Tim Tobin

She Ran

She ran. Into the forest, into the night, into the unknown, her legs pumped, up and down, carrying the woman further from her owner and murderer. Denied clothing during her captivity, she ran naked, desperate to delay the inevitable, to live a little longer. Finally, her body gave up and she staggered to a halt. In this part of the forest, the trees’ canopy blocked even the man in the moon from seeing her ordeal. In the gloom, she located a tree and leaned against it, panting so loudly she was sure they could her. 

As she recuperated, her wet feet seemed odd since no rain fell during her confinement. She lifted a foot and rubbed the sole with two fingers and smelled. Copper! Blood! The beating her bare feet took during her run now caused a sharp ache in both feet. 

With her heart rate approaching normal, the woman took stock of her situation. She peered back down the trail. At least she thought it was the direction she came from. In the dark, direction became relative but no flashlights pierced the night, at least not yet. She stopped to consider if they even pursued her. Why not wait until daylight to conduct the hunt?

***

Ten days earlier, a nineteen year old hooker strolled Wilson Street, four city blocks devoted to go-go bars, porn shops, a cheap hotel and whores. She shared her beat with teenage runaways, always surprised how many men like the young ones. Women of thirty looked fifty, even sixty, as drugs, beatings and just the life sapped their youth. Released from jail for the second time, with her fine paid by her body, she wistfully wished for a different life but with no education, no money, and no family left, she seemed stuck. 

Her chest vibrated from the rumble as the sound echoed off the buildings lining Wilson Street. She looked around to see a Porsche 911 glide up next to her. A large man, a handsome man, a man dressed to match his car, rolled down the window and she whistled.

“Nice ride, mister.”

“Take me around the world, sweetheart,” he said.

She hopped in, “Any place you want to go.”

She started to regain consciousness in a boat. Barely making out the name, Lake View Water Taxi, she thought he said to the driver that she just drank too much at lunch. 

***

The murderer, Burke, taunted his victim inside the lodge‘s basement, showing her the tools he planned to use, screwdrivers, saws, electric drills. Hanging from the ceiling by her wrists, the woman pleaded, cried, blubbered, and finally pissed herself. Burke roared his glee and used a strap on her back. Her captor, she never heard his name, stopped the beating, reminding Burke that they wanted her in prime condition for the hunt. He cut her down and dragged the terrified woman upstairs and slammed her against a door. An evil smile creased Burke’s face as his partner opened the door on a dimly lit room. They shoved her inside where she fell to the floor. Looking up, the captive began to scream and scream and scream.

On the wall, a dozen heads, human heads, female heads, all victims of the hunt, stared at her. At first, she couldn’t look but shortly she could not look away. The faces all wore the same frozen look, not of dread, not of fear, not of pain, but pleading, probably for mercy that did not come. Burke knelt next to her and dangled the hacksaw from his index finger.

“Relax, bitch Your time is almost up.”

The night of her escape, she wriggled and struggled against the knots holding her hands together. Surprised and slightly encouraged when her left wrist moved a bit, she contorted the index finger on her other hand until it found the knot. She felt indescribable joy when the binds loosened until she remembered her island prison, somewhere with no escape possible. With no boats on the island, water taxis brought food and supplies apparently only when he phoned.  

The sadist who took her laid out a map that showed an island no more than two miles in length and a few hundred yards wide. He pointed out the only trail through the forest where she would be pursued, caught and eventually killed.

“A hundred grand! That’s what Burke is paying for you. Easy money. And a new trophy for me!” he cackled.

Once she freed her hands and feet, her gut feeling told her to flee the lodge, to put distance between herself and the men but she thought about an alternative. There must be a knife in the kitchen, a steak knife, a paring knife, a butcher knife! But these men have guns, she remembered. Even if she managed to stab one of them, the other would kill her for sure. She sat on the bed in her room and debated with herself. If she did nothing, she would die after the hunt. If she ran, they would find her, hurt her and then kill her. So she decided to at least try to live and perhaps a miracle would happen and she would kill both of them. Silently she slipped out of her room and edged towards the kitchen. She dared not turn on a light so she tip toed around the kitchen trying drawer after drawer. At length her hand closed around a handle with a serrated blade, probably a steak knife. Elation led to carelessness and the open drawer pulled out of its rails and dozens of utensil clattered to the floor.

The jailer and the killer both hit the floor and rushed towards the woman’s bedroom. She surprised them by leaping out of the dark kitchen, steak knife slashing indiscriminately. The bigger man, Burke, tripped over his own feet and sprawled on the living room floor, his gun spinning out of reach under the dinner table. The other man yelped as the woman’s knife cut deeply into his right biceps. Bleeding profusely he gripped his pistol in his left hand and fired. The shot went wild and the woman bolted out the front door and ran.

