The Cypress Trap: A Suspense Thriller (10 page)

15

Rayanne
followed scorched tire marks in the grass. Broken limbs were scattered along
the undergrowth, with weeds and small shrubs ripped from the ground. The
runaway truck had cut a winding path of destruction back to the dirt trail.

She
passed the remains of the boat trailer. It looked like a discarded skeleton of
steel beams and shredded tires. It hadn’t fared as well as the Chevy, but she
was thankful for that.

Rayanne
stepped forward, expecting at any moment to see the teens jump out from behind a
tree. She pictured their hateful faces in the shadows. Heard them laughing with
the crows above and in the rising and falling trill of unseen cicadas around
her.

She
stepped onto the rutted dirt path. If she followed the two worn strips of tire
tracks grooved into the dirt, she knew they would lead her back to the county
road. She hesitated, listening for the teenagers in either direction. She
didn’t hear them. They must have left, she decided. She felt better knowing
they weren’t on the path the Chevy had cut through the woods. They weren’t
headed toward the ditch or to the wreck. They weren’t headed to Owen.

Turning
north, she headed along the dirt path. It was only a couple of miles to the
county road, she told herself. A couple of miles.

* * * * *

Rayanne
plodded along for a solid hour. The sun was sinking, but she knew she had
plenty of daylight left. It wouldn’t be dark for hours. Still, she walked with
purpose. She no longer cared about finding deer or photographing the local
wildlife. She just wanted to see the old windmill.

She
hoped she would see it rise like a tower on the horizon, above the tree line.
If she saw that—when she saw that—the county road would be close.

A
faint whistle carried on the wind.

Rayanne
heard it and froze. She strained her ears, listening. The whistle came again,
followed by a high-pitched voice calling, “Luuuuuuuugggggggeeeeee-errrr!”

A
deeper voice came right behind it. “Heeeeeee-eeerrreeee, boooooooy!”

The
teenagers. Rayanne knew it instantly. They were ahead of her on the dirt path.
She heard them call out again, and then came another whistle. Loud and
insistent. It was the larger boy, Roddy, and that girl, Dru. Maybe Scut? Maybe
only the two.

Their
calls echoed in the trees, silencing the crows. She could hear their voices.
She could hear them talking. Conversation. They were coming her way. Getting
closer. She had to hide.

Rayanne
looked into the woods.

Turning
off the dirt path, she made her way into the undergrowth and scrambled for the
shadows of the oak trees and pines. She crouched down into the dirt and prayed
they couldn’t see her. Her eyes watched the dirt path ahead.

She
listened to them get closer.

Scut’s
voice grew louder. “I say we leave the damn animal behind.”

“We’re
not leaving Luger.” It was Dru and she yelled for her dog again.

“Will
you give it up? He’s gone!”

Three
shadows stretched across the rutted grooves, then Rayanne saw Scut, Dru, and
Rude Roddy emerge along the path. The nerdy teen with the broken arm wasn’t
with them. She leaned back deeper into the shady hollow so they couldn’t see
her.

The
group stopped, and Dru yelled again, “Luuuuuu-gggeeerrrr!”

Rude
Roddy, the big bear of a kid with the shaggy beard who wore the black knit
beanie, seemed nervous. “We gotta get outta here,” he was saying, “before
someone finds it.”

Scut
pushed him. “Ain’t no one comin’ out here and ain’t no one gonna find that body
for days.”

Roddy
pushed him back. “But what about that woman? The old man’s wife. They took
off.”

Dru
paused from her yelling for Luger. “I’m telling you they crashed. I ran them
off the path, into the woods.”

“Then
we should go find the truck,” Scut said, moving ahead of them on the path. He
was directly in front of Rayanne now, and her eyes widened, watching him. She
listened to him holler back to his friends. “Let’s find the old man and finish
the job.”

“No.”
Roddy grabbed his arm. “The job’s done. That Owen guy didn’t even know what we
were talking about. Let’s get out of here before someone finds the other guy’s
body.”

