Blood Mountain

go to Elsewhere to do what had to be done. He would stay right here in this world and let that stupid bitch get what she had coming.

The flashlight dangled in his good hand. The white spotlight was a ghost orb keeping pace with him over uneven terrain. He didn’t need the light to find his way up the trail. The moonlight tinged the treetops silver and revealed much of the path, but he could track her on a cloudy night. This was his mountain, his refuge, his sanctuary. She had no hope. Just as Mommy knew every corner of the house and every place little Victor could hide, he knew this mountain and every dark corner where trees or bushes might lend her some comfort.

How surprised she would be when his arms emerged from the dark and seized her. She would think the very night had come alive to kill her.

FORTY-FOUR

People stranded in the desert, dying from thirst, suffered the most vivid hallucinations of distant water-filled paradises. Such a far off oasis galvanized the person ever forward until they sapped the last of their strength and collapsed into the sand, arm outstretched toward a magical world where all their ills could be healed. A world that they would never reach, regardless of whether it existed or not.

Mercy thought of a man dying in the desert with the impossible heat boiling on him not because she was thirsty (she was) or because she was exhausted (she was) but because what she was seeing could not possibly be real. It had to be a mirage, her personal version of an oasis in this forest of hell.

Past the evergreen tree was a small clearing not much larger than her bedroom. Trees ringed it on three sides like a wall to rest against when you stared off the side of the mountain into an enormous world where the moon was a gigantic, floating orb, an almost magical power hovering almost within reach. Even from the far end of this cliff, the view far surpassed the lookout where her father and she had stopped earlier, what seemed like days ago.

The small town lay farther away. Its miniature, twinkling lights were a minor pulsation on a heavy black curtain. A tractor trailer was traveling the road that went past the diner. Mercy almost laughed at how fragile it looked, as if it were nothing more than a toy.

While this view was more than enough to take away her breath, it was not why she at first felt like she had stepped into a mirage, perhaps even a dreamworld her traumatized mind had manufactured to save her sanity.

The white moonlight vibrated along the tips of every outstretched evergreen branch and as the branches swayed in a breeze she could not feel, the light flickered like thousands of candles. Thick, lush grass filled the clearing.

But she could hardly see that grass because of the crows.

It had seemed at first that the cliff began immediately and if she dared take one step, she would slip right off the edge and plummet into darkness. That darkness was not the distant ground, but tons of black crows picking at the evening ground. There could be as many as a hundred of them, maybe more, jammed into this little clearing, each one pecking at the soil with the smallest of intrusive noises.

The few closest to her flapped their wings briefly as if in annoyance at her presence. The rest, however, paid her no attention. There was no where to walk that wouldn’t put a crow, or her foot in harm’s way. She could try to skate the edge but the birds were pushed all the way to the wide trunks of the surrounding evergreens.

Forget about this, her mind spoke up. There’s a pair of psychos right behind you and you’re here cavorting with a bunch of birds.

Not exactly cavorting, more like witnessing, but she understood the concern. This place was a sight and sort of magical, too, but how the hell was that going to help her?

You need to run. Get to the summit.

No, she didn’t. Even from here, Mercy could tell that the cliff at the far end was plenty steep enough to accomplish what she wanted on the top of this mountain. And what had been that grand plan, exactly?

She stared at the flashlight in her hand. The bulb had dimmed to a barely perceptible glow like a match at the far end of a cave.

Like your hope for getting out of this mess alive.

From behind her, not far at all down the trail, Caleb’s convoluted scream added the exclamation to her mind’s warning.

Last chance to run.

But she couldn’t. Aside from her ailing body, from the hard truth that if she dared to continue up this mountain there was no way she would make it to the top before Caleb caught her, she simply didn’t want to leave this spot. This oasis in the woods.

Slowly and carefully, she began to walk around the edge of the clearing. Most of the birds hopped out of her way before her bare feet (what had happened to her socks?) could even touch them, but a few more obstinate crows had to be encouraged out of her way with a gentle tap. Their feathers were smooth like silk.

Evergreen branches poked at her with thousands of needle fingers and tugged at her clothes like claws. The most amazing aroma of freshness filled her nostrils. At first she thought it was simply the smell of the trees, that bouquet of Christmas time, but there was something more to it, some other, unidentifiable smell like clean clothes right out of the dryer, or a spring morning where the sky is clear and the sun full of warmth and promise.

Or maybe you’re going out of your mind.

“Anything’s possible,” she said.

A few crows flapped their wings as if in agreement.

“I’ll get you, you bitch!”

Mercy froze.

Caleb was just beyond the border of the trees, mere feet away.

A few crows offered a momentary glance in that direction but most simply went on foraging.

The evergreen at the far end shook. He was trying to find his way through it as she had. How did he know she was there?

He can smell you, she thought. Like a wild beast.

She gripped the flashlight in both hands, squeezing it until her hands hurt. If he barged in, she would run to the edge, lure him right to the cusp, and when he barreled after her, she would slam him in the face with the plastic flashlight and push him over the edge to his death.

Simple.

So simple to kill a person, is it?

Whose voice was that? Perhaps a teacher she had in high school, the one who always dared to question students’ perceptions of the world. Mrs. Trolliver. Mercy had gotten mostly A’s in her class. Except on that persuasive research paper. Mrs. Trolliver refuted Mercy’s opinion on abortion in a half-page response written in red pen in which she insisted that one day Mercy would recognize the sanctity of life.

Her statement began, So simple to kill a person, is it?

Yes, you bitch, it is, Mercy thought and grinned.

Perceived confidence aside, she was already wondering what she’d say to the police and how many nightmares she would suffer and how she could live a normal life after taking someone else’s.

But he’s trying to kill me.

But he was gone. His next scream came from farther away, somewhere up the mountain a way. A crow in the middle of the gathering raised its head and cawed.

FORTY-FIVE

Victor was playing hide and seek again. It was almost funny. After finally ridding himself of his mother, here he was hunting for her in the woods. But it wasn’t his mother hiding out here among the trees. And when he found the girl, he would prove that to himself. He’d prove it in the most assured and intimate way.

Time to give Momma her prize.

Caleb was ahead somewhere, now a nonsensical screaming voice that warbled through the night like an audible, angry wind. If he were right in front of him, squawking away like a deranged fool, Victor would bury one of his knives into Caleb’s back. He’d use the one with the gut hook, so when he slid it free from the flesh, the man’s