Chapter 4 - THE MOUNTAIN PURSUIT
"Hold on!" Margaret screamed, throwing the Fiat into a violent downshift as the SUV slammed its bumper against our rear.
The impact threw our sleeping daughters awake. They let out terrified shrieks, clutching each other in the back seat as the tiny car fishtailed dangerously near the edge of a steep, guardrail-less cliff. Below us, a rocky ravine dropped hundreds of feet into a churning river of mist.
"Mommy! Daddy! I'm scared!" little Lily cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Stay down, babies! Cover your heads!" David yelled, turning around to shield them with his own body while gripping the back of my seat.
Margaret fought the steering wheel with superhuman strength, her foot jammed to the floor. The Fiat’s engine whined in protest, coughing up black smoke as we rounded another sharp hairpin turn. The black SUV was relentless, its heavy grille ramming our passenger side again and again, trying to force us off the mountain road.
"They're trying to run us off the cliff!" I screamed, terror freezing my blood.
"Not today!" Margaret shouted through clenched teeth. She slammed on the brakes while simultaneously yanking the emergency brake.
The Fiat spun in a dramatic 180-degree arc, tires screeching in agony against the wet asphalt. Caught off guard by the sudden maneuver, the SUV driver overcorrected. With a deafening crunch of metal and shattering glass, the black vehicle smashed into the stone embankment on the opposite side of the road, its front end completely crumpled.
Margaret didn't hesitate. She threw the car into reverse, whipped around the smoking SUV, and gunned the engine up the narrow logging trail leading deeper into the dense pine forest.
Ten minutes later, the forest grew so thick that the headlights could barely pierce the rolling fog. Margaret cut the engine and all the lights, plunging us into absolute darkness, broken only by the heavy panting of our breath and the soft whimpers of the children.
"Are we safe?" David whispered, peering out the frost-covered window into the black woods.
"For now," Margaret breathed, her hands shaking so badly she could barely unlock her door. "The main road is blocked. They'll have to track us on foot, but the woods are a labyrinth. Come on. We have to walk the last mile on foot."
We bundled the girls up in their wool coats, David carrying Mia on his shoulders while I held Lily and Chloe tightly by the hands. Margaret led us through a dense thicket of ferns and towering pines, the damp moss muffling our footsteps.
After twenty minutes of grueling hiking through the freezing mist, a dim, flickering light appeared through the trees. It was a rustic, abandoned forestry cabin, its wooden walls rotting away, but a faint golden glow shone from behind heavy blackout curtains on the windows.
Margaret hurried forward and gave a specific rhythm of knocks on the wooden door: three fast, two slow, one pause.
For a terrifying moment, nothing happened.
Then, the heavy wooden lock clicked. The door creaked open a few inches, revealing the barrel of a hunting rifle and a pair of hauntingly familiar eyes.
The eyes of the three little girls in our matching blue dresses. The eyes of my husband. The eyes that stared back at me from the photograph in Margaret’s coat.
Clara Bennett stood in the doorway, pale, gaunt, with dark circles under her eyes and a jagged scar running down her left temple, but unmistakably alive.
Her gaze swept past Margaret, past David, and landed directly on the three little girls clinging to my coat.
May you like
Clara dropped the rifle. It hit the wooden floorboards with a heavy thud. She fell to her knees, her hands flying to her mouth as a suffocating, heart-wrenching sob tore from her chest.
"My... my babies," Clara choked out, her voice like grinding stones.
