The Wildman (28 page)

Like now.

The danger he faced had stripped all of the trappings of civilization from him. He was more in touch with his primitive heritage, and he was confident he could outsmart and outfight—and kill—Ben.

It was simply a matter of survival.

“
You up to this?” he asked.

Evan sucked in a whistling breath and took a step forward. His muscles had obviously atrophied from inactivity, but all he had to do was keep moving. Put one foot in front of the other. They would deal with whatever came when and if it came.

The wind hadn’t let up. It was bending the trees as it blew cold and hard from the west. Even Jeff had to admit that the cold and damp were getting to him. As they made their way slowly along the trail, he couldn’t stop thinking about how nice it would be if only they could get in front of the fire in the dining hall and have something to eat and drink. It wouldn’t take much for the civilized part of his nature to reassert itself.

Odds were Ben was hanging close to the dining hall and the boat, waiting for them to show up. The boat was their only option of surviving and getting off the island. Ben could hole up somewhere out of sight and be ready when they came.

“
How you doing?” Jeff asked. Evan’s steps were faltering more and more the further they went. His breath came in short, wheezing gasps that shook his body. With nearly every other step, he stumbled and would have fallen if Jeff hadn’t been holding him.

“
I … I’m … all right. I’ll make it.”

“
Wanna take a minute to rest?”

Evan gritted his teeth and shook his head.

“
If I sit down now, I’ll never get up.”

Jeff had to admire his friend’s fortitude. He wanted to say something about how, even if they didn’t make it out of this, even if both of them ended up dead tonight, they had been brave and had tried with every resource they had, so they could die satisfied.

But Jeff wouldn’t allow such thoughts. They weren’t going to die. Thoughts like that worked against them.

They were about halfway to the dining hall when Jeff suddenly drew to a halt. His senses were tingling as he craned his head forward, cocking it from side to side as he listened and waited for something that had caught his attention to be repeated.

“
What is—?” Evan started to say, but Jeff shushed him. Moving quickly, he all but dragged Evan off the trail and into the woods. They knelt behind a low evergreen bush, and Jeff eased Evan down to the ground before creeping forward a short way under the low-hanging branches.

“
Stay quiet,” he whispered.

As he scanned the trail, every nerve and fiber of his body crackled with electrical tension. He sniffed the wind as he listened and stared into the well of darkness. To his eyes, the night glowed with an eerie purple iridescence that seemed not to have a distinct source.

Danger is approaching.

He knew that much.

It was a palpable presence in the night, as if the air and the forest were his skin, and something was pressing against it, applying slow, steady pressure.

Moving swiftly and quietly, Jeff darted off into the woods, circling around but always staying no more than twenty or thirty yards away from the path. After he had gone a hundred yards or so, he doubled back toward the trail, knowing the threat was getting closer and was coming toward him.

The night crackled with tension. The wind hissed like angry snakes in the branc
hes overhead. But beneath all of these sounds, Jeff heard something else … the slow, steady tread of feet on the rain-soaked ground.

You don’t stand a goddamned chance,
he thought, anticipating that it was Ben. He clenched his fists and waited patiently, barel
y breathing as the footsteps came closer and closer. After a few tense moments, with the night vibrating all around him, Jeff saw a dark figure. A solitary dark silhouette was making its way slowly up the trail without the aid of a flashlight, feeling his way through the darkness like a blind man.

Moving forward silently, Jeff prepared to attack as soon as the person—it had to be Ben—walked past him. The person rounded a turn in the trail, walking past where Jeff was hiding. As soon as his back was to Jeff, Jeff struck. Barely making a sound, he moved up quickly behind the person. When he was only a few feet away, he leaped at him. His arms encircled the man’s waist, and the forward momentum propelled them both face-first onto the ground.

Growling savagely, Jeff hooked his right leg around the man’s lower body, scrambling to hold him down.

The man thrashed wildly to free himself. His grunts of desperate struggle were muffled by Jeff’s weight as it pressed his face down into the mud.

“
You son of a bitch,” he said softly, surprised that he wasn’t filled with insane rage. Instead, a cold, calculating cruelty filled him. He was as heartless and as detached as a snake striking its prey.

The man beneath him continued to struggle, but his resistance quickly drained away. Before he killed him, Jeff wanted to stare him in the face and watch the light of life expire in his eyes as he clamped his hands around Ben’s throat and squeezed the life out of him.

“
You really thought you were gonna win?” Jeff whispered in a cold, merciless voice. “You thought you’d get the better of me?”

Feeling Ben sag in his embrace, Jeff shifted his weight off him. Still holding him down with his legs, he yanked his shoulder and flipped him over.

Jeff was stunned when he saw Tyler staring up at him with fear-widened eyes. His tongue protruded from his mouth, and his breath made watery, hitching sounds.

“
Wh
at the
Christ?
”

For just a second, Jeff wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him.

What if Ben had learned the magic of the forest and was tricking him with this illusion?

But Tyler groaned as he shook his head.

“What the
fuck
are you doing out here?” Jeff said. He kept his voice down because Ben could eas
ily be within hearing distance.

When Jeff released him, Tyler tried to sit up, but his hands and feet kept slipping in the slick mud, and he fell. His throat was still making funny gagging noises as he flopped onto his left side and assumed a fetal position.

“
For Christ’s sake,” Tyler gasped. “You don’t … you don’t have to … fuckin
g
kill
me …”

“I will if I have to,” Jeff said as he got slowly to his feet and brushed his hands. Bending down,
he helped Tyler to his feet. Once he was standing, Tyler started to wipe the mud from his clothes but soon realized how futile that was and stopped.

“
What are you doing out here?” Jeff asked. “How’d you get away?”

