The Wilds Page 5

  Nothing could be better than this.

  The only problem is my shortage of food. This is day twelve. Still have some left, but it won’t last long. I’m about an eight-day hike from the car, ha ha.

  Who cares?

  I would very much enjoy sinking my teeth into a bacon cheeseburger. The only other thing I crave is a chocolate milkshake.

  Not sure what I’ll do when the food runs out.

  June 29

  Packed up this morning and hit the trail. Very strange to be dressed and carrying a backpack again. Like I’ve left some of my freedom behind. But also like I’m an imposter.

  Might’ve stayed where I was, except for the food situation.

  Over time, maybe I can learn to live off the land. Or maybe not. I don’t know what might be edible up here in the roots and berries department. Obviously, animals and fish could be eaten. I’d have to catch them first, though. I don’t even have a knife anymore.

  Last night, a solution came to me.

  I need to find other campers and get food from them.

  So now I’m on my way to Blackwood Lake. It looks pretty big on the map. With any luck, I’ll find some people there.

  * * *

  My lucky day, all right. Reached Blackwood Lake a few minutes ago. Saw three tents together among the trees near the shore, and several people standing near a fire. I could smell the woodsmoke. And I could smell something with a wonderful onion aroma. Perhaps a soup they were preparing.

  Going over now for a little recon.

  * * *

  I crept as close to the camp as I dared, and watched from behind a tree. A quick look was enough to tell me these weren’t people I wanted to steal from. The gathering looked like a reunion of the Mean and Ugly Clan.

  There were three adult males who had to be brothers. One was skinny, one a tub of lard and one buffed up like a body-builder, but they all had the same droopy eyes, sneery mouths and jug ears. They all had black hair, too. Some of the pony tails were longer than others. None of the three wore a shirt. Skinny and Fatso both had tattoos all over their arms, backs and chests. Not Muscles, though. His skin was uncarved, unscarred. Unlike the other two, he was also without earrings. Each guy wore blue jeans, a wide leather belt, and a big hunting knife in a sheath.

  The women were prizes, too.

  One had a butt as wide as a refrigerator. It was packed into jeans, while her upper acres wore only a denim vest. Her arms were tattooed from shoulder to wrist. When she turned in my direction, I saw that her vest was wide open, spread apart by enormous melon breasts. At first, I thought she might be wearing a skin-tight, brightly patterned shirt under the vest. She wasn’t, though. Beneath her vest was nothing but a garment of tattoos.

  The other gal had a slim body and a long, horsey face with big slabs of front teeth jutting out from under her upper lip. Her hair was cut so short it looked like a two-day growth of whiskers. She wore big hoop earrings. She also wore a grimy white T-shirt that hung just a little lower than her crotch. No pants, no underwear, no shoes, no nothing except that flimsy old shirt. I could pretty much see through it. She was borderline ugly. She looked dirty and dumb and sour. But I couldn’t help getting all turned on by her.

  She and the others were hanging around the campfire. On its grill was a big pot with steam drifting up. This was probably full of soup or stew. It had a strong onion smell. Nobody talked. Muscles sometimes drew his knife and gave the concoction a stir. The others occasionally took turns adding wood to the fire. The gal in the T-shirt did it a few times, crouching and leaning forward while she tossed twigs onto the flames. I didn’t get to see anything except her butt, though.

  Finally, I decided to get while the getting was good.

  Keeping low, I backed away from the tree. Then turned around and crept off. By the time I dared to glance behind me, a thick array of bushes and trees hid the bunch from my sight. Figured I’d made a clean getaway.

  Very relieved, I hurried around a high clump of rock.

  And stopped dead.

  She had big blue eyes. They got even bigger and her mouth dropped open.

  She was ready to yell.

  I had a quick memory of being at the mercy of Gloria and Susie – how they’d had me helpless, could’ve done anything to me.

  If this bunch decided to punish me…

  I stopped the gal from yelling.

