No Sanctuary

“I just want to get someplace where we’ll have plenty of privacy.”

“Me too.”

They walked side by side around a bend in the trail that took them past a stone comer. Rick reached below Bert’s pack and squeezed her rump. “What have you got in mind?” he asked.

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “A little of this, a little of that.” Her face turned forward again and she stopped abruptly.

Rick halted beside her.

On the trail at their feet lay a red backpack.

“What the hell?” Rick muttered. “Looks like one of ...”

She grabbed his arm so hard that pain streaked through it. She was gazing past him, to the right.

Rick turned his head.

He thought, It’s another hallucination, has to be, but how can Bert be seeing it?

He stared.

The trail where he stood with Bert was slightly higher than the clearing ahead, and gave him a perfect view.

Can’t be real. Impossible.

It was worse than his daydreams, his visions, worse than anything he had ever imagined. Julie’s death seemed pristine compared to this.

One of the bodies was a naked man. He lay on his back near the sprawled remains of a girl. Rick refused to look straight at the girl, to see what had been done to her. He gazed at the man. The man looked as if he were made of blood, as if his skin had been peeled off.

Rick let his eyes dart past the third body, a twisted, faceless thing.

Strewn about the bodies was clothing: a pair of cut-off jeans with one leg split open; a yellow blouse; a torn rag of panties; faded blue gym shorts; a gray T-shirt sliced down the front, rumpled in such a way that the letters UC showed. Some of the clothes were sprinkled red as if they had been sprayed from a distance, and Rick realized vaguely that the girls must’ve already been naked when the blood began to fly.

The girls.

Andrea and Bonnie.

He couldn’t look at their bodies, but the clothes were enough.

The other clothes belonged to the man: shoes placed neatly together with socks tucked inside, folded trousers, a knit shirt on the ground near the pants.

Who is he? Rick wondered.

Did he do this? Why’s he dead?

Bert, standing at Rick’s side, bent over and heaved. She had her knife clutched in her right hand. It was pressed to the side of her leg, and the blade jerked as spasms shook her body.

Already has her knife out, Rick thought. Got through the shock and saw the danger. Why didn’t I?

If I only had the gun!

Rick drew his own knife from the scabbard on his belt. Then he squirmed out of his shoulder straps. His pack dropped to the trail behind him. He scanned the clearing, the base of the slope a distance to the right, the trees beyond the clearing, the stream to the left and the wooded area on its other side. Saw no one. Imagined Jase and Luke and Wally charging at them from the rear. Whirled around. No one. He raised his eyes. No one scurrying down the rocks.

“RICK!”

He began to turn and everything seemed to be in slow motion. He saw Bert’s pack falling toward the trail behind her legs. Her arm began to move upward, pointing with the knife. He finished his turn. The man of blood was sitting up. His eyes were open. He had a red erection.

Rick grabbed Bert’s shirt and pulled. She twisted slowly toward him, her shirt coming off her shoulder, her right breast exposed, the knotted fabric across her chest slipping apart. “RUN!” he yelled in her face. His voice seemed far away and echoing. He saw her head shake slowly from side to side, her hair swaying out below the edges of her hat. “GO!” he yelled again, and then he released her shirt and started toward the man.

The man, somehow already up, wasn’t coming at them. Instead, he ran away. His back wasn’t red. It had a deep tan except for his white, flexing buttocks. He only ran a few steps. His arms reached out. He grabbed a long stick slanting up out of one of the bodies (a broad-boned body ... Bonnie?). He tugged it out with both hands. It made a sucking sound. He pivoted, swinging it like a baseball bat. Rick, almost upon him, flung up his arms to protect his head. His wrist exploded with pain. But the knife stayed in his numb hand. The man leaped out of his way. Rick couldn’t stop. His forward foot came down on a thigh of the corpse. The body turned under his weight. An outstretched arm flopped up as if reaching for him. He tried to miss it as he stumbled, but the toe of his boot smashed the forearm down and he thought, I’m sorry, as he staggered past the body, trying to stay up.

Something crashed against the back of his head. He slammed the ground and skidded.

He lifted his face out of the grass.

Was I out? What if it’s all over, and Bert ... ?

He looked over his shoulder.

Bert was on her feet, face to face with the man, trying to wrestle the shaft out of his hands. Her knife was clenched in her teeth. She was being twisted and shaken like a doll, no match for the killer.

Rick started to get up.

The pole was snatched from Bert’s grip. She reached for the knife between her teeth. Before she could grab it, the man drove an end of the pole into her belly. Her mouth made a wide O. She stumbled backward, folding, and her rump pounded the ground.

The man left Bert sitting there, turned away, and squatted by the head of the other corpse.

Andrea?

She’d been scalped.

She had a knife in her mouth. But not crossways, pirate fashion, like Bert. The broad handle stuck straight up from her lips. The man clutched it and pulled. Andrea’s raw head lifted as the blade slid out.

A huge blade.

The man’s eyes, bulging white in his red mask, fixed on Rick.

Rick was almost on him.

The man jerked the knife the rest of the way out, ripping through a cheek. The blade swept past Rick’s belly. He felt a hot sting as it nicked his side. As he lunged at the crouching man, he slashed downward. His knife skidded on the man’s forehead, sliced the left eyeball, cut through a nostril, tore a diagonal gash through his lips and chin, swept down and split the back of Rick’s own left hand.

Even as the knife cut his hand, his charging body smashed the man backward. Onto Andrea’s face. Rick, hunched low and off balance, hurled himself over her ravaged body, hit the ground on the other side, and rolled.

He got to his hands and knees. He looked.

The man was scuttling toward him, shrieking, blood spouting from his face. Bert swept by. Flying? She was four feet off the ground, stretched out straight, open shirt flapping behind her like the cape of a super-heroine from a strange, erotic comic book, knife in her right hand. Her bare chest hit the man’s back with a slapping sound. He was smashed flat. Bert’s arms were out past his side. She threw an elbow high and tried to bring her arm down to stab him, but he thrust himself up, twisting and throwing her off.

He got to his knees, swung around and rammed the knife down. It missed Bert. She was rolling. He went after her on his knees.

Rick scurried toward him and drove his knife down. It sank deep into the man’s calf. He yanked it out. His left hand grabbed the man’s hip and pulled. His fingers slipped off the slick skin. Snarling, he threw himself forward. His chest pushed against the man’s buttocks. He raised the knife high, ready to plunge it into the middle of the back, when an elbow crashed against the side of his head.

The blow dazed him, sent him sprawling.