Hunter/Prey

Chapter 13

It was a piece of glass. Beckard didn’t see it, and there was no reason he should have. It was so small she would have missed it if she hadn’t been lying on her stomach staring at it, sticking out from between one of the floorboards just a foot from her head. If she had to guess (not that she spent all that long thinking about it), it had broken off when Beckard shot Donnie in the kitchen. She remembered seeing a glass on the counter, and then it wasn’t there anymore.

She reached up with her bound hands, ignoring the stinging pain rippling up and down from her waist to her neck, and palmed the piece of glass. It was barely an inch long and half an inch wide, so it fit perfectly into her palm when she pulled her hands back into position in front of her.

It was impossible to use the glass to cut her hands free. Even if she could somehow angle it into position—upward toward her wrists — she simply didn’t have the leverage for the seesaw motion required. So instead, she let her hands fall toward her bound feet. She spun the shard so the sharper edge was facing the duct tape.

Then she began cutting.

Slowly. Oh so slowly so she wouldn’t make a sound, because glass sliding against duct tape did make a sound. Too loud, though a part of her knew that was only because she was listening for it. Chances were it wasn’t that loud, but she couldn’t risk it.

Not now. Not now…

Thank God the man with the dog showed up. Or men. Because she heard the voice outside keep referring to “we,” which meant there was more than one out there. How many? And what exactly were they doing walking around the woods with a dog at almost midnight?

Or was it midnight already? Early morning? It didn’t feel that way. Then again, pain had a way of dulling your senses, making you lose track of time. It was a little hard to care about what was happening outside when your insides were on fire.

And right now, it felt as if her body was trying to burn its way inside out, because Beckard had been vicious. She didn’t think he would ever stop kicking her. She was certain he was going to kill her, and the only reason he didn’t, she guessed, was because he had tired himself out.

She had a second chance now. The men outside had given her that opportunity to turn this around, to survive. Their presence drew all of Beckard’s attention and he was barely looking at her, or Wade and Rachel. Even when he did, his attention was quickly pulled away again.

When he turned his back to her in order to look out the door’s peephole, she really got to work slicing away at the duct tape. She kept her hands in front of her at all times even when she wasn’t cutting so Beckard would get used to the sight. It seemed to work, because each time he looked over he remained clueless.

Almost there…

Beckard gave up on the door and returned to the window. She stopped cutting, waited for him to turn his back to her again, and when he did, resumed the back and forth. Just small motions, nothing that would be too obvious.

Careful. Careful…

She was halfway through when she heard footsteps and turned her head and saw a tall man in some kind of camo clothing and a cap stepping out of the back hallway. He was holding a rifle and made the mistake of staring at Wade and Rachel for just a second too long.

Boom!

The man’s head disintegrated, along with pieces of the hallway around him, as Beckard fired the shotgun. The sight of a man’s head disappearing — carved away by buckshot — was a surreal experience, even more so than when Beckard had murdered Donnie in front of her. It startled her for a brief second, and she might have even gasped out loud. Or as out loud as she could muster against the duct tape over her mouth.

Then Beckard fired again, this time at the window.

Glass shattered, and there was a loud growling sound and when she looked up, Allie couldn’t believe her eyes as a dog flew through the rectangular opening where the window used to be and smashed into Beckard. Man and beast fell to the floor in a pile and—

The shotgun!

It flew out of Beckard’s hands as he landed on his back, the shock of the animal attack apparently more traumatic for him to experience than it had been for her to witness.

Allie willed herself to look away from Beckard and the dog and instead concentrated on the duct tape. She began slicing faster and faster and faster still—

A loud whistle pierced the air, coming from outside.

She looked up just in time to see the dog leaping back through the window and disappearing into the dark night.

No, no, no! You stupid dog, where are you going? Get back here!

Just when she had almost convinced herself all was not lost, that she didn’t need the dog to save the day, she saw Beckard crawling back to the wall with the shotgun in his hands. He leaned next to the broken window and sucked in large gulps of air. Almost as an afterthought, he looked across the cabin at her.

Allie quickly folded the piece of glass back into her palm and glared back at him.

Beckard smirked, then looked to his left, back at the window just as the dog leapt back inside!

God, that is one amazing dog, Allie thought just as the door in front of her opened with a crash! and a man, also wearing camo clothing like the one who was missing his head, stumbled inside. The man must have lost his balance as he came through the door, because he careened slightly forward while at the same time gripping a bolt-action rifle in his hands. She wondered if she looked that silly when she had barged inside earlier.

The hunter spun to his right and fired from the hip at almost the same time Allie heard the Remington roar from the other side of the cabin. The stocky man in the mud-caked boots took almost all of the buckshot in the chest and was flung into the door. The rifle fell from his hands as he slid down, lifeless, but by then Allie was already turning at the sound of—

The dog had its mouth clamped over Beckard’s right arm, between the wrist and the elbow. Beckard was desperately trying to hold onto the shotgun even as he was spinning his body wildly from left to right and back again, trying to dislodge the animal. It wasn’t going to work. The dog, like a small furry child, was trying to pull Beckard to the floor and down to its level. If it managed that, then it would be over.

