No Sanctuary (37 page)

Turning her head, Gillian scanned the area to her left. The trail and stream were visible for only a short distance before the clearing. They vanished around the foot of a bluff that was nearly as high as Gillian’s perch. She looked back. A glance at the mountainside was enough to convince her that Holden wouldn’t try to descend on that side. It was steep, and it stayed steep.

So now we know, she thought, which way he’ll come.

If he comes.

If he’s not dead in the rocks down there.

I’ve got two choices, she thought. I can either stay here or climb down.

I’ll have to climb down sooner or later.

But he’d have a hard time getting to me here. He can’t sneak up on me.

Gillian wiped sweat out of her eyes, looked around, and saw plenty of good-sized rocks within reach.

I can bash his brains in before he ever gets near me.

But he’s too smart to make himself a target. As long as I’m here, I’m trapped and he knows where I am. What if he waits for night? What if I fall asleep or pass out, and he makes it up here while I’m zonked?

I can’t last forever up here.

She felt the sun beating down on her, broiling her back. She felt sweat sliding down her skin. Her tongue was a dry slab.

She hadn’t taken a drink since last night. She’d spent hours sweating inside the trunk of Holden’s car.

If I wait too long, she thought, I won’t be able to climb down.

She found herself staring at the stream. She listened to it rushing over the rocks. She could almost taste it.

Through the trees to the left of the clearing, she saw it cascading, white as snow. Straight in front of her, it formed a clear, glinting pool. She pictured herself sliding into the chill water, sucking it into her mouth.

If I start down now, she thought, I’ll be there in half an hour. Maybe less.

If Holden doesn’t get me.

If he shows up, I’ll stone him. Plenty of ammunition.

Gillian squirmed backward away from the edge, then got to her hands and knees. The movement made her head pound. A wave of dizziness washed by. It left her frightened.

If that happens while I’m trying to climb down ...

Get going.

She sat down, then scooted herself toward the right-hand side of the shelf. Her feet went out over the edge. Her calves scraped. Then her feet dropped out of sight and the pain reminded her to be careful of her right knee.

What if it’s too weak to hold me up?

She kept inching forward. Her legs dangled. She clutched the edge of the shelf with both hands and leaned out.

Her toes were nearly touching the next rock down.

She lay backward and rolled over. Then she squirmed on her belly, easing herself off the ledge until her feet found the rock. Carefully, she pushed herself away from the shelf.

She stood on the foothold, still holding the upper ledge with both hands.

So far, she thought, not bad.

She looked down at her destination. The sparkling pool of the stream.

And she saw Holden pass between two trees as he walked along the trail far below. For moments, he was hidden by the woods. Then he appeared against the edge of the clearing. He still carried the broken stick in one hand, his knife in the other. He turned and gazed up at the slope.

His head suddenly snapped to the side.

He shoved the knife blade down a rear pocket of his pants. Gillian looked to the left.

“Oh my Christ,” she muttered.

Just this side of the place where the trail vanished behind the outcropping were two women with backpacks. The one in the lead raised a hand in greeting. Holden waved to her.

He walked toward the women.

“RUN!” Gillian shouted. “GET OUT OF HERE!”

Neither hiker turned a head.

Gillian yelled and yelled as the gap narrowed between the two women and Holden.

It’s the damn stream! she thought.

They were so close to it, the noise of the rushing water was masking her shouts.

She let go of the ledge. Balancing on the rock, she squatted, then she sat down and straddled it. She clawed the slope behind her and pulled loose a chip of stone. She hurled it at the women. It flew out in a high arch, dropped beyond the clustered boulders below, and vanished in undergrowth at the edge of the clearing.

The second hiker glanced toward the place where the stone had landed. But she kept walking. She stopped beside her friend, took off her ballcap, and rubbed a forearm across her brow.

They both faced Holden. He was no more than three feet in front of them. From the gestures, Gillian guessed that they were talking. Holden pointed to the trail behind him. He shrugged. Then his stick whipped through the air. It struck the stout woman across the side of the head. Her straw hat flew off. Her legs folded. Her knees hit the ground and she dropped forward flat on her face.

