Free Desolation Point by Cari Hunter

ragged breath. She didn’t sit down; her legs were already shaking simply with the effort of holding her upright, and if she sat down she was certain she wouldn’t have the energy to stand again.
    “Sarah? SARAH ?” After the first two miles, she had started shouting intermittently, and she continued to do so, more out of habit now than with any real hope of success.
    Her only answer was the moaning of the wind through the trees.
     
    *
     
    The premature dusk that had fallen at the onset of the storm was gradually darkening to true night, and with a sickening certainty, Sarah knew that she was lost. With no way of second-guessing herself, she had picked up a trail that had initially seemed to be heading in the right direction, but a series of switchbacks, steep descents, and equally steep ascents since then had completely confused her. Still enveloped by thick cloud, she had continued to follow the trail in the hope that it would lose height, but several hours later, the nature of the terrain suggested that she remained at a considerable altitude, and she was utterly exhausted.
    The trail was sodden, but she sat down regardless, too wet and too weary to care. She forced herself to eat a handful of dried fruit, washing it down with gulps of water that chilled her even further. As she was steeling herself to push to her feet once more, she heard a voice crying out.

Chapter Five
     
    The mist muted everything. It drifted at the mercy of the wind, twisting around Alex’s feet to conceal her path and hide the trees until she almost walked into them. It dulled sound to the point where she was painfully aware of her own heartbeat, the effort her body was making thumping too fast and too hard in her ears. The forest had tapered off some miles ago, the remaining scattered trees and shrubs providing her with little shelter from the wind, driving rain, and seemingly endless swirling of gray. Every few minutes she promised herself that she would turn back, take Walt’s advice, and return to the lake to wait for rescue. Then another five minutes would pass and she would decide to go on just a little farther. She was walking largely on autopilot now, and the sudden shock of the radio vibrating at her hip made her stumble into a small bush. Carefully extricating herself from its thorns, she slumped down at the side of it and pulled the radio free.
    “Go ahead, Walt.”
    A buzz of static assailed her, forcing her to scramble onto a high rock to try to clear the signal.
    “—Don’t know if—stay the hell away from them—killed one man already.”
    Her hands slick with sweat, she hesitantly raised the radio to her lips. “Walt, say again. Over.”
    The stress in his voice was apparent even through the breaks in the reception. “Cops got a hit on the partial plate you gave Marilyn. The truck was used to hijack an ambulance transferring a prisoner to the hospital. Alex, are you getting this okay?”
    “Yep.” She was already scanning her surroundings, waiting for something to leap out of the mist at her. She lowered the volume of the radio as far as it would go yet still be audible. “I hear you.”
    “Convict’s been named as Nathan Merrick. Cops think his girlfriend Bethany played a part and they might be traveling together. No idea what they’d be doing in the park, but Merrick spent two summers up here working trail maintenance about fifteen years back.”
    Alex nodded, even though there was no one there to see her. She felt surprisingly calm, her years working on the force coming into play as she compartmentalized the information. “What was he in for?”
    A pause, before Walt answered with obvious reluctance. “This time around, aggravated assault and armed robbery…” He hesitated and Alex said nothing, the inference hanging in the static. She could sense his indecision and dreaded what else was to follow. It only took him a second or two to steel his nerve. “He was on a federal watch list for his links to a