The Remedy Read online

  He pointed a finger directly at Alex’s chest and grinned.

  “She’s got friends.”

  Without another sound, Grizzly turned and paced over to the storm shelter doors. Grabbing a shotgun resting by the exit, he took the stairs in two giant steps, slammed the doors shut, and disappeared into the darkening evening. Bugger watched him go before returning his attention to Marshall’s decapitated body. He offered Alex one last creepy smile before bringing the cleaver down into Marshall’s left thigh. Even though Alex clenched her eyes shut, she could still hear everything below Marshall’s knee fall to the floor and land in a puddle of coagulating blood.

  There was nothing funny about her situation anymore. Alex guessed her mind hadn’t completely snapped after all. Her only chance for mercy was to lose consciousness. She wanted to drown in that ocean of blood and never return.

  Chapter 16

  Thankfully, the walk to the ranger outpost was much shorter than Leigh had expected. After a mere twenty minutes trudging across the soggy forest floor, a cabin, slightly smaller than the one they’d left Rob and Eliza in, came into view. It was designed in the same style as their previous shelter, but this structure boasted a dark green aluminum roof that looked rather new. A reddish-brown US Department of Agriculture sign rested to the left of the front door. This simple symbol of authority brought Leigh instant comfort.

  Less comforting, however, was the absence of any vehicles parked in front of the building.

  “Damn,” Sam mumbled under his breath, apparently noticing the same thing. “No ATVs. That’s not a good sign.”

  Leigh nodded but didn’t say anything in return. No need to add another voice to their mutual mounting despair—the cabin’s darkened windows were enough.

  Sam pressed his face against the glass. The sky was now almost as dark as the room within and Leigh knew Sam wouldn’t be able to see much. She regretted that they hadn’t thought to bring along flashlights.

  “I don’t see anybody,” Sam said.

  “So what do we do now? Head back?”

  Sam offered her a hopeful smile. “Not yet.” He headed for the front door, leaving her several paces behind. When Leigh caught up, she found him jiggling the doorknob, another look of complete disappointment overtaking his face.

  “Shit!” It had yet to occur to Leigh just how softly they had been speaking to each other until Sam shouted the frustrated obscenity. “It was a long shot, but I was really hoping they didn’t lock this. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised with all the equipment they must keep in there.”

  A pinprick brought Leigh’s hand smacking down on her right knee. Another mosquito, bringing the total number of bug bites collected on her skin to a casual thousand or so.

  “Well, can’t you just work your magic like before?” Leigh tried to ignore the bump she could already feel irritating her skin. “I didn’t think locks were any match for you and your knife.”

  Sam threw a sarcastic smile and a glare that could only mean “very funny,” but it was quickly replaced with seriousness.

  “This isn’t some flimsy little pin I can slide back like at the other cabin. These guys secured this place pretty well.” Sam pointed to a round, metallic disc that surrounded the keyhole. “That’s a bolt lock. I’d need something way better than my pocket knife to get through it.”

  “Then I guess that’s that.” Leigh turned, assuming Sam was right behind her. She’d already taken several paces away from the cabin when the sound of shattering glass stopped her in her tracks.

  He didn’t.

  Leigh turned around, knowing exactly what she was about to see: Sam standing sheepishly next to a broken window.

  He did.

  “What the hell, Sam?”

  Sam shrugged and grinned. “I found something better than my pocket knife.” He carefully reached through the jagged broken glass and found the window’s latch. Once unlocked, he pushed the window up and waved his hand through the open portal.

  “Ladies first.”

  Leigh was fully aware just how childish it was to be turned on by such a cliché “bad boy” act. And yet, that was exactly what was happening as she took Sam’s hand and carefully made her way through the broken window. She’d been attracted to her new friend since they had first met, that much she could admit to herself. But before it had felt like some kind of deep, strange connection. Now it was purely lust. Leigh could give a shit about like minds and soul mates at a time like this. She just wanted to jump the country boy’s bones.

