Backwoods (15 page)

“Maybe.”

“Why not kill us in the camp?”

“I don’t know.”

“They might not want to kill all three of us,” Leo said, glancing at Abby.

His meaning was clear. These men could be planning to capture Abby, along with Brooke. It was a risk Abby was willing to take. She’d rather die alongside her daughter than live without her.

Another possibility occurred to her. “What if Brooke left the threads? They wouldn’t have noticed her dropping them in the dark.”

This must have seemed plausible to Nathan, because he shut up and kept going.

* * *

B
ROOKE
DIDN
’
T
KNOW
what hit her.

She’d woken with a full bladder in the wee hours of the morning. After stumbling away from the tent to take care of business, she’d pulled up her pants and
bam
. Someone grabbed her from behind.

Before she could open her mouth to scream, a man clamped a wet cloth over the lower half of her face. Powerful fumes burned her throat and triggered her gag reflex. She’d struggled to break free, to no avail. She couldn’t breathe or move. Her nose and mouth felt crushed, her arms trapped in a cruel grip.

As her vision blurred, strange thoughts assailed her. Dizzy and weak-kneed, she pictured herself with a snout for a nose. When the man took his hand away from her mouth, she’d be transformed into a cartoon animal, like the naughty boys in
Pinocchio.
The imagery terrified her. She tried to bite down on the rag, but everything went dark.

For the next few hours, she drifted in and out of consciousness. She couldn’t piece together the fragments of reality to create meaning. There were only disembodied sensations. The sting of a needle in her arm. A foul-smelling sack over her head. Her back resting against something, like a hospital stretcher.
Bump, bump, bump.
Had there been another earthquake? Floating up and coming down. Wrists and ankles tied.

She could see a crisscross of night between the threads of coarse fabric covering her face. It was...burlap.

Brooke moaned, closing her eyes. “Mom, I’m thirsty.”

So thirsty.

No one answered.

“Let me up, Leo. You win.”

The journey continued, rhythmic and bizarre. She conjured more disturbing animated creatures, a man-horse carrying her into a thorn-snarled forest. Her inability to control her imagination frightened her, but she couldn’t keep her mind alert or focus on anything. She felt like she had a head injury. She was afraid to sleep, afraid to stay awake.

Something bad was happening. She couldn’t grasp what.

Don’t speak,
a voice whispered.
Play dead.

She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t dead.

At semiregular intervals, she was placed on the ground. Footsteps circled her like musical chairs and she was lifted again. After the third or fourth—or tenth?—time, it occurred to her that the footsteps belonged to more than one person. She could ask one of these man-horses where she was.

Don’t speak
.

Why not?

Her head lolled to the side and her thoughts scattered. Just go with the flow. Float away on the carousel to Pleasure Island. Braying donkeys smoking cigars. Leo, passing her a joint in the backseat of his car.

Take me out to the ball game...

Her back hit the ground with a jolt.
Hey. Watch the merchandise, boys.
She opened her bleary eyes and sputtered, trying to get the disgusting gunny sack away from her mouth. She was so thirsty. Poison apple.

Someone tugged on her hoof. Boot.

“Shh.”

The sound was real. It came from a real person. She was sure of it. She tried to lift her hand to grab the voice, as if touching this real thing might ground her. But her arm was immobile, her wrists bound together. Her ankles were tied, also. Another pull and her boot slipped off. She was only wearing one, she realized. Now both feet were bare.

Don’t speak. Shh.

She tried to wiggle her toes and—success!—she did it. Tears flooded her eyes at this tiny victory.

Up again and into a closed space. Dark, dry, dirt. Down again, up again, bump-jostle-bump. After a series of odd twists and turns, vertical and horizontal angles, linear equations, she landed like an airplane.

The horsemen, possible satyrs, trotted off. Without the constant motion, Brooke drifted into her subconscious. She slept in fits and starts, her dream sequences plagued by landslides and wild animals and diving board vibrations.

On your mark, get set...go!

She couldn’t run at the whistle, too sluggish. Instead of finishing the race, she stumbled to the sidelines to rest.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

N
AUSEA
FORCED
HER
AWAKE
.

