The Night Killer

for the rain, as uncomfortable as it was.
    She rose from her hiding place on shaky legs. She peered nervously through the darkness, looking for signs of a flashlight, fearing that someone might also be coming after her through the woods. She saw nothing. She listened for the dogs. It was hard to tell whether the barking was getting closer. She didn’t know if they were in pens or on her trail. Diane held her breath and strained to listen. In pens, she decided. She wasn’t that far from the old house. Surely they would have found her if they were loose.
    The lights of the truck were no longer visible to her, but she heard the engine. It wasn’t far, but at least it was out of sight. She started walking, trying to keep parallel to the roadway, but it was nearly impossible. It was so dark. She was probably veering off deeper into the woods. If she could just find a place to hide until daylight. A safe place. What kind of place would be safe? she asked herself. She pressed on as fast as she dared, trying not to stumble, silently cursing the uneven ground.
    The rain had thoroughly soaked her clothes and sneakers, and her wet socks were already rubbing the heels of her feet. She stopped a moment to rest, leaning forward with her hands on her thighs. Diane wasn’t so much tired or out of breath as scared. She needed to calm down, to think. She brought the image of the map to the Barres’ house up in her mind and tried to visualize the lay of the land. Where was the road in relation to the house? She looked around, squinting at the dark trees and underbrush blowing and moving with the wind and hard rain. How in the world could she translate her location to a position on the map? Impossible. She thought she was going in the right direction, but she didn’t know. She could be heading ninety degrees from the direction she needed to go.
    She listened again. The dogs were just as loud as before, but the rhythm of their barking had changed. They were loose and on her trail. Diane turned on the flashlight for a few moments and selected a direction to follow. She could make out trees in the darkness, and the hill beyond, but that was about all. The small hollow she was in had ended and she had to climb the next ridge. She started walking again. Her footfalls were quiet on the wet forest floor. Thank heaven for that. The sound of the rain was louder than the noise she made walking through the underbrush.
    Diane stepped in a small hole and almost fell. Damn. She was tempted to use her light, but she didn’t dare shine it for more than a few seconds. She climbed the steep grade. The chill made her legs ache on the incline. She was accustomed to putting discomfort in the back of her mind, ignoring it. As a caver, she had experienced more than one occasion when she had to endure discomfort for long periods. There were more hills between her and the Barres’, so she tucked away any aches she felt and concentrated on putting distance between her and the mysterious house.
    She climbed the hill, sometimes grabbing at roots to help her up the slick, steep incline. At the top she thought she heard the rumbling muffler of the truck off in the distance. She definitely heard the dogs. They were after her, with or without a handler restraining them. She increased her speed and almost slid down the slope. She grasped at a limb to keep from falling. It raked across her hand. She put her stinging palm on her cold, wet jacket for a moment and kept going.
    I need a plan , Diane thought. There were thousands of acres here and few houses. She realized she was no longer walking parallel to the road. She could be getting farther away from any roadway or the Barres’ house. She stopped, leaned against a tree, and thought a moment.
    On the way to their house she’d crossed several small bridges—several creeks. Okay, creeks. That was her plan. The first creek she came to, she would follow it upstream, hoping that it would take her back to one of the roads. Not much of a plan, and if she were thinking more clearly, she would find lots of holes in it. But it was the only thing she could think of at the moment. Moreover, she didn’t remember any large creeks on the road near the mysterious house, so if she got lost, at least she would be lost away from the house.
    And what the heck was that skeleton anyway? She’d been so frightened and focused on running that she had forgotten about the skeleton. Where in the hell was the thing? Up in the tree?