The next morning, reality hit Steve before he even opened his eyes.
A gust of freezing wind slipped inside the tent. He woke up with a start and a sensation of emptiness in his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger.
He sat up abruptly, his heart beating hard. His first reaction was to look for his cell phone to check the time.
He patted the pocket of his jacket, which he had used as a pillow.
Empty.
He furrowed his brow, confused, and searched in the other pocket.
Nothing.
Confusion quickly gave way to mild panic. He grabbed his backpack and dumped it onto the sleeping bag, frantically scattering its contents… but not a trace of his wallet, his phone, or the car keys.
Sleep evaporated instantly, replaced by a terrifying clarity.
"Jenny!" he shouted, shaking her shoulder, "Jenny, wake up! Shit, wake up!"
Jenny woke up with a groan, rubbing her eyes.
"What...? What's wrong?"
"My stuff! My phone, my wallet... they're gone!" Steve was hyperventilating, looking around the tent like a caged animal, "They've disappeared!"
Both stumbled out of the tent, turning the camp upside down, and it didn't take long to find the evidence.
The damp earth around the entrance of their tent was marked by several heavy boot prints and a trail of dog prints.
Steve understood the situation instantly. The humiliation of the day before mixed with the violation of his privacy, creating a wave of anger that rushed straight to his head, tinting his vision red.
"It's those bastards!" he spat, clenching his teeth so hard his jaw hurt, "It was them!"
Without thinking, he ran toward his car, pulling on the door handle in desperation, hoping for a miracle, but it was locked.
He patted his pockets again, over and over, in a useless nervous tic.
"They have the keys! They stole our damn car keys!" frustrated, he pounded the window.
Jenny brought her hands to her mouth, terrified. The beauty of the lake had faded, revealing how isolated they really were.
"Steve, p-please, calm down!" she pleaded with a trembling voice, "We have to call the police. Let's get out of here, let's walk to the main road…"
"Call the police? With what, Jenny?" Steve turned toward her, his face distorted by helplessness, "They took the phones too! We're cut off!"
He looked at the ground. The tire tracks of the dirt bikes were deep and fresh in the mud, a trail leading directly into the thick of the forest.
"I'm going to go find them"
"No!" Jenny grabbed his arm, "Steve, they're dangerous! We saw what they did yesterday!"
"I have no choice! They have my wallet, they have our IDs, and they have the only way out of this place!" Steve broke free from her grip, driven by a toxic need to regain some of the dignity he had lost the day before, "I'm not going to let them get away with it."
Ignoring Jenny's pleas, he began walking at a brisk pace following the tracks. Jenny, seeing she was being left alone, ran after him.
They walked for ten tense minutes, until the smell of wood smoke and cheap tobacco hit their faces.
They arrived at a smaller clearing and there was the group.
The boys were sitting around a bonfire, laughing and passing a bottle of alcohol. Brett was leaning back on a log, tossing Steve's bunch of keys into the air and catching it, while with the other hand he reviewed the contents of the brown leather wallet.
Steve's blood boiled. The fear disappeared, replaced by a blind fury.
"Give me back my stuff!"
He burst in screaming.
The group's laughter cut off, but not out of fear. Brett looked up slowly, and a lazy smile spread across his face, while his friends exchanged looks of complicity.
"Well, well... look who's joined the party" said Brett, without getting up, "Buddy, what are you talking about? You're interrupting our breakfast."
"Don't play dumb with me!" Steve took a step forward, trembling with rage, "You have my wallet in your hand! And those are the keys to my car!"
Brett looked at the wallet, then at Steve, and put on an expression of exaggerated innocence.
"This?" He held up the wallet, "Nah, you're confused. This wallet is mine. I've had it for years. And these keys..." He shook the keychain, "They're for my... uh... for my spaceship."
The other boys burst into laughter.
"Bullshit!" Steve pointed accusingly at the cell phone next to Brett, "That's my phone!"
"Oh? You mean this?" Brett held the black iPhone up high, "No way. This is the new model I bought myself yesterday in town. How could it be yours? Unless your name is engraved on it... which I doubt."
The gaslighting was so brazen that Steve felt like he was going to explode.
And then, fate intervened.
Beep-beep... Beep-beep...
An alarm tone broke the tense air. It didn't come from Brett's hand, but from the pocket of Cooper's jacket.
That was Jenny's phone. She had set an alarm the night before to watch the sunrise.
The sound made the lie crumble in a second.
Brett cursed under his breath and Steve's sanity snapped.
He no longer thought about the danger.
