Hunted, page 10
Flint scoffed. “That’s stupid. What about people like Eileen? A phone tower might save lives.”
“I agree. But the woods are so dense and vast that a single tower would struggle to hold even a poor connection. Plus, you’d need to run electricity up the mountainside, and the locals were strongly against anything that would involve deforestation.”
“You know a lot about this place,” Chris said.
She shrugged. “I did a lot of reading after Eileen first went missing. It was my way of coping, I guess. I wanted to understand how it could happen.”
The road took a hairpin turn, and Hailey had to slow to a crawl. They’d taken longer to get to the mountain than Chris would have liked. If he’d known the police were going to be so dismissive, he wouldn’t have waited for the station to open and would have driven straight to the mountain.
The road opened up, and a massive archway passed overhead as they entered the Ashlough Forest parking lot. The space had markers to fit thirty cars and several tour buses, but Friday wasn’t a prime hiking day, and only a half dozen cars sat in the gravel lot. Hailey pulled into an empty corner and parked. Chris, relieved to have a chance to stretch his legs, leapt out of the van before its engine stopped.
The entrance to the forest waited on the other side of the parking lot. A painted map stood beside it, along with a brightly coloured warning sign. Chris squinted to read it from a distance. It warned against leaving the paths, walking alone, and not bringing enough water. If it was anything to go by, the trails weren’t as safe as the officer seemed to think they were.
“All right, let’s check we’re ready.” Anna hauled hiking packs out of the boot and passed one to Chris. It was bulky and heavy. She also handed them all sheathed, serrated knives to attach to their belts. “Hailey, you’re wearing the wrong shoes.”
She looked down at the sandals. “But these are more comfortable.”
“You won’t think that when sticks start poking through your skin and the soles fall off. Go change them.” She scanned Chris and Flint. “Arms and legs covered, good. Hats, good. Tie your pack on securely. It shouldn’t be putting pressure on any single point in your back.”
“This is excessive,” Flint muttered.
“You know what’s excessive? Dying because you were stupid.” Anna glared at him. “You’ve never camped in a place like this. You have no idea how many risks it can hold, and not all of them are easy to see coming. Plus, we have the risk of some monster-like being roaming the forest, so yeah, I’d rather be excessive than underprepared.”
“Still…” He shuffled, simultaneously looking resentful and apologetic. “Did we really need to get four maps? And four compasses?”
“Do you want to try getting home without a map if you get separated from the group?”
“No.” He scowled and snatched up one of the hunting knives from the back of the van. “But we’re not separating. Not after you drilled that into us for, like, twenty minutes.”
“Accidents happen. We’ve just got to be prepared for all of them.”
Hailey returned from the passenger’s seat, now wearing hiking boots. Anna nodded. “All right. Let’s go.”
As they passed the sign beside the park’s entrance, Chris gazed across the map for the final time. Eileen could have followed any of the twelve trails. No way to track her, and no way to know at which point she had stepped off the road.
Even though Anna was acting like they were trying to find Eileen, he knew she didn’t expect it. For her, it was a charade to help them all get through their grief and guilt. And for the first time, he was starting to feel like she might be right. It would take years to search the forest thoroughly and decades, perhaps, to become familiar with it. They were essentially stepping into the woods and hoping they stumbled into Eileen. If they did, it would be almost pure chance.
He tried not to think about that as the shadows enveloped them. There had been greater coincidences. At least now, Eileen’s chances were better than they had been before.
Ten minutes into the trail, their chosen path speared off to the right. A large sign had been positioned beside it, warning tourists of the risks.
CAUTION. Advanced trail. Not recommended for inexperienced hikers.
He hesitated. Eileen had gone on a few camping trips during her teenage years, but she was far from experienced. Maybe they had picked the wrong track to follow. Maybe she really had stuck to one of the intermediate paths.