  And all it took was a little breaking and entering.

  Leigh wondered if she’d ever again be able to justify looking down on Eliza for dating someone like Rob. You could suppress carnal desires for a long time, sure, but fighting primal instinct was a battle you’d always lose, eventually—and Leigh was losing it right now.

  And it felt good.

  “All right.” Sam’s voice was directly in her ear. “Let’s see if we can find the light switch.”

  Feeling along the wall, Leigh had to catch herself from falling face first when she stubbed her foot on something round and hard. She didn’t need light to know that it was the stone Sam had chucked through the window pane.

  Something square shaped and smooth slid its way under her fingers. A protrusion jutted out from the square, pointing down toward the floor.

  “I found it!” Leigh announced. Her excitement was quickly extinguished when several vigorous flicks upward and down accomplished nothing.

  In the darkness, she heard Sam sigh. “Damn it. Power’s not on.”

  “You think there’s a generator or something?”

  “Could be one outside, maybe around back.” Sam marched across the room, making his way back to the window.

  Leigh flinched at the loud thump paired with a painful umph! that came after Sam’s fourth step.

  “You okay?” Even in light of their urgent situation, Leigh had to cover a laugh.

  “Yeah,” Sam groaned. “I just walked right into a table. Something landed on my foot. Hey, wait…” he trailed off as he reached down to retrieve the object. After a beat of silence, he shouted once again, this time in joy rather than disappointment or frustration.

  “Yes! I found the radio! It was the mike that hit my foot. Give me a second. I’ll see if I can find the power switch.”

  After a series of shuffling noises and the metallic snaps of switches, a dim green light illuminated the area surrounding the table as well as Sam’s face. His teeth eerily reflected the light as he smiled at the backlit dials springing to life. Leigh had to smile, too, when she heard the comforting sound of static and knew they were in business.

  “Thank God it’s battery-powered,” Sam said, taking a seat behind the radio. “Okay, while I try to reach someone, why don’t you try to find us a flashlight or something?”

  “What about the generator?”

  Sam shook his head. “Finding it and getting it running would be a waste of time. We don’t need it. If you can’t find anything, that’s okay. I think I can manage with what I got here.”

  “Well, let me see what I can find.”

  While the radio offered very little light, even its dim illumination seemed to double her visibility in the lightless cabin. In one corner of the room, she could make out a short stack of two or three cardboard boxes.

  Grabbing the top box, she lugged it over to the swath of green light that bathed the floor around the radio’s table. Amazed to discover another little miracle, Leigh opened the flaps to see not only a book of matches resting on top, but the faded red stick of a flare right beside it.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, not exactly sure to whom she was speaking. Leigh picked up the flare and held it between her teeth while she retrieved the matches and broke one off.

  The sandy scrape of the match scratching the flint was the most satisfying sound Leigh had ever heard. And the single flame from the match warmed her like a bonfire.

  Leigh dropped the book of matches and pull
ed the flare from the grip of her teeth.

  She was just about to light the end when a cold hand grabbed her wrist.

  “Ahh!”

  Leigh screamed and dropped the flare but managed to keep a hold on the match. She jerked her head back to see Sam standing behind her, still holding her wrist in a death grip. When their eyes met, he finally let go.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Leigh said as she tried to regain her breath.

  Sam released her wrist and took a step back. “Look at what you were about to light.”

  He reached down and picked up the flare from the wooden floor. He brought it up into the lit match’s small glow, rotating it in his fingers until thick, capital letters came into view. Just before Leigh shook the match to avoid burning her fingers, she caught a glimpse of the faded letters:

  DYNAMITE.

  “Oh my God! I almost killed us.” Leigh could feel the blood rushing to her face. “Why the hell would they have dynamite just lying around?”

  “My guess would be to remove tree stumps.” Sam ducked down to the box and began rummaging around. “I’m not sure.”

  His sentence ended with a loud crack, and a dim blue light appeared in his hands. Leigh watched as the light’s intensity grew and took the shape of a rod.

