Endurance

“Cell phones don’t always work in the mountains. Mine didn’t. And I couldn’t put any weight at all on my legs, but I couldn’t press the pedals with my hands and still see where I was going. So...” Deb let her voice trail off.

“So?”

“What would you have done?”

“I dunno. Looked for a tree branch, something long to press the gas.”

“There was a mountain lion outside the car.”

“Tire iron?”

“In the trunk. I could barely get myself into the driver’s seat. I couldn’t have pulled myself into my trunk.”

“I give up. What did you do?”

“I put my foot over the gas, grabbed my tibia, and pressed down on it.”

Mal set his writing pad in his lap. “That’s... that’s just...”

“Disgusting? Repulsive? The most terrible thing you’ve ever heard?”

“That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re one helluva woman, Deb Novachek.”

Deb looked at Mal. He was beaming at her. Then she opened her window a crack, because it had gotten kind of warm in the car.

“Look for a dirt road, on your right,” she said, happy to change the subject. “According to my GPS, it should be coming up.”

After a few hundred yards, Mal said, “Is that it?”

Deb squeezed the brake bar and peered where Mal was pointing. Rather than a road, there were two faint tire tracks that led into the woods.

“It can’t be.”

“There’s a sign. On that tree.”

The sign was half the size of a pizza box, painted green with a large white arrow. It read RUSHMORE INN ? MILE. Deb didn’t mind quaint and rustic. But backwoods and hidden weren’t a good match.

“You’re kidding me.” She frowned. “How is anyone supposed to see that?”

“Maybe they like their privacy.”

“Maybe they don’t like guests. It’s not even permanent. It’s hanging on a rope.”

And it was swinging, even though the wind had stopped.

Almost like it was hung there just a moment ago.

“The weeds are tamped down,” Mal said. “Looks like someone drove down there recently.”

“Never to be seen again.”

“Are you actually nervous about this?”

Deb didn’t answer.

“Come on. How bad can it be?”

“You’re asking the wrong girl.”

Mal shrugged. “Well, I’m tired and I need a shower, and there’s no place else to go, so let’s give it a shot. What do you say?”

Deb didn’t like it. She didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t on the map. She didn’t like the creepy manager who suggested the place. And she didn’t like Mal’s sudden enthusiasm for driving off the main road and into the woods.

What do I know about Mal anyway?

She hadn’t asked him for ID or credentials. He smooth-talked his way into her car, and now he had her out here, all alone, in the middle of bumblefuck. Hell, maybe there was no inn at all. Maybe this was some scheme Mal cooked up with that manager guy.

Then a very bad thought hit her.

What if that strange man who slapped the hood hadn’t done that to the deer?

What if Mal had done it?

Mal was covered in blood. And he had a few minutes from the time he left the car to the time she saw him...

“You look freaked out,” Mal said. He reached out to touch her arm, and she flinched away.

“Let’s keep our hands to ourselves, okay?”

He backed off, fast. “No problem. Do you want me to hike over there, check it out first?”

If this was all part of his plan to abduct her, what was to stop him from lying and saying everything was fine?

She stared at him. Hard. He was cute, charming, and seemed to be bending over backwards to accommodate her.

Of course, all of those same things could have been said about Ted Bundy.

“Let’s go back to the hotel, Deb. I’ll grab Rudy, and you can have our room. That’s what I should have done in the first place. Then I could have interviewed you over dinner, and we wouldn’t have almost hit that guy, gotten soaked in deer blood, and then wound up here, on the set of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 8.”

It was funny, but she kept a straight face without much difficulty. “Do you have a press pass?”

“Sure.”

“Can I see it?”

Mal seemed to study her, then he reached for his back pocket. He pursed his lips.

“My wallet is in the trunk. In my other pants. Look, if you’re still mad about me touching your prosthetic legs, I was just trying to be friendly. I knew I was going to ask some hard questions, and I didn’t want you to think I was a jerk.”

So he hadn’t been flirting. He’d been softening her up before the interrogation.

Deb went from paranoid to hurt.

That’s when the rear tire exploded with the sound of a thunderclap.

Deb’s eyes went wide as Mal lunged at her, his expression crazed as his fingers wrapped around her neck.

# # #

Felix hadn’t ever dwelt on the necessity of good hygiene, but its importance overwhelmed him when John climbed into his truck.

The hunter reeked.

It was a pungent stench; body odor, sour milk, and some sort of perfume that smelled like the soap his father used. Sandalwood. Felix tried breathing through his mouth, but it left a lingering taste on his tongue, so he opened his window and inhaled the air coming in.

“Am I going the right way?” he asked quickly before turning back to the window.

John didn’t answer. Felix flipped on the interior light. John’s eyelids were drooping, and his jaw hung slack as he stared straight ahead.

“John? Are we going in the right direction?”

“Huh?”

“The Rushmore Inn. Is this the right road?”

John scratched his hairless cheek with dirty fingernails. “Yeah. It’s right up here. Pull over.”

“Where? Here?”

“Yeah.”

There were no crossroads. No buildings. It was just highway and forest.

“There’s nothing here, John.”

“Driveway is hard to see.”

John still had that vacant look on his face. Felix wondered if the guy was crazy. Or taking some sort of drugs. But on the off-chance that John was telling the truth, Felix pulled the Chevy off the road and onto the grass.