Fiends

Out of the woods

A sound like footsteps outside the tent shocked me out of half-sleep. Another camper? Not likely. We were far from the main trails and hadn’t seen a backpacker in three days.

Maybe it was no one at all. Maybe a twig or pine cone had dropped from a nearby tree. Or maybe the smell of food had drawn an animal to our camp. A big animal.

I heard it again - a dry crushing sound.

I was afraid to move, but forced myself to roll over and see if Sadie was awake.

She was gone.

I looked down the length of my mummy bag. The unzipped screen was swaying inward. A cool damp-smelling breeze touched my face, and I remembered Sadie leaving the tent. How long ago? No way to tell. Maybe I had dozed for an hour, maybe for a minute. At any rate, it was high time for her to come in so we could close the flaps.

‘Hey, Sadie, why don’t you get in here?’

I heard only the stream several yards from our campsite. It made a racket like a gale blowing through a forest.

‘Sadie?’ I called.

Nothing.

‘Saay-deee!’

She must have wandered out of earshot. Okay. It was a fine night, cold but clear, with a moon so round and white you could sit up for hours enjoying it. That’s what we’d done, in fact, before turning in. I couldn’t blame her for taking her time out there.

‘Enjoy yourself,’ I muttered, and shut my eyes. My feet were a bit cold. I rubbed them together through my sweatsocks, curled up, and adjusted the roll of jeans beneath my head. I was just beginning to get comfortable when somebody close to the tent coughed.

It wasn’t Sadie.

My heart froze.

‘Who’s out there?’ I called.

‘Only me,’ said a man’s low voice, and the tent began to shake violently. ‘Come outa there!’

‘What do you want?’

‘Make it quick.’

‘Stop jerking the tent.’ I took my knife from its sheath on the belt of my jeans.

The tent went motionless. ‘I’ve got a shotgun,’ the man said. ‘Come outa there before I count five or I’ll blast apart the tent with you in it. One.’

I scurried out of my sleeping bag.

‘Two.’

‘Hey, can’t you wait till I get dressed?’

‘Three. Come out with your hands empty, four.’

I stuck the knife down the side of my sweatsock, handle first to keep it from falling out, and crawled through the flaps.

‘Five, you just made it.’

I stood up, feeling twigs and pine cones under my feet, and looked into the grinning, bearded face of a man who bore a disturbing resemblance to Rasputin. He had no shotgun. Only my hand-ax. I scanned the near bank of the stream behind him. No sign of Sadie.

‘Where’s the shotgun?’ I asked. Then I clamped my mouth shut to keep my teeth quiet.

The man gave a dry, vicious laugh. ‘Take that knife outa your sock.’

I looked down. I was wearing only shorts and socks, and the moonlight made the knife blade shine silvery against my calf.

‘Take it out slowly,’ he warned.

‘No.’

‘Want to see your wife again? If I give the signal, my buddy will kill her. Slit her open like a wet sack.’

‘You’ve got Sadie?’

‘Back in the trees. Now, the knife.’

‘Not a chance.’ I pressed my knees together to keep them from banging against each other. ‘You’ll kill us both anyway.’

‘Naw. All we want’s your food and gear. See, we gotta do some camping. You understand, pal.’ He grinned as if a glimpse of his big crooked teeth would help me understand better. It did.

‘What did you do?’ I asked, trying to stall for time. ‘Rob a bank?’

‘That, too. Now are you gonna get rid of that knife or do I signal Jake to start cutting?’

‘Better signal Jake,’ I said, and grabbed my knife.

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure. Just one favor, though. Do you mind if I tell my wife goodbye?’

He grinned again. ‘Go on.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. Then I yelled, ‘Goodbye, Sadie! Sadie! Goodbye, Sadie!’

‘Enough.’ He came forward, holding the ax high, shaking it gently as if testing the weight of its head. All the time, he grinned.

My knife flew end over end, glinting moonlight, and struck him square in the chest. Hilt first.

He kept coming. Finally I backed into a tree. Its bark felt damp and cold and rough against my skin.

‘There’s no Jake,’ I said to distract him.

‘So what?’ he answered.

I raised my hands to block the ax and wondered if it would hurt for long.

Then a chilling, deep-throated howl shook the night. A mastiff splashed through the stream. Huge, brutish, black as death. The man had no time to turn. He only had time to scream before Sadie, snarling, took him down and began to rip his throat.