Authors: Patti Larsen
After a few staggered steps, he gets his stride back and heads down the path. The moon is behind him, lighting his way, casting his shadow forward and to the left. He knows that means he is traveling in a certain direction, can hear his father telling him about it, but can’t concentrate on it and lets it be. Not like it matters much, anyway. He has no intention of needing that information. The path should take him where he needs to go.
Reid stumbles over a large root dividing the path and takes a sudden fall to the left. His hand instinctively reaches out for support and finds the bark of a tree. It saves him from falling, the hand that caught it sliding over the coarse coating of moss and loose wood. As it does, he feels a change in the contact. Something soft protrudes from the trunk. He turns to look, eyes settling on the moonlit gaze of a boy.
It takes Reid a moment to register and another to process. The kid is as tall as he is, but looks a lot younger. His eyes are wide open, staring, glaring. There is something wrong with the front of his shirt. Reid takes in the blank stare, fingers still traveling over the boy’s clothing until they come to rest on the large, dark patch over the kid’s stomach. Wetness resides there. Reid pulls his hand back and looks. The liquid is black in the moonlight but has a distinctive aroma. Coppery. And now that he is paying attention, he notices another smell. A heavy and angry scent that makes his nose constrict, his stomach flutter, his mind shriek in fear even as he looks down and notices the boy’s sneakers are a good foot off the ground.
The kid smells like road kill, like some squashed skunk or car-flattened raccoon left too long in the sun. Reid backs away in a hurry, slips on something slimy underfoot, stumbles and falls, not noticing the impact, eyes locked on the gaping wound in the boy’s stomach. Someone is screaming into the darkness. When he realizes it’s him, Reid shuts down. His own belly lurches, tries to expel something, anything, but only bile comes up. Reid hastily wipes his fingers on the ground, desperate to get the boy’s blood off of him. It seems very important for some reason.
The kid is pinned to the tree trunk with what looks like big metal spikes. He dangles there, a sick and twisted art project, thought up by a madman.
Reid tries to rise, but the slick something that sent him to the ground is still stuck to his sneaker. He looks down and screams again. A length of sausage-like intestine clings to him. It drags after him like an obscene and putrid snake as he back-pedals on his hands and feet further from the dead kid. When he understands he is bringing it with him, he kicks out. The coil flies off, the contents splattering into the forest with soft, wet sounds, the flattened section landing in the middle of the path, ridged with the impression of his shoe.
Reid gasps for breath, chokes on the fresh air tainted with decay. He scrambles to his feet again, scraping his sneaker against the uneven ground, digging into the dirt of the path to get the boy’s insides off of him. It isn’t until he backs into a tree that his real fear kicks in.
The boy stares at him, warns him with his empty eyes, blood running in black rivers from his gut and where the spikes hold his collarbone taut.
Run
, he seems to whisper.
Run before it’s too late
.
Reid can’t. His body is frozen from dawning realization. The boy is dead. Dead. How, who, why, when…? The questions sputter through his mind, spin and twine around his fear and drive him to panic. But none of this matter. Not really. After the initial shock settles over him, all that really gets through to Reid is that he must be there for the same reason as this boy and that means he could be next.
The very thought drives his heart to race harder, faster, so much so he struggles to stay conscious, feeling the darkness reaching out to grab him and drag him under. He almost gives in to it, would have, he is sure of it, if it weren’t for the noise.
It is nothing, really. The crack of a small branch, easily explained away by the shifting of the wind or the natural release of deadwood. But, to Reid, it is a gunshot right to his flight instinct.
He doesn’t think or breathe or flinch. Instead, Reid turns and runs.
***
Chapter Two
Reid runs until his lungs threaten to cave in. Reid runs until his ankles lose their feeling. Reid runs, the flight of a terrified animal, flinging himself forward into the unknown because he has no other choice and simply isn’t able to stop himself.
