And then…
Stop it!
Get a hold of yourself!
Think!
“You still with me, girl?” Finlay asked.
Amber blinked, felt tears run down her cheek, bitter as acid, and met his eyes in the gloom.
“What do you want from me?” she implored.
Finlay looked up, stretching his head far back so he could peer into the night sky beyond the green ceiling above.
Amber took a second to gaze up towards the veiled sky herself. Stars shivered far above, trembling in the gathering night.
“It’s getting dark. No more time for idle chat, little lady. It’s time me and my brothers got ourselves ready. As for you…you just wait right here, like a good little fish on your wooden hook. It’ll be coming for you soon…our big catch…and when it does, we’ll be watching.
“Now, I’d like to say we’ll spring outta the bushes and save your tight little ass at the last minute, but that’s not gonna happen. We want that thing to get right down and dirty with you, and then, when it’s balls-deep in your city-slick little pussy, with nothing on its mind but busting a Bigfoot nut, that’s when we’ll nail the motherfucker.
“That sound like a good plan to you, little fish?”
Finlay withdrew a large hunting knife from his belt and brought it to her belly. Amber felt the cold steel kiss her flesh.
“Every living thing likes the smell of blood, don’t ya think?”
With one quick motion, he drew the blade across her sternum, opening her flesh in an agonising line of fire. Blood sluiced from the wound as he withdrew the knife. She felt its warmth trickle into her sweat soaked pants.
“Fuck you,” Amber growled, writhing hopelessly against the tree as the ropes burned her flesh and her blood spilled from the shallow wound. “Fuck all of you!”
Finlay let out a short burst of nervous laughter.
“Sounds like fun, sweetheart. Sadly, it ain’t us who’re gonna be doing the fucking, but you’re gonna wish it was. Sure as shit, you are…”
With that, he turned from her as though she was nothing, and made towards his brothers, his form shifting and blurring as the flames cast their glow upon him. Both Scott and Cole rose from the dwindling fire to meet their older brother head on, eyes wide with fear and legs weak with nerves.
Amber glared, disgusted, as the three men shared a quick hug. Just three good ole boys out doing a spot of hunting.
“Grab the shotguns,” Finlay ordered.
Scott moved outside the light of the campfire, and when he returned a few moments later, he produced what looked like two double barrel shotguns. One he handed to Finlay, and one to his other sibling. Both men cocked their guns, readying themselves for what was to come.
Again, Scott faded from the circle of illumination provided by the flickering flames. This time, he returned with a hunting rifle that Amber recognised as a Winchester. The powerful weapon shook in his hands and he nodded to his brothers.
“All set?” Finlay asked.
“Yes, sir,” the siblings answered in unison.
Finlay gave them a reassuring smile, ruffled Cole’s hair as he would a little kid, and then nodded towards the treeline, now lost to the pitch black night that fell from the heaven’s above to make a shadowed hell of the forest.
As the brothers slowly moved further and further from the radius of the firelight’s glow, disappearing like smoke into the darkness, Finlay turned to her one last time.
“I got it! You’re not a cop. You’re military! Damned if I shouldn’t have spotted that earlier. Served a little time over there, myself.”
He raised his hand to his forehead in a mockery of a military salute.
“Your country doesn’t thank you, sweetheart, but me and my brothers sure as hell do.”
Amber bucked against her restraints, fury burning in her blood like living fire. “I’ll fucking kill you all,” she growled with teeth bared and muscles trembling.
Finlay flashed his smile her way, bowed his head and answered, “Have a nice night, bitch. It’s sure gonna be romantic.”
Then he, too, disappeared from view, swallowed by the hungry dark, leaving Amber all alone with her terror and her rage.
6
Iraq had been so very different at night.
The sky there, no matter how far the sun had spun on its axis towards the other side of the world, never seemed to grow truly dark. The stars shone less bright up above, and the canvas of the heavens was one of deepest purples shot through with fiery red. The wide open spaces of the barren, near-lifeless desert only added to the strange sense of being caught outside of time.
In a way, she’d felt safe out there amidst the sand dunes, as though nothing of the world could ever touch her. In all directions, the land had been smooth, uncorrupted, offering a clear view of all that dwelt between the position of her platoon and the distant horizon. In the city of Fallujah, fear clung like sweat to her soul; each window of each building promising the threat of a sudden, bloody demise, be it by bullet, grenade or rocket. How disconcerting it had been to find the city so deadly and unpredictable, while the desert, where survival was so much harder and man’s place on the food chain far less secure, seemed to whisper to her of home.
She longed to be there now, with her friends at her side, knowing her enemy and able to defend herself. A clear view of present danger and the military at hand to combat it.
After years of battling the memories of that hellish place that tainted her heart and her happiness, Amber now believed she’d happily do another two tours, up to her tits in sand and bloodshed, rather than spend one more night in a Californian Redwood.
This place was wholly more dangerous. Even were she not tied to one of its majestic trees, being used as bait for a mythical creature that might just actually exist, she could go her whole life without ever seeing another leaf of goddam green or ever again smell the musky scent of bark.
Her own sanctuary, and that of her friends, had taken on the shivering dimensions of a nightmare.
