No Service (7 page)

“I’m so happy you’re awake,” Jess said from her seat on the ground. “I couldn’t sleep and I absolutely hate being out here at night. This is not at all my cup of tea.”

Chris reached out to help her up. She still put most of her weight onto the log with her other arm, not wanting to stress his back, but he provided balance as she stood. “Still no signal? We walked so far.”

Jess lit up the screen again. “We just aren’t getting anything out here. It’s really starting to piss me off. We pay our phone bill, but one little trip to the lake and suddenly the whole place is practically a dead zone.”

“It’s the way these old-fashioned small towns are. The companies don’t put cell towers where everyone is so spread out. I mean, how many people you really think camp here at any given time? Two hundred? Three? Plus, a lot of these people are looking to disconnect.”

“So what do we do though? Right now?”

“I guess, we probably shouldn’t head out in the dark,” he replied, not thrilled with the idea any more than her.

“We’re staying here then? Tonight? All night?”

“We have to.”

Jess scooted in closer. “Do you feel like sleeping?”

“Not anymore.”

“Me either.”

Jess turned off the phone’s light and pocketed it again. They held each other, a tangle of arms. After a while, Chris suggested they could maybe try to nap. Sleep would help. Genuine, deep sleep. He wasn’t sure they’d get any, but the less exhausted they felt the better they would be at walking in the morning.

Pressed tightly together, they laid in the dark latched onto one another. It had cooled down significantly in the late hours. Jess felt a little chill, but she could also feel the blood and sweat plastered to her skin. It was uncomfortable and itchy and she could only imagine the shower that she’d have had if they’d made it back in the evening. She could practically smell her shampoo with a hint of mint. A trip the hospital didn’t even feel as important as the need to be clean.

Their surroundings smelled heavily of pine and damp earth. There was a little dew on the ground, but only just enough to give the soil a vigorous earthy scent. It was a good, natural smell that on any other given night, they would have loved, but instead it only served as a reminder of their failure to escape.

Without realizing it they each dozed off into an unsettled slumber. It had been an exhausting day and it had been topped with dangerous injuries. With nothing to focus on besides their partner’s breathing, it was deceptively easy to fall into a mental trance and then slip into unconsciousness. Without visual stimulation, their eyes had closed to shut out the fact that they were completely blind.

Jess and Chris each fluttered their lids open at the sound of movement. It was like a shuffling. It was unusual for either to be a light sleeper, but their survival depended on it and their minds had been careful to keep them just barely aware of the world.

The shuffling stopped and there was perfect silence in the absolute dark. Jess gripped Chris with a fervor as he put his arms around her more securely. She put her forehead to his and began to take a phone from her pocket. She wanted to turn it on, see the world around them, and deal with the situation accordingly. At the same time, she didn’t want to know. Man’s primal instinct has always been a fear of the dark and she was more than in tune with those ingrained genetics than she ever had been.

Speaking in a nearly inaudible whisper, she said she was going to turn the light on. His nodding moved her head the same way, as if syncing their agreement. The flashlight was active and blindingly bright. The beam shook with the movement of her hand. It passed over the ground, then the base of the trees.

At first, she was certain it must have been an animal and they had scared it off. A deer could have been walking through, maybe a raccoon prowling the night, or possibly an owl flapping its great strong wings as it moved up to the farthest branches.

That’s when the beam hit a foot. Jess trailed the light upward toward the rest of the figure. The person was on the ground, seated against the base of a tree. Jess’s beam shook even harder as she saw the blood, the face, the hair. It was the dead girl from the picnic table.

Jess let out a gasping cry and covered her mouth with her other hand. Chris let go of her and immediately shot to his feet.

“Give me the light,” he said.

Jess willed herself to hand it over. It was nearly impossible to allow herself to be engulfed powerlessly back into the blackness, but she managed to place the phone in his outstretched hand. She cowered against the fallen tree. She was trying so hard to contain the screams that wanted to erupt from her mouth. Tears clouded her eyes as she watched the light move closer to the girl.

Chris knelt down and felt for a pulse. He wondered if she somehow wasn’t dead. She looked extremely dead. Everything about her was slack and she was so pale there couldn’t possibly be a heartbeat, but he’d seen miracles before and needed to know. He reached up to feel her throat, but reconsidered when he saw how torn up she appeared. Taking her wrist instead, he felt for a pulse. As he predicted, the girl seemed to be positively deceased.

He stood back up and shined the light around some more. There were some drag marks near her where she’d been positioned by the tree, but with everything else so undisturbed he assumed she must have been carried there and dropped.

He flashed the light around wildly. Someone had to be nearby. A noise had woken them and while he supposed it was possible for a wild animal to have been at her corpse, he didn’t feel that was the case. The beam passed over nothing.

Suddenly he felt a panic like he needed to race to Jess. He was certain the light would shine over her terrified face and then with a slight upward motion he’d illuminate someone. It was going to be someone with a knife, he was certain. He whipped around, illuminating his weeping wife curled into a ball on the ground. He moved the light up, ready to attack and destroy.

The beam hardly lit up the woods behind their fallen tree. Chris continued his search. At some point the light would show a face, a body, a weapon. Instead, he found himself turning in frantic circles.

Someone had to be toying with them. Why else leave a dead girl and depart? Mental torment was definitely on the menu and they were being served a great big helping. Jess was taking the brunt of the invisible menace’s torture. He was proud that she’d had the courage to turn on the light, but once he’d taken charge, she was a lost cause. She was a whimpering heap and he was worried she was simply broken beyond repair.

