Chapter Twenty-One

 

Eric grabbed Holly and shoved her out of the way.

It was chillingly close. He felt the tips of the branches scrape down his back as he dove for the ground. A great gust of wind blew over him. The noise was deafening. He didn’t need to see to know that they’d barely escaped being crushed to death.

The whole experience was eerily familiar. This wasn’t the first time he narrowly avoided being killed by an uprooted tree.

He seemed to be reliving a lot of his more unpleasant experiences tonight, now that he thought about it.

And now, to make matters worse, he found himself sprawled on the forest floor with his arms around Holly, their bodies pressed together, face to face as pine needles and leaves rained down around them in the mottled moonlight.

This magic man had no idea how terribly wrong he was going about this. All he really needed was a photograph of the two of them at this exact moment and he was convinced that Karen would murder them both and save him the trouble.

Half expecting a second tree to come crashing down on top of them, he lifted his head just a little and listened. Something was moving. He could hear it over the sound of the settling foliage. Big, heavy steps in the underbrush, snapping sizeable branches and stirring the limbs far above the reach of the ogre that attacked them at the fraternity house.

This was something bigger. Much bigger.

If an ogre could pick him up like nothing and almost rip him in half, what chance did he stand against something big enough to uproot a tree this size?

With a sick lump in his throat, he remembered Delphinium mentioning dragons. Could that be what this was? They were typically pretty big, weren’t they?

He really wanted to go home.

The sound of snapping branches began to grow fainter. Whatever the thing was, it was moving away. Soon, an eerie silence had settled over them.

“Is it gone?” whispered Holly. He could feel her breath against his cheek.

“I think so…”

Cautiously, they untangled themselves and rose shakily to their feet, but she refused to let go of his arm.

“What was that thing?” she asked.

“I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an imp or an ogre.”

“No. It sounded huge.”

“It did.”

Holly squinted into the darkness. “I’m worried about Alicia. Do you think anything could’ve found her yet?”

“I don’t know,” Eric confessed. But he’d begun to worry. “Do you still feel her?”

“I do. But I can’t tell where she’s at anymore. It’s like she keeps jumping from place to place. I don’t understand it.”

“Keep trying. You’ll figure it out.” He hoped…

She nodded, but didn’t let go of his elbow. He could feel her fingernails digging into his skin. She turned and scanned the trees around them. “I think she’s this way,” she decided, tugging him to the right.

Eric let her lead the way, but within seconds, she paused again.

“Wrong way?”

She shushed him.

Eric snapped his mouth shut obediently.

“I heard something moving out there.”

“Where?”

She gestured at the area ahead of them, but of course, there was nothing to see but shadows.

“Can we go around?”

“I don’t know.”

“We can’t stay here.”

“You’re right. Come on.” She turned right again and slipped through the trees.

Eric was feeling worse and worse about this rescue mission by the second. Something enormous and immensely dangerous was prowling these woods. And if Isabelle was right, which she almost always was, the magic man himself was even lurking out here, probably determined to put an end to their meddling once and for all.

He had no idea how they were going to find Alicia in this wilderness, much less escape with their lives.

A sound, like a large branch snapping in two, came from somewhere to their left.

“This way!” whispered Holly. “Hurry.”

But then she stopped short. “Wait… Maybe that way…”

“This isn’t a good time to be indecisive,” Eric told her.

She turned and looked back the way they’d come again. “It’s so confusing.”

“Just relax. You can do this. I know you can.”

Holly nodded. “Right. I can do this. Let’s see…” She turned in a circle, trying to get her bearings. “I think… This way? Maybe?”

Eric glanced behind him, making sure nothing was sneaking up on him. His heart was hammering. He had a very bad feeling about this.

When he looked forward again, a large shape was reaching out from the shadowy trees. A meaty hand was about to seize Holly’s ponytail. He let out a startled cry and slashed at the arm with the dagger.

The ogre let out a fearsome howl and snatched its arm back as Holly screamed and tripped herself trying to get away from the sneaky creature.

But the monster turned its attention on Eric instead, lurching out of the shadows.

Eric thrust the dagger forward, plunging the blade deep into its flabby belly.

