| |
Morning dawned, bright and hot.
She’d had a restless night’s sleep and woke with numb limbs and a back that felt like it was going to go into spasms at any moment. Her eyes were gritty, and she struggled to open them fully. Every inch of her exposed skin was raised in bumps from mosquito bites. Her head felt too heavy for her neck, as though her brain had turned to concrete inside her skull. She couldn’t even swallow, the feeling stirring fluttery panic inside her.
There hadn’t been any further signs of whatever had been crashing around in the undergrowth during the night, and Cass hoped that meant whatever the creature was, it had been frightened away by the scent of human and would leave her alone from now on.
Forty-eight hours had passed since she’d been taken—two days—such a small amount of time in some ways, and yet it felt like a lifetime to her now. She’d had a life before this wood, an existence that hadn’t included the tree, or the clearing in front of her, or the dead man’s body, which was now definitely starting to smell. Flies buzzed around the body, alighting on every inch of exposed skin and crawling over his clothing. Everything felt foggy and distant, and though she needed to wake and get on with trying to free herself, she couldn’t summon the energy. She couldn’t even cry, too dehydrated to create tears.
“You have to get up.”
The female voice came from her left and sounded incredibly real.
“You can’t give up now,” said another woman, this one younger, not much more than a girl.
Then a third woman spoke. “You’ll die if you just sit there. Is that what you want? To end up like us?”
Cass managed to lift her head, squinting in the direction of the voices. Everything was blurry, but she blinked a couple of times, clearing her vision.
Three women stood in a semi-circle.
The one to Cass’s furthest left was beautiful, with long dark hair and alabaster skin, like a modern Snow White. The girl beside her was gorgeous, too, but in a completely opposite way—blonde and tan, with fuller cheeks and pink lips. The epitome of the all-American girl. The cheerleader, what had her name been...?
“Becky Dawson,” the blonde filled in for her. “I was his second kill.”
“Yes, of course, sorry,” Cass replied, shaking her head.
A third woman stood beside the next grave along. She was older, in her early to mid-thirties, and had light brown hair, cut in a sharp bob at her jawline. She was the one who’d spoken last, telling Cass she’d end up just like them if she continued to sit there. The third woman’s name came to her—Susie Banks, the one doing the law degree, who’d tried to talk her way out of the Magician killing her.
Each of the women stood beside the spots where they’d been buried. None made any attempt to approach her, and Cass wondered if they were able to move, or if they were somehow attached to their final resting places, the same way she was attached to this fucking tree. It was most likely to become her final resting place, too.
Strangely, she felt like she should be more frightened, but she guessed there was no point in being frightened of something she’d conjured in her head. The women were a hallucination, something she’d created from the stories the Magician had told her about their deaths shortly before he’d died. Being so desperately alone, her mind must have decided she was in dire need of some company and so created some for her.
Susie Banks folded her arms across her chest. “You need to eat something. I know you don’t want to, but those grubs you considered last night were a good idea. You won’t last for weeks on them, but it’ll be enough to give you that extra boost to keep you going.”
That was how she knew the women were inside her head, Cass decided. She’d never said anything about eating the bugs out loud, had she? She’d said something about the mosquitos not biting her, but she wasn’t aware of anything that the women might have overheard.
Cass choked back crazed laughter at herself. They couldn’t overhear her. They were dead.
Still, she found herself replying. “You want me to eat bugs?”
“Yes,” said number one, Sonja Holland. “You need to eat them, and then you have to get back to work. You’re not helping yourself by sitting around moping.”
“I’m not moping.” Unfairness at the comment shot through her, focusing her attention. “It’s not as though I’ve lost some money, or a guy stood me up on a date. I think I’m entitled to feeling sorry for myself considering there’s a good chance I’m going to end up dead.”
Sonja pursed her lips. “Well, you will if you keep moping.”
Cass let out a growl of frustration and forced herself to move. Everything hurt. How was it possible for absolutely every part of her body to cause her pain in some way? She would have sworn even the tips of her hair were aching. Her insides felt like they were disintegrating, and her stomach already appeared concave, even though it had only been a matter of days since she’d last eaten. She’d have always considered herself to have plenty of extra padding previously, but she guessed that was a good thing. She might have been struggling even more than she already was without the additional body fat. Of course, she’d never recommend this extreme diet to anyone who wanted to shift some extra pounds.
And now she was about to dine on bugs. She guessed it was better than the fungi. The insects might be disgusting, but they weren’t about to kill her.
