The Remedy Read online

  “You can start kissing my ass at anytime,” Alex said victoriously.

  “Honey,” Marshall said, his voice lowering, “I’d like to do way more than that to you right now. And there isn’t a single person around to see.”

  Alex returned his hungry stare with her own seductive glance. But it vanished the next instant, replaced by sobering reason. “When we get back, maybe I’ll let you redeem yourself. But right now we don’t have time.” She let go of the sign, returning it to the engulfing weeds. “In the meantime, be sure to get that tongue of yours ready. It has a lot of work ahead of it.”

  “I’ll start on my exercises,” Marshall joked, extending a hand out to help Alex back onto the dirt road. With her palm securely in his grip, he yanked her forward, embracing her with a passionate open-mouth kiss. Alex wasted no time invading his mouth, her tongue expertly wrestling his own. His hand found its way to her left breast, kneading the lovely flesh through her 36D-sized bra. But Alex started to push herself away from Marshall just as the pressure began to build in his groin, despite how badly she clearly wanted him.

  “Wait,” she whispered between gasps of pleasure, “Let’s not get into it. We have to get to the others.”

  Marshall sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” It wasn’t easy releasing the girl from his fondling hands, but at least no one was around to notice the circus tent that had become of his pants. It dawned on him, however, that an embarrassing boner was the least of his concerns right now.

  “So, you found the sign, that’s great. But where’s the road?”

  Alex brushed her hair back, apparently not concerned. “It’s obvious the sign’s been cut down and thrown here. So that means we must have passed it.”

  Marshall’s fists tightened when he realized he had to concede. “I guess without the sign we couldn’t see the road through all this tall grass.” He took a deep breath. “I guess we have to…go back.”

  Alex’s hand slapped the right cheek of his ass. He flinched, feeling the sting of her hand through his jeans. “Just like I said.” She licked his earlobe. “You know, you’re lucky I don’t have a dick or you’d be sucking it right now.”

  “Let’s just go, okay?”

  “I thought you’d never ask!”

  The couple joined hands and started to walk back toward the van, the bickering now a thing of the past. Swinging arms, Alex continued to tease him for being wrong while Marshall ignored her playful pestering and ruminated on the physically dependent state of their relationship.

  We were at each other’s throats only a minute ago. But one quick round of grab-ass and look at us: right as rain.

  Was this really the extent of his capability to maintain a steady relationship? He swore he’d never end up like his parents—divorced over their mutual selfish search to find the greatest sex on earth. With his mid-twenties right around the corner, Marshall had enough experience to know that sex never differed that greatly. If discovering a new bedroom trick here and there was all he needed, he wouldn’t have been bothered by the one-dimensional personalities his partners always seemed to have. Moving away from home was supposed to have changed all that, a chance to find someone far from the empty-headed bimbos that followed him around the beach. But perhaps there were some things you couldn’t get away from. Maybe shallowness wasn’t a product of poor nurturing. It could be genetic, like when the rotten genes that caused alcoholism jumped from one generation to the next.

  If that’s the case, I’m fucked. No pun intended.

  “What’s wrong, honey?”

  The concern in Alex’s voice wrenched Marshall from the bowels of his grim daydream, his heart instantly warmed by the look of genuine concern on his girlfriend’s face.

  “Don’t feel bad about missing the turn,” she said, her slender arm snaking its way around his. “I made you feel bad, didn’t I?” Her voice took on a babyish tone as she circled one finger across his chest.

  “Nah, it’s okay.”

  “I hope so. Because I’d be a mess without you. You know that, right?”

  Marshall did not. In fact, this was one of the few times he’d seen her display true devotion.

  “You’re more to me than just a pair of dreamy eyes and a handsome face,” she continued. “If that’s all I wanted, I’d probably be dating Rob.” She made a gagging noise. “God. Puke.”

  That was all Marshall needed to hear. His folks’ marital troubles might have done a number on him, but as he lovingly stared at his girlfriend, he began to think that just maybe he had a shot at a meaningful, long-term relationship…

  This feeling lasted the entire walk back to the van. Then, it disappeared, blown away by the summer breeze after one look at their lopsided vehicle.

