In the Woods Read online

  Sonja pursed her lips. “Well, you will if you keep moping.”

  Cass let out a growl of frustration and forced herself to move. Everything hurt. How was it possible for absolutely every part of her body to cause her pain in some way? She would have sworn even the tips of her hair were aching. Her insides felt like they were disintegrating, and her stomach already appeared concave, even though it had only been a matter of days since she’d last eaten. She’d have always considered herself to have plenty of extra padding previously, but she guessed that was a good thing. She might have been struggling even more than she already was without the additional body fat. Of course, she’d never recommend this extreme diet to anyone who wanted to shift some extra pounds.

  And now she was about to dine on bugs. She guessed it was better than the fungi. The insects might be disgusting, but they weren’t about to kill her.

  “What should I start on first?” she called out to her new companions. “Worm or beetle?”

  But no response came, and she squinted into the clearing. The women she’d been talking to had all vanished.

  No, they hadn’t vanished. They were just in her head. She was losing her mind and hallucinating the dead women so she didn’t die alone.

  Cass glanced down at the spot where she’d been sitting. The small spattering of grass was flattened, the earth damp. But sure enough, something moved in the dirt, sending a tiny avalanche of mud falling in its wake. Without pausing—knowing that if she thought about things too hard, she wouldn’t go through with it—she grabbed the worm with her toes and lifted her foot up to her hands. She scooped the worm up between her thumb and forefinger. Squeezing her eyes shut, she threw it into her mouth and crunched down. Wet, slimy goo coated her tongue and teeth. She fought against her gag reflex, knowing she needed both the fluid the worm contained and the protein it would provide, and quickly swallowed.

  A mewl of despair escaped her throat, and she beat her fists against the tree, her eyes squeezed shut.

  Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

  She would have given anything for a drink of water to wash it down with, or for another of those mints she’d eaten the previous day.

  A breath mint to wash away the bad breath of earthworm.

  Bug breath.

  Her internal humor managed to make the worst of the disgust at what she’d just done go away. She sucked in a couple of deep breaths and the impulse to throw up faded.

  “I did it!” she shouted, even though she knew the women weren’t there to hear her. “Hah! I actually did it.”

  One worm did not a meal make, however. She was going to need to eat more than that if she was going to give herself any energy. Reaching out to the tree trunk, she pulled off a chunk of the bark. Sure enough, creatures skittered out from beneath the exposed piece of wood, searching for new darkness, not appreciating the sudden exposure. They were going to appreciate what came next even less.

  Cass plucked the biggest of the beetles from the wood and dropped it into her mouth. Before she got the chance to think about all its wriggling legs and antenna, she crunched the insect between her back teeth. Something gooey gushed into her mouth, and she fought against her gag reflex. This was more important than any physical reaction she might have to eating insects. If she was going to make it out of this alive, she needed some fluid and protein, and she’d get it inside her, one bug at a time.

  With her fists clenched, she swallowed.

  “It’s all good,” she tried to assure herself, sucking in deep breaths. “This would be considered a delicacy in some countries. It’s practically a buffet.”

  A spider ran across the tree trunk and she pulled a face and shuddered. Even desperate, she couldn’t bring herself to eat a spider. Too many legs. Her instinct was to run away from spiders, screaming. But putting it in her mouth? That was a hard nope.

  Cass caught several grubs, forcing them down, and wishing desperately for some water to wash away the taste. The taste in her mouth had been pretty horrific for the past twenty-four hours, compounded by her dehydration and having zero access to a toothbrush and toothpaste, and the insect meal had done little to help. She did feel stronger, though. Susie Banks had been right. She needed to get on with things, and not just sit there, waiting to die. No one was going to come and rescue her. She needed to save herself.

  Unable to stomach anything else, she got back to work on the tree. Her fingers were swollen, the tips cracked and cut. Her nails were already split and broken down to the quick. Each piece of bark she pried off caused yet more pain, and she prayed this was going to work. She’d cleared a section a foot square now, and thought if she could do the same again, she’d be able to pull the chain down over it and give herself some more room to reach the body. She didn’t want to try too soon, however, knowing that if she failed to have made any improvement, she’d struggle to get her momentum back.

  Her stomach cramped, and she let out a groan, folding herself over as much as her chained hands would allow her. No, no, no. She couldn’t allow her stomach to win. She couldn’t risk throwing up what she’d eaten or getting diarrhea. She was already dehydrated, and either of those things would only dehydrate her more, as well as being hugely unpleasant. Bile rose up the back of her throat and she swallowed it back down, doing her best not to think about what it contained, but then she burped, acid rising, together with a distinctive bug taste.

  She lowered her head to put her hand to her mouth, waiting for the moment to pass.

  Mind over matter.

  The noises coming from her stomach would have been comical had she not been in such a bad place. The acid churned and bubbled, letting out gurgles and whines.

  It’ll be okay. Just ignore it. It’s only because you haven’t eaten anything for days.

  She didn’t want to throw up either, because she’d just put herself through something she never thought she’d do, and if she threw it all up again, the whole process would have been a waste of time.

