Tami Hoag - Dark Paradise

Jerked off balance, Clyde went down heavily, flipping ass over teakettle down the grade. Already half out of the saddle, Mari was flung clear of the tangle of hooves and thrashing legs. She hit the ground hard and tumbled like a rag doll, end over end. The dead stump of a broken pine tree brought her to an abrupt halt. Dazed, she lay there among the dead leaves and pine needles, her ears ringing, her eyes crossed, pain telegraphing along her entire network of nerve endings.

The woman ran toward her, a trio of ragged, bloody images.

“Help me! God, please help me! Please!” Hysterical, she flung herself down on her knees and began pulling at Mari’s arms.

Mari shoved herself up into a sitting position, thrusting an arm out to fend off the woman’s frantic pawing. “Stop it!” she ordered, scrambling to get her feet under her despite the dizziness. Terror gripped her by the throat and shook her hard. She couldn’t think beyond the moment, couldn’t see beyond the woman with her ragged black hair and wild dark eyes and slashed face, and her hands, grotesquely swollen and purple, grabbing at her clothes. She wanted to push her away and run. Then recognition hit as the lightning snapped across the sky.

“Jesus,” she muttered, stunned. “Samantha? Oh, my God! Samantha?” She managed to get hold of the girl by the upper arms and she shook her hard, as if she might shake the panic out of her. “What happened? Who did this to you?”

A wild keening sound strained up out of her throat and tears came scalding out of her eyes and down her cheeks. “Run! We have to run! She’ll kill us!”

“Who!”

“Sharon! She’ll kill us!” She doubled over from the pain and the fear, sobbing. “She killed that other woman. She’ll kill us too!”

Sharon.

“Oh, shit,” Mari mumbled as a chill poured down her back and arms and legs, raising goose bumps in its wake. She stared at Samantha in shock and disbelief. The beautiful long hair had been chopped off savagely. Her face was filthy and tear-streaked, the cut that bisected it open and raw. She was naked except for the dirty rag that had once been a T-shirt, and her arms and legs were lashed with tiny cuts and dirt and bits of bark and dead leaf.

“Sharon did this to you?” she said, shrugging out of her denim jacket. She tried to give it to the girl, but Samantha either couldn’t grasp it with her purple hands or was too consumed by her terror to think of what to do with it. Mari took hold of one of her arms and awkwardly worked it into the sleeve.

“She’s crazy!” Samantha cried. “We have to run!”

She tried to grab Mari by the arm to drag her down the trail where the mule had disappeared. Her fingers fumbled on the ends of her hands like sausage links, numb and useless. The baying of the hounds in the distance triggered a need to scream, but she stifled it to a pitiful mewing that seeped out between her teeth with bubbles of spittle.

“Hurry!” she begged.

Mari looked around them, not able to see anything but the dark trunks of the trees. She thought the sound of the dogs had come from down the hill. She had no clue as to where they were on the mountain. A good long way from home, she was willing to bet. The only thing she knew for certain was that up the mountain Del Rafferty had a cabin and an arsenal of weapons large enough to fend off an army.

“This way,” she ordered. She grabbed Samantha by a coat sleeve and started up the way she had come down.

“Up the mountain! Are you crazy! She’ll be on us in no time!”

“We go up, she has to go up too,” Mari said as she climbed.

“She’s on a horse!”

“Christ.” She cast a hopeless look down the hill. Clyde was long gone. All they had was themselves. And snarling dogs on their tails. And a murderous psychotic after them.

She turned to Samantha. “Look, Sam, we don’t have any options here. Del Rafferty’s cabin is this way. If we can get to Del, we’ll be safe.” She started up the trail again, adding under her breath, “Provided he doesn’t shoot us.”

They climbed the steady grade as fat raindrops plummeted down through the cover of the trees. Mari prayed for a downpour. No one listened. The clouds hung over the mountain, snarling and snapping, but holding their water. Between thunderclaps the baying of the dogs grew steadily closer.

This was what it had been like for Lucy. Tracked down by dogs, run down like a rabbit and shot for sport. Mari could feel Sharon Russell behind them, could sense her presence as ominous as the storm clouds above, and terror clogged her throat and shot through her mind in bright, hot arcs. She had to fight to keep her thoughts focused. She had to think. Their brains were the only weapons they had.

Sharon was on a horse. She had dogs. She could have been on them by now if she wanted. This was some kind of sick game to her. In a corner of her brain Mari wondered if insanity had pushed Sharon to this or if the decadence of her life-style had lured her further and further out into the waters of depravity until the depths were bottomless-the way it had pulled Lucy deeper and deeper, until blackmail seemed like an acceptable profession. At least Lucy had posed a threat. Samantha was just a kid who knew nothing of Bryce’s world. What could she possibly have done to deserve this?

What could they possibly do to escape?

They were too far from Del’s cabin. She knew that, but she kept on putting one foot in front of the other and pushing herself up the trail.

Samantha ran behind her, beyond exhaustion, choking on her fear, broken sobs catching in her throat. Her legs were rubber beneath her. She wanted nothing more than to lie down in a ball and have the nightmare be over, but it went on and on. She wanted to be held and comforted. She wanted Will. Stupid to think of him now. Stupid to want him when he didn’t want her.

They broke out of the woods onto the edge of a meadow. Mari stopped and stood bent over with her hands on her knees, her lungs working like a pair of bellows. The wind had come up and the tall grass rippled and waved, the shades of green altering with every movement the way velvet looks when a hand draws across it. The rain came a little harder. She recognized the place with a sense of doom. This was where Lucy had met her end. Karma. The skin at the base of her neck tingled.

They were both as good as dead. Sharon was after Samantha for reasons known only to her own insane mind, but Mari knew she would not discriminate when it came to doling out the bullets. She wouldn’t leave a witness.

Sam sank down into the grass, pressing the heels of her purple hands against her eyes, crying soundlessly. Mari’s heart broke looking at her. The poor kid. Bryce had sucked her into his world for his own purposes and she had gone, no doubt overwhelmed by the fine things and the excitement and the celebrities. And Bryce’s people had taken her in and used her and abused her without a thought to her innocence.

Goddamn him. Goddamn the lot of them. How dare they come here and poison this place. The anger that burned through her was proprietary, territorial. Mari didn’t question it. There wasn’t time.

The sound of the dogs breaking through the brush some distance back in the woods pushed her upright.

“Come on, kiddo, let’s haul ass.”

“I can’t,” Samantha sobbed, facedown on the ground. She already looked like a corpse, bloody and dirty, her limbs bent at odd angles.

Mari wanted to lie down beside her and offer comfort, but comfort would likely get them killed sooner than later. She grabbed the girl by the jacket collar and pulled her up to her knees.

“You damn well better!” she barked. Del’s place was still a long hike up some steep and rugged ground. The only chance they had of making it was if they kept moving and Sharon prolonged the hunt.