The Woods Are Dark

Cordie shook her head.

“You’ll love it, really.”

“You’re murderers.”

“Sure. It’s a gas. Anyway, you’re supposed to come out.”

“What for?”

The girl smiled and shrugged. “You don’t want to stay in here.” Leaning forward, she propped her elbows on her knees. She whispered, “If you don’t come out, the boys, they’ll have to come in. They won’t like that. They’d have to crawl. So you’d better just come out with me.”

Cordie shook her head.

“They’ll get real mad. It’ll spoil your chance.”

“Chance of what?”

“Joining up. They just won’t let you, if they’re pissed.”

“What happens if I join up?”

“Then we don’t kill you.”

“But what happens?

“Well, after the boys look you over, you’ve gotta get initiated. Then you’re one of us, and you can live free in the woods like we do.”

Cordie rested her head on the ground. She stared through the lacework of branches. The sky was pale and cloudless. “If I join up, they won’t kill me?”

“Not if they like you.”

“I have to… make them like me?”

“Right.”

“And then they won’t kill me?”

“You’ll be one of us. That’s how I joined up. That’s how a lot of us did.”

“All I have to do is go out there, and… and let the guys screw with me or something? And that’s it. They won’t kill me or anything, they just want to screw me?”

“Yeah. That’s about all. Then we’ll take you to the village, see. You’ll have to go through some shit there, but it’s nothing. Old Grar has to give you the okay, stuff like that. Nothing to worry about. Come on.”

Cordie lay still, afraid to move.

God, she didn’t want to go out there!

“The guys are gonna get tired of waiting.”

“Okay,” she said.

“You first.”

She forced herself to move. She turned around, and began to squirm forward on her belly, head down.

What if the girl was lying?

What if they planned to kill her?

But she had no choice.

She kept inching forward.

Then she saw them. Three of them. Teenage boys. Squatting naked in the sunlight just outside the bushes, staring in at her.

She stopped, cramped with fear, and looked back at Lilly.

“Keep going.”

She shook her head.

“Go on.”

“No!”

At a sound of crushing foliage, she snapped her head forward. Two of the boys were scurrying toward her, smashing aside the bushes in their way.

“No!” she shrieked.

She kept shrieking as they grabbed her arms and dragged her from the thicket.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Why don’t they come?” Neala said, whispering so she wouldn’t wake Johnny.

“You sound like you want ’em to,” Sherri said.

“Hardly.” She was dressed and standing in the doorway, watching the distant Krulls. Several times, she had tried to count them. They kept moving, though—some vanishing into the woods, others appearing. She counted twenty, twenty-four, nineteen, twenty-six. They seemed to be doing nothing special. Just milling about. She couldn’t see them well because of the crosses and heads.

“It’s like they’re waiting for something,” Neala said.

“Yeah. For us. Why don’t we shut the door?”

“We’ve got to watch.”

“We can,” Sherri said. She closed and latched the door. “Over here.” She stepped sideways through the darkness, and lifted one of the deer skins draping the front wall. Sunlight spilled through the gaps between the logs.

So this was how Sherri spied on them, Neala thought. Anger and humiliation began to burn in her. How much had Sherri watched? The whole thing? Had it turned her on?

God, how could she sink that low! Her best friend!

Reaching up, Sherri yanked the deer skin loose. She flung it aside. “That’s better,” she muttered.

Neala peered through a crack. She could see exactly where she’d been with Johnny. She looked up, saw the Krulls still wandering beyond the stakes, and lowered her eyes again to the spot where she’d made love to Johnny.

“Why’d you do it?” she whispered.

“What does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”

“Look I said I’m sorry.”

“I know. I don’t want another apology. I want to know why. You’re my best friend, Sherri. How could you stand here and spy on me like that?”

“We’re all going to die here. You know that, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You think your johnny will wave a magic wand and—Presto!—we’re home again?”

“Hardly.”

“Those people out there—those things—they’re going to get us sooner or later. And it won’t make a damn bit of difference why I watched you, will it?”

“It makes a difference to me now.”

“Suit yourself,” Sherri said.

“Tell me.”

“Just let it go.”

“I can’t. Not if we’re going to stay friends.”

“Shit.”

“Okay. If that’s all it means to you…”

“You have no idea what you mean to me. Not the slightest.”

The words frightened Neala.

“I love you.”

She looked at Sherri, stunned. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. And when I saw you, this morning, standing out there in the sunlight… I just couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop watching.” She made a sour laugh. “You probably thought I was hankering after Johnny, huh? Surprise surprise.”