Near the Bone by Christina Henry (ebook reader color screen txt) 📗

taken. The ground-up evidence of their passage was clear for anyone to see.

Mattie looked up at the sky hopefully. If another squall moved in then it would cover their tracks, but there wasn’t a sign of clouds.

“Have . . . to . . . try,” she said. “Can’t . . . stay.”

“Samantha is right,” Jen said, and Mattie felt that same startled shock as before, hearing the name she’d only just rediscovered. “We have to try. And anyway, we might get lucky. William might be too incapacitated to do anything.”

“You don’t think we killed him, do you?” Griffin asked. His voice was so low that Mattie barely made out his words.

“If we did, I don’t think it’s any loss to the world,” Jen said. Her tone was light, but Mattie noticed the flicker of unease in her eyes. “And if he isn’t dead, I don’t think he’s going to report us to the authorities.”

“No, he’ll just kill us,” C.P. said.

He was clearly joking, or trying to, but Mattie nodded.

“Yes. Kill us,” she said, and she looked at each one to make sure they understood. Once more she pushed through the pain, the reminder of the last time William had touched her. “You . . . took . . . me. I . . . am his wife. So you will . . . be . . . punished.”

She needed them to understand this, even though they ignored her warnings about the creature in the woods. If William hadn’t been knocked out by the blow Jen had given him with the rock, then he would follow them. He would follow them and take whatever justice he deemed necessary. He didn’t feel himself bound to the same rules as other people. He didn’t consider himself a part of society. These strangers were on his mountain, he would think, and on his mountain, his word was law.

“He can’t just kill people who do things he doesn’t like,” Jen said.

“Yes,” Mattie said.

Jen stared at Mattie.

“All the more reason to move as fast as we can,” C.P. said, checking the compass again. “I’ll keep checking for a cell signal. Maybe we can get a rescue team up here so we don’t have to walk the whole way. Hell, if they know you’re up here, Samantha, there will probably be news helicopters and everything else. In the meantime, we have to move east. Maybe slightly southeast, to see if we can angle away from the cabin.”

He scooped Griffin under the shoulders again. Griffin seemed to be trying hard to stay awake, but Mattie saw his head lolling and his eyes rolling back and forth. They didn’t need to walk. They needed to find someplace safe for Griffin to sleep.

The sound of crackling branches came from the forest behind them, filling the air. Crack, crack, crack. Crack, crack, crack. Mattie froze, her heart pounding so loudly she was certain the creature could hear it.

“What is it?” Jen asked.

“Creature,” she said.

“The cryptid?” C.P. asked, swinging around with Griffin to peer into the woods they’d just passed through. “Damn, I can’t get my phone out to take a picture. Jen, you get yours.”

“No,” Mattie said, giving him a little push. “Go.”

“But I want . . .”

“Go,” she said, and wished she could put more force in her tone.

The crackling of the branches seemed to draw closer and closer, but Mattie couldn’t be certain. Sound echoed strangely on the mountain, and everything was so still that every noise was amplified.

Another cry rent the air, a cry that made Mattie take an involuntary step forward. It wasn’t the creature this time. It was a human cry, a cry of agony so terrible that it curdled the blood. Mattie felt bumps rise up all over her skin.

It sounded like William. It sounded like he was dying.

So the creature was not in the trap then, or it had managed to free itself very quickly. If that was the case then it was unlikely to be seriously injured, and there would be nothing to stop it from pursuing them.

“That sounded like . . .” Jen began, then trailed off.

Everyone already knew who it was, and what it sounded like. There was no need to speak of it. The knowledge was there on their faces.

“What should we do?” C.P. said. “It sounded like he was attacked or something.”

For the first time he didn’t sound excited by the prospect of encountering his unknown animal. He sounded shaken.

“Should we help?” Jen asked.

Help, Mattie thought. Should we help the man who kidnapped me, who killed my mother, who beat me for years, who attacked these people for no reason?

“Fuck that guy,” Griffin said, his words slurred but clear enough to be understood.

They all looked at Mattie, who understood that the final decision was hers to make.

“Go,” she said.

She couldn’t be certain, but she thought they all seemed relieved. Relieved not to encounter William again, or relieved not to face the creature that suddenly seemed dangerous in their eyes?

They began their slow progress again. As they walked, Mattie felt unease bubbling inside her throat. She kept glancing over her shoulder.

“Won’t we hear it coming?” Jen asked when Mattie did this for the fourth time.

Mattie shook her head. “Only . . . if . . . it . . . wants.”

Jen looked skeptical. “Whatever made that noise we heard, that roar—that sounded like something pretty big. I don’t know how it could sneak up on us.”

Mattie thought of her terrible night in the woods alone, how she hadn’t known the creature was there until it was almost too late.

“It . . . can,” she said.

Jen gave Mattie a curious look. “It sounds like you know.”

Mattie nodded, but didn’t try to explain any more. It was too difficult to talk at the moment. She saw C.P. checking the compass he held in his left hand. His right arm was around Griffin, who was barely upright. Suddenly they stopped. Mattie and Jen walked a few feet behind them, and Mattie was too short to see what made them halt.

“Fuck,” C.P. said.

“What?” Mattie said.

He pointed ahead, and Mattie and Jen moved up beside them to see.

There were still several feet of path ahead, but then it ended abruptly in a drop-off.

“That’s the exact direction we