Chapter 3
Without realizing what I’m doing, I jerk away from the man behind me and the weapon he holds. It’s like something out of a horror movie, and with my eyes glued on the chainsaw, I don’t stop until I’m off the trail and sitting in wet grass that seeps water into the fabric of my shirt and pants.
Oh, my god. The thought circles in my head over and over again, not letting any logic come through, no matter how I try to think of something—anything—else.
Fingers wrap around my arm, and the chainsaw man’s face contorts into frustrated disbelief as I’m jerked painfully to my feet, a yelp leaving my lips before I can stop it. “Kill her,” the man hisses, the tremor obvious in his voice. “Just kill her. Anyone will do for you, right?”
“What?" I whirl toward him, eyes wide in the darkness and the stark light cast from my phone in his hand. “How dare you—”
“I won’t tell anyone,” he goes on, his eyes glued to the blond man’s. I realize, finally, that the dark stains on his face are a mix of mud and blood, mostly the latter, and recoil from his bloody hands that clutch at my arms. “Just kill her instead, and—”
I kick him. Hard enough that his knee buckles and he nearly goes down. The grip on my arms slackens, and I try to pull away, only for his hands to tighten again.
“Stupid little girl,” he snarls, nails digging like knives into my skin.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, huh?” His eyes roll wildly, and blood stains his teeth when he bares them at me, shaking me in his grip like a dog.
“C’mon,” he cajoles, attention back on our impassive audience member.
“She’s a much better victim than me. Even you can see that, right? ”
“You’re actually trying to bargain getting out of this by sacrificing someone else?” I whisper, not looking back at the armed man. I can’t. I don’t have the guts to do it; I’m too afraid of what I’ll see.
I’m afraid he’s going to take this crazy man up on his suggestion.
The bloodied man shakes me again, harder this time, sneering at me as he replies, “Yeah. You’d do the same if you weren’t such a fucking wimp.
You think I want to be cut up by that?” I don’t need to follow his nod to know he’s gesturing toward the weapon in the man’s hands.
I don’t want to be cut up by it either. God, I want anything but that, but with my heart pounding in my chest so hard it feels like it’s trying to escape, I have no idea what to do except kick the man again.
So I do.
This time he shoves me, harder than I would’ve thought possible for someone in his condition.
My knees buckle and I stumble, feet finding an uneven place on the ground before I slam down onto the hard-packed earth once again on my hands and knees.
My scraped up palms burn, and this time my knees join in on the fun.
But more importantly, my camera hadn’t escaped impact this time. The lens cap pops off as I gasp, hand darting out to search for the rolling, elusive cap like that’s the most important thing right now.
But to my fragmented, confused brain, it is. I can’t afford another camera. Hell, I’m still paying off this one, and I need it for my job.
When beat up sneakers appear in my vision, however, my shaky breathing stops and I stare at them, too terrified to look up. I can’t. If this is how I die, by the hands of a chainsaw-wielding crazy person, I can’t look.
I can’t.
But then he kneels, and one hand comes up in front of him to show me the lens cap I’d stupidly been looking for.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, pressing it to my fingers where I clutch it on reflex.
“But I’m sorry you got involved in this.
” A rueful smile crosses his face, though I can only see bits of it in the darkness.
“That’s why I hoped you’d left before the sun went down. ”
I don’t answer. My eyes dart down to his other hand, the one still holding onto the chainsaw, and I swear his smile turns…almost shy.
All I can really do is look from him to the lens cap, and I watch as he looks me over, as if searching for some sign. Then he leans forward, our faces close enough that I can feel his breath ghost against my skin.
I need to run.
“What’s your name?” he asked, his free hand coming up, then falling.
He doesn’t need to know my name. I shouldn’t tell the man who’s probably going to murder me anything. But before I can stop myself, my lips form the familiar syllables and I’m whispering, “Saylor,” into the air between us.
“Close your eyes, Saylor. No matter what you hear.” He reaches out, his knuckles brushing the skin of my cheek so softly I can barely feel it. “You won’t like what comes next.”
He’s going to kill me. And yet, even though that thought is clear in my head, my legs are paralyzed.
