The Pines (2 page)

She could see tire tracks in the sand, but not many.
That creep must have come this way because he knew it’d be deserted.
Dark and deserted.
That’s the last time I hitchhike.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” Half expecting to see headlights coming back, she rummaged through her bag. Wet bathing suit, makeup, half a candy bar. To calm herself, she ate the candy, licking the melting chocolate off her fingers.

Even the beach wasn’t this dark at night.

Though plump, Mary Bradley had fine bones and delicate hands, possessing a limp quality that approached gracefulness. Just now, the creamy skin she generally took such care of was sunburned as well as scraped, and her breast was sore where the old man had squeezed it. Yet she managed to grin at the way she’d told him off. At the office, she was famous for her shrill little rages.

The weekend at the shore had as usual been one long party. Too much sun, too much loud music and liquor. She had a regular ride home with her girlfriends, but she’d met this cute guy last night…and this morning discovered that the other girls had left without her.
At least they took my suitcase with them.
It had already been getting dark when she’d started hitchhiking.
Bad move.
She shook her head.
Never again.

Should of made him let me out sooner. But the old creep seemed so normal.
Some of her girlfriends told horror stories about their “dates from hell.” She couldn’t wait to tell them this one.
Stranded in the
frigging woods.

She peered up the road. Nothing. God only knew what time she’d get back to Philly. And she had to work in the morning. Not that she worried about losing sleep: enough amphetamines coursed through her system to keep her going. Diet pills didn’t really curb her appetite any, but they sure were great for partying. Maybe one of the girls at work would have some Xanax or Valium or something to help her crash. Otherwise, she’d be a mess tomorrow.

It’s too hot to breathe. And I still need to pee.
She had the jumpy, thirsty feeling she always got after a couple of days on speed, and the crickets set up an echoing vibration in her nervous system.
God, these bugs.
A breeze stirred now, and it seemed the pines themselves began to resemble giant insects, prickly feelers twitching.
I hope I don’t have to wait here forever.

Soon she became aware of a sound besides the insects, faintly hollow above the constant whir. Cars on the highway? It seemed to come from all around her, and she strained to listen. On second thought, it was almost like the roar in a seashell. Could she be close to a beach? Then she recognized the sound for what it was.

Trees. Hot night air stirring in the trees.

She felt very strange and queasy, isolated.
Even the air doesn’t
smell right.
No soot, no gasoline fumes.

“Shit!” The mosquitoes had found her, and they whirred in her ears and eyes.
Mosquitoes and God only knows what else.
One flew in her mouth. She slapped at her neck, slapped at her bare legs, squashing something bloated and wet.
Terrific.
Dressed in cutoffs and a T-shirt, she’d be covered with welts soon. She really began to worry how long it would be before another car came along. An hour maybe? She could be sucked dry by then. And what if there wasn’t another car to night?

I almost wish the old guy would come back.

She tried to guess how far she was from the larger road they’d been on and, as she started to walk back that way, wished she hadn’t been so chatty and had paid more attention.
This is weird.
Spotted with weeds, the white sand glowed in the moonlight, making her feel unreal, as though she floated through deep darkness on fluid silver. A swarm of mosquitoes followed, swimming through the humid air, and she imagined that in the shadows of the trees, the crickets followed as well.

Her footsteps made no sound. It was like walking on the beach—her calf and thigh muscles began to ache, and the straps of her new sandals cut into her feet. When she took them off, the sand felt soothing between her toes.

Suddenly, she panicked.
I’m lost!
The patch of white trailed on into the woods, twisting onward into nothingness.
Where’s
the road?
As she got her bearings and moved back, she shivered in spite of the heat, knowing she’d be in real trouble if she strayed far from this path. Something crawled down the back of her damp T-shirt, and she clawed it out, squashing it, wiping her hand on her cutoffs. She was pretty sure there were things in her hair.

Ahead, something glinted dimly. Just able to make out the shape, she raced for it, aching muscles forgotten.

Bullet holes riddled the sign, the red lettering black by moonlight.