  “Here,” Sam said, handing her the glow stick. “I’ll trade you.”

  Leigh accepted it and silently wished she had seen the pile of glow sticks resting at the bottom of the box herself. Leigh handed over her “flare,” which Sam shoved in his back pocket.

  “I’ll hang onto this,” he said grinning. “Just to be safe.”

  Leigh looked to the floor, ashamed.

  “I’m just teasing, Leigh.”

  “I know. But you got us in here, got the radio working, and then found us some light. Me? I almost blew us up. So sue me if I feel like an asshole. I can’t help it. You must think I’m retarded.”

  Sam cracked himself another glow stick. “First of all, I threw a rock through a window, flicked a switch, and dug to the bottom of a cardboard box. Wow, that’s so impressive. And for the record, I don’t think you’re retarded. I think you’re—”

  Leigh looked into Sam’s eyes. He paused.

  “—really cool.”

  “Cool?” she replied, and burst out laughing.

  Jesus Christ. Maybe I really am a ditz.

  But Sam seemed to be the embarrassed one. “What can I say? No one ever accused me of being suave.”

  “You could’ve fooled me.”

  “Oh really? Then I guess I’d better do this before you wise up.”

  While he came in fast, his kiss was soft and gentle. It took Leigh a moment to register what was happening, but as she felt his lips caressing hers, reality hit her in all of its thrilling ecstasy. Though they had consumed it hours ago, Sam’s breath still smelled of jerky, but Leigh didn’t care. She figured the same taste was lingering in her own mouth, and Sam didn’t seem to notice.

  As Leigh gave into the surge of pleasure coursing through her body, she shut her eyes to savor the sensuous moment. But it was not darkness that Leigh saw behind her closed eyelids.

  It was Eliza—cowering, crying, and begging for help.

  Leigh’s eyes popped open. She threw her palms into Sam’s shoulders and pushed. He threw his hands up.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  Leigh waved her hand. “No, it’s okay. It’s just—”

  Sam cut her off. “We should get on the radio.”

  “Right.”

  It was all Leigh could say.

  Sam turned away and walked over to the radio, leaving Leigh standing there, trying to control the electric current running through her body.

  God, what is wrong with me? What the hell was I just doing?

  Taking a deep breath, Leigh could feel her head reattaching itself to her shoulders.

  Okay, time to return to Earth. Your friend needs you.

  A moment later, Sam was wearing the radio’s headphones and repeating into the microphone, “Can anyone hear me?” and “We need help, please respond.” She felt uncomfortable just standing around and doing nothing, so Leigh decided to check out the remaining space of the room. Perhaps she could find something useful this time, preferably something that wouldn’t blow them to kingdom come.

  Using the glow stick as a torch, Leigh approached the wall to her right and examined the bulletin boards covering the walls. Most of the papers pinned to the boards were pamphlets and advisory messages that covered a myriad of topics: forest fire threat levels, warnings not to bring in outside firewood, a memo concerning a migrating beetle species that could bring severe damage to local tree life—none of the information seemed particularly helpful to their current situation.

  Then Leigh came to another bulletin board, this one encased in glass. It seemed that while the other boards were for news and messages, this one was being used as a gallery. Several four-by-six photographs of different rangers were pinned across the board, cameos of men performing different occupational tasks. A humorous postcard lay crooked in the bottom corner that depicted a bunch of sheep blocking a tractor: a “Vermont traffic jam.”

  But what really caught Leigh’s attention was a series of old newspaper clippings arranged in chronological order. Although the paper was yellowed and the ink had slightly faded, Leigh was still able to make out the capitalized headlines and the black-and-white photos that accompanied each one. The first article read:

  DISEASED TREES CREATE PRODUCTION DELAYS AT SAWMILL.

  These words rested on top of a picture of a group of grumpy-looking mill workers who stood with their arms folded across their chests. They all stared down at a fallen tree, completely covered in moss.

