Beast of Venery (32 page)

              “Hey,” said the voice again. “Make yourself down here. It's me, Jo.”

Now she saw her. A little wooden door had opened itself from the base of the cabin and in the narrow opening she could see Jo's pale skin and wide eyes pinning her down in her secluded tree hut. With no other idea what to do, she dove out from the protection of the tree branches, and moving as fast as lightning she was crawling her whole voluptuous body through the little opening at the door Jo had provided. Just as quickly it was shut behind them, and in the darkness they hugged.

              They didn't exchange any words. Jo simple cupped Danielle's face in the dark and stroked her thin hands down her cheeks. She hadn't even noticed she was crying. Sitting there in the dark, she heard Jo shuffle slightly and suddenly her mouth was right next to her ear, letting out an almost soundless whisper.

              “Are you okay?”

              “Yes.”

              “Andy and Vernon aren't back yet. I don't know where they are.” Jo whispered, anxiety dangling on the edge of her unsteady voice.

              “I haven't seen them.” Danielle responded with a breath. “I just ran away from Brian in the forest and when I knew he passed by me in the dark I traced myself back here.”

              “Good... good. We have to wait I guess, and sit in silence. One of them is bound to come back soon.”

              “Yes. Okay.”

              With those final words they decided to share the space of silence in the darkness surrounding them both. With the time ticking and without any noise around the cabin, neither one had a clue what time it was, nor how long they had been sitting there together, hiding. Quietly.

              Abruptly the silence ended. Jo fumbled in the dark grabbing a hold of Danielle's hand. There was a sound of slight movement of the gravel outside the house making its way through the wooden boards to the door concealing them. Not wanting to risk being seen or heard it seemed dangerous, idiotic really, to peek out to see who had made it back.

              Instead they listen closely. Was it one pair of feet or two that walked over the pebbles in the night?

              Almost certain Andy and Vernon would have stuck together, made it a relief to hear more than one pair of shoes outside. More shuffling, a little closer to the house now. Definitely more than one pair of boots hitting the ground.

              “Should we?” Jo's voice whispered in her ear.

              “No, not yet. I want to hear who it is first.”

              The footsteps came to a halt near their side of the house. Not close enough for the people on the outside to find their passage door, but close enough for voice recognition.

              “So, where is everyone?”

              “No one is here. They all scattered through the forest, and I haven't seen any of them for at least an hour. You?”

              “Nope. I just walked though the house but no one is inside either. Must still be out there somewhere I guess? What's your plan?”

              There was a short pause in the conversation but neither Jo nor Danielle were certain to whom the voices belonged. Sure, there were two male voices, so that would have made Andy and Vernon. But listening in on the words going back and forth between the two men, it didn't quite fit in. Nor did the sound pitch.

              Jo had kept Danielle's hand in hers listening through the entire conversation, feeling her squeeze it must have meant she wasn't sure what was going on outside either.

              “I guess we just wait them out and see if she comes back first.” One voice carried on. “When I chased her through the woods she threw her shoes of, so she can't have made it too far. She's a real pussy when it comes to pain, so I'm guessing she will be the one to return here first.”

              “So what do you want me to do?”

              “Just do what I asked of you. If you find her before I do, make sure she can't move until I get there.”

              “What do you mean by not moving?”

              “You know exactly what I mean. Don't you remember Boise?”

              “I'm not doing that again.”

              “Too bad. You owe me.”

              “Fine. I'll see what I can do.”

              “Good. Just make sure you wait for me if you happen to come across her first. I've got things I need to do with her. Things I need to get out of my system. Things unfinished.”

              A low chuckle traveled through the air. She had heard that laugh before somewhere. One voice belonged to Brian; she would never forget his evil tongue, but the second one she couldn't quite place.

Rudely her head was pulled forward by Jo's hands until they were sitting ear to ear in the dark.

              “Danielle. That's Jonathan!”

Chapter 20

              It struck her like a blast of dynamite shooting a cold shiver went down her spine. It was Jonathan. Andy's sister's boyfriend, Jonathan.

She couldn't believe it. “
No, it couldn't be right. How could this even be real? How did they know each other? What piece of the puzzle did they put together as a crime duo?”

              “I don't understand?” Her voice trembled through the tight air of their hiding spot and tangled in Jo's hair.

              “It's... it's just completely nuts. I don't know what to say. We'll have to wait.”

              The silence surrounded them once more, and the footsteps started to dissipate. What where they going to do? It was all too disturbing. Jonathan and Annie had already been dating for six or seven months, and within that time frame he had gotten to know the family and all their private matters pretty well. She couldn't imagine him sitting there knowing who she was all this time. That every time they met during family dinners, or over weekend vacations, he had known about Brian and what he had done to her. What misery he had put the whole family through, and still he had gone home every day and made sweet love to her sister-in-law who had been completely blind-sided by these backstabbing events.

              “We're going to stay put until our guys are back, and then we'll make a run for it.” Jo's voice cut off her min railing wild, but she thought Jo's plan sounded as good as any.

              “There are hammers and shovels and other tools in the gardening shed attached to the house in the back. Since neither of us have any weapons we have to use what we can find. Let's wait a little longer, and our boys aren't back soon we'll sneak out and see if we can get to that shed without anyone seeing us. For once the darkness of the night will work to our advantage.”

