The Cypress Trap: A Suspense Thriller (12 page)

17

The
large Rottweiler at first resembled a black apparition forming from the mist.
It stood compact and at attention, its muscles taut beneath the black fur. Its
eyes focused on Rayanne.

She
knew dogs could smell fear. She had to stand strong, stand her ground. Her legs
trembled anyway. She couldn’t help it.

“Luger?”
Her voice trembled. “Good doggie?”

She
backed up a step. The dog crept forward. It crouched, like a lion stalking
prey. Its head lowered toward the ground. Its growl rippled through the low
mist, but its pitch never changed. It took another step forward. Rayanne took
another step back.

Reaching
behind her, she felt the trunk of the Volkswagen. Her fingernails scratched the
flecking paint. That was enough to break her nerve. She turned and dashed for
the driver’s side door.

Glancing
over her shoulder, she saw Luger bolt down the slope, into the hollow.

Her
head turned, Rayanne saw the dog coming as her feet slipped out from under her
in the wet weeds. She slammed her arm against the back bumper. Pain shot
through her forearm. She shrieked, but recovered and jumped to her feet. Diving
for the driver’s side door, she fumbled at the latch. She struggled with it.
The door wouldn’t open. She glanced over her shoulder. The Rottweiler was racing
toward her. She turned back. Pulled on the handle. The door wouldn’t open. In
seconds the beast would be on top of her, tearing into her.

She
pulled with every ounce of strength she had left, and then the door gave. It
opened with a rusty, exaggerated creak. She scrambled into the driver’s seat.
She let out a long breath and realized she could feel her pulse beating in her
temples above her eyes. She plopped down, almost collapsing into the seat.

Reaching
for the inside handle, she got a glimpse of Luger charging at her. All she
could see were teeth in a blur of black. She yanked the door shut with both
hands. It squeaked in rusty protest as it slammed into the frame with a heavy,
solid thud, and then there was silence.

She
didn’t hear the dog. There was no growling. No barking. It was gone. Rayanne
inched toward the window, looking out. Luger’s foam-covered face popped up in
the window, larger than life. Huge jaws opened and shut against the glass. It
barked with a savage rage, thumping its muddy front paws on the glass.

Rayanne
screamed.

The
dog stopped barking and its face disappeared from the window. It had dropped to
the ground.

Rayanne
gulped another breath. She watched the top of the dog’s broad back over the
curved hood. It was going to the other side of the car. Rayanne looked to the
passenger side—at the open window.

She
threw her upper body across the center console and passenger seat, flinging her
left arm in an involuntary rage of panic toward the window crank. Her fingers
grasped the lever and she turned it. The window hadn’t moved in years and it
creaked up, ever so slowly. Rayanne forced the crank to turn, and grunted when Luger
leapt at the glass.

His
snout pushed through the closing gap, snapping at her. Rayanne screamed and
moved her head, then fought harder with the crank, turning it again. Luger got
a paw on the top edge of the glass, then his other. The glass fell a notch with
his added weight. Luger thrust his head in farther, barking. Slobber dripped
from his mouth.

Rayanne
pulled her hand back as the window dropped again. Luger lunged. She leaned,
scooting away from him, pressing her back to the driver’s side door. Luger
clawed at her, snapped his jaws. His upper body was coming through the window.
The glass broke under his weight, shattering, and the dog’s underbelly hit hard
against the door. That didn’t stop him, though. She could feel his hot breath
as he neared and hear his back paws scraping against the outside metal. He was
climbing inside.

Her
eyes locked with the dog’s. It barked, lunged for her again. Her left hand
clamped onto the door handle. She opened the driver’s side door and fell out
backward on her butt just as Luger’s hind legs made it to the top of the
passenger door. He was in the car.

On
her back, Rayanne lifted her legs and slammed the door into Luger’s charge. His
face struck the window with a sharp thump and bounced back. He hit the glass
again. Bared his teeth. His front claws scratched the interior glass.

Rayanne
stood. Luger barked, raging in the driver’s seat, his jaws pressed to the
window. He was trying to break through and Rayanne wasn’t waiting.

She
ran around the front of the yellow Volkswagen.

Luger
turned, ripped across the center console, and sprang from the passenger window.
Rayanne scrambled to an old army jeep. It was the closest vehicle to her. She
climbed into the back. There was no roof. No doors.

Luger
hit the ground outside the Volkswagen. He was instantly on his feet, turning
toward her. Rayanne looked around. The dog was coming. She couldn’t make it to
another vehicle. She needed a weapon. There was nothing in the back.

Luger
came to the bumper, growling. He bounded onto the rear of the jeep.

Rayanne
climbed into the front seat. Her left hand dropped to the floorboard. Her
fingers grasped something hard, smooth. She gripped and held up a tire iron.

