The Remedy (21 page)

Leigh grabbed Alex’s shoulders and made her friend look her directly in the eyes.

“Alex, listen to me. I want you to go up those stairs and stay as low as you can. You got me? Stay really, really low.”

Alex was shaking so badly now she was almost convulsing. “Leigh,” she mumbled. “I can’t.”

“Yes you
can
!” Leigh shook her hard. “It’s just a few steps. And once you hit the trees, you start running. Run and don’t stop. Understand? Do not stop running. I’ll be right behind you.”

Alex inhaled to mutter another protest, but Leigh was already pushing her toward the door.

“Go!” she whispered, grabbing the bottom of her own shirt and pulling it over her head. The next moment, Leigh saw her friend already climbing the storm door steps.

Above her, the door leading from the kitchen to the basement steps swung open.

“That better be all fixed up by the time I get back up here!” The final scolding bought Leigh just enough time to snap off her bra and throw both it and her shirt underneath the butcher’s table. The bundle of clothes had landed in a puddle of congealing blood, but she refused to think about that as she grabbed the burlap sack that had covered Alex’s face.

The steps leading down from upstairs creaked under the man’s weight as he began his descent.

Pulling the sack over her own head, Leigh tried her best to conceal any strands of her dark hair that risked sticking out the bottom. Just as the sack came over her eyes, she spotted a pair of dirty work boots touch down on the final steps of the staircase.

Her sight completely obscured, Leigh shot her hands upward and, on tiptoes, felt for the hook.

It wasn’t there.

Please God. Please…

Something hard and cold grazed her fingertips. She’d found it. Leigh immediately sprang up and gripped the thick hook with both hands, suspending herself above the ground. Just as her feet had left the floor, she heard:

“There she is.”

There was no way to know if the dim light of the single lantern would reveal the fact that the man’s captive was no longer bound by the wrists. Leigh’s heart slammed against the inside of her chest, pounding harder than it ever had before. She was surprised she hadn’t gone into cardiac arrest.

Youth, however, was on her side, and she was going to use all her strength to kick the man square in the balls once he came close enough. But there was no way this ruse was going to work for long. Even if Leigh had succeeded in hiding all of her dark hair, her breasts were noticeably smaller than Alex’s. And considering she’d found Alex nearly naked, Leigh had the sickening suspicion that this man was very familiar with Alex’s body.

“Did you miss me?” the man asked as he crept closer. Leigh fought to control her breathing under the mask to feign unconsciousness.

The man was mere inches away now, but still not close enough for Leigh to land a solid blow. And even with Marshall’s slaughtered corpse rotting just a few feet away, she could smell this man’s stench.

The rubber soles of his work boots made an abrupt scuff on the basement’s dirt floor. Through the sack, Leigh could feel the man staring at her, stopped in his tracks by his own puzzlement.

“Huh,” he mumbled, and Leigh knew exactly what he was examining. Her lesser bust had given her away just as she had predicted, which meant it was time for her foot to meet the family jewels.

Leigh bit her lip.

Wake up time, you fuck
.

“I think we gotta feed you some more, girl!”

She remained motionless.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like my bitches skinny, but you’re starting to thin out in the one place where I like a woman to have some weight.”

If his hand hadn’t found her breast so quickly, Leigh would’ve flinched at the man’s touch. Before she knew it, the man was kneading her right breast, flicking her stiff nipple between his fingers.

“Ooh, look at you. You like that, don’t you?”

Leigh squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out the violation. She clenched the hook above her and tried to focus on the fact that her guise was working. As long as he didn’t remove the burlap sack…

A disgusted groan uncontrollably escaped her mouth when the man’s tongue traced a circle around her areola.

Oh shit…

“I
knew
you were awake,” the man said, before returning his mouth to her nipple. Even though he sucked painfully hard, sometimes biting her nipple with his teeth, Leigh knew she could take it if she just concentrated on something else.

Think about something else
.

Be
somewhere else
.