My palm feels glued to the dirt, and I watch him stand in front of me, a sigh leaving his lips when he does.
With a numb, detached feeling, I wait for him to do it.
I wait for him to lift the chainsaw, pull the cord, and start cutting me into pieces as easily as if I were just a bunch of wood.
“It’s rude of you to involve someone else in this,” he tells the man who, for some reason, hadn’t run away while he had the chance.
I turn around when the man with the chainsaw strides past me, still holding the terrifying weapon loosely in his grip, like it’s nothing more than a toy. “It’s rude. You’ve ruined her night.”
With my phone light pointed downward, towards the other man’s legs, I finally see why he isn’t running. There are cuts along his thighs, probably from the chainsaw, and blood drips to the ground, soaking the leg of his pants all around his left ankle.
From the way he’s standing, he can barely manage that much.
My assumptions are proven right when he moves, trying to take off again, and his leg crumples under him.
He can’t run any more than I can, but for him, it’s nothing to do with the fear I can see in his face and in the sweat beading on his skin.
It’s because he physically can’t.
I want to look away.
I need to look away, and I know that. But my eyes are glued to the stark scene as my phone falls from his hand, landing mercilessly face-down on the ground so the light from it shows me the garish scene in front of me.
The only mercy is that most of the color is bleached from the world, so much so that it looks like a black and white movie in front of me.
But that only helps a little. And it doesn’t help me when he starts to beg.
One hand comes up, as if he’s reaching toward the other man, only for one dirty sneaker to kick him down onto his back, where the man hastily climbs onto his elbows to babble and beg.
I swear he asks for the man to kill me again. But I can’t hear well enough to say for sure. His words combine with the roaring in my ears, and when the man lifts the chainsaw to pull the cord, I beg myself to do the one thing he asked.
Look away.
He looks so comfortable with the weapon. Like he’s been using it forever. Like it’s an extension of him, instead of something I know is heavy as hell.
He has to pull the cord twice for it to catch, and my fingers dig into the ground at my sides, palms burning against the dirt.
Please, God, Saylor. Look the fuck away.
He revs it once. Twice. The man is speaking again, but all I can see is his wide eyes, and the way he tries for a few seconds to crawl away.
But he doesn’t make it far.
How could he?
The man with the chainsaw thrusts it downward, the loud weapon driving straight into his chest. Blood pours from the wound, and this time I can clearly hear the man on the ground.
I hear his screams.
I hear the high-pitched wailing when he jolts; and even as the blood sprays upward, staining the jeans and shirt of the man above him, he continues to scream.
He screams until the chainsaw slices messily against his throat—cutting off his ability to make noise—in a spray of arterial blood that arcs across the ground, nearly reaching me.
But the man with the chainsaw never looks particularly put out, or even interested. He just finishes what he’s doing, and as the noise from the motor dies, he lets the chainsaw fall to his side, bumping against his leg once it’s well and truly off.
I still can’t look away. My eyes feel glued open, and I can feel myself shaking where I sit. But my eyes slide upward, no longer on the dead or dying man, but on the one standing over top of him, still as the surrounding night.
Until he picks up my phone from the ground with a sigh and turns, his face in the light long enough for me to see his eyes find mine.
“You shouldn’t have watched. I know the sound would’ve been atrocious either way.
And I would’ve done something for you if we’d had time.
” Casually, like it’s just another day in the preserve, the man comes to kneel in front of me, the chainsaw on the ground beside us.
It pulls my gaze, the bloody blade shining in the white light from my phone. Now it’s this I can’t look away from, and a disgustingly morbid part of me can’t help but try to imagine what it had felt like to cut into a man’s chest.
And now I’m next.
“I…” I don’t know what to say. Begging for him not to hurt me seems stupid at this point.
The idea of begging for him to make it quick makes my mouth taste bitter and burnt.
I don’t want to die. But I really don’t want to die screaming like the man whose body steams on the ground.
“I just…” God, I need to find something better to say.
Especially with this man, this murderer on the ground in front of me.
