The sound of a creek trickled through the woods, reminding her that she was thirsty. The trail crossed it through a muddy ford, and she wished she had some tracking skills, to see if Maureen had passed this way. There'd been a lot of traffic, but it was Greek to her, and over-written Greek at that. She followed the water upstream, looking for some stepping-stones to save her feet a soaking.
She stared at the water. Crystal clear. Did she want to drink and chance the raging shits? Or hold out for some nice safe wine or beer at this "Master's" place?
If in doubt, doubt. It was Rule One of food and water in the woods, laid down by Maureen. Jo didn't have any Halazone, and she wasn't all that thirsty yet.
She climbed back to the trail, puffing her way up the hillside through underbrush and dead leaves. She tromped through a patch of mushrooms and squashed some purple berries, wondering if they were all poisonous and if not, where the clean-up crew had gone--all the little critters that eat stuff in the woods. She hadn't seen any birds or squirrels or deer tracks.
Maureen was the one for wildlife and plants, the expletive deleted forester, but even Jo knew the woods shouldn't be so quiet. Hair rose along the back of her neck.
She came out on the trail again. The way was more open now, blue sky overhead. Birds circled up there, three of them, big and dark. Vultures? Ravens?
Swell. She'd asked for omens? Look what she got.
Buildings lined the ridge ahead: a round stone tower, stone castle walls, and shaggy roofs of thatch tan against the sky. It had to be that "Master's" keep. It looked cold and clammy and dark, and she wondered if you could really keep an Irish rain out with a roof like that.
Walls and towers said there were enemies, armies, sieges. Jo reminded herself again that fairy tales were dangerous places. Maybe she didn't like this world Maureen was wandering in.
She turned back to the trail, chilled in spite of the stiff climb through the forest. She felt like it would take just about one more thing to shove her off the deep end. Dragons and vultures and too-silent forests and dark towers on the crowns of hills: adventure was something nasty happening to somebody else, far away. It wasn't fun when it started to get personal.
And last time she checked, her knight in shining armor was in another universe. Just her luck, he was off buying guitar strings when she really needed him to slay a dragon.
Or maybe Brian would be a better choice. This looked like his territory.
Maybe that was where Mo found him. Wandered around in her psycho nightmares, grabbed one, and made him real. Put him in a suit of medieval armor, and he'd fit right in.
She reminded herself to shut up and keep walking. They should have a well up there, and maybe she could ask politely for a cheeseburger and fries, hold the onions.
And then Jo's eyes connected with her brain, overriding the mindless blither that had kept her from screaming, up 'til now.
Those white things on posts, they weren't streetlights. They had eye-sockets. Some of them had lower jaws. Some had wisps of hair still sticking to the tops and sides.
They were skulls.
They were human skulls, set up on stakes like the light-globes placed along a rich man's driveway to create an inviting approach for guests. One had a raven perched on it, pecking at shreds of flesh. A dinner guest.
Jo ran. She ran silently, except for a panting moan that was her throat tightened against vomiting. She ran downhill, off the trail, through the clawing brush and tumbling and sliding headlong through the dead leaves and moss and rolling to her feet and running again. She ran, and inside her head, she screamed.
She hit water. She splashed into the creek, uncaring. Follow water downhill, she remembered, it always goes to civilization. Second Rule of the Woods, courtesy of Maureen. Trails could go anywhere at all, but water went downhill, to the sea. Follow water and you'd find man.
But she didn't want to find man.
That was man up on top of the hill. Man the headhunter, man the tyrant, man the rapist.
Maureen's man.
Jo held Maureen's gun in one hand and Maureen's jacket in the other and splashed her way downstream. Icy water soaked through her boots and pants, working up to her waist where it met the icy sweat working down. She shivered and thrashed on through the overhanging brush and felt knives stabbing her ribs where her lungs fought for air.
Water hid scent, didn't it? Washed out the tracks? They wouldn't be able to use dogs to trail her. She had to keep to the water.
She forced herself to slow down. How would Maureen deal with this? What would that paranoid cunning say? Jo shrugged her arms back into the jacket and stowed the pistol, to free her hands. It was time to get sneaky, time to worry about avoiding the dragon and all its friends.
Thinking paranoid helped, thinking about Them following her around. Paranoia eased through the brush, instead of breaking it: broken branches were a trail, a sign pointing fingers along the way she went.
Skeleton fingers.
She was seeing skulls everywhere, rounded white domes of limestone in the moss and running water, the dark pits of eyes and nose in the rotted boles of trees, the grinning teeth in sunlight glinting off of leaves. Skulls followed her, watched her, and laughed at her panic.
Jo's foot slipped, and she splatted on her butt. That jerked her brain back to survival. Wet moss was nearly as slick as a greased slide. She scrambled to her feet and continued downstream, along the creek-bed running smooth over bedrock coated with green goo.
She groped for handholds, overhanging branches
