She scrambled up and crouched behind the log, then peered over it, wide-eyed. She screamed again. A tall blond guy was about three feet away, pointing another arrow right at her face. She tried to scream a third time, but all that came out was a sort of raspy whistle. The man was breathing hard, his eyes scared, but fierce. His looked her over quickly but carefully. Then, seeming to come to a decision, he let the bowstring in his hand slacken, and softly said something in complete gibberish.
"Uh, what the... ug—you—" she stammered nervously in response, not managing to make any more sense than he had. His eyes narrowed in confusion, and suspicion. Before she could blink, his hand was around her wrist and he was pulling her up over the log in a single move. He was amazingly strong for such a skinny guy. He set her on her feet in front of the log and stepped away a couple of paces. He said some more stuff in gibberish; the tone of his voice was questioning, yet firm. "Blah?" he was saying. "Buh blah blah blublah, ah blah blah lablah?"
"Um... I don't understand what the hell you're saying. Do you speak English?" Christ, maybe I got into another COUNTRY, she thought. She noticed now that he was dressed sort of weird. His hair was long, like a girl or a hippie, and he had on a long greyish-green shirt and pants, and—she noticed nervously—a big knife strapped around his waist. Something about his face was strange, too, but she couldn't figure out what. "Um. Hablas espanyol?" she tried. She sort of sucked at Spanish. The guy cocked an eyebrow. He murmured something to her in a soft, clear voice, then grabbed her wrist again and started pulling her forward through the forest. "Hey!" she screamed. Suddenly he was behind her, one hand was around her mouth, and there was something sharp poking at her neck. He whispered something in her ear. She didn't understand whatever language it was he was speaking, but it was pretty obvious he wanted her to shut the hell up and let him take her where he was going. Oh my God, she WAS going to be raped and killed, by this weird crazy guy, in another country! No one would ever find her, no one would ever know what had happened to her, no one—she was being pulled along amazingly fast, and had to stumble and run to keep up. The guy seemed to leap over roots and weave around bushes without even looking around him, and several times she tripped or almost got her eye poked out with a branch. After a few minutes she could see light through the trees, open daylight instead of the even green she had been surrounded by. They were by the edge of a clearing. In a depression in the ground, beneath the trees, was a group of people near a small, low-burning fire.
There were a few kids sitting cross-legged by the fire, chattering in gibberish (This has got to be another country, Maria thought. Either that or everyone here is insane). A couple of adult men stood a few feet off, looking across the clearing at the landscape and discussing something with stern expressions. A few feet away she saw a pony with bundles on its back, switching its tail and nosing at the grass. Everyone had weird clothes, kind of like people she had seen going to a Renaissance Faire. As the blond hippie guy came closer, dragging her behind him, the kids by the fire stiffened in alarm. One grabbed the arm of the kid next to him fearfully. The two men spun around. One of them drew himself up and took a step forward, his eyes keen. The other pulled out this huge SWORD and hissed something to the hippie gripping her wrist.
The hippie said something back, probably, "I found this chick in the woods. We're going to have some fun tonight, if that's okay with you, Fellow Creep. Just send the kids back home to their mom and hand me the gag." Maria tried twisting away, but he held on effortlessly, not even breaking the flow of the conversation. The first man said a few more things to Hippie, then Sword Guy growled angrily and waved his sword about. She shrank back behind Hippie. Then one of the kids piped up. Everyone started to bicker back and forth.
The first man, the taller one not waving the sword, actually seemed to be kind of on her side. At least, he was looking at her a lot less threateningly than Sword Guy, who as far as she could tell wanted to kill her and cut her up into bits and pieces, and possibly do nasty things with the bits and pieces. Hippie seemed sort of sympathetic towards her, but suspicious too. The kid was totally on her side. He was a sweetie. He stood up and turned towards them, gesturing placatingly towards Tall Guy, and went on at length in a soft imploring voice. Tall Guy, who seemed to kind of be the leader, thought for a moment, then nodded to Hippie, who led her over to the fire and gestured for her to sit down. "Uh. Thanks," she said, and sat. Maybe she could run away when they weren't looking.
The hippie pulled out the dead rabbit from somewhere and handed it to one of the kids, the one that was kind of fat. The kids gave cries of delight and thanked him, or so she guessed by their voices. The fat kid took out a knife and started to skin the rabbit. Ugh, poor bunny. The kids were staring at her, even the fat one, as he cut the rabbit into pieces and dropped it into a small pot over the fire. She stared right back at them. Stared all around, in fact—at the holly bushes leaning over the fire pit, at the woods behind her in the growing dusk, at the landscape ahead barely visible through the ragged treeline. Hilly and somewhat barren, with hazy clumps of trees scattered all the way to a range of mountains in the distance. The sun was setting, and the peaks were touched with red.
One of the kids spoke to her, kindly it seemed, and offered her a metal cup. Soup? It smelled pretty good, and she noticed she was hungry. The three adults had sat down near the warmth of the flames, and everyone had a cup in their hands. They laughed and talked softly, but they seemed a bit uneasy, and kept looking around as if they expected someone to arrive. Well, Maria thought, staring at her cup, if they were all eating the soup, it couldn't be poisoned, right? She sipped at it. Mmm, it was good. Oh my God, she realized, I'm eating the rabbit! Poor bunny. Oh well, there was nothing she could do about it. And they'd probably get mad and stab her or something if she didn't eat their soup.