  Threw myself at her, jammed the palm of my hand against her open mouth, caught her throat with my other hand and slammed her down backward, me on top. The ground knocked her wind out. She grunted into my palm. Before she could put up any fight, I let go of her mouth. Gripped her neck with both hands, raised her head toward me, and shot it down. I knew we were on granite, not soft dirt. That didn’t stop me, though. Her head smacked the granite. Whock! I gave it one more bounce, just for insurance, even though the first had taken her out of the picture.

  After that, I spent a while lying on her and gazing over my shoulder, ready to scurry up and run for my life. But nobody seemed to be coming. No voices cried out. All I heard were birds and the rushy noise of the wind.

  The same thing kept going through my head. I’ve done it now. I’ve done it now. Oh boy oh boy, I’ve done it now.

  The gal was unconscious. Not dead, though. I could feel her breathing.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  Run?

  But she would wake up and tell on me, and they would hunt for me. All my nifty pretenses about being invisible suddenly seemed like nonsense. If that bunch came after me, they would find me. They’d be eager to get revenge for my attack on this one. They’d do horrible, unspeakable things to me – I was sure of that.

  On the other hand, they wouldn’t hunt for me, wouldn’t even be aware of my existence, if this one simply vanished.

  They’d think she had wandered off, maybe gotten herself lost, or even split for reasons of her own.

  If they searched, they would search for her – not for me.

  The solution to my problem was obvious.

  Take her with me.

  I had to do it. No choice in the matter. But I wanted to do it, too.

  Take her with me.

  Yes!

  First, I crawled off her. She was sprawled on the ground, arms out, legs apart, head turned as if to look past her shoulder, though her eyes were shut. She had long hair the color of hay. It stuck out all over the place as if it hadn’t been touched by a comb or brush in about five years. Her face wouldn’t win any prizes, but it didn’t look too bad. A small, white scar curved upward from one corner of her mouth. It gave her a smirk. There was something about it that made me feel a little sad for her.

  She didn’t look any older than me, whereas the rest of her bunch seemed to be closing in on thirty. She might’ve been a daughter. More likely, she was a runaway or something who had fallen in with one of them.

  She was barefoot, like the T-shirt gal. Her legs were slim and dark. They looked healthy, somehow, in spite of their numerous nicks and scabs and bruises. Her cut-off blue jeans were faded almost white, ragged, with threads hanging like fringe against her thighs. The cut-offs basically had no legs at all. The crotch was gone except for a narrow strip of denim that drooped between her thighs. She wore the jeans very low. Her leather belt was higher, buckled around bare skin, slanting downward from above her left hip. Her knife was sheathed below her right hip. The damn thing looked like a Bowie knife.

  I pulled it out.

  After all, she might wake up while I was carrying her.

  I wasn’t sure where to put it, though. Someplace out of her reach.

  The top she wore was a dirty gray sweatshirt. Its sleeves had gone the way of her jeans legs, leaving her shoulders bare and leaving big, droopy holes under her armpits. Her shoulders and arms looked pretty banged up – bruised and scraped as if maybe she had taken a tumble off some rocks. The bottom half of the sweatshirt had been lopped off just below her breasts. I could see their smooth round undersides.

&nbs
p; Though mighty tempted to snag the sweatshirt up a little higher, I held off. This was no place to let myself get carried away. Not with her clan so nearby.

  Clamping the knife between my teeth (not easy, it being a big, heavy monster), I took hold of the gal’s shoulders and pulled her toward me, lifting her to a sitting position. From there, I wrestled her to her feet. Bracing her up, I took the knife out of my teeth. Then I ducked and she slumped over my shoulder.

  Off we went.

  I jogged for a while. Kept the knife in my right hand, and had my left arm hooked across the backs of her legs, hugging her thighs to my chest. With every stride, she bounced on my shoulder. She flopped against my back a lot, too.

  I kept checking behind us. From the looks of things, we were in the clear.