  “Alex,” he muttered, “Please. Please tell me I’m not seeing this right.”

  She was silent. The van was tilted at a severe angle, the driver’s side headlight drastically lower than the rest of the car’s body. It didn’t take a mechanic to realize that one of the front tires was as flat as flat can get.

  This time, Marshall didn’t bother taking a deep breath or repeating one of the soothing expressions his stepfather had passed down to him. Instead, his voice echoed against the tall trees and between the rolling green mountains.

  “How the fuck did this happen?!”

  Alex seemed to remain considerably calmer as she assessed the situation. To her, the answer seemed obvious enough. “You must have hit a sharp rock or something. These back roads are terrible.”

  Marshall ignored her theory and jogged over to the damaged wheel, which was leaking the last of its remaining air with a devastating hissing sound. Marshall immediately spotted the culprit glinting in the little sunlight that remained. With one vigorous tug, but Marshall was able to remove the object, ripping away some small chunks of rubber from the tire as well.

  Alex was standing a few feet away near the vehicle’s taillights.

  “What is it?”

  Marshall slowly stood up, eyes glued to the thing resting in his palm. He walked over to Alex, grabbed her right wrist, and gently placed the cold, metal object in her hand.

  It was a circular saw blade the size of a compact disc, the points of its jagged teeth digging into her fingers.

  Chapter 6

  Beneath the canopy of the interweaving leaves and evergreen needles, Leigh hadn’t noticed the rate at which the sun was fading until it had completely vanished behind an impenetrable wall of threatening gray clouds. Sam came to a dead stop ahead of her and looked up with a worried grimace.

  “Uh-oh,” he said through gritted teeth. “Looks like we may get a little wet.”

  Leigh looked as well. The sky had become colorless.

  Leigh frowned. “I hope you’re right when you say ‘a little.’ By the looks of it, seems like may get drenched. How far do we have left to go?”

  “It’s still a little ways. We could get lucky, though. It may hold off.”

  Though the seemingly immortal pessimist who lived inside Leigh had her own thoughts on the subject, she was able to reply with a pretty convincing “Fingers crossed,” before Eliza yelled from behind.

  “You guys! Look at me!”

  The couple turned to see Eliza holding up a digital camera to her eye. Leigh didn’t have a chance to adjust her hair or even smile before she was blinded by a flash of white light.

  “Oh, thanks Eliza,” she said, trying to rub away the floating white dots that hovered in her vision. “I’m sure that will be a good one.”

  Rob, who had stopped to retie the laces of his black Converses, jogged up to Eliza’s side and shook his head when he saw the camera in her hands. “I can’t believe you brought that thing. Don’t you already have enough embarrassing photos of us to put on Facebook?”

  Eliza’s retort was a point-blank flash right into his eyes. Rob blindly tried to snatch the pink camera from her grasp, but she evaded his swipe with a quick sidestep, giggling the entire time.

  “C’mon, you
guys,” she said, backing up to take a group shot of her three companions. “When else are we ever going to find ourselves smuggling pot through the woods? These are memories, people!” Her finger pressed down on the shutter button with an audible click. “Besides, it’s so beautiful here!”

  Sam nodded. “You guys did choose a good time to travel through this way, while the summer’s still holding on.”

  “We didn’t ‘choose’ anything,” Rob muttered, taking the lead as he pushed his way in between Sam and Leigh. “Labor Day was just our last chance before school started.”

  Leigh let Rob walk ahead and didn’t bothering commenting that he didn’t know the way. Instead, she turned to Sam and asked, “What day does your semester start?”

  Sam hesitated, biting his lip. “Actually, JCV’s fall semester is already in session. We began August 25.”

  “So why were you home? Did you get Labor Day off?”

  “Not exactly.” Sam’s voice lowered. “I’m at the end of serving a campus suspension.”

  Rob stopped in his tracks and spun a sneakered heel. “Hey, now!” Despite Sam’s best effort to keep the comment between himself and Leigh, Rob’s keen ears had picked up every word. “Things just got a little more interesting! All right, Sam, let’s hear it.”

