Bleeding Smile

EIGHT

__________

Returning to Elk Point was a fatal mistake.

Being tied up against our childhood tree and tasked with uncovering the Hatchet Killer in exchange for reprieve made me feel sick, being abandoned like easy prey in the encroaching night as Teller picked up his bag and disappeared into the forest, the looming threat of my mother's life still hanging prominently over my head, made me beyond terrified.

For an instant, as he'd smoked his cigarette and spoke, almost apathetically, into the crisp air, I'd wondered if perhaps this was who he'd always been, if this was what lurked beyond Teller's distant gaze and quiet moments, that maybe this darkness was where his mind often drifted to and I'd simply been none the wiser.

How callous yet decisive could he be in all of his threats and horrible actions if this wasn't who he'd always been? Perhaps all of his tendencies were suitable for a cruel serial killer, perhaps he fit the profile all along.

I breathed heavily through my nose after another failed attempt at bending my head low enough to reach my bound wrists but free fingers so that I could rip the duct tape from over my mouth. I was tied so strategically around my arms and shoulders that my hands rested at my waist, and in addition to my thick coat, the rope was so restrictive that it bordered on claustrophobic.

I could hardly move, and if I thought too much about that horrible fact, I knew that it would deepen into an internal limitation on my breathing as well.

How could he stomach leaving me here like this, sore and bruised and painfully tied up when he was aware that there was a murderer out there? Unless it was him, or unless it was his intention to let me experience the odds of being killed before Mom or Aunt Edith or anyone else, really, could find me.

I despised the mental torture almost as much as the physical one, and a part of me wanted to stop thinking altogether and instead exhaust my tears now that I was alone.

I settled on simply breathing.

I would be found, eventually, that much was certain. The clearing I was in wasn't too far from the backyard, and Mom and Aunt Edith would be worried soon, Tristan would be at our house fixing the lights anytime now, and my phone was still only a few feet away from me, the screen occasionally glowing with notifications.

Realistically, if Teller truly wanted to harm me, he'd drag me down to Willowmere Creek instead of keeping me a mere yell away from my house, and as for the likelihood of being unceremoniously hacked to death; according to every documented location of past victims, The Hatchet Killer never struck in this part of the forest, never so close to residential buildings.

From what I knew, one human cadaver had been unearthed on the other side of Willowmere Creek near the Elk Point Trails, two more dismembered bodies were scattered at WestHill, the largest forest that bordered the town and which you had no choice but to pass through in order to enter Elk Point, and the most recent mutilated corpse that was discovered several months ago was by Pinecrest Grove, in the deep ravine that sometimes dried up over the summers.

Only one of the four bodies had been taken prior to being discarded; the rest had been butchered and buried right then and there.

As for Ms. Young's disappearance, the specifications of her Missing Persons report clearly stated that she was last seen near the Trails when she disappeared.

My odds of surviving tonight were pretty good, and if I chose to not account for the slap that I could taste had drawn blood from my inner cheek, — along with the sheer torture of being restrained in the dark by myself — then I was relatively safe and unharmed.