A high wind whipped above her head, causing the trees to whisper secrets amongst themselves. Out there, beyond the campfire glow, each and every sound of the forest caused her heart to beat faster and harder. The crack of a branch, the rustle of a bush, the echo of the wind as it danced between the wooden pillars of the wilds; all were alien now. All were a threat. What had been home was now another world, and all it had took was some bullshit story told by a hillbilly with shit for brains and moonshine for blood.
“Life sure is weird,” Amber said to herself, as she finally gave up her battle with the ropes. “Whether you want to admit it to yourself or not…you believe those fuckers. God help you, girl…you do.”
She was going nowhere, and whatever was coming was going to come, whether she liked it or not. It was impossible to tell how much time had passed since the three Sasquatch hunters had made for the sanctuary of the treeline, but she figured it had been at least half an hour.
Half an hour of twisting, writhing, straining and gritting her teeth so hard with her effort that she was sure they’d crack and crumble right there in her mouth.
All for nothing.
The ropes held fast. All she’d managed to do was lacerate her arms and her hips in too many places to count.
The pain wasn’t the worst of it, though. Pain, she could handle. The worst of it was waiting.
Knowing that time was eggshell fragile, and held a terrible promise in its dark grip.
Doing her best to control her breathing, Amber scanned the periphery afforded to her by the firelight. Nothing moved, though she knew that the brothers were close, watching and waiting with guns aimed and fingers on the triggers.
Were they good aims?
Would they end up blowing her head off instead of killing their ‘monster’?
Shit, for all she knew, this whole thing was just some sick game and she, crumbling under the power of suggestion, had bought wholesale into a well-woven tale, s
pun entirely of horseshit.
It didn’t matter now. Not really.
What mattered was that she was here. She was Faye fucking Wray, waiting for King Kong to come stomping out the woods to claim her.
Her private parts…
Meat pushed through a grinder...
“Shut the fuck up,” she told her brain. “We’re on the same side, asshole.”
CRACK!
The sound came from her left. Close by. Couldn’t be more than ten feet away. Definitely on the woodland floor. Something moving with determination. Something heavy.
CRACK!
Again, closer this time, and a little to the right.
Amber’s heart thundered in her chest as Finlay’s words whistled through the corridors of her mind, on repeat; a song of savagery.
Meat pushed through a grinder.
She swallowed hard, took a deep breath.
“Come and get me, you motherfucker!” She roared into the grasping dark as a primal dread wrapped its infernal arms around her psyche.
CRACK!
There! Just beyond the firelight! No more than a few feet away. She saw movement.
Shadows within the shadows.
Black on black.
Something was coming.
It would be on her in seconds.
CRACK!
“Come on then, you fuck! I’m right here!” The hysteria in her voice frightened her. She wondered briefly if the last few hour’s entertainment had driven her mad.
“Come and get me, motherfucker!”
The forest fell silent.
And then, from right by her side, she was answered.
Amber whipped her head around, fast as a panicked cat.
“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” the voice asked.
7
When Lyn stepped into view from behind the tree - worry and concern etched into the very fabric of her beautiful, reassuring smile –Amber’s dam finally broke. The tears came freely.
“Is it you, Lyn? Is it really you?”
Lyn reached out and touched her face. “It’s me, kiddo. Now keep the goddam noise down…you’ve already alerted half the forest to your position…let’s get you the hell out of here, okay?”
Amber nodded, watching as Lyn pulled her hunting knife from her belt and immediately began sawing at the thick ropes. Within seconds the binds were loosened. Amber took a deep, rasping breath of air as the ropes that had clung to her skin like fire, tearing at her flesh with every move she made, fell to the forest floor.
“Can you walk?” Lyn whispered.
“You better damn well believe I can,” Amber’s legs, however, seemed to have a mind of their own. With one step, she fell to her knees, head lowered as nausea sent her vision into a tail spin. Her legs felt like jelly. “Jesus. I may need a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute.” Claire said, stepping from the darkness of the woods. “Whoever did this to you could still be close.”
Claire…
She was here, too.
Of course she was.
Her other friend was scanning the dark as though she could penetrate its murk. Constantly aware, supremely present in the moment, just as she’d been in the warzones where they’d endured the delights of a man-made hell.
She was the true warrior of the group, as adept with a gun as she was with a surgical knife. Amber immediately felt safer knowing she was there.
If perchance Clair had to save her life, then it would simply be one more notch in the belt. She’d been her guardian angel since they signed up together, trained together and then fell headlong into the conflict of money masters that had been the attack on Fallujah.
“Any sign of them?” Lyn asked.
Claire shook her head. “None…I think the sick fucks have taken off. They may have heard us coming. Not sure if that’s a good thing.
“They have guns.” Amber fought to stand. Lyn helped her onto her feet, positioning an arm around her friend’s waist as she rose to her full height.
Lyn smiled. “We have Claire.”
Claire nodded, in full soldier mode. Ready, alert and dangerous as any man who ever saw the horror of combat.
“Anyway,” Lyn reassured her. “They’re gone. We watched them take off. The hillbilly fucks must have gotten spooked.”