Gillian heard herself shriek, “NO!”

The other woman spun around and ran up the trail. She flung off her pack. Holden leaped over it. He grabbed the knife out of his rear pocket as he chased her.

She was fast, but Holden gained on her. Reaching out, he grabbed the back of her gray T-shirt. The fabric stretched, tenting out behind her. Then she staggered and danced sideways as if being swung on the end of a rope. Her feet tangled. She went down, tumbling and rolling. Holden pounced on her.

“We could stop anywhere along here,” Rick said.

“I’d rather find a place,” Bert said, “where the stream isn’t so close to the trail. We’d have people hiking right by our camp.”

Rick smiled. “Yeah, this trail is Grand Central Station around here.”

They hadn’t seen anyone except Angus the lunatic since leaving the girls. But Rick agreed with Bert. If they kept going, they might find a good secluded area.

“Why don’t we just give it another hour?” Bert suggested. “It’d be nice to get settled while we have some of the afternoon ahead of us.”

“How far’s Mulligan Lake?”

“More like two hours.”

“Andrea and Bonnie’ll probably be there,” Rick said.

“Well, we won’t go that far.” She looked at him, a corner of her mouth curling up. “Unless you want to.”

“I just want to get someplace where we’ll have plenty of privacy.”

“Me too.”

They walked side by side around a bend in the trail that took them past a stone comer. Rick reached below Bert’s pack and squeezed her rump. “What have you got in mind?” he asked.

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “A little of this, a little of that.” Her face turned forward again and she stopped abruptly.

Rick halted beside her.

On the trail at their feet lay a red backpack.

“What the hell?” Rick muttered. “Looks like one of ...”

She grabbed his arm so hard that pain streaked through it. She was gazing past him, to the right.

Rick turned his head.

He thought, It’s another hallucination, has to be, but how can Bert be seeing it?

He stared.

The trail where he stood with Bert was slightly higher than the clearing ahead, and gave him a perfect view.

Can’t be real. Impossible.

It was worse than his daydreams, his visions, worse than anything he had ever imagined. Julie’s death seemed pristine compared to this.

One of the bodies was a naked man. He lay on his back near the sprawled remains of a girl. Rick refused to look straight at the girl, to see what had been done to her. He gazed at the man. The man looked as if he were made of blood, as if his skin had been peeled off.

Rick let his eyes dart past the third body, a twisted, faceless thing.

Strewn about the bodies was clothing: a pair of cut-off jeans with one leg split open; a yellow blouse; a torn rag of panties; faded blue gym shorts; a gray T-shirt sliced down the front, rumpled in such a way that the letters UC showed. Some of the clothes were sprinkled red as if they had been sprayed from a distance, and Rick realized vaguely that the girls must’ve already been naked when the blood began to fly.

The girls.

Andrea and Bonnie.

He couldn’t look at their bodies, but the clothes were enough.

The other clothes belonged to the man: shoes placed neatly together with socks tucked inside, folded trousers, a knit shirt on the ground near the pants.

Who is he? Rick wondered.

Did he do this? Why’s he dead?

Bert, standing at Rick’s side, bent over and heaved. She had her knife clutched in her right hand. It was pressed to the side of her leg, and the blade jerked as spasms shook her body.

Already has her knife out, Rick thought. Got through the shock and saw the danger. Why didn’t I?

If I only had the gun!

Rick drew his own knife from the scabbard on his belt. Then he squirmed out of his shoulder straps. His pack dropped to the trail behind him. He scanned the clearing, the base of the slope a distance to the right, the trees beyond the clearing, the stream to the left and the wooded area on its other side. Saw no one. Imagined Jase and Luke and Wally charging at them from the rear. Whirled around. No one. He raised his eyes. No one scurrying down the rocks.

“RICK!”

He began to turn and everything seemed to be in slow motion. He saw Bert’s pack falling toward the trail behind her legs. Her arm began to move upward, pointing with the knife. He finished his turn. The man of blood was sitting up. His eyes were open. He had a red erection.

