She saw Ben kick. His shoe slammed into the boy’s face, and the boy went down.
“He’s out,” Ben said after nudging the body.
“Dead?”
“Just unconscious, I think.”
They took the time to bandage Cordie’s cut arm. Ben used the tail of his shirt, slicing it off with the boy’s knife and tying it around Cordie’s wound.
Then Cordie knelt beside the boy. She loosened the belt. Touching his neck, she found his pulse.
“Let’s just leave him while he’s still conked out,” she said.
“Okay with me.”
Leaving the boy, they ran through the trees. They had gone no more than fifty yards when a voice boomed the single word, KRULL
Not the voice of the boy.
It came from behind. Cordie stopped, and turned.
Its roar still vibrated through the woods like a furious, echoing blast of hate.
It sent a shiver of dread through Cordie. “What do you think that was?” she whispered.
“I don’t…”
The shriek of the boy ripped into her ears.
Ben grabbed her arm. “Come on.”
They ran a few steps. Then Cordie pulled free. “Wait.” She crouched behind a tree, and pulled Ben down beside her. “What’d that sound like?” she whispered.
“Like a voice out of hell.”
“I mean, didn’t it sound like somebody yelled ’Krull,’ and then maybe killed the kid?”
“Yeah, that’s what it sounded like.”
“Maybe he’ll help us.”
“You’re nuts.”
“No, really. I mean, we’re not Krulls. Maybe he’s trying to get away from here, too. Just like us.”
“Not just like us. You heard him, for Christsake. He hardly sounded human.”
It’d be…” Her voice froze in her throat at the loud crushing of underbrush.
Ben’s hand tightened in hers.
A tall, broad shape strode between the trees.
Cordie heard a strangled whimper inside her throat.
Ben lunged away, pulling her hand. She jerked it free. Ben glanced back.
The awful voice roared, “KRULL”
Ben ran.
Cordie saw the hulking shape lope after him. In a patch of moonlight, she saw its shaggy arms, its thick legs.
Then there was only forest. She heard the crashing footfalls.
Ben yelled, “No! Please!”
She covered her ears.
Ben’s final cry was cut short.
She curled at the base of the trunk, and held her knees, and listened to the woods.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Holy shit, a cabin!”
Robbins caught up to Neala. They stopped beside Sherri, and looked through the trees.
Near the end of a long, moon-washed clearing stood a cabin of logs.
“Not bad,” Robbins said. “Let’s have a look.”
He went first, stepping into the open and pausing to scan the area. The clearing was larger than a football field, maybe a little more narrow. Watching the edges of the forest, he saw no movement. The cabin looked dark and deserted. “Stay close,” he said.
Neala stepped to his right side, Sherri to his left. He started forward, rifle ready. The ground felt springy under his boots. A cool breeze stirred across his bare arms.
He looked at Neala. She was limping. Her mouth was pressed shut as if she were biting into the pain. She looked very brave and very vulnerable. He wanted to hold her.
She saw him looking, and made a smile.
“How’re the feet?” he asked.
“They’ve seen better nights.”
He turned to Sherri. “Gonna make it?”
“First chance I get,” she said, and laughed sourly.
As they moved closer to the cabin, Robbins saw that it stood in a field of pickets. Each of the tall poles had a crossbar like the arm bones of a scarecrow. Each was topped with a dark ball.
Sherri grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt. “Oh shit,” she gasped. “Oh fucking shit!”
“They’re heads!” Neala whispered.
Robbins squinted at the top of the nearest pole. The sphere on top was a head, all right, its dark hair drifting in the breeze. He looked from one pole to another. A head was impaled on each. “Good God,” he said. He took a step forward.
Sherri tugged his arm. “We’re not going in there!”
He turned to Neala.
She shook her head.
“The cabin,” he said.
“I don’t want to,” Neala told him in a voice like a terrified child.
Turning around, he saw movement in the woods. A face appeared beside an aspen. He raised his rifle and took aim, but the face slipped sideways. It vanished behind the trunk.
To the left, a pale body darted between trees.
Sherri groaned loudly.
“Let’s go for the cabin,” Robbins said.
Neala squeezed his arm.
A knife arched through the night, flipping end over end, its blade flashing moonlight. Robbins shoved Neala. She stumbled sideways as the knife whipped by. Robbins rushed to her.
“Let’s go,” he said, pulling her up.
“God, it would’ve…
“It didn’t.”
They raced toward the cabin. Sherri caught up. A dozen feet before the first stake, Robbins dropped Neala’s arm and snatched the knife from the ground. “Take this,” he said. He looked back.
He saw no one.
Then he led the way among the poles, ducking beneath the crossbars. The pikes were close together. He moved carefully, afraid of bumping them, but his rifle butt knocked into one. The staff wobbled. Something dropped from above and Neala, behind him, gasped with horror. He wanted to look around, but the staffs enclosed him like a cage. He couldn’t turn without tipping others.
“You all right?” he called back.
No answer.
“Neala?”
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
“Sherri?”
“Get us out of here!”
“How’s the rear?” The words were out before he realized his mistake. “Forget—”
He raised himself. His shoulder hit a crossbar. The staff wobbled in the loose earth. He clutched it to stop it from falling. Then he pivoted and looked back. Neala was still crouched low. Sherri, a distance behind her, was standing upright, back toward him, shoulders level with the crossbars, head just below the other hands.
Robbins watched her, and knew she wasn’t checking the rear for Krulls. She was gazing at the impaled heads. Dozens of them. Surrounding her. Pressing close like a hideous mob.
“Sherri! he shouted.
She whirled around. Knocked into a pole. It fell against another, and that one tipped, and suddenly a dozen staffs were swaying and falling their grisly ornaments jerking toward each other as if to share a secret, others thudding together, some falling and rolling.
Sherri looked at it all, then at Robbins. Her eyes and mouth were dark holes in her moonlit face.
Neala started to rise. Robbins pushed her head down. “Don’t look,” he said.
“Sherri, just come on forward.”
She didn’t move.
“Sherri!”
“I can’t.”
“Stay right here,” he said to Neala.
Crouching below the crossbars, he made his way through the forest of pikes. When he got close to Sherri, he found the crosses standing at crazy angles. He tried to lift one out of the way. A weathered head, little more than a skull with patches of hair trailing in the breeze, wobbled in front of his face. Sickened, he dropped the pike.
He stood facing Sherri. She was several feet away. A tangle of sticks and heads separated them. Keeping his eyes on her, he began moving forward, stepping high, his boots smashing the frail crosses to the ground. Twice, his feet came down on heads. One cracked. The other ripped like a rock and nearly sent him sprawling. He caught his balance, choked with horror at the thought of falling into such things.