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Letting her legs go limp, she suddenly forces all her weight on his grip, breaking it as she tumbles to the ground. Mike lets out a grunt and Lisa rolls to the side, slithering several feet on her stomach before gaining ground with the grip of her shoes. At the last second, she snatches the flashlight he dropped, then takes off running with every ounce of force she has left.
“Lisa!” Mike calls behind her, but she won’t turn back.
The flashlight in her hand feels like she’s gained some power back. As much as she craves the glow of the beam, she doesn’t dare run with it on. She doesn’t want to be a beacon. But she holds it close, pressed to the center of her chest, so she can flash it on for brief seconds like her own contained lightning.
One of those flashes catches the edge of one of the benches positioned around the campfire. Her eyes adjust and she sees the red glowing embers buried deep within the collapsed wood. It won’t last much longer. But for now, it’s enough to give her an anchor point. She knows where she is. Which means she knows how to get out.
She has two choices. The first path would bring her through a longer stretch of the camp and make her run through a dense patch of woods before reaching the access road. The second is shorter, a more direct path to the front of camp that would allow her to pass right beneath the arched entryway and onto the main road. But it would also take her past the craft building.
Lisa shudders at the thought of going past that cabin, but she can’t waste time. And she can’t bring herself to go further into the woods. She’ll already have to run down the street flanked by the trees that now seem like monsters looming in the darkness. She needs to get them behind her as fast as she can.
She turns the flashlight on just long enough to brush across the ground in front of her, wanting to make sure the path ahead is clear, but she turns it off just as fast. Mike is going to come for her. She can feel him still somewhere behind her. She knows he tried to grab onto her again as she was running away.
Feeling watched from all sides, she runs toward the front of the camp. Her steps stutter when she reaches the heavy shadow of the craft cabin. It‘s still and silent. She waits for something, anything. She doesn‘t know what. Just something from inside. When nothing comes, she wants to just run past, but something stops her. She can‘t make herself just goby.
Instead, determined feet bring her reluctant body up the steps that made her fall, onto the porch where she’d barely escaped the hatchet. As she stands there, wishing she wasn‘t, she can still feel the heaviness of the man that had been standing there, the horror that rippled like sickness through her stomach with the ambient light of fading lightning and static highlighting the silhouette of the man standing just feet away, his face obscured, his hand gripping the wooden handle of thehatchet.
Could Mike really have done this? Could he really have been the one who forced his way into the cabin to go after the other girls coweringthere?
The thought of them makes Lisa shiver. She reaches out and touches her hand to the handle of the closed door. Wet warmth on her fingertips makes her wrench them back. She can’t bring herself to open the door. She can’t walk back inside. Instead, she goes to the closest window and shines the flashlight on the glass. Dark splatters catch the breath in a hard knot in the center of her chest. A step closer makes bile rise in her throat and strangle with the sobbing scream that comes up into her mouth. She falls back away from the image of the bodies on the floor inside, the blood soaking into the wood floor.
Her back hitting the wood beam supporting the roof over the porch is enough to jostle her back into action. She jumps down the steps, willing her feet to find purchase on the wet ground, and runs. She doesn’t need the flashlight. She doesn’t need guidance. She doesn’t need anything but the image of blood falling like sheets behind her eyes and the feeling of the heavy steps following her.
She doesn’t know how long it will take her to run, but she won’t stop. She’ll ignore the pain. She’ll pretend the darkness isn’t there. She’ll let the gravel under her feet tell her how far she’s gone. She’ll keep going when it turns topavement.
Mike wants to chase Lisa, to keep her with him, but he can’t let himself. He can’t worry about just one when there are so many others. He keeps moving toward the dining hall where he’s had the counselors collect as many of the campers as they can. Without his flashlight, he has a harder time seeing, but he knows the way.
Rain falling on his hood rolls down over his face, obscuring his vision even more, but a flash of lightning shows movement in front of him. There’s something a few yards away. Light-colored and frantic. Someone is running toward him. He watches as they seem to notice he’s there and hesitates, then surges forward again. Mike runs to meet them and within a few steps can see theirface.
“Holden!” he shouts, grasping the counselor’s shoulders.
The young man is stained with blood. The rain has washed away any that might have been on his skin, but his clothes are streaked and his hair is matted, a few lingering trails still visible along the side of hisface.
“Mike,” Holden gasps. “Thank god. Anthony. Have you seen him? Did he gethere?”
Confusion fogs Mike’s mind and he shakes his head both to make the thoughts fall into place so he can better understand them and to tell Holden he hasn’t seen the other boy who left with him to find the police.
“What happened? Did you get to the police?” Mike asks.
Holden shakes his head, sagging forward so his hands rest on his thighs and his head hangs down.
“No,” he says. “No. We crashed. The truck went off theroad.”
Mike’s heart sinks like a stone. “What? Whathappened?”
Holden stands up and meets Mike’s eyes. His gaze is full of fire.
“There was someone in the road. I didn’t see him when we came around the corner and when I did, I tried to swerve to avoid him, but the road was slick. I lost control and went down the embankment. Anthony and I got some bumps and cuts, but nothing serious. But when we got out, the man was still there. He came at us and I saw he was wearing a mask and had a hatchet in his hand. I told Anthony to run and we headed in different directions. I hoped he would get back here,” Holdensays.
“Where did all the blood come from?” Mikeasks.
Holden looks down at himself like it’s the first time he’s noticing the blood on his clothes. He touches the side of his face and examines hishand.
“Some of it is from Miranda’s cabin, I think. From the window. I hit my head during the crash. It must have been worse than Ithought.”
“But you aren’t seriously hurt?” Mikeasks.
Holden stares at him for a beat like he doesn’t really understand what the man is asking him.