Reid runs until he can’t anymore. His body betrays him at last, the exertion too much for his weakened state. He staggers to a halt in the near dark of the path, barely catching himself from falling over as his equilibrium rushes to keep up with the rest of him. He collapses forward, hands on knees. What is left of his lungs heaves for air. Adrenaline pours through his system, sharpening his senses, driving away the last of whatever drug his kidnappers gave him that dulled his mind.
At least he can think now. But he isn’t sure that’s a good thing. Especially when he looks up and finds himself so exposed. What the hell is he thinking? He ducks into the trees off the path, suddenly not sure if hiding is even an option. Did that kid try to hide? If so, it didn’t work out so well for him. Reid’s mind continues to spin with questions he has no way of answering. Still, they are more coherent than they were before his headlong dash.
Who was that boy? Where did he come from? More importantly, who killed him? And why was he left on the path?
As a warning
. Reid’s brain works that much out. Of course. But why warn him at all? If he is prey for something or someone, if this is some kind of sick game and he is the target, why tip him off?
They want me afraid. More fun for the hunter.
His mind refuses to accept it. He has to be over reacting. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen in real life. It’s way too Hollywood. Any second now someone will show up and flash a camera in his face and laugh, telling him how stupid he looked running from a movie prop. Reid shudders from the memory of the boy’s entrails. No. That was real. Too real. It isn’t possible. And yet, here he is, alone and abandoned in the dark, deep in a forest he knows nothing about, left there by two men who seemed to think his luck has run out. How do they know?
He’s still in shock and fights the affects, knowing it is slowing him down, keeping him stupid, forcing him to react instead of doing what he needs to do to survive. He thanks his father silently in the dark for teaching him how to handle himself in the woods.
To a point. Good old Dad never mentioned being kidnapped, dumped and hunted in the wilderness survival boot camp he made Reid run through for two weeks every summer. It had been fun, then. This is most definitely nothing like that.
Still, his father’s levelheaded nature wins through and shakes Reid into some kind of calm. Enough he is able to work some things out.
I need answers. But first, I need to find out where I am and if I can get away.
It isn’t much of a plan, but it makes him feel a little better. Just the idea of acting settles his mind and helps him focus. Reid turns and looks up at the moon. First thing’s first. Bearings and direction. If he can figure out which way is north, he will at least be able to pick a goal and follow it consistently. Lost In The Woods 101. Basics, really. Stuff he’s known most of his life. But at the moment, those basics are the only lifeline he has to cling to. Not for the last time, Reid whispers another thank you to his dead father.
His eyes register a flicker in the trees across the path. It’s only the barest of movements, but it freaks him out and forces him deeper into the surrounding forest. Reid struggles for calm. He needs to focus. Everything that happens from now on is important and if he doesn’t keep it together, he will die. The kid with the empty gut and the rotting entrails convinced him of that.
The flicker gets closer. Just a brief shadow passing, something darker than night moving through the trees, weaving in and out of sight. At times it disappears for so long Reid is sure it’s his imagination until it shows up again. He holds his breath and eases himself low to the ground, ignoring the scratches he gets from the underbrush and the risk of poison oak or ivy, keeping to the full shadows. Every movement crushes needles, stirs the dirt at his feet, filling his nose with the smell of the forest. He does his best to be silent. After all, it could be an animal. Tons of big cats and even bears in these woods, he’s sure. He desperately tries to remember what his father told him about surviving animal attacks, all the while trying to convince himself it must be some sort of carnivorous predator looking for dinner.
For some reason, he’s pretty sure it isn’t.
When the flickering shadow emerges from the darkness and sets foot on the path, Reid softly exhales through his mouth in a combination of fear and relief. Not an animal then. A man, dressed all in black. Reid half wishes it was some kind of wild creature. On the other hand, if it were, he might have a harder time. A bear or a mountain lion could take him out with little chance of defending himself. There is hope he might escape from a man.