  Movement in the bushes caught her attention, dragging her thoughts away from her body’s processes. She heard the light crack of a foot pressing on the undergrowth, of twigs and dried pine leaves crunching beneath.

  Cass froze, her stomach forgotten. Was it the same thing that had approached last night? That thing had sounded louder, and bigger, as though it was muscling its way through the bush, but this was different. Maybe it was just that now it was daylight, so she wasn’t as afraid as she’d been before. The dark was where nightmares lived, and it was easy to conjure up something from a bad dream when you weren’t able to see anything.

  She remained in the same position, her gaze fixed on the area where the sound had come from.

  Crack.

  There it was again. Something moving, but cautiously. A part of her was tempted to call out ‘hello’ just to see what the response was, but she highly doubted whatever was moving would have the ability to reply. There weren’t random people wandering around out here. She’d seen nothing but an ocean of trees when they’d come in to land, and that the Magician felt he could bring women out here and chain them to a tree for hours or even days to torture them, with no fear of anyone happening upon them, was enough to make her certain the chances of someone coming across her by accident were slim.

  But the police might know you’re missing by now. They might have figured out who took you.

  Perhaps he’d made a mistake this time and the cops had tracked down the place he brought the women.

  She didn’t want to hope for rescue—knowing she needed to keep that fighting part of her alive in order to free herself. Waiting for rescue would be as good as a death sentence.

  Besides, this wasn’t the police. They’d have guns and dogs and would be shouting out for her.

  No, they wouldn’t, she mentally corrected herself. They’d move slowly and quietly, not wanting to alert the Magician to their presence. They wouldn’t know he was already dead.

  There was a rustle of leaves, and som
ething stepped out into the clearing.

  Cass caught her breath.

  A beautiful young deer paused, as though only just noticing her presence, and blinked at her with big brown eyes. Its black nose twitched, as did the muscles in the animal’s flank. The deer was the first living thing she’d seen in days—other than the snake she’d almost poked with her foot, and insects, which she’d eaten—and stupidly, she didn’t want it to leave. The deer seemed cautious of her, but not frightened. Perhaps it hadn’t come across humans before, and so didn’t know how to take her.

  The animal lifted one delicate foreleg and took a step forward. It paused again, long, pricked ears rotating one direction and then the next, like radars, listening out for any possible threat. Apparently not detecting any, it trotted farther into the clearing.

  The deer was beautiful. Sunlight bounced off its smooth hide. It skirted around the dead man’s body, which now let off a distinctive odor of death, and bent its long neck to nibble at some grass.

  Cass’s heart swelled with emotion at the animal. It was free and alive, and seemed oblivious to her. She didn’t know why that affected her so much, but it did. This was her struggle and hers alone. The man who’d killed all these women was now dead and wouldn’t go on to hurt anyone else. Her life, and her final days here, wouldn’t have any impact on anyone else. Life was continuing just fine without her. Her parents would probably be sad initially, and may wish they’d done more to stay in touch with her, but she imagined there would also be a certain amount of relief involved for them, too. How could they have loved her after what had happened? They may have tried, but she knew they couldn’t look at her without seeing what she’d done. Would they have even been notified about her disappearance yet? She lived on the outskirts of New York now, while they were over on the west coast, just outside of Sacramento. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d spoken to them. She had no idea if they were even still together—though she wouldn’t have blamed them if they’d decided to separate. Marriage was hard, and it was even harder when it was plagued with tragedy. She wouldn’t have blamed them in the slightest if they’d decided to go their own ways. It wasn’t as though they’d ever really seemed happy together, always fighting and screaming at each other. But perhaps they had been happy before she’d come along, and it was that memory that kept them together. Or maybe they simply felt like they should be punished as much as she did, and forcing themselves to live unhappy lives was their way of doing that.

  Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Cass squeezed her eyes shut, forcing them to spill down the side of her nose, and she poked out her tongue to catch them, relishing the salty wetness. Nothing was to go to waste here.

  She rested up against the tree trunk, knowing that going back to work would frighten away the deer. It was nice to have some company, other than the imagined dead women, of course, and she watched it nibble at the grass and a few of the leaves on the surrounding bushes. It stopped every so often to lift its head, its long, graceful neck extended, its ears flicking back and forth. It gave Cass some comfort that whatever the big thing she’d heard crashing through the bushes must not be anywhere close by. If it was, she was sure the deer would have startled and run by now. Hopefully, the thing was long gone and wouldn’t come back again when night fell.

  No, she planned to be free from this tree by then. She couldn’t spend another night out here. Doing so might be the final straw for her, and whatever loose hold she currently had on reality might just snap. She was already clinging on by her nails, aware that her conversations with the dead women weren’t the actions of a sane person. If she tumbled into the rabbit hole much farther, she might never find her way out again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The deer finished its exploration of the small clearing and trotted off to find a fresh area to graze.

  A new hollowness opened up inside Cass’s chest at its departure, but she needed to get on with things and couldn’t just sit there, watching the deer hour after hour. Nightfall would be upon her before she knew it, and she couldn’t stand the thought of spending another night out here.

