The Cypress Trap: A Suspense Thriller (15 page)

“Let
the dog go,” the sheriff said. “We need to get to the car. Help is on the way.”

“No,”
Rayanne yelled, splashing into the muddy pool at the bottom of the ditch and
climbing up the other side. She scrambled up the slope after Luger. “He can
smell them, hear them, track them, whatever!”

“Mrs.
Meeks!” The sheriff jumped down into the ditch, his boots splashing mud and
leaves, and he followed her up to the other side, yelling for her to stop.
Scrambling to the top, he grabbed her arm, halting her. “Rayanne, please. We
need to go back.”

“Not
without my husband,” she said, twisting her arm free.

She
trailed behind Luger, running into the tall weeds.

The
sheriff stayed at her heels. “If hunters came by,” he said, his voice sounding
winded, “maybe they took him to the hospital.”

“
They
have him.” She didn’t look back, running faster, trying to keep up with the
dog.

He
reached out and grabbed her arm again, stopping her. “You don’t know that,” he
said, tightening his grip.

Rayanne
looked at his hand on her arm, then back up into his eyes. “Yes, I do. And they
will kill him.”

He
glared at her as if he wanted to say more, then released her. She pulled her
arm to her side. Turning, she headed deeper into the woods, after the
Rottweiler. The sheriff removed his hat. Running a hand once over his bristly
white crew cut, he heaved a loud sigh and rushed to catch up.

22

Luger
ran purposefully between the trees as Rayanne and the sheriff struggled to keep
up with him. They could barely see more than a flash of black fur some twenty
feet ahead.

Finally, Rayanne paused under a large
oak. She no longer had the dog in her sights, and waited for the sheriff.

“Where
do you think he’s going?” he asked, coming up beside her and bending. He put
his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

“I
don’t know.” Rayanne pointed south. “But I think he went that way.”

Headed
in that direction, she slipped among the trees for another ten minutes before
pausing. The sheriff was behind her. She pushed branches away from her face so
she could look into a clearing, and saw Luger again. The dog was already
running across a cluttered yard, toward a small structure.

Rayanne
recognized it. She was looking at the rear of the dark trapper’s shack. In the
backyard, a stone shed faced the back porch. It looked equally dark and
inhospitable, with a dirty fire pit on the ground in front of it. The boar
carcass still hung on a rack to its side. And, giving her a sense of déjà vu,
Rayanne noticed a wire cage rattling near the shed entrance.

A
raccoon was trapped inside it. Possibly the same one she’d rescued yesterday.
It cried and struggled to get out. Rayanne wouldn’t be able to help it this
time.

A
loud knock from inside the shack caught her attention, as if someone had
dropped something. She turned her head toward the dark structure.

The
sheriff crouched beside her as she watched Luger disappear around the corner of
the shack, headed to the front yard. Several excited voices called his name.

“It’s
those teenagers,” she whispered to the sheriff. “They’re here.”

“Don’t
move. I’ll go investigate.” The sheriff removed his gun from its holster.

She
grabbed his free arm and stood with him. “My husband is in there.”

“You
don’t know that.” He pulled his arm away and held a finger to his lips, hushing
her. “Now stay here out of sight and be quiet.”

Rayanne
crouched down behind the cover of the thorny bushes and watched the sheriff
step into the clearing. He ran along the tree line until he was parallel to the
side of the shack and then, crouching, he sprinted across the ground to the
building. Crawling along the side wall, he peered in a window. Rayanne watched
him, and then left the safety of the shadows and came up alongside him.

The
sheriff glared at her. “I told you to stay back.”

“And
I told you my husband is in there.”

Rayanne
froze for a moment when she saw a shadow streak on the ground near the front
corner of the shack.

Then,
inching along under the windows, they crawled, spiderlike, to the next window,
and rose slightly to look into it. The front room was dark except for sunlight
spilling in through the wide front windows. A door to a back room was closed
and outlined in light. In front of it, a man sat in a wheelchair. He hunched
over a body, her husband. Rayanne gasped.

