Chapter 12
As his fire burned down, Gunner pushed the coals into a tighter pile at the center of his pit. He needed to find more wood if he expected to keep it burning, but he wasn’t ready just yet. He still had a couple hours of life left in those embers.
He looked out around him, judging how much of a visual handicap the fire gave him. There still wasn’t much visibility beyond the trees, but once again, a set of footsteps grabbed his attention. Gunner grew tired of the false alarms and animal movements. Still he was not willing to let his guard down. He drew his gun and waited cautiously. If just once it would be Greg’s captor, he could finally use his weapon and end the waiting.
But he would have to keep waiting.
A dazed Kimberly stumbled from the brush, almost falling into the fire. Dried blood stained her hair and covered half her face. Gunner rushed to help her up. Her glossy eyes gazed out, seeming to register nothing. She was awake, although not aware of her surroundings. The shock from the trauma seemed to hang within her.
“Reese! Get out here!” He carefully explored the hair on the back of her head, searching for the wound. He found the gash where the killer’s ax had cracked open her skull, but it had closed itself up. A miracle, he thought, since an injury like this should have required a lot of stitches, even surgery. He should know having seen more than one team mate kicked in the head with a soccer cleat back in high school.
“Reese,” Gunner shouted once again. His friend’s absence was as alarming as Kimberly’s appearance. He had assumed their silence meant they had retired to sleep. Now he feared something worse.
Raymond, still spying on Greg, decided to re-emerge and find out what the commotion was about. “What’s wrong out there?”
“Kimberly’s hurt,” Gunner called to him. “Reese isn’t answering.”
Raymond rushed form his tent and over to Reese and Kimberly’s. Pulling the flap aside, he found it was empty. “He’s not in his tent!” Checking Zach’s tent next, he found it was too empty. “The other one’s gone too!”
Gunner assumed, Reese had realized his girlfriend was not asleep in their tent. He and Zach must have snuck out to find her. How could he protect them if they were wandering about the forest? Then again, it seemed he failed to protect Kimberly. This whole trip was failing in ways he wasn’t prepared for.
Raymond joined them by the fire to see for himself how bad Kimberly was hurt. Gunner showed him the wound. The old man, however, did not share in Gunner’s amazement at its quick healing.
“She needs a hospital.”
The old man’s voice seemed to break through the haze in Kimberly’s head. Her eyes sprung to life, focusing on his face.
“You lied to us,” she slipped from her silence. But her strength gave out, and the men had to ease her to the ground. Gunner, worried she was slipping away, tried to keep her awake. Still her words, left some room for curiosity.
“What is she talking about,” He asked Raymond.
The old man sighed. The intrusion into his tent hadn’t gone unnoticed. He too had thought up to now, that Kimberly was in her tent. But he assumed since she hadn’t said anything about what he was keeping, the intruder wasn’t her. Now he realized he had been as wrong as the younger men had been about her resting in her tent.
The secrets he held onto didn’t seem all that important to Gunner. He hoped there was no need to open up fully, but with two of this supposed killer’s victims appearing alive, those hopes were gone.
“She went snooping through my things,” he began, “and found some articles I saved. That stranger out there is not the first monster to stalk these woods. About eighteen years ago as the logging operation wound down, one last accident almost killed one of the loggers. Kenny. By all rights it should have. He was trimming the branches from a felled tree. One large branch didn’t come off as it should have. By itself it remained no danger, but it startled him. The chainsaw slipped from his hands. Its teeth bore into his leg and removed a massive chunk.”
Raymond made a motion down the inside of his own leg.
“Kenny didn’t lose the leg, but there was too much flesh missing to save it. He already lost so much blood before they could get a tourniquet on. They called for the ambulance, but everyone knew help was too far away. When they carried him into the bunk house, it was not to wait for that ambulance: it was to wait for death.”
“That has nothing to do with a killer in the woods,” Gunner interrupted.
“Not yet,” Raymond continued. “That logger should have died before help arrived, but he didn’t. Like your girl here, the blood began to clot. Nobody realized, but that gash was trying to heal itself. Kenny hung on until the ambulance got there. Somebody was definitely looking out for him.
“Maybe three weeks after that, one of the loggers found his bunkmate dead in his bunk, his throat slashed sometime in the night. State police came out, questioned everyone, searched for the weapon. They found nothing and just left.
“A couple nights later, the loggers awoke to a commotion. Someone put the lights on, and there was Kenny. He was not just alive, but his leg had made it with him. Alive, out of the hospital, and back in these woods in only three weeks! The younger guys on the crew couldn’t believe it, but some of the old-timers knew better.
“Kenny fought with one of their buddies. He had the knife, the one used to slash that first logger. The dried blood from that poor soul’s throat, still coated the blade. He tried to get it to his next victim’s throat, but the guy put up a good fight. Before the rest of the loggers could understand what they were seeing, one had already taken up an ax. With a strong swing, he buried its head into Kenny’s. What the chainsaw couldn’t do weeks before, the ax finished that night.”
“And while I’m losing Kimberly,” Gunner spat out, “I’m struggling to understand what your story has to do with us.”
“Everything,” Raymond snapped. “You didn’t lose your brother. And you will not lose this girl.”