Luger
stood in the backseat. His growl deepened as he stared. The front of his body
leaned down, ready to pounce. Rayanne climbed over the dashboard and onto the
hood. She stood, found her footing, and raised the tire iron. Luger inched
between the two front seats, then vaulted for the dashboard. His claws
scratched the dash as he climbed onto the hood. Rayanne turned and jumped from
the jeep to a mound of stacked tires. Her feet slipped into the center holes as
her free hand found a rubber flexure above her and gripped it. She climbed.

She
could hear the dog behind her, but she didn’t look. Her feet found the gaps,
pushing her upward. In seconds, Rayanne came to the top of the tire heap and
stood. She turned to see Luger leap from the jeep hood to the base of the
tires. His legs slipped through the voids and he struggled to gain his footing.

His
front paws hit the edges of the tires above him, as if he was studying the odd
hill. Slowly, he pulled himself up, then climbed higher.

Rayanne
watched as Luger slinked up the pile toward her. She stood, balancing herself
at the top, and clenched the iron. Luger climbed higher, pausing at the upper
edge. Rayanne trembled, raising the iron behind her head, ready to swing. Luger
crouched, then jumped forward, pushing several tires from the heap behind him
with his back legs. He lunged for her. Rayanne swung with all her might. The
tire iron connected with the side of Luger’s head, making a loud crack. Slobber
flung from the dog’s mouth as his head bolted to the far left, knocking him
back. His legs struggled to find footing on the falling tires, and when they
gave, he tumbled with them. He hit the ground on his side and yelped. More
tires fell on top of him.

Rayanne
lost her balance as the upper part of the mound tore apart under her feet. If
her leg caught in a center hole as she fell, it would snap in two. She knew it,
and jumped, holding the tire iron firmly in her left hand and praying there
wasn’t anything waiting to impale her when she landed.

Rayanne
fell on her back atop a large rubber tire as several more came tumbling down
after her. Quickly rising to her feet, she bounced from tire edge to tire edge
till her feet were on solid dirt. Standing, she looked for the dog. She didn’t
see him. Trembling, she gripped the tire iron. She held it up, ready to swing
again.

Luger
whimpered, staggered to his feet, then dropped to the ground. He shook his
head, then slowly tried to stand again.

Rayanne
moved away from the pile of tires and ran back into the Volkswagen. She slammed
the door shut and watched the dog from the driver’s seat.

Luger
stopped whimpering, but stumbled again. He shook his head. Turned it. Looked
back at Rayanne in the Volkswagen.

Rayanne
pressed the center of the steering wheel to blare the horn. The dog jumped
backward and fell to the ground.

“Get
out of here!” Rayanne yelled at it through the windshield. “Go! Get the hell
out of here!”

She
mashed her palm on the horn and didn’t let up, giving it one long, continuous
blare. Luger jumped another foot away from the Volkswagen, then moved quickly
toward the rocky slope, his head down, his stubby tail drooping. Without
looking back, he made it to the top of the hollow and disappeared into the
trees.

Rayanne
blared the horn again several times, then fell forward against the steering
wheel and cried. She waited a good hour inside the car before finding the
courage to look up again.

The
moon hung low in the sky. A coyote howled somewhere out there, but she had no
way of knowing where or how close it was. She couldn’t see very far into the
surrounding woods.

Still,
and she thanked God for it, the dog seemed nowhere in sight.

18

Owen
listened to a coyote howl and he shifted painfully in the front passenger seat.
He wanted to look out the foggy window beside him, but it was too dark to see
anything. He guessed it to be around three in the morning. He wasn’t sure.

Darryl
lay huddled in the backseat. Owen tried to turn his head to see his buddy, but
his neck had stiffened. Moving his neck even slightly sent a piercing pain
shooting into his upper shoulder. He gave up and sank down into his seat. “You
all right, buddy?”

Darryl
didn’t answer.

Owen
tried again. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty. You awake?”

No
response. Owen panicked. He cranked his neck as pain flared through his
shoulder and down his back. He leaned over the console into the backseat and
touched Darryl’s knee. Owen shook him.

“Darryl!”
His voice was loud. “Come on, Darryl, wake up.”

Darryl’s
leg shifted, then an arm. Another moment and his left eye jittered open. It was
darkly bloodshot. The other was swollen shut. The gash on his nose was crusted
with dried blood.

Owen
smiled. “Stay with me, buddy. Okay?”

“I’m
still here.” Darryl’s voice was low and gravelly. He sounded like he
desperately needed a drink of water.

“Stay
with me, buddy.” Owen turned in his seat, facing the windshield.

Darryl
coughed, hacked, turned his head and spit. Bloody mucus splattered on the
floorboard. “I’m not going nowhere.”

