One foot in front of the other, leaving curls of dust on the air behind her, Ilse made her way down the trail, through the dark. As she continued along, Ilse spotted no additional signs. No fabric, no bent branches, nothing she might have imagined as a sort of breadcrumb trail leading her through the night.
Perhaps she was on the wrong path, after all?
Ilse was ashamed to realize this thought filled her with a sense of huge relief. She didn't want to encounter the killer, didn't want to come across him in the dark woods while on her own.
But still, despite her fear, she took another step. Another.
And that's when she spotted it. Up ahead.
She paused at the end of a switchback, peering through low branches in the direction of the shed. The water tower itself was little more than a rusted duck blind with a tank on top. The legs of the tower were rusted straight through, and one was missing entirely as if the metal post had been carted away.
But Ilse's eyes fixated on the shed. Exactly where Sawyer had said it would be.
***
Sawyer sprinted through the woods like a bat out of hell. He'd been forced to navigate the vehicle-inaccessible terrain in the dark with little more than faint illumination and instinct to guide him. Small branches tugged at his sleeves as he hastened forward. Ahead, he spotted the abandoned, old oil-rig monitoring outbuilding.
The windows were smashed. Dust carpeted the floor. He didn't slow as he jogged up old, moldered wooden steps and reached the door.
This was also broken—missing entirely in fact. The hinges were gone too. Metal scavengers.
The place smelled of urine and rot and looked as if no one had visited it in a decade.
“This isn't it,” he muttered to himself, breathing heavily as he stared into the small outbuilding. This wasn't the building. The dust didn't lie. No footprints, no disturbance, just a thin layer of dust. His heart pounded, and he stepped into the single room building, staring at the unfurnished space. Scavengers had been by months if not years before. Everything had been picked clean, including wiring in the walls judging by holes where outlets might have gone.
This wasn't the lair. This wasn't where the murderer had gone.
“Damn it,” he growled beneath his breath. But he said nothing further, as he was already on his heel, picking up the pace. He took the steps in one long stride and hit the dusty ground running. Ilse was heading into an unknown location. If this wasn't the killer's lair, and the third party hadn't heard anything, then that meant Ilse was in danger.
He broke into a sprint, racing rapidly through the trees once more in the opposite direction.
***
But now, the orange glow through the windows of the small structure caused prickles to tremble across Ilse's spine. Her eyes bulged as she stared at the small shed. It looked like a cross between a garage and an enormous outhouse with windows. Perhaps used for ranger's tools, or maintenance on the tower.
Whatever the case, the shed itself also looked long abandoned. Moldered, blackened wood seemed equal parts mush and neglect. The thing didn't look as if it should have been standing.
Ilse frowned at the glow of light, though, coming from within.
Had she found him?
Her lips were numb and with trembling fingers she fished her phone from her pocket, raising it and hastily dialing Sawyer's number.
She waited in the dark, beneath the sheltering branches of a tree, her heart somewhere in the vicinity of her toes and neck all at once.
She waited as the phone tried to connect.
But all she received was a dial tone.
Ilse bit her lip, and growled beneath her breath, trying to call Sawyer a second time. But again, quicker this time, she was met by a busy tone.
She stared at her screen, the looked at the small bars in the top left. Only one remained, red. Critical. She had lost reception.
Ilse felt an emotion normally accompanying nightmares now, descending on her like a damp, woolen blanket. She raised her phone, jutting it skyward in an attempt to find reception. But no luck. Even the final, red bar vanished on her dumb, flip phone. Sawyer had the radio, which was connected to his own phone so he could coordinate the search.
“Shit!” she hissed beneath her breath. “God dammit.” She stood breathing heavily, chest rising and falling. She wanted to leave.
Now, more than ever, she wanted to turn and run.
She was well and truly alone.
Suddenly, it struck her how stupid it had been to split with Sawyer. She never should have suggested it.
On the other hand... what if the twins were already dead? What if... but what if... what if they were still clinging on? What if there was still time?
She'd come this way for them, hadn't she? Not for herself, but for them.
She stared towards the small, illuminated shed beneath the old, three-legged rusted water tanker. She wanted to scream and run. But again, summoning her resolve, with shaky steps, she moved forward again, pressing through the threat of night, through the foreboding sense threatening to drown her.
She gripped her dead phone in one hand and then jammed the offending device deep into her pocket. No use for that thing now. Technology was evil anyway.
Just then, as she moved slowly towards the illuminated shed, she spotted a flicker. Ilse frowned, staring at the windows. The light continued to flicker, and Ilse suddenly realized the illumination was from some sort of fire... or perhaps a candle or lantern.
