Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

made Julia laugh under other circumstances.
    Mitchell's eyes widened, unable to tell if Walter were joking or not. He backed away a few steps, turned, and started down the slope. His leather shoes kicked at the leaves, his shoulders slumped. When he was nearly out of sight, near a gathering of scrub hemlocks, he looked back.
    "You know that guy that lives next to you?" he called through cupped hands. "I paid him to play with your mind."
    Mitchell took a few more steps, turned, and shouted again. "He mailed me a pair of your panties. Think about that the next time you're laid out on some shrink's couch. Or taking it on the devil’s altar."
    He ducked behind the hemlocks and the sound of his running footfalls soon faded.
    "Your panties?" Walter said.
    "He's a Creep," she said, crossing her arms and hugging herself. "To think that I ever let him touch me."
    "Sorry," he said.
    "Don't be. I'm just glad to be rid of him."
    "What did he mean by 'I'm in it for the money’? I thought he was rich."
    Julia frowned. "Who knows, with Mitchell?"
    "You reckon he's in on this Snead deal?"
    She shook her head. "He just wanted me as his little toy. Snead wants me for Satan, and I don't believe Satan likes to share."
    "They probably heard the shots. They'll be coming soon." Walter flipped on the gun's safety and looked back up the hill in the direction of the cabin.
    Julia just wanted to sag down to the forest floor, to join the rotted loam beneath the leaves, to decay in peace. She was tired of being owned. She had been owned by therapists, owned by Mitchell, owned by the memories of something that may or may not have happened when she was four years old.
    And now Satan wanted her, or at least his misguided minions did. But she'd be damned if she was going to surrender now, not when she was on the verge of freedom. And she was no longer alone. She wasn't locked inside the house of her head anymore. She could trust .
    She glanced at the sky but the clouds were still silent. But maybe that was the definition of faith, believing even when there was no evidence.
    "Let it come, God," she said. "I'm not afraid anymore."
    As they climbed the slope, Julia wished she could tap Walter’s strength of faith. With Walter's help, she could fight Snead, Hartley, and Dr. Forrest. But she didn't have any weapons against a creature built from the flesh of bad faith, or the darkness that crept from the depths of her soul and was expanding to fill all she knew and believed.

 
     
    CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
     
    "The Jeep won't do us any good," Walter said when they returned to the cabin. "They could block off the road easy."
    "Maybe we should stay here," Julia said. "You've got the gun."
    Walter shook his head. "I told you I'm no Clint Eastwood. I'd be just as likely to shoot myself as to shoot one of them. And they got us outnumbered."
    The sun was high overhead, with all the night's rain burned away. Julia studied the woods around them. The Creeps could already be here, surrounding their hideaway. She shuddered at the thought of holing up in the cabin, waiting for the Creeps to call up their stupid dark master or whatever it was they did. She pictured a mad scene of torchlight and shadows, low sinister chants, the air filled with bitter smoke from strange herbs. She shuddered the image from her mind.
    "Which direction do we go?" she asked.
    Walter nodded toward the north. "If we head over the backside of the mountain, we can follow the creek down to the Amadahee. If we keep at it, we ought to be out of the county in a couple of days."
    "A couple of days ?"
    "I don't think we ought to risk trying to get any help around here. There's no way of telling who's on their side. On the devil’s side."
    Julia shook her head, staring at the ground. "I don't want to believe in Satanic conspiracies."
    "Me neither, but they still keep on coming. You go in and pack up the stuff and I'll go down to the spring to gather some water. If we figure on two days of hiking, we'll have to travel light."
    The smoke had thinned from the chimney, the fire nearly dead. The forest was reflected in the cold black windows of the cabin. The peace of this place had been shattered. Now the cabin looked forlorn, soulless, only wood and stone.
    She went inside, the room steeped in the glow of the dying fire. She gathered the clothes and the remaining food, stuffed them into the backpack, and threw the pack over her shoulder. Walter's can opener was on the hearth. She unzipped one of the