Good Girls Don't Die

Chapter #3 - Hunter to Hunted

We didn't have to wait long for our quarry to arrive back at the hunting cabin. It was only a day after we arrived when Laura spotted headlights moving through the winding gravel path that lead back to the main road.

Part of me knew that we would not be kept waiting long. If his collection of trophies told me anything, it was that our killer needed to satisfy some sick power fantasy he'd concocted in his twisted little mind. His more recent trophies also told me that he was no longer satisfied with taking only the scalps of his victims. The head mounted in the back closet could not have been more than a week or two old. Our aspiring young Ed Gein would soon need fresh supplies to bolster his collection.

In the meantime, we'd each taken turns washing ourselves down with soap and a cloth. It didn't make us look any less like corpses – the dirt camouflaged the worst of the decay – but at least we felt a little bit more human.

All three of us opted not to wear any of the spare clothes lying around. Laura wrinkled her nose at the thought of wearing a man's week-old laundry, but I think she was just as put off by the owner of said clothes as the rest of us. Better to be naked than to smell like the man who'd put us in our graves.

Besides, what was the point of trying to look presentable? The thought of seeing the fear on his face when he finally laid eyes on his handiwork was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

I flicked the lights of the cabin off as soon as we saw the truck approach. I hoped that the driver hadn't noticed the lit windows of his private cabin through the stand of trees. I suppose it didn't matter much if he suspected someone was waiting for him or not. What was he going to do, kill us? Again? I had one bullet hole in me already, and I seemed to be doing just fine.

Heather picked up a hunting knife and a crossbow up off the table and handed them to us; compliments of our murderer's gun cabinet. Laura took the hunting knife, and I took the cross bow, which felt heavy and unwieldy in my hands. We figured at least one of us should get the honor of shooting him, and I won two out of three rounds of rock-paper-scissors.

I wasn't sure if I could hit a moving target with the unfamiliar weapon, it had taken me nearly thirty minutes just to figure out how to load the damn thing, but I was still better off with the crossbow than one of the guns. We test fired a few of the guns shortly after arriving, which was an ordeal since none of us had so much as held a gun before, much less fired one. A firearm seemed appealing right up until I realized that big guns have kickback and that makes aiming difficult, especially for a beginner. The crossbow was much lighter in comparison, and did not have nearly as much recoil as a hunting rifle, so that became our weapon of choice.

Laura and I took our weapons and hid in the cabin's closet sized bathroom. We left the door open about an inch, just enough to see the main living area, but not wide enough to be spotted in such poor light.

Heather remained seated at the table. She could hardly move around on her own, so after much gesturing, and a rousing game of charades, it was decided that she would act as the welcoming committee.

She slumped in the chair, letting her features go slack, and her head lean forward until her chin rested on her chest. Her right arm lay draped across her lap, while the other arm hung limply at her side. We left a single lamp lit in the corner, for added dramatic effect.

It's just a corpse, officer, nothing suspicious here.

The interior of the cabin lit up as the headlights of the truck settled to a stop by the front windows. Even through the walls of the cabin, I could hear the roar of the engine, and the abrupt silence that followed when the headlights winked out.