But the flickering light also cast odd shadows against the window, from the inside. Ilse just stared at these, adrenaline now rushing through her body.
The curtains were closed, but thanks to the flicker of light, she now spotted them: silhouettes. Vague outlines of figures inside the shed.
And then, if that wasn't enough to prompt her forward, a faint mewling voice echoed from the cabin. “H—help!” the voice called, straining.
The silhouettes didn't move as if frozen stiff, or, perhaps, rigid in fear.
“P-please, help!” the same voice called, echoing in the dark.
Ilse couldn't wait any longer. No reception, isolated in a dark forest, with search teams twenty or more minutes behind her. She didn't have twenty minutes. Judging by the desperation in the voice ahead, neither did the woman in the cabin.
Ilse's gaze fixated on the two silhouettes, and she moved forward, slower than she might have liked, as if plodding through mud, one ungainly step at a time. The fear pressed around her; the trees witnessed the spectacle of someone shuddering more than the leaves on their branches.
And yet Ilse's hand moved to the weapon at her hip. She pulled it carefully, her shaking fingers pressed to the rigid and unyielding metal. She knew she could do this. She had to do this.
“Come on,” she muttered to herself. “Come on!”
She suddenly broke into a jog. She wasn't sure where this surge of energy came from—she'd thought she'd already spent all of her adrenaline.
Now, though, she rushed forward. Tripwires? She didn't care—didn't see any. But mostly she knew if she stopped to look, she wouldn't do anything, she'd remain rooted in place.
The last time she'd delayed in a forest, her two brothers had been killed. Punishment by her father and her stepmother for their help in getting little Hilda to escape. She'd been told to fetch help, told to bring police. But three weeks she'd delayed.
Hilda had gotten lost in the woods. Ilse still couldn't remember those days—those horrible, horrible moments wandering barefoot through the dark.
She rushed forward now, towards the shed with the flickering candlelight. Towards the silhouettes still motionless and terrifyingly rigid. The sound of the voice was fading now. A young voice. She was sure of it.
“Penny!” Ilse cried. An instant later, she wished she'd kept her silence. But no doubt the killer was already alerted to her presence. She needed to rescue the twins! Needed to save her sibling—no... no not her siblings.
She slammed into the shed door, shoulder first. For a painful moment, she thought she might just ricochet off, but then the door buckled, bent and swung in with a clatter.
Ilse stood in the doorway, eyes wide, gun in hand, panting so heavily it sounded like the swishing ocean in her ears.
Except now that she faced the small shed, staring within, she realized her mistake.
A poker table with chips on top. And the two figures she'd spotted sitting at it... mannequins. Lifeless, plastic faces stared at each other over the green felt of the table. A candle had been set up behind the two mannequins, casting their shadows against the curtains.
Ilse stared for a moment at the scene, swallowing.
Then, a voice echoed out. “Help me... Please...”
It took her a second to locate the source of the sound. Gun still gripped in one hand, her eyes darted to the small radio sitting on the table. She stared, gulping air. The radio went suddenly silent.
There she stood, alone with two mannequins for company, a flickering candle and a radio used for no other reason than as a decoy.
She'd been had.
Ilse felt a prickle along the nape of her neck. She turned sharply, glancing back towards the forest. No motion. No movement.
Then, she heard a creak of wood. Ilse's lips tightened. “Who's there?” she demanded, whirling around again, sweeping the shed with her sights. But she spotted no one. “I said who's there?” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
Ilse kept her gun in quavering fingers and heard another creak of wood. This time coming from the opposite direction. She whirled on a darker portion of the shed. But still spotted no movement. No figure. Just darkness.
A ghost?
What a silly thought. Like something out of a storybook.
“Hello, friend,” said a voice suddenly, bursting from the radio on the table.
She stared at it, breathing wildly.
“Yes, yes,” the voice said over the radio, “I can see you. You're a dark-haired lady in a sweater. See? I can see. I can hear you too. You breathe loudly, don't you?”
Ilse didn't reply, shifting her step so her back was to the wall now. She turned faintly towards the ceiling, checking for cameras. Her terror had reached a climax. She wanted to melt into the wall, to disappear. She'd thought the shed might provide some solace from the encroaching forest, but now she'd found another type of horror. Her memories, her recollections surfaced through the turgid water of her mind. She couldn't escape. Couldn't hold it back.
So, she allowed some of the fear to tinge her voice with rage.
“Guy Wolfe, is that you?” she demanded.
The radio crackled and the voice just chuckled. She heard another creak. And this time, she tilted her head sharply, staring straight up.
