Chapter 40 Into the Woods
Into the Woods
The pen looked so wrong jutting out of William’s throat that Sam had a hard time believing it was real. She had more urgent
matters to deal with, like trying to suck oxygen through an airway the size of a pinhole, but while she fought for breath,
clawing at her own neck, she kept blinking in disbelief at the pen.
William, too, seemed to be having a hard time comprehending recent events. He raised his hand to his throat, which was jetting
blood in time with his pulse, and touched the pen. More blood sheeted down his parka, drip-drip-dripped silently into the
snow. William glanced at his red hand, and then back at Sam in bewilderment, and somehow this broke Sam’s paralysis. She pushed
past him, up and out of the tub, and ran.
Or the closest thing to it a person could do in thigh-high snow.
Breaking trail was hard work. It was nearly impossible when you could barely breathe, when air sawed in and out of your throat like a serrated knife, when you were dizzy and felt vomity and your head throbbed and your vision was still consumed by black dots that expanded and contracted with your heartbeat, when you had only frozen socks on—at some point, Sam must have kicked off William’s other sodden boot.
Still she floundered on, her eyes on the woods.
She could see it now, so the snow must be getting lighter.
She didn’t know what she would do when she reached it.
All she knew was that she must get there. She must reach the trees.
“Simone.”
William sounded different now too. His voice was garbled, had a terrible wheeze like an organ pipe with a hole in it.
“Come back here, Simone.”
Sam did not turn. She threw herself forward. Her clothes, soaked in the tub, were already starting to stiffen and seemed to
weigh a hundred pounds. Just get to the trees. There would be something there. A branch. A rock. Something—
“You stabbed me, love. You tried to kill me with your fucking pen, you little bitch.”
William’s terrible new voice sounded closer now. Sam didn’t want to look back. It would scare her more. Slow her down. And
it didn’t matter how close he was. He’d move as quickly as he’d move, and the only thing Sam could do was move herself. She
looked. Whipped her head around—her throat screamed—to cast a terrified glance over her shoulder. William was lunging after
her, threshing through the snow, two feet behind her. Now a foot. Closing in on her. Was the pen still in his neck? Yes. Was
the blood still spouting? No. But pumping down his neck in a river. Sam pressed on.
“I told you we could do this gently,” William said. “Now look. Look where we are.”
Sam was yanked backward off her feet by the hood of her sweatshirt—Zoop! The collar dug into her swollen throat and she tried to scream. She produced only a little whistle. William threw her down
in the snow and Sam tried to backpedal, her icy socks scrabbling for purchase that they didn’t find. William bent, staggered,
fell to one knee, and seized her ankle, pinning Sam in place. His hood had come off and he was bareheaded, the wind sieving
through his hair. The mortal mineral stench of blood, wet iron, was overwhelming. “I was clear with you,” he was growling,
“I was very explicit about what would happen.” He dragged Sam toward him with a businesslike I-told-you-so look as she thrashed
and silently howled and his blood pattered onto her legs.
Suddenly there was movement behind him, a large shadow running up in the snow, and William turned.
The shadow hit him on the head, and William crumpled and fell, mercifully face down.
Blood pumped from a new wound on his temple.
One of Sam’s feet was trapped beneath him, and she wrenched it away with a horrified grunt that lanced her hurt throat, then scrabbled backward, using her hands and heels to propel herself away from William’s prone body, sobbing soundlessly and without tears.
The shadow came toward her. “Hey,” it said. “It’s okay now.”
Sam stared up, uncomprehending and terrified. The shadow materialized into a woman who crouched over Sam, hands on knees,
her own hair whipping around her face. She was in a ski jacket and pajama bottoms and she, too, was injured, a gash on her
forehead, drying blood forming a crust down her cheek. She was breathing hard.
“He won’t hurt you anymore,” she said.
Sam looked at William, the full length of him in the snow. Blood spread around his head in a dark, uneven halo, steaming. Is he dead? she asked, or tried to. Her throat hurt too much, and no sound came out. She put a hand on it.
But the woman seemed to know what Sam was asking. “I think so,” she said.
They both crept a little closer. The woman got on her knees next to William. Oh God don’t do that be careful—was all Sam had
time to think before William’s hand shot out. It grabbed the woman’s arm. She and Sam both stared at it as William reared
up, blood-soaked, eyes bulging with purpose—and Sam grabbed the thing the woman had clocked him with and hit him again, herself.
On the top of the skull, where the bone was thinnest. There was a horrid sound like one pool ball hitting another, and he
collapsed again, a fresh indentation in his skull that Sam did not want to look at.
Oh my love, she thought.
The woman crawled over to Sam, and they waited.
One Mississippi two Mississippi . . . Snow filtered silently through the trees at their backs—Sam had almost made it—and onto the lake.
This time William remained quiet. He had fallen backward with one knee bent beneath him and the pen still in his neck. Snow
landed in his unfocused eyes, one big and one small, and melted there, drew clean tracks in the blood, ran into his ears like
tears.
The woman nudged him with her foot. His body rocked. He didn’t move.
“I think he’s actually dead this time,” the woman said.
Sam looked at the object she had dropped in the snow. The award from William’s desk, the Mt. Washington Post Fiction Award
that had probably belonged rightfully to Pen. William’s hand was stretched toward Sam, his long, beautiful fingers that had
typed millions of words, held dozens of microphones, cupped her breasts, been inside her, braided her hair. Slid a ring on
her own hand. Throttled her neck. Killed the others, in ways Sam would never know.
Sam reached forward and tugged William’s hood down over his face. She couldn’t bring herself to close his eyelids, which would
still be warm, because she knew it would be the last time she would ever touch him. She couldn’t think about that. She tried
to clear her throat, which hurt like a motherfucker. She turned her head and spat blood in the snow.
“Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely to the woman.
“You’re welcome,” the woman said. She smiled shyly. Even with her overbite, or maybe because of it, her grin was beautiful.
“It’s you,” Sam rasped. “You’re the one who’s been following us.”
The Rabbit nodded. “Yup,” she said. “I’m Emily. I’ve been trying to keep you safe, all along.”