  It was another warm day, and there was no sign of rain clouds in the sky. She wished the rain had come tonight, instead of that first night. She didn’t feel as though she’d really appreciated it back then, while right now she would have given anything for just a few raindrops to fall on her tongue.

  Splinters and cuts and grazes covered the tips of her fingers, and she wished she had some kind of tool to help her pick away at the layer of bark. She used the chain where she could, holding it in both hands and bashing down on the larger pieces of bark to loosen them, but the chain links were too thick to get between the bark and the layer of smooth, new wood beneath. Her fingernails were chipped and broken, and some splinters had even lodged under the nailbed, making it even more uncomfortable for her. But all of her was uncomfortable right now, and one more pain wasn’t going to make much of a difference.

  She was making good progress, though. Maybe it didn’t look like much from the outside, but she’d cleared another couple of inches of bark from around half of the tree. Would it be enough for her to pull the chain down farther, giving her some extra room to reach the body? She hadn’t wanted to try yet, not wanting to either get frustrated when it didn’t work, or give herself false hope, but she also didn’t want to spend another night out here.

  Still facing the tree, she worked down the chain circling the trunk, pulling it over the dent she’d made. Her heart lifted. The chain definitely sat lower than it had before. That should give her more room to stretch her legs out toward the body and get a better grip on him with her feet. She really didn’t want to touch a body that had been dead for several days now, knowing it was going to be unpleasant, but it wasn’t going to be as unpleasant as dying of dehydration in the middle of nowhere while chained to a tree.

  Twisting back around, she lowered herself to the ground. She was lucky—as lucky as one could be in her situation—that the Magician hadn’t chained her hands behind her back. She assumed he’d chained them over her head like he had because he would have wanted to turn her around or push her to the ground while he was doing whatever he’d planned to her, and hadn’t wanted to risk undoing the lock each time. Whatever his reasons, she was sure he hadn’t done it for her comfort.

  Cass pulled on the chain again, making sure it was as low as it could go, and that it wasn’t caught on an overhanging piece of bark. Just as she’d done before, she wriggled down so her back was against the ground, and her arms were over her head. The strain on her shoulders didn’t feel as bad as before. Could it be possible that she really had made a difference? She wouldn’t know until she’d tried to grab the body with her feet. She needed to do more than just scrape his clothing with her toes this time.

  “Come on, you can do it.” The voice came from the blonde cheerleader, the Magician’s second kill, Becky Dawson.

  “I know you were a cheerleader, but I don’t need you cheering me on right now,” Cass muttered.

  “Oh, stop being so negative.” The voice came from her right this time. From the position of the grave, Cass knew it belonged to the fifth murdered woman, Maria Moore. She was the woman who’d had the two children young in life. “There’s nothing wrong with a little positivity. You seem to be lacking that in your life.”

  Cass gritted her teeth. “You don’t know anything about my life.”

  “I think we probably do,” the student-lawyer, Susie Banks, chipped in, “but we won’t get into that just yet.”

  “Hush,” Sonja Holland, number one, scolded them. “She needs to be able to concentrate.”

  “Yes, I do,” Cass agreed. “So, if you could all shut the hell up, that would be great.”

  Silence met her request, and she lifted her head, peering around. There was no sign of any of the murdered women. They must have heeded her wishes. No, they hadn’t done anything, because they were all in her head.

  Refocusing h
er attention, she stretched out her legs. Her calves twitched, threatening to cramp, and then the soles of her feet joined in. It was the dehydration and lack of salt.

  “What? Were the bugs not good enough for you?” she said under her breath.

  She needed for her feet to work or she wouldn’t be picking any keys out of the Magician’s pocket anytime soon, not with her hands chained to a tree. There was no way she’d be able to pull the chain right down to the bottom of the trunk, so her hands would be on the same level as he was, even if she managed to drag the body right up to the base of the tree.

  Wriggling and flexing her feet, trying to ward away the cramp, she tried again. Just like before, her toes touched the material of his jacket. A cloud of flies burst up from the body at the contact, but she discovered her automatic disgust at their presence was waning. Buzzing creatures had become a constant background noise to her now. She stretched farther, trying to get one foot underneath his arm and the other one on top, so she could get a better hold. Just gripping his jacket between her toes didn’t give her enough hold to drag him with.

  She pulled at the top of his arm, her jaw locked so tight it ached. She let out a growl of aggravation. He still wasn’t budging.

  “Motherfucker!”

  She needed this to work.

  Locking both feet around his arm, she pulled her legs back, but no matter how hard she pulled, he didn’t move an inch. So, this was what people meant when they talked about a dead weight. She felt like she was trying to move a slab of concrete with her feet. She had to keep trying. After everything she’d done to make this happen, the hours of picking away at the goddamned tree, of tearing nails and being stabbed by splinters, she was not going to let herself be beaten. She shifted position slightly, angling her hips so she was almost side-on, hoping that would give her an extra grip. But a cramp shot through her left calf, and she cried out in pain, curling her legs back up toward her body, rocking herself from side to side, as though it might bring her a little comfort.