Free Left for Dead: A gripping psychological thriller by Deborah Rogers

laborious, rolling territory. I tell myself not to give up, that one more mound could mean the slope of a steep hill or at least a break in the trees.
    But by the time it’s dark I’m forced to admit I’m wrong, and have to take shelter in the concave of a thick-trunked tree. I sit shivering, watching the white eye of the moon blink at me, and wonder how much longer I can go on like this. The nights are getting colder and all I have is this rag of a dress. It’s a miracle I haven’t succumbed to hypothermia already. And the lack of food? How long can I walk without any real sustenance? Then I remember the precious plums I so carelessly abandoned back in the spiders’ lair, and feel even more useless than before.
    I pick at the crust on my throbbing left foot and think of the Uruguay soccer team and their 1972 plane crash into the side of an Andes mountain. I think about how they were completely alone, how everyone thought they were dead, how no one was looking for them, what they did to survive. They made it out, didn’t they? After how many failed attempts? I must be my own plane wreck in the Andes survival story. I will get out. I will make it back. I will live to tell.
    *
    I wake in the half-light with leaves rattling above my head. Rain. Some of it reaches me down here and I lick my arms. The moisture feels good. Fresh. I sit up and cup my hands to catch the drips but that does nothing except make my palms wet.
    I need a container. There’s moss growing in bushels at the base of the trees so I reach over and slide my thumb under a thick piece and separate it from the bark then place it out in the open rain. Minutes later, I retrieve the sponge and suck. Not much, but something.
    Crouching, I collect six more moss chunks and begin laying them out. I’m going to be in wet clothes with wet hair but at least I’ll be hydrated. I wonder if this is the way it’s going to be from now on, lurching from one survival crisis to the next, if it’s always going to be a double-edged sword. You can have water but it means getting hypothermia. You can have food but it means eating deadwood and insects.
    There’s a sudden noise. Movement to my left. A pair of eyes flash. My heart leaps. He’s back. Rex is back. I open my mouth to scream then stop when I see the rabbit.
    Its pelt is dripping and soiled. The pathetic creature blinks at me in disinterest. I realize I’m drooling. I’m disgusted because I want nothing more than to kill the rabbit and suck the flesh from its tiny bones. Could I really do it? Kill a living thing? Eat it raw?
    My stomach moans. I lean forward, lift my hand over the rabbit’s head, bring it down hard. Miss. The rabbit flees. It’s fast, but so am I. In fact, I can hardly believe how fast I can run, that I had this energy in me at all. But I know it won’t last, that my legs will soon buckle, that the adrenaline will soon go.
    I close in. Ahead the rabbit leaps over roots and rocks. Less than a stride now and I will be able to bring my foot down on top of its head. But the rabbit veers left and I lose sight of it.
    I round the corner and see a small cave.
    My heart does a little leap. The rabbit is trapped. Soon I will eat.
    Moving forward, I stop dead in my tracks. Out of the mouth of the cave steps a dirty gray wolf. The wilting rabbit jolts between the wolf’s jaws.
    I duck behind a boulder and pray the wolf hasn’t seen me. The animal is large, the barrel of its chest broad. A thick black stripe runs the length of its spine to the tip of its tail. He lifts his nose to the wind then drops the rabbit to the ground like a sack. Another wolf emerges to stand beside the alpha, then four more of various sizes, wide-circling the meal in the dirt.
    Then the alpha begins. The others join him. There’s the sound of cracking bones.  
 

21
    A strange thing happens. I feel alive. Acutely alive. My mind is on one thing only. Food and the fact it’s highly likely there will be some back there in the