Again, the thing howled. Making this much noise, it was sure to attract the giant that uprooted the pine tree, and anything else that might be lurking out there, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. The ogre thrust its massive fist into his chest and knocked him backward. His feet came off the ground and he sailed at least ten feet before slamming into the hard trunk of a large maple and then dropping to his hands and knees.

That wasn’t what was supposed to happen… Dazed, in pain and gasping for breath, he lifted the dagger that he was miraculously still clutching in his fist and looked at it. Delphinium told him it was enchanted, but it didn’t appear to be any more effective than Holly’s spells. He only seemed to have pissed the ogre off.

Maybe he wasn’t using it right. Was he supposed to lift it over his head first and invoke the power of Grayskull?

The monster stalked toward him, its massive hands reaching out for him.

Eric struggled to rise to his feet, but he hadn’t quite got his wind back yet and all he could manage was to lift himself onto his knees and brandish the dagger in front of him.

Then something heavy struck the ogre’s ugly head. A rock. It stopped, distracted and turned the other way. A second rock struck it in the face and it reeled backward a step in surprise.

Holly. He couldn’t see her from where he stood, but she was there, in the trees and in the cover of darkness, trying to save him.

“Get out of here!” he shouted.

At the sound of his voice, the ogre turned on him again. A patch of moonlight landed on its face and he could just make out its huge, evil eyes staring back at him.

“Get up!” she pleaded from the darkness.

The ogre didn’t turn toward her voice. It seemed to have made up its mind who it wanted to dismember first. Even when another rock sailed out of the trees and struck it on its shoulder, it didn’t take those murderous eyes off him.

Eric had finally managed to get to his feet, but there was nowhere to go. He took a step backward and found himself against the maple that had knocked the wind from him.

It was too close. If he tried to make a break for it, it would grab him and rip his head off. Or his arms. It wouldn’t be choosy. If he threw himself at the creature instead, he might land another lucky thrust with the dagger, but he doubted it would work any better a second time. Then it would rip his head off. Or his arms.

Whatever the outcome, Eric didn’t doubt for a second that it was going to be excruciating.

But then, as it often seemed to do during these dire moments, something unusual happened.

The monster stopped. Its murderous eyes changed. A puzzled expression passed over its face and it looked down at the smoking dagger wound. It seemed confused, as if it’d just realized that it had been stabbed.

It took a step backward, grunting, and then began making a strange huffing noise that reminded him for some reason of an agitated gorilla.

It was difficult to see in the darkness, but that vile smoke was pouring out of the wound in a thick, foul cloud, much more than he’d seen rising from the ruined face of the fraternity house ogre. More smoke was billowing up from the cut on its arm and even from the monster’s mouth and nose.

Up until now, these things had demonstrated an incredible tolerance for pain. But this one looked as if it were suddenly in tremendous agony.

It stumbled in a circle and began to howl.

Holly appeared from the darkness and seized Eric’s arm again. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The dagger,” said Eric, remembering what Delphinium told him. “It’s still cutting…” Even though he’d withdrawn the weapon and was holding it in his hand, it was somehow still carving its way through the monster’s guts.

It let out a long, suffering howl. Then there was a loud “pop” and its smoking innards spilled from its bloated belly and piled onto the grass.

“Oh god!” gasped Holly. She turned and buried her head against his shoulder.

Eric’s stomach lurched. He wanted to close his eyes, too, to look away from this horror, but he didn’t dare. As soon as he did, he felt certain that the thing would get up and charge after him, trailing its gory guts behind it.

But the ogre was going nowhere. It howled in agony and then drooped over and began crawling across the clearing, away from them.

Somewhere in the forest, another monster howled. Somewhere else, another tree crashed to the ground.

“We have to get moving,” Eric said, taking Holly by the hand and leading her as quickly as he could go through the trees.

He was extra carful now to keep the dagger pointed away from himself. In spite of the fact that it had just saved his life, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be touching the vicious thing. He wanted to throw it away. Far away, where no one could ever find it again. But somehow he knew that he wouldn’t make it out of these woods alive without it.

He might not survive anyway…

“This way!” Holly cried, yanking on his hand and steering him to the right.

“Are you sure?”

“I think so!”