Reid watches the dark figure glide silently down the path, everything about him screaming predator and he suddenly wonders if he’s right to think there is any escape from this enemy. The hunter’s clothing is tight to his body, right down to a full hood that covers his head but leaves his pale face exposed. Reid doesn’t see any weapons. He knows that means little. Besides, it’s not the man’s attire that freaks Reid out the most. It’s the way he moves. Every motion is so fluid Reid shudders. There is no way a man can move like that, not even the best-trained commando. There is an unnaturalness to it, more animal than human, but even beyond what a skulking cat could pull off.
Reid’s panic takes him over for a heartbeat, screaming at him to get away. The man is a monster, has to be, something out of a horror novel or a scary movie, a creature that only looks like a man. Reid spends the next ten seconds being wrenched back and forth between his terror and his need to understand. He finally manages to wrestle himself back under control just as the hunter comes to a halt across from him.
Every cell in Reid’s body demands he run, and now. He holds himself in check, his father’s patient voice telling him over and over, never run from a predator. Always best to hide or play dead. Although supposedly making loud noises would do the trick as well, but somehow Reid doesn’t think that will do him any good. The idea is so ludicrous he almost giggles from the stress. His skin vibrates with the agony of keeping still.
He has to tell himself over and over that this is just a man. Nothing special. Just very well trained. He has no way of knowing if he can outrun this hunter and hiding seems his best choice. Playing dead will only end with him being dead. Hiding is it. But his instincts are on fire and he desperately needs to put distance between them any way he can.
Sweat forms on Reid’s upper lip, tricking down the corner of his mouth. Not thinking about it, he licks it away, eyes never leaving the man on the path. The dark head cocks to the side as Reid’s tongue moves over his skin, as though hearing the near silent swipe of flesh on flesh. Reid freezes and holds his breath. No way. There is no way the man heard him. And yet, the dark figure turns further toward him and lifts his head. Reid hears snuffling. Impossible. Crazy. But it’s the only explanation.
The man is searching for him by smell.
For a moment an irrational thought crosses Reid’s mind as he crouches there in the darkness, watching the hunter come closer and closer. What if this man can help him? Reid is running only because of the boy he found. What if this man wasn’t involved but is here to save him? Reid has no idea what is going on. Maybe if he cries out he will be saved. He catches himself as his weight shifts forward unbidden, his frantic mind searching for the logic in what is happening to him. He holds himself still and quiet again, battling his terror while he resists wiping the sweat from his face.
He’ll hear me.
How, Reid hasn’t a clue. But he knows it is true. And when the man’s face turns toward the bushes where Reid hides, when he freezes on the path and focuses on Reid crouching in the shadows, though there is no way he should be able to spot anything in the heavy black, Reid is grateful he stilled that impulse.
This man is deadly. There is no question of that, no doubt. Trusting this man would be like handing himself over to the devil. For all Reid knows, that’s exactly who the hunter is. And he
is
hunting. Everything about him yells it out loud despite his body’s silence. There is no mistake, no misunderstanding.
And he knows Reid is there.
Run. He needs to run. But he is trapped in the underbrush. He can feel the prickle of thorns, the tug of the branches around him, as though the very forest has turned against him and will serve him up as a sacrifice to the hunter. Reid knows he might be able to escape deeper into the trees, but without light to see by he will most likely fall in his flight and be caught. He stays frozen, new indecision tearing him in half. He is unable to act as the man takes one sliding step closer, then another. It’s like the battle between flight and terror cannot be won and Reid is caught in the middle with certain death only a breath away.
His heart is about to burst from it, he is certain. He needn’t wait for the hunter to catch him. His own body might kill him first. But even while he thinks it, Reid is also sure of one more thing. If the man catches him, Reid
will
die. And no one will ever know.
Something starts out of the bushes further down the path. The sound is so sudden and loud in the stillness, Reid has to clamp both hands over his mouth to keep from crying out. His eyes immediately go to the source, expecting a deer or maybe a fox. Instead, he spots a skinny figure staggering onto the trail. It’s a boy, about the same age as the other, the dead one on the tree. He stills like a terrified rabbit, face turned back toward Reid for a second before he tries to run.