The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,62
“Shit, we have to go!” We hadn’t laid out our sleeping bags or tent yet, so I blindly grabbed things around me and shoved them in my backpack.
We bristled when the perimeter trap jingled around us. Color drained from Kate’s face, like she’d seen a ghost.
“GAAAAAAAAA!”
“GAAAAAAAAA!”
“GAAAAAAAAA!”
“GAAAAAAAAA!”
Shit, shit, shit. Nothing worse than a reeking zombie choir to ruin the night. They smelled worse than a hundred of Jaxon’s gym bags.
We grabbed our packs and ran deeper into the pitch-black forest, through the frigid, thick air. Tightly holding her hand in mine, we ran for our lives.
* * *
We eventually reached a clearing.
“Well, I’m certainly not sleepy now,” I huffed. We both chugged water because we had sweated so much. A hint of daylight lit the woods around us with a hazy, faint-peach glow.
My heart pounded so hard it nearly burst from my chest. By the sound of Kate’s panting, her heart was exploding too.
Though she’d been the one to suggest doing this competition—and, you could even argue, dragged me into it—I had a strong sense of responsibility to keep us both safe. Even though she was plenty capable on her own. Kate used her body weight to pull down two dead tree branches to make us makeshift torches while I waited on the trail. Was there anything she couldn’t do?
She’d been quiet since we abandoned our campfire. I figured that our encounter with zombies warranted her some uninterrupted “me time.”
I checked my phone for a signal.
Nope. Nada.
“That’s why we have these.” Kate’s tinny voice came through the speaker on my wristband. “Do you copy?” She shot me a mischievous grin.
“Roger that,” I responded by pushing the talk button. “Copy.”
She crouched and lit both torches with her flint. Handing me one, she said, “Let’s take advantage of our fright-induced insomnia and get moving.”
“We have flashlights, you know. And I think I packed a headlamp somewhere. We don’t need torches.”
She spun the tip of hers in a circle. “Yeah, but torches are badass.”
I swung mine like a Jedi.
She was right. Torches were pretty badass.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kate
A dense fog fell just before sunrise, ruining our visibility. It was the kind where you hold your hand out to see if it disappears in the thick haze. The kind of fog that people describe as having the consistency of pea soup. The kind you see in scary Halloween movies, when someone’s about to die.
God, please don’t let us die.
The forest was mostly quiet. We’d become accustomed to the normal bustle around us, sensing what was ordinary and what should put us in high alert.
The krrrrecccckk of the tree frogs surrounding us, for example. That was totally normal.
The weird hoot that sounded like a mash-up of a rooster crow and toddler crying. That was the barred owl, Nate had said. Very normal.
Not normal, though? Running into a veil of fresh bug spray lingering on the dirt trail, one so pungent it made us both cough. We stopped cold in our steps, our skin prickling with alarm.
Someone was here.
I jumped back into Nate as the American Muscle Hustle TV show winners dropped down from nearby trees and landed on our path. The woman was unarmed but stood in an elbows-out, ready-to-choke-us stance. In contrast, the dude was weaponized, holding a long wooden staff. It looked like a bo staff, but it was hard to tell, because it was so blurry from him showing off his rapid side-to-side and up-down kill strikes.
Nate rolled his eyes. “Do you have a riddle for us so we can pass?”
I shot him a look. Not now.
Bo staff guy sneered. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“You’re the American Muscle Hustle guys,” Nate said.
“So you’ve heard of us!”
“Not really, the show’s logo is embroidered on your jacket.”