“He deserved it.” To my astonishment, the man sits all the way down, my phone still in his hands between us to illuminate our faces harshly. He crosses his legs under him, his too-blue eyes on mine. “He deserved it more than you could possibly understand.”
“No one deserves that,” I hear myself whispering, when I know I should just agree with him. “That was terrible. It was brutal.”
“It was necessary. And better than he deserved.” The man isn’t at all put out by my trepidation, nor does he look away. “You said your name was Saylor.” It isn’t a question, but he tilts his head like it is. “I’m Jed Shaw.”
“Why are you…” I should just shut up and agree with him.
I know that for certain. My fingers play with the loose strings of my shoes, and I can’t look away from his eyes.
“Why are you being nice to me? Aren’t you going to—” I can’t finish the sentence, but my eyes betray me, darting towards the bloody chainsaw beside us.
“Have you done something to deserve me doing that”—he nods his head toward the other man—“to you?”
Quickly, I shake my head, both honest and terrified. “Then don’t worry about it, Saylor. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Hope soars in my chest, and I clutch at my shoelaces like a terrified child. “So I can leave?”
“Do you know the way back?” It’s not quite an answer…but it isn’t a no. The hope bubbles up my throat, and sudden energy courses through my body at the prospect of escape and calling the police. I just need to play along, just for a few more minutes.
Just until he isn’t looking. My fingers inch towards my phone, but that hope in my throat turns bitter as he pulls it back closer to him on the ground.
“Because even if you do, I don’t think I can let you go. Not right now, when you’re just going to call the police—”
“I won’t,” I lie, but his rueful smile tells me he sees right through it.
“And I haven’t had a chance to clean up yet.
I don’t want to go to jail, Saylor. Not for you, or anyone else.
” When I dart for my phone with a sudden rush of speed, he curls his fingers around it and yanks it back, my hand on it only serving to pull me forward across the ground, my face once again too close to his for comfort.
He smells like blood.
There’s no way around it. He reeks of the stench of old and new blood, and it nearly chokes me as I stare up at him before moving away.
But I’m too slow. A hand curls around the back of my neck, holding me to him, and I can only make a small sound of disbelief when the hand on my phone disappears, only to return moments later to rest somewhere between us.
“I’m so, so sorry.” Fuck, but he looks like he means it. All puppy dog eyes and sad, guilty frowns. I shake my head and try to pull away, one eye still on the chainsaw. “But I can’t let you go tonight.”
“Please don’t do this.” I’m shaking now. There’s no way he isn’t holding a knife, or isn’t preparing to jerk the chainsaw close to him and do to me the same thing he did to the other man. “Please—”
“Don’t beg me, Saylor. You’ll only break my heart.” He’s joking with me, the hint of a smile on his lips that makes me want to vomit. “You’ll call the police. I see it in your eyes. And I need you to understand that I can’t have you doing that before I let you go anywhere.”
“But I promise,” I whisper urgently. “I swear, okay?” Realizing I even half mean it, and I try to pull away from him, to stand, to do anything. “I won’t call anyone. You said it yourself. There’s no service here.”
“But you won’t be out here for long. We’re closer to the parking lot than you realize.” His grin is so fucking apologetic it makes my heart hurt. “Don’t be afraid of me. Please.”
“Then don’t do this.” Tears sting my eyes. I want to do something, to get out of this. But the only thing I can think of is how this is just my luck. Of course I would be the one paralyzed in a life-or-death situation with no idea of what to do.
Damn it.
When his hand comes up, my breath hitches in my throat. I brace for the pain. For the sharp-edged agony of him slitting my throat.
But I’m not expecting for him to cover my mouth and nose with one hand holding a cloth.
I jerk in a breath, and that’s my immediate undoing.
My vision spins as Jed sidles closer, supporting me with his arms as he fights to keep the cloth pressed to my face, even as my hands reach up to claw desperately at his wrist.
“Shhhh, shhh don’t fight me,” he all-but purrs, eyes never leaving mine. “It’ll be over in a second, I promise, if you just…don’t…”
I don’t hear the last words with my fingers latched into his skin, but in my brain I feel them on the tide of darkness that rises to claim my consciousness.
Fight me.