The Girl With the Bad Dreams

Chapter 14

Heather runs down the lawn-covered hill toward the lake. She looks over her shoulder in panic.

She can see right through the big windows, into the cabin. An intruder steps into the living room. He wears a hoody with its drawstring pulled tight so his face is hidden. He walks casually, his hand holding a long ka-bar knife dangling at his side.

The bloody woman screams and tries to run from him, scrambling back up the couch and tumbling to the floor.

The intruder springs into action with the speed and grace of a cat. He leaps over the crouch and bends over with his left hand, grabbing the woman's foot, lifting it, and pulling it toward him.

The woman screams even louder, scratching at the carpet in an attempt to arrest her backwards momentum.

But it's to no avail. The intruder is reeling her in like a fish on a line. And when she's close enough he slashes down across her chest with the knife.

The woman stops screaming.

Heather reaches the bottom of the hill, panting with exertion. She pulls a blue tarp off of a canoe, which lies upside down on the lakeshore. She begins to push it over onto the grass.

The intruder crouches down over his body and begins to saw vigorously with his knife. Then he lifts the woman's bloody, severed head, and displays it through the window to Heather.

Heather almost vomits at the sight but stifles her fear and disgust. She pushes the canoe down the wet grass onto the placid water. As she lets go the canoe begins to drift away from shore, leaving little ripples in its wake. Heather tries to leap into it before it gets too far away.  

Heather lands in the back of the canoe, causing it to lean precariously. It almost capsizes. But Heather holds both sides of the canoe and manages to steady it. Then she sits down and pulls an oar clipped to the edge of the canoe. She begins to paddle vigorously toward the island.

The intruder, still carrying the woman's severed head in one hand and the ka-bar knife in the other, emerges from the cabin's back door. He begins to saunter down the hill toward the lake shore.

Heather's canoe bumps into the thick roots of a tree growing on the island shore. She leans forward, once more dangerously rocking the canoe, and leaps out into the knee-high water. She looks over her shoulder as she wades into the thick underbrush forming a wall at the lake shore.

The intruder throws the woman's head, spinning, into the lake. It splashes and then bobs, red gore staining the water around it.

Heather scrambles into the concealing embrace of the leafy woods. She pauses for a moment to catch her breath. It's darker here. The green canopy blocks what's left of the setting sun.

Heather looks up, trying to find a sunny break in the leaves. She gasps in horror:

A dead woman hangs above her, photographs of her when she was a live, smiling and laughing, pinned to the tree's trunk.

Once again, succumbing to her panic, Heather runs.

She stumbles into another tree, this time her own tree, its bark covered with photographs.

They're candid photos of her shopping, reading, eating at a restaurant. But there are also intimate photos, photos of her and Mark making love.

Heather tries to run past the tree but a bear trap slams shut around her ankle. She screams in pain and falls to the ground, her ankle bloody and broken.