A girl was running through the trees, but she wasn't running to something, she was running from something, and running scared.
Karen Swenson was barely aware any more of the stinging, scratching branches, or the bramble and twisted roots that tried to trap her. She could only feel two things now: the force inside her that had unconsciously brought her here tonight and was pulling her to a place she distantly remembered; and her own terror, which was driving her away from this place with a force of nearly equal strength.
Karen couldn't think. She had no idea what had brought her here and even if she could have thought back, she would have remembered only dressing for bed and dropping off to sleep just as she did any other night. She had opened her eyes and found herself, still in her nightclothes, in the middle of the forest with no memory of how she'd got there, and that alone scared her as much as anything else.
As she tore through the trees, Karen's foot snagged on roots which ran along the brow of a steep hill. She cried out as she fell headlong and was thrown painfully down the incline, coming to rest dazed and winded at the bottom.
Karen lay there panting, dimly aware that the wind around her was whipping itself into a frenzy. She raised herself painfully onto her elbow and stared transfixed as the dark sky above the rise in front of her began to brighten with an unnatural white light. Leaves and twigs scratched at her, twirled into miniature whirlwind, and as she gazed into the ever-brightening light, a silhouette of a figure crested the hill.
Karen found herself unable to move, she could only watch as the figure walked purposefully towards her, the strengthening wind whipping at her hair and nightdress. As he, for it was definitely a man, took the final few steps to reach her, Karen managed to raise an arm to her eyes. The whole world was turning incandescently white, and it seemed to her that the man looking down at her was the source of that light. Staring at the glowing figure, Karen realised that all her fear had drained away, unnoticed. Although she could not make out his features, Karen felt that she knew this man, and she would go with him wherever he took her.
The light continued to swell, blanching even the tornado that screamed around them until Karen's eyes pressed themselves shut.
It was going to be all right. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.
It was almost as if someone was telling her.
Truitt spotted Detective Myles approaching from the direction of the road that bordered the forest. He trotted over to the preoccupied-looking man and together they headed down the trail that led to the site of the body.
A small knot of police officers and Truitt's colleagues from the coroners office clustered around the body. One of the men was recording the scene with a flash camera.
"They put the time of death between eight and twelve hours ago," Truitt said as they approached, the exertion of the past half hour or so taking its toll. "No visible cause, no sign of battery or sexual assault, all we have is this:"
The two men crouched beside the girl's body and Truitt raised the long nightdress. The girl wore a pair of pale, coral-green panties, and approximately two inches above the waistband two small, raised marks could be seen on her lower back. They seemed innocent enough, the surrounding skin was not inflamed, as it might have been around a bite or sting. The marks could even have been large moles.
The detective suddenly looked very tired. "Can we turn her over?" he asked. As he spoke, he felt as if a sudden silence had descended upon the forest. He watched as his men turned the girl's body onto it's back. The dead eyes were closed, and her face looked almost peaceful, although dirt was streaked across it, and a line of blood from her nose had dried over the left-hand side of her upper lip.
Detective Myles knew her, and his heart sank. "Karen Swenson."
"Is that a positive ID?" The photographer asked, looking to the detective for confirmation.
"She went to school with my son," Myles told him, shortly.
Truitt watched as Myles rose to his feet and began to hurry back to the road.
"Would that be the class of '89, detective?" Truitt called after him, a hard edge in his voice. "It's happening again, isn't it!"
Myles didn't look back.
Notes |
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