Before they could discuss it any further, an imp leapt from the shadows and sank its teeth and claws into Eric’s left thigh.

He let out a yell and staggered, falling to his knees in the darkness.

Holly turned and kicked at the little creature, trying to make it let go, but all it did was pause its chewing long enough to snarl at her.

Eric pressed the tip of the dagger against the imp’s collarbone, careful to avoid nicking his leg, and drove it into the little monster’s misshapen body. It let out a horrid shriek, but still refused to let go of his leg.

Behind them, the howling of another ogre and the sounds of splintering branches grew louder.

Another imp appeared from the shadows and scurried up Holly’s back, seizing her by her hair.

The sound of her screaming was terrible.

His heart thundering in his chest, Eric twisted the blade. Thick smoke poured from the wound. In the mottled moonlight, he watched its horrid, bulging eyes as they rolled in their sockets. It was dying, and still it refused to remove its claws from his leg.

“Get off me!” he shouted, and forced the blade all the way through the imp, pinning it to the ground.

Finally, the creature let go, but before he could rise to his feet, he was attacked by yet another imp. It jumped onto his back and bit him on the shoulder.

Shouting at the unexpected pain, Eric scrambled to his feet and tried to shake the monster, but it was as determined as the first one.

Holly was still screaming. Unable to run from the beast, she’d dropped to the ground and curled herself into a ball, trying to protect her face from the monster’s snapping jaws.

Eric turned his back to a large oak nearby and threw his full weight into the tree, crushing the imp between it and him. He heard the snap of small bones breaking and heard the creature’s wail, but it clung to him with unyielding determination. He slammed against the tree again, and then again. The fourth time, the thing finally let go and dropped to the ground, writhing.

He rushed over to Holly and seized the little monster by its ear. Immediately, it snarled at him and began trying to bite his hand, but a quick, careful swipe of the dagger parted its head from its body in a neat spray of smoking, black blood.

He tossed the baffled-looking head of the imp aside, removed the twitching body from Holly’s back and helped her up. “Come on,” he said. “We have to go right now.”

She rose shakily to her feet. “Thank you…”

“You’re welcome. Now let’s get out of here.”

But the words were barely out of his mouth when a massive hand seized his arm and lifted him into the air.

Another ogre had arrived.

Holly screamed again.

Eric found himself dangling by his arm, staring into the awful face of the monster, utterly helpless. The dagger was in his immobilized hand. All he could do was kick at the beast, but it didn’t even seem to notice. It was staring at him, examining him, as if trying to decide if he was worth eating.

“Get out of here!” he shouted at Holly. “Go!”

The ogre reached out with its other hand and took hold of his left leg.

This wasn’t going to end well. Somewhere between his left knee and his right elbow, he was fairly sure that he was about to be parted from himself.

“Eric!”

“Just go!”

The creature didn’t seem to notice Holly. It was preoccupied with its new plaything. It pulled on his arm and leg, stretching him. His joints cracked. The dagger tumbled out of his hand and landed on the ground beneath him.

Perhaps it was the overwhelming absurdity of the situation, but his only coherent thought at this point in time was wondering which of his limbs was about to be torn from its socket.

But once again, he heard Holly shout and felt that warm wind blow past him. In the same instant, the ogre released its grip on him and he fell to the ground in a heap.

Holly’s aim had again been true. The ogre was now blind, its eyes erased from its head along with most of the rest of its face, leaving it staggering in a circle, swinging its massive fists in a blind rage.

Another tree came crashing down through the forest.

Something big was approaching.

He snatched the dagger off the ground and then ran to Holly, who was crouched at the base of a tree, exhausted from casting her spell again. “We have to go!” he told her.

She nodded, but she struggled to make herself stand.

“Are you okay?”

Again, she nodded. “Just… Drained. I’ll be okay in a minute.”

Eric was concerned. The first time she used the spell, back at the motel, she’d looked winded, but she’d been able to crawl across the driver’s seat of the minivan a moment later without any trouble. But she’d used it four more times since then. Suddenly, he wondered if it was good for her to use it so often.

