The Curse of Deadman's Forest (32 page)

But then, with suddenness, a new sound added itself to the mix, and it took Ian a bit of time to comprehend it, because the noise was impossible.

Carl was coughing.

And if his best mate was coughing, then he was still alive. But Theo …

Ian resisted the urge to open his eyes and held her close.
She still felt warm. He swallowed hard; the reality he’d been fighting was starting to seep into him, like the venom from the hellhound, poisonous and bleak.

And then … a miracle. Theo moved.

Ian snapped his eyes open and pulled his chin down so that he could see the top of her head. She stirred again, and behind him, Carl’s coughing intensified. Ian sucked in a breath and carefully sat up. Theo pushed against his chest and grunted. “Ian!” she complained softly. “You’re holding me too tight.”

Belatedly, he relaxed his arms, and Theo tilted her face to him and asked, “You all right?”

He was so stunned that all he could do was nod.

“He shot just over our heads,” Theo said, pointing to a tree jutting out on the other side of the ravine. Ian could see that the trunk was missing three chunks of bark. “I thought for certain he was going to kill us, but when I saw that he marched us over to the edge of the ravine and shot above Carl’s head before kicking him down the slope, I knew he was saving us instead.”

Ian looked down at his left side and pulled up his shirt to reveal a red mark about the size of the toe of a man’s boot. “He kicked us to get us to fall over?” he asked.

“Yes,” Theo said. “I saw him kick Carl….” Theo’s voice trailed off as she looked past Ian to where Carl lay on the wet ground. She got to her feet, hurried over to him, and helped him sit up. Carl’s cough had subsided just enough to allow him to look about in a daze.

“Are we dead?” he asked.

Ian shook his head. “Not yet, mate.”

A loud agonized moan sounded from up the hill, and all three of them immediately looked in that direction. “Eva!” Ian said, scrambling to his feet and clambering up the ravine to her.

She lay on her back, staring at the sky in terror and pain. “It hurts,” she mouthed while tears leaked down her cheeks. Theo and Carl joined him then and knelt down next to Eva. Ian gently eased the flap of her coat away from her right shoulder to reveal a gaping and bloody wound that went clear through the poor girl. The ground behind Eva was red with blood and her skin was starkly pale.

“We’ve got to help her,” Theo said.

Ian looked about and saw the knapsack not far away. He retrieved it, then rummaged through the contents, coming up with a knife and one of Carl’s extra shirts. He cut off several long strips and wadded up two of them, then placed those on the entrance and exit wounds and bound the wounds awkwardly with the other strips. He knew that the makeshift bandage wasn’t likely to hold long, but it was the best he could do.

“We’ll take her back to her grandmother’s,” he told them.

But Theo shook her head. “It’s too far.”

“We have to try, Theo,” Ian told her firmly. “We can’t very well leave her here.”

Theo laid a gentle hand on his arm and looked over her shoulder. “There is somewhere we can take her that is much closer and will give her some shelter from the rain,” she said
to him, pointing. “I’d just discovered it when I heard you and Eva arguing.”

Ian’s gaze followed Theo’s finger and he saw the large gray rock that he and Carl had discussed earlier. “But that’s not much shelter,” he told her.

Theo merely said, “There’s more there than meets the eye, Ian. Come along. You take Eva’s front and I’ll take her legs.”

But Ian shook his head. “That’ll put too much strain on her wound.”

“It’s not far,” Theo insisted.

Ian shook his head again and got his left arm under Eva’s legs while moving his right under her torso. Counting to three in his head, he lifted her off the ground as gently as he could, but the strain on his own wound was enough to cause his eyes to water.

Theo looked at him worriedly for a moment but said nothing as she got up and led them slowly through the woods toward the rock.

They’d gone only a few meters when Ian had to stop. He sank to his knees, panting heavily, with Eva still cradled in his arms. “I can carry her,” Carl suggested, but immediately he started to cough again, doubling over as great rattling hacks shook his body.

Ian waited until his friend had caught his breath again before saying, “That’s all right, Carl. I can manage.” Ian used all his strength and willpower to stand up again. Eva moaned in his arms. He knew she was in pain, and he focused on getting to the rock as quickly as he could so that he wouldn’t have to keep moving her up and down.

