Mr. Burke considered that. "Yes, but you only get five minutes to do both of them."

"Mind if I slit his throat and spend the rest of the time with her?"

Mr. Burke nodded. "That's fine. But slit his throat at the end so he can watch."

"I can do that."

"Tape his mouth. Let's avoid noise pollution as much as possible."

Troll turned toward me, smiled, and waved his knife in front of my face. "Watch how creative I can be."

I watched it all, screaming at my body to move.

Mr. Burke was feeling generous and gave Troll an extra minute.

Chapter Sixteen

Helen's Side

"CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH about a gallon of chocolate syrup pour ed over the top," I said. "What about you, Kyle?"

"I don't know."

"Sure you do. You can have anything in the entire whole wide world to eat when we get out of here. So what sounds really, really good?"

"Nothing."

I was desperately trying to keep my children alert and happy. Word games hadn't been effective, so I'd switched the subject to food.

We walked slowly through the forest, Theresa following right behind me with her hands on my waist, and Kyle completing the human chain with his hands on his sister's waist. I tried to keep my tone of voice cheerful, but I also kept a close eye on every single step we took, watching for traps.

Joe ran alongside of us. I'd carried the pug for a while, but he'd gotten too heavy and I let him go. On one hand, I didn't want my children to be traumatized by the sight of their beloved pet getting killed in a trap, but on the other hand, I'd rather have Joe accidentally run into a trap than us. And at this point, what was one more trauma?

"C'mon, Kyle, any food in the world. If you don't pick one, I'll make you eat broccoli!"

"Yuck," said Theresa.

"That's right, yuck. And it will be the biggest piece of broccoli you've ever seen. Covered with turds."

I was not the type of parent who normally joked about excrement with her children, but I really needed to keep their minds occupied.

"Mommy, my arm hurts," said Kyle.

"I know it does, sweetie. I promise, we'll get you to a doctor who will make it all better. For now you just have to be my brave little boy, okay?"

"Okay," Kyle said without enthusiasm.

"Now are you going to pick a food or do I have to cook you a turd-covered piece of broccoli?"

"Maybe a mammoth," said Kyle.

"A wooly mammoth?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want mammoth steak or mammoth stew?"

Kyle thought for a moment. "I want mammoth pizza."

"All right, it's a nice wooly mammoth pizza for Kyle as soon as we get out of here."

What frightened me was that I didn't know when that would happen. We were admittedly taking it slow, but still, we'd been walking for an awful long time to not have reached the road. I wondered if we were lost.

"Can I have mammoth pizza, too?" asked Theresa.

"Sure. Have you ever seen a mammoth? Even Kyle couldn't eat a whole mammoth pizza all by himself."

"And he's a big snorty pig."

"I am not!"

"Are too!"

For the first time in my life, I welcomed an argument between my children. But it stopped as Theresa's voice turned serious. "Mommy, are we going to die?"

"No," I told her. "We're not."

"I'm scared that we are."

"It's okay to be scared, sweetie. But we're not going to die, I promise you."

"What if the man who bit Kyle had diseases?"

"Theresa!"

"Well, what if he did?"

"Theresa Lynne Mayhem, stop talking like that. Your brother is going to be fine. The man didn't have any diseases, and he'll never come after us again, and none of us are going to die."

"Do you think I have rabies?" asked Kyle.

"No! Damn it, Theresa, see what you did? Kyle, you don't have rabies. You don't have any disease. Your arm got bit really bad, and I know it hurts, but it's going to be fine. There are no diseases you can catch from a human bite."

As a parent, I tried to never lie to my children. Sure, Andrew and I did the whole Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, and Tooth Fairy thing, but for the most part I tried to speak honestly and directly with them. This wasn't one of those times. I was scared shitless that Kyle might have caught something from that monster's bite, but I couldn't let my son's overactive imagination go rampant right now. I had to keep them calm.

But when Kyle made it to a hospital, he was getting every test in existence.

"I don't think you know," said Theresa, softly.

I successfully-but only barely-fought back tears.

The walkie-talkie crackled.

"Is anybody there?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

I pressed the button. "Who is this?"

"This is Officer Trevor Clemens from the Georgia State Patrol. We've managed to subdue the assailants who attacked you and your family, but your husband has been very badly injured. Could you give us your location?"

"What happened to him?" I tried not to sound frantic.

"He's been cut. He's been cut bad, ma'am. We can't move him until the ambulance gets here. Are you near the road?"

"I'm… I'm not sure," I admitted.

"Are you lost?"

"I think so."

"That's not a problem, ma'am. We'll get you out of there. Do me a big favor and give us a shout, okay?"

I'm embarrassed to admit I almost did it. I opened my mouth, took a deep breath… and then drew the obvious conclusion that I might not really be talking to an Officer Trevor Clemens.

"Let me talk to him," I said.

"Ma'am, he's unconscious and losing blood fast. I'm not trying to scare you, and I promise we're doing everything we can, but he may not have much time left."

"Shout out to me," I told him. "I'll follow your voice."

I listened carefully.

Nothing.

"Did you hear that?"

"No."

Now a gunshot, far off in the distance.

"What about that?"

"Yes, I heard it."

"Are we close?"

"No, but I know which direction to go at least."

"Then hurry. Get here as quickly as you can. We'll be waiting."

There was something vaguely sinister in the way he said "We'll be waiting." My gut told me I wasn't speaking to a police officer. I'm sure I could've asked some appropriate questions and figured this out for sure, but then I'd risk letting him know what I knew… or at least suspected.

But whether I was talking to a killer or a cop, one thing was certain: Andrew's situation was not good.

Was he really cut and bleeding to death?

Or perhaps already dead?

I needed to put that thought out of my mind. Andrew was one hell of a resilient guy. He'd be fine. He could be superglued to a nuclear warhead and he'd find a way out of it. I had to worry about getting Theresa and Kyle to safety.

I wondered if I should leave them behind. Find a good hiding spot for them and head off on my own. I could move more quickly that way (though still carefully) and not run the risk of taking them right back into the hands of the killers.

What if I couldn't find them again?

They'd be found. We'd call the police, have search helicopters fly overhead, and rescue them. We couldn't possibly be that far into the woods.

What if the killers found them first?

Or wild animals?

I couldn't do it. I couldn't leave them in the forest to fend for themselves. Kyle had almost been taken from me, and I wasn't going to let him out of my sight again. Hell, aside from restroom and shower breaks, he might stay under my watchful eye until he was eighteen.

Though I did my best to stop obsessing over it, I was too distracted with thoughts of Andrew to continue playing word games with my children, so we walked in silence.

At least I knew we were going the right way.