Rayanne
gasped. Poor Darryl, she thought. He didn’t deserve that. She turned away as
Scut spoke again.

“He
ain’t goin nowhere and ain’t nobody comin’ in here,” he said.

Rayanne’s
left leg tingled from her crouched position, and she shifted ever so slightly
to relieve the pressure. In doing so, she slipped. She grabbed hold of a branch
for support, disturbing the trees.

The
teenagers froze.

Dru
called out, “Luger?”

“No,
it ain’t your dog.” Scut pushed her aside. He stepped toward the edge of the
path, peering into the woods.

Rayanne
remained motionless. She held her breath. She watched the boy step closer. He
leaned down, putting his hands on his knees, and craned his neck. His face was
inches from hers. Their eyes met.

Rayanne
jumped and ran into the woods. Leaves crunched beneath her feet as she heard
Scut yell, “There’s someone in there!”

Behind
her, she could hear them coming. She ran faster, blindly, through the trees.
The kids were yelling behind her. Her sides ached. She told herself to ignore
the pain. She kept her face forward, not daring to turn her head.

She
vaulted over a stump, almost hit a tree, then turned. Ran faster between the
trees. Underbrush slowed her down, tripping her. She slipped. Fell on her side.
She rolled through tall grass, scraped her arms, hit her back, her head. She
rolled faster, downwards into a hollow. Stopped at the bottom of the hill and
slid into the dirt.

She
got up on her knees. Her head spun. She felt dizzy, but she could still hear
their voices. They were coming. Rayanne looked around.

There
were old cars, left abandoned. Seven. Eight. Twelve, she counted, and then saw
a dirty mattress, ripped open with its inner planks showing. Stinkweed spiraled
up the rusty poles of a swing set. A discarded washing machine. Bricks and
cement chunks scattered in the weeds. A pile of black tires. It was some kind
of dump.

Rayanne
heard the kids’ voices, and she looked again at the old cars in the bottom of
the ditch. The first thing that came to mind was rattlesnakes. But she knew she
couldn’t think of that right now.

She
got up and headed for the rusted jeep. The hood was gone and it looked like a
corpse left to rot in the sun. She glanced at the other cars. There was a
hatchback with no doors. A pickup was off to one side, on blocks. The wheels
had been removed and the driver’s side door thrown open and left to hang. There
was a yellow Volkswagen Beetle half buried in the dirt.

Brown
and yellow weeds sprouted up between the wrecks, but the ground was hard and
Rayanne knew she had no choice. She raced past the rusting jeep, watching where
she stepped.

She
moved to the shell of a Volkswagen Beetle. It had two doors. She forced the
passenger side open and looked into the dank interior. The overhead lining
draped down like a misty shroud. Weeds had grown through the undercarriage and
overtaken the floorboards. But two front seats and a long backseat remained. It
could be a hiding place, she thought, and squeezed herself into the backseat.
She cowered as low as she could.

She
held her breath and prayed there was nothing living inside.

She
shut her eyes and listened. The teens’ voices grew louder. They sounded like
they were coming down into the hollow and she could hear Scut—or was it
Roddy—say something about the cars. He sounded excited.

Dru
was farther away. Rayanne could hear her calling the dog. Perhaps she didn’t
want to walk down into the dump. It didn’t matter. Rayanne knew Scut and Roddy
already had.

Their
voices echoed, slipping between the cars. One of them said something about the
pile of tires and the other laughed. She could hear them moving about, throwing
rocks on metal remains, until they stopped right in front of the Volkswagen.

Rayanne
stopped breathing.

“She’s
hide’n here somewhere,” Scut was saying. He threw another rock and it hit the
bumper. The sound reverberated through the Volkswagen, and Rayanne shivered.

“Naaaah,”
Roddy said. It sounded like he was walking away. “I don’t think so. She’s a
woman. She ain’t gonna come down here.”

