Something snaps in the distance, and I flinch, scanning the darkness. Leaves rustle, and then I hear the scrabble of tiny claws on a trunk.
“Coon probably. Maybe a possum,” Lucas says. “They come out at night.”
I don’t talk about who else could come out at night, but we’re both thinking it.
Far in the distance, something calls in a rhythm. Once. Twice. Low and long in a way that makes me think human.
“Do you think…?” I ask him.
“An owl again? That one we heard made crazy noises.”
When we hear it again, he doesn’t look so sure. It’s two-toned and too low to be a bird, and it’s coming from the direction we came. Through the pass between the mountains, I think. I can’t think of any animal that could make a noise like this. It sounds human.
It sounds like my name.
I stand up, knocking over my almost-empty water bottle.
Lucas saves it fast and rests a light hand on my leg. “Relax. Mr. Walker wouldn’t go through all this stalking just to start screaming for us, right?”
I try to smile and ignore the cold sweat breaking under my arms as Lucas stretches and tightens the caps on the water. We’re just moving when the noise comes again.
I clamp a hand over Lucas’s arm because it is my name. Someone is calling my name.
“Do you hear that?”
He stops, and I can tell by his expression he did hear. I bite my lip and feel a mosquito puncture the back of my arm.
“Sera! Emily! Lucas! Jude!”
My blood frosts over in my veins. It’s him—Mr. Walker.
Chapter 25
Lucas doesn’t say a word—just grabs my good hand and starts marching. We’re going faster than before, sloshing across ground that feels marshy. I smell old rain and rot, but it fades as we climb. Another mountain—we’re heading up diagonally—and my legs are burning. Aching.
“Sera! Emily!”
I bite down a whimper and speed up. Mr. Walker’s closer now. Below, I can hear the occasional thump of a footstep. God, can he hear us too? Lucas is silent as he climbs, but I’m panting too loud. My thighs shake with every step. I’m terrified I’ll collapse and roll down this dark mountainside. And Mr. Walker will be waiting for me at the bottom with permanent markers and a knife.
I let go of Lucas’s arm to grab at the trees, hauling myself up even though every muscle is shuddering. I have to get over this ridge because…because if I don’t, I’m giving up. One step. Another. Another.
“Hey! Hello! If you can hear me, make some noise!”
Mr. Walker sounds a bit farther north of us now. He’s continuing on the way we were going to go. But whatever, he’s moving away, and thank God because I cannot take one more step. I cling to the tree, and the pain screams across my wound. I’m sucking air so hard, I can’t tell Lucas to wait. He sees I’ve stopped. Maybe he can’t go either.
Again, Mr. Walker calls our names, one after the next like he’s doing a roll call. He sounds desperate.
Lucas moves closer and looks up the steep mountainside and then back at me. Is he thinking of carrying me? Please. He’s sheet-white and soaked in sweat already.
Mr. Walker hollers again. “If you can hear me, stay where you are. I’m coming for you.”
I shudder and watch Lucas’s throat jump when he swallows. Funny he would use those words—rescuer words. Is he using them to lure us in? Lucas nods up at the mountain again, and I shake my head. My legs weigh two thousand pounds. Two million pounds. I am sinking into this forest floor, waiting for Mr. Walker to come for me.
“Sera, we have to keep going,” Lucas says.
“He’s going to get to the road first.” The whisper comes out of me on the edge of a sob. “He’ll cut us off. I can’t keep going.”
“Yes, you can,” he says, and then his hands are on my face, and he’s smiling at me like I’m chickening out on a ride at the fair. “It’s a big road. We’ll find another part of it. No option, right? The show must go on. Isn’t that what you people say?”
My fumbling step forward is my answer. It’s not easy going. We scrabble our way up, tree by tree, root by root. It’s so slow that it’s laughable, but the next time Mr. Walker calls, his voice is a distant echo to the north.
We reach a small clearing at the top, and Lucas waits, searching through the darkness for some indication that things are going right. I watch too, seeing nothing but a hazy white moon overhead and the veiled blinking of countless stars. The forest slopes down below us, and a cloud drifts away from the moon.
I see something. Something pale in the woods. I go very still, scanning the trees carefully. Nothing, nothing, and then I find it again. Pale and Twinkie-shaped and almost but not quite swallowed by the forest.
I clutch at Lucas’s shirt and point down the slope. He follows my line of vision, and I can see the moment he spots it. His wide shoulders tense, and a low breath comes out of him.
“What do you think that is?” I ask.