Last to Die: A gripping psychological thriller not for the faint hearted Read Free Page B

hunted lay deep in the woods that straddled North Carolina and Tennessee. His cabin was situated in a remote and unpopulated valley, many miles from popular hiking trails and camps. There had been a small town in the valley many years before, but it had long since been abandoned to nature. And nature had reclaimed it.
    When he was dry, Caleb unlocked a metal trunk and lifted out the individual zip-locked bags which contained his hunting clothes. After a hunt, each item was carefully washed, dried and sealed in the plastic with a number of leaves and fresh pine cones. Hunter magazines spoke of high-tech carbon suits that could reduce scent and the like, but his way was the old way and it did not fail him.
    Caleb dressed quickly and smeared dark green non-reflective grease across his pale cheeks and the backs of his hands. He covered his head with a freshly washed black cap. It never ceased to amaze him how many hunters took care over scented clothes but wore the same cap day in, day out, forgetting how rancid a sweat-soaked brim became.
    He strapped the knife to his left thigh and carried the rifle, quiver and bow out to the truck. He laid them on the floor behind the driver’s seat and covered them with tarp. A flurry of excitement ran through him. This was the best part of the hunt. All the work, all the painstaking preparation led towards the coming hour. He leaned against the truck and tilted his face to the cloudless dawn sky above and thought himself a fortunate man.
    Caleb drove off his property and turned right onto a small dirt road, so little used that grass grew almost knee-high down the centre line. Caleb drove with the lights dimmed, though he did not meet a single vehicle, nor did he expect to. This deep into the valley there was hardly a soul to be found. He drove on for a number of miles, climbing steadily. He crossed an old wooden bridge, barely wide enough for his truck, and after another half mile he turned onto a rutted track leading up the side of the mountain. He dropped down into second gear, then into first, as he progressed higher and higher. In some sections the trees and bushes on either side were so overgrown the track was hardly passable.
    It was another twenty-five minutes before the pathway flattened out and he bounced over a rutted culvert into a small clearing. He backed the truck between rocks and switched off the engine.
    The clearing was almost two-thirds of the way to the summit of a mountain known to him as The Devil’s Ridge and the last place he could safely drive. He sat for a few moments, staring across the expanse of trees, listening to the engine tick as it cooled. He watched the first traces of light illuminate the highest climbs. He became aware of his breathing, felt his chest rise and fall, slow and regular.
    He was ready.
    He stepped from the truck, walked to the rear and vaulted onto the bed in one smooth movement. He hoisted the spare wheel up and opened the door to a hatch he had built in under the flatbed.
    Within the confined space lay a bound and gagged girl. She wore sprayed-on jeans and a dark red leather jacket. Her hair was dyed a harsh, flat, peroxide blonde, with a couple of inches of roots visible.
    She screamed behind her gag as he dragged her out. The sound irritated him.
    ‘Quit it. No one can hear you out here anyways.’
    He threw her over the side of the truck where she fell to the ground with all the grace of a sack of grain. He jumped down, hauled her to her feet and removed the gag. Immediately she started babbling at him.
    ‘Please … oh please mister … please don’t hurt me. Please, I won’t tell no one about you, I swear mister, I won’t say—’
    He pulled the knife from its sheath and pressed it against her cheek.
    ‘I said quit making noise.’
    She shook violently but quietened. He traced the knife down her skin and sliced through the binds on her wrists. He pointed across the clearing with the blade.
    ‘D’you hear the bridge a while