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  The 911 operator had been unhelpful, to say the least. He'd been able to tell, from the tone of her voice, that she'd been highly skeptical as he'd explained the phone call from Catherine Chandler. The damnable woman had even started picking holes in his story, as if seeking out continuity errors in some cheap movie or book. He'd spent several minutes convincing her that, yes, he really had received a rather alarming call from one of his students, but then the woman had asked where the student was located and he'd struggled to explain. She'd asked if he had, at least, some GPS coordinates, at which point he'd rather lost his temper and had called the woman a few things that, upon reflection, he should have held back.

  “Tell some officers to meet me at the turn-off near Sutter's Point,” he'd said finally, “and I'll lead them to the cabin. How quickly can they get there?”

  A couple of hours, he'd been told. After all, the area was remote and it was the middle of the night and – as Levant inferred – the operator still wasn't entirely convinced that he was sane. That might have been partly his own fault, he realized now, since he'd been the one to mention the possibility that the whole thing was a prank. Anyway, now he'd arrived at the rendezvous point and the officers were already a few minutes late, so he sat drumming his fingers against the wheel and watching the road for some hint of lights heading his way. He kept glancing at his watch, but time was passing excruciatingly slowly and after just ten minutes he was fit to explode with anger. Finally, he grabbed his phone and tried Catherine Chandler again, only to find that the signal was too weak.

  “Bloody phones,” he muttered. “When you actually need them, they never work.”

  At 4.30am, half an hour after he was supposed to meet the officers, Levant decided that they either weren't coming, or that they were going to be too late. He was increasingly of the opinion that this whole farrago was a waste of his time.

  Sighing, he started the car's engine and turned the wheel, setting off along the dark track that led down through the forest to the cabin in the valley. Part of the track wasn't even a road, and Levant winced as the car bumped over rough terrain that he worried might cause expensive damage. He was cursing under his breath almost all the way, and more than once he began to think that he'd taken a wrong turn. Eventually he reached a point that he thought he recognized, so he kept going while muttering to himself and wishing terrible fates to everyone who'd contributed to his current situation.

  After what felt like an eternity, he spotted the cabin ahead. A sprinkling of moonlight just about picked out the cabin's roof, and the little mess of junk nearby.

  He drove across the clearing and parked close to the wooden cart, and then he cut the engine before climbing out of the car. It was only now, as he felt the cold air all around, that he realized he was totally defenseless. He'd initially assumed that Chandler had been joking, and then he'd been under the impression that he'd be accompanied by police officers when he arrived at the cabin. Thanks to a combination of these assumptions and let-downs, however, he now stood staring at the cabin and he had no means by which to fight any adversary. Not that he really thought there was danger out at the cabin, of course, but the possibility still crossed his mind.

  Standing completely still for a moment, he listened and heard only silence.

  Letting out a loud sigh, partly to try to convince himself that everything was normal and partly to demonstrate his annoyance to anyone who might be spying on him, he made his way around the car and over toward the cabin. He was already imagining the students back at their hotel, giggling at the thought of him out at the cabin all alone, but deep down he hoped that this was what had happened. After a moment, however, he stopped as he saw that several more panes in the cabin's window had been smashed, seemingly from the outside. He stepped closer and leaned down, and then he peered inside.

  Suddenly he saw a face staring out at him.

  Startled, he stumbled back, but then he realized that he'd seen the face before. He peered inside once more, and sure enough the face was that of the dead man in the chair. Still, such a sight left him feeling rather uneasy, but as he tried to look past the dead man he found that the rest of the cabin's interior was too dark.

  “Chandler?” he called out, his voice sounding so small and crisp in the cold night air. “What are you playing at? Are you in there?”

  Receiving no reply, he turned and looked around for a moment, and then he spotted another car parked nearby. He wasn't sure, of course, but he supposed that this must be Chandler's car, which meant at least that she hadn't been lying when she'd claimed to be at the cabin. This, in turn, made him worry a little more that her panic might have been real, but he refused to surrender quite yet to such fears. Student pranks could be surprisingly elaborate. Instead of worrying too much just yet, he made his way around to the side of the cabin and went to the door, only to find it hanging open.

  Looking inside, he saw only darkness and the silhouette of the dead man set against the window.

  Reaching into his pocket, he took out his cellphone and activated the flashlight app, and then he cast a glow of light around the room.

  The first thing he saw was that the place was a mess. Tables had been overturned, and a battery-operated lamp lay smashed on the floor. This elevated Levant's concerns a little further, as he stepped inside and looked all around the small space. He still didn't want to jump to conclusions, but he couldn't deny that it looked as if there'd been some kind of struggle. As he stepped forward and tilted his phone around, he felt a growing sense of dread in his chest as he realized that his worst fears had come true. Evidently Catherine Chandler had been alone at the site, and evidently she'd been attacked.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, hurrying out of the cabin and fumbling to call 911 on his phone. “Bloody fools!”

  He waited for the call to connect, but he found he had no signal. He rushed around to the other side of the cabin, and he tried holding his phone in various positions, but still he couldn't get through to the police. Filled now with a real sense of panic, he looked around and saw no sign of Chandler, and finally he realized that his best bet was to get back to the main road and then hope he could place another call.