With supreme effort they made it to the huge monolith, and Ian leaned against it, panting for air while his legs trembled underneath him and his arm screamed with fiery pain. “Over there,” Theo said.

Ian turned his head dully and saw something remarkable. He blinked in the downpour and realized that he was looking at several planks nailed to a nearby tree, forming a makeshift ladder that led straight to a wooden bridge of sorts directly overhead.

The bridge linked a vast circle of trees together, and the trees seemed to mark the edge of a circle made of enormous stones just like the one he was standing next to. Within the circle of stones, nothing grew, and the rain was harsher there, because there was no foliage to stem the flow of the downpour.

Ian’s eyes drifted back up to the bridge and he was even more startled to realize that there were structures within the branches of the trees. He counted four, in fact, and each looked like a small house. “You want us to take Eva up
there?”
he asked Theo.

She nodded at him. “She’ll be safe and out of this rain,” she told him. “We’ll all be safe up there. If the soldiers return, they’ll never think to look for us so high up in the trees.”

“But, Theo,” he protested, “what if someone already lives there?”

“Then we’ll implore them to help Carl and Eva,” Theo told him, and her voice indicated that there was no room for further argument.

Ian continued to breathe hard from the strain of carrying Eva, but eventually he nodded. “Very well, but I don’t believe I can manage to carry her up that ladder, Theo. I don’t have the strength.”

Theo moved to the tree and he watched as she unhooked a rope from the other side and stepped out of the way as a wicker basket came down out of the branches. It was large enough to hold Eva.

Ian took a deep breath and pushed away from the rock to wobble awkwardly over to the basket. As gently as he could, he placed Eva inside, but the poor girl gasped when he removed his arm from around her and she fell against the back of the basket.

Ian also winced; his arm was now throbbing fiercely. “How do we get the basket up to the bridge?” he asked Theo.

Theo tilted her chin skyward and pointed to something at the top of the rope. “There’s a hoist,” she told him smartly.

Ian moved to the ladder, and that was when he spotted Carl still standing by the rock, not looking well at all. “Carl!” he called, but his friend barely seemed to hear him. Ian moved away from the tree and over to him. “We have to climb the ladder.” For emphasis, Ian pointed to the nearby tree.

Carl blinked tiredly in the direction Ian was pointing. “I don’t think I can manage it, Ian,” he confessed just as his knees gave out.

Ian caught him and draped Carl’s arm around his neck.
“Come on, mate,” he said, surprised at the intense heat rising from Carl’s skin. “Let’s get you somewhere warm and dry.”

Ian helped Carl to the ladder and stared straight up. He didn’t think that Carl would be able to manage it either, and Ian wondered if he had the strength to hoist both Carl and Eva up to the platform. “Get Eva up first,” Theo told him. “I’ll tend to Carl and work him into the basket after you send it down again. And then I’ll come up to help you hoist him the rest of the way.”

Ian smiled gratefully at her and set Carl down next to the tree with instructions to get into the basket as soon as Theo asked him to. Carl blinked dully at him and coughed into his hand.

Ian hoped he remained conscious long enough to oblige. He went to the wooden ladder and began to climb.

Had he not been weakened by the hellhound’s bite, navigating the ladder would have been child’s play. But with all the overexertion he’d endured recently, the climb proved challenging. Eventually, he made it to the bridge, panting again for some time before he felt able to crawl to the hoist. It was a fairly simple design, and he found that by using his body weight, he was able to move Eva in slow jerky tugs up to the bridge.

When at last she reached the platform, Ian tipped the basket gently onto its side and eased the girl out of the wicker container. He paused when he realized she was no longer conscious, and bent to feel her pulse. Fortunately, she
was still alive, although he knew she was in a most desperate condition. Ian released the basket, calling down to Theo to let her know it was on its way, and tried to get Eva some protection from the rain by moving her under a thick set of branches.