It was easier thought than done. She attempted to focus on keeping her grip on the hook above her, directing all her attention to the cold metal in her tight grasp. She concentrated on the grooves of the scratches in its surface, the flaky rust between her fingers, her own sweat…

But she couldn’t escape hard, agonizing reality when the man’s hand began to slide from her breast to the center of her stomach, and didn’t stop there. His hand continued downward, sliding across her perspiration, its fingertips reaching the button of her pants.

No
.

This she could not take.

This rapist’s crotch was about to be hit by the force of a rocket launch.

Another loud crash rattled the ceiling above them.

“What the fuck?” the man shouted, removing both his hands and his mouth from Leigh’s body. “What’d you do now?”

The man put his face right up next to the sack.

“I’ll be back soon.”

He quickly turned and marched away, footsteps shaking the stairs as he returned to the kitchen. The moment Leigh heard the door slam shut, she released her cramped fingers from the hook and fell to the basement floor. She yanked the bag from her head just in time to avoid vomiting inside of it. She puked as quietly as she could through the violent heaving racking her body,

When her gagging had finally subsided, Leigh retrieved her shirt from underneath the butcher’s table. It was damp with blood, but it offered welcome concealment.

Navigating the cellar was far easier now than it had been when she first entered. Upon passing Marshall’s body for the last time, Leigh snatched the shark tooth of his shell necklace and pulled, snapping it from the bloody stump where his neck had been. Alex might be thankful to have this one day. Necklace in hand, Leigh went up the storm door stairs, making sure to stay low.

She remained low, just below the line of the cabin’s windows, as she snuck her way toward the corner of the structure. There was nothing more she wanted in the world than to run away as fast as her legs would allow, but she had to check for Sam and Rob one last time. If her stomach-turning experience in the cellar had been good for anything, it at least meant that her friends still hadn’t been discovered. It was looking as though the two guys had gotten away on their own, maybe planning to double back and retrieve Leigh from her hiding spot.

Leigh knew she’d have to hustle if she ever wanted to catch up with Alex. She’d told her to run at full speed, but in this darkness and in these thick woods, Leigh knew her pace wouldn’t be too difficult to catch. Once Leigh reached the corner of the cabin that both Sam and Rob had disappeared behind, she’d see if they were there.

It may have been a solid plan, but it fell apart the moment she turned the corner.

With his back to her, Sam was squatted over something on the ground. Overjoyed to finally have found him, Leigh rushed forward.

When she saw what he was crouched over, her hand shot to her mouth again, her teeth raking the soft flesh of her knuckles.

Dead eyes stared at her from behind Sam’s legs.

Eyes that belonged to Alex.

“Sam?” Leigh whispered.

Sam turned at the sound of Leigh’s voice. A large, ragged wound bled from the top of Alex’s skull, her blond hair sticking together in clumps from where the blood ran down across her face. Even more frightening than the sight of her bludgeoned, murdered friend was the club-like branch in Sam’s grasp, its jagged tip dripping with fresh blood.

Sam stood up. “Leigh!”

“Oh God,” Leigh moaned, her gaze refusing to look away from the bloody club.

Sam opened his mouth to say more but she didn’t wait for the words. She pivoted to turn and run into the forest, but was blocked by someone’s broad chest. A chest clad in a denim vest covered in punk band patches.

Rob caught her by her arms, steadying her so she didn’t fall over. The bow and quiver taken from their cabin still hung from his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Leigh concentrated only on his eyes in order to catch her breath. “Rob,” she gasped, “you were right. Sam’s with them. He killed Alex.”

From behind her, Leigh heard Sam say, “I found her like this!” She turned to see him take a step toward them, which provoked Rob to grab the tranquilizer gun from Leigh’s back pocket.

“Stop,” Rob said, pointing the barrel of the gun at Sam’s face.

Leigh took a step behind Rob so he blocked the path between her and Sam. Speaking directly into Rob’s ear she said, “Don’t listen to him. The other two are inside. It had to be Sam. Look, he’s holding the weapon he killed her with.” She pointed at the bulky branch in Sam’s hand. Sam looked at the club incredulously, as if he hadn’t even been aware he was holding it until now.

“No!” Sam said, dropping the stick. “No, wait a second.” He took another step forward.