Unable to roll over, Brooke turned her head to the side and retched, emptying her stomach of its meager contents. She hadn’t felt this sick or disoriented since the San Diego earthquake. Her wrists and ankles were tied, her face covered. Hot tears leaked from her eyes and saliva trailed down her cheek. Ugh.

Where was she? Not at home. Not in a tent.

Blunt fingertips fumbled with the burlap sack, removing it with care. Colors melted together and came apart. A nubby washcloth on her skin. It smelled like mildew.

“Drink,” a voice said, helping her raise her head.

It was the “shh” voice. She swallowed several mouthfuls of water. Creek water, probably filtered, but with the same gritty aftertaste.

When her vision cleared, she saw a boy sitting beside her. Dark hair, tangled and dirty. Thick, heavy brows. She recognized him as one of the hunters they’d met on the trail. He had a camouflage bandanna around his neck and a wispy mustache. Although young, he looked feral. His irregular features and big ears gave him an awkward, Picasso-esque appearance. If she passed him on the street, she’d avoid eye contact.

She struggled to match his intimidating visage with the careful touch and kind voice. He’d drugged her and kidnapped her.

Brooke tore her gaze from his and tried to focus on the room they were in. It appeared to be a bunker or underground cavern. It was a cramped space with a dank, earthy odor. The walls were brown and bare. There were scratch marks...

The boy. She studied the boy again, swallowing her fear. He was sitting on a plastic crate. There was no other furniture, other than the bed she rested on. It was hard and narrow, with pine boughs as bedposts.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He flushed, as if the question embarrassed him. Despite the circumstances, he seemed more skittish than threatening.

“What’s your name?” she said, softer this time.

“Wyatt.”

“I’m Brooke.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he glanced at the open doorway. She couldn’t see what lay beyond. Whatever it was scared him more than he scared her. There was a monster lurking in the shadows.

“Is this where you live?”

Wyatt nodded.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“I’m eighteen,” she said. “Do you go to school?”

“No.”

Brooke felt sorry for him. He had to live in this dirt-packed hovel like an animal, miles from civilization. If she got the chance, she’d bash this hillbilly over the head with a rock, but she could sympathize. “I go to Berkeley.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a college in Northern California.”

He gave her a blank look. Maybe he’d never been out of these woods.

Her wrists ached from the bindings. She tried to rotate them, flexing her fingers. “Will you untie me?”

He glanced away, denying her.
Shh.

“Where are you from?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Were you born here?”

“No.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Five years.”

“Is that man your father?”

He didn’t answer.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Dead.”

Tears filled Brooke’s eyes. She wanted her mother. So much. She wanted to read one of her mom’s annoying text messages and accept her cushiony hugs. She wanted to be coddled, and smothered, and spoiled. She wanted to feel her mother’s cool palm on her forehead, checking her temperature. “Do you miss her?”

Wyatt nodded.

Brooke moistened her lips. “Will you...will you hold my hand?”

After a short hesitation, he reached out, entwining his fingers with hers. They were numb from lack of circulation. Pinpricks of sensation tingled in the swollen digits. The contact stung as much as it comforted her.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was awake?”

Wyatt jerked his hand away from hers. It was the monster. She recognized him as the other hunter they’d met on the trail near Echo Lake. He was larger than Wyatt. More powerful, with a full beard and craggy features. His gaze gleamed with cold relish, something the boy lacked. This man-horse was in his element, doing exactly what he wanted. He inhabited this space with confidence.

“She threw up,” the boy said.

“Take off her clothes.”

Terror coursed through Brooke, cold and bright. Of course this was the reason she’d been brought here. It was the same reason any girl got taken and tied up against her will. She would be raped and murdered, like the other victims. The ones who’d tried to claw their way out of this grave with their fingernails.

She turned to Wyatt in a silent plea. He wasn’t a monster. Or maybe he was a skinnier, less-experienced monster.

Would he help her?

The older man spoke again. “I said, take off her clothes.”

