CHAPTER TEN

After dropping away from the others, Lander had doubled back. He’d paid close attention to the landmarks, earlier, hoping to find his way to the girl’s body.

Soon, he reached a fallen aspen he recognized. Its roots were exposed, as if it had been ripped from the ground like a weed. He stepped past its high clump of roots, and past the pit they’d left in the earth. Just ahead, he should find the tree where the girl had waited and attacked and died.

He hurried through a thicket, and found the tree.

The girl was gone.

For a while, he wandered through the darkness. Perhaps he had misjudged, slightly. After all, one tree looks pretty much like another. He crisscrossed the area. He backtracked to the uprooted aspen and tried again. Finally, he gave up. Either he was totally lost, or the girl’s body had been taken away.

She was dead?

Had to be. The bullet took her direcdy between the breasts.

He dropped to his knees where she must have fallen, and patted the ground cover. The dead twigs and leaves were wet. Blood, or only dew? He held his hands close to his face. In the dark, he couldn’t see whether the wetness was blood. He made a tight fist. As he slowly opened the hand, he felt a slight stickiness. He licked his palm, and tasted the salty flavor of blood. The realization made him gag.

He crawled backward, away from the wet patch of ground. Then he remembered his reason for seeking out the place of death. He began to paw the ground, raking aside the litter of the nearby trees and bushes. Soggy leaves clung to his fingers. A thorn scratched the back of his hand. A worm curled around his forefinger. And then he found it. The girl’s knife.

Flung from her hand as she was hit, the knife had swept sideways, burying itself under a layer of leafy debris.

The curved handle fit snugly in Lander’s grip. The blade was at least seven inches long. Standing, he pushed it under his belt.

He wished he’d kept that old gal’s machete, a much more formidable weapon than this knife.

Thinking about the machete brought back what happened in the clearing. For a few seconds, the memory of the carnage paralyzed him. He forced himself to concentrate on Ruth.

He had to find her.

Somehow.

But where do you look?

He didn’t know, so he headed back toward the clearing. It was where he’d last seen her; it seemed like the best place to start looking.

He ran until he was winded, then walked. Once his breath was back, he began running again.

At last, he saw moonlight through the trees ahead. He moved the last few yards quietly, pressed himself to the dewy trunk of a tree, and found himself at the edge of the field. The bodies were gone.

Beyond the row of dead trees where he and the others had been shackled, he saw movement. Two figures were slowly heading toward the far side of the field.

Ruth had disappeared in the opposite direction. But maybe these creatures–these people–had a gathering place in common. It was possible. Even likely. Better to follow these than to wander the forest aimlessly.

If he moved directly across the clearing, they’d be sure to see him. He might lose them, though, circling around to stay out of view.

He needed a way to conceal himself, a way to turn invisible…

’The Purloined Letter, ’ he muttered.

His heart raced. Good old Poe.

In seconds, Lander had stripped down to his boxer shorts. He hesitated, then, reluctant to remove them. But he didn’t have a choice. Not if he wanted to look like one of the enemy, blend in, become invisible and safe. Quickly, he pulled them off.

He left his clothes behind, keeping only the knife, and stepped into the open. The figures across the field were still heading away. He ran toward the dead trees, watching the pair. It hurt to run naked. He wanted to clutch his genitals to stop them from slapping his legs, but it would look conspicuous.

You’ve got to blend in, he warned himself. Look like they do, act like they do. They don’t hold their balls when they run.

He changed his stride to an awkward, wide‑ legged lope. After experimenting, he found a more comfortable rhythm. His penis still swung wildly, but his testicles didn’t get battered so much.

As he neared the row of dead trees, he saw the Krulls stop. Were they watching him? He trotted in a circle around two of the trees, looking at the ground as if searching for something. He glanced at the distant figures. They remained motionless.

Approaching the nearest tree, Lander began to urinate. He looked toward the others. They turned away, and continued toward the woods. The two, he now realized, were dragging a third. Taking a body somewhere?

Soon, they vanished into the trees. Lander rushed across the field to the place where he’d last seen them. He ducked under low‑ hanging limbs, paused, and listened. He heard movement nearby in the underbrush.

