“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 move around until I loosen it, OK?”
He put the flashlight on the ground close to the trap.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Jen asked. Her voice was strained. Mattie could tell that she was making an enormous effort not to cry out.
“I saw this in a movie once,” he said.
“Oh, great.”
He ignored her comment. “You press down on the springs on either side and it loosens the jaws, but you have to get your leg out fast because I don’t know how much pressure the springs need or how long I’ll be able to hold it.”
Mattie looked at C.P. It was hard to tell with the puffy jacket but he didn’t seem muscle-bound. She didn’t think he’d have enough arm strength to open the springs, and it seemed to her that faster was better. They needed to get Jen out of the trap quickly.
“Stand,” she said.
“What?” he said.
Mattie pointed at the springs. “Stand . . . on . . . it.”
“She’s saying to step on the springs instead of trying to do it with your hands, dope,” Jen said. She sounded stronger, like the act of potentially arguing with C.P. gave her energy.
“Oh. Good idea,” C.P. said.
He stood up and positioned himself in front of the trap.
“Don’t move around,” he said. “I don’t want to make this worse.”
C.P. raised up the toes of his boots in front of each spring and then pushed down on the metal on either side of the jaws.
The teeth loosened so suddenly that Mattie wasn’t ready for it. She’d had an idea that it would be a slow process, but once C.P.’s weight was on the springs, the jaws popped open.
“Pull your leg out!” he cried, but Jen didn’t need telling. She was already freeing herself, pulling away with another cry of pain.
As soon as Jen was loose, C.P. stepped off the trap, which snapped shut again with a clang that seemed to echo all through the woods.
“Oh god,” Jen said. “Oh god, it hurts like hell.”
Then she turned her head away from Mattie and threw up.
“Did that guy put this trap out here?” C.P. asked Mattie.
She noticed how C.P. never called him “William”—always “that guy” or “that nut” or some equivalent. It wasn’t really the right time to ask about this quirk, though.
“Yes,” Mattie said. She wanted to explain that William thought the creature was a demon, and that killing it was a trial sent by God in William’s eyes, but her limited ability to talk made it impossible. Perhaps she could tell them tomorrow.
If we live until tomorrow.
She realized she didn’t feel very certain about this. Griffin had been taken by the monster, and now Jen had been caught in the trap. Jen wouldn’t be able to run or climb or even walk very well with that leg—what Mattie saw of it did not look good.
Mattie herself was hardly at her physical peak—she still bore the bruises and pains from William’s beating and choking her.
One missing and two wounded. Only C.P. is still standing. How are we ever going to get off the mountain like this?
C.P. held his hand out to help Jen stand. She did, whimpering and crying, and leaned heavily on his shoulder. Mattie picked up the flashlight and turned it out again. No point in broadcasting their location any more than they already had.
“Do you think you can walk?” C.P. asked.
“I can’t stay here,” Jen said.
“I think you’re going to need a tetanus shot,” C.P. said.
“I think I’m going to need stitches.”
Jen took a few tentative steps forward with C.P.’s assistance. Mattie didn’t need the flashlight to tell that the result was not good. She heard Jen’s labored breath, the little cry of pain when Jen tried to put weight on her injured leg.