Page 53 of Silent Prey

"He won't," Sheila said, not sure if she believed it herself. But she needed to keep Beverly calm.

Beverly, however, didn’t seem to buy into it. In her eagerness to get to safety, she lumbered ahead of Sheila, climbing a wooded crest. Sheila felt uneasy about the possibility of getting separated, and she was about to shout a warning but Beverly spoke first.

“I see a building!” she shouted down to Sheila, excited.

“That must be the hunting cabin where I left my partner,” Sheila called back. “Be careful—we don’t know where the man who attacked you—” But that was all she managed to say before Beverly plunged over the crest, disappearing in her haste to get to the cabin.

Cursing under her breath, Sheila sprinted up the slope. As she did so, she felt her leg press against something, almost as if there were a vine snaking across the path. Then something tightened around her leg, and all at once, she was yanked up in the air, swinging by her leg like a ragdoll. She swung right into the bole of a tree, striking her head.

And the world went dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Groggy, feeling like a balloon on the verge of popping, Sheila opened her eyes.

Everything around her—the shapes of the trees, the flowers, the grass, the underbrush—was wrong, unnatural. It took her a few moments to realize the problem.

She was upside down.

Suddenly, the memory of what had happened came flooding back. The snare. The sudden yank upward. The collision with the tree and the world turning black. A wave of panic washed over her as she remembered Beverly running ahead toward the cabin.

"Beverly!" she shouted, her voice a desperate croak that echoed through the forest.

There was no response but the whisper of the wind in the trees.

She struggled against her bonds to no avail. The rope around her ankle was taut, suspending her several feet off the ground. Sheila gritted her teeth in frustration and pain as she looked around, trying to find something sharp with which to cut the rope.

Just when she had nearly given up hope, she saw it: a broken branch jutting from a nearby tree. A desperate idea took hold. She began twisting her body side to side, setting herself swinging like a pendulum. She bit her lip against the pain shooting through her leg, keeping her eyes on the sharp branch as she swung back and forth.

Slowly, steadily, she began to get closer to it. On the forward swing, she reached out and brushed it with the fingers of her right hand, ignoring the pain as the wood grazed her skin. One more swing, and she was there. With a grunt of effort, she hooked her fingers around the branch and used all her strength to pull.

The branch cracked, then tore free.

Armed now with the sharp stick, Sheila reached up and began sawing at the rope. Her blood pounded in her ears as sweat dripped down her face. Her body screamed for her to stop—the effort it took to curl her body up high enough to reach the rope made her feel like she was going to pass out—but she couldn't afford to give in.

Then she heard a sound that caused her heart to plummet: the crack of a twig nearby. She stopped what she was doing and peered frantically around.

Was the man she’d shot still alive? Was he still in the area—perhaps searching for her?

The forest was silent save for the whispering wind and the distant call of a bird. After an agonizing stretch of silence, she heard it again: a crunch of leaves, the snap of a twig. Her heart pounded in her chest. She resumed her desperate efforts to free herself, her body shaking with fear and exertion. The rope chafed painfully against her leg as she worked at it with the branch.

Then she heard another sound, low and guttural. Not animal, but human.

And it was getting closer.

She didn’t want to look, but she had to. Turning her head slowly, squinting through the twilight, she saw him.

He was hunched over on all fours, padding across the ground like a dog. There was a patch of blood on the coyote skin he wore, but as far as Sheila could tell, she had only grazed him without doing any serious injury.

On instinct, she reached for her holster. The weapon, however, was missing—it must have fallen out.

Panic surged through her then. She pointed the sharp stick at him. “Don’t get any closer,” she said. Her threat hung in the air for a moment before it was swallowed by the ominous rustling of leaves in the wind.

The man stopped, his head cocking at an unnatural angle to look up at her. His eyes gleamed yellow in the dim light of the receding sun. Despite his animalistic demeanor, there was an unsettling intelligence in his gaze.

Then he smiled. “Isn’t this a delightful predicament you've found yourself in. Just like a fly caught in a web."

His voice was smoky, low, and every word dripped with sadistic pleasure. Fear gripped Sheila like never before.

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