In the Woods Read online

  “You got what you deserved,” she said before reaching out, her hands shaking, to go through his pockets. There was some poetic justice in how he’d died—the chains that had kept her and seven other women prisoners before they’d been murdered had ended up being the cause of his own death as well.

  There was no phone—just like the first man, she assumed it was too easy for the police to trace—but she did find a set of keys. For the plane? She hoped so, though she had no intention of trying to fly it. She might need them to get the radio working, however. Not that she had any idea how to work a radio either. The only knowledge she had came from watching movies where they used the radio to call ‘mayday,’ and even then, she had no clue who was supposed to be on the other end.

  A crazed laugh escaped her lips. “That would be just my luck, huh, ladies? Defeat two murdering bastards, escape from a chained tree, cross the woods while injured and dehydrated, only to be brought down by a piece of technology.”

  For some reason, this caught her funny bone, and she bleated laughter, while tears rolled down her cheeks. At least she was able to cry again, which meant the water she’d drunk must have done its job. At some point soon, she might even need to pee again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d urinated.

  “Well, at least you didn’t end up drinking your own pee.”

  That set her off again. She was vaguely aware that she was hysterical and needed to get a grip, but it was a combination of everything she’d been through and knowing she still had a battle ahead.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Eventually, Cass pulled herself together.

  She didn’t want to spend another night out here, and even though she was feeling better after having drunk some water and eaten the candy and trail mix, she was still massively dehydrated. Plus, her hand needed to be looked at by a professional, though she suspected by the time she reached the hospital, it would be too late for them to do anything to allow her to regain the use of her thumb and forefinger. Bizarrely, something that she would have broken down over only a matter of days ago, like losing the use of two of her digits, now seemed like a mere inconvenience. At least it wasn’t her most dominant hand. She’d needed to use that hand to hold the knife, so it was her left one that was damaged.

  She needed to get going and try to reach the planes.

  Cass picked up the bag from where the Magician had dropped it. She paused and looked back to where the knife had fallen. After a moment’s consideration, she bent and picked it up as well. While she might not like seeing all the dried blood, it had helped her out of two sticky situations now—three, if she counted her original kidnapper stabbing himself in the throat with it—and she was starting to feel like the knife was a good luck talisman. It didn’t feel right to leave the knife behind. She considered jamming it into the waistband of her pants for easy access but changed her mind. She was unstable on her feet, and she’d already seen what had happened to her original kidnapper. The possibility of falling and stabbing herself through the leg was too great, so instead she added the knife to the top of the bag.

  She turned her attention back to the spot where she and the real Magician had broken back through into the clearing. The Magician had known his way and had taken the most direct route from the airstrip to here, so she’d do her best to follow the trail he’d taken. She didn’t know how much strength she had left in her, but if she was going to make it, she couldn’t waste time or energy wandering around in circles. She’d almost finished the bottle of water, and so far hadn’t seen any signs of lakes or rivers nearby. She could still die of thirst, especially if she got lost out here.

  On a normal day, the trek through the woods wouldn’t seem like a big deal at all, but right now it felt like a marathon. The pain in her hand hadn’t eased any, but she’d detached from the burning agony in a way, while at the same time knowing the pain would return as soon as she focused on it. A shaking had set down deep in her bones which she put down to shock, and it made the chain still attached to her ankles jangle like a Halloween ghoul.

  Cass threw a final glance over her shoulder, toward the bodies of the two men, the seven mounds of earth covering the bodies of the murdered women, and the tree that had almost become her grave.

  “I hope I never have to come back here,” she managed to say, her voice a strangled rasp.

  And then she took the first step of many and walked away from the clearing and back into the woods.

  She did her best to focus on the track the Magician had taken. Her feet scuffed through needles and leaves and undergrowth, the chain between her ankles catching on protruding twigs and rocks, threatening to trip her. She barely heard the constant whine of the mosquitos or the happy twittering of the birds in the branches of the trees overhead. Like the pain, they’d all become background noise to her. The bag bumped and jolted against her back as she moved, and subconsciously she touched the strap every few minutes as though to make sure it was still there. A mild breeze rustled the leaves around her, lightly touching her face with blessed coolness. Her skin felt hot to the touch, and the shivering she’d put down to shock had taken on a fluey feel.

  There were moments where she fell into a daze, her mind drifting away so that she didn’t know where she was. She snapped back, only to realize she couldn’t remember taking the last part of the trail. She weaved around heavy clumps of bushes, wondering if they’d been there before, or if, during one of her dazes, she completely walked off the right track.

  Cass clambered over a fallen log. As she ducked down, big splotches of black appeared in her vision. She lost her balance, and the world tipped, spilling her into a tangle of brambles on the other side. She climbed out, barely noticing how the thorns caught on her skin and tore, leaving rows of pinpricks of blood.

  Making sure the bag was back in place on her shoulder, she kept going, shuffling one foot in front of the other.

  How long had she been walking? Should she have reached the planes by now?