Owen
was tied up with what looked like thick wire, and rested against the back wall.
His head was slumped; she couldn’t tell if he was asleep or something worse.

She
whispered to the sheriff, “We’ve got to help him.”

“I
will. Now, stay here.”

Rayanne
shook her head in protest.

The
sheriff pushed her to a crouched position below the window. “I’m not telling
you again,” he said in a rough whisper.

Rayanne
stared up at him and watched helplessly as he stepped away from her, to the
front corner of the shack. Defying his orders, Rayanne snuck along the wall and
came up behind him. She peered around the corner with him.

The
black van was parked in front of the shack. There were two teenagers, Scut and
Rude Roddy, standing in front of the grille and headlights, arguing.

Dru
was on the side of the van with Luger. She buckled a collar around the
Rottweiler’s thick neck. Glancing over her shoulder at the arguing boys, she
shook her head in disgust and opened the van door. She whistled for Luger to
jump inside.

This
seemed to catch Scut’s attention and he marched over to her. “You think you’re
goin’ somewhere?”

“Luger’s
hurt,” she said, brushing past him. “I’m taking him to town.”

“You’re
not goin’ nowhere.” He grabbed her arm, halting her.

They
stared at each other, neither saying a word. Then she shook her arm, forcing
him to release her. She opened the driver’s side door.

“I
don’t know who those kids are, but they aren’t from ’round here,” the sheriff
whispered as he turned to Rayanne.

In
front of them, the black van was pulling away, leaving Scut and Roddy standing
in the yard. Rayanne watched them a moment, then slipped behind the sheriff and
flattened her back to the wall.

“Maybe
they’re all from Tarpon Springs,” she said.

“I’ll
find out. Wait here and don’t move this time.” With his gun in hand, the
sheriff got up and rounded the front corner.

Rayanne
stayed crouched at the corner, watching, as he approached the front porch. He
stepped onto it. A plank creaked under his foot.

The
teens stopped talking. Their heads turned.

Rayanne
gulped a breath and moved her head back. She heard the sheriff’s voice. He was
telling the teens to back off … then there was some kind of commotion. It
scared her and she ran back along the wall, toward the rear corner. She could
hear their raised voices. The sheriff yelled. Gunshots—two, back to back. She
ignored them, though, and rounded the corner to the back porch. The worn wood
squeaked when she set foot on it.

The
back door, not firmly closed, opened and drifted inward. Rayanne pushed it and
peered inside. The room held more than its share of darkness, considering the
bright day outside. Slowly, her eyes adjusted.

She
padded cautiously around the cluttered room, her sandals lightly squeaking on
the wood floorboards. The place smelled musty. There was a table in the center
of the room, with metal foldout chairs around it. A small TV sat on a crate in
a corner. A kitchenette with a microwave and a sink took up the corner on her
left, and two closed doors—possibly to bedrooms—lined the wall on her right.

It
took some seconds for Rayanne to see the one figure in the room. The other man,
the one in the wheelchair, was gone.

She
called out, “Owen?”

Owen
wasn’t moving, sitting slumped on the floor, his back against the wall. She
dropped to her knees in front of him.

He
was unconscious. To her horror, she saw that his body was tied with barbed
wire. It had torn his shirt and scratched his arms and chest. She kissed him,
then wiped the sweat and blood away from his eyes and cleaned his forehead with
her shirt. Slowly, his eyes opened.

“Owen.”
She wrapped her arms gently around his neck, cradling his head. “Oh dear Lord,
you’re alive.”

“Babe?”
he whispered, barely able to speak.

She
leaned his head back. “I’m getting you out of here.”

Finding
the end of the wire, she unraveled the barbed cord from around his chest. It
was looped several times, and he flinched as the dirty spikes popped out of his
skin. Next she removed the wire wrapped around his wrists. He flinched again,
clearly fighting the urge to cry out in pain.

“I
know this hurts,” she said. “Just a second and I’ll have you free.”

He
attempted to stand, and Rayanne positioned his right arm behind her neck and
across her shoulder to support his weight. She saw that the simple exertion
left him dizzy and out of breath, and she hoped the sheriff would come in and
help them.

