The Search Read Online Free Page B

year before.
         Just east and a mile north of Mark and Hannah’s compound.
         It was where Sarah occasionally went to pick flowers.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
     
         Sarah had never seen Nathan Martel. Had no clue there was anyone else in the forest.
         She never heard him either.
         For he had spotted her from a distance when he was tracking a small buck.
         At first he couldn’t believe his good fortune.
         As hungry as he was for fresh meat, the buck would have to wait. It would live to see another day. And he’d be back to get it soon enough.
         Now he had a different prey.
         Now his mind went back to all those times in recent years he’d wanted a woman. Not just to satisfy his lust, but also to cook and clean for him.
         And there she was, two hundred yards in front of him, carrying a handful of flowers through a clearing.
         She was pretty, too. And young. Couldn’t be more than thirty or so.
         Just the way he liked them.
         For an hour he tracked her. Moving only when she did, so his noise didn’t spook her.
         Waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack.
         For Martel was getting up there. He was well into his forties now, and had a bad knee.
         He knew that if he gave himself away, she’d bolt.
         And there was a fair chance she’d outrun him through the thick forest.
         Each time she moved, he followed suit. And with each step they took, he gained a bit more ground. For he was a big man, over six and a half feet.
         Sarah was a petite woman, just over five feet herself.
         So with each stride he took, Martel gained a few more inches.
         Finally, Sarah stopped to rest in another clearing.
         She sat upon a fallen log, her back to the woods, and sipped from her water bottle.
         Martel very slowly worked his way around the clearing, staying just inside the tree line. He was trying to sneak up behind her.
         When he was twenty feet away, he chuckled. Actually, he laughed out loud.
         But Sarah didn’t hear him. For seconds before she reached into her pocket and took out her MP-3 player, then turned it on and placed her earbuds into her ears.
         She was listening to an old Beatles song when Martel slammed a rock against the back of her head and knocked her out cold.
         Martel was on her in an instant, sitting on her back as he tied her wrists together, then her ankles.
         Once he was certain she was unable to run, he took off her shoes and socks and belt.
         The shoes he threw into the forest, in opposite directions.
         He balled the socks up and stuffed them into the unconscious woman’s mouth.
         Then he wrapped the belt around her head, holding the gag firmly in place.
         The blood from her head wound soaked the grass.
         Head wounds always bled profusely. He’d killed enough to know that.
         And he didn’t want to go through all the trouble of finding and stalking his prey just to let her bleed out.
         So he took off her blouse and wrapped it tightly around her head, covering the wound completely. The blouse quickly became saturated, but then the bleeding slowed to a trickle.
         He removed her bra and admired her breasts while he thought out his next step.
         Seeing Sarah topless, there in the grass, awakened something within him, and he decided to go further.
         He removed the rest of her clothing and hid it underneath the log she’d been sitting on at the edge of the clearing.
         Then he went back to her and raped her.
         She was blissfully unaware.
         Once done, the monster of a man threw her limp and naked body over his shoulder and carried her through the woods to where his stolen pickup was hidden two miles away.
         It would take him