Killer Summer

56

Summer squeezed her legs together, her swollen bladder making it impossible to think. Kevin, who’d said he would hurry, hadn’t returned. How long was she supposed to wait? Only moments earlier, she’d heard noises and voices coming from inside. Scary noises, angry voices.

Despite her sense of security beneath the tarp, she had to get out of the garage, both to relieve herself and to escape the claustrophobic panic spreading through her. But she was no fan of the great outdoors; the closest she had gotten to wilderness was Orange County, a wasteland without a decent shopping mall in sight. The idea of fleeing alone into the woods at night made her have to pee all the more badly.

She slipped from beneath the tarp, ducked behind a combination ATV-trailer, and kept still. In the colorful, eerie light of power tools recharging, she searched the pegboard above her. There, she found a chisel with a razor-sharp blade about the width of her little finger. She leaped to her feet, slipped it in her pant pocket, and instantly cut a hole first in the pocket and then nicked her thigh. Noticing the leather sheaths on other chisels, she stuffed hers into one and put it in her other pocket. She then pressed her pants against the wound-only a scratch.

Armed, Summer made her way to the shed door, paused, then slipped out into the chilly night air. She pulled the door behind her, ensuring it was latched shut, and sneaked a look at the yard.

Empty.

The woods were incredibly dark and more than a little terrifying. How had she let Kevin get away with the flashlight? There was probably one in the shed, but she wasn’t about to go back there. She tasted freedom in the crisp air. If they were after her, as Kevin had claimed, they were going to have to find her.