The Remedy (18 page)

“Then can we go?”

“Fine.” Rob took a step toward Sam. “But I’m keeping him in front of me, where I can see him, the entire way back.”

Sam nodded. “That’s okay with me.”

Rob spat at his shoes. “I didn’t ask if it was.”

Leigh started to say something but decided to let it go. She hoped that Rob could hold himself back from physically attacking Sam, at least for the time being. She accepted the lantern from Sam, purposely avoiding eye contact, and made her way into the night.

As they walked in silence through the dark forest, twigs snapping underfoot, Leigh considered the insight Rob had brought with him to the ranger outpost. Though she wouldn’t deny that his suspicions were justified, it didn’t mean he was necessarily right about Sam. It could all easily be a misunderstanding.

Still, she wished she had some water to wash away the flavor of jerky that lingered from their kiss. All she could taste was that meat.

The night shift for forest insects had officially begun. A cacophony of chirping crickets radiated through the trees, the sound of thousands of bug conversations. The noise comforted Leigh as she, Rob, and Sam approached the deer camp’s front porch. It reminded her that some things at least were still functioning normally in the crazy nightmare that had become her life. Whatever this disease was, eating away at anyone unfortunate enough to come in contact with it, at least it didn’t seem to affect the creepy crawlies socializing in the dirt and buzzing through the air.

The inside of the cabin, however, was dead silent. Leigh didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one, since it meant Eliza had finally stopped screaming and crying. Either she’d gotten a grip and was patiently waiting for her friends to return—or she’d taken a turn for the worse. Leigh’s pounding heartbeat echoed in her ears she approached the bedroom door.

Rob walked past her and gave a gentle knock. “Eliza?” he asked, with an uncharacteristic softness to his voice. There was no answer.

Leigh turned around to face Sam. “I think you should wait here.”

His eyes and the corners of his mouth dropped in unison.

“So you really don’t trust me, either.”

Goosebumps rose on the back of Leigh’s neck. She still didn’t know exactly how to answer that question, so she did her best to dodge it.

“It’s not about that. Somebody should keep an eye on the window. That hunter has to be out there somewhere. We should help him if we can.”

Sam stared, unblinking. She turned away and he finally said, “Okay. Go check on your friend.”

Without another word, Leigh returned to Rob’s side by the closed door.

“She’s not answering?” she asked.

Rob put his ear to the door. “No. I don’t hear anything.”

“Then let’s just go in.”

“She’s probably just asleep.” Though he tried to say it with conviction, the edge to his voice proved he didn’t believe his own words.

Leigh rapped on the wood. “Eliza, it’s Leigh. Are you awake?”

There was no response.

Leigh sighed. “That’s it. I’m going in.” She grabbed the knob and pushed, but only got the door opened an inch before Rob slammed it shut.

“Wait.”

Leigh flinched. “Wait for what?”

Rob’s breath had become very labored. “Are we sure we want to go in there? We don’t know how contagious…”

Leigh didn’t let him finish. “Oh, Jesus Christ, Rob. Move!” With a fierce shove, she pushed him out of her way and nearly fell through the threshold of the bedroom as the door swung open.

The instant she saw the green, festering clump of mold that stuck out of the top of the plaid wool blanket, Leigh assumed Dale had snuck into Eliza’s bed, like a diseased Goldilocks. But soon she recognized the long, black hair fanned across the pillows, sprouting from the top of the lumpy mass of fuzz. Although mushroom-like growths concealed both of her eyes, this pile of decay was indeed one of Leigh’s closest friends—formerly known as Eliza.

Leigh’s scream hurt her own ears.

Rob came out from behind the door and slammed into Leigh’s shoulder, knocking her to the floor. He gave a breathless gasp

“Oh my God,” he moaned.

Rob recoiled at the sight, tripping over his own heels as he backpedaled toward the door. In a desperate attempt to save himself from falling on his back, Rob grabbed onto a handful of blankets at the corner of the bed. The quilts did nothing to stop his fall as pulled them to the floor.

Leigh looked to the blanketless bed.

The fungus-engulfed stump that had been Eliza’s head, neck, and shoulders were the only parts that remained of her body. Everything below her collarbone had been removed, leaving only a blood-soaked mattress behind. It appeared the amputation had been performed by a brutal series of hatchet chops, evident from the ragged, severed flesh that hung in strings from the leftover remains.