For a long time, he followed the sounds. He tred quietly staying so far behind that he often feared he would lose his quarry. Listening carefully, though, he always detected them again. They were obviously making no attempt to be silent. At times, they even talked. Lander couldn’t make out the words, but from the voices, he guessed that both speakers were females.

Soon, he picked up a new sound, a windy sigh that interfered with the other sounds. Unable to hear the women, he rushed ahead. He ran, hoping that the new noise would mask the sounds of his movements, and suddenly he saw the women in front of him. They were less than a dozen feet away.

Each had the hand of a dead woman–the old gal hacked to death by Lander. They dragged her behind them as they walked. Her weight seemed to give them a lot of trouble.

Neither woman was large: one short and pudgy, the other taller, and lean. The lean one seemed young, perhaps a teenager. Thick light‑ colored hair hung halfway down her back. Low on her hips, she wore a skirt of fur. She carried a lance. The other, who had a furry tail hanging down her rump, carried a machete. Probably the dead woman’s weapon.

As Lander watched, the women tried to pull the body over the trunk of a fallen tree. They grunted and tugged. An upthrust limb blocked the dead woman’s shoulder. Muttering, the lean one let go. Lander found himself looking at her breasts as she hopped off the trunk. He could barely see them in the darkness, but the moonlit glimpses forced a response. The growing erection made him ashamed. He couldn’t look away, though. He watched the girl kick the corpse in frustration, then bow to pick up the legs. As she bent down, the rear of her skirt lifted. Lander supposed she was naked beneath it. Though the darkness prevented him from seeing her buttocks, his penis grew even more stout.

The girl straightened up, clutching the dead legs by the ankles. She lunged toward the fallen tree. The other woman leaped backward, pulling the arms. The body tumbled over the trunk, and disappeared. Lander watched the lean girl climb onto the trunk and jump off.

He waited a moment, then followed. When he caught sight of the women again, they were at the shore of a stream. They talked briefly, and nodded. Then they let go of the body. They put down their weapons. The slim one opened her skirt, and tossed it to the ground. The other untied a narrow strip at her waist, and removed her decorative tail. Side by side, they waded into the water.

The stream, Lander judged, was thirty or forty feet wide. Instead of crossing it, they stopped a few yards offshore where it was hip‑ deep. They splashed themselves, and briefly dunked their heads. Then they began to rub each other.

At first, Lander thought they were simply bathing. Perhaps it started that way. But the brisk rubbing changed to lingering caresses. Their bodies slid together. Their mouths met.

Lander watched them, his erection straining. He felt guilty, as if he were no better than a Peeping Tom. Worse, his excitement seemed like a betrayal of Ruth. How could he stand here, entranced by these women, when Ruth was in danger–possibly in torment?

At this very moment, someone could be raping Ruth.

I could do the same to these, he thought.

He watched the slender one rise to the surface and float on her back. Her legs parted. The other’s head moved between her thighs. The face pressed her groin, and she began to moan.

They’re weaponless. I could kill the grubby one. I could rape the pretty one, then kill her. It would serve them right. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

A rape for a rape.

Watching the moonlit, shiny skin of the slim one, he could almost feel her. The cool, slick flesh. The breasts small and firm, with stiff nipples. The tight hole that gripped his cock as he pushed roughly into her.

God, it would be magnificent!

Such stuff as dreams are made of.

And he could do it, he really could. Already tonight, he’d killed three or four of these people. Why not two more?

Don’t wait. Go in now, while they’re tangled and helpless in their embraces, their bodies heaving with lust. They won’t know what hit them.

What about his plan to follow them?

Ridiculous. They wouldn’t lead him to Ruth. That was wishful thinking, nothing more.

This was real. The chance to have the pretty one. He’d never had such a young, pretty woman.

Probably no older than Cordelia.

He watched her writhe in the water, heard her quick moaning. God, to be able to take her in his arms, push his throbbing cock into her, watch the agony of pleasure twist her face!

He waited, though, unable to force himself to step from behind the thicket, unwilling to attack.

Do it! he told himself. Do it now!

He couldn’t.

He trembled. His erection shrank away.

He was afraid.

Not of the women in the stream.

Afraid of the rapist and killer crouched waiting inside the skin of Lander Dills.