“Rayanne’ll
be back soon,” Owen said. “We gotta hold out a little longer.”

Darryl
didn’t answer.

Owen
turned his head slightly to look at him again. “You holdn’ up?”

“What
time is it?”

“Reckon
it’s around three.” Owen turned his head as far to the left as his neck would
allow.

Darryl
coughed again and Owen saw blood dribbling from his chin. He didn’t want to see
that and turned to the front. Owen stared out the windshield, listening to
crickets, and laughed.

He
reached for the guitar leaning against the edge of his seat by his feet. He
brought it up into his lap, strummed the six strings a couple times. He
couldn’t stand the pressure on his stomach and let the guitar slide onto the
floorboard. The movement brought a fiery pain ripping through his shoulder.

“Dropp’n
F.” Owen shut his eyes.

Darryl
muttered something, and Owen reopened his eyes.

“What?”

“Why
do you say that?” Darryl asked again. “What does it mean?”

“Dropp’n
F?”

“Yeah,”
Darryl said. “You been say’n it your whole life.”

“I
guess so.” Owen stared out at the night through the windshield again, thinking.
After a moment of silence, he said, “It’s a guitar term. Tuning the chords.”

“You
drop D when you tune.”

“Yeah,
well,” Owen said in a low tone, “I drop F.”

Darryl
didn’t respond, and Owen took that as an acknowledgment. He cleared his throat.
“You remember that redheaded cheerleader back in college? Brandi somethin’.
That girl was fine.”

Now
Darryl spoke up. “She was out of your league.”

“I
know, but I had her.” His grin widened. “I had her a couple times.”

“Brandi
Hensley.” Darryl moved in the backseat, and Owen could hear him fumbling. It
sounded like he was trying to sit up.

After
Darryl settled down, he asked, “What made ya thinka her?”

“
’Cause she had a brother on the baseball team and he had friends—what were
their names?” Owen thought about it a moment, then decided it didn’t matter.
“When they found out, they beat the living crap outta me.”

“Yeah,
I remember that,” Darryl said. “She was a virgin and it pissed off her
brother.”

“You
had my back, though. Remember? We were at that drive-in and they told me to get
out of the car. You got out too.”

“It
was my dad’s Mustang.”

“But
you got out of the car,” Owen said quickly, emphasizing his point.

Darryl
grunted. “They busted the headlights out of my dad’s Mustang.”

“But
you stood with me. Side by side.”

“Yeah,
well,” Darryl’s voice grew distant. “I was stupid back then.”

“We
both got black eyes, split lips. We looked like bloody hell … kinda like we
look right now.” Owen started to say more, until Darryl coughed again, deeper
and more violently. Owen could hear fumbling in the backseat and he turned his
head.

Darryl
lay face up, his swollen cheek and eye drooping in a way that reminded him of
radioactive mutant cannibals from a cheap slasher B-movie they’d watched a
couple years back. He chuckled, reopening the wounds across the bridge of his
nose and it bled again, streaming down his cheeks.

Owen
wanted to do something, but what? Pain exploded through his shoulder again, so
he just whispered, “Take it easy, buddy. Help’ll be here soon.”

A
coyote yelled and it caught his attention. Owen peered out the window again,
but still couldn’t see anything.

Darryl
coughed and spit more blood. He sat up, leaned his head on the back door. He
glanced over at Owen.

“There’s
somethin’ I gotta tell ya,” Darryl said slowly. He moved his arm to reach for
his shirt pocket. “Somethin’ you need to know.”

* * * * *

Rayanne
stirred in the driver’s seat of the rusted Volkswagen and clung to the tire
iron. She looked outside again, into the darkness. Several coyotes were
howling. Or maybe they were wolves.

Or
werewolves.

She
was being silly. She didn’t have the luxury to be afraid of the dark. Pack of
coyotes be damned, she was wasting valuable time and she knew it.

Hesitantly,
she opened the driver’s side door, poked her head out, and looked around. She
saw no sign of the dog. Or the coyotes. Just darkness. Everywhere she looked,
darkness. She stepped out of the car, her left foot first, then her right. She
stood. This time, she left the car door open.

Moving
away from the abandoned cars in the hollow, she climbed the slope and waded
through weeds and between the narrow trees, into the night. The blackness
seemed thicker, colder, and she knew dawn was approaching. She shivered in
Owen’s thin T-shirt as she set foot atop the ravine and continued her journey
back to the county road.

Owen
was depending on her.

* * * * *

“What
is it?” Owen watched him, waiting for an answer.

Darryl
shifted in the seat again, scrunching his face, making the glass embedded in
his cheek sparkle ever so slightly. The wound bled again and Owen saw the
streak run down to Darryl’s neck.