Come on, dog! He just killed your master! Pull him down and sink your teeth into his neck! Come on, dammit!

Allie looked back at the hunter. Dead. More than dead. Really dead. She tried not to focus on the holes in his chest where the buckshot had torn into him or the thick, fresh pool of blood gathering under him. Instead, she located the rifle that had fallen to the floor before abandoning it completely when she glimpsed the pistol in the man’s hip holster.

She went back to frantically cutting the duct tape, this time putting everything she had into it without worrying about being caught. She was almost there. She was so close! A little more. Just a little mo—

Snap! She jerked both legs in opposite directions, then dropped the glass shard and scrambled up, wasting a precious half second to pull the duct tape off her mouth. She sucked in a big breath and didn’t realize what a luxury just being able to breathe was.

The gun! Go for the gun!

She ran and was halfway to the dead hunter when she sneaked a look back at Beckard. He had dropped the shotgun and was desperately trying to keep the animal back with his bare hands. Blood dripped like a faucet down his arms, streams of it flooding the dog’s mouth and chin and splashing white and brown fur on its way to the floor. It was a ghastly sight, but it also made Allie’s heart sing.

Kill him, dog! Bite his hand off! Bite the whole thing off!

If Beckard was even aware of her, he didn’t show it. He was too busy with other things at the moment, like trying to keep the dog from chewing his arm off at the bone. The animal’s growls filled the cabin, and Allie was only vaguely aware of Wade and Rachel struggling against their bindings on the floor, the young man trying to get up but falling back down in almost comical fashion.

Allie blocked everything out and focused on the gun.

There!

She practically dived the last few feet, sliding to the floor on her knees in front of the dead man, who sat against the door like he had simply taken a nap. She grabbed the handgun with both hands — not like she had a choice, since her wrists were still bound — and jerked it free from the holster. It came out smoothly, the smell of well-oiled metal against leather filling her nostrils. She inhaled it, thankful to be able to smell anything at all after coughing up so much blood earlier.

Still on her knees, she turned, the finger of one hand fumbling with the side of the weapon for the safety switch. She wasted a precious second staring at Beckard as he staggered toward the window, having somehow dislodged himself from the dog when she wasn’t looking. He was cradling his mauled right arm with his left and looked like a drunk stumbling home after a long night of drinking. Thick patches of blood splattered the floor, leaving a bloody red trail as he backpedaled. The shotgun was on the floor, beyond his reach, and she wondered if he even remembered it through the obvious pain.

Wait. The dog. Where was the dog?

It was on the floor, all the way across the cabin where Beckard had tossed it after somehow having managed to dislodge it. The dog was attempting to right itself, scrambling furiously to find its footing, and would no doubt be hurling itself right back at Beckard to finish the job at any second.

Not if I finish him off first, dog!

Beckard turned and their eyes locked.

For a moment, just a brief moment, she thought he might grin or wink at her, but there was just pain — overwhelming and miserable pain — on his face. His eyes shifted from hers and to the gun in her hand.

She lifted the gun and took aim, squeezing the trigger.

The first bullet must have missed him by only a few inches because Beckard snapped his head around as if he had been shot. She blamed it on her bound hands throwing off her aim.

She started to squeeze the trigger again when Beckard spun around, as if he were doing some kind of absurd pirouette, and dived through the window. Her second shot hit the wall where he had been standing just half a second ago.

No!

Allie stumbled to her feet and ran across the room. She had forgotten about the pain in her gut and the broken ribs. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting to the window and catching Beckard before he could escape.

She aimed the gun out the window and swept from left to right, looking into the yard, with only the minivan to break the monotony of darkness.

But there was no Beckard.

Through the hard breathing and the dizzying adrenaline surging through her, she managed to spot the thick red drops of blood covering the windowsill, running in a jagged line along the ground outside. The red and black trail curved around the minivan and kept going.

No!

She didn’t dare lower the gun yet, even though she knew without actually knowing that he was gone.

She’d had him, and she had lost him. Again.

She wasn’t sure how long it took — maybe a few seconds, or a few minutes — for her to finally gather herself. Slowly, her breathing stopped coming out in spurts and she became aware of everything around her again.

Allie turned around and almost stepped on the dog. It was jogging briskly toward its master — her, Beckard, and everything else apparently forgotten. She watched it attempt to nudge the hunter awake with its nose, and when that didn’t work, the animal lay down on its stomach and licked the dead man’s hand before it let out what sounded like a soft, sorrowful cry.

Even a dog, she thought, possessed more humanity than Beckard ever would.