Wyatt moved his gaze from Brooke. “No.”

“No?”

“I want this one.”

The monster clenched his hand into a dirty fist. “You what?”

“I want her for myself.”

The monster looked back and forth between them, incredulous. Clearly they worked as a team, but Wyatt must not have asserted himself this way before. “I wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to bring you a little friend.”

“You can get another woman. The older one.”

Wyatt meant her mother. Brooke’s heart twisted at the thought.

“This one’s mine,” he insisted. “I like her.”

“You don’t know what to do with her.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Show me.”

“No,” Brooke said, squeezing her eyes shut. She didn’t want to belong to either of them. Intuition told her Wyatt would be kinder and easier to escape from. But she couldn’t just lie here while he violated her. “Please, don’t.”

“See? You’re not ready to break her.”

“I can do it,” Wyatt said, glowering at him. “She’s young. I can let her get used to me. Then maybe she won’t run away, like the others.”

The monster grasped her bare foot. His fingernails were ragged, with dark crescents of dirt beneath them. “The last one ran away because you got lazy with her shackles. Do you remember what happened to her?”

Wyatt paled. “Yes.”

“You won’t make that mistake again, will you?”

“No, sir,” he said, bowing his head.

“If you want her, you can have her after I’m done. Now move aside.”

Brooke’s stomach lurched at his words. She panicked, trying to kick her legs and jerk her wrists free of the bindings. When the man tightened his grip on her foot and gave it a hard yank, she screamed out loud.

“Where’s her boot?” the monster asked.

“It fell off at the campsite.”

He backhanded the boy across the face. Wyatt went sprawling. Brooke gasped in dismay. She’d seen fights after school, and the not-so-playful scuffle between Nathan and Leo. But she’d never witnessed this kind of abuse.

“She was wearing one the whole way here,” the man said.

Blood dribbled from Wyatt’s lip. He cowered in the corner. “I didn’t notice.”

That was a lie. Brooke remembered someone removing her boot and telling her to hush. Wyatt must have done it. She didn’t know why this was important, but she kept her mouth shut, trusting her instincts.
Shh
.

“I’ll go look for it,” Wyatt said.

Brooke shuddered at the thought of being left alone with the older man.

“No,” the monster said, after a pause. “I’ll go. You stay here and guard the hatch.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t you dare untie her—or you’ll both end up in the pit.”

* * *

B
Y
MIDDAY
,
THE
TRAIL
had gone cold.

Abby scoured the forest for wool threads. Leo studied the map as if “villain’s lair” might be marked with an X. They backtracked and changed routes. Nathan wanted to continue to the off-highway vehicle area in hopes of finding some bikers with cell phones. Leo said they were at least five miles from that location. Nathan glanced at the map and disagreed. The two of them argued in urgent whispers that set her nerves on edge.

Abby was hanging on to sanity by a thread. She’d been this way for several days after the San Diego earthquake. Hope that Brooke was still alive kept her going, then and now. She couldn’t rest until she knew where her daughter was. She wouldn’t stop looking.

She would not quit. Ever.

“We need to get to higher ground and study the land formations to orient ourselves,” Nathan said.

Abby seconded this idea. They climbed the nearest hill and looked around. Leo didn’t believe that Nathan knew where the hell they were, but they reached a truce nevertheless. The tree-lined ravine in the distance indicated Silver Creek, which flowed east. According to the map, the creek skirted the edge of the old forest service road, which led south, to the off-highway vehicle area. If they traveled east along the creek, they should find something resembling a dirt road within miles.

As plans went, it was sketchy, but she wanted to keep moving. She couldn’t stop to think. She’d fall apart.

Abby trudged down the other side of the hill towards a copse of trees. She’d only taken a few steps when a hint of red caught her attention. She gripped Nathan’s wrist, unable to speak. Brooke’s brown hiking boot was lying at the base of a short cliff, less than a hundred feet away. The red laces were untied, dangling loose.

