Her Terrifying Love

Part 82

Then came a welcome sight.

Jack slung his aching forearm against his forehead, slowly clenching and unclenching his fists. 

"I can't feel my fingers," he wheezed.

She asked softly, "Are you alright?"

"Uh-huh," he responded with a whisper. "Just a little dizzy, that's all. I just need... a minute." 

She knew that his false optimism was intended to dispel her concerns. He looked like he needed an ambulance.

"That was hard to watch," she said.

He didn't respond but she was encouraged when she saw color returning to his face. 

"It was dumb not to bring water." She ran her tongue across her parched lips. "We should—"

She was interrupted by a violent cough from the body. 

They lurched backward. Jack bolted to his feet.

Pockets of air escaped from Keenan's gaping mouth.

She darted to a position behind Jack. They held the corpse in wide-eyed stares, watching for any indication of movement.

"He's alive!" Jack gulped.

She fully expected Keenan to spring to his feet and cackle that blistering laugh of his, but he didn't move.

"No," she said finally. "I saw on TV that gasses build up inside a body when... That's all it is."

"Yeah." He didn't fully accept Lyla's explanation. "That's all."

Neither dared take their eyes from the corpse as they approached cautiously. Jack poked Keenan's body with the toe of his boot. 

No reaction. 

"Well..." he sighed half-heartedly. "Guess you're right."

Lyla turned, shielded her eyes with her hand, and contemplated the demanding journey through the forest, up the mountainside, and back to the road where Jack's car was parked.

"How are we going to carry him?" Lyla asked. "All the way back up to the road?"

"Look. We already did the hard part."

She raised her eyes to him.

"We found him!" he said. "How amazing is that?"

A slight smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

"That's like a one in a million chance, right?"

She shrugged.

"And we got him out of that crevasse."

"You did."

"We did. The hard part's over. We just gotta power through."

Like a green shoot pushing up through the scorched forest floor after a raging wildfire, Jack's resilience was extraordinary. His encouragement earned a wide smile from Lyla. He untied the rope from Keenan's body, coiled it, and tossed it over the edge.

"You sure you can do this?" she asked. "I mean, can you even walk?"

He gave her a "thumbs up." In his most reassuring tone, he said, "We got this." He glanced down at Keenan's lifeless eyes, gripped the corpse's cold wrists, and added, "We better get moving."

She held her breath and grabbed the ankles. They felt thinner than she remembered. She put that revolting thought out of her mind.

"Let's do this." Jack started into the woods, lugging the cadaver behind him.

Keenan's head dangled to one side tethered to his stinking body by his broken, tattooed neck, the thick blue serpent prominently displayed.

As the sunlight faded, the long shadows melded into one murky veil of darkness. During the initial fifteen minutes of the hike, they navigated with reasonable certainty. But as the last traces of daylight evaporated, familiar landmarks were obscured. Occasionally, they disagreed on the route to the car.

"Go right," she said when she noticed a pink stripe of lipstick across the ruddy bark of a tree.

"Feels like we're going the wrong way."

"No, we're not."

Further into the dusk they trudged.

"Lyla," a voice whispered. 

She peeked over her shoulder. Apparently, Jack hadn't heard it. She squinted into the darkness.

Keenan's head rolled back and forth, frequently bumping the back of Jack's thighs. She heard vertebrae grinding from within the corpse's broken neck. She looked away.

They hadn't trekked much farther before she was out of breath, her arms aching, her leg muscles cramping. 

"I need to rest," she gasped.

They set the body on the cold ground. The exertion of their demanding task was their buffer against the chill that settled in now that the warmth of the sun had dissipated. Lyla rubbed her sore arms as she sucked the cool air into her lungs.

Without the noises of their footsteps thrashing through brush and their rhythmic panting, the sounds became amplified. Small, unseen creatures darted through the underbrush and scampered across a floor of fallen leaves. Birds nested in the tall trees above them, which groaned when the late afternoon breezes rubbed one against another.

As the last of the light faded, Lyla gasped at the image of the silhouette of a man standing between the trees just up ahead. She blinked and it was gone.

"What's the matter?" Jack read her distressed expression.

"I thought I saw..."

"What?" He looked around.

"Probably nothing. I'm just tired." She shook it off and took Keenan's bony ankles in her hands, following Jack as he forged a path up the steep incline.

He lugged the corpse by its wrists, watching for encouraging signs that they were closing the distance to the road and finally, to his car. Lyla's pink trail markers had kept them on course but now, in the dying light, they were navigating on instinct.

A voice whispered, "Lylaaaaa." 

She snapped her head around. The darkness was too thick to penetrate.

After another laborious twenty minutes of hiking at an ever-decreasing pace, she dropped Keenan's feet. "I... can't..." His feet banged to the turf, his head bounced against the hard surface of the ground. She couldn't catch her breath.

"I think that's the road up there," said Jack, his voice ringing with optimism.

"I... don't see... anything."

"Up there. On the road," he whispered. "I see lights."

She turned. "Lights?"

He continued the steep climb.

"Where you going?" she asked.

"To get a look."

She had no desire to stand alone in the pitch-black forest with Keenan's corpse at her feet. She began to follow Jack but stopped when she saw that he had been caught in a flashlight beam.

She ducked.

"Hey! Who's there?" came an authoritative voice.

Jack froze.

"Come up here where I can see you," he demanded. "It's the State Police."

Lyla's heart stopped beating.