Chapter Twenty
As Garrett had said, the moon was almost full. But it only made the woods more frightening. The moonlight cast strange and eerie shadows across the already menacing terrain.
Everything looked like something else. Something drooling and snarling…
Sam understood irrational fear. But that didn’t make it any easier to picture a showdown with a snake or a bear…or to take a stroll through the woods at night while carrying a loaded rifle.
“Get it together, girl,” she told herself sternly. “There’s nothing out here. And you have a frickin’ gun.”
With that, she climbed over the railing and scurried up the side of the hill onto the flat section of trail.
“Turn left at the arrow. Turn left at the arrow,” she murmured.
The moonlight was shining toward her, illuminating the opposite sides of the trees. So damned helpful. It took about six passes before she finally felt her way to the arrow, groping every damned tree along the way.
When she turned off the path and into the woods for real, she froze. There were sounds. Things were moving. Wolves? Bears?
Howe’s henchmen?
She ducked behind a tree and listened. And listened.
Nothing. Just the leaves rustling, and a few crickets. And her vivid imagination.
She got up and continued. She found the tree that was down. Up close, she noticed that it hadn’t fallen from natural causes. It was clear someone had deliberately chopped it down with an ax and left it lying there.
Backing up, she turned about ten yards from the tree, and went downhill. In daylight, she would have been able to see the big tree where she would make an abrupt right and keep going until she saw the shack. But now, in the dark, she couldn’t see a blessed thing.
She headed in the general direction and looked for the giant tree—a hardwood she wouldn’t be able to reach her arms around. It wasn’t there. Instead, she came to a stream.
“Damn it!” In frustration, she stood looking at the water she’d never crossed before. She held her watch up to the moonlight. It had been almost an hour since she’d left the house. Even with her leading them back for the first time, it had only taken thirty minutes from the bunker to the house.
She would not panic.
And she would not give up.
She climbed back up the hill, which seemed twice as steep in the dark.
Eventually, she found a wide, flat pathway which seemed to go on forever. The old railroad bed, she finally figured out. Thank God.
She started over, and this time she found the big tree. Taking a right at the tree, she trudged on, and on, and on. She was about to assume she’d gone the wrong way again, when suddenly, she saw the dark silhouette of a square building.
Relief poured through her whole body. At last.
After wiping her shaking hand down her jeans, she held it up to the panel. The door opened and she went inside, closing the door behind her.
It was pitch-dark inside the bunker. She fumbled around on the wall until she found the keypad. And froze with her hand on the device. Were the numbers set up with one through three on the bottom like a calculator, or across the top like a phone?
She should have paid closer attention.
She pushed the middle of the bottom row, hoping it was zero. To her utter relief, the keyboard lit up and she was able to type in the rest of the code without a problem.
The sound of the hatch release made her smile as she felt around on the floor for the hidden handle. She raised the door, and felt the colder air come up to greet her. It felt good against her sweaty face as she carefully descended the steps into the blackness.
Before she got to the bottom, her footing slipped. Dew-soaked sneakers on steep metal steps was a wicked combination.
She fell backward, hitting her shoulder and the gun on the edge of the stairs. The steel grating ripped open her skin and she instantly felt the warmth as the blood began to flow.
“Fuck,” she moaned and got up. Conveniently, she was at the bottom of the stairs now, so she fumbled around until she found the light switch and the room lit up.
It took her a minute for her eyes to adjust. The dim lighting seemed as bright as the sun now. On the second pass she found the empty spot for the rifle and propped it up. She frowned at the marks and dirt she had put on it. Garrett would not be impressed with her clumsiness.
After a vain attempt to clean it off, she gave up, turned off the light, and headed back up the stairs. She could feel the blood running down her back, and her T-shirt was starting to stick to her skin. No way was she telling Garrett.
Heeding his words about sounding like a herd of preschoolers, she tried to be quiet as she ascended the metal risers, but failed miserably. Finally, she got out of the bunker and breathed in the cold night air. A breeze had started, picking up the leaves and making even more strange noises.
She steadied herself for a second and winced at the pain in her shoulder from today’s rifle practice. And told herself the worst part was over. All she had to do now was get back. But she’d already done that once on her own. Garrett may have been following behind, but he’d been no help at all with navigating.
It wasn’t impossible. She could do it.
She had to keep stopping to get her bearings. She got lost three times before she finally came across the downed tree…without ever seeing the big tree. She tripped and cut her hand on a rock. Her palm throbbed with pain along with her shoulder, and she felt the warm stickiness of more blood.
But she kept going.
Finally, she found the railroad bed. She let out big sigh of relief…only to stifle it immediately when she heard a rustling in the leaves on the other side of the trail.
“Garrett?” she whispered.
No reply.
She walked in the direction of the house as fast as she could without tripping. Happiness flooded her at the sight of the warm light spilling out from the windows at the back of the cabin.
Home.
Her feet didn’t make a sound as she swung over the railing onto the deck. Her shoulder and her hand hurt horribly and her head was pounding, but she’d made it.
Her sense of accomplishment was only tempered by her injuries.
Not that she’d let Garrett know. She was pretty certain her task had been to complete the trip safely.
She walked quietly into the kitchen through the sliding glass door, and he came out to meet her. She couldn’t look him in the eyes.
She still had a—possibly irrational—fear he might give up on her if she became too much of a problem. He’d said more than once that he didn’t babysit or answer questions, and now he was being forced to do both. He may even have gone AWOL from his job to be her guardian. She hadn’t dared ask him about that.
He was doing so much for her. How would she ever repay him?