WARNING

DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS
HARRISVILLE STATE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
4 MILES

The needles of the nearer pines might have been thin talons, stretched out straight and clutching.

WARNING

She took a deep breath then giggled shrilly. “Swell.” The sound of crickets receded. “If they find me laughing in the woods, that’s where they’re gonna put me.” The sound of her own voice made her feel better, and she giggled again. “Anyway, I bet they don’t really give weekend passes to the ax murderers.”

As it wove through massed darkness, the road seemed to narrow again, and she panted, glancing back the way she’d come. Just for a moment, it seemed the pines themselves moved, that they shifted almost imperceptibly, inching onto the road. The crickets resumed. She glanced back and wondered how far she’d walked, but there was nothing by which to judge, no landmarks, only her footprints in the sand. Plodding forward again, she told herself the main road couldn’t be much farther.

She carried only one sandal.

“Wouldn’t you just know? And I only wore them the once.” Reluctantly, she started to backtrack.

Just a few yards away, beside the imprint of her bare feet, the sandal lay on its side in the sand…another set of prints trailing next to it.

Some sort of animal must’ve made them, she guessed. A deer, maybe. But didn’t deer have pointed feet or hooves or whatever? These tracks looked flat and broad.

She turned. The tracks were all around her now.

Clearly etched in moon shadow, the prints crossed her own, sometimes running parallel. She couldn’t have missed them if they’d been there seconds before.

The night breathed around her, and her teeth clicked together.

A mosquito hummed in her ear, and something rustled in the woods.

She ran. The main road had to be just up ahead, just beyond this bend or the next. She sprinted heavily, fleshy arms jouncing, and one foot came down hard on something sharp. She cried out, hobbling, her full bladder feeling as though it would burst with every jolt.

At last she slowed to check the road behind her. The itch of insect bites was maddening, and her clothes clung tightly.

Nothing.
Beginning to feeling silly, she balanced on one foot and pulled something thorny from the sole of the other. “What’s the matter with me?” Out of breath and trembling, she wiped sweat out of her eyes and gazed down at the imprints her feet had made in the sand. “Talk about being scared of your own shadow.” The pounding of her heart slowed, and she examined the sticky mixture of sand and blood on her foot.

A rumbling vibration startled her. Blinding lights jerked through the night as a truck shuddered past.

The highway lay right there. Not twenty yards away in the dark, this dirt track emptied onto it. She went limp with relief and put her sandals back on. The shadows of the pines had shifted heavily, and she decided it was lucky a car hadn’t come along on this narrow road—she could easily have been run down.

The pressure in her bladder still throbbed.

More approaching lights. As another car passed, she smiled at the prospect of bending the ear of whoever picked her up.
What
a story!

Oh well, last chance to use the facilities.
She considered crouching where she stood but figured—just her luck—a car would come along and spotlight her. It wasn’t fair, she thought, scanning the area to her right: men had it so much easier.

Spotting a clump of pines that might do, she took a few steps toward it. One foot sank deep in muck, and the ground oozed. Her foot made a squishy suck coming out, and she almost lost the sandal. “I don’t believe this.” Fouled with slime to the ankle, she began picking her way back across the marshy ground.

There came a hideous stench. Behind her, something moved heavily in the underbrush.

Her legs and arms ached with the sudden pressure of blood, and her bladder voided as, with agonizing slowness, she turned.

The darkness moved.

Unaware of the sudden hot tears on her face, she groped her way backward toward the road.

A shape lurched toward her from the shadows.

Branches slashed at her plump bare thighs as she ran. Something exploded out of the thicket behind her. Propelled by terror, she ran faster than she’d ever thought she could, her brain screaming too loudly to register sights or sounds. Only her bones felt the pounding that gained on the road behind her.

Lights!
A car ahead—she cried out, but the sandals, plowing through soft dirt, slowed her so that…

Slammed into from behind, she was spun around with incredible force.

Distantly, strangely dislocated from herself, from this body whirling through the dark, she wondered if she’d been hit by a car after all. Had the old man come back? It was her last coherent thought.