  He hurried toward the car, but then suddenly he stopped as he heard a distant scream ring out, somewhere far off in the forest.

  Turning, he looked across the clearing. The scream seemed almost to hang in the air for a moment, but then he spotted a faint flicker of light far off beyond the tree-line.

  “Chandler?” he whispered, before starting to hurrying toward the light and then shouting: “Chandler! Wait!”

  He began to run, which was something he hadn't done in a long, long time. Despite his growing breathlessness, however, he hurried as fast as he could manage across the clearing, and by the time he reached the tree-line he could see the light of a flashlight in the distance, racing through the forest.

  He opened his mouth to call out again, but suddenly he realized that something was missing. Turning, he saw that the body from the tree was no longer on the ground. He had no idea why Chandler might have moved the body, but he supposed that it must have been placed on or near the cart, so he put the concern out of his mind and turned back to look out in the forest. Then, cupping his hands around his mouth, he yelled at the top of his voice:

  “Catherine Chandler! Where are you?”

  As he called out those words, he heard her scream again, but this time she seemed to be trying to say something.

  For a moment, he considered running back to his car. He could drive away and fetch help. The idea was enticing, but something deep inside made him stay. A desire to do the right thing, perhaps, or to prove to himself that he was no coward. Besides, the stupid girl was probably just having a bad trip on the latest fashionable drug.

  Filled with a growing sense of worry, Levant hurried out into the forest, struggling in the darkness to keep from banging into trees. The ground was muddy beneath his feet, slowing him down, and after a moment low-hanging bran
ches began to get in his way. He was forced to hold his hands up in an attempt to protect his face as he struggled onward and tried to head after the distant, flailing beam of light.

  For the next few minutes, he stumbled through the forest with barely any awareness of the right direction. He could feel the ground starting to become steeper beneath his feet, which meant he was beginning to make his way up the side of the valley, but as he looked ahead he only occasionally spotted the flashlight. After a while, however, he heard Chandler cry out, and he was immediately struck by the realization that she sounded much closer now. Somehow, in the chaos, they were reaching one another.

  “Chandler!” he shouted, stopping for a moment in an attempt to get his bearings. “Over here!”

  And then he saw her.

  The flashlight was shaking in the darkness, but it seemed to be not too far away. Filled with the need to get to her, Levant stumbled onward through the forest, pushing against his own exhaustion and against the pain in his knees and back. He almost fell several times, and he stumbled almost constantly, but now the flashlight seemed to have stopped moving and he was steadily getting closer until, finally, he was able to hear a series of loud, gulping sobs in the darkness.

  He had to climb up a small, muddy embankment, but eventually Levant clambered over the edge, only to find himself almost blinded by a flashlight aimed straight at his face.

  “It's me!” he gasped, holding his hands up to protect his eyes. “Chandler! It's Doctor Levant!”

  The flashlight was lowered.

  Levant blinked a couple of times, trying to get rid of the patches of light in his eyes, but suddenly he felt somebody slamming against him. He was just about able to see Chandler's anguished, tear-stained face as she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and started trembling violently. She was trying to speak, but her mouth was shaking and she couldn't get any words out properly as blood ran from cuts on her face and mixed with sweat and dirt.

  “Whatever is happening here?” Levant asked, before looking around and seeing only dark trees. “Who did this to you?”

  She tried to answer, but again her words were jumbled and incomplete. A moment later she grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back.

  “You're freezing,” he said, before pulling off his jacket and placing it around her shoulders. “You're going to get hypothermia if you carry on like this.”

  She turned and looked around, her eyes wild with fear.

  “I'm taking you to my car,” he said firmly, holding his ground, “and we're going to find the police. They should already be on their way.”

  He took hold of her hand and tried to lead her down the slope, toward the cabin, but she dug her heels into the ground and refused to follow. Her teeth were chattering.

  “You're safe now,” he told her. “Try to calm down and -”

  “Run!” she screamed suddenly.

  “Catherine -”

  Before he could finish, Levant suddenly felt something slamming against his back. He tried to turn, but in the darkness something cold and metallic bumped into his face and then slipped down around his neck. As Chandler screamed, Levant reached up and tried to free himself, but instead he felt himself being pulled back as the chain tightened around his throat. Chandler tried to pull him away, tugging desperately on his arm, and then she stepped back, still gripping him tight and struggling to get him away from his assailant.

  At the last moment, however, Chandler stumbled in the darkness and fell down a sudden drop in the mud. She landed hard with all her weight on her right leg, causing the ankle to instantly snap and sending her thudding down to the ground with an anguished scream.

  Levant could feel the chain pressing harder and harder against his throat, cutting off his windpipe as he struggled desperately to get free. His legs were scrabbling in the dirt, and he could smell the stench of foul, decomposing flesh as he heard a faint snarling sound from over his shoulder. He let out a pained grunt, but already he was starting to weaken as he struggled to breathe and he began to reach out desperately into the darkness, hoping to find something – anything – that he could use to free himself. Before he had a chance, however, his legs buckled and he dropped down onto his knees, and the chain tightened around his neck with such force that his skin began to tear.