“We’re
not leav’n till we search every car.” Scut sounded like he was stepping away
too. She could hear him throwing rocks at other cars now.

Rude
Roddy was saying something when one of them screamed. For a second Rayanne
thought Dru had made her way down into the dump. She was surprised to learn it
was Scut.

“There’s
a rattler! There’s a rattler!” Scut’s high-pitched wail echoed through the
hollow, and she heard what sounded like some kind of skirmish. Perhaps an
avalanche of gravel rolled down the slopes of the hollow, like marbles beneath
their feet.

“I
hate snakes! I hate ’em!” Scut’s voice rapidly moved away, and it sounded as
far as Dru’s now. The girl asked them what was wrong.

They
had to have climbed out of the hollow, Rayanne thought. She opened her eyes.
She wanted to poke her head up, but didn’t dare.

When
she heard them again, Rayanne was thankful she’d stayed put. She wished they
would leave. They seemed to be standing there. Talking. Cussing. Loitering at
the top of the slope. Perhaps they were waiting for her to make a move. Rayanne
remained as motionless as she could, lying down, hidden in the backseat of the
Volkswagen.

She
wasn’t sure how long she lay there, listening. She was aware of the heat,
though. The sun was blaring down on top of that old car. The inside was baking
and Rayanne was sweating.

Finally,
one of boys noted the sky was clouding up and it would be dark soon. And when
she thought she could take it no longer, she heard their voices trailing away.
Their echoes, still calling for their dog, grew faint.

Rayanne
waited several minutes before she lifted her head. The junkyard looked darker.
Something about it seemed lonelier than when she arrived. A clap of thunder
turned her gaze upward. Rain clouds were sweeping in angrily from the west. She
folded her arms across her chest, feeling a chill; yet there was no breeze.

She
moved around in the backseat and lumbered out of the car, then turned and
climbed back into it. She shut the passenger door. The first loud plop hit the
rusted roof, followed by another. Then another.

Rayanne
glared out the back windshield at the dump. It looked eerily like a graveyard,
more so now that darkness and rain had closed her in. Even so, she felt
relatively safe. She crouched down inside the car, stretched out on the
backseat, and listened to the rain hit the roof.

She
hoped Owen was safe too.

16

Rain
fell on the truck and made a monotonous clank that kept Owen awake. He looked
down. Wrapped around his stomach, the tattered strips of Rayanne’s yellow shirt
were stained with his dark blood. He wondered again when she would return. He’d
kept a lookout for her all afternoon. He’d dozed off a couple of times. Only
for a few seconds, though. The heat inside the truck and the pain in his leg
had become unbearable and made any real sleep impossible. It only deepened his depression.

He
had been in a bad mood for months now. Yesterday it peaked. Or was that a low?
He wasn’t sure.

While
shaving, he’d gotten a good look at the threads of gray in his sideburns. He’d
never noticed the gray hair before and it threw him for a loop. He’d been in an
extraordinarily foul mood ever since. He remembered his father turning gray at
forty. Owen still had seven years to go.

But
he was aging fast. He knew it. And it made him mad.

Rayanne
had taken the brunt of his bad mood. She always did. He didn’t deserve her. He
knew that. In fact, he’d always known—from the day he first laid eyes on her.
And if it hadn’t been for luck, he never would’ve landed her. She was a whole
’nother level than the girls he normally dated back then.

If
not for luck ….

“Luck,”
he said softly. Luck got him a basketball scholarship to Duke University.
There, he met Rayanne. He couldn’t believe it when she fell for him. As soon as
they married, fortune smiled on him again. He found a lottery ticket worth five
hundred thousand dollars.

He
used that money to buy a beautiful home, pay for Rayanne’s education, and start
a construction company. Life was good to them and blessed them with a son,
Connor.

It
was in Vegas, two years ago, when the luck ran out.

Rayanne
called, interrupting his and Darryl’s turn at a craps table. Connor had
drowned, she told him. He flew home to his distraught wife.