He followed her gaze to the boot. A muscle in his jaw flexed. He signaled Leo with a curt gesture and they ducked into the trees. Abby crouched down in the leaves beside Nathan. Her heart was pounding in her ears, her mouth dry. She wondered if Nathan’s suspicions were right. Perhaps they
had
been lured into a trap.

The boot appeared perfectly placed, like a flag on a putting green. There was also something odd about the area. It resembled the rest of the Monarch wilderness, with boulders and foliage and pine trees. The cliff was more of an escarpment, a rift between two levels of earth that rose about twenty feet high.

“If anyone was going to ambush us, they’d be waiting right here,” Nathan murmured.

“Then we’re safe to proceed,” Leo said.

“I don’t know how her boot ended up at the base of that cliff. The dirt is rocky and the ground is uneven. It’s not a natural footpath.”

“Maybe it fell from the top.”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s check it out,” Leo said.

“I’ll check it out,” Nathan said. “You two stay here.”

When Leo opened his mouth to protest, Abby elbowed him to shut up. As long as they kept moving and making choices, she could hold her emotions at bay. Too much discussion and strife would wear down her defenses. “Good idea.”

Leo and Abby kept watch while Nathan crept forward. Abby studied the woods for movement, though she wanted to see what Nathan was doing. When he disappeared from her peripheral vision, she felt lost.

He returned a moment later, his face tense. “We have to go.”

“Why?”

“There’s a door in the escarpment,” he said. “A fucking door, hidden inside a crevice. It’s covered in clay or some kind of material that matches the dirt.”

“Let’s break in,” Abby said.

“They’re waiting on the other side, armed and ready to kill us,” he hissed. “That’s the only reason they aren’t out here.”

“So you want to just leave, after coming this far?”

“I thought we’d find them in a camp or someplace open. This is a fortress. Our chances of getting in and out alive are minimal.” He paused to let that sink in. “We need help, Abby. We can lead the authorities straight to her.”

Abby stared at her daughter’s boot, remembering the long hours after the quake. The aftershocks. The agonizing walk to the football stadium, which had acted as an evacuation center. The hours spent sitting on the floor of an overcrowded east-county hospital. Sleepless nights and endless days. Piles of dead bodies.

“I’m not leaving,” she said.

“If we don’t go now, we won’t
get
to go. We’ll all die. Brooke, too.”

“I’m not leaving,” she repeated.

“Me, neither,” Leo said.

Veins formed in Nathan’s flushed neck. “Motherfucker,” he said through clenched teeth. “I knew you two would do this.”

“She’s getting raped in there, Dad,” Leo said quietly.

“You think I don’t know that?” Nathan whispered, rage in his eyes. “You think I don’t
care?
”

Abby understood why he was angry. Her insistence on staying put Leo’s safety at risk. She’d be dismayed if their situations were reversed, and Brooke wanted to rescue Leo. But the only thing that mattered to Abby right now was saving Brooke. Leo was an adult who could make his own decisions.

“I’m going in after her,” Abby said.

Leo bumped his knuckles against hers again, showing solidarity.

Nathan looked as if he wanted to throttle them both. She thought his head was going to explode. Finally, he took the knife out of his pocket and stood. “Bring your fucking spear, hero. We have to case the perimeter first.”

Abby rose with them, her heart racing.

Nathan stopped her with a blistering glare. “You can keep watch. We’ll be right back.”

“What should I do if I see someone?”

“Run.”

After issuing that curt dismissal, he walked away with Leo. She studied the swaying grass on the hillside, her heart in her throat. Anxiety coiled inside her like a spring. Although she wasn’t a religious woman, she prayed for her daughter with fervent desperation.

When Nathan and Leo reappeared, Abby almost wilted with relief. Nathan gestured for her to follow him through the copse of trees. “I think there’s another door at the top of the cliff,” he said, pointing in that direction. “You stay here and guard the exits. If Brooke comes out, don’t wait for us. Just run as fast as you can.”

“Where?”

“To the creek. It will lead you to the forest service road.”

Abby didn’t like it. “I’d rather go in with you.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“What do you think we’re going to do in there, ask nicely for Brooke to be released? Have tea and discuss our options?”