  His eyes started bulging in their sockets and blood began to run down his face. In the darkness, he was turning a shade of purplish-blue as he reached up and tried one final time to pull the chain away. As he struggled, the chain cut into his throat, unleashing fresh torrents of blood, and a snarling face leaned down and stared into his own, fixing him with a furious stare. Levant managed to look up and, although he could see nothing in the darkness, he could feel a presence staring back at him as the chain cut deeper and deeper and finally severed his neck.

  Suddenly the chain pulled back and Levant's head toppled from his neck. His body fell forward, spraying blood from the stump at its top, and chains rattled in the dark as a deathly figure stumbled past the corpse and headed after its next victim. As Levant's head rolled down a slope and then stopped against a tree, a flicker of consciousness remained for a fraction of a second, thinking that this was all a joke and that everything would be alright. Then the consciousness was gone, and Levant's dead eyes stared out into darkness.

  Twenty-Five

  Catherine Chandler screamed as she stumbled out past the tree-line. Trying not to fall, she inadvertently put all her weight on her right leg, and her broken ankle – with a section of bone poking out through the side – immediately sent a burst of pain coursing up through her body with such force that she fell and landed hard on her hands and knees.

  The pain was intense, but she pushed through and immediately forced herself to get up and start limping away from the forest, heading out across the clearing.

  Although her right ankle was badly broken, she had to put at least some weight on it as she hurried toward the two cars that were parked close to the cabin. She'd intended to run as far from the cabin as possible but, in the darkness, she'd managed to double back on herself and now she knew that her only hope was to get away quickly. She'd heard Doctor Levant's cries in the darkness, and she'd turned just in time to see his dead body fall to the floor. Now she was running for her life, and she knew death wasn't far behind.

  Looking over her shoulder, she immediately spotted something moving in the forest, coming after her.

  She forced herself to keep running, putting as little pressure as possible on her broken right foot, but after a moment she stumbled slightly and – once again – it was her right foot that bore the weight of her attempt to remain steady. She screamed and fell, landing hard on her knees and elbows, and then she tried to get up again, only for a fresh burst of pain to jolt through her left arm. She had no time to check the damage, however, so she forced herself up and this time she managed to resume her agonizingly slow limp toward the cars.

  Reaching into her pockets, she tried to find her car keys, but they were gone. She then started searching through the pockets of Doctor Levant's jacket, desperately hoping to perhaps find his keys. There was no sign of them, but her hands did fumble against what felt like two large coins.

  Forcing herself to keep going, she was now almost halfway across the clearing and she actually began to think that she might reach the cars. She vaguely remembered leaving her keys in the ignition, figuring that it didn't matter since nobody else was around, but she couldn't be sure. Were they there, or were they inside the cabin? Still, getting to the car seemed like her best bet, so she stumbled on until finally her left foot slipped and her right foot crunched against the ground, and yet again she screamed as she fell down.

  Taking a moment to catch her breath and to deal with the pain, she forced herself to turn and look over her shoulder, and then she gasped as she saw the dead man relentlessly making his way closer, swaying slightly as he walked and almost tripping over his chain as he edged toward her. Barely able to walk properly, possessed by some relentless hi
dden force, the corpse of Stuart Munver would not stop.

  Getting back to her feet, Chandler hurried on, terrified that at any moment the figure might catch up to her and pull her down. The cars were so close now, but the pain was intensifying and finally she had to stop for a moment as she reached the cart, and she allowed herself a fraction of a second to rest before turning and seeing that the dead man was now only a few paces behind. She glanced around, hoping to see Doctor Levant, but there was no sign of him.

  Turning, she hurried toward the cars, only to trip against the trailer's side and fall forward, thudding down against the mud. She immediately began to haul herself up, but then she froze as she realized she could hear a low, snarling groan directly above.

  Slowly, she looked up and saw the dead man towering above her.

  “What do you want?” she sobbed. “I don't have anything! I haven't done anything to you!”

  She waited, but the figure merely swayed in front of her for a moment with the chain hanging low from around its neck.

  Chandler began to inch back, while trying to pick the perfect moment to turn and run toward the car. For now she kept her eyes fixed on the figure, which stood silhouetted against the slowly brightening dawn sky. And as she stared at the figure in disbelief, she realized that it seemed to be not so much standing, as almost held up in the air. Its feet were on the ground, and it seemed to walk, but its posture suggested that some external force was involved in keeping it up like a puppet dangling from cosmic strings.

  “You can't be real,” Chandler stammered, still trying to work out what she was actually seeing. “Please, just -”

  Before she could finish, the figure let out a low, pained growl.

  Panicking, Chandler turned to crawl away. She was still wearing Levant's jacket, and suddenly the two gold coins slipped out from one of the pockets. Feeling a flicker of pain in her ankle, Chandler stopped for a moment, and then she spotted the coins glistening in the mud. She hesitated, before picking them up and staring at them, and at that moment she remembered having seen something similar on the back of the cart. She'd told Chad Clark to catalog them for later study, but she figured he might have forgotten as usual. In which case, how had they ended up in Levant's pocket?