Near the Bone, Christina Henry [best affordable ebook reader .txt] 📗

mattered because they had to survive. If she was uncomfortable, if she was in pain, then what did it matter? It meant that she wasn’t dead.

Jen and C.P. huddled close to her on either side. She heard C.P.’s breath coming in harsh pants, and Jen gripped Mattie’s arm.

They’re relying on me, she thought in wonder. They think I can keep them safe, that I know what I’m doing.

The idea made her want to shrink away. She couldn’t be responsible for their lives. She didn’t know what she was doing or how they would find Griffin or how they would escape the creature when they did. She wasn’t even sure if they should go back to the cabin. William could be waiting there, secretly, waiting for her to walk through the door so he could grab her and put her in the Box.

She thought of the money she’d hidden under the couch. If she had that money, if she could get off the mountain, then she could use it to buy something like freedom. But it wasn’t worth it to risk the cabin just for that. It was the weapons, and maybe the knowledge she could gain once she opened the trunk.

Maybe inside the trunk there was information about Heather.

Mattie needed to know if her sister was still alive, if Heather was somewhere waiting for her. She needed to know if she had a home to go home to.

They reached the stream, and Mattie pointed out the place where there were some rocks to cross and indicated they should follow her.

“C-cold,” she said. “Don’t . . . fall . . . in.”

“Yeah, because I’m really worried about hypothermia or frostbite at the moment,” C.P. said as he followed behind Mattie.

“You should be,” Jen said, the last one to cross. “It’s not a joke.”

“I know it’s not, but hypothermia is kind of low on my list of things that could kill me. A gunshot wound seems more likely.”

C.P. was the one who’d suggested going to the cabin but he seemed reluctant now. Mattie didn’t have time to soothe him, to make him feel better about his choice. She walked along the bank of the stream until she found the place where they kept the snares. No one had checked them in the last couple of days, and there were two dead rabbits in the traps. One of them had tried to gnaw its foot off but bled out before it finished. A dark stain of blood was visible against the snow.

She indicated that the other two should follow her. “Stay . . . close. No . . . light.”

The deer path was obvious to Mattie, who’d walked it so many times, but she knew it wouldn’t look like much to those unfamiliar with it. She didn’t want to lose one of them in the dark.

Jen followed Mattie, and C.P. behind. The path was wide enough to admit two side-by-side but Mattie stayed close to the edge of it, hugging close to the trees. She had a vague idea that this made her less obvious, that anyone (anything) watching the forest would have trouble deciding if it was her or a tree they’d seen.

It was hard not to remember the last time she’d walked this trail in the dark, how the creature had moved in time with her, how it had stalked her so silently.

It’s not there now, she told herself. You would know. You would feel it.

But she couldn’t be certain. Jen and C.P. both wore clothes that made a lot of noise—the slick surfaces of their jackets, the rough cloth of their pants. They both walked heavily, too, and their boots squeaked in the snow with every step. She couldn’t detect the presence of the creature—or of anything else that might be nearby—with all the racket. Mattie felt like they were announcing their presence to William, who’d hear them coming even with all the cabin windows closed. She tried not to be irritated, because she knew they couldn’t help it. They didn’t know how to be quiet because they’d never really needed to be. They didn’t have to hide from monsters that might hurt them.

The tip of Mattie’s boot touched something hard in the dark—a rock, she thought—and she automatically moved right, skirting around it. The last thing she needed was to trip and fall. The other two were following so close behind that they would probably fall on top of her.

Then there was a sound of metal, a hideous snapping, and Jen was screaming.

The trap. William’s bear trap. She’d forgotten all about it. He’d gone out that morning to set it, to catch his demon.

“Jen! Jen!” C.P. said. Mattie saw his silhouette against the trail, standing stock-still.

“Flashlight!” Mattie said to C.P. Maybe Jen wasn’t hurt too badly. Maybe they would be able to get her out of the trap.

He clicked the light on and Mattie heard him say, “Oh, god.”

The trap had imbedded itself in Jen’s leg, below her knee. Blood poured from the wound, rolling down her pants, making a stain in the snow.

Just like the rabbit, Mattie thought.

She twisted and writhed on the ground, screaming, “Get it off, get it off, get it off me, oh my god, get it off!”

“Hold still,” C.P. said, but Jen was thrashing around, the part of her body not caught in the trap trying to escape. “Hold still!”

William will come, Mattie thought. They were too close to the cabin. He would hear Jen screaming and C.P. shouting and he would come and finish off the other two and drag Mattie away.

“Shh,” Mattie said, falling to her knees next to Jen. She grabbed the other woman’s flailing hands and squeezed them tight. “Shh.”

“It hurts,” Jen whimpered. Mattie saw the gleam of tears on her cheeks. “It hurts.”

Mattie squeezed her hands tighter, trying to comfort. This is my fault. I should have remembered the trap.

C.P.’s flashlight bobbed around as he knelt down to inspect the trap. “I have to loosen the springs. When I do, you pull your leg out as fast as you can. Don’t