Chapter 11 - The Trapper's Pit
Amanda’s voice floated through the damp air, sharp and low. "Follow the broken branches, Julian. He's carrying two children; he can't move fast. The ground is soft—look for the boot prints."
"My leg is busted, Amanda," Julian growled back, his heavy breath audible in the cold air. "If the state troopers catch us out here with a twelve-gauge after we reported him to the dispatcher, the whole story falls apart."
"The story doesn't fall apart if he's found dead with the kids," she hissed, swinging the flashlight beam across the pine trunks. "We tell them he ambushed us. Self-defense. Now shut your mouth and keep moving."
Mark’s jaw tightened. They were fifty yards away and closing fast. With his injuries and two children, he couldn't outrun them to the dam. He looked around the terrain. They were on the edge of an old game trail littered with rotting deadfall and hidden limestone sinkholes covered in deceptive layers of moss and pine needles.
An idea, desperate and dangerous, took shape in his mind.
"Clara," Mark whispered into his daughter's ear. "See that large boulder thirty feet ahead? I want you to take Leo, crawl behind it, and stay completely silent. Do not move, no matter what you hear. Understand?"
Clara looked into his eyes, understanding the gravity of the moment. She took the straps of the rucksack holding her brother and silently crawled forward into the ferns, vanishing behind the granite rock without making a single sound.
Once the children were clear, Mark stepped onto the trail intentionally, snapping a dry pine bough under his boot with a loud crack.
"Over there!" Julian barked.
The beam of Amanda’s flashlight whipped around, catching Mark’s silhouette as he darted behind a cluster of birch trees. Julian didn't hesitate; he raised the shotgun and fired. The blast ripped through the birch bark, showering Mark with splinters.
Mark stumbled intentionally, groaning loudly and crashing into the underbrush near a steep limestone depression. Julian saw him fall and surged forward, eager to finish it, his shotgun lowered to his hip. Amanda ran behind him, her eyes wide with cold triumph.
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"I got him!" Julian yelled, charging through the veil of ferns.
He didn't see the drop. The moss-covered lip of the sinkhole gave way under Julian's heavy boot. With a startled roar, Julian plummeted eight feet down into the jagged limestone crevice, his shotgun flying from his hands and discharging harmlessly into the mud.
