Seth was no longer listening to them. He was instead concentrating all of his attention on the young woman. Her shirt separated from her skin with a squishing sound, the material soaked in blood and dripping onto her stomach. He pulled it up to her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra but the blood had not reached that high, it was centralized on her abdomen. Darian appeared at his side again, this time with a towel.
Seth carefully wiped at the pool of blood around her navel, sopping it up with the towel as he pushed it across her stomach. The woman’s chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm but her body remained limp. He blinked several times in the hope of clearing his vision because what he was seeing refused to compute. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What is it?” Louis asked.
“I can’t…” Seth continued cleaning the area with the now sodden towel, moving faster and with less care. “There’s no—I can’t find a wound.”
Darian leaned in. “Where the hell is it?”
“There isn’t one.” Seth dropped the towel. It hit the floor with a splat. The young woman’s hands and wrists were bruised, as were her ankles, and her feet had sustained several small cuts from the ground, but now that the blood had been wiped away, her abdomen was smooth and clean.
Louis backed away a bit. “Well that’s somebody’s fucking blood.”
“Ray, get those blankets around her. She’s still shivering and probably in shock.” Seth stood up and ran a hand through his hair. Despite the cold it was damp with perspiration. “And close that door. We need to keep her warm.”
“We need to get her out of here,” Raymond said flatly, “and to a hospital.”
Louis crossed the small main room quickly, grabbed his rifle from a closet in the corner and began checking it over. “I’m gonna keep an eye on that ridge. She was sure as hell running like somebody was chasing her.”
Raymond still hadn’t moved, so Darian went to him, grabbed the blankets and began covering and tucking them tightly around the young woman. “Look, we have no idea what’s going on here or what may have happened. We need to call the police.”
Seth started for the door. “My cell’s in the SUV.”
“Won’t work, told you that before,” Louis said. “No signal up here.”
“Christ, it figures.” Seth stopped in his tracks. “We better drive into town and find a policeman then, even a town that small has to have at least one.”
“Problem is the snow’s already falling.” Louis, now positioned at the door like a sentry, the rifle held firmly in his hands, watched the forest from which the young woman had come. Though still light, the snow had begun. “According to the weather assholes it’s gonna be one hell of a storm.”
“According to them this wasn’t even supposed to hit until later in the week,” Darian said. “So listening to them might not be the best idea anyway.”
“We try to make it now and odds are we won’t be able to get back here until the storm passes. We’d have to wait until tomorrow once it’s over. If it’s over by then, that is.”
Seth glanced at the rifle. “Will you put that thing away? You look ridiculous.”
“I won’t look ridiculous if I save your ass with it.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Louis, save me from what?”
“Well that’s the whole point, isn’t it?” Louis stepped out onto the front steps of the cabin, his breath trailing behind him. “We got no idea what’s out there.”
“Listen to me. Someone’s obviously been badly hurt and—”
“Wow. See, now I never would’ve thought of that.”
Seth was in no mood for Louis’s sarcasm, but rather than engage him he paced about a bit, trying his best to harness the tension surging through him into something productive. “What do you think we should do, Mother?”
“Not sure,” Darian answered. “But we need to know where that blood came from.”
“Maybe she was holding someone else who was bleeding,” Louis said. “Look at Seth’s shirt from carrying her just a few feet.”
Seth shrugged. “How she got this way is immaterial, we need to—”
“Immaterial?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, man, I don’t. I got no idea what you mean.”
“Lou, we need to get this girl to a doctor regardless. From there the authorities can handle things.”
“Absolutely,” Darian agreed. “This has nothing to do with us. The only thing is, if someone else nearby is badly injured we need to find them while there’s still some chance we can help.”
“But we got no idea where this girl came from,” Louis said.
Raymond lit a cigarette, smoked it quietly.
“Could be any number of scenarios,” Seth said. “A small plane crash, maybe, an animal attack or some sort of hunting accident—who knows?”
“You’re not in the city now, fellas.” Louis continued watching the forest, his back to them. “There’s lots of small aircraft up here but if one went down we would’ve heard it and seen evidence of it—smoke or something—on the horizon, above the trees. If it was a hunting accident, we would’ve heard shots. You can hear gunfire out here for miles clear as a bell. And as for an animal attack, it’s possible but unlikely.” He looked back over his shoulder long enough to give the others a patronizing stare. “I know this area, OK? I know what I’m talking about.”
“You borrow this place from your uncle once or twice a year,” Seth reminded him. “You come up here with your kids for a weekend, cut some wood, build a campfire and walk around with that rifle and all of a sudden you’re an expert?”
“More of an expert than you are, chief, bank on that.”
“Fine, then how about some intelligent advice we can actually use?”
“What the hell you think I’m trying to do? This is the first time you guys have been up here. I’ve been coming for a few years now. That’s all I’m saying, OK?” Louis resumed his guard duty at the door. “Whatever. You big woodsmen figure it out.”
Raymond continued smoking his cigarette but was now looking at the floor.
“Look, people are hurt here.” Darian rose to his feet. “We need to figure out what we’re doing and we need to do it quickly.”