Someone was on the roof.
Someone had been hiding on the roof, and now they were moving. She tucked her tongue inside her cheek, biting down so she wouldn't scream. She tasted coppery blood. Tasted salt.
But he could see her, and she couldn't see him.
She heard another creak of a footstep. He was directly above her now. She knew that much. Slowly, she began to raise her gun.
“I'm not impressed,” the voice on the radio said, congenially. “Not at all. I left that hair. I wanted you to find me. What's your name?”
Ilse felt a flicker of vindication. So she'd been right. He'd been leaving clues.
“Breadcrumbs?” she murmured. “Like in the stories?”
The voice suddenly sounded excited, the tone changing all at once. “You like the stories too?” he said.
Ilse just waited, listening.
“I love them,” he said merrily. “They're some of my favorite... Well, sometimes. Happy endings though—they're somewhat cheap, aren't they?”
Something had changed now that Ilse had mentioned a specific of the fairy tales. She raised her gun, pointing it at the roof. The voice over the receiver said, “Stop that. If you shoot me, they die.”
She hesitated, finger on the trigger, eyes wide, simply staring at the inside of a dusty, wooden shed roof.
The voice didn't sound scared at all. As if it couldn't experience fear.
“Why are you doing this?” Ilse murmured.
“Doing? I'm not doing anything. I'm just part of the story,” the voice said cheerfully. “Here, hang on a moment, don't shoot. Let's talk.”
She heard a sudden thump, and whirled around, eyes open in horror to find a handsome man had dropped from the roof and was now standing on the wooden rail, one hand balanced against a load-bearing beam. He smirked at her, dropped into a sitting position on the rail then wiggled his fingers in a sort of playful wave.
The man matched his photo. Sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw but cold, dead eyes like a snake. He stared at her with that strange smirk as if he had all the time in the world. He didn't even seem to notice her gun. Or if he had noticed it, he didn't care.
She, on the other hand, was grateful for the weapon. She raised it, pointing at his head. “Don't move,” she snapped. “Mr. Wolfe, you're under arrest.”
He nodded along with her congenially. “Makes sense, makes sense,” he said. “I haven't seen you before. Are you one of the good guys?” He wagged his feet where he sat, causing them to swish back and forth beneath the wooden rail.
Ilse scowled. “Yes,” she said simply. “Which makes you a bad guy. Where are the twins?”
“Hmm? Oh, Hansel and Gretel?”
“Where are they, Guy! Did you hurt them already?”
He crossed his arms now, and Ilse noticed he was wearing black gloves. “Not yet,” he said simply. “I can't decide if they deserve a happy ending or not, you know. It's a big decision.” He wagged his head energetically. “Maybe you can help.”
Ilse licked her chapped lips slowly, taking a step forward, gun still in hand. She was just within the shed's door, only a few paces away from where he sat on the wooden rail. “Get on the ground, now,” she said, channeling her inner Sawyer. “I mean it, or I'll shoot.”
He looked her in the eyes. “Will you? Hmm... Maybe.” But he remained exactly where he'd been sitting. “I suppose it's not too important to me one way or the other,” he murmured. “You see, it's an important thing to have happily ever after, isn't it? So many people get their happy, but they cheat. It's not fair to cheat.”
Ilse just stared at him. “That girl cut her face,” he said conversationally. “That man used steroids.”
“The model? The marathon runner?”
“And I don't have to mention the farmer, do I?” he said. He tutted and shook his head. “Not a nice person.”
“And what did Penny and Clyde ever do?” she demanded. She could study the pores in the man's cheek through the sights on her gun. Her finger itched on the trigger.
“Oh, who?”
“Hansel and Gretel?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“Oh, them? Nothing yet.”
“So that's it, hmm?” Ilse asked, scowling. “You kill them out of some twisted sense of justice?”
He raised an eyebrow at her, looking amused. “Someone has to, obviously. Do you know something—I've never told anyone this, but I think I can trust you... I did the same for my mother. Years ago.”
“You were a suspect then too,” Ilse snapped. “They just didn't have enough evidence.”
“No, I suppose they wouldn't have. She was not a nice woman. Not at all.”
“Where are the twins?”
“I'll get to that.” His expression flickered into a frown.
Ilse wasn't sure what to do. He wasn't aggressing, wasn't running, but he also wasn't complying. She kept her gun trained on him, taking another step forward, just inside the threshold of the door.
“Coming closer, I see,” he muttered. “Let me guess, you're falling for me, hmm? I really am quite good-looking.” He winked, “Think of me as prince charming.”