"And you said it wasn't you, you damn thieves!"
With a scream he lunged forward and pushed Cooper hard, knocking him down, and reached into his pocket, snatching Jenny's phone while the boy tried to get up.
"Shit!" shouted Brett, jumping to his feet, "Get him!"
"WOOF!"
From the shadow of the trees, a mass of black muscle shot out. The Rottweiler, which had been sleeping nearby, reacted to the aggression.
The dog crashed into Steve's side, knocking him to the ground, and its jaws snapped shut around Steve's thigh, piercing the jeans and the flesh.
"Aaahh!"
Steve felt the teeth ripping his leg. The dog shook its head violently, trying to tear the flesh.
Panic took over Steve. His hand, desperately searching for something, anything to defend himself, closed around a stick that was next to the bonfire, with one charred end.
"LET ME GO!"
With a scream, he raised the log and brought it down with all the force that adrenaline allowed him.
Crack
The sound was dry and definitive.
The log struck squarely on the top of the Rottweiler's skull.
The growl cut off abruptly. The dog didn't even whimper, the jaws loosened releasing Steve's leg, and the massive body collapsed onto the ground.
A pool of blood began to gush from the animal's shattered head, staining Steve's boots.
Time froze.
Steve, with his chest rising and falling violently, watched as his hands trembled so much that the log slipped from his fingers and fell.
He looked at the Rottweiler's corpse at his feet, with the dark blood spreading quickly, and then looked up at the boys.
The reality of what had just happened hit everyone at the same time.
"Danny!!!"
Brett's scream tore his throat. He dropped to his knees next to the inert body of his faithful friend, ignoring the blood that stained his own pants. His hands, formerly arrogant, now frantically caressed his dog's fur, searching for a heartbeat that no longer existed.
"No, no, no... Danny,..."
When he raised his head a few seconds later, the bully mask had disappeared. In its place, there was something much more terrifying. His face was contorted, the veins in his neck throbbed, and his eyes were filled with madness.
"You killed him..." he whispered at first.
Then, he stood up slowly, pulling a switchblade from his waist. "You killed my DOG!"
Steve took a step back, raising his hands in a useless gesture of defense. "It was an accident... he attacked me, I just..."
"SHUT UP!" roared Brett, pointing the blade at him. "You are going to pay for this! You are going to pay with your fucking lives for Danny!"
His friends, fueled by his anger, threw down the bottles and surrounded the couple. They were no longer annoying kids, they were a pack looking for revenge.
"Steve, run!" shouted Jenny, pulling on his arm.
But it was too late…. Too late.
"Grab them!" ordered Brett.
Steve tried to fight, throwing a desperate punch, but the deep bite in his thigh failed him. His leg gave way under his weight and he fell to the ground screaming. Before he could get up, three pairs of hands pinned him to the ground, kicking his ribs and face repeatedly until he stopped resisting.
"NO! LET HIM GO! PLEASE!" Jenny screamed hysterically, scratching the face of one of the boys holding her, but another grabbed her by the hair and twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her to kneel.
"Bring the wire we saw on the fence," spat Brett, wiping a tear of rage from his cheek. "We're going to teach this imbecile what happens when you mess with what is mine."
They dragged Steve to an old tree and used the barbed wire they had found. They wrapped it around Steve's torso and the tree trunk. The barbs pierced the shirt and dug deep into his flesh.
"AHHHHHH!"
"S-Steve! Oh, my God, Steve!" Jenny sobbed, fighting uselessly against the grip of her captors. "Stop! We will give you everything you want! The cards, the car, everything! JUST STOP!"
Brett ignored her pleas and advanced slowly toward Steve, with the knife gleaming under the sunlight. He got so close that their noses almost touched, then, with a terrifying delicacy, he slid the cold tip of the blade along Steve's sweaty cheek, tracing a red line that immediately began to drip.
"Do you think I want your money?" he whispered with a voice devoid of any human emotion. "Money isn't going to bring Danny back. No... now we are going to play a new game. A game about pain."
What followed was a nightmare that would be burned into Jenny's psyche forever.
She saw, helpless and horrified, how those teenagers transformed their frustration into cruelty. Brett sank the knife into Steve's shoulder, twisting it slowly. Cooper, lighting a cigarette, approached and pressed the burning ember against Steve's exposed chest.
The smell of burnt flesh mixed with the aroma of the forest.
"Look at him!" one of the boys shouted at Jenny, forcing her to keep her eyes open.
Steve's screams went from shrieks to weak moans, until his head fell forward, losing consciousness from the shock.
Jenny's world turned red.
