“Rocky, we need an ambulance, now. Someone has bashed Isaac Sherman on the head. He’s here on the trail. I’m going to keep moving forward.”
“Got it,” Rocky said. “Go.”
Griffin hesitated, moving away. “Are you close?”
“Yes.”
“Stay ahead of the med techs and others. I don’t know what’s going on. I believe that there might be someone following behind me. Keep close.”
“Gotcha.”
Griffin checked Isaac’s airway; the man was breathing on his own. He stayed hunkered down, trying to figure out how the hell he’d wound up where he was, beaten down on the path. The forest created such a strange darkness.
And finally, against the brush and the rocks and the shadows, Griffin saw a shape.
He drew his gun, and pointed it. “Get up, now. Show yourself.”
The shape began to rise. Slowly. And then he saw that it did, indeed, have human form.
“It’s not what you think. I didn’t do that,” the shape said. “I’ve been hiding. They used me. They knew that...that I wanted Jehovah so badly. I didn’t do it... I didn’t hurt that man. I didn’t want to be in the truck.”
It was Milton Hanson walking toward him. He was carrying a massive branch; Griffin couldn’t tell if it did or didn’t have blood on it.
“Drop it!” he told the man.
Hanson did. And, as he did, someone rushed through the trees, moving with strength and fury, coming straight at Griffin.
*
Vickie was so relieved that she began shaking.
She couldn’t let the girl see her shake. But Carly came back to where Vickie waited, wearing her red cloak and conical hat and mask.
Once in the trees, she began to divest herself of it as quickly as she could.
“Never, oh, God, never, never do I want to have this on me again! I don’t know why I believed. It was the stuff he gave us. It was so good and I was so happy here, for a while.”
“It doesn’t matter now. Go—just go. Quickly. Help is coming, really. They can’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes behind me. Head out, head toward Route 9. Do you understand me?” Vickie asked her.
The girl nodded vigorously.
She impulsively hugged Vickie.
Then she turned and ran.
Vickie struggled quickly into the red outfit, making sure that her conical hat was on properly and that it allowed for the scarf-like face mask to fall well and conceal her face.
A mirror would have helped! she thought.
Then again, a nice big gun would have helped more!
She straightened herself and her clothing.
Then she walked out from her hiding place in the trees, straight toward the sacrificial table.
*
Griffin didn’t want to shoot; the sound would alert anyone nearby that someone with firepower was in the woods.
So he stepped aside, and the blurry figure coming at him pitched headfirst into one of the trees behind him before falling prone, jumping up, trying for Griffin again.
Easily enough, Griffin caught him by the shoulders, dragged him up and nearly belted him in the jaw.
“You!” Charlie Oakley gasped.
There was a rush of sound behind them.
Milton Hanson was trying to escape. Griffin rushed after him, tackled him and brought him down to the ground.
“That bastard! He was in the woods ahead of us! He attacked Isaac,” Charlie said.
“No!”
Milton Hanson was beneath Griffin then, protesting. “No, no, you don’t understand. They kidnapped me. They seized me when I was hiking through the woods. They threw me in a cell. Oh, Lord! It’s still there. The Mariana Institute is there—the asylum! From the 1800s! That’s how no one knows...because no one goes there. The woods here, so dense...” He broke off. “I swear to you, I swear to you. I was kidnapped! I was taken. He’s going for anyone—anyone at all who might be able to figure out Ezekiel Martin’s rite or message or whatever...to find Jehovah!”
Griffin looked back. Charlie Oakley leaned against a tree, panting.
Griffin reached into his pocket for a set of plastic zip-tie cuffs; he put them on Milton Hanson.
He pulled out his phone, but this time he couldn’t get a signal.
Rocky would figure out where he was.
“Where is it?” he demanded, the rage and urgency in his voice enough to make Hanson flinch.
“That way. Keep following. It winds... They used me! They put me in the car on purpose. You were supposed to see me, I think, and kill me. Satan...he’s Satan. You have to see him. I don’t know who, I just know that...”
Griffin left Hanson cuffed and lying on the path. He turned around, but Charlie Oakley was already gone.
Griffin kept moving forward, dodging here and there, trying to ascertain just what was part of the path and what winding trail took him farther away.
Then he nearly tripped over another body.
He bent down.
It was a man. Another man. He felt for a pulse...yes. Slight.
He rose. He had to leave the man. No choice. He had to pray that Rocky and Devin and EMT help would reach him in time, as well.
He knew the killer.
And he knew he had to hurry.
*
The first thing she had to do, Vickie reckoned, was get Helena and Alex off the table.
They were both so weak...
She wasn’t at all sure how she was going to manage such a task. But, of course, Milton Hanson was back on the ground somewhere. Nothing could happen until he showed up. Their grand master, high priest or head man—whatever!
And still, she felt the frantic urge to get them out of there.
She thought desperately, and then she raised her arms high and started walking straight out into the middle of the clearing, toward the table.
She thought of all the Latin she had learned in church when she’d been young—and she thought of the spattering of languages she’d learned during her years of study.
She wasn’t really sure what she said.
She tried to make it sound as if she was preparing the two people for a grand offering.
She was pretty sure that what she was really saying had to do with buying chicken soup and bread in the market.
Nevertheless...
She’d gambled well. People, clad in their similar red robes, were milling about, preparing to come out for the rite. Three...four...seven. She counted about eight young men and women, and she was quite certain that more were in the building.
Help was coming; she held on to the idea that help was coming.
She made her way around the table. She stood behind it. She kept up with her flow of Latin, staring at the man who was behind the table, the one who had the knife.
She reached for the knife.
To her tremendous relief, he handed it to her.
She raised it over Helena and Alex. She kept up with a dramatic flow of babble.
She was pretty sure she was asking where to find the train for Rome at that point.
She saw that Alex was staring up at her. His expression was troubled and bewildered at first; then it was incredulous.
Alex had figured it out. Alex knew it was her.
She nodded slightly. “Si deve andare!” she said, using contemporary Italian to tell him that he must go.
But with his eyes, Alex indicated Helena. He wasn’t going anywhere without her.
Vickie nodded again.
Once more, she raised her voice. She made a massive display, waving the knife around over the two of them, and then she began to chant.
“Arise! Arise! Arise!”
She knew that it took every ounce of strength in Alex, but he rose. And, as he did so, he caught Helena’s arms, so that they seemed to rise together.
“Arise and go before us. Go into the forest. Go! And as he commands, see to the pleasures of the flesh, open the way for these, his faithful!” She had no idea what she was saying then, but it seemed she needed something for them to be doing.
The way the two stumbled, she thought, hot Satanic sex was probably out of the question, but she was pretty sure that wanton fornicating was probably part of the rich rewards promised, and sending the two of them off as if they were an evil Adam and Eve might just be the ticket.
She kept talking. She watched them go.
They staggered away.
“The time is coming! Take this time! Find what you will! Find who you will!”