  Even in the dim light, Leigh could see the red blossoming in Sam’s cheeks. “It’s nothing, really,” he said. But Leigh knew from experience that Rob wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easy.

  “Sam…”

  Leigh stepped in front of him. “He obviously doesn’t want to get into it. So let’s just leave him alone.”

  “No, it’s all right.” Sam pulled on the brim of his cap, a nonchalant gesture that Leigh couldn’t help but notice helped conceal his eyes. “Let’s just say I was defending the honor of a lady…and I may have gone a little too far.”

  Rob gave Sam an approving slap on the back and shook him playfully. “Sammy! Kicking ass for the ladies! How chivalrous. Fuckin’ Knights of the Round Table and shit.”

  “Ha,” Sam gave a forced, unenthusiastic laugh. “No, it was nothing like that. Just a brief loss of control that I’ve paid dearly for.”

  Leigh gently placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  He returned her gesture with a warm smile. “Thanks, but it’s in the past. And believe me, I won’t ever make the same mistake.” He seemed momentarily lost in the troubling memory, but with a shake of his head pulled himself back. “Let’s keep going.”

  “Lead the way, Sir Sam,” Rob said. Usually, Rob’s sarcasm bothered Leigh to no end, but she found this comment quite comforting. All it took was one vague fight story to turn Sam into “one of the guys.”

  Leigh looked back down the trail to see that Eliza had wandered a little off the path to take a picture of two squirrels chasing each other up a tree. She circled the trunk, trying to catch the rodents in a still frame.

  “Eliza!” Leigh shouted. “Let’s go!” Her loud voice froze the squirrels in their dance; they became statues at the threat of a nearby predator. It was just the moment Eliza was waiting for. With a quick zoom in on their furry faces, she was able to capture a succession of perfectly framed pictures.

  The squirrels eventually finished their frenzied race up the tree and galloped off across the awning of tangled branches and leaves, leaving Eliza satisfied for having captured such a spontaneous moment. Snapping the cap back on her lens, she ran to catch up to her friends.

  She reached Rob first and was just about to wrap her hands around his eyes and whisper “Guess who?” when he walked through and then let go a thin branch stretching out into the middle of the path. The branch whipped back at Eliza, lashing the flesh of her neck just below her jaw.

  “Ow!” she shrieked as the scratch created a line of stinging pain that coursed across her skin.

  Leigh twirled around at the sound of Eliza’s cry. She saw her friend holding a hand to her neck and a mixture of hurt and anger welling in her eyes.

  “Rob!” Eliza took a swing at her boyfriend. Her knuckles just brushed his collarbone. “Shit, that really hurt!”

  “Damn.” Even Rob seemed surprised at his own carelessness. “I’m sorry, babe. I had no idea you were behind me.”

  Eliza didn’t seem at all impressed with Rob’s apology. “You should be more careful!”

  “It was an accident!”

  After having witnessed quite a number of their previous fights, Leigh knew the bickering would only escalate if someone didn’t intervene right away. Pushing Rob aside, Leigh approached Eliza and coaxed her to remove her hand from the wound. The cut was clean and very shallow—more of a long, red mark than an actual laceration.

  “It looks fine,” Leigh said, relieved. “It just scratched you is all.”

  “Still hurt,” Eliza grumbled, returning her hand to the tender flesh.

  “Is she okay?” Sam had made his way over to Leigh’s side and inspected Eliza’s neck.

  “She’s fine. I think we’re good to go.”

  “Yeah,” Eliza agreed, and with a hard jab to Rob’s ribs added, “But I’m walking in front of you from now on!”

  “Fine!”

  Rob’s voice was completely drowned out by a deafening rumble of thunder that erupted from above.

  Sam’s shoulders sank. “Here it comes.”

  As if Sam were a biblical prophet, the weather obeyed his proclamation in an instant. The sky opened and the rain began to fall, starting as a gentle trickle that became a steady downpour in mere seconds. Rob and Eliza’s argument was already forgotten as everyone’s soaked clothing began to stick to their bodies.