Anna seemed to be thinking along the same lines. She stared at the sign. “If Eileen read this, would she think it was a caution? Or a challenge?”
“A challenge,” Chris said. His hesitation vanished. “You’re right. She was looking for a challenge.”
He led the way onto the dirt path. Anna followed. Flint and Hailey held hands and stepped in after them. Almost instantly, the atmosphere changed. The track became rougher and narrower, with more rocks poking out of the compact dirt. It wove so aggressively that they couldn’t see more than ten paces ahead at a time. The trees seemed to crowd in on both sides like walls. When Chris inhaled, he tasted air that had gone a long time without being disturbed by other humans.
Eileen had been gone for exactly five days. If she was still alive out there, he hoped she would hang on, just a little bit longer, for him.
“Advanced Trail” hadn’t been an exaggeration. They walked for hours. Chris grew sweaty and panting. Every now and then, the path flattened out and tricked him into thinking they were through the worst of it, then it would turn back into an unending series of sharp, narrow stairs.
Though the scenery was beautiful, the initial thrill soon wore off. His hiking gear felt insanely heavy. He wished he had put more effort into maintaining his health.
Flint was powering on well. He barely even looked flushed. Behind him, Hailey’s face had developed a permanent scowl, but she’d only complained once, when a spider tried to land on her. She and Flint went to the gym together, and both had built endurance. Anna was the least fit of them all, and it was showing. She bent forward, her breaths coming in laboured puffs, her pink face glistening with sweat.
“Need a break?” Chris asked.
“Not yet. Better to… cover as much ground… as we can… while the sun’s up.”
He didn’t argue, but he did slow the pace a little. She looked like she might throw up.
Before they had entered the forest, he’d harboured some vague, irrational dream of being able to tell where Eileen had left the path. Some sort of sibling sixth sense would lead him, or maybe they would find a muddy shoeprint left in the ground. He’d found nothing of the kind. For most of the path, the ground to either side of the track was so inhospitable that trying to leave the track meant either hiking up forty-five-degree angles or wading through prickly vines. It would have been pure insanity.
But realistically, the stretch of track Eileen could have become lost on wasn’t small. The shuttle bus had dropped her off at noon, and it would have picked up the last stragglers at six. That meant three hours into the forest and three hours to get back out.
Ahead, a sign poked out of the ground. They had already passed a couple like it, warning of slippery rocks and landslide risks. This one, however, pointed off the track. Chris slowed as he got closer. “Kidney Pool.”
“Yes, pool,” Anna gasped.
Chris made the connection. One of Eileen’s photos had shown her splashing in a body of water. The sign pointed down a trail that was even narrower than their current track, if that was possible. Chris stepped into it and felt vines and branches scratch over his head and shoulders.
The path led them on for nearly ten minutes. It became so overgrown and erratic that Chris was starting to worry they had become lost. Then the cloistering plants opened up into a gorgeous natural pool.
Chris recognised the miniature waterfall and the small crystalline lagoon. He took a few steps to the side and found the angle Eileen’s photo had been taken from. He could even guess the branch the camera had been propped in.
“It’s beautiful,” Hailey said. She dropped onto a fallen log nearby and pulled her boots off to massage her feet. “Eileen would have loved it here.”
“She would have,” Chris agreed.
The waterfall made a soothing pattering noise as it hit the pool. The basin wasn’t large but looked deep enough that a person could have a proper swim in it. Chris supposed its odd kidney-like shape had earned the pool its name. Water flowed over the right-hand lip to become a thin stream.
“At least we know we found the right trail.” Anna collapsed onto the ground without bothering to find a seat. She leaned back and rested her hiking backpack against the tree behind her. “We had twelve choices, but we got it right. I think that’s pretty darn impressive.”