Rob and Leigh stood frozen, the dripping blood seeping its way between the cracks in the bedroom’s floorboards the only sound.

And then came a guttural belch as Rob doubled over and hurled only a few inches from Leigh’s shoes.

Rob’s vomiting snapped Leigh out of her terrified trance. Pivoting on the ball of her foot, Leigh dashed past the still-gagging Rob back into the living room.

Sam stood at the window, staring into the night. Hadn’t her screaming alarmed him at all?

“We need to get out here,” Leigh said, yanking on the cuff of Sam’s shirt. “Now!”

Sam ignored both of them, bringing a finger to his lips.

“Shhh!” He pointed out the window to something in the darkness. Before she could react to what she was seeing, Rob came crashing into the living room, his eyes targeting Sam as if there was a bull’s-eye painted on his forehead.

“I’m going to fucking
kill
you!”

Rob started to advance toward Sam, but somehow Leigh managed to tackle him to the floor. In her crouched position by the window, she had just enough leverage that when she grabbed Rob’s legs, the sudden slam into the back of his knees brought him flailing to the floor once again.

“What are you doing?” Rob shouted as he tried to wrestle away from Leigh. “Let go of me!”

“Shut up and stay down!” she ordered. “Sam didn’t do that to Eliza. He was with us.”

Rob eyes narrowed. “Then who did?”

Leigh slowly and carefully lifted herself away from Rob but made sure to stay below the bottom pane of the window. With a hand on top of his head to make sure he did the same, Leigh guided his gaze toward a hulking figure dragging a large, canvas bag away from the cabin.

“Holy shit! Is that a fucking bear?”

Sam sighed. “Yeah. And it’s wearing a shirt and carrying a bag.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Rob replied. “I only saw his mask at first, okay?” He returned his eyes to the window. “Who do you think he is?”

“Maybe a hunter. That could be a deer in that bag.” Even as Leigh spoke the words, she knew how pathetically optimistic she sounded. When a seven-foot giant wearing a bear head as a mask is outside your door, the time for optimism is over.

“Yeah, maybe Dick’s Sporting Goods sells bear heads next to their fishing rods,” Sam mocked.

In the flickering light of the stranger’s torch, Leigh could see two things that disturbed her even more than his choice of headwear: a large ax strapped to his back, and a dark, dripping splotch on the bottom of the bag.

“It doesn’t look like he’s coming this way,” Sam said, actually pointing out something not only hopeful but true.

Leigh nodded. “No, he’s definitely walking into the woods. So let’s just wait for him to go away and then get the hell out of here.”

“But what if he’s taking the same trail?” Sam asked. “We could run right into him.”

“No, we won’t. We’re going back to the road.”

Now that the spotty illumination from the man’s torch had vanished into the darkness of the trees, Leigh felt it safe enough to return to her feet. Sam followed her lead and grabbed her arm. “You want to go back?”

“That’s right. We’re going back to the main road to find help.”

Sam slapped his forehead, a gesture Leigh had previously only seen in old Donald Duck cartoons and corny family sitcoms. “Do you know how long that will take?” His voice contained only a hint of restraint left. “I called for help. They should be here any minute.”

“Then you can stay here if you want.” Leigh realized she was using a tone she usually reserved for conversations with Rob. “But the two of us are going back. Right?”

Rob didn’t answer.

Leigh looked around the empty living room. He wasn’t there.

“Rob?”

The wish Leigh had been dreaming for all semester had finally been granted, at the worst time imaginable.

Rob had vanished into thin air.

“Rob? Where’d you go?” Leigh tried to ask the question as loudly as she could while keeping her voice below a shout.

Sam tapped her on the shoulder and pointed out the window.

“There he is.”

Sure enough, Rob was sneaking away like an army commando stalking an enemy. In one hand he gripped a club-shaped branch, keeping the makeshift weapon ready at his side. An arrow-filled quiver hung on one shoulder and a bow on the other crisscrossed his back. In his other hand he gripped a flashlight, but he had yet to turn it on, probably in fear he might attract the attention of his prey.

