The naked edge

41

Screaming inwardly, Jamie shifted along the creek, scanning each side of it while Rutherford aimed toward the top of the bank in case a dark figure attacked them. Where? she kept demanding. Where's the blood? She almost did scream when it occurred to her that they might be heading in the wrong direction. Rather than searching deeper into the park, perhaps they should have gone in the opposite direction. Her trembling hand made the flashlight waver, its beam flicking this way and that. Time seemed suspended, yet she felt that ten minutes went by in an instant. The blood! Where's the damned…

There! She saw it, the crimson rising from the creek, blending with deep footprints that struggled up the bank on the right. She and Rutherford hurried to the top, and now Jamie felt the barbed wire in her stomach become molten. It expanded, threatening to burn through her belly. The blood formed a pool in the grass in front of her.

But it didn't go farther.