“What should I start on first?” she called out to her new companions. “Worm or beetle?”
But no response came, and she squinted into the clearing. The women she’d been talking to had all vanished.
No, they hadn’t vanished. They were just in her head. She was losing her mind and hallucinating the dead women so she didn’t die alone.
Cass glanced down at the spot where she’d been sitting. The small spattering of grass was flattened, the earth damp. But sure enough, something moved in the dirt, sending a tiny avalanche of mud falling in its wake. Without pausing—knowing that if she thought about things too hard, she wouldn’t go through with it—she grabbed the worm with her toes and lifted her foot up to her hands. She scooped the worm up between her thumb and forefinger. Squeezing her eyes shut, she threw it into her mouth and crunched down. Wet, slimy goo coated her tongue and teeth. She fought against her gag reflex, knowing she needed both the fluid the worm contained and the protein it would provide, and quickly swallowed.
A mewl of despair escaped her throat, and she beat her fists against the tree, her eyes squeezed shut.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
She would have given anything for a drink of water to wash it down with, or for another of those mints she’d eaten the previous day.
A breath mint to wash away the bad breath of earthworm.
Bug breath.
Her internal humor managed to make the worst of the disgust at what she’d just done go away. She sucked in a couple of deep breaths and the impulse to throw up faded.
“I did it!” she shouted, even though she knew the women weren’t there to hear her. “Hah! I actually did it.”
One worm did not a meal make, however. She was going to need to eat more than that if she was going to give herself any energy. Reaching out to the tree trunk, she pulled off a chunk of the bark. Sure enough, creatures skittered out from beneath the exposed piece of wood, searching for new darkness, not appreciating the sudden exposure. They were going to appreciate what came next even less.
Cass plucked the biggest of the beetles from the wood and dropped it into her mouth. Before she got the chance to think about all its wriggling legs and antenna, she crunched the insect between her back teeth. Something gooey gushed into her mouth, and she fought against her gag reflex. This was more important than any physical reaction she might have to eating insects. If she was going to make it out of this alive, she needed some fluid and protein, and she’d get it inside her, one bug at a time.
With her fists clenched, she swallowed.
“It’s all good,” she tried to assure herself, sucking in deep breaths. “This would be considered a delicacy in some countries. It’s practically a buffet.”
A spider ran across the tree trunk and she pulled a face and shuddered. Even desperate, she couldn’t bring herself to eat a spider. Too many legs. Her instinct was to run away from spiders, screaming. But putting it in her mouth? That was a hard nope.
Cass caught several grubs, forcing them down, and wishing desperately for some water to wash away the taste. The taste in her mouth had been pretty horrific for the past twenty-four hours, compounded by her dehydration and having zero access to a toothbrush and toothpaste, and the insect meal had done little to help. She did feel stronger, though. Susie Banks had been right. She needed to get on with things, and not just sit there, waiting to die. No one was going to come and rescue her. She needed to save herself.
Unable to stomach anything else, she got back to work on the tree. Her fingers were swollen, the tips cracked and cut. Her nails were already split and broken down to the quick. Each piece of bark she pried off caused yet more pain, and she prayed this was going to work. She’d cleared a section a foot square now, and thought if she could do the same again, she’d be able to pull the chain down over it and give herself some more room to reach the body. She didn’t want to try too soon, however, knowing that if she failed to have made any improvement, she’d struggle to get her momentum back.
Her stomach cramped, and she let out a groan, folding herself over as much as her chained hands would allow her. No, no, no. She couldn’t allow her stomach to win. She couldn’t risk throwing up what she’d eaten or getting diarrhea. She was already dehydrated, and either of those things would only dehydrate her more, as well as being hugely unpleasant. Bile rose up the back of her throat and she swallowed it back down, doing her best not to think about what it contained, but then she burped, acid rising, together with a distinctive bug taste.
She lowered her head to put her hand to her mouth, waiting for the moment to pass.
Mind over matter.
The noises coming from her stomach would have been comical had she not been in such a bad place. The acid churned and bubbled, letting out gurgles and whines.
It’ll be okay. Just ignore it. It’s only because you haven’t eaten anything for days.
She didn’t want to throw up either, because she’d just put herself through something she never thought she’d do, and if she threw it all up again, the whole process would have been a waste of time.
Movement in the bushes caught her attention, dragging her thoughts away from her body’s processes. She heard the light crack of a foot pressing on the undergrowth, of twigs and dried pine leaves crunching beneath.
Cass froze, her stomach forgotten. Was it the same thing that had approached last night? That thing had sounded louder, and bigger, as though it was muscling its way through the bush, but this was different. Maybe it was just that now it was daylight, so she wasn’t as afraid as she’d been before. The dark was where nightmares lived, and it was easy to conjure up something from a bad dream when you weren’t able to see anything.
She remained in the same position, her gaze fixed on the area where the sound had come from.
Crack.
There it was again. Something moving, but cautiously. A part of her was tempted to call out ‘hello’ just to see what the response was, but she highly doubted whatever was moving would have the ability to reply. There weren’t random people wandering around out here. She’d seen nothing but an ocean of trees when they’d come in to land, and that the Magician felt he could bring women out here and chain them to a tree for hours or even days to torture them, with no fear of anyone happening upon them, was enough to make her certain the chances of someone coming across her by accident were slim.
But the police might know you’re missing by now. They might have figured out who took you.
Perhaps he’d made a mistake this time and the cops had tracked down the place he brought the women.
She didn’t want to hope for rescue—knowing she needed to keep that fighting part of her alive in order to free herself. Waiting for rescue would be as good as a death sentence.
Besides, this wasn’t the police. They’d have guns and dogs and would be shouting out for her.
No, they wouldn’t, she mentally corrected herself. They’d move slowly and quietly, not wanting to alert the Magician to their presence. They wouldn’t know he was already dead.
There was a rustle of leaves, and something stepped out into the clearing.
Cass caught her breath.
A beautiful young deer paused, as though only just noticing her presence, and blinked at her with big brown eyes. Its black nose twitched, as did the muscles in the animal’s flank. The deer was the first living thing she’d seen in days—other than the snake she’d almost poked with her foot, and insects, which she’d eaten—and stupidly, she didn’t want it to leave. The deer seemed cautious of her, but not frightened. Perhaps it hadn’t come across humans before, and so didn’t know how to take her.
The animal lifted one delicate foreleg and took a step forward. It paused again, long, pricked ears rotating one direction and then the next, like radars, listening out for any possible threat. Apparently not detecting any, it trotted farther into the clearing.
The deer was beautiful. Sunlight bounced off its smooth hide. It skirted around the dead man’s body, which now let off a distinctive odor of death, and bent its long neck to nibble at some grass.
Cass’s heart swelled with emotion at the animal. It was free and alive, and seemed oblivious to her. She didn’t know why that affected her so much, but it did. This was her struggle and hers alone. The man who’d killed all these women was now dead and wouldn’t go on to hurt anyone else. Her life, and her final days here, wouldn’t have any impact on anyone else. Life was continuing just fine without her. Her parents would probably be sad initially, and may wish they’d done more to stay in touch with her, but she imagined there would also be a certain amount of relief involved for them, too. How could they have loved her after what had happened? They may have tried, but she knew they couldn’t look at her without seeing what she’d done. Would they have even been notified about her disappearance yet? She lived on the outskirts of New York now, while they were over on the west coast, just outside of Sacramento. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d spoken to them. She had no idea if they were even still together—though she wouldn’t have blamed them if they’d decided to separate. Marriage was hard, and it was even harder when it was plagued with tragedy. She wouldn’t have blamed them in the slightest if they’d decided to go their own ways. It wasn’t as though they’d ever really seemed happy together, always fighting and screaming at each other. But perhaps they had been happy before she’d come along, and it was that memory that kept them together. Or maybe they simply felt like they should be punished as much as she did, and forcing themselves to live unhappy lives was their way of doing that.
Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Cass squeezed her eyes shut, forcing them to spill down the side of her nose, and she poked out her tongue to catch them, relishing the salty wetness. Nothing was to go to waste here.
She rested up against the tree trunk, knowing that going back to work would frighten away the deer. It was nice to have some company, other than the imagined dead women, of course, and she watched it nibble at the grass and a few of the leaves on the surrounding bushes. It stopped every so often to lift its head, its long, graceful neck extended, its ears flicking back and forth. It gave Cass some comfort that whatever the big thing she’d heard crashing through the bushes must not be anywhere close by. If it was, she was sure the deer would have startled and run by now. Hopefully, the thing was long gone and wouldn’t come back again when night fell.
No, she planned to be free from this tree by then. She couldn’t spend another night out here. Doing so might be the final straw for her, and whatever loose hold she currently had on reality might just snap. She was already clinging on by her nails, aware that her conversations with the dead women weren’t the actions of a sane person. If she tumbled into the rabbit hole much farther, she might never find her way out again.