It still existed. The sun was setting on this horrific day, reminding her that tomorrow was all new.
She felt a smile on her dry, brittle lips at the notion. It was welcomed.
Thank you…
Up ahead, she spotted a Jeep parked on the side of the road like a sanctuary. She tore away from Amanda, crying, walking a few feet on her own before dropping to her knees and leaning forward like someone lost in the desert who just fo
und water.
“We’re out! Holy shit we’re out!”
Amanda laughed. “Yeah…but we’re not done just yet.”
Megan wanted to kiss the ground. With tongue. She was so happy to be out of the woods that she was giddy. She pulled wisps of grass and let them fall from her fingers.
Amanda came to help her up, but Megan politely declined with a wave of her hand. She stood on her own. She suddenly felt as if she could run all the way home. Her motivation had been rejuvenated. They were going to get away; holy shit, they were actually going to make it.
As they walked along, approaching the gravel of the road, Megan noticed a short trail of red dots spattered through the grass. It looked as if it was leading to the road as well. She was about to say something, but Amanda beat her to it.
“I’m going to radio the tower, let them know what’s happened. I think they will probably put up a safety point near the station. We can cut down one of the dirt roads and get there around nine.”
Megan followed Amanda around the back of the Jeep to the passenger side where she opened the door up front. Megan opened her mouth to speak, but Amanda had already begun assisting her into the seat. Once both feet were in the floorboard, she quickly said, “Amanda?”
Amanda looked at her. “Yeah?”
She was ready to tell her about the…blood…in the grass but noticed the look on Amanda’s face waver into something concerned and confused.
“What…the hell?”
Megan saw her eyes were focused down by her thighs. She looked down and saw a radio lying in the floorboard. Smashed.
Amanda shook her head. “How…?”
“Who could’ve done this?”
“Hang on…”
Amanda walked around to the front of the Jeep. “Someone’s tampered with the motor.”
“How do you know?”
“Wires are hanging out the front of it.”
Megan felt a hornet’s nest of dread in her stomach. How were they going to get out of here now? She couldn’t walk anymore even if she tried. Just moments ago she’d felt like she could have carried the mountain on her back but that instance of valor was gone. Reality had returned and it brought her pain back with it.
Amanda joined Megan, reaching between her legs. She opened the glove compartment. She dug around inside and came back with a cell phone, then slammed the hatch closed. She checked the screen, and cringed. “I don’t have any bars but it looks like we’re high enough up that I’m getting some kind of signal. I’m gonna try and call the tower.”
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