  Just like before, everything looked the same. The sunlight filtered through the trees, the leaves creating a kaleidoscope of patterned light and shadow. Deeper shadows were carved into hollows in tree trunks and beneath the bushes. Sometimes, she thought she saw someone standing, hidden within the shadows, watching her as she staggered by, but her feverish brain knew it was only her imagination.

  Up ahead, something caught the sunlight and reflected it back at her, bright enough to make her squint and lift her good arm to protect her eyes. Cass frowned. What was that? She took a few more shuffled steps, moving out of the direct line of the reflected light. Craning her neck as she peered forward, she caught a glimpse of red and white painted metal, and the glass that had shone the light back at her.

  A plane!

  Cass let out a sob of relief. She could barely believe she’d made it.

  She staggered forward, and her legs gave way, throwing her to the ground. The movement jolted her injured hand, and she cried out as burning hot pain lanced through her. But she wasn’t going to be stopped now, not when she was so close.

  She broke through the trees and out into the cleared area of the runway.

  Both planes sat, almost side by side, as though awaiting her arrival. The plane the real Magician had flown here in was a different make than the one she’d arrived in, with its wings beneath the body of the plane, instead of above. Plus, it appeared to only have one door on the pilot’s side, while the original plane had two.

  Door. Doors meant locks, and locks needed keys.

  Luckily, she had them on her.

  She pushed her hand into her pocket and pulled out the set of keys she’d taken from the real Magician. As she removed them, something small and metal fell out, landing on the ground at her feet.

  Cass glanced down at the item and blinked to bring the shiny object into focus. She realized what the item was and barked out something between a laugh and a sob. Stooping down, fighting another bout of dizziness, she picked up the tiny key which sh
e thought she’d lost after she’d unlocked the padlock from the chain around the tree. She’d assumed she’d dropped it and had never thought to check her pockets. She must have just slid the key into her pocket without even thinking about it. It seemed she was doing so much on autopilot, slipping in and out of a lucid state.

  If she’d only thought to check, she wouldn’t have had to walk all the way through the woods with her ankles chained together.

  Yes, but you also might not have had the chain available to kill the Magician and would be chained up to the tree again by now.

  “Good point,” she said out loud.

  Besides, she didn’t even know for sure that the key would fit the padlock holding the chain around her feet together.

  Cass glanced up at the plane and then back down at her feet. This whole process was going to be a hell of a lot easier without her ankles chained together. The metal had rubbed away the top layer of skin, leaving her raw and swollen. She was looking forward to spreading her legs more than a foot apart, and since she was going to need to climb onto the wing of the plane to get to the pilot’s door, she would need the extra mobility.

  Still lightheaded, and aware she would probably fall over if she attempted to unlock her feet just by bending down, Cass sank to the ground. The dirt was dry and solid beneath her, ratty blades of grass barely managing to poke through the compressed earth. She pulled her legs toward her and did her best to push out the image of the man choking to death between these chains.

  It would have been you, if it hadn’t been him.

  She knew that, but it was still hard to take. She had caused another person to just end, and no matter how much of a bad person he had been, that was still something she was going to struggle with.

  It’s not the first life you’ve taken, though.

  Cass squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her knuckles to the side of her head. She didn’t want to think about that. Not now.

  You have to. You have to accept what happened and move on.

  How could she ever move on? Seventeen years had passed since it had happened, and it still haunted her every day. If it wasn’t for her, her brother would be twenty years old now.

  She only remembered parts of that day. How much of her memory loss was due to shock, and how much due to her age when it had happened, and the passing of time, she couldn’t be sure. Parts of her recollection of that day had also been filled with information she’d garnered from news articles she’d read later in her life—read perhaps because she’d been trying to fill in the gaps, but also because she’d been torturing herself with what she’d done.

  She’d been six years old, and her brother, Bradley, was only three. Her father had been cleaning his .45 caliber handgun at the kitchen table, while she sat in the chair opposite, watching with barely concealed curiosity. Her dad finished cleaning it and reloaded the gun. He was about to put it back in its padded case when the phone rang. Distracted, he left the gun on the table to get up to answer the call.

  The weapon fascinated her. Bradley had loads of toy guns which he often played with, but she was stuck with dolls and dress-up clothes. Everyone told her guns weren’t for girls, which seemed stupid to her. She only wanted to see how the gun felt in her hand, if it was heavier than it looked.

  First checking her father was occupied with the phone call, she sneaked up to the table and picked up the gun.

  Bradley startled her, appearing as though out of nowhere. “I’m telling—” he started to say.

  She jumped at the sound of his voice, jerking up the muzzle, and her finger involuntarily squeezed the trigger. She remembered the power of the weapon, how it had pushed her backward. She remembered the ringing in her ears, and the shock of the blast stunning her into a deaf-mute. She remembered her mother’s screams and her father dropping the phone and racing back into the room.

  And the blood. She remembered the blood.

