The Mourning Woods - 03 (35 page)

“No we wouldn’t.”

“Speak for yourself,” she said matter of factly. Say what you will about Sally, but she’s a survivor. At the very least, if she’s going down she’s taking everyone else with her.

I took a moment to look around. Endless forest stretched in all directions. Suddenly I found myself wishing I had joined the boy scouts that one summer like my parents had wanted, rather than just sitting in my bedroom playing
Nintendo
for two months straight.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“The woods,” Sally blithely answered. Yep, ask a stupid question...

“I meant do you have any idea where we are compared to, say, our camp?”

“Do I look like a fucking GPS to you?”

“Only if it stands for ‘gives people syphilis,’” I barked back. “Seriously, can’t you smell where the other vampires are or something?”

“All I can
smell
is shit, and since we’re covered with it that doesn’t exactly help us.”

“Speaking of which...” I pulled off my ski mask again. Gah! It was getting kind of hard to breath in that thing. Thank God for short Canadian days. The sky was already starting to darken, so we were probably OK. “Ah! That’s a bit better.”

“For you maybe, now I have to look at your face.”

“Hey, at least they didn’t see ours. Good thing we were covered up back there. Although you might want to ditch the hoodie. There’s still enough pink showing where it’d probably be easy to ID you.”

“I guess you’re right. It’s not like dry cleaning is really going to help it at this point.” She stripped it off (sadly revealing herself to be wearing a shirt underneath. Oh, well, one can dream), and tossed it into the bushes. “At least I can’t freeze to death.”

She did have a point. A human lost in the wilderness would be toast. A vampire, well the worst we’d probably have to deal with would be an extended walk...assuming of course we didn’t meet up with another angry moose.

* * *

And walk we did. Hours passed, or I assumed they did. I had left my cell phone back at the hut (not much good out here in zero bars land) and my watch, while supposedly waterproof, was apparently not shitproof. It had stopped working not too long after we took a nosedive into the Bigfoot latrine.

We tried mostly to go in a straight line. Doubling back wouldn’t help us, especially if we ran into any of Turd’s group. We wound up changing direction only once or twice after Sally caught a few promising scents (it was like hiking with the world’s cutest bloodhound). Unfortunately, they were all false alarms. The stench coming off of us was wrecking havoc with both of our noses. Fortunately, though, smell isn’t the only enhanced vampire sense.

As we walked in full darkness, Sally suddenly cocked her head to the side.

“Hear that?”

I listened. For a moment, there was only silence, but then my ears picked up a sound. It was distant, but definitely there.

“What is it?” I asked.

Of course, I got an eye-roll in return. “Did you spend your entire life indoors?”

“Oh, like you didn’t,” I countered.

“No, actually.”

“Dressing up like
Sheena: Queen up the Jungle
for clients doesn’t count.”

“Hey, at least I’ve been camping before.”

“Oh, yeah, when?” I demanded.

She opened her mouth to answer, but then hesitated. “Never mind,” she snapped.

“Hold on. Spill! When were you camping?”

“It’s not important...”

“Then I’ll just assume you’re full of shit.”

“Fine!” She rounded on me, causing me to back up a step. “I was a...Girl Scout, OK?”

That being answered, we continued on our way in respectful silence.

Oh, who am I kidding? I immediately started laughing my ass off.

“Sally the Girl Scout. That’s great.”

“It’s not that funny, asshole.”

“So did you go door to door selling your
cookies
?”

“Ignoring you now,” she replied and trudged ahead.

“Tell me, do they give out merit badges for lap dancing?” I was just about to let loose with a tirade of Girl Scout jokes when the sound became noticeably louder. Suddenly I realized what it was.

I caught up to Sally just as she stopped at the edge of a drop off. About twenty feet below us, a river roared past. It wasn’t particularly wide, but it was moving quickly.

“This’ll do,” Sally said.

“For what?” I asked.

“Bath time,” was all the answer I heard before being shoved forward into empty space.

