Audra froze. There it was, her children inside.
She ran. Arms churning, feet pounding the forest floor, past Danny, past Collins, she ran like she hadn’t run in years, since school, when she ran for the pure joy of it. Danny called after her, but she ignored him.
‘Sean!’ Her voice echoed through the trees. ‘Louise!’
Audra didn’t slow as she burst into the clearing, as she mounted the porch, as she shoved the open door aside. Her feet skidded on the wooden floor as she tried to halt, and her balance deserted her. She landed on her hip, didn’t pause, got on to her hands and knees, still holding the Glock. She crawled to the open trapdoor, calling their names, calling …
Open?
She saw the splintered trapdoor that rested back on its chains. She saw the lock torn loose from the wood, still hanging from the loop on the floor. She looked down into the basement and saw it empty.
Knowing they wouldn’t hear her, Audra called her children’s names once more.
43
SEAN AND LOUISE kept walking. Louise lagged behind, and Sean had given up cajoling her into hurrying. He had realized some time ago they were lost, so there seemed no point rushing. But they had to move, no matter what.
‘I want some water,’ Louise called from ten feet behind.
‘You already had some,’ Sean said. ‘I told you, we have to make it last. I don’t know how long we’ll be out here. Might be days. We need to conserve our supplies.’
Sean carried those supplies in a plastic bag: two twelve-ounce bottles of water, four candy bars, two apples, and a banana. He had wrapped the handles around his wrist because his palm still stung and bled. The bag seemed extraordinarily heavy for all it contained, his shoulder aching at the effort. His lungs also. No matter how deep he breathed, there never seemed to be enough air. The altitude, he supposed, and clearly Louise felt it too.
He didn’t know how long they’d been walking, but he guessed it was at least an hour. The trail that led back to the road hadn’t been that far away from the cabin, so he knew they had gone the wrong way. He cursed himself for it now. He’d been in too much of a hurry to get away to pay attention to the direction of their flight. Even if there’d been a sense of the land rising or falling as they walked, he might have been able to find a way down to lower ground, but the forest remained level, no matter how far they trekked. Maybe they could stop soon, share one of the candy bars and the banana. But not yet.
The thing Sean wanted more than anything else in the world, other than to see his mother, was to lie down on the bed of pine needles and go to sleep. He hadn’t slept the night before, and his hands still bled from the effort. The knife’s handle had lain on the bottom step for an immeasurable time while he stared at it, angry at the blade for breaking, furious at himself for thinking it wouldn’t. Eventually he had descended the stairs and picked up the handle, turned it in his hands as he studied it.
It was only then that he noticed the blade had not in fact snapped. Rather, the handle had come apart, the halves separating so that the blade came away. He worked the halves with his thumbs, noted how they flexed. Then he sat down on the bottom step, stared at the handle some more. By now, Louise had fallen asleep, and she snored on the mattress. Proper sleep, not the fever-drowse of the last day or so.
He looked back up to the trapdoor, and the blade still lodged by the third screw. A blade and a handle was all he needed, wasn’t it? He simply needed a way to put them together again. At the top of the stairs, he examined the blade itself. He slipped off his T-shirt, wrapped it around his right hand, and reached for the metal. A push and a pull, and it came loose.
The blade’s thick root slotted into the handle easily, so the two halves simply needed to be tightened around it. Something to tie it with. He looked at his feet and saw the laces of his shoes. Less than a minute later he was ready to tie the knife back together. But he paused for a moment. There was a better way, wasn’t there?
Yes. Yes, there was.
He turned the handle sideways so that it formed an inverted T with the blade. The picture formed in his mind: the pieces bound together with his lace, maybe a little more material from his shirt to cushion his hand. It didn’t take long to put together, once he’d made up his mind.
Sean set back to work, the new tool held in his fist, the blade protruding from between his fingers, most of it wrapped in cotton, only an inch or so of the tip exposed. Now he could expend less effort and dig away more wood. Even so, it took hours, but he didn’t mind. Especially when he heard that glorious crack as he pushed up on the door.
At that moment he had known for certain everything was going to be all right.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
He stopped, turned in a circle, looking for a break in the trees. A clearing, a building, a road. Anything at all. There was nothing else to do but walk and hope.
‘Can we stop?’ Louise asked.
‘No,’ he said, his voice harder than he’d intended. ‘Keep up.’
He reminded himself that she was still sick. The worst of the fever had gone, but it had left her weak and tired. He would give her some more antibiotics when they stopped.
‘Is this the wilderness?’ Louise asked.
‘I guess so,’ Sean said.
‘Don’t people die in the wilderness?’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Are we going to die?’
‘No,’ Sean said. ‘We’re not.’
They kept walking.
44
AUDRA AIMED THE Glock at Collins’ forehead. ‘Where are they?’
Collins stood in the clearing, her hands raised. ‘I left them here last night. I don’ t—’
‘Where are my children?’
Audra stepped off the porch, advanced toward her, the pistol steady.
‘I swear to God,’ Collins said, ‘I locked the door last night. They were here, I promise you, they—’
Audra’s left hand lashed out, slapped Collins hard. She staggered back at the force of the blow, a red bloom on her cheek.
‘What kind of animal are you?’ Audra said.
Collins put her hands up once more, and once more Audra struck her. And again, this time catching her nose, drawing blood. Danny stepped back, watched with an impassive expression.
‘Get on your knees,’ Audra said.
Collins’ eyes widened. ‘What?’
‘On your knees,’ Audra said, a calmness washing over her. ‘Right now.’
Collins lowered herself to her knees, her hands up, palms facing Audra. ‘Whatever you’re thinking about doing, please don’t.’
‘Shut up,’ Audra said. ‘Look away.’
‘Please,’ Collