They were caught completely unaware.
Billie didn’t know what was happening until Brandi screamed. She turned to see Claudia, her face covered in dirt and blood, swinging a machete through the air in an arc. It hit Brandi in the throat and blood sprayed.
Billie took a step toward the carnage, and Fay did, too. Richard pushed them back, then grabbed them each by an arm and yanked them into the bushes.
Billie was relieved she had her pack, but Fay didn’t have hers. Richard pulled them, and Diana screamed for her somewhere.
“Diana!”
Richard turned and yanked her against him, clamping a hand over her mouth and pushing her down into the underbrush. She struggled, but Fay braced her shoulders.
“It won’t do any good if Claudia hears you!” Fay whispered.
Billie took in panicked gasps of air through her nose, then clawed at Richard’s hand.
“You aren’t gonna scream?” he whispered.
She shook her head.
He released her and she fought every urge she had to scream for Diana. She didn’t hear her anymore. Billie sucked in air as she began to cry, and Richard’s hand clamped around her mouth again.
“She’s fine,” he whispered. “You’d know it if Claudia got her, right?”
Billie nodded, but Richard didn’t move his hand until she clawed it away. He still held her tightly, and Fay reached over and brushed the hair from her face. Fay held her finger up to her lips to remind Billie to stay quiet.
There were footsteps in the distance, and the whistle of the machete as Claudia slashed and tore through underbrush.
“Come on.” Fay crawled through the thick brush.
Billie snagged her hair, hit her knee against a rock and took a stick to the side of her face. When she didn’t move fast enough, Richard shoved her butt to get her to speed up. She kicked at him once. When she couldn’t hear Claudia’s progress anymore, Billie paused.
“Diana!” Billie hissed.
There was no reply. She stood up slowly, looking for the path, but there was nothing. A small stream burbling nearby may have masked any reply Diana made.
“Come on.” Billie gestured to Fay and Richard. “We need to make it to the creek. Miles would go there. I hope he’s with Diana.”
The three of them crept through the underbrush.
“Diana!” Billie whisper-yelled again.
A second later Diana’s hand emerged from the underbrush. Billie yanked Fay and Richard in that direction.
Miles and Diana were huddled in the bushes.
“Oh, Bils!” Diana crawled out from under Miles. Her cheeks were pink. She threw her arms around Billie. “I thought she got you.”
“No, but she’s close. We have to go. Miles, how far is the creek? We need to cross it now.”
“It’s not a good place to cross for you guys. There’s a big embankment on the other side we’ll have to climb and the water’s deep.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Billie said. “And it’ll give us time. Claudia can’t swim, remember?”
A light dawned in Miles’ eyes.
“She’s right,” Fay said. “We have to try for it.”
“Where’s your pack?” Miles asked.
Fay shook her head. “She took us by surprise. I set it down and didn’t have time to grab it. I didn’t have time to do anything. Poor Brandi.”
“Poor us, if we don’t move,” Diana said.
They ground-crept through the trees and bushes. Even Richard kept quiet, tapping on shoulders and gesturing his questions. Billie was relieved he was taking things seriously.
The rushing water got louder, and the creek was visible through the trees. They crouched at the edge of the creek, hidden by the brush, waiting to see if Claudia had beat them there. She was nowhere to be found.
“I’ll go first.” Miles watched the rushing water with worried eyes. “We should tie ourselves together.”
“One drowns, we all drown?” Diana asked sarcastically.
“Right,” Miles said flatly.
“Look, we need to go,” Fay said. “I’m a good swimmer.”
“I was a swimmer in college,” Richard said.
Everyone looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“I really was! Got a scholarship to USC. We were the NCAA runners up for three out of the four years I was there. I broke records in breast stroke for one hundred and two hundred meter and was part of the four by one hundred team medley. No joke.”
“Really?” Fay asked. “The breast stroke? Are you kidding me?”
Richard broke into a genuine smile. “Fitting, huh?”
“Okay, Diana, Billie and Fay can go after me, Richard, you bring up the rear. You see anyone in trouble, help them,” Miles said.
Richard nodded.
Miles charged into the water and soon was up to his neck and swimming.
Diana shook her head. “I hate water! It ruins my hair, it reminds me of sharks and it’s cold. I hate this movie, Dick!”
“Yeah, yeah. Go chase after your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. Billie is interested in him.” Diana walked into the water, attempting to catch up to Miles.
Richard stared at Billie.
“Don’t look at me, she keeps trying to fix us up, meanwhile she’s drooling over him.” Billie sighed. “I don’t get it, but whatever floats her boat.”
“You better float your boat across the water. Go.”
Billie hurried into the water, sucking in her breath at the cold. It may have been summer, but the water was cold as a glacier. The air whooshed out of her lungs as she tripped and lost her footing, going under in the icy water. She broke the surface and sucked in air, then struggled to swim with her pack on. Her heavy shoes made it hard to move. She was buffeted around, banging into a submerged rock.
Fay struggled worse than she did, and Richard stayed with her, pulling her along.
Billie was relieved when her feet scraped the bottom, and she hauled herself onto the shore, shivering and dripping wet.
“Come on, move,” Miles said. “Into the trees.”
Billie crawled toward the tree line, exhausted. Diana lay behind a big boulder, shivering. Billie crawled next to her and flopped down.
“Yep,” Billie sighed. “Worse than Miami.”
Fay and Richard made it to shore a minute later.
“We can’t stay here,” Miles said. “We have to get as far ahead of her as possible.”
“He’s right.” Richard looked at Fay, who was pale and breathing heavily. “Come on, Fay, you can do it.”
Fay nodded and stood, and they climbed the steep embankment, grabbing branches and tree roots to keep from sliding back down again. Miles climbed nimbly, and Diana followed, grumbling about the mud.
“This is not what I signed up for,” Diana said.
“Me neither!” Richard said behind them.
Billie smiled. Sometimes you just had to.
A crack rang out, and bark splintered near Billie’s hand.
She screamed and slid down a few feet, grabbing onto a rock.
Claudia was on the opposite shore, a gun in her hands.
“We had real guns on set?!” Richard asked.
Another shot rang out and hit the dirt close to Fay.
“Fay!” Billie screamed. “Hurry! She’s aiming for you!”
“Move, move!” Miles yelled from above.
Diana climbed the rest of the embankment like she wanted to qualify for the Olympics. Billie struggled to find good branches to hold on to.
Billie tried to pull Fay up, while Richard scrambled to get between Fay and Claudia, blocking her shot. The next shot rang out and Richard screamed in pain.
“What happened? Richard!” Fay said.
Richard slid down the embankment. He stopped himself with one hand and struggled to climb.
“She shot me in the ass! That fucking psycho shot me in the left butt cheek! That’s my good butt cheek! If she hit that tattoo I swear to God I’ll make her eat that gun!”
Richard climbed, in obvious pain, and Billie grabbed Fay’s hand and pulled. Richard pulled even with Fay, shielding her, and another shot rang out.
He screamed again, but hung on to a root. Billie scrambled behind a tree, and Fay followed. Fay held out her hand and Richard grabbed it, moving his right leg, his left hanging uselessly. Billie climbed higher, sheltering herself in the bushes. Diana crawled down to pull Billie up, and Miles helped Fay haul Richard up.
“Come on, we have to move,” he said. “If she finds a way over here . . . .”
“We’re dead,” Richard moaned. “I know. Fuck! I’m gonna be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.”
Red bloomed on Richard’s pants. There was a bullet hole in the seat of his pants. It would be funny if his leg wasn’t in such bad shape. He couldn’t put weight on it, and there were no exit wounds. With their luck, the one in his leg broke his femur. Miles took a bandana and tied a tourniquet above the wound.
“Ow, Jesus Christ, why don’t you just shoot me again, that hurt!” Richard whined. “Fay, I hope you noticed I took two bullets for you. One in my ass. If that’s not . . . well, that’s neither here nor there.”
“If that’s not what?” Fay asked.
“Come on,” Miles said. “We need to put some distance between us and the creek.”
Richard slung an arm around Fay’s neck and the other around Miles’, and they moved as quickly as they could, which was slow even compared to earlier.
Billie took Richard’s pack, and she and Diana took point.
“Next time we get offered a job on a horror movie, let’s say no, okay?” Billie asked.
“Deal.”
They left a blood trail.
When Claudia got to this side of the creek—and she would—she could follow them easily. If they weren’t making good time before, they were moving fatally slow now.
Dick was pale as milk, shivering and sweating, his lips blue and his pupils dilated, continuing grimly on, although Miles and Fay were half-dragging, half-carrying him. Fay started to flag, and Billie spelled her for a while, but Fay insisted on helping as soon as she got her wind back.
Diana had mud caked in her hair and on her skin. Her shirt was ripped, and her shoes squished as she walked. She didn’t have her pack when they fled, so they were down to three—Miles’, Billie’s and Dick’s. She carried Billie’s, and Billie carried Dick’s, which was heavier. Diana was exhausted and her muscles ached. Picking up her feet was a concentrated effort. She was starving and wanted to lay down and sleep. She had no idea what time it was; it was light out, but summer days were long.
Miles was the only one who wasn’t dragging. When Miles wasn’t shooting worried glances over his shoulder, he was looking at Dick. His grave expression said things weren’t good.
“How far down the creek until that shallow crossing you mentioned?” Billie asked.
“A little over three kilometers—about two miles,” Miles said.
“So two miles up, she crosses the creek, and two back until she can get to where we just climbed from?”
“Yes.”
“How long would that take her?”
Miles paused. “It would take me about an hour. So maybe a little longer for her.” He didn’t say anything more.
They struggled on for five more minutes.
“Leave me,” Dick said.
“What?” Fay said. “Richard, no! No, we’ve come so far. Don’t give up. Just a little further, please! You don’t know when we might come across help.”
“Leave me,” he repeated firmly. “I’m slowing you down. You know it’s me she wants. If you leave me, that might give the rest of you the time and opportunity to escape.”
Fay didn’t say anything, but tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I think we’ve put a little distance between us,” Miles said with hideously forced cheerfulness. “I’m going to look at your wounds, Richard. I’ll do a quick field dressing. Then we’ll get going again—together.”
Dick didn’t argue; maybe he didn’t have the energy. The four of them lowered him to the ground; he gritted his teeth and groaned with pain. Miles rolled him onto his stomach. Dick’s eyes were squeezed shut and he sucked air between his bared teeth.
Miles produced a Swiss Army knife and cut the outside seam of Dick’s slacks from ankle to hip, then peeled back the blood-soaked fabric. Neither wound looked bad, just small holes with slightly swollen, red flesh around them. More worrisome, Dick’s thigh was swollen and had a curvature that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Diana craned her neck for a peek. “Small caliber, it actually doesn’t look too bad.”
“You would know,” Dick groaned.
“Shut up, Dick.” She glanced at the wound on his ass. “Is that a fucking cupcake tattooed on your ass? What does that say? BAMF? What’s that stand for, Dick, bad-ass muffin-fucker?”
“I was drunk and so was the tattoo artist,” he said.
“Why would you let a drunk guy tattoo your ass?”
“It wasn’t a guy.”
“Well, that explains it.”
“Enough.” Miles poured some water from his canteen over the wounds. “Fay, there’s a first aid kit in the top of my bag. Can you get it?” He took Dick’s pulse. “Your pulse is strong, that’s good. You feel like you’re going to vomit, Richard?”
“Surprisingly, no.”
Fay handed Miles the first aid kit.
He flipped it open and rifled through it. “Billie, grab his ankle and elevate his leg for me.”
Billie did so, and Dick howled. Diana hoped Claudia wasn’t close enough to hear the ruckus. Fay pressed her hands over her mouth, before taking Dick’s hands and squeezing them.
Miles tore open an antiseptic towelette and wiped the blood away.
Diana wished she paid more attention when her youngest brother, Rocco, had studied first aid in Boy Scouts.
Miles poured iodine over the wounds, then smeared them with antibiotic ointment.
“That hurts!” Dick protested.
“Not as much as getting shot,” Diana pointed out. “Or infection. You don’t want gangrene in your ass, do you, Dick?”
“No,” he grumbled.
“Then stuff it.”
“Richard, we’ve got to slow the bleeding down,” Miles said. “If we leave the tourniquet on too long, you’ll lose the leg.”
“Aren’t you going to take the bullets out?” Fay said.
Miles shook his head. “As far as I know, they’re plugging up a major vein or artery, and I don’t want to dig around in the wounds, it’s not sterile. I could do more damage than good.” Working quickly, Miles put sterile pads over both entry wounds, taping them down and winding bandages around Dick’s leg and hips. “That ought to put some pressure on it and keep it from bleeding too much. I’m going to splint your leg now, Richard.”
“Just watch my balls, would you? You ladies should avert your eyes.”
“Oh, now you don’t want women staring at your junk. All it takes is a homicidal maniac,” Diana scoffed.
Miles pulled out what looked like a couple extra-thick bandages, but when he unrolled them, they stayed straight and stiff. He pressed them to either side of Dick’s leg. “Diana, Fay, I need you to hold those in place.”
As Diana leaned over him, Dick kvetched, “I know it’s damn-near irresistible, but try not to handle the merchandise.”
“I wouldn’t touch the dick of death if you paid me, so no worries.”
“I am paying you.”
“Not enough for that. Not enough for any of this.”
“Look who’s talking, Walking Disaster. If Joe gave you a First Nations name, it’d be She Who Finds Bodies.”
“Be quiet or I’m going to turn you into a body.”
Miles wound still more bandages around Dick’s leg. He looked like a mummy. Diana doubted he would appreciate the comparison.