“Yeah,” Chris agreed. He circled the pool, first looking inside the basin then towards where the overflow became a new stream. Eileen knew better than to jump into bodies of water without knowing how deep they were, but if she had, she could have broken her back and been trapped there. There was no trace of her, though, which he was grateful for. And he was fairly sure he didn’t recognise any of the trees from her night-time photos. She might have stopped at Kidney Pool, but she hadn’t stayed.
“Hey,” Flint called. “There’s another path up here.”
Chris rounded the pool to meet him. Near the waterfall, hidden amongst heavy growths, was the faintest trace of a track. A metal chain had been hung from two posts on either side, cordoning it off, with a wooden sign suspended from its middle.
TRACK CLOSED—UNSAFE
“Looks like it hasn’t been walked down in years,” Anna said. She’d gotten up to follow them, and Chris was glad to see her colour was returning to normal.
“You don’t think—” Chris started.
“She went down there,” Hailey spoke over him.
“Oh, hell.” Anna ran her hands over her face. “Yes. I bet she would have.”
Flint squinted at the trail and snorted. “Nah. What sort of person would want to walk down there?”
“The sort of person who’s on a mission to push herself,” Anna said. “Damn it, it works out perfectly. She arrives at Kidney Pool and spends maybe an hour swimming and sketching in her artbook. That leaves her with an hour to burn until she needs to turn back for the shuttle bus. She could go back to the main track, or she could explore the long-disused path. What’s she going to do?”
Flint swore.
“Yep, she would have gone down there.” Chris’s eyes followed the path, which twisted out of sight. “I don’t especially like hiking, and even I’m curious about where it leads.”
“And it’s so old,” Anna said. “I bet it would become really, really easy to lose the path.”
“And never find your way back.”
The four friends stood for a moment, staring at the chain and its gently swaying warning sign. Then Flint clapped his hands together. “I’m ready to get moving if everyone else is.”
“Yeah,” Chris said.
Anna shucked off her backpack and dug through its pockets. She came up with two balls of red twine. One she tucked into her pocket; she unthreaded a length from the other and tied its end onto the chain.
“Oh! Like that guy who got lost with the bull in the maze,” Flint said.
“Theseus, minotaur, labyrinth.” Anna checked the knot was secure then began unravelling the twine. “But yes, basically, we’re taking a note out of his book. If we get split up for any reason whatsoever, I want you all to use your own thread to mark your progress. It’s incredibly easy to get turned around in this forest. But this should, at least, lead us back to our starting point.”
One at a time, they stepped over the metal chain. The disused trail felt quieter and grimmer than the more-travelled paths. As the waterfall’s gentle splashes faded from his hearing, Chris shivered. The track felt wrong. He’d always expected untouched nature to feel pristine, but it didn’t. Something about the path having once existed, but still not quite reclaimed, left it in a tight, uneasy limbo. He couldn’t wait to leave it.
22
Friday, 2:30 p.m.
Todd staggered, feeling drunk. The earth seemed to sway and ripple under him, and it was becoming harder and harder to stay upright.
He couldn’t remember where he was going. It was becoming hard to keep track of what was happening, where he was, or how many days he had been in the forest. It felt like a lifetime, though he only remembered one night. The night with the silent, too-tall creature stalking him.
Maybe that had just been in his mind.
His makeshift spear hit a tree, throwing him off balance. He stumbled, staggered, and collapsed to his knees. His mouth was so dry. When was the last time he’d drunk anything? The thirst had gotten into his head and made it throb. He wished it would stop. He wished everything would stop.
He tried to whine, but it came out as a croak, so he let himself slide sideways to rest against the nearest tree. He was supposed to be doing something, he was sure. Finding a road. Or water. Water sounded good. He wanted water.
He hated the bloody forest and everything about it. He hated Eileen for leading him out there. Most of all, he wished he could go home.