“No!” Amber watched the treeline.
The darkness watched back.
“You don’t understand!” she told her friends. “They weren’t leaving. They…they’re using me.”
“Over my dead fucking body, they are! Come on, hold onto me.” Lyn held her close.
“Listen to me, Lyn, for god’s sake. They’re using me as bait!”
“What’re you talking about?”
From the periphery of the woods, Claire urged, “No time for chit-chat, bitches. We gotta get moving.”
“Agreed,” Let’s revisit this shit later, Amber. Sound good?”
Amber stopped in her tracks, turning to face her friend.
“Lyn, I think there’s something else out there. Something worse than those men...”
Lyn grunted. “Claire, you spot anything?”
Claire was silent.
“Claire, for Christ’s sake, do you…”
Amber felt her stomach twist in knots as together, she and Lyn turned to the spot where Claire stood.
Or had stood.
Now, there was only the darkness, ever deepening, thick as oil.
Claire was gone.
“Claire!” Lyn hissed. “Where the fuck are you!?”
There was no answer.
The woods remained as silent as the grave.
“What the fuck is going on, Amber?” Lyn asked, fear finding its footing in her voice at last as she clutched her friend; now less as a support and more for comfort.
Amber watched the spot where her friend had stood mere seconds ago.
Again, she felt eyes on her. A chill ran down her spine that had little to do with the Californian night.
Both girls screamed involuntarily as, from within the pitch black woods, they heard a low, prolonged grunt – primal, animalistic, and altogether alien, followed by a high-pitched scream that rang out for only a second and was then cut short.
From the darkness, Claire emerged.
What was left of Claire.
The headless corpse spun from the darkness, passing above their heads like a ragdoll thrown asunder by its demented owner, hurtling forward, volleyed in their direction by some incredible force.
Impossible.
Both girls stared in horror as their decapitated friend hurtled through the night air, almost too fast to follow, then smashed into a thick redwood with a sickening crack that broke her remains apart like a blood and organ-filled piñata.
Amber reached down and held her best friend’s hand. No longer two soldiers; now, no more than two frightened children, awaiting an unknown wrath.
There were no further sounds. The woods once again fell into an abyssal silence.
“Holy fuck!” Lyn screamed. “Claire!”
“Lyn…! We have to go!”
“Jesus fucking Christ! What the hell is going on!?”
“There’s something else out here with us! We have to go!”
Lyn seemed stuck on a loop. “Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.”
Amber shook her friend. “Lyn! Let’s GO!”
Lyn’s eyes seemed to clear a little. “Oh my God…Claire…she’s…”
Lyn’s last word never escaped her throat as, from behind her, something grabbed her head in two huge, inhuman hands, holding her like a basketball.
Amber screamed as Lyn’s grip left hers.
She fell to the dirt, gazing up in horror as the firelight flickered and the massive shadow behind her friend loomed high. There was no time to make out the details. No time to study the miserable contours of the horror that held her friend in its powerful grip as though she was no more than a rag doll.
The giant thing stood behind Lyn
lifted her off her feet by her head.
And squeezed.
The sound lasted only seconds. A whining, high-pitched squeal unlike anything Amber had ever heard. A cracking accompanied her friend’s agonised moan as the great creature crushed her skull in its vice-like grip. As Amber watched, struck immobile by terror, Lyn’s eyes bulged in her head. The squeal became a wet howl as the beast in the shadows slowly brought its brutish hands closer together.
Amber could hear Lyn’s teeth grind together as the torment increased and the creature applied more and more pressure. It seemed to enjoy Lyn’s pain, prolonging it as she kicked and flailed uselessly at the air; a child in the grip of a monstrous father.
In moments, the grinding of Lyn’s teeth morphed into an awful crackling. Her teeth shattered in her mouth, lacerating her gums as, in the throes of unspeakable pain, she bit down with jagged, crunched incisors and cut through the flesh like butter. Some fragments of her molars were expelled at speed from the pressure the beast applied. Some dribbled down her torn up lips like broken candies from an infant’s untrained mouth.
Amber struggled to find her feet, desperate to help her dearest friend as the massive creature toyed with her like a cat would an insect.
She couldn’t stand. Only moments had passed since she’d been cut down. Her legs continued to betray her.
And betray her friend.
But what good could she do, anyway?
Against the unseen monstrosity wreathed in shadow, all her training would render her as ineffectual as smoke against stone.
“Lyn,” she whispered, reaching up for her friend.
Lyn, even in the grip of her torment, raised a trembling hand, reaching for her. The two girls met eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” Amber cried.
From behind Lyn came a low, guttural laugh.
Human, and yet less than human.
Lyn tried to utter something. Blood spilled from her mouth and painted her chin a deepest black.
The creature squeezed tighter, bored with its play, and Amber watched in misery as her friend’s deep, beautiful blue eyes erupted from her skull as though an explosion had gone off inside her head. They swung on their stalks, trailing blood and clear, jellied slime along Lyn’s cheeks as her friend moaned, sounding utterly unhuman, shorn of all that made her who she was.
The Wild: A Campfire Tale (Razorblade Candies Book 3) Page 3