The Mask

squatted under a huge pine, leaned back against the damp bark, and breathed deeply, rapidly, raggedly, while waiting for her heart to stop racing.
    A minute passed. Two. Five.
    The only sound was the rain drizzling down through the leaves and through the interlaced pine needles.
    She became aware of the dank odor of heavy vegetation—moss and fungus and forest grass and more.
    Nothing moved.
    She was safe, at least for now.
    But she couldn’t just sit beneath the tall pine, waiting for help to arrive. Eventually, Jane would stop searching for her and would try to find a way back to the cabin. If the girl didn’t get lost—which she most likely would do—if she somehow managed to return to the cabin, and if she was still in a psychotic fugue when she got there, she might murder the first person she encountered. If she took Vince Gervis by surprise, even his great size and impressive muscles would be of no use against the blade of an ax.
    Carol stood up, moved away from the tree, and began to circle back toward the cabin. The keys to the Volkswagen were in her purse, and her purse was in one of the bedrooms. She had to get the keys, drive into town, and ask the county sheriff for assistance.
    What went wrong? she wondered. The girl shouldn’t have become violent. There was no indication that she was capable of such a thing. The potential to kill simply was not a part of her psychological profile. Paul was right to be worried. But why?
    Proceeding with utmost caution, expecting the girl to leap at her from behind every tree and bush, Carol needed fifteen minutes to reach the edge of the forest at a point not far from the place at which she had entered the trees with the girl in hot pursuit. The meadow was deserted. At the bottom of the slope, the cabin huddled in the pouring rain.
    The kid’s lost, Carol thought. All of that twisting and turning and doubling back through unfamiliar territory was too much for her. She’ll never find the way home by herself.
    The sheriff’s men weren’t going to like this one: a search in the rain, in the forest, for a violent girl who was armed with an ax. No, they weren’t going to like this one at all.
    Carol navigated the meadow at a run.
    The rear door of the cabin was standing open, just as she had left it.
    She hurried inside, slammed the door, and threw the bolt. Relief swept through her.
    She swallowed a couple of times, caught her breath, and crossed the kitchen to the door that led into the living room. She was about to step across that threshold when she was stopped by a sudden, terrible certainty that she was not alone.
    She jumped back, spurred by intuition more than anything else, and even as she moved, the ax swung in from the left, through the doorway. It sliced the air where she had been. If she hadn’t moved, she would have been cut in half.
    The girl stepped into the room, brandishing the ax. “Bitch.”
    Carol backed to the door that she had just latched.
    She fumbled behind her for the bolt. Couldn’t find it.
    The girl closed in.
    Whimpering, Carol turned to the door, seized the latch. She sensed the ax rising, into the air behind her and knew she wouldn’t have time to open the door, and she jerked to one side, and the blade bit into the door just where her head would have been.
    With superhuman strength, the girl wrenched the ax out of the wood.
    Gasping, Carol ducked past her and ran into the living room. She looked for something with which to defend herself. The only thing available was a poker in the rack of fireplace tools. She grabbed it.
    Behind her, Jane said, “I hate you!”
    Carol whirled.
    The girl swung the ax.
    Carol brought the poker up without any time to spare, and it rang against the gleaming, viciously sharp blade, deflecting the blow.
    The impact rang back the length of the poker, into Carol’s hands, numbing them. She couldn’t maintain her grip on the iron rod; it fell from her tingling hands.
    The impact did not ring back along the wooden handle of the ax, and Jane still held that weapon with firm determination.
    Carol backed up onto the wide hearth of the stone fireplace. She could feel the heat against her legs.
    She had nowhere else to run.
    “Now,” Jane said. “Now. At last.”
    She lifted the ax high, and Carol cried out in anticipation of the pain, and the front door was flung open. It crashed against the wall. Paul was there. And Grace.
    The girl glanced at them but was not going to be distracted; she brought the ax down toward Carol’s