He hoped she was stronger than that, but it was certainly understandable that she’d lose her shit over a dead girl showing up in the middle of the night. The whole day after they’d strayed from the path had been one long road to an overflow of emotion.

Chris knelt down next to Jess. He put a hand on her cheek and brushed back her hair. Her mascara was absolutely everywhere on her face. She had her hands curled up into tight little balls over her mouth. There was a monstrous fear in her eyes like nothing he’d ever seen in her before.

“We’re going to keep walking,” he said. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

Jess shuddered with a rattling sob, but unfurled one of her hands and let Chris take it. He pulled her up and hugged her so tight to him that he practically engulfed her with his larger form. She blew out a heavy breath. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hand and snuffled once.

“I got makeup in my eyes. Fuckin’ burns.” She let out a single pathetic laugh and wiped at her face again. Chris let her have a moment. He kept the light on her. She was so tiny and frail in the white glow.

Normally he thought of her as strong and powerful. Any other day, she was a warrior goddess. A petite amazon among women. She could leap tall buildings in a single bound or beat up a mugger with her bare hands. Now, she was simply Jess, the scared girl wearing the matching wedding band to his own.

He had never once felt properly protective of her as far as he could remember. Her indomitable spirit had been plenty to move through life with and she was generally more athletic than most people. He hadn’t had to step up for her a single time because she was so forcefully independent. Except during panic attacks. Those required all the love and attention in the world and every time he wasn’t there for her during one, it destroyed him a little.

She bit her lower lip and hugged herself. So small. So fragile.

Chris put a hand out and touched her face again. It was unimaginable how human she was in that moment. It didn’t feel real, but there he was, physically confirming the truth. Now he felt the terror. Not at whatever could possibly be in the woods, but at whatever could be in the woods and could harm her.

He felt a rage and vowed to himself to crush whoever was out there. He’d murder them with his bare hands before they’d touch her. Not a hair on her head.

“Let’s go,” he said, offering her his hand. She took it without hesitation and he began to lead them back in the direction they thought was north.

It was hard going. The shadows cast by foliage and rocks made it difficult to judge the evenness of the ground as they walked. They inched forward, stopping repeatedly over every little sound. A branch cracking was enough to set them on edge. A rustle of leaves meant a desperate search for the source.

Jess wanted more than anything to curl up with their backs to a nice solid rock and wait it out until morning. It was so mentally taxing to wonder constantly if they were going to be attacked from behind or any other direction. Maybe they wouldn’t be attacked at all. Maybe they were being toyed with.

A small part of her wished whoever had killed the girl would just confront them already. The sooner the whole thing was over with and done, the faster they could move on with their lives. She could picture the killer, a bear of a man, creeping around in the dark watching their flashlight slowly working its way through the woods. She imagined him sliding over rocks and around trees like an assassin, knife in hand, preparing to strike, but waiting and building the fear.

“I don’t like this,” she said angrily. “We’re defenseless and this is just bullshit.”

Defenseless. Not a word he’d wanted to hear. Exactly how he didn’t want her to feel. “Here,” he said passing her the light. “Help me find a solid branch.”

There weren’t any good strong fallen pieces that he could use as a bat. Everything was so small and wouldn’t stop a fly. Eventually, he settled on an eight-inch stick that was firm enough to withstand some pressure, but had broken off in a sharp point.

“Great for vampires,” he mused holding the small stake. It was at least better than running around blind and empty-handed. Now he was blind and just a little bit dangerous. Maybe the killer could see them where they were. Maybe he’d see that Chris was armed.

They stumbled onward. Chris kept listening and praying that maybe on the edge of their hearing he could possibly detect the water crashing onto shore from the lake. He couldn’t even begin to guess what direction the lake was. It felt like they’d been on a slow-going run for an eternity, but with their pace dragged down with the handicap of night, they could have walked one mile or five.

Jess was beginning to worry, too. She’d heard before that people who get lost and try to walk in a straight line can end up veering repeatedly in a direction that often matched their dominant hand to eventually follow a huge circle. She wondered if they should correct for this possible error and take a few paces toward the left, but then perhaps they had gotten completely turned around and would just lose themselves deeper in the wilderness.

Wood cracked overhead and she shined the light up. Branches were swaying up and down. A bird had probably taken off and knocked something loose. Something else snapped off to one their right. She focused the beam in that direction, but fruitlessly hit darkness. Another noise from behind.

“Who’s there?” Chris shouted, his deep voice booming in the perfect quiet. When there was no response, he shook his head and suggested they keep going.

Jess began to wonder about the flashlight. They hadn’t completely charged their phones before their walk in the morning and they’d kept the light function on continuously for at least two or three hours. She checked the time and saw it was two in the morning. They were down to three percent battery. Not too long after, the light vanished. Darkness plunged over them once again.

“Get out the other phone,” Chris hissed. A cacophony erupted from right in front of them. Among the snapping and breaking, they could hear shoes pounding on the soil. “The light, the light!” Chris shouted getting ready.

Jess fumbled with the phone finding the right direction to press the button. Her fingers seemed to have a mind of their own, trying to do their job and failing to activate the app. She could tell the runner was close and she nearly dropped the phone trying to work even faster. The light came to life and illuminated a scene from a horror movie.

A man was barreling toward them, covered in blood and gore. An ax was raised over his head. His feet pounded the ground with the lust of death. His eyes were wide with the madness of a monster, the whites huge and vibrant in the light.

Chris shoved Jess out of the way to the forest floor as the man took the first swing. She hit the ground and dropped the phone. The light fell facedown and she flung her hands around everywhere she could reach to find it.