The absolute terror that had paralyzed her began to mutate. Upon seeing Steve like that, something inside her broke, and in its place emerged a desperate survival instinct.
She realized they weren't going to stop. When they finished with Steve, they would move on to her. They were going to die there.
"Hey, hold the girl tight, I want to see if..." began the boy holding her from the left, momentarily distracted looking at Brett.
It was her only chance.
Jenny didn't think, she stood up, threw her head back with all her strength and smashed it against the bridge of the nose of the boy holding her.
"Crack!"
The boy let out a stifled scream, bringing his hands to his face while blood gushed between his fingers, blinding him.
Feeling the grip loosen, Jenny spun around, bit the other captor's hand hard until she tasted iron in her mouth, and when he let go from the pain, she kicked him in the crotch.
"Shit! The bitch is getting away!" someone shouted.
Jenny didn't look back, but took off running immediately, throwing herself into the thick of the forest. She ran blindly, driven only by terror, while the low branches lashed her face like whips that opened cuts on her cheeks.
"Catch her! Don't let her escape!" Brett's voice resonated behind her.
Jenny tripped over a root and fell face down against the hard earth, scraping the palms of her hands and knees, while the air burned in her lungs like acid.
Although her desire was to stay there and give up, the image of Steve tied to the tree forced her to get up.
She got up, spitting dirt, and kept running just at the moment she heard a voice shouting: "Over here! I see her trail!"
They were close.
Just when her legs were about to fail and the darkness of the trees seemed to close in on her forever, she saw a flash.
The forest opened up a few meters ahead, so Jenny gathered her last bit of energy and lunged forward, breaking through the barrier of bushes.
The sunlight blinded her for an instant and she blinked, trying to focus, until finally she saw it: there, parked, oblivious to the horror occurring hundreds of meters away, was the familiar futuristic motorcycle.
A flame of hope lit up in her chest upon seeing the motorcycle.
She squeezed out the last drop of energy she had left and stumbled out.
…
At that moment, Lief and Jennifer had already dismantled their camp. The tent had disappeared into storage and Lief was adjusting everything preparing to leave.
"H... Help! Please!"
Jenny's legs finally gave way and she collapsed at the feet of the couple. Her clothes were torn, her knees were bleeding and her face, bathed in tears and dirt, was the living image of despair.
"..."
Lief stopped his movements and furrowed his brow slightly, looking down with a confused expression.
Jennifer crouched down immediately and held the girl by the shoulders to help her sit up, even if just a little.
Upon contact, her sensitive sense of smell was assaulted violently. A strong smell of fresh blood, sweat and, above all, an aura of fear so dense that it could almost be tasted, hit her head-on.
"Lief, she–"
"Th-They have him! They have Steve! They are killing him! Please, you have to help me!"
Jenny clung to Jennifer's leather jacket with trembling hands.
Lief did not seem surprised by her plea and, maintaining a strange calm, his eyes drifted toward the line of dark trees from where she had appeared.
"Jenn, take care of her first. Try not to let her faint."
"I'm going in for a moment. I'm curious to see what 'interesting' thing has happened to cause such a commotion."
"No! They are armed! There are many of them!" shouted Jenny, trying to stop him, but Lief had already walked away.
He walked toward the thicket with a firm step.
He didn't have to walk far.
As he went deeper, the smell of resin and damp earth was replaced gradually by a more metallic stench and also the smell of cheap cigarettes.
He pushed aside some tall bushes and the scene that unfolded before him was of true medieval brutality.
Steve was there.
But the boys had tied him cruelly to the trunk of a tree, using barbed wire instead of soft ropes.
They had wrapped it around his torso and his arms, and the metal had dug so deeply that blood soaked everything. His head hung inert over his chest, with the skin marked by cuts and circular burns, making him look like a piece of meat abandoned in a butcher shop.
And around the victim, the "pack" was celebrating.
The six youths were passing a bottle of water to clean the blood from their knuckles and hands.
However, the crunching of branches under Lief's boots broke their moment of triumph.
Some turned around and upon seeing who the intruder was, the atmosphere changed.
"Hey, Brett, here comes another volunteer."
Brett, who was cleaning the blade of his knife, looked up and upon seeing who it was his eyes shone with madness.
He ran his tongue over his dry lips and raised the knife aiming directly at Lief's chest.
"Buddy... you have the worst luck in the world," he hissed. "Seeing things you shouldn't see is not good at all for your health."
The six dispersed, flanking Lief to cut off any escape route, surrounding him like wolves cornering a lost sheep.
________
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