“Louis, you told me once before that there were other cabins in the area,” Seth said. “What’s the closest one in the direction she came from, over the ridge?”
“I got no idea. I know how to get here and how to get out, that’s about it. That’s why I told you guys before not to go wandering off alone in the woods. It’s easy to get lost out here.”
“Yes but you did say there were other cabins nearby.”
“There’s private cabins sprinkled all over these woods, man, but it’s not like there’s a map or something. Only thing I’ve ever seen is smoke from a chimney fire a few times in the distance over the ridge, but not this trip. Not yet anyway.”
“She could’ve come from there then.”
“Could be, but unless you know exactly where you’re going, you can wander around lost in these woods for the rest of your life and never find anything. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This isn’t some park with a few trees like in the city. This is the deep woods, this is the wilds of Maine, man, and it’s no playground out there. Shit, especially this time of year. You make a couple bad moves in these parts and you can wind up dead real easy.”
“All right, then the only other alternative is to get her into the SUV and head for town. If we get stuck there due to the storm we get stuck, not much we can do about it.”
Raymond finally broke his silence. “There’s something you guys haven’t thought of.”
The others turned to him in unison.
“Couple years ago I was in this bar down in Florida,” he continued. “Real dump. These two guys got into an argument over something and squared off. Everybody figures it’s just two drunk dip-shits swinging on each other, right? Until this one guy pulls out a knife and stabs the other one real f
ast and real hard, right here.” Raymond pointed to the side of his neck. “Blood sprayed out that fucker like water through a garden hose on full blast. He died before the ambulance got there. Never saw so much blood in all my life.”
“What the hell’s this got to do with anything?” Louis asked. “What’s your point?”
“My point,” Raymond said evenly, “is that when it was all said and done, the guy that did the stabbing had as much blood on him as the guy he stabbed.” As a silence fell over the cabin, Raymond moved to the doorway, took a final drag from his cigarette and flicked it outside, over Louis’s shoulder. “See what I mean?”
“The bottom line is we don’t know what’s happened here,” Darian said. “Ray’s right. She could be a victim, but she could just as easily be some disturbed person who hurt or killed someone else. We don’t know either way, and as far as I’m concerned that’s reason enough to get her into town. Let the police figure this all out.”
The sound of coughing interrupted them.
The young woman had come awake. She was still groggy and remained wrapped in the blankets, but once the coughing stopped she tried to speak. “No police, no—no police, please.” Her voice was raspy and strained, as if she hadn’t used it in a long while. “Please.”
Louis stepped around the others. “What’s going on? Is somebody after you?”
The woman considered him a moment through glassy eyes. A bit of drool slipped from the corner of her mouth. “No,” she managed. “Not…not anymore.”
Seth slid between them and crouched next to the bed. “No one here’s going to hurt you, OK?” He gently rested a hand on hers. Her skin was cold and taut. “You came into our camp like someone was right on your heels. We brought you in here so you’d be warm. You’re all right now, do you understand?”
She nodded slowly, and with great effort.
“Can you tell us what happened?” he asked, maintaining the same calm tone he’d had with her throughout. “We need to know what’s going on so we can help you, OK?”
“I’m…so cold.”
“The coffee’s still hot,” Darian said, moving toward the kitchen area. “I’ll get a cup.”
“I’m Seth.” He checked to make sure the blankets were tucked in tightly around her then motioned to the others in turn. “That’s my brother Raymond. This is Louis, and that’s Darian over there.”
“Christy,” she said, still slurring.
“How old are you, Christy?”
“Nineteen.”
Seth wasn’t sure he believed her. “Are you up here alone?”
She stared at him as if she hadn’t understood the question.
“Are your parents with you or—”
“No.”
“Any friends then, or—”
“I haven’t seen my parents in a…a long time.”
Darian returned with a steaming mug of coffee and handed it to Seth. Afraid she might be too weak to hold it by herself Seth carefully brought the mug to her lips and helped her take a sip. As the warmth hit her system it seemed to instantaneously awaken her, and within a few moments she appeared far more coherent. Seth continued to assist her until she eventually took the mug in her hands and was able to hold and maneuver it on her own.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Christy,” Seth said through a staid smile, “your shirt was covered with blood.”
She sipped more coffee, her eyes moving slowly from one man to the next. “He tried to kill me.”
“Who did? Who tried to kill you?”
“This guy picked me up hitching not far from Portland.”
“Where is he now?”
“Back at his cabin, I…” as her voice trailed off her eyes glistened with tears. “I left him back at his cabin.”
“So that’s his blood on your shirt then?”
“I’m from Florida originally,” she said softly, “but I left home when I was sixteen. My dad died when I was eleven, and me and my mom never got along. I had to get out of there.” She held the mug closer to her face, let the warm steam wash over her. “I knew another girl from school who wanted to take off too, so we hooked up and ran away. We were together for a couple years on the road, going around from place to place, but then we got mixed up with some crazy-ass bikers in South Carolina and Jeanie—that was my friend—took off with them and left me on my own. I was like seventeen by then and I knew my way around so it was no big deal.” She offered a short-lived, self-conscious smile before taking another sip of coffee.
