The only reasonable thing to do is go for help, she thought. Even if I got his foot out of the trap, his left knee is busted up and now so is his right ankle. There’s no way he’ll make it without being carried.
With her mind made up she untied both jackets from the backpack, rolling one up as a pillow and putting it under Patrick’s head. The other she draped over him as a make-shift blanket. She dug the water and granola bars out of the pack and placed them next to him within easy reaching distance, then she went and retrieved his phone. She placed it next to the food.
Thunder rolled in the distance, and she looked skyward. She couldn’t see any clouds from her vantage point, but the thunder was coming from the west.
“Damnit, that’s all I need.” she said. The thought of Patrick waking up alone and injured on the side of a mountain during a thunderstorm made her sick to her stomach, and she needed to move quickly.
She wrote a quick note on a white water rafting brochure that Patrick had picked up at a rest stop along the interstate a few months ago, telling him that she had gone for help and not to move. She put the note on top of his phone and kissed his cheek.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She said. “I love you.”
• • •
Samantha made her way through the darkness as fast as she could. The widened trails and the more gradual incline made it easier to move at a quicker pace, not to mention being free of the burden of the backpack. She used her phone’s flashlight to light the way, occasionally stopping to check and see if there was any signal–her heart sinking each time in disappointment.
The thunder was getting closer, and louder. There was something in the sound that made her uneasy, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Somehow the thunder sounded wrong, and on more than occasion she was sure she heard the same unearthly sound they heard before Patrick stepped in the bear trap. It was closer than before. It sounded like an animalistic howl, if it were filtered through the sound of an old dial up modem. It seemed as though the sound, and whatever was making it, was following her.
At last she was within sight of the small, wooded parking lot. A single amber light buzzed lazily from its perch atop a small billboard, a map of the mountain on the sign. Moths and other assorted insects flew it tight, circular patterns around the light, casting flitting shadows over the lot. Their car sat directly next to the lit billboard.
Just as Samantha grabbed her phone it began to ring, surprising her to the point where she almost dropped it. It was Patrick. He must have woken up and somehow had signal. She quickly answered.
“Baby! Are you–” She was cut off by a loud whine and hiss. Pulling the phone from her ear, she looked down to find that the phone was in video chat mode. On the screen Patrick still lay unconscious on the ground. Oh dear God, she thought, there’s someone up there with him. On screen the mysterious figure continued to move around Patrick, bringing the phone it close to his body and lingering on his legs. The video came to rest on the bear trap stuck on his ankle.
A crackle of static, then the video shifted. The bear trap was now inexplicably off of his foot. Whoever was operating the camera was now holding the trap in front of the camera, and they were moving back up towards Patrick’s head.
Patrick’s eyes fluttered open and immediately looked towards the camera, eyes wide in terror. Before he could utter a word, the trap was thrust down violently onto his face, the metal jaws sinking deep into his skull on either side. He shuddered and twitched for a moment, letting out a muffled scream, then fell silent.
Samantha watched, horrified, frozen in place. The screen went back to static, followed by a blinding flash. Her hand was immediately wracked in searing pain that quickly traveled up her arm, and an instant later she was unconscious.
• • •
When she opened her eyes again she found that she was lying next to the sign post that she left Patrick next to. The jackets and backpack were still there, but he was gone. His phone lay on the ground, still in video call mode. Blood covered the ground, the jackets and the signpost.
Spears of icey fear stabbed at her gut as she got to her feet. There were no drag marks, no other footprints, no animal tracks, nothing. It was as if he simply vanished.
“Patrick!” She screamed into the darkness. “Baby, where are you?”
She fell to her knees sobbing. Patrick was gone. Something was very, very wrong here. As she knelt, trying to catch her breath, a scream split the night air like a razor.
“Patrick.” She held her breath and listened.
Again, a scream that seemed impossibly far away. It was Patrick, she knew it was. He needed her. She steeled herself and stood up, limbs shaking wildly. She had to find him. She began to move, feeling like she was walking through water. Her feet were clumsily catching on rocks and twigs as she moved as quickly as she could in the direction she heard Patrick.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the trees around her in brilliant light. The thunder that immediately followed crackled and hissed. Much louder now, she could hear what had been eluding her before–there was a sound of static in the thunder, much like the snowy static on a television. The lightning flashed again, and the thunder followed almost immediately. She looked up and the sky was