  She’d shot her three-year-old brother in the stomach.

  She didn’t remember much after that.

  He’d died a few hours later, and neither her, nor her parents’, lives had ever been the same.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Cass remained huddled on the ground, her arms around her still-chained legs, her shoulders shaking as she cried. She’d forgotten where she was for the moment, and the struggle she still had ahead of her, lost in the recollection of the key event that had shaped her life. Of course, her parents and everyone else had told her the shooting hadn’t been her fault, it had been a horrible accident, but that didn’t change the fact her brother’s death had happened at her hands.

  Her father had blamed himself for leaving the gun unattended, if only for a matter of moments, and her mother had blamed her father as well. Cass had spent every day of her life since then hating herself and feeling like her parents hated her, too. Every time she looked at herself in the mirror, she remembered what she’d done, and she couldn’t help but feel that it was impossible for her parents not to feel the same way. She’d pushed them away, unable to handle their pain as well as her own. She’d deliberately been a difficult teenager, and as soon as she’d been old enough, she’d left home and moved to the other side of the country. They’d made a few attempts to contact her, but when they finally gave up, she couldn’t help but feel that they would have been as relieved as she was.

  When the tears would come no more, Cass sniffed and lifted her head. She still had a life, but in a way, her parents had lost both their children on that horrible day.

  They hadn’t deserved that.

  Cass remembered the key she’d found. She wiped her tears from her cheeks with her good hand, marveling momentarily at the streaks of filth she’d wiped away with them, and looked back down at the chain. The hole on the padlock was small, like the key, and she gripped the key between the thumb and forefinger of her good hand. Her fingers were swollen, the tips covered in cuts, the nails torn down to the quick. The tremors that had taken hold of her since killing the real Magician continued to affect her, and it took her several attempts of trying to fit the key to the lock before it finally slid home.

  She held her breath as she turned the key, a part of her expecting it to jam and refuse to turn any farther, but the lock released with a click.

  “Well, look at that,” she said, marveling down at the open padlock.

  Knowing she wasn’t going to need to use it again, she dropped the key in the dirt, and then used her good hand to yank the lock off the chain. The chain unraveled, and she dragged it the rest of the way off, letting it puddle on the ground. The metal caught her sore skin as it fell, and she winced, but she was finally free of the chains.

  She could barely believe it.

  With a groan of pleasure, Cass stretched out her legs. She rolled her ankles and then pulled one knee into her body, before repeating with the other. Already, she felt like she’d shed a suit of armor, her body lighter than it had ever been before.

  Moving like an eighty-year-old woman, with every part of her stiff and hurting, she got to her feet.

  A rush of dizziness hit her, but she was expecting it and waited for a moment to allow it to pass. She needed to climb up onto the wing of the plane to get in the door, and she didn’t want to risk passing out at the last moment and falling off and injuring herself.

  A sudden cracking of wood in the undergrowth snatched her attention from the plane.

  The hairs prickled on the backs of her arms, and she straightened and turned in the direction the sound had come from. She sucked in a breath and held it, her gaze fixed on the spot where she’d heard the noise.

  The crunch of foliage came again, louder this time, more of a crash than a crack. She recognized the weight and timber from the previous night, right before an animal had emerged into the clearing and tried to make a meal out of the body of her abductor.

  The bear!

  Had the creature been following her? Perhaps it had decided that since she hadn’t let him have his meal the night before, she
would do instead.

  With her pulse racing and her breath quickening in her chest, she spun toward the planes. She needed to reach one and get inside so she could pull the door shut. Even if it meant she was trapped, at least she’d be safer than being out here.

  Unable to run, she started toward the nearest plane—the one that had belonged to the real Magician. She moved at a lurching shuffle, her legs impossibly heavy, despite having rid herself of the chain between her ankles. Glancing over her shoulder, she tried to spot the animal between the trees, but there was nothing. Had she imagined it? Perhaps in her panic, she’d overreacted.

  The crashing came again, even closer.

  Her heartrate picked up, her pulse pounding in her temple. Her breathing was harsh and fast. She was close to the planes now, a matter of ten feet away, but still it seemed so far. She imagined the weight of saucer-sized paws on the ground. Each claw as big as one of her fingers.

  A grunt and a snort sounded behind her, hot breath on the air. Instinctively, she knew the bear was right there, behind her.

  Cass spun around, terrified to move. There, on the outskirts of the woods, was the same bear who’d tried to scavenge the corpse of her abductor the night before.

  The plane was close, but the bear was so much faster than she was, especially as she was injured and exhausted. If she ran, it would catch her.

  She refused to die like this.

  “Go away!” she yelled, waving her good arm in the air. She was sure she’d read somewhere, or perhaps even watched on a television documentary, that a person needed to make themselves appear threatening when confronted by a bear. She wasn’t sure how threatening she could look, however, when she probably weighed all of a hundred and twenty pounds by now and was clearly injured. “Shoo! I’m not your dinner, bear! Get away from me!”