  I walked on the trail for a while, going slowly and trying to recover. From the loose feel of the gal, she still seemed to be unconscious. She swayed from side to side with the motion of my strides. My T-shirt was very thin and sweaty and clinging to me, so I could tell that her sweatshirt must’ve fallen away from her breasts. They rubbed across my back. I could feel their heat and how they were soft and firm and springy. After a while, I lifted my shirt so I could have them against my bare skin. It was great. They were smooth and slick. I could even feel the nipples sliding against my back like small tongues.

  I couldn’t wait to get her off the trail and hidden somewhere good and secluded.

  Finally, a broad, shallow stream crossed the trail. I carried my prisoner upstream. Climbed higher and higher. Sometimes, when the way became too steep, I detoured off to one side or another and forged easier routes.

  At last, I found a place close to the stream where the mountainside is somewhat level. Natural rock formations wall off the front and sides. It is the best hiding place I have found so far. It is perfect.

  That’s where I am writing this.

  I left her alone for a while and hurried all the way back to Blackwood Lake. It was closer than I thought. Distances seem ten times as great when you’re carrying someone. Still, I figure that our stream crosses the trail no less than a mile from where I grabbed her. I think we’re safe.

  At Blackwood Lake, I stayed well clear of the weirdos. Saw some smoke from their fire, but that was all. Grabbed my pack and got the hell away from there.

  I was totally pooped by the time I got back here.

  The gal looked as if she hadn’t moved at all.

  Dusk, now. Almost dark.

  I’ve been writing forever – a couple of hours, anyway. Catching up while I keep an eye on her.

  She’s still unconscious.

  I hope she’ll be all right.

  It would solve certain problems if she died. I don’t want to even think about that, though.

  She seems prettier now. Kind of sweet and vulnerable, like a sleeping kid.

  I crawled over to her. I hadn’t bothered to fix her sweatshirt after putting her down, so it had been rumpled up above her breasts the whole time.

  I gave her a pretty good looking over. This was the first time I’d ever been so close to a woman who was the next best thing to naked. I studied her close up and checked out all the details. I won’t go into it here. Could write pages and pages, but my hand is already tired of all this scribbling. One thing, though – from what I saw of her tan, she’d spent a lot of time outside with nothing on. She had a fabulous body, and I tried to imagine how great she must look if she weren’t so banged up.

  At one point, I used my knife on that little strip of denim between her legs. I cut it off so that nothing would be in the way. That’s pretty much what finished it.

  I saw her there unconscious and me crouching over her, knife in hand, messing with her. It turned my insides cold.

  So I quit it all. I pulled her sweatshirt down over her breasts. I took my T-shirt and spread it like a big napkin to hide her crotch.

  Then I crawled over to my pack, dug out the spiral notebook and started to write.

  God, is my hand sore.

  Can hardly see what I’m writing, now, because of the darkness. All caught up, anyway.

  June 30

  It’s morning. The girl is still unconscious. She’s not dead, though. It’s as if she’s asleep. I tried to wake her up, but she wouldn’t come out of it.

  I ate the last of my food last night – except for one chocolate bar, which I will save for the girl.

  It got cold last night after the sun went down. I wrestled the girl into my sleeping bag so that she wouldn’t freeze. Put on my jacket, climbed to where I had a view down the mountainside, and kept watch.

  Later, I turned in. Tight quarters in my sleeping bag. I was pretty tempted and excited, but didn’t want to end up feeling dirty so I rolled and put my back to the girl without so much as copping a feel.

  I could feel how she pressed against my backside, but that was unavoidable so I was free to like it and not have any guilt.

  * * *

  Got an awful shock. I wrote that last stuff in camp, then wandered over to the stream. Stripped and jumped in, splashed around for a while till the water threatened to freeze me blue. Then I climbed out and sprawled in the sunlight.

  I was never more than twenty or thirty feet from my sleeping bag, where I’d left the gal. But when I stood up and turned around, the bag was open and empty.

  No sign of her.

  Gone! A trapdoor snapped open low inside me, and my stomach dropped.

  In a frenzy, I ran this way and that, searching for her as my mind tried to deal with the situation. I climbed rocks. I leaped crannies. I hunted high and low.

