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She walked probably two hundred feet through underbrush that would be fairly thick if it had been any other season. But she found a little creek, about three feet wide, with crystal clear water flowing away from where she had started. “Yay!”
Kneeling beside the bank, she splashed her face with the icy water. It was so cold, but she could almost instantly feel the puffiness of her eyes subside.
Logic told her that gravity wins every time. Follow the stream, find a way down the mountain or at least a path or civilization of some sort.
Chloe hiked on, keeping the stream on her left. The size ebbed and flowed around trees and rocks. She’d been walking for about twenty minutes when she heard a noise.
She froze. Her mind raced with all the wrong kinds of possibilities.
“Stop. Listen.” She closed her eyes again, giving her ears the chance to hear all the sounds of the forest around her and distinguish the one that seemed out of place.
A tapping. What on earth?
Her heart raced. What made that kind of tapping sound?
What did she have to defend herself if it was a bear? Or a bobcat? Or worse? What could be worse than a wild animal who was hungry? Oh, right, those serial killers Josh’s sister hunted down.
A shudder pulsed through Chloe’s body.
Oh, God, what do . . .
The sound continued, but she realized there was a pattern to it.
Thump, thump, thump.
Thump. Pause. Thump. Pause. Thump.
Then three fast thumps again.
After a longer pause, the pattern repeated.
Morse Code—it was an SOS signal.
But who on earth?
She rotated her head a couple of times to ascertain the direction the SOS was coming from.
To investigate the sound, she’d have to leave the stream. Part of her thought she’d be able to find the stream easily enough again, but she knew better. Getting lost in the woods was easier than most people thought.
But what if the person tapping SOS really needed her help? She couldn’t just leave them. And they could be closer to a trail or something.
She was torn. Keep moving and ignore the person, who might just be laying out a trap for her.After all, I have no idea how I got here. What if I was kidnapped and dropped in the woods?She wanted to laugh at herself and the lunacy of the idea, but what if that really was what happened?
She’d read too many crime novels.
The SOS continued.
“Okay, fine.” She walked toward the noise, regularly glancing behind to keep an eye on the creek.
She pulled her scarf off when she lost sight of the creek and tied it to a branch on the opposite side of the tree from the creek. If she kept the scarf in sight, she’d be able to follow it back to the creek .
The tapping grew louder.
She hid behind a large oak tree and forced herself to breathe. But the panic was always just a heartbeat away. She needed to know who was making that noise.
Holding her breath, she eased around the side of the tree.
A bright red coat caught her attention. She couldn’t mistake that coat.