Ilse couldn't get a read on the man. He was clearly a narcissist. But he also didn't exhibit fear or anxiety. Either he had the best poker face imaginable, second only to the mannequins behind her, or something was off with him. Something twisted.
He'd murdered his mother, and while he hadn't gone into details, Ilse knew enough cases of her own to know how much a parent's abuse, and the subsequent trauma, could put someone on the wrong path unless they chose to fight it. Sometimes, the fight just didn't seem worthwhile. A fight like that seemed... unfair, almost. Why should someone experience pain for another person's choices?
And yet before her was the example of someone who had continued down the traumatic path. And now... now three people were dead. If not five.
Shit. She thought to herself. He was clearly stalling.
“I said,” she put iron behind those words. “Get on the ground!”
He wagged his finger at her. “You know, you're starting to annoy me.” His nose wrinkled. “In fact, you sound just like her. Get in that attic, Guy! Don't come until I tell you to, boy!” He screamed these words, his voice twisting now, going gruff.
He gave a shake of his head in disgust. “What was I supposed to do?” he demanded. “She was bigger. Older. My mother. So of course, I went into that attic. Locked away. Reading those stories again and again and again and again...,” he rolled his finger as if to say etc.
Ilse blinked, still unsure how to react. He simply wasn't obeying. Should she shoot him? She remembered Sawyer's admonishment. The man had already killed three. The twins were still in danger. But... but he wasn't threatening her. He wasn't really doing anything except talking. It didn't seem right to shoot him. But perhaps that was why she'd started out as a counselor rather than an agent. She didn't have the same killer instinct as Sawyer.
But if she didn't pull the trigger, and he really was just stalling, then she was wasting precious time in subduing the threat.
She took another careful, hesitant step forward, the floor creaking beneath her.
“Of course, she apologized,” the man prattled on, still kicking his feet like a child on a swing set. “Years later. Told me she'd changed. She'd gotten married. Started a new life.” The man's eyes narrowed, and he shook his head. “The witch was happy,” he spat, the scorn all too evident in his voice. “Happy because she'd moved on... But I couldn't. I'd spent years under her rule. She was the wicked witch, you know! And so I couldn't just sit by and let her... let her enjoy her cruel reign. I knew I had to put a stop to it. So I did! See? I had to, so I did!”
Ilse felt a flicker of fear at the man's words. Part of her wanted to ignore his ravings completely. Another part, though, resonated with it. What would Ilse do if her stepmother came, or even her father, and apologized to her, said they had turned over a new leaf and wanted to move on, happily ever after?
She certainly wouldn't be able to live with it. Where would the justice be? After everything her father had done to them, to all of them, along with his mistress, Ilse wasn't sure there was ever forgiveness for it. She sometimes felt all too willing to forgive and rehabilitate those who had harmed another, but those who'd harmed her? Her sisters? Her brothers?
That was a different question entirely, and the apparent hypocrisy caused her stomach to turn. Ilse took another step forward, gun still raised.
And that's when she saw him smile.
He winked at her, waving his gloved fingers again. And then he flung himself backwards, rolling off the rail and out of the line of fire. At the same time, she saw his hand yank something beneath the rail. A dangling chain, like the sort attached to an old-fashioned toilet's water tank. The floor creaked beneath her. Then a wooden panel fell out completely.
You're falling for me.
That's what he'd said. The bastard.
Ilse shouted, trying to grab the edge of the floor as she plummeted through the ground. Her head struck the wood. Her gun went skittering. Splinters gouged into her fingers as she fell, kicking and struggling and desperately trying to shout.
But the sound was lost as she turned once, shoulder and headfirst, striking the ground with a painful smack.
She blinked, feeling blood welling down her forehead. Her shoulder had absorbed most of the fall, thankfully. She was still thinking, which meant there was something remaining to think with, mercifully.
As she lay there, trying to draw breath, to blink, she realized darkness was closing in. She heard murmured whispers, tearful voices above her. She heard a sound. Then someone said in a faint tone.
“Lady? Hey, lady, you okay?”
But that was it. The darkness pressed in; her heart throbbed. The bastard had dropped her through a trap door. He'd been goading her all along. He was still playing his game, and she'd fallen for it. Literally.
The voice faded suddenly into a whimper of terror. Ilse blinked and light suddenly flared against her eyelids. For a moment, the sudden interruption of the dark goaded her back to consciousness. She lay there, bleeding, blinking, desperate. And then, a shadow fell over her again. She heard footsteps, a soft murmur.
And the voice of Guy Wolfe whispered, “Nice of you to drop in, stranger.”