“Yeah, fascinating,” Louis said, “but we didn’t ask for your life story. What were you doing running through the woods covered in blood?”
Christy’s eyes narrowed, squinting groggily. “Sorry, I—”
“Never mind all that,” Seth said. “Go ahead.”
“I was thinking I’d go see Canada, you know? I never saw Canada before and they always say how beautiful it is. Usually in winter you got to stick to warmer places if you’re on the road, but I figured I’d go north this year, maybe see Montreal, you know? I wanted to see Montreal ever since I was a little girl.” She seemed to relax somewhat, and drew the blankets in closer with her free hand. “I was making my way there, hitching, and this guy picked me up a little ways after Portland. Redneck type, you know? But I’ve been on the road for years; I can take care of myself, OK?” Her voice cracked. She looked down into the coffee mug then handed it over to Seth as if it now disgusted her. He took it and she settled deeper into the blankets, a single tear rolling the length of her cheek.
Though she appeared impossibly young at times, clear views of her face left no doubt that her short life had been a dreadful one. A girl her age should not have had the astute, streetwise eyes and depth of sorrow she so clearly possessed, Seth thought, yet they were qualities unmistakable in her. This was no little girl playing tough, she’d lived it.
“When you’re on the road sometimes you have to do things,” she muttered. “You have to survive.”
Louis shook his head. “We get it, you’re a hooker.”
“Ignore him.” Seth glared at him then turned back to Christy with a far friendlier expression. “We all do.”
“I’m not a hooker—not really—I mean, I’ve done some things I’m not proud of to survive but it’s not like I’m some whore working a corner or something, I—”
“Christy,” Seth said calmly, “what happened with this man who gave you the ride?”
Her face went blank, the emotion gone. “He picked me up early in the morning. Real early, like just after dawn. I don’t know if I walked all night or if I stopped and slept for a while, I—I can’t remember. But when he picked me up I wasn’t far outside Portland. The only thing I remember about the night before was I was really tired and I had my backpack and I thought about just going off into the woods on the side of the road and going to sleep. The road was really quiet that night, hardly any cars, and it was raining. I remember…I remember the rain. It was so cool. You know that really beautiful and peaceful kind of rain? I was so tired and my legs hurt from walking—I did a lot of walking that day—and I remember how nice the rain was until…until it turned into a storm, a—a bad storm. I was scared and I didn’t really know why, I mean it’s not like I was never out in a storm before. There was just something about this one that didn’t seem right, I guess. Kind of trippy, you know?”
“Uh-huh.” Louis sighed. “What kind of drugs were you doing?”
His voice snapped her out of the trancelike posture, and her expression again turned sad and weak. “I smoke a little weed sometimes, so what?”
“It’s all right,” Seth assured her. “What happened with the man?”
“I just remember him pulling over to pick me up the next morning. It was real early, like I said, and I got a weird vibe off this guy but I was so tired and there weren’t any other cars around so I took the ride.” Her expression grew intense as she forced herself to recall things she clearly didn’t want to remember. “He said he
was going all the way to Cutler, and that it was real close to the Canadian border. He told me he’d let me ride with him all the way. He didn’t try anything but I knew there was something about him, something not right, you know? When you’ve been in as many strange cars as I have you get a sense about the people driving them. But I figured I needed the ride so I’d wait and see how it all worked out.
“After a few hours I fell asleep,” she continued. “You should never do that when you’re hitching but I couldn’t help it I was so—so tired, you know? I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. Anyways, I fell asleep. I don’t know how long I was out but when I woke up we weren’t on the highway anymore. That’s what woke me up, the road got all bumpy and I saw we were on some dirt road going through the woods. I asked him what was happening and where we were going, and he—he never said anything. He just hit me, like all of a sudden, back-handed me right in the mouth. I couldn’t believe it, and I thought: ‘this guy’s gonna kill me, he’s gonna rape me and kill me out in these woods.’ We were already out in the middle of nowhere and even if I tried to run he could’ve caught me easy.”
Seth brushed aside a wave of anger. The idea of someone hurting her made his blood boil. “Is that how you got the bruises on your wrists and ankles?”
Christy gazed at the marks on her wrists as if she’d forgotten they were there. “He kept me tied up when he wasn’t...” She bowed her head, cried quietly a moment.
“It’s all right.” Seth put a hand on her shoulder, rubbed it gently. “You’re OK now. No one’s going to hurt you anymore.”
“He took me to a cabin,” she eventually said, wiping the tears from her face. “Kind of like this one, only not as nice. It was older and dirty, kind of rundown. I don’t know how long I was there. A few days maybe, I—I’m not sure. He kept me tied up and blindfolded most of the time. He was crazy. He kept telling me if I tried to get away or fight him he’d kill me, cut me up into little pieces and bury them out in the woods. He said nobody would ever find me because nobody would even look. He said nobody cared if some runaway whore disappears.”
Deep Night Page 2