Rick grabbed Bert’s shirt and pulled. She twisted slowly toward him, her shirt coming off her shoulder, her right breast exposed, the knotted fabric across her chest slipping apart. “RUN!” he yelled in her face. His voice seemed far away and echoing. He saw her head shake slowly from side to side, her hair swaying out below the edges of her hat. “GO!” he yelled again, and then he released her shirt and started toward the man.

The man, somehow already up, wasn’t coming at them. Instead, he ran away. His back wasn’t red. It had a deep tan except for his white, flexing buttocks. He only ran a few steps. His arms reached out. He grabbed a long stick slanting up out of one of the bodies (a broad-boned body ... Bonnie?). He tugged it out with both hands. It made a sucking sound. He pivoted, swinging it like a baseball bat. Rick, almost upon him, flung up his arms to protect his head. His wrist exploded with pain. But the knife stayed in his numb hand. The man leaped out of his way. Rick couldn’t stop. His forward foot came down on a thigh of the corpse. The body turned under his weight. An outstretched arm flopped up as if reaching for him. He tried to miss it as he stumbled, but the toe of his boot smashed the forearm down and he thought, I’m sorry, as he staggered past the body, trying to stay up.

Something crashed against the back of his head. He slammed the ground and skidded.

He lifted his face out of the grass.

Was I out? What if it’s all over, and Bert ... ?

He looked over his shoulder.

Bert was on her feet, face to face with the man, trying to wrestle the shaft out of his hands. Her knife was clenched in her teeth. She was being twisted and shaken like a doll, no match for the killer.

Rick started to get up.

The pole was snatched from Bert’s grip. She reached for the knife between her teeth. Before she could grab it, the man drove an end of the pole into her belly. Her mouth made a wide O. She stumbled backward, folding, and her rump pounded the ground.

The man left Bert sitting there, turned away, and squatted by the head of the other corpse.

Andrea?

She’d been scalped.

She had a knife in her mouth. But not crossways, pirate fashion, like Bert. The broad handle stuck straight up from her lips. The man clutched it and pulled. Andrea’s raw head lifted as the blade slid out.

A huge blade.

The man’s eyes, bulging white in his red mask, fixed on Rick.

Rick was almost on him.

The man jerked the knife the rest of the way out, ripping through a cheek. The blade swept past Rick’s belly. He felt a hot sting as it nicked his side. As he lunged at the crouching man, he slashed downward. His knife skidded on the man’s forehead, sliced the left eyeball, cut through a nostril, tore a diagonal gash through his lips and chin, swept down and split the back of Rick’s own left hand.

Even as the knife cut his hand, his charging body smashed the man backward. Onto Andrea’s face. Rick, hunched low and off balance, hurled himself over her ravaged body, hit the ground on the other side, and rolled.

He got to his hands and knees. He looked.

The man was scuttling toward him, shrieking, blood spouting from his face. Bert swept by. Flying? She was four feet off the ground, stretched out straight, open shirt flapping behind her like the cape of a super-heroine from a strange, erotic comic book, knife in her right hand. Her bare chest hit the man’s back with a slapping sound. He was smashed flat. Bert’s arms were out past his side. She threw an elbow high and tried to bring her arm down to stab him, but he thrust himself up, twisting and throwing her off.

He got to his knees, swung around and rammed the knife down. It missed Bert. She was rolling. He went after her on his knees.

Rick scurried toward him and drove his knife down. It sank deep into the man’s calf. He yanked it out. His left hand grabbed the man’s hip and pulled. His fingers slipped off the slick skin. Snarling, he threw himself forward. His chest pushed against the man’s buttocks. He raised the knife high, ready to plunge it into the middle of the back, when an elbow crashed against the side of his head.

The blow dazed him, sent him sprawling.

He lay on his back. The few clouds in the pale blue sky were slowly spinning. His ears rang.

“RICK!” Bert’s voice, high and terrified through the ringing.

He lifted his head, turned it.

The ground tilted and tipped, much like the clouds.

Bert was on her back, writhing under the man. He was sitting across her hips, leaning down over her, pinning her wrists to the ground. Blood from his gashed face splashed Bert, rained down on her cheeks and lips, trickled down her chin.

The man’s knife stood up straight, its blade embedded in the ground a few inches above her shoulder.