She lay, pain humming through her in the night, then felt herself being lifted.

A large bat scurried across the sky as a car flashed past the side road, red taillights retreating. The thrashing in the thicket gradually diminished, and soon there remained only the droning of insects.

“You can slow down now, Jack. I told you, there’s no hurry—this one’s DOA. I’d rather we didn’t all wind up that way, if you don’t mind.”

“Are you saying my driving ain’t all it should be, Doris?”

“You mean to tell me you didn’t finish filling that out yet?” Ignoring him, she sat down next to the woman in back. “What’s taking so long, kid?”

The narrow stretcher creaked. Perched on one of the cushioned seats of worn orange vinyl, Athena looked up. “The first one got a little messed up,” she responded, trying to keep dark arterial blood from getting on the report.

“Big surprise. Darn, would you look at my jeans? I throw away more clothes! You should’ve seen it coming out of my hair last night in the shower.” Doris Compson was a short, solid woman. Steel gray hair, steel gray eyes. The patch on her sleeve read captain. Originally from the Tampa Bay area, she’d been living in these woods for almost twenty-five years but still spoke with a slight Southern twang. She’d once avowed, “Jersey’s the crookedest state in the Union—Mafia runs the whole damn place, like Mexico,” but she’d said it with pride, swearing in the next breath that she’d never want to live anywhere else: it was the local style.

With a loud rattle, the ambulance shuddered, spattered ceiling lights faltering. Tires shrieked, leaving twin streaks of acrid rubber on the road.

“What in hell was that?” yelled Doris, jumping to her feet.

The ambulance regained speed.

“I hit a dog.” Shirtsleeves rolled on his muscular arms, Jack Buzby wrestled the wheel, steering the rig around a series of sharp turns.

“You what?”

“You heard me, Doris,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. The thick glasses he pushed back on his nose gave him an incongruously studious air. He was twenty years old, good-looking and normally easygoing, though just now trying hard not to look upset. “It ran outta the woods in front of me. That headlight’s so outta whack, I didn’t even see it till too late.”

“Kill it?”

“Prob’ly.”

“You think it might’ve been one of those wild dogs, kid? The ones Barry and Steve were talking about?”

Athena glanced up. She felt light-headed, nauseated by the heat.

“We had that happen around here once before, couple years back,” Doris went on. “Remember, Jack? A gang of dogs got to running wild in the woods, raiding farms and the like. Hmm, dog days,” she muttered, wiping her face. “That’s what they call it when it’s thick like this. Damn air feels like a dog’s breath.”

“Feral dogs.” Athena stared at the small puddle of blood sloshing around her shoes. The disposable blankets they’d used to sop up some of the liquid lay wadded and soaking.

“You say something, honey?” Doris peered at her.

“Feral dogs, they’re called.” Absently, she massaged her leg. “Like feral children.”

“Leg bothering you again, hon?”

“No.” Scowling, she tried to ignore the ache in her knee while she completed the accident report.

The corpse that sprawled across the stretcher was immensely fat and mangled. The accident had taken place barely a mile from the ambulance hall, and blood had still been spouting from him when they’d arrived. Despite his wife’s protests, the drunken idiot had gone up a rickety ladder to prune a tree at night. He’d landed beer belly—first on the chainsaw.

Athena shook her head, writing up the particulars. Her faded work shirt was drenched and sticky, her hair pulled back in a tight bun.

“Hey, Athena, why don’t you come up here and keep the driver company?”

“Just ignore him, honey. What’s the matter, stud? Need some help with your stick shift?” Doris waved at the air around her face; in truth, it was an old, familiar odor. Before an early retirement, she’d been the local coroner. The appointment had been political, and her professional survival through a succession of graft-ridden administrations had been no accident. She was tough, an expert at cronyism. The fact that Mullica Emergency Rescue, with its small volunteer crew, kept operating at all was due entirely to her fund-raising activities, the shambling wreck of an ambulance itself having been donated by a neighboring township at her instigation. “Christ, this job is a bitch during the summer,” she muttered, resisting the impulse to hold her nose.