“You can lower his leg, Billie.”
Billie gently lowered Dick’s leg.
Miles forced Dick to take a couple Tylenol. “I’m afraid he’s going into shock from the blood loss, but we can’t afford to lose any more time,” Miles admitted.
“I said leave me,” Dick wheezed.
“No,” Fay answered, her voice wavering.
“Dammit, Fay.” Richard swayed on his feet and Miles struggled to steady him. “All this happened on my film. My watch. My responsibility. Let me do this. Leave me.”
Fay burst into tears and nearly got hysterical before he agreed to shut up about it. By the time they got it figured out, Diana was ready to grab Billie and beat feet. The only problem was she knew damn well Billie was like the Marines: She never left someone behind.
Miles hefted Dick over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, with Dick bitching all the way, at least until he either fell asleep or lost consciousness. Fay grabbed Miles’ pack, and they set off, Miles and Fay taking point, and Billie and Diana behind.
“How long do you think he can carry him?” Billie whispered.
Diana bit her lip. “I don’t know.” Miles was in the best shape of all of them, but even he had to have a limit.
Diana would have felt better with a weapon. They hadn’t taken more than half an hour, but she knew, with every minute, Claudia gained on them. With Dick hurt, Miles never would leave them.
Claudia would catch up with them, sooner rather than later.
They stopped so many times, Billie was sure Claudia would jump out of the bushes and attack at any moment.
Richard shut up part way in, and whether it was because Miles was carrying him or the pain, Billie didn’t know. When Miles set him down to rest, Richard was listless and sad.
“He doesn’t look good,” Billie said to Diana, her voice low.
“I think he’s right, we’re going to have to leave him,” Diana said.
“We’re not leaving him.” Fay crossed her arms.
Billie looked at her determined expression, then at Diana. “We aren’t going to leave him,” Billie said. “But I do think Miles is going to have to go on without us.”
“No can do,” Miles said. “Come on. I need a bit of a break, can you girls help carry him?”
Richard said nothing as Billie reached down and slung his arm around her shoulders. Diana grabbed his other arm. There were no insults, no personal jabs. Billie didn’t like him quiet. It was unnerving.
They hiked for a while, then Fay waved. “You guys, look!” She pointed.
Billie rounded a large outcropping of rock with Richard. A dilapidated cabin was nearly hidden by a grove of trees and an overgrown hedge. Just beyond it was a half-collapsed shed. The only thing keeping the shed even semi-erect was the huge tree it had collapsed against. The cabin looked only slightly better.
“Thank God,” Diana said. “Are we here?”
“No,” Miles said. “That’s not the ranger station. It’s not on the map either.”
He pushed his way through the hedge, went up to the door and knocked, but there was no answer. He peered in a dusty window.
“It’s a single room, empty.” He turned the doorknob and the door creaked open. “Get him in here.”
Billie and Diana hustled Richard inside, fighting through the hedge. The cabin was a single room, with a creaky wooden floor and a stone fireplace against the far wall. There was an iron cot, a table covered with a thick layer of dust and two chairs, but that was it.
They laid Richard on the cot, and he shivered. Fay, her eyes betraying her worry, looked around for a blanket, but there was nothing.
“Everything’s wet!” She went through their packs. “Damn her to hell.”
Miles stared at the group, chewing his bottom lip.
“You have to go,” Billie said.
He nodded. “There’s about an hour until sunset. If I leave now and push it, I may be able to make it to the ranger station before dark. I’ve marked where this cabin is, I’ll take the map with me. You guys can stay here.”
“And if Claudia shows up? Then what?” Diana asked.
Miles had no answer.
Fay knelt next to the cot and brushed Richard’s bangs off his face. He was covered in a sheen of sweat. He was going into shock.
“We can handle her,” Billie said with as much confidence as she could muster. “The faster you get there, the faster we get out of here.”
“And if you don’t make it to the ranger station, where will you sleep?” Diana asked.
“I have my knife. I can make a lean-to shelter with branches and stuff. I’ve done it before.” He managed a small grin. “I’ll be okay.”
Billie took Richard’s pack off. “We can divide up the food.”
“I just need some water, maybe some of the granola bars,” he said. “You guys keep the rest.”
Fay hurried over. “Leave the first aid kit?”
Miles nodded.
“Hurry,” Fay said. “He needs a hospital. Badly.”
Miles nodded. He looked around at them again. “Try not to start a fire unless you absolutely have to. I’ll leave the waterproof matches. Try and barricade the door when I leave, and pull all the curtains shut.”
He glanced at them one more time, then opened the door and was gone.