He took her arm and led her out of the clearing, into the thicker trees where the blinded ogre wouldn’t be able to follow without difficulty. He didn’t ask her which way they should go. Their choices were limited. As much as they needed to find Alicia, his only concern right now was getting as far away from these monsters as possible. They couldn’t help the girl anyway, if they were dead.

With a thunderous crash, another large tree slammed onto the forest floor to their left.

Holly screamed again.

Eric changed direction, dragging her to the right, away from the fallen tree and the massive thing that had toppled it. “You really need to stop screaming,” he told her.

“I’m sorry!”

Another tree came down behind them.

This time, she only managed a short yelp of a scream before clasping her free hand over her mouth.

Eric caught sight of a patch of moonlight and steered toward it.

Within seconds, they broke into another wide clearing bathed in moonlight.

He led Holly to the very center and then turned and scanned the tree line in every direction.

Seconds passed. Strange howling noises rose from all around them. It seemed the woods were filled with monsters tonight. There was nowhere to go.

“Eric!” said Holly, her voice hushed, and pointed up over the tree tops to the north.

He looked and felt his heart stutter in his chest. A dark shape was moving there. Something enormous was wading through the forest, searching for them, its head and shoulders rising above all but the very tallest trees.

Squeezing her hand, he led her in the opposite direction, away from the enormous thing.

“How long before you can use another of those spells?” he asked her as they entered the trees again.

“I’ll need at least a few more minutes,” replied Holly. “But then I’ll be completely wiped out. I’m not sure if I’ll even be able to stand.”

“Last resort then. Got it.”

“Sorry!”

Eric assessed their situation. It wasn’t that hard. They were basically screwed. They were lost in a huge forest crawling with monsters with nothing to defend themselves but a cursed dagger and one last, mostly ineffective witch spell.

And he wasn’t convinced she should even be using that spell. It took a lot out of her. What if she needed not minutes to recover from it, but days? Or months? What if it was hurting her? What if it was killing her?

He hated this. What the hell was he even doing here? Why did he keep getting himself into these situations? Why him?

In the movies, he’d simply stand his ground and fight the monsters off as they emerged from the forest, cutting them down by twos and threes while twirling the dagger gracefully around him. Because for some reason or another, he’d have entered this bizarre situation with a full mastery of an impressive range of combat skills. Unfortunately, this was not a movie and this hero was trained to educate children and perform extremely limited first aid if necessary. He’d also completed an extensive training course at Burger King when he was in high school. It was a long time ago, but if he should need for any reason to flame-broil a burger on this adventure, he was confident that he could totally still handle it.

They wove through the trees, moving as quickly as the densely wooded terrain would allow, waiting for something else to jump out at them, convinced that the next time would be the last time because surely they must be running low on luck by now.

And yet, they appeared to be alone again.

The forest around them was silent.

Where had they all gone?

“Did you see that?” whispered Holly.

“What?”

She was squinting into the gloom. “I saw something out there.”

“Another creature?”

“I don’t know.”

Still clinging to her hand, he led her onward, his eyes open wide, trying to see through the darkness. At this point, he wasn’t even sure whether they were moving toward the front of the park or the back.

They broke into another small clearing and stopped short as they came across the smoking remains of a pair of imps.

“Have we been here already?” asked Holly.

But Eric didn’t know. It didn’t look familiar. But then, terror had a way of blurring the details.

Cautiously, they moved on, stepping around the weird carcasses.

Eric was beginning to get that bad feeling again.

Something else was here with them.

Suddenly, Holly halted him. “Look!”

He glanced back at her and then followed her gaze up into the trees above them. He couldn’t see anything. “What is it?”

But Holly didn’t answer. She stared up into the branches, confused. “It’s gone…”

Eric scanned the area around them, and then looked back at her. “What did it look like?”

“I’m not sure. I couldn’t really see it.”

Eric scanned the trees all around them. There was nothing there now, but he didn’t believe for a second that she’d only imagined it. Something in these woods had taken to the trees. More stealthy than an imp, more agile than an ogre and probably more dangerous than the two combined.

“What’s going on?” asked Holly.

“I don’t know.”

But then holly stiffened. “Eric!”

He followed her gaze up into the branches overhead. A figure was there, stretched out in the canopy, staring back at them.