To her left are the truck and the ATVs. But if the truck is locked (likely) she’s dead. And she doesn’t know the first thing about starting, much less driving, an ATV. And that’s assuming, by some miracle, the key to the damned things are in the ignition, just waiting for her to jump on.
She looks ahead toward the lake. The water is glassy and smooth, black as the night sky. She spots the dock just ten feet away. And next to it, the rowboat.
“Only room for one,” she mumbles, and limps to the dock.
Staring down at the interior of the boat, she breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of the two worn oars lying crisscross beneath a plank of wood she assumes is what passes for a seat. Careful to keep the weight off her bad ankle, while doing her best to ignore the icy cold of the night air, Jessie sits next to the boat, then carefully shifts her weight onto the plank. The boat rocks, but not dangerously so, and a small part of her mind (that’s not screaming in terror and flashing red emergency lights to every part of her consciousness) is thankful it’s not a canoe or a kayak.
“Hey!”
She looks up and sees Tom rounding the corner of the house, seeming far less amused now than he did after repeatedly stabbing her best friend. When he spots her on the boat, he begins to run.
“Shit,” she breathes, and lifts the frayed loop of rope over one of the metal stanchions hoisting up the dock. She debates reaching beneath her for the oars, but instead shoves away with her arms, mustering as big a push as she’s able. Thankfully the boat’s bow already faces the center of the lake, and it glides seamlessly across the water. Within seconds, she’s a body’s length from the dock.
As Tom hits the end of the dock, Jessie spins on the boat’s lone seat—putting her back to Tom, the house, and all the horrors inside of it—pulls one of the oars from beneath her and begins to paddle.
“Hey! Come on, Jessie. We need that boat!” Tom yells, as if his childish irritation was more justified than the cold-blooded murder he’d just committed.
“Tough shit!” Jessie yells over her shoulder, already feeling rejuvenated at the instinctive flexing of the muscles in her arms, shoulders, and back; her body doing its thing as she plunges the oar deep into the water again and again, effortlessly swinging to the other side to repeat the strokes, the little boat cutting a line, smooth and fast, through the dark lake.
When she’s a good distance away, she lifts the oar momentarily and turns to look back. Tom stands at the end of the dock, a clutched, blood-smeared knife dangling at his side, his other hand scratching his head, as if flustered.
I’ll get to the other side, she thinks. I’ll find the path that asshole was talking about and I’ll fucking crawl if I have to until I find someone—a house, a road … I’ll get out of this. I’ll live through this, I swear it.
Feeling momentarily safe, Jessie takes a beat to study the rowboat’s condition, as best she can, in the dim moonlight. The bottom is chipped and dirty, but sound. No water is leaking in, no signs of damage. Satisfied it’ll float, she turns her body, faces the stern in a classic rowing position. She pulls the other oar from beneath the bench, slides her hand along the shaft searching for a sleeve or, God willing, an oar right. But the oars are apparently old as the boat, made of simple wood—a far cry from the carbon oars she used on the team. They feel solid, though, and that will be enough. She examines the boat’s sides and almost laughs with relief at the metal oarlocks mounted on either rail. They’re rusted, and U-shaped versus the easier-to-manage round type, but they’ll do just fine.
Settling both oars into the locks, her fingers flex against the smooth wood and her bare feet find makeshift braces near the stern. Her mind begins to settle. Her breathing steadies. This is something she knows. Rowing is her passion, and the act of it brings her frantic mind back to earth, reminds her of the normal life she’d been living no more than an hour ago. A life of peace, filled with friends and the silly, first-world problems any young college student faces on a daily basis. A life where no one is drugging her, brutally stabbing her best friend, or chasing her through an ancient farmhouse in the goddamn Catskills.
Jessie forces herself to be thankful for the things that have not happened to her. She woke up in her underwear—bound and drugged (not so great)—but not naked. After taking a mental inventory of her body, she doesn’t think she’s been violated in any way.
And she’d escaped. She’s horrified for Blake, but that pain will have to wait, will have to be shelved until she can properly digest all that happened to her friend. Properly mourn. But first she needs to be thankful. She is going to get out of this, she is going ….
A scream comes from the house. It’s not a scream of pain or terror, but one of pure rage.
Jessie gasps and looks up, sees Tom still standing on the dock, unmoved, seemingly unmotivated. A blur of pale flesh bursts from around the side of the house, running toward Tom, toward the dock.
Toward the lake.
Brad hits the dock at a full sprint. Bare feet pound the boards so loudly Jessie can almost feel the tremors traveling across the water. At the last second, a bemused Tom steps to one side as Brad blows past him, pumps a heel into the dock’s last board and dives, slick as a shark, into the water.
“Oh shit.” Jessie tightens her grip on the oars and begins to row. The oarlocks creak with the strain, but they don’t give, they don’t break. Normally she’d rely on the strength in her quad muscles to pull force from her legs, but with her injured ankle she instead focuses on keeping a tight core, following through with her arms on each thrust forward, each pull back, using her crew technique, her breathing.
As she drives the heavy, stubborn oars through the water—hard plowing at first, but as she gains speed the motions gets easier, faster—she keeps an eye on the water, searching for Brad.
Finally, she sees him break the surface, further from the dock than she would have imagined, and even closer to the boat than she’d feared. He’s no more than ten yards away. Ten yards from gripping the sides of the small boat and capsizing it, sending Jessie into the water where she’d most certainly lose a one-on-one fight; him pushing her under, holding her down until her struggling stops along with her breath, her heart, her life.
But Jessie is feeling it now, the oars slicing easily as she outpaces her would-be killer as he swims furiously across the lake.
I’ll beat him to the far side. Not even close.
But then what? She’ll need to run on an ankle she’s unsure will be up to the task. That might not even hold her weight. And though Brad will be winded, the guy is in formidable shape, and there’s no way she’d take him in a race through trails she’s never seen, trails he’s walked hundreds of times.
In the dark, he’d catch her within minutes.
Tough shit, Jess. You’ve got no choice.
Still, she likes her odds better on land than in the water. She’s an athlete in her prime, and in top-notch condition herself. If she gets enough of a head start, and her ankle is even moderately useful, she can do it. She knows she can.
Rejuvenated by hope, she increases her power and stroke rate. She notes her distance from the dock, to what is now the far shore. For a blink of a second, she twists around, finds the shoreline she’s rowing toward. Forty yards? Less?
Meanwhile, to her surprise, Brad has stopped swimming. She’s put a lot of water between him and the boat now, and he must have realized there’d be no way to catch her—at least not on the lake. Confused, Jessie watches as he swims back toward the dock.
What’s he up to?
She doubts he’s giving up. They can’t possibly let her go, not after ….
Brad yells something at Tom. Jessie can’t hear the words over the splash of her oars, but she sees Tom nod and run toward the house.
After a few tense moments, Jessie hears the roar of an engine. It revs loudly, carrying across the surface of the lake, shattering the quiet night.
Oh no.
A hard, round light comes to life next to the house.
A headlight.
The ATVs. You forgot about the mother-humping ATVs.
ROW, JESSIE! her mind screams, and Jessie doesn’t argue. She doubles her efforts, pushes herself as hard as she can, ignores the hard metal clanking of the oarlocks as the wooden shafts bang into them again and again with each successive stroke. Her heart thumps in her chest, her lungs squeezed by the exertion of forcing the dumpy, shitty little boat to MOVE ITS ASS but she’s already realizing it’s too late, too late ….