More
gunshots rang out, and she stopped and turned her head. She heard something
heavy hit the outside wall, like someone had thrown a bag of potatoes against
it. Or a body. She could hear the teenagers’ muffled voices through the wall,
but couldn’t make out what they were saying. They were excited. Angry. Arguing.

They
were coming inside!

“We
need to hurry.” Rayanne lifted Owen to his feet. His arm was wrapped around her
shoulder, the full brunt of his weight on her. She inhaled deeply, and moved
him toward the back door.

“Can
you walk?” she whispered.

“I
think—”

A
door to a back room opened, and Rayanne turned her head. A gaunt, emaciated man
sitting in a wheelchair rolled himself into the room. His bald head remained
still while his lethal stare slid snakelike to Rayanne.

“He’s
finally awake,” the man said to her. “And now you’re leaving?”

She
looked at him for several seconds. She didn’t know him. She didn’t want to know
him. But she couldn’t turn away.

“Rayanne
Meeks,” the man said, raising a hand from the arm of his wheelchair. “You can’t
have him.” His smile widened into a hideous white grin. Crooked teeth jutted
from his gums at all angles and his pale skin, drawn tight across his skull,
looked pitted and scarred. His legs hung limply against the front of the
wheelchair, giving him the appearance of some kind of scarecrow—unhealthy and
dangerously thin. It was as if some deep hatred was eating him from the inside
out, Rayanne thought, though she wasn’t sure why.

“Your
husband has something of mine,” he said to her. “I want it back.”

Owen
lifted his head. “I told you I don’t have it.”

Rayanne
turned away. Grasping her husband, she rushed them out the back door and onto
the porch. The door slammed behind them.

Rayanne
could hear Scut’s loud voice behind her. He’d entered the cabin, yelling. There
was a crash, possibly a chair had overturned. Maybe the table. She didn’t want
to turn around, though, and focused on helping Owen step down from the porch.

She
knew that back door was about to open and three murderous teenagers—and
possibly the creepy bald man in the wheelchair—would spill out. They’d be on
top of them at any moment.

She
scanned the grounds. The safety of the tree line was a good forty or fifty
yards away. They would never make it across the yard and into the twisted brush
without being seen. Scut and his friends would chase them through the woods and
hunt them down.

She
glanced at the stone shed. It was closer. They could make it there in a few
seconds and hide inside. But they’d be trapped. Like the coon in the cage.
Besides, there was no way for them to reach the shed in time. She had seconds,
maybe less. Out of options, she pulled Owen toward the edge of the back porch.
They stepped onto the trampled grass path and rounded the corner.

Their
bodies hugged the side wall as she heard the back door swing open. The boys stepped
onto the porch. Rayanne could hear their heavy boots clomping on the wood.

“Where
are they? Where’d they go?” It was Scut, his voice rising and falling with
excitement.

“They
probably ran into the woods.” It sounded like Roddy, or maybe the other one. He
was at the edge of the porch, his hand gripping the corner of the shack.

Rayanne
could see his fingers, and slid farther back along the wall.

23

Rayanne
crouched along the wall and grabbed Owen’s arm, pulling him down with her. He
leaned against the wood siding and watched her. She pointed to the crawl space
under the house and the latticework that was broken away where she’d seen the
raccoon hide the day before. She knelt beside the hole and removed a section of
lattice. She peered into the blackness under the shack. It looked damp, dark,
and infested with spiders.

Placing
a hand in the dirt, she lay down in front of the hole. The ground felt cool
and, on her back, she slid into the black space underneath. She prayed there
wasn’t a family of coons living under the house, but she knew she’d have to
risk it. Owen followed her in.

On
her back, she reached above her head and put the lattice up, hiding their point
of entry. In the dark shadow under the shack, she looked over at her husband.
He was lying on his back, staring at her.

They
listened to the boys leap off the back porch and holler.

“They’re
not in the shed,” one of them was saying.