              “Alright, how long should we wait?”

              “Since we don't have watch in here to check the time, let's just count quietly up to two-hundred by ourselves and then we'll leave.”

              “Got it.”

              They both sat in silence, letting their hands and fingers twist together on their laps. Danielle felt like a child again, playing hide-and-go-seek. A minute passed, and then another.

              “Let's go.” Jo nudged her shoulder, activating the adrenaline slumbering just beneath her skin.

Jo let go of Danielle's hands and shuffled up from her knees to slowly open the little wooden door to their concealment. Opened only wide enough for one of her eyes to peek through the small opening. Silence still covered the grounds outside and if they could just get it out of there and around the corner, they would find the small shed and be safe ones more.

              More moon light streamed down in the safety of their small confinement as Jo kept pushing the door open. Eventually Danielle was able to see enough in front of her on the ground that she knew where to put feet and take her steps out of hiding and let Jo lead their way to the shed.

              Both women were standing with their backs flat against the log walls of the house. The moon light hadn't made it this close to the wall. Their escape had been pretty effortless and undetected. Standing close enough that their shoulders nudged against each other, Danielle showed Jo off in the direction of the shed. They had to keep going. Who knew when either Brian or Phil would appear again? They still didn't know where they had gone off to. They could be anywhere from the woods, to inside of the house. Or perhaps even standing quietly somewhere around them, just watching what the woman were going to do next. 

              She just couldn't let them scare them off. This seemed the best alternative to running out in the woods again that they had come up with.

              Jo, being the first one of the two to reach the corner of the cabin, looked back at Danielle as to ask if she dared to peek around the corner or not. A single, firm nod moved Danielle's head, and she hoped that the look in her eyes didn't confess the fear that was almost about to rip her apart. Now they knew that Brian didn't work alone, and that the two men were at the location. The night had been horrendous as it was, and somehow both Danielle and Jo knew that these night hours were not going to end well. Especially not if Brian or Jonathan found them.

              There was no saying what the boys plans were if they found Danielle or Jo. Would Brian force himself upon her again? Would Jonathan join in? Would she be abducted? Or would they hurt her so bad that she didn't make it? Any guess was as good as the other. Having her mind race like a rat in a maze didn't help making it any easier.

              Awaken from her reverie, she noticed that Jo had peeked around the corner and nodded her head in the direction to the shed. She knew to follow. Still staying flat against the wall, they moved around the corner of the cabin, and tiptoed quietly over the gravel covered ground until they reached the small shed.

              “This was it? This was the gardening shed?”

Danielle cursed her mother-in-law soundlessly. This wasn't a shed they go into and hide. The shed was not larger than a bedroom closet with two simple cupboard doors opening to a few shallow shelves on the inside.

              Fuck! They had better gather up whatever was in that little cupboard and head back to the hiding spot they had just come out of. This was way too risky, knowing that the shadows splayed over the ground no longer covered their frames in front of the shed.

              Jo took just way too long finding something to bring with her, and Danielle's patience was about to boil over. She reached around Jo and grabbed the first thing she found on the middle shelf. A crowbar. Her other hand moved over the top shelf and handed Jo an old hammer. The two women looked at each other and silently communicated the fact that they needed to head back into safety. Jo nodded and put her hands on each door to the cupboard and pushed them slowly together.

              Then they both saw him. Through the corner of her eyes a shadow of a man stood on the side porch of the cabin, about forty feet away. The blood in her body froze and ignited at the same time, and without any hesitation both Danielle and Jo took of bare feet over the gravel to get as much head speed as possible. They might not be able to outrun him, facing him this close, but they were sure as well going to try to.

              If they could just round the corner of cabin and throw themselves into the tight spot under the house where they had just come out of, they might be able to shut it close and somehow lock it from the inside. Danielle's bare feet ran over the sharp pebbles as if jumping over hot lava, and knowing Jo was right behind her, in shoes, she was still the one to first make it around the corner.

              “I will keep running!” Were the last words she heard from Jo, as she passed the cabin corner running and kept straight. She was obviously not going to turn into the hiding of the shadow on this side of the wall.

              Danielle couldn't think straight, but knew Brian must be right on Jo's heel. Between the two of them, she was not in advantage. She had been right. A few seconds after Jo had passed the corner and kept going straight out in the open, Brian's running shoes could be heard pushing fast and hard against the ground.

              With no real plan of what she was doing, Danielle timed him in perfectly, and to her own surprise she dared to leap out of her shadowy confinement and using one solid, hard strike, the crowbar in her hands hit him with a destructive thump, high in the chest. As he stumbled backwards from the sudden blow of the strike, the crowbar ripped out of her hands and followed his staggering body back and fell against the ground.

              She was out in the open view for him now. At any second he could get up from the ground and use the very same crowbar on her body, which would be a lot softer than his. A tool like that could easily disembody her flesh without too much trouble. Still she stood there. Not moving. She had to wait him out and see with her own eyes if he would actually do what her mind had just imagined.

              With a grunt he wiggled back and forth on ground, his back against the sharp gravel. His arms were shaking, and with two hands he tried to get rid of the claw of crowbar that had set into his chest.