Against his body’s wishes, he hauled himself to his feet again. Somehow, he knew that if he let himself sit for too long, he would never get up again. At least he was going downhill. That had to mean he was near the park’s entrance. Maybe another five or ten minutes would see him stepping out of the archway to greet the crowd of anxious searchers who had been looking for him. His friends would all be there—Chris and Hailey and maybe even Flint. Not his father, though. His father probably hadn’t even noticed Todd was missing yet. But everyone else would be there, helping him into a car, giving him bottles of icy water, and wrapping blankets around his shoulders. They would be so impressed. It took a certain calibre of human to go through what Todd had gone through. And at least they could say they’d done their best to find Eileen.
He would probably be asked to speak at her funeral. It didn’t seem quite right to sob over an empty coffin. But for Eileen’s sake, he would. Her parents would appreciate it. Not even Chris would complain.
Todd hit another tree. He’d been holding the spear loosely, and it bounced out of his grip. He didn’t bother picking it up again. The train of thought seemed irrational, even to himself, but he couldn’t reel it back in. Something was seriously wrong. Maybe he’d gotten a fever after falling into the river the day before.
River…
He could hear water in the distance. He was so thirsty. Just a gulp or two would make everything better.
Todd’s eyes drifted closed, but he kept moving forward. Each step stubbed his toe on some unseen obstacle, but his eyelids were too heavy to lift them. He relied on his senses to guide him forward, occasionally stepping through scratchy vines as he followed the enticing, gurgling noise.
It had better not be a mirage. He couldn’t remember if mirages existed in the forest or only in the desert. He felt like he was in a desert. His lips were so dry. It was ridiculous. The forest was so moist that moss grew everywhere, but there wasn’t a single drop for him to drink.
His foot landed in air, and Todd barely had the strength to gasp as he slid down a slope. Rocks and roots stabbed at him as he fell, tearing holes in his clothes and scraping off skin. He didn’t care. When he finally came to a halt, his arms were in running water.
“Yes…” he croaked, crawling forward. The water wasn’t deep. Unlike the earlier river, it wasn’t crystalline or fast-moving, either. Bits of dirt and insects floated across its surface, and mud swirled up as he disturbed the riverbed. He didn’t care. He plunged his face into it and drank and drank until he thought he was going to be sick.
Once his stomach was swollen with water, he dragged himself back up onto the bank. It was only waist high, but the effort was enormous. He collapsed into the ground and let his eyes fall closed. When I find Eileen, she had better be grateful for everything I’ve gone through.
Feverish dreams chased him for hours. When Todd woke, everything ached. He groaned and rolled onto his side. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep, only that the forest was growing dimmer. He was freezing cold. His jeans and sleeves were still damp from falling into the stream, but he’d lost his change of clothes when the monster had separated him from his backpack.
He squinted at the trees and tried to guess the light’s angle. He didn’t have many hours until sundown. Would the thing find him again? It had seemed to possess a sixth sense for his presence the previous night. But he’d been walking for so long, he had to assume he was out of its territory by that point.
He sat up and whimpered. He hadn’t thought it was possible for a human body to hurt so severely. At least his mind was clearer. Most of the day had been spent in a fugue. Probably from dehydration, he realised. He looked towards the forest, the direction he’d come from. Water in Ashlough Forest wasn’t as plentiful as he’d expected. He would need to leave the stream, though, if he wanted to retrace his steps.
He twisted to look downriver. Maybe he wouldn’t have to leave the water. It was trending down, which meant it was leading towards the base of the mountains. It might take some extra time, but he would find his way to some kind of civilisation as long as he followed the river.
That was a huge relief. He would still need food soon—his energy levels had plummeted—but at least he wouldn’t have to suffer through another delirium.
His stomach was still full, but his mouth was dry. He knelt beside the stream, trying his hardest not to let his clothes dip into the water again, and scooped handfuls of the liquid into his mouth. Then he stood and groaned as he began the trek back into the forest.
The sun was getting lower. He didn’t want to run through the woods at night again. His feet and shins still ached from the abuse. But he wanted to put at least a little more space between himself and the monster before sundown.