She
could hear the coon cage rattling in the distance, and she thought maybe they
were headed for the shed. Then two boots passed in front of her. She could
barely see through the broken latticework concealing them, and the boots moved
quickly out of her line of sight. Still, she could feel the teenager nearby,
walking the perimeter of the shack.

Another
voice shouted, “They’re in the woods!”

It
sounded several yards away, and brought the boots back into view. Through the
cracked lattice, she watched the teenagers’ legs stomp past her and out of her
line of view again. The voices retreated and she was certain the boys must be
headed away from them. She wiggled her back in the dirt. The crawlspace was
tight. There wasn’t much room and she couldn’t sit up, but at least they hadn’t
found her and Owen.

“I
think we’re safe,” she whispered.

Owen
let out a long, audible breath. “As long as there’s nothing under here with
us,” he said.

Rayanne
didn’t want to hear that. She intended to remain there until she felt certain
the teens had hiked far away, even though she barely had enough room to turn
her head. She would have to stand it, she thought, and cringed.

The
air smelled stale and polluted with animal droppings and moldering leaves that
had blown in through the holes in the latticework outlining the foundation.
Wooden support posts were spaced all around them, with cottony tufts of spider
webs stretching out in the corners. Rayanne guessed the space at about a foot
in height.

A
thin line of sunlight lit up the black dirt a couple of feet to her left,
having fallen through a crack in the floorboards above. A larger, more irregular
pattern of light, about the size of Owen’s hand, formed under another spacing
in the floor.

After
a few minutes lying on her back on the damp ground, staring up at narrow shafts
of light in the floorboards above her, Rayanne nudged her husband. They had to
get out of there. He blinked, and she skittered her body toward the opening.
She reached for the broken lattice, and heard movement above her. A rolling
sound. Wheels finding traction on the wooden floor. A man coughed and cleared
his throat.

She
knew instantly that the man in the wheelchair was above them, separated by
barely a foot. He was talking. Someone was with him.

One
of them said Owen’s name. They were clearly talking about him.

The
man’s occasional throat clearing, a few muttered words, the sound of him
shifting position … all of it made her impatient to hear what he was saying.

Silently
she eased to the larger hole and leaned her head into the light. She peered up
as best she could, but could only make out a small section of a worn tire on the
man’s wheelchair. He rolled away, and Rayanne got a glimpse of the nerdy teen
with the broken arm. The one Scut had beat with the baseball bat before he
turned it on Darryl. His right arm was still in a cast, but no longer hanging
in a sling. Nelson? Was that his name? Rayanne tried to remember as she
listened to his voice carry into the crawl space under the floor.

“Scut’s
out of control.”

Nelson
adjusted his position, and she could see the man in the wheelchair too.

“You
found him.” The wheelchair squeaked like a hamster’s wheel as the old man
spoke. “You hired him. There’s no turning back now.”

“You
really think Scut’ll return it to you if he gets his hands on it?” The boy
moved out of Rayanne’s narrow line of sight. She could hear him, though. “He’ll
make Owen tell him where it is, and then he’ll keep it.”

The
man in the wheelchair laughed. “He doesn’t even know what it is precisely that
Owen stole.”

“Yes,
he does.” Nelson paced back and forth, the floorboards squeaking with every
step. Rayanne could see his tennis shoes. He sounded panicked, the pitch of his
voice rising with his emotions. “I told him. I told him we’re looking for the
rabbit’s foot.”

Rayanne
gasped and involuntarily reached for her pocket. She could feel the tiny object
pressed against her thigh in her shorts pocket. It was still there. She
returned her arm to her side, her hand hitting a post as she moved. A quick
gasp of pain escaped her.

Rayanne’s
eyes enlarged as she realized she’d made a noise. And if she could hear the two
men talking, surely they …. She peered through the hole, hoping.

The
man in the wheelchair was no longer talking. He seemed to be nodding, searching
the room. Suddenly he turned his head and looked down. His eyes locked with
Rayanne’s single eye looking up through the hole in the floorboard.

At
first she noticed the man’s eyes were black and open wide with shock, before
squinting with such pure rage, such anger, that Rayanne knew—if ever she had
doubted—they needed to get out of there.