  Leigh read the next article headline:

  MYSTERIOUS DISEASE THREATENS PERMANENT MILL CLOSURE.

  This time, a dead white-tailed deer lay at the feet of a mill worker, its tongue hanging from its mouth. Spread across its entire body, including its eyes, were patches of fungus. The mill worker standing above it wore a white surgical mask and long rubber gloves.

  The final clipping was the worst of all.

  SAWMILL CLOSES DUE TO WILDLIFE EPIDEMIC.

  The accompanying picture was similar to the last but for a single, drastic, difference: instead of a dead animal, a man now lay on the ground. Though a sheet covered most of his body, it failed to conceal the fingers of his left hand that poked out from underneath the material. By the looks of the man’s fungus-covered digits alone, one could tell his condition was identical to that of the dying hunter Leigh and Sam had stumbled upon in the woods earlier. She could easily picture what the rest of the body under the sheet must look like, covered in fuzzy mold from head to toe, like expired meat wrapped in a rotten burrito…

  She gagged at the connection of this man to food.

  “Damn it!”

  Leigh’s feet practically left the ground at the sound of Sam’s cursing. She turned to see him tearing the headphones from his ears and throwing them at the radio’s frequency display.

  “I can’t get anyone to respond.”

  Leigh took one final glance at the horrific picture. “Did you try more than one frequency?”

  “I tried a few,” Sam said. “But this note says what frequency is the ranger headquarters. And no one is picking up.”

  “Well, it’s getting pretty late. Maybe they all went home.”

  “Maybe,” Sam grumbled as he pushed his chair back and stood up. “I guess all we can do now is turn on the emergency distress signal.” He pointed to a switch labeled as such. After giving it a flip, a series of beeps began to sound on repeat.

  “Morse code,” Sam said to himself.

  Leigh listened to the string of beeps. “Do you know what it’s saying? Is it SOS?”

  Sam shrugged his shoulders. “No clue. But it doesn’t really matter. It could be ordering us a Big Mac and large fries, but the important thing is that someone hear
s it eventually. I’m sure they’ll send someone to investigate when they finally get back.”

  “So what now? Do you think we should wait?”

  Sam removed his Expos cap and wiped his brow. It was hard to know for sure what was making him sweat, the Indian summer night or the tense state of current affairs. Or maybe he was still hot and bothered from what had occurred a few moments ago. Leigh was beginning to feel a little warm herself just thinking about Sam’s tongue running along the backside of her upper lip.

  “No.” For a second, Leigh thought Sam had somehow read her thoughts and was denying her wish to relive their necking session. “We don’t know how long it’ll take them to respond, and I don’t feel right about leaving Rob and Eliza all by themselves for too long.”

  “You’re right.” Leigh blinked a few times to shake the steamy memories still fixated in her brain. “So how about we leave a note for whoever comes here next? Tell them to come to the cabin and bring help?”

  “Good idea. Let’s find a pen.”

  It didn’t take long to find a writing instrument, as well as a discarded weather advisory report. Sam turned the piece of scrap paper over and scribbled their location and a request for help.

  “There, it’s done.”

  “Great,” Leigh said, walking toward the door. “Then let’s get out of here.”

  Sam didn’t follow her and instead walked over to the stack of cardboard boxes. “Okay, just let me see if I can find some flashlights. It’s getting pitch black out there.”

  Leigh went to unlock the front door. She brought the glow stick toward the latch that had previously caused them so much trouble.

  Just as the bolt slid out of the lock with a click, the door flew open, coming within centimeters of slamming Leigh’s nose. Her startled scream was cut short when she realized who was standing in the doorway.

  “Rob!” Leigh gave him her most incredulous stare. “What the fuck?”

  “Sorry,” Rob said. His voice shook, his eyes locked for some reason on Sam. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Sam stood up from his kneeling position by the stack of boxes. He gripped a flashlight in each hand, one the large lantern type and the other a long metal kind usually used by highway troopers. “How’d you find us?” he asked, walking over to join them.