Had the situation not been so dire, Leigh might’ve laughed at what she was seeing. It was like watching a poor man’s remake of
First Blood
or
Predator
, with a skinny, wannabe punk rocker who made just as much sense being cast as John Rambo as Ashton Kutcher.

“I don’t believe it,” Sam muttered. “He’s going after him. He’s completely lost it.”

“Come on!” Leigh raced across the living room to the cabin’s front door. As she passed the gun cabinet, a quick glance confirmed what she knew she’d see: the cabinet was open and missing its only bow and arrow set. Rob must have chosen this weapon knowing the rifles were devoid of ammo.

Sam still stood at the window, watching Rob as if he really were a character on a movie screen. While Leigh could sympathize, she needed her companion to kick it into gear. Time had never been more of the essence.

“Move, Sam! We have to catch him before he gets himself killed.” She grabbed the remaining flashlight from the coffee table in the center of the room.

“Should I bring one of these?” Sam motioned toward the firearms in the cabinet.

“They don’t have any bullets, remember? And we don’t have time to look for any.”

Sam reached up and retrieved a handgun resting on a shelf above the rifles. The gun was black and had a peculiarly large barrel. He opened the chamber, smiled, and closed it.

“Then I’ll bring this.”

“What is it?”

“It looks like a tranquilizer gun. It’s got a dart in it.”

Leigh didn’t know what a couple of rugged hunters who decorated their cabin with mounted deer heads would want with a nonlethal firearm, but she didn’t have time to ponder the question.

“Great. Now let’s go!” She tore open the door and fled outside. She was already at the bottom of the porch steps and jogging into the trees when she heard Sam say, “Hey! Wait for me!”

She forced herself to stop by a rough-barked maple tree. A moment later, Sam came running up, holding the tranquilizer gun with both hands like an extra from
Starsky and Hutch
.

“All right,” he said, slightly out of breath. Leigh figured it was from the tension of the moment and not the brief sprint from the cabin. “Let’s do this.”

Leigh took a step forward, then hesitated. She looked back at Sam, and in the gentlest voice she could muster, asked, “Can we switch?” She offered the flashlight toward him.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “What for?”

“I just don’t think it would be a good idea for you to be holding a weapon when we catch up to Rob. I know it’s stupid, but I think we can both agree that he’s pretty on edge with you. I just don’t want to give him another reason to freak out.”

Sam looked down at the gun in his hand. With reluctance, he finally turned the gun around and extended it toward Leigh, handle first.

“Yeah, you’re right. That’s probably a good idea. Here.”

Leigh accepted the weapon and handed him the flashlight.

“Okay,” he said. “Now are you ready to catch up with your asshole friend?”

Intentionally keeping a few steps behind him, Leigh sighed with relief that he’d handed over the gun without a fight. Of course, that wasn’t the real reason she wanted to be the one with the weapon. And as they made haste, Leigh was also thankful for the totality of the night’s darkness. It disguised where Leigh was pointing the gun:

Directly at the center of Sam’s back.

As usual, the day had offered little in the way of adventure and excitement for Jake and Doug. The most interesting event had been when a bull moose crossed the road at Sara’s Swamp, giving the two rangers a casual glance before lumbering on his way. Once they were sure the animal was safely off the road and back in its natural habitat, Jake and his partner drove on, the day already falling back into monotony.

The Bullwinkle sighting had turned out to be all that the day offered them. With another shift over and in the bag, Jake had pulled into the headquarters parking lot alongside Doug’s Jeep, ready to call it a night. That was when Doug had realized he’d left his keys at the Maple Ridge station. Ten minutes later, the two were “back in the saddle,” driving ATVs to retrieve the keys.

Jake had told both Doug and himself that the reason he was accompanying the rookie ranger to the outpost was simple boredom. “What else do I have to do?” was the only explanation he could offer. But as they navigated their ATVs along the narrow trail through the woods, the vehicles’ solo headlights the only source of light to illuminate their way, Jake could not ignore the truth any longer. He was taking this lengthy trip through the cold, dark forest for a single purpose: to delay returning to an empty apartment, thereby putting off another long, lonely night. Even if his only alternative was traveling out to the middle of nowhere with a smart-ass rookie, tonight he’d take it. It seemed better than a Hungry Man dinner and prerecorded shows on the DVR.