“I told you you were an idiot,” Gretchen said to Magdy. “If you’d been out there when they woke up, we’d be scooping what was left of you into a bucket.”
The two of them started sniping at each other; I turned to look at Enzo, who had turned to face the opposite direction from where the fanties had run. He had his eyes closed but it looked like he was concentrating on something.
“What is it?” I asked.
He opened his eyes, looked at me, and then pointed in the direction he was facing. “The breeze is coming from this direction,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t following him.
“Have you ever gone hunting?” Enzo asked. I shook my head. “We were upwind of the fanties,” he said. “The wind was blowing our scent away from them.” He pointed to where the first fantie to wake up had been. “I don’t think that fantie would have smelled us at all.”
Click. “Okay,” I said. “Now I get it.”
Enzo turned to Magdy and Gretchen. “Guys,” he said. “It’s time to leave. Now.”
Magdy flashed his pocket light at Enzo and seemed ready to say something sarcastic, then caught the expression on Enzo’s face in the pocket light’s circle. “What is it?”
“The fanties didn’t run off because of us,” Enzo said. “I think there’s something else out there. Something that hunts the fanties. And I think it’s coming this way.”
It’s a cliché of horror entertainments to have teenagers lost in the woods, imagining they’re being chased by something horrible that’s right behind them.
And now I know why. If you ever want to feel like you’re on the verge of total, abject bowel-releasing terror, try making your way a klick or two out of a forest, at night, with the certain feeling you’re being hunted. It makes you feel alive, it really does, but not in a way you want to feel alive.
Magdy was in the lead, of course, although whether he was leading because he knew the way back or just because he was running fast enough that the rest of us had to chase him was up for debate. Gretchen and I followed, and Enzo took up the rear. Once I slowed down to check on him and he waved me off. “Stay with Gretchen,” he said. Then I realized that he was intentionally staying behind us so whatever might be following us would have to get through him first. I would have kissed him right then if I hadn’t been a quivering mess of adrenaline, desperately running to get home.
“Through here,” Magdy said to us. He pointed at an irregular natural path that I recognized as being the one we used to get into the forest in the first place. I was focusing on getting on that path and then something stepped in behind Gretchen and grabbed me. I screamed.
There was a bang, followed by a muffled thump, followed by a shout.
Ezno launched himself at what grabbed at me. A second later he was on the forest floor, Dickory’s knife at his throat. It took me longer than it should have to recognize who it was holding the knife.
“Dickory!” I yelled. “Stop!”
Dickory paused.
“Let him go,” I said. “He’s no danger to me.”
Dickory removed the knife and stepped away from Enzo. Enzo scrambled away from Dickory, and away from me.
“Hickory?” I called. “Is everything all right?”
From ahead, I heard Hickory’s voice. “Your friend had a handgun. I have disarmed him.”
“He’s choking me!” Magdy said.
“If Hickory wanted to choke you, you wouldn’t be able to talk,” I yelled back. “Let him go, Hickory.”
“I am keeping his handgun,” Hickory said. There was a rustle in the darkness as Magdy picked himself up.
“Fine,” I said. Now that we stopped moving, it was like someone pulled a stopper, and all the adrenaline in my body was falling out from the bottom of my feet. I crouched down to keep from falling over.
“No, not fine,” Magdy said. I saw him emerge out of the gloom, stalking toward me. Dickory interposed itself between me and Magdy. Magdy’s stalking came to a quick halt. “That’s my dad’s gun. If he finds it missing, I’m dead.”
“What were you doing with the gun in the first place?” Gretchen asked. She had also come back to where I was standing, Hickory following behind her.
“I told you I was prepared,” Magdy said, and then turned to me. “You need to tell your bodyguards that they need to be more careful.” He pointed at Hickory. “I almost took off that one’s head.”
“Hickory?” I said.
“I was not in any serious danger,” Hickory said, blandly. His attention seemed elsewhere.
“I want my gun back,” Magdy said. I think he was trying for threatening; he failed when his voice cracked.
“Hickory will give you your dad’s gun back when we get back to the village,” I said. I felt a fatigue headache coming on.