As he fumbled through the dark, he glimpsed a light. He started to run, keeping his hands out to protect his face from the branches. As he neared the cabin, the door swung open and a woman fled into the night. He glimpsed her through the rain, and her long black hair streaming out behind her was unmistakable: Orla. Seconds later, a man emerged through the doorway and followed her.
Abe paused, gazing at the cabin. He took a step closer and then turned, rushing in the direction Orla had run.
Chapter 50
Orla
Thunder cracked the night and lightning split the sky above her. For a dazzling instant, Orla saw Spencer behind her, barreling through the trees, and then it was black once more.
She hurled forward, blind in the rain, her feet crying out as she stepped on fallen branches and tried not slip. Her muscles shrieked as if she’d set them on fire. She clutched trees and heaved for breath but knew she could not stop. Her life, and the life of the woman in the cabin, depended on her escape.
A dark mass rose before her, and she nearly ran into it headfirst. She skidded to a stop and pushed her face closer, finding a rusted metal door to an old kiln. She dragged the door open and climbed inside, pulling it closed. Inside the kiln, she heard nothing. The instant the sound died, she regretted her choice. She was trapped.
The fine ash beneath her stuck to her wet hands and legs. She crawled deeper into the kiln, to the far back. The ash billowed when she moved and she struggled to breathe. It caught in her nose and throat. She needed to cough, but couldn’t. Didn’t dare.
Within the ash, hard things poked and shifted beneath her. She reached down and followed the outline of a long, thin object, like a stick, but no… As she grasped it, she realized it was a long bone, rounded and knobby at either end. If she took off her gloves, she could discover who the bones belonged to. She didn’t, but she lifted the bone in her hand, ready to wield it as a weapon if Spencer opened the door.
“Please,” she murmured to the silence. “Please don’t let me die in here.”
The door creaked open. It brought no light, but a rush of cool, wet air swept into the kiln swirling the ash up around Orla. She clenched her hand on the bone, biting back a scream.
“Orla?” a man whispered.
She did not recognize the voice.
She wanted to call out, scream for help, but maybe it was Spencer – somehow, he’d disguised his voice and hoped to trick her.
She stayed quiet and pressed her back against the cement wall.
Lightning lit the forest, and Orla glimpsed the stranger for an instant, his eyes peering into the kiln.
Worse, she observed the man who stood behind him: Spencer, a hammer in his raised hand.
“Watch out!” she screamed, but the bolt of lightning had vanished, and she stared into the black. Sounds drifted into the kiln, grunts and thuds.
Was Spencer killing the man? Would he soon crawl into the kiln to finish her, too?
She didn’t wait to find out. She fumbled over ash and bones, leapt onto the slick forest floor, rain washing the grit from her face and arms. She spotted a dark mass rolling on the ground. She wanted to help, needed to help, but could not make out one man from another.
She fled back to the cabin, bolting the door behind her. In the now-open bedroom, Spencer had left his knife on the floor by the bed. The girl in the bed, arms and legs tied, stared at her panic-stricken, one eye bruised and bloodshot. Her blonde hair fell across her face.
Orla grabbed the knife and hacked at the ropes. When the girl’s arm was free, she ripped the gag from her mouth. Red welts marked the creases of her mouth. She cried and blundered off the bed.
Abe
Abe ducked sideways as Spencer brought the hammer toward his skull. He landed hard on his shoulder, and already the man was striking again, arm raised, the clawed end pointing down. Abe rolled across the wet leaves, and kicked his legs out. His foot connected with Spencer’s shin. He grunted, but didn’t drop the hammer.
Abe scrambled with his hands, found a thick branch and whipped it toward Spencer’s form but the rain and dark obscured him.
He stood, squinted into the downpour, and perceived the hammer too late as it crashed into the side of his head.
Orla
“Run,” Orla bellowed, pushing the girl ahead of her into the blustery night.
The trees howled in the storm and dropped their leaves and branches as the girls tore through thick underbrush.
“I can’t see,” the girl cried to Orla.
“Just don’t stop,” Orla shouted, shoving her forward when she slowed.
Orla ached. A cramp in her right abdomen crept higher, and she hunched sideways to relieve the clenched tissue.
The blonde girl slipped, her feet sliding back to connect with Orla’s ankles, and both women fell. Orla landed hard on the girl’s back and heard her grunt. Rolling to the side, Orla reached for her knee, which had twisted in the fall, and winced. The blonde girl climbed onto her hands and knees. Her shoulders rose and fell as she sobbed and struggled for breath, her clothes and hair mud-splattered.
Orla reached out, found the woman’s slippery hand, and drew her close. They held each other for several seconds, the rain pelting their heads. Lightning streaked and lit the forest, and Orla saw him - Spencer, hammer in hand, only feet from where the girls lay.
Orla stiffened, and for a few seconds time seemed to exist in a parallel world. She slipped into her long-ago self, a little girl lost in the sand dunes as a thunderstorm rocked the sky. As Orla cowered behind a gnarled, bone-white tree, she gazed in horror at a man holding a hammer and stumbling through the sand towards her.
A boom of thunder split the earth.
There was no time to warn the girl. Orla stood, jerked the other woman to her feet, and dragged her into the woods.
She tried to run, but her knee buckled, and she went down, hand slipping from the blonde woman’s grasp. The woman lunged backwards, sprawling in the sodden leaves and narrowly dodging the hammer Spencer had swung at her head.
Orla crawled toward her, but Spencer’s hand clamped on her leg, gripping through her sweatpants to keep from slipping. She forced the waistband down and slipped out of the pants. She felt the hammer thud into the ground beside her.
The blonde woman was on her feet. She heaved Orla up beside her.
Orla screamed as Spencer’s hand sank into her hair. She tried to twist away, and he brought her skull hard against the other woman’s, whose hair he also held tight in his fist. Their heads collided, and black spots filled Orla’s vision.
Both women collapsed. Orla felt her head break free of Spencer’s grasp.
She looked up to see a hand close over Spencer’s mouth. Another set of arms surrounded him, and another. Orla blinked, dazed, as long, slender arms, pale and waxy, ending in torn, bloody fingernails, besieged the man.
Orla glimpsed the woman she’d encountered at the start of this nightmare: Susan, long blonde hair unaffected by the rain, but streaked in dark red. The girl had both hands over Spencer’s face, pressing into his eyes. He was shrieking and tearing at their arms. He fell onto his back.
The blonde woman who’d escaped with Orla watched as well. They sat on the sodden earth as the rain subsided, watching young women with bloodied faces and long blonde hair drag Spencer backwards into the forest.