Jeff’s senses were still honed as he turned and looked up and down the trail, expecting to see Ben nearby.

“
I came to find you,” Tyler said, still laboring for breath.

“
How the hell did you get away? You know fucking killed Mike, right?”

Tyler took a step away from Jeff. The move was subtle, but it put Jeff on his guard. Something wasn’t right here.

“
Yeah,” Tyler said. “I know. Mike’s dead … and Fred, but you … we have a real problem here.”

“
No shit, we do. We have to kill that motherfucker before he kills us.”

When Tyler took another step back, Jeff noticed he had his shoulders hunched up as if he was preparing to attack.

“
That’s why I came out looking for you,” Tyler said. He still sounded like he wasn’t getting enough air into his lungs. “You gotta talk to him.”

“
Are you out of your mind? I’m not gonna talk to him. I’m gonna kill him as soon as I get the chance.”

“
No, no,” Tyler said with a firm shake of the head. “It’s not like that. You don’t understand. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can talk to him … reason with him.”

Jeff glanced up and down the trail again and then looked into the dark woods. Although Ben wasn’t nearby, Jeff could still sense his presence.

He’s out there … right now … watching us … listening to everything we say …

Is he already aiming his gun at me? … Is he going to shoot me in cold blood?

The night crackled with tension as Jeff and Tyler faced each other less than six feet apart. Jeff didn’t doubt he could beat Tyler hand-to-hand, but he didn’t want to fight him. All he wanted was to get off this goddamned island with Evan. If he had to hurt or kill Tyler to do that, then he would without a second thought.

“
No,” Jeff said, his voice a deep, animal growl. “It’s
you
who doesn’t understand.”

“
Just talk to Evan. You’ll see. He can be reasonable. He’s just … he was confused. He didn’t mean to kill Mike. The gun went off accidentally.”

“
Jesus, Tyler! You don’t even know. That’s not Evan. Evan Pike has been a prisoner out here. That guy you think is Evan is really Ben Foster.”

“
Ben Foster?”

“
Yeah. Jimmy Foster’s younger brother. And he plans to kill us because he blames us for what happened to Jimmy.”

A look of genuine shock spread across Tyler’s face. Then he frowned and shook his head as though struggling to deny the truth of what Jeff said.

“
He had Evan tied up in the fucking storage closet in the infirmary. He was going to kill him after he killed the rest of us … even you, Tyler.”

“
No. No. That’s not true. That’s not what he told me.” Tyler’s face contorted with the effort of trying to accept what Jeff was telling him. “He wants to explain how it was all a misunderstanding … a terrible misunderstanding.”

“
I
saw
him kill Mike,” Jeff said. “He pointed the gun at Mike’s head, counted to three, and shot him point blank. And he shot at me. You must have heard the shots. And he’s gonna do the same thing to you if you don’t help me get off this island and notify the police.”

“
You know where Evan is?” Tyler asked, his voice lifting with hope. He took a step closer to Jeff, but Jeff backed away, maintaining the same distance between them.

“
I did.” Jeff was surprised how easily the lie came to him. “But when I went back to the infirmary, he wasn’t there. I don’t know where he is now and, frankly, I don’t give a shit. All I want to do is get out of here. Are you with me?”

Tyler’s expression glazed over as he lowered his eyes and shook his head as if what Jeff had told him was too much to handle. His body started to tremble, and he looked like he was about to drop.

“
I’m telling you, man,” Jeff said, resisting the impulse to step forward and help support him. “That’s not Evan. He’s got you fooled. He fooled all of us. He’s using you to trick me into giving myself up.”

“
No … no,” Tyler said, raising his head and glaring at Jeff. His mouth was a firm, bloodless line. “He promised me he’d let me go.”

“He
what
—?”

Tyler took another step closer. This time, Jeff didn’t back away. As they glared at each ot
her, neither one of them said a word. Jeff stretched out his senses out to the night, listening … and smelling … and looking …

And the night spoke to him, talking to him in ways he had never experienced until tonight.

He knew that the immediate area was safe, at least for the time being. Ben was
n’t nearby, but he wasn’t far off.

And he’s coming for me.

The thought send a tingling chill up Jeff’s spine. He experienced a heady rush that made him feel giddy.

He thinks I’m a fool … He thinks he can trap me …

Jeff snorted and almost laughed out loud. He couldn’t let Tyler know he could see what they were up to as clearly as if they were standing in broad daylight.

In a quick, fluid motion, Jeff stepped forward, clenching his right hand into a fist. He cocked it back. Before Tyler could react, he snapped his fist forward. An amazing feeling of exhilaration filled him when his fist connected with Tyler’s face, hitting him squarely on the bridge of the nose.

Something in Tyler’s neck cracked as his head snapped back. He made a funny little squealing sound as a jet of dark blood shot from his nose. Without another sound, his legs folded up, and he dropped. His body made a loud squishy sound when it hit the muddy ground, sending a fan of mud flying into the air.

Jeff stepped back, knowing Tyler was down for the count. He might even be dead, but he didn’t care. The son of a bitch had tried to trick him. He had betrayed his trust, and he had to learn that anyone who got in his way was going to pay a huge price.

But Jeff didn’t have time to enjoy his triumph.

A second later, the night around him throbbed with a cold rush of air. His surroundings brightened for an instant, and the woods filled with a muted purple glow.

In that instant, Jeff had the sensation he was flying, hovering several feet above the ground. Something had changed with his vision, and he saw further down the path than he should have been able to. He could see around the twists and turns of the trail as though looking down a long, straight line that led all the way back to the dining hall and beach. Far off in the distance, Ben Foster was moving along the trial toward him. And Jeff saw the gun in Ben’s hand and the murderous glare of rage in his eyes.