Once the Polish girl was resting peacefully under the leaves of the tree, he peered over the side of the bridge and saw that Theo was struggling with Carl, trying to coax him into the basket. Ian debated going down the ladder to help her, but that would require another arduous climb up, and he knew he didn’t posses the strength. He settled for watching anxiously while Theo patiently half helped, half persuaded Carl into the wicker basket. The moment he was inside, Ian got to the hoist and began to pull and push on the crank.

The progress was painfully slow, even slower than it had been with Eva, and Ian quickly ran out of strength. Luckily, the hoist locked itself on the upward rotation, so after several turns, he was able to stop and lean over the crank to catch his wind. He felt a hand on his back as he was ready to try again, and he jumped only to realize that Theo had come up the ladder and was now standing next to him. “Might I lend a hand?”

Ian gave her a small smile. “Of course.” Together they eased Carl up to the top, and Ian tipped the basket the way he had with Eva. Carl managed to crawl out of the cramped space on his own, and he stared up at them with such sadness that Theo kneeled down and asked him what was wrong.

“I’m not going to make it,” he told her.

Ian stared at him, his heart sinking as he took in Carl’s desperately pale complexion. “Don’t talk like that,” he said firmly.

But Carl shook his head. “I’m really sick, Ian,” he said, shivering in the cold, wet rain, his blue lips quivering against his chattering teeth. “I don’t think I’m likely to last through the night, mate.”

Theo looked gravely at Ian, and he noticed with a pang that her hand was wrapped tightly around her crystal. “Let’s get you to some shelter,” she said to Carl, fighting back her tears. “We’ll need to see to Eva as well.”

While Theo helped Carl along the bridge, Ian struggled to carry Eva’s limp form. It had been easier when she was still conscious and somewhat rigid. He found that he had to stop every other step just to prevent her from falling through his arms.

They eventually reached the first small house, built right into the cradle of branches, which supported it and that section of the bridge. Ian set Eva down gently and knocked on the door. There was no response, so he tried the handle. It turned easily and the door opened with a loud creak. “Hello?” he called into the dark interior.

No one replied.

“Let’s go in,” Theo said, trying her best to support Carl’s weight. Ian wriggled the knapsack off his back and fished around for his torch. He clicked it on and shone the beam around the interior.

The small tree house was one room, much like the cottage where Eva and her grandmother lived, but the interior
was chock-full of so much clutter that it was hard to gauge its actual living space. Theo sighed impatiently behind Ian, and without waiting for his permission, she pushed forward, half dragging, half carrying Carl inside. She found a space on the floor and set him down, then looked up expectantly at Ian. “You coming in?” she asked.

Ian couldn’t explain his trepidation; there was obviously no one home, if anyone lived there at all. All the things piled within the interior had clearly been there for quite some time, as they were coated with dust, and the place had that old, musty odor of being shut up for a long while without any fresh air. Still, he found that he was unsettled by the idea of trespassing. Then again, all he had to do was look down at Eva and he knew he had little choice.

He bent low and lifted her one last time, then carried her into the dry room and set her down next to Carl. Theo was already on her feet and moving about, inspecting their environment as she rummaged through a pile of odds and ends. “What are you doing?” he asked her in alarm. “Theo, what if the owners come back and see you going through their things?”

Theo pulled out a large quilt with a look of triumph. “We’ll simply explain that our friends were in desperate need of their hospitality.” She then brought the quilt over to drape it across Carl and Eva and grabbed the torch out of Ian’s hand when something else caught her eye. After sifting through another pile, she retrieved an ancient-looking oil lamp which, by some miracle, still appeared to contain some oil. “Do you have any matches?”

Ian went to his knapsack, brought it inside, and handed over a box of matches from one of the interior pockets. Theo lit the lamp and the whole room was illuminated. The pair of them stared about in wonderment.

From floor to ceiling, and all around them, trinkets, toys, and knickknacks gleamed in the lamplight. Ian had never seen such an assortment and was at a loss as to why anyone would posses so much clutter.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” he asked her.

“Only the professor’s house can compare,” she replied, and Ian remembered what a pack rat Professor Nutley was. Yet even his hoard couldn’t match the assortment crowding the room.

A tremendous thunderclap rattled the contents of the house and sent tremors along the walls. “The storm is getting worse,” Theo whispered nervously.