* * *

FUCK ME! The water was cold as in just a few degrees above freezing. I surfaced, and immediately began screaming every obscenity in my arsenal (a not insignificant amount). There came was a loud splash. I turned back and saw Sally surface about thirty feet behind me. I opened my mouth to voice my opinion on things, when I suddenly slammed into a rock. It felt about as good as it sounds. Unfortunately, before I could do much more than ponder my newly smashed skull, the current carried me into another rock, then another.

This went on for about five minutes or so, the river playing human pinball with my body. Fortunately, it’s very hard for vampires to drown, that whole being dead thing coming into play. Sadly, there’s nothing wrong with my nerve endings. The only good part was that I was soon too numb from the cold to feel myself being pummeled.

At last, the river became both wider and deeper. The pace of the current slackened and within a few more minutes, I found myself treading water. The sound of the roaring water started to fade, and silence settled in. I looked around to get my bearings and saw the shore about ten yards away. Teeth chattering, I began to paddle for it when something touched my leg.

I stopped and looked around. Nothing but quiet...well that and a whole lot of freezing water. Must have been a...it did it again. What the hell? Was there some hungry fish debating whether I’d make a good meal? Do they have alligators in Canada? I decided that it was best not to stick around to find out. I began to swim for the shore...and that was when something grabbed my leg and pulled me under.

“Gee, Bill, I had no idea you could sound so much like a little girl,” Sally said, standing at the edge of the water wringing out her hair.

“That wasn’t funny,” I replied, teeth still chattering.

“And yet here I am laughing. Who did you think it was?”

“I don’t know. But when you’ve seen
Jaws
as many times as I have, you get a little nervous about things in the water.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Fine, so you got your little payback from earlier. Happy now?”

“You think I shoved you into that river just for some petty revenge?”

“You didn’t?”

“Well OK, I kind of did,” she replied, smiling. Thank God she looked really cute wet; otherwise I might’ve had to slug her. “But, it was also necessary.”

“Define necessary.”

“Take a breath, genius. Notice how we don’t smell like a pig pen any more? Now I might have a chance in hell of catching a scent and getting us back.”

“Hopefully you can do it before I freeze solid. Aren’t you cold?”

“Freezing,” she replied. “But unlike you, I’m not a wuss.”

“Good for you, ice queen.”

We began to walk again. The river had completely turned me around. As far as I was concerned, we were hopelessly lost. Sally, however, didn’t waver for a second before picking a direction and setting off in it. Who knows? Maybe she really had been a Girl Scout after all. Of course, it was possible she had as little clue as I did and was just faking it. Still, it beat just standing there on the riverbank like two lost idiots.

“Think they started without us?” I asked, catching up to her.

“No doubt. Hell, Francois’s men probably broke open the champagne when they saw that you weren’t there to stop them from selling us out.”

“Maybe Ed and...”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Sally replied. “They’re humans. Without you around, they’ll be given about as much consideration as two talking gnats. I’m hoping Nergui didn’t even let them go. It’ll be safer for them.”

“Ooh, is that worry I hear in your voice? Sally and Eddie sitting in a tree...F U C...”

“Finishing that thought would be detrimental to your health,” she growled. Suddenly she stopped, so abruptly that I almost walked into her.

“Relax, Sally. I was just joking,” I said.

She turned and gave me a condescending look. “You need to try better than that if you want to ruffle my feathers.”

“Then why...”

“A scent, two of them actually.”

“What is it?”

“You want the good news or the bad news?”

“I’m an optimist at heart. What’s the good?”

“I think I smell vampires.”

“And the bad?”

“We’d better start walking a little faster. I think it’s about to snow.”

* * *

Snow was an understatement. One minute nothing, and the next we were walking in a winter wonderland. If you’re thinking it did nothing to help warm me up, you’re correct. Fuck this shit! Once I got back to New York, I was locking myself away in my office with a week’s supply of blood and a space heater.

We doubled our pace. The way it was coming down, it wouldn’t be too long before we were wishing for snowshoes. Considering that Sally was unlikely to want to share body heat any time soon, that meant we had best track down the vamps she had smelled. I just hoped they turned out to be friendly.

* * *

“We’re close. Just up ahead,” Sally said.

I still couldn’t tell the scent of other vampires for shit, but there was nothing wrong with my nose. I took a whiff. “I think I smell...”