Chapter 1 – Jessica Benally #2
Henrik lit the fire and managed to get it started. One the fire was lit, he gestured for Ivan to pass him the bag of white powder and he took a couple bumps. Henrik never said too much. Once he handed the bag back to Ivan, I caught him staring at my chest. He smiled as I looked away awkwardly.
“I brought moonshine,” I chimed in, hoping to change the subject away from who planned to fuck me and who didn’t. I started to regret my decision to go camping, but it was getting late and I didn’t want to find myself hitchhiking back to town alone.
“Good. Let’s get it open,” Henrik suggested.
“My bag’s in the back of Tina’s truck.”
“I’ll come with you.”
We walked a few feet over to Tina’s truck. I leaned over to get my bag out of the back and Henrik came up behind me.
“Let me help you up.”
Before I could protest, he grabbed my hips and hoisted me a few inches off the ground. As he lifted me, I could feel his groin pressing into me.
“Henrik!”
“You got the bag?”
“Yes.”
I lifted the bag and wriggled out of his grasp. He pressed me against the back of the truck, using his hips to pin me in place. I turned around and he spread his arms out to trap me.
“Henrik, what are you doing?”
“You think you can avoid getting fucked this weekend?”
“Henrik, stop…”
“Someone’s going to sneak into your tent and do you whether you like it or not…”
“Henrik, let me go…”
“Share with me and I’ll protect you. I’ll make sure none of these sickos get to you…”
“Stop!”
He laughed.
“I’m only playing with you, Jess.”
“You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
“Suit yourself. Take your chances with Ivan and Taylor if you want. I always wanted to taste Nancy again.”
I split away from him and ran back to camp, my face blanched. Nancy came up to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder.
“What’s wrong? Henrik scare the crap outta ya?”
I nodded.
“Henrik! You bastard! What did you say to her?”
“Nothing. I ain’t said nothing.”
“She’s shaking like a leaf.”
“She’s a prude,” Henrik snarled.
Nancy rolled her eyes.
“Fine. I’ll share a tent with you. Happy?”
“Hell, I don’t want to share a tent with Henrik,” Taylor chimed, “When he’s had too much blow I heard he fucks guys too.”
“Shut up, Taylor.”
Taylor dodged Henrik’s swing and took his chances swinging back. Henrik punched him in the stomach and he doubled over in mock pain. Henrik grinned.
“You’re a fuckin’ idiot you know that.”
They sat around the fire while Tina prepared their dinner and they passed around my bottle of moonshine.
I could tell they were all getting too drunk, taking swigs of my bottle where I took only sips.
I clutched my arms around my legs, turning down Henrik’s offer to help “keep me warm” twice.
Ivan eventually told him to knock it off out of some misplaced sense of cousinly duty that kicked in late in the evening.
Nancy and Henrik were the first to peel off from the group.
After finishing up my moonshine and nosediving into harder drugs, he couldn’t stop pawing at Nancy and Ivan yelled at them to take it in the tent before he shot them.
Nobody believed he’d actually do it but then the idiot reached for his gun.
I started screaming. Henrik laughed his ass off and then Nancy dragged him into the tent where they started getting it on… loud.
Ivan didn’t want to get caught with the public reputation of having put his hands on me, plus he knew I was crazy enough to kill him if he tried anything, so he made quick work of getting Tina to agree to lie with him which left me alone with Taylor who sat across from me in front of the fire, finishing off what was left of the liquor.
He didn’t try to get close to me. My bladder started to ache from all I’d been drinking and I got up, intending to walk a few feet off from the tent.
“Hey miss lady, where you going?”
“Take a leak,” I mumbled, stumbling and leaning on a tree to stabilize myself from getting up too fast.
“You be careful out there.”
“Yeah.”
I wandered a few feet into the woods, breathing a sigh of relief as I found a large pine and stomped through some snow behind it to relieve myself. When I was done and finished pulling up my long-johns and jeans, I thought I heard a twig snap.
“Taylor?”
I expelled a thick fog of breath through chattering teeth and called again, “Taylor?”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. There was still no response. I thrust my hands back in my coat pocket and pulled the fur-lined hood of my parka up over my ears. I made it two steps back to camp when I felt a hand clamp over my mouth. I tried to scream, but couldn’t.
Another hand wrestled me still, pulling my body closer to my assailant’s. I tried to scream again, then I heard him whisper and smelled my moonshine on his breath.
“Stay still, Jess. I don’t wanna hurt you.”
I jammed my elbow in his chest, hoping to loosen his grip on me.
“Careful, Jess. I’ve got a hunting knife and I’d hate for you to have an accident out here. They don’t go lookin’ for missing girls like you up here.”
I spat into his hand and Taylor chuckled.
“I move my hand and you scream, I kill you, got that?”
I nodded. He removed his hand from my mouth and wiped it on his jeans.
I seized my opportunity and jammed my elbow into him again.
I ran. Taylor was bigger than me, and faster than me.
All I had was my head start and my ability to outsmart him ‘cause he drank more than me and he’d done hard drugs too.
I couldn’t keep running forever. Despite my head start, he was determined and he’d find me if he could. I had to find somewhere to hide. All I needed was one tree wide enough to hide behind, one rock jutting out of the ground that I could crouch behind.
I came to a tree with a wide trunk and peeled bark. I rushed around it, pressing my back against it. I could hear Taylor’s footsteps rumbling behind me.
“Jess! Jess, where are you?!”
“Jess!”
I could feel my heartbeat right in my throat. Despite the cold, I was too hot for my jacket and sweating beneath my parka. I pressed my palms against the tree trunk, steadying my shaking limbs and ready to fight if I had to.
Taylor had been using a flashlight to search for me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his light drawing closer to me.
Then the light extinguished and all I could hear were boots crunching in the snow.
Crunch. Crunch. I could hear him breathing.
I held my breath, hoping he wasn’t listening as well as I was. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Big mistake. His flashlight came on, right in my face. Taylor was three feet away from me. I opened my mouth to scream but the sound that came from my mouth didn’t come from me. It was him. Taylor screamed and then some force yanked him away from me. The force pulled him back and then I screamed.
The force that pulled him back wasn’t a force, but a person. Not quite a person… A person-like thing. As I screamed, I slammed my back against the tree and heard a deep booming voice as if it came from inside my own thoughts utter, >
I screamed again. Taylor screamed again. I shut my eyes and when I opened them, both Taylor and the creature disappeared.
“TAYLOR!”
“TAYLOR WHERE ARE YOU, YOU BASTARD?”
Nothing. I turned around and ran back to camp, crawling into my tent and laying awake all night, unable to sleep.