  Not a trace of her.

  Of course not. She hadn’t ducked into a hiding place, she’d run for her life. Down the slope, no doubt, and back down the trail toward Blackwood Lake.

  Back to her cronies.

  If she’d snuck off the moment I headed for the stream, she could’ve reached them by the time I even realized she was missing. They could already be on their way to my camp.

  I scurried up the rocks to my lookout. The trail below was clear.

  But they might not come by the trail.

  My first thought was to hide. Hide fast.

  But suppose there might still be time to head off the girl? After all, she’d suffered a major head injury. Didn’t seem likely that she would wake up full of energy. Hell, no. She’d probably be weak and dizzy. Even disoriented. Maybe even with a good case of amnesia.

  Plenty of reasons for hope.

  I didn’t take time to dress. Got into my trunks, pushed my bare feet into my sneakers, snatched up her huge knife and raced to find her. Followed the stream down, figuring it was her most likely route to the trail. No sign of her, though.

  No sign of her on the trail, either. No sign of anyone.

  As I neared Blackwood Lake, the idea came that maybe her friends had already broken camp and gone away. Would they do that, though? Just leave without her? I sure hadn’t noticed them searching for her. If they had searched, they’d never ventured anywhere close to our stream.

  Maybe they were glad to be rid of her.

  Anyway, I really hoped they had moved on.

  But they hadn’t.

  I stayed on the trail until the tents came into view. Crept into the trees for a better look. Their campsite appeared deserted, but plenty of gear was scattered around. The fire was smoldering. From the looks of the place, the bunch had just gone away for a while.

  Gone on a little “search and destroy” mission, perhaps.

  Weird, but I didn’t feel very scared just then. I felt relieved that they were gone. And somewhat amazed that we hadn’t run into each other. (Had they taken a back route above the trail?) Also, I felt disappointed and betrayed by the girl, which is ridiculous. How could she have known that I’d kept my hands off her, that I’d actually cared about her?

  Anyway, they had left their camp unattended and I was out of food.

  After watching and listening for a while just to avoid any surprise
s, I made my way into the heart of their camp. Backpacks were propped upright here and there, two of them against stumps near the fireplace. I went for those two and chose the blue one on the left.

  Still had the girl’s knife, so I slid it under the elastic waist band of my trunks. Off to the side, by my hip. The elastic was hardly strong enough to hold it up. My trunks kind of sagged on that side, and I could feel the weight of the warm blade against my skin.

  Once the knife was out of my way, I started digging into the backpack. Found a treasure of freeze-dried food.

  There was no reason to act cagey about the theft. They knew all about me, thanks to the girl. So I upended the pack. Dumped everything, then began to refill it with just food.

  I’d tossed in an almost weightless can of dried beef, a heavy pouch of powdered eggs, and a bag of nuts when Max showed up.

  At the time, I didn’t know her name.

  I didn’t know who or what was coming, just heard huffing sounds and feet crunching across the rug of old leaves and pine needles on their way toward my back.

  Going sick with fright, I spun around.

  It was the fat, tattooed woman with the hair helmet. She carried a roll of toilet paper, which told me where she’d been. Off somewhere answering Nature’s call, not hunting for me.

  She didn’t ask who I was, or what I thought I was doing in her camp. She didn’t yell for help. She didn’t scream. She just grinned and kept coming.

  Grinned, flung her toilet paper aside, and shucked off her denim vest.

  Above her belt, she was a flopping mass of tattooed flesh. I glimpsed vines, vultures, daggers and skulls. Bright coral snakes coiled around each of her huge, bouncing breasts.

  At first, I couldn’t do anything but stare at her. Amazed. Terrified. Then I took off. Ran like hell for the lake, with Max pounding after me.

  Real quick, I found out why people carry their knives inside sheaths. I was okay for a few strides, but then the blade started slicing into the side of my leg. It cut me again and again and again as I dashed for the lake. Then I couldn’t stand it anymore and snatched out the knife.