  Under the dripping brim of his trucker’s hat, Rob mumbled perhaps the first thing that Leigh had ever completely agreed with:

  “This sucks.”

  The trees initially provided them protection from the downpour, but soon the small clusters of leaves provided by the ash and maple trees wasn’t keeping them even remotely dry.

  Leigh was just about to ask Sam if he had any ideas that might save them from walking the rest of the way in a thunderstorm when he spoke up and offered the drowning foursome a life raft.

  “If you guys want, I know a nearby deer camp we could hole up at till the rain passes.”

  Eliza stuffed her camera into the pocket of her jeans to protect it from water damage. “How nearby?”

  Sam pointed to a bend in the trail several yards ahead. “It’s coming right up on the trail. If we hurry, I think we can make it there before it really starts to come down.”

  “Then what are standing around here for?” The deafening percussion of raindrops was making Rob’s voice, like all of theirs, very hard to hear.

  Leigh considered the tempting proposition but realized there might be one problem. “What about the owners? They won’t mind?”

  As miserable as she was, Leigh had no desire to add trespassing to the day’s itinerary. She was, after all, already involved with international drug smuggling, and one crime per day was more than enough.

  But then Sam shook his head. “No, it’s okay. They won’t be there.”

  “How do you know that? Isn’t it hunting season?”

  “They’re dead,” Sam said, and nothing more.

  “Well then,” Eliza said, breaking the momentary silence. “In that case, I’m in.”

  “You know I am,” Rob added.

  Leigh exchanged glances with her company, realizing that her vote was the only one remaining. She was already involved with drug smuggling. Did she want to add trespassing on top of that? But as more and more large, icy cold raindrops landed on Leigh’s neck, she made up her mind.

  “I suppose we don’t have a choice. Alex and Marshall will just have to wait a little longer.”

  “Then let’s get moving,” Sam said, taking steps forward. “The worst of this downpour has yet to come.”

  The rest of the group followed, single file. Leigh brought up the rear, walking directly behind Eliza, who was now li
ghtly raking her fingers horizontally across her fresh cut.

  “I wouldn’t touch that,” Leigh warned. “You’ll get it dirty.”

  Eliza stopped and turned to face Leigh, a look of excruciating discomfort distorting her face. “I know, but I can’t help it,” Eliza whined. “It really itches.”

  “Just hold on a few more minutes. I’ll help you clean it when we get to this cabin, or whatever it is.”

  Eliza nodded and reluctantly removed her hand from her neck. But before she turned back to continue the hike, Leigh’s head jerked, what she saw on her friend’s skin causing her to do a double-take.

  To Leigh’s amazement, it looked as if the cut had already started to show signs of infection. The flesh surrounding the laceration was discolored, a few shades darker than the rest of Eliza’s throat. But the abnormal coloration didn’t at all resemble the usual pinkish hue of agitated tissue. Even red or purple splotching, though probably a call for concern, would’ve been less alarming: what Leigh saw was startling enough to draw her eyebrows up to her hairline and leave her mouth hanging open.

  Eliza’s skin was tinted green. Green.

  Leigh inhaled to say something about her peculiar observation, but decided to shut her mouth about it instead. It had only been a glance, and her perception of the color spectrum must be suffering as a result of the stormy skies.

  Satisfied with this logic, Leigh followed her three companions to the safe haven of a dry shelter, convinced she’d been mistaken.

  Chapter 7

  Frigid water numbed all five of Marshall’s toes as his sandaled foot fell into another rain-filled pothole. He and Alex trudged along in search of Miller’s Road, their feet making wet, squishy noises with every step.

  It was hard to believe how drastically the tables had turned on Marshall Thomas. It felt like only minutes ago that he had been basking in the celebration of having a van to shield him from the elements while Rob and the others miserably marched through the drenching, autumn rainstorm. Now here he was: on foot as well and probably getting even wetter than the rest of his friends since he didn’t have any tree branches to provide protection from the falling rain. And damn it all to hell, they still had that weed, too. All he had was a girlfriend so furious she was making PMS look like a good mood.