Mattie nodded.
“Good, that means his vehicle is probably that way, too. We’ll be back in civilization in a few hours.”
Mattie noticed that they were both careful not to mention the creature, or the possibility that William was still out there somewhere. The sun was shining and they were rested and fed and all those things made the terrors of the night recede. It didn’t seem possible that bad things could happen to them in the day.
Mattie put the pack on her back, and then the two of them half-dragged, half-carried Jen out to the sled. She was so still and so pale that it was like carrying a corpse, but C.P. checked Jen’s pulse and breathing once they had her loaded on.
“She’s still alive,” he said, giving Mattie a thumbs-up.
They’d had to put Jen on her side, pulling her legs into a fetal position. She wouldn’t fit otherwise—she was far too tall for the sled platform. Mattie tucked a blanket around Jen. There were straps on either side and C.P. used these to buckle Jen into place.
“If she’s not waking up after all this . . .” he said. “Jesus, what the hell can be wrong with her?”
He didn’t seem to expect an answer, because he picked up the rope and started pulling. “This way, right?”
Mattie pulled the cabin door shut and trotted after him. She felt something huge swelling in her chest. She was leaving. She was really leaving. She was never going to live here again.
She felt an inward tug, something telling her she should look back, commemorate the moment properly.
Don’t look back. Don’t ever look back. There’s nothing for you there, nothing you want to remember. Don’t give him another second of your attention.
And then they were into the trees, and the moment passed, and Mattie knew if she looked back the cabin wouldn’t be visible anymore.
C.P. was too busy pulling Jen to chatter as he usually did. Mattie listened to the sound of the woods—the wind rustling in the trees, the busy chirping of winter birds. As long as she heard those birds then they were safe from the creature.
And even if William is alive he can’t really be a threat any longer. He can’t be. He could barely walk last night. He couldn’t run after us.
But Mattie listened hard for the thunk-drag of his walk all the same.
After a very brief time they came upon the trap. It had been reset.
“Did that guy actually stop to fix his trap last night?” C.P. said, sounding disgusted.
Nearby there was a dead squirrel in the snow. Mattie noticed a graze on its flank, like it had brushed against the teeth of the trap. But a little cut like that wouldn’t kill a squirrel, unless . . .
Mattie remembered that amongst the pile of seemingly random things William had purchased to defeat the “demon” was a liquid in a small brown bottle. She hadn’t looked closely at the bottle but she did recall that there was a skull and crossbones on the side of the label.
“Poison,” Mattie said. “William put poison on the trap. He bought some. I saw it.”
C.P. followed her eyes from the squirrel and back to the trap again. “That’s why Jen’s out cold? Because that son of a bitch put poison on the bear trap and now it’s killing her?”
“I’m not certain,” Mattie said. “But it makes sense, doesn’t it? What else could have killed that squirrel?”
“What kind of poison is it?”
Mattie shook her head. “I didn’t look at it very closely.”
“We have to get her to a hospital. I was worried about an infection before, or stress or shock or whatever. But poison—I mean, it could be damaging her brain or her organs permanently right now while we’re standing around talking.” He grabbed the ropes and pulled at the sled with more energy than before. “That guy is a garbage person, you know that? A complete and total garbage person.”
“I don’t want to defend William,” she said. “But I think if he put poison on the trap it was because he wanted to make sure he caught the creature.”
“It doesn’t matter what his reasons are,” C.P. said. “He’s still a garbage person. Leave aside what he did to Jen. Look what he did to you.”
“I know what he did to me,” Mattie said quietly.
“I know you know. And that’s why you should agree with me when I say he is a garbage person.”
“Yes,” Mattie said. “He is. A garbage person.”
She giggled, and it so surprised her that she covered her mouth with her mitten. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard a noise like that come out of her own mouth.