Free Faint of Heart by Jeff Strand Page B

continued.
    I'm right behind you, Rebecca ...
    Too bad her older brother Randy wasn't here. He would've had himself a great time, making ghost noises in the night, grabbing her arm with a loud "Boo!" He'd probably even wave the shirt with the hooks in it too close to her face, just to make her scream.
    Well, he would have, back when they were seven and nine. Not so much now.
    God, she was scared.
    She remembered all the ghost stories Randy had told her when she was younger. Most of them were profoundly stupid, involving creatures that were as likely to pee on you as devour you, but no matter how absurd the stories became, Becky always listened in wide-eyed terror. She always had nightmares. She'd looked back on them and laughed, but as a child the dreaded Snot Beast was something to be feared as much as a shark or a cannibal. I'm looking at you now, Rebecca !
    She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. She had problems enough at the moment without adding fear of ghosts to the roster, thank you very much.
    Something rustled in the woods. Something big.
    Rebecca immediately grabbed one of the spears and held it in both hands, braced for action.
    Silence.
    More rustling, something smaller this time, up in the trees. Nothing human.
    She stared at the spot where she'd heard the rustling, frantically searching for any sign of movement, any sign that Alan or Stephen were waiting out there, even though it was too dark to even see the trees.
    Nothing.
    She picked up the flashlight, turned it on, and shone it in that direction. The beam just barely reached the trees, and it didn't reveal anything.
    Even so, as long as she didn't fall asleep they'd have a pretty difficult time surprising her. She'd see them in plenty of time before they reached the campfire. That didn't mean she'd be able to keep herself alive, but at least the element of surprise wouldn't be on their side.
    Unless they had a gun. But she didn't think they'd go to all this trouble simply to shoot her.
    Of course, if they decided that this whole plan was too risky, they'd want to get rid of her, wouldn't they?
    Well, she couldn't worry about what they might do if they decided to terminate the plan. It was bad enough to think that they were going to go through with it.
    Rebecca darted the flashlight beam around the area where she'd heard the loud rustling. No signs of movement. No more sounds.
    She held the flashlight in place for a full five minutes, then shut it off and set it back down on the ground. She kept the spear in her hands. Someone might still be out there, but as long as it wasn't a ninja they couldn't move completely silently. She might have a goofed-up brain, but she had perfect vision and hearing, and nobody was going to come out of those woods without her knowing about it.
    After another fifteen minutes she forced herself to relax. A bit. She was exhausting herself just by being so tense. She did some breathing exercises and tried to think about happy times she and Gary had shared.
    Like meeting in the department store as they passed on opposite escalators, when he got so distracted seeing her for the first time that he forgot to step off at the bottom and landed on his face.
    Like their honeymoon in Europe, where they'd intended to see all of the amazing sights and take in the foreign culture but somehow never quite got around to it.
    Like the day she'd been offered a permanent teaching job instead of just being a substitute, and to celebrate they'd gone to a fondue restaurant. For dessert they'd fed each other chocolate-dipped strawberries. It was still the best-tasting food she'd eaten in her life.
    Rebeccaaaaaaaaa, I'm breathing down your neck ...
    "Goddamnit, stop it!" she shouted.
    Oh, wonderful. Now she was yelling at herself for hearing ghosts. The complete mental breakdown was well underway.
    She tried to think of other happy memories about her and Gary, but gave up when she couldn't stop envisioning Gary on a porch swing next to her, smiling