“What if she’s still alive?” a third voice from below wanted to know. The new voice had a mountain twang.
“Bust her head in with a rock or something. If we go back and she’s still alive, Dread will feed us to that pet of his!”
Kirsten’s heart stopped at the sound of that name. These weren’t rescuers. They were some of Dread’s henchmen. And she had almost called out to them…
She had to get away. Already she could see the yellow beams of electric torches searching through the fog below. They were backtracking along the path torn through the undergrowth by the car’s plunge. The dense leaves and blossoms of the rhododendron thicket had hidden her unconscious body from them minutes before, but now they were searching carefully through the broken branches.
The afternoon rain had left the ground spongy and damp. No leaves cracked as Kirsten stealthily edged away from the path of the wreck. The twisted loops of rhododendron branches made a labyrinthine crawlspace beneath their dense outer foliage. As quickly as she dared, the girl slithered away beneath their shelter.
She could glimpse the murky figures of the searchers as they climbed toward her. She prayed that a chance beam of light wouldn’t pick out her white body beneath the leaves. Twigs tore at her silk frock, and in her haste branches shook and stones scraped as she wriggled to escape. It seemed impossible that they hadn’t heard her — but there were several men noisily stamping about along the slope, and the fog muffled her furtive movements.
“No sign of her!” the nasal voice bawled out, more distant now. She had made considerable progress through the sheltering underbrush.
“Well, she’s got to be here somewhere!” cursed the man who seemed to be in charge. His tone sounded round and soft. “Spread out and find her!”
Kirsten crawled several yards farther from the searchers. But now the rhododendron bank was thinning out, and in a moment she broke into open forest. Rising to her feet, she saw the lights of the searchers in the distance — perhaps a hundred yards away. It hurt to stand and her side ached, but fright dulled her pain. She only knew she must get away from this place and these men. Quickly.
Her heels catching in the loose soil, Kirsten fled stumbling down the mountainside. The night became delirium fraught with panic. In the thick mist she could only dimly see her way. Time and again an unseen root or clutching tree branch caught at her, sent her reeling to the ground. The agony in her skull throbbed ever more intensely, bursting to white pain each time she fell. Vaguely she realized that she was completely lost, that she ought to stop and make some effort to get her bearings, wait for help to come. But always she remembered who else sought her in the fog-hidden mountains, and fear sent her stumbling onward.
Until, finally, when she fell and tried to rise, her legs were too exhausted for terror to lend further strength. Gasping for breath, Kirsten had managed to drag herself into the cover of another rhododendron bank before consciousness left her.
She had lain there in a stupor until dawn. With daylight Kirsten awoke from her nightmare-haunted sleep to stare about her in confused fear. Memory returned, and with it the realization that she was totally lost in these desolate mountains where horror yet stalked her. The purling of a stream close by made her aware of her intense thirst. Unsteadily she hauled herself to her feet and made her way down the bank of rhododendron to the small stream that cascaded along the bottom of the ravine.
The tumbling stream was cold and clear as ice, and a thin mist hovered over it in the early morning light. Its rocky bed, a chaotic jumble of polished boulders and gravel, made a thousand tiny waterfalls and pools. Kirsten was reminded of her native Harz Mountains, as she knelt to suck in the crystal water.
Her body felt lame and sore, and she was covered with dirt and dried blood. Her green silk dress was stained and ragged, and somewhere in the night she had lost one shoe entirely and snapped the heel off the other. Kirsten grimaced at her reflection and splashed water on her bruised and grimy face. The cold water stung her skin and drove the clouds of night-horror from her hair. Quickly she pulled off her torn frock and lacy silk shimmy, kicked off her remaining shoe and peeled off her tattered stockings — then waded into the pool. The icy stream took her breath away as she briskly splashed about.
Moments later when she stepped out, her skin was numb and tingling, but she felt refreshed. Washed clean, her white figure was marred with purple-green bruises and livid red scratches. But she at least had a whole skin, Kirsten mused grimly — so far.
She felt a pang of sorrow over Wingfield’s hideous death, now that the shock of it was receding enough for thought of anything other than panic-sped flight. Poor Wingfield had been a persistent admirer, though she had never cared for him except as a social partner. Her expressed concern over Cullin Shelton’s phone call had spurred him to take over Chance’s role and investigate for her sake. In an indirect manner, Kirsten felt responsible for his death. But for the moment her own danger demanded full attention.
Making a bundle of her shredded stockings and broken-heeled shoe, Kirsten waded back out to hide them under a rock at the bottom of the pool. Shaking herself dry, she rested on a smooth boulder and finger-combed her short blonde hair — looking like a bobbed and battered Lorelei in the midst of the cascading stream. The morning chill covered her lithe body with goose-pimples, and the sun was driving off the mists. Again she remembered the wild forests of the Harz Mountains. It seemed impossible that a supernatural horror of another age could shadow the unspoiled freedom of this mountain wilderness… Kirsten knew otherwise.
She wriggled her silken shimmy onto her still damp skin, fastidiously brushed dirt and leaves from her torn frock before getting dressed. The rounded gravel bruised her bare feet, but there was no help for that. Someone had once told her that the thing to do when lost was to find a river or such and follow it downstream, as it would eventually go past some habitation. Having no other ideas, Kirsten had decided to put this advice to the test. Resolutely she began to make her way along the streambed.
The sun appeared over the tops of the trees, grew high overhead, then began its decline. Kirsten was exhausted and hungry, the soles of her tiny feet were bruised and sore from clambering over the rocks. Twice she had come upon major forks in the stream; once she took the left branch, next time the right. She must have wandered for miles along the streambed without catching sight of any sign of civilization.
Bleakly she had forced herself to keep moving, frequently wading along the shallows to throw off pursuit. If Dread suspected she had lived, Kirsten knew he would seek her. Chance had only begun to grasp the extent of Dread’s powers — only had recently found confirmation of his vague suspicions of Dread’s presence in these mountains. But Kirsten realized that if Dread were hunting her, it would take more than running water to hide her trail.
Her knowledge of American history and geography was spotty — learned from books rather than culturally acquired. She knew the southern Appalachians were a desolate region. The Depression had sent a good number of its inhabitants elsewhere in a hopeless search for security, and the Rockefellers had recently bought up vast stretches of the mountains to turn into a national park. While she was aware that marauding Indians no longer hunted white men here as they did in Karl May’s thrilling novels, nonetheless, it still was very possible to get lost in these mountains and never be found. And there were bears, probably mountain lions… Kirsten kept moving.