The dart hit him in the neck, directly below the lobe of his left ear. Sam stumbled backward, crying out in pain.

Leigh grabbed Rob’s shoulder, furiously shaking him. “Jesus Christ, Rob! They’ll hear him!” But the tranquilizer already began to take effect, quieting Sam’s cries to a moan. As Leigh watched him stagger and lose his orientation, something else caught her eye.

Now that Sam had fallen to the ground, Leigh could see the entirety of Alex’s corpse. Embedded in the thigh of her right leg was an arrow with red fletching.

As Leigh turned to face Rob, she shivered, knowing what she was about to see.

The arrows sticking out of Rob’s quiver shared the same fletching.

“Rob?”

He smiled. “Good night, Leigh.”

Leigh only caught a glimpse of the butt of the tranquilizer gun as Rob slammed it into the bridge of her nose.

And then all was black.

The knots restraining Jake’s wrists would not be undone by mere twisting or wriggling, that much was sure. On several occasions, Phil had shared stories of his younger days in the Navy, expanding his horizons as he traveled around the world. One of the many skills he’d picked up during his time on military vessels was the practiced art of knot-tying. And while Jake didn’t know the name of the particular variety that bound his hands, he assumed it was probably the first choice of kidnappers everywhere.

“Damn, Phil,” Jake said, grimacing at the man who sat across from him. “You’ve still got it. I can’t move an inch.”

Phil smiled as if he were greeting his grandkids. “Tying knots is like riding a bike. Once you learn how, you never forget.”

Jake jerked his arms upward with all his strength. The wooden chair lifted from the floor and returned with a loud
thump
, but his hands remained frozen behind him. “Yup,” he said, shrugging. “I’d have to be Houdini himself to get out of this. I bet the Navy misses you.

Phil’s rifle rested on his crossed legs. He removed his hat and hung it from the gun’s barrel like a multifunctional coat hook. “You’re probably right about that. But what can I say? I had my fill of the ocean. I figured I’d see what mysteries the land had to offer.”

Jake looked at his captor. “Speaking of mystery, you want to fill me in now as to why I’m tied to this chair?”

The older man’s nostrils whistled as he took a deep breath in an apparent effort to control his emotions. Having tried everything he could to placate Phil, Jake knew he no longer had anything to lose. Either Phil was going to shoot him or he wasn’t, and all Jake could do was wait and see which it was going to be. In the meantime, he could at least try to get some answers.

Phil ran a hand down his injured ankle, rubbing the cast as if he could feel his massage through the plaster. “I can’t wait to get this damn thing off,” he whispered, more to himself than to Jake. “It really makes me feel my age. God, I’ve been in this town for so long.”

He looked at Jake. “I grew up in Embry. You knew that, right?”

Phil didn’t wait for Jake’s answer.

“Yeah, I’m sure I must have told you before. Well, consider this a little refresher.”

He cleared his throat.

“I spent the first eighteen years of life here, and the only time I left was when I graduated high school and joined the Navy. Back in those days, the sawmill was our town’s biggest source of income. And though you wouldn’t believe it now, that sucker had the highest productivity of its kind in the entire Northeast.”

Jake squirmed. “Yes, I know all this, Phil. Get to your point.”

The older ranger shook his head. “Impatient—just like when we go fishing. You should work on that while you’re still young. But where was I? Oh right, I went and joined the Navy, leaving the thriving lumber town I called my home. I didn’t have the foggiest idea where my adventures might lead me, but somewhere in the back of my head I knew that I’d probably end up at the mill when everything was said and done. So imagine my surprise when I returned home to find that everything had changed.”

Phil paused and Jake took the chance to jump in.

“By the time you got back, the forest had become diseased and the mill was forced to close, and eventually reopened all the way in Scoutsville. So instead of working at the mill, you became a forest ranger and worked alongside a handsome youngster named Jacob Spire who you would eventually take at gunpoint, tie to a chair, and torture with pointless, redundant stories. There, we’ve caught up to the present.”

Phil’s face remained emotionless. His fingers drummed out a tuneless melody on the stock of the rifle.

And this is when he blows my brains out
.