Darryl
struggled to get the words out, as if it was causing him pain. “I know,” he
said. “I know what those punk kids were talking about. I know what they
wanted—”

“They
think I stole somethin’ of theirs,” Owen said.

“You
didn’t steal it. I did,” Darryl said. “I stole it from you.” Darryl put his
hand into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small rabbit’s foot. His fingers
caressed the pink fur. “I took this from you.”

“What?”
Owen stared at it, squinting. “You took it? Why?”

“I
never believed it till I saw what it did.” He held the rabbit’s foot in his
bloody hand. “I wanted my chance.”

“Bro,
I thought I lost it. My life went to—”

“I
just wanted my chance.” He stretched out his arm over the console, into the
front seat, and handed the foot to Owen.

Owen
took it, stared at it a moment, then clenched it in his hand. He could feel the
familiar, soft fur between his fingers, felt the solid splint of bone locked
inside it. He squeezed it into his palm so tight his knuckles ached. For some
reason, it soothed him.

“I
shoulda known you had it. You never been able to pick up a woman in your life
and you tell me you landed a Puerto Rican chick in a grocery stor—”

“I
took it from you.” Darryl coughed. Blood dribbled on his chin. He wiped it away
with his sleeve.

Owen
couldn’t take his eyes off the pink, furry foot in his palm. He noticed that
his leg no longer throbbed. The wound in his stomach had stopped aching.

“This
is crazy. It’s a stupid rabbit’s foot,” he said, shaking his head, breaking the
spell. “You think those kids even know about it? Why would they care?”

Darryl
coughed again, this time deep from his lungs, and it sounded like he was
struggling to breathe. “We’ve both seen what happens when you lose it.”

Owen
shook his head. “No,” he said under his breath. “It can’t be real.”

“You
know it’s cursed,” Darryl said. “Good luck befalls the owner, and turns deadly
when he loses it.”

“Hey,
you had the rabbit’s foot in your pocket and you’re worse off than me.” Owen
stopped. He looked at Darryl. He handed the rabbit’s foot back to Darryl,
saying, “Nothin’s connected here. This stupid toy has noth’n to do with
noth’n.”

Darryl
held up his hand, refusing it. “It’s yours. I give it back to you.”

Owen
closed his fist around it, squeezing it. “It’s a superstition.”

“Connor
drowned within twenty-four hours after I took it from you.” Darryl looked at
him, eye to eye. “He’s dead ’cause of that superstition. ’Cause of me.”

“That’s
ridiculous,” Owen choked out, and he shook his head. “You hear me? Don’t even
think it.”

“It’s
cursed.” Darryl lay down as his voice trailed off. “You lost it and you lost
your job. You lost your house. You and Rayanne are headed for divorce. Connor
…”

Owen
laughed. “We’re fools, you and me, you know?” Owen squeezed his eyes shut and
pressed his head against the cold windowpane. “It’s just a damned rabbit’s
foot. We ought to throw it in the lake.”

Owen’s
leg throbbed again, and his shoulder ached. His stomach, where the knife had
cut him, was on fire. He tried to ignore it. He opened his eyes and looked
back. “You swiped it from me in Vegas?”

“Where’d
you think that hot streak I was on came from?” Darryl was talking with his head
back, his good eye focused on the liner above his head. “It dropped out of your
pocket in the casino.”

“Damn
it, Darryl. Why?”

“You
weren’t paying attention.” Darryl coughed again, leaning forward. Then relaxed.
“If I hadn’t picked it up, someone else would of.”

“I
can’t believe you stole it.” Owen sounded upset. “Damn it, Darryl. I thought
you were my friend.”

“I
never really believed in it till I saw what it did for you.” Darryl’s voice
sounded stronger, as if the blood and seepage in this throat had cleared.
“Brandi Hensley. Rayanne. The basketball scholarship to Duke. You were the
worst player Eastlake ever saw.”

“Still—”

Darryl
wouldn’t let him object. “I didn’t know what it—I just didn’t know.”

“It
don’t matter. What’s done is done.” Owen shook his head. “I know you’re my
buddy.”

Darryl
was still explaining himself. “It was like you said, irresistible. I couldn’t
help myself. I had to have that rabbit’s foot.”

Owen
wasn’t listening, and muttered again. “In fact, you’re the best friend I ever
had. And we’re going to Australia when we get out of here.”

Darryl
was talking over him. “… never meant to hurt you and Rayanne.”

“You
hear what I said?” Owen leaned back, shut his eyes.

The
coyote was howling again and another one seemed be answering it.

“We’re
going to Australia. You and me.” Then Darryl’s voice trailed off again,
becoming weak and distant. Barely loud enough for Owen to hear, he mumbled, “I
get why you took it from Grover Lott.”