***

Leaning on the tree, she knew she hurt one of them, the guy who grabbed her, she was pretty sure. The wound certainly was not fatal, meaning that as soon as he got bandaged, the two would set out after her. Every moment she stood here meant they moved closer. In the end, she decided to take the fight to them. She would make her way back to the lodge. Maybe, just maybe, she would find a gun. Not likely, but a hope. Maybe she could find a phone or a radio and call the mainland, wherever that was. Her challenge, getting there. Clearly, she could not backtrack up the trail. The rough, the unmarked, wild section of woods leading to the western shoreline beckoned to her as the only choice.

Fearful that the men would see her bloody footprints on the trail, the would-be prey brushed dirt on her tracks as she crossed to the opposite side where the wicked and forbidding trees, shrubs, rocks, insects and small animals loomed. Glancing up the trail once again and seeing nothing but black, she stepped into the unseeable. 

According to the man’s map, the coast lay a mere hundred yards away. Anyone could hike that far, even exhausted, even in the dark, even naked, even with bloody, aching feet. Frightened by the sounds of scurrying animals and eaten alive by mosquitoes, the girl persisted, placing one bleeding foot in front of the other, just once more step and she would make it, she said to herself. Weariness depleted her strength, even youth has a limit. Slumping on a tree trunk she slipped into a sitting position and closed her eyes. Videos of her dead family and friends played on her closed eyelids. At first amused, then appalled, at how few would miss her, she shed a tear.

The screech of a nearby animal roused her. She battled to see but the darkness of the nighttime forest defeated her. She knew if she stayed in the forest, she would die. She knew if she managed to reach the lodge she would probably die anyway. She willed herself upright and took a step into the lake. Initially, the cool water soothed her burning feet but the lodge remained hundreds of yards up the shoreline.

She waded into the cold lake water and took a few tentative steps. The rocky bottom dug into her torn feet forcing a loud moan from her lips. She literally bit her tongue. Light was her enemy and so was sound. The shore offered small comfort but she silently trudged northward. With tears of pain running down her face, the woman looked for another tree to rest and then, with a quick break in the cloud cover, she glimpsed the stern of a boat.

“A boat!” she rejoiced and, caution be damned, she clambered over a dead tree laying partially in the water. She didn’t care whether it had a motor, oars or a paddle. If she could shove it off, she’d be content to drift until some fisherman or sport boater found her. She carefully wrestled the rotting rowboat out of the muck and onto the shore. The night drew black again so she felt all around the small vessel for an oar or paddle. Finding none, she shrugged and shoved her salvation into the lake where it abruptly sank. Cursing her awful run of luck, she expended huge amounts of energy lugging the boat back onto the beach. She stepped into the craft and felt the bottom and found a giant hole amidships. Somehow, she stifled a howl of fury and fought back the tears. Having no options, she resumed her trek towards the lodge.

A brilliantly lit deck, that encircled the entire building, greeted her. When she emerged from the shrubs, her first impulse was to run up the steps and get inside but common sense prevailed and she crouched behind a scrub pine tree and watched. She still didn’t know for sure if anyone pursued. With no way to tell time, she surveilled the building for what seemed like fifteen minutes or so. Then, driven by incredible tiredness and pain, she picked up a rock to use on the glass door and charged the stairs. The two goons left the place unlocked so she tossed the stone away and dashed to the bathroom.

Drawing a warm bath and letting out a deep sigh, she immersed her ruined feet in the water. Finding tweezers in a drawer, she pulled out barbs and scrapped off small stones embedded between her toes. Shortly her instinct to live overcame the small comfort of the tub. She found wool socks that she pulled on and a man’s extra large shirt that fit her like a baggy dress. She could not bring herself to put on the underwear she found. She located the basement and killed the deck and house lights at the circuit breaker box and grabbed an old flashlight and a ball of twine as she came back up with an idea beginning to take form.

The woman stood near the front door on the blackened deck unsure if she wanted to see a torch coming or not. A light meant certain death. Finding no weapons in the house, except for that pitiful steak knife, left her helpless. She considered running again but, with no place to go, her throbbing feet anchored her to the lodge. 

Then she saw it, just a flicker in the distance, but there they were, coming back for her, for her life, for her head. Disappointment, hopelessness, and dread tap danced inside her skull. Sobs of huge tears drove her to her knees where she thought about giving up, just  sitting on the stoop until the two men arrived. Would Burke still hunt her in the morning, she wondered, or would he take her to the torture chamber in the basement, or just shoot her where she sat.

Burke’s chamber! Tools, screw drivers, saws, the drill. Weapons! A germ of hope, albeit small, cleared her brain. Survival instinct kicked in and she stood and flattened herself and inched along the wall to the door and fled through the dark house to the basement stairs. Being careful of the trip wires she laid earlier, she wove a quick mesh of twine across the top of the staircase. 

She turned the knob on the door to Burke’s work area. Nothing happened. She twisted it again, same result. She swore out loud and pounded on the door in frustration at the only locked door in the house. Just then, the sound of the lodge door opening keyed her senses. She doused the basement light and thumped her flashlight on. It responded with a feeble light, enough for her to spot a box and crouch behind it. She clicked off her lamp, whispered a little prayer and waited.

She heard Burke searching inside the lodge and, not immediately finding his prey, knew he danced his maglight around the living room, around the trophy room, around the kitchen, and the bedrooms. She heard him rage at losing his victim and screamed what he planned to do to her. His light ultimately settled on the basement door. 

“Can’t be any place else,” she heard him mutter.

The door crashed open and a huge figure filled the doorway, his light shooting laser-like beams across the black cellar. He saw the twine mesh and he giggled.

“Think that string is going to stop me? You dumb cow.”

He took such glee in shredding the mesh that Burke forgot to check the steps and he stumbled on a trip wire. With nothing to hold onto, he cartwheeled and landed on his head which now lay at an odd angle to his torso. The woman breathed for the first time since Burke smashed the door but she would still be helpless when the other guy came.

He did come but not down the stairs. Rather, he broke the only window in the basement, mounted at the top of the wall, allowing in a tiny bit of moon light. She cowered in utter horror when a head, shoulder and arm came through the window. The hand held a pistol that the man started shooting aimlessly. The girl, meanwhile, scrambled away from the gunfire and felt a sharp prick on her bare arm. She fumbled in the dark for the object and her hand closed around a long stick with a sharp end.

“Oh, dear God,” she thought, “An arrow.” 

Now down on her hands and knees, in the dark, with bullets bouncing around her, she searched for the bow but when she found it, she did not have the strength to string it in the dark. It didn’t matter, Time was up. He heard her searching and fired in that direction. One of the bullets ricocheted off the floor, hit her ear lobe and drew blood. The slug slammed into the concrete wall sending chards of cement into her eyes momentarily blinding her. While she cleared the junk from her eyes, more of the man squeezed through the window exposing his entire upper body.

Quieting her raging emotions, she grasped the arrow with both hands and, standing directly beneath her captor, she shoved upwards with all her strength. The arrow punctured his belly spilling blood all over her. She twisted the arrow and pulled it out along with a length of intestines. The man swore, screamed, pleaded, as she jabbed him again and again. She hit her last target, his neck, and blood spurted onto the basement‘s floor, ceiling and walls. He gurgled for a moment and then became as still as his companion. 

She sat on the bloody cellar floor until the rising sun exposed the carnage. Burke broke his neck in the fall and the other one bled to death. She took most of the day to lug two large men, Burke massive, about twenty yards away from the lodge. She left them as carrion for the animals. 

Sleep came hard and fitful, full of dreams of heads, blood and guts. In the morning, she found her own clothes, washed up and dressed, and then she searched both bodies and every nook and cranny in the lodge but was unable to find a phone. Hers probably lay at the bottom of whatever body of water surrounded the island.

Completely drained of adrenaline, the woman sank into a lethargy, unsure of how to get off of the island. No boat, no phone, no radio. She wandered the grounds around the lodge until she came upon a large shed. She looked at the door with trepidation. What horror might be inside? More heads, bones, bodies?  Finally she decided that nothing could be worse than what she’d already been through and yanked open the door.

Inside, supplies filled the building. Toilet paper, paper towels, crates of canned food, a freezer filled with steaks, chops and chickens. Enough to last months, maybe a year. Her blood chilled. With no way to call the mainland, someone must make regular visits but how often, once per week, per month or per year? 

Dejected, she sat on the end of the dock, dangled her feet in the cold water and waited. She did not notice the rings in the post of the dock, rings large enough for a flag pole, for the flag pole in the basement with the bright red flag.

Back on the mainland, the water taxi owner and driver, aimed his telescope at the horizon, stared, and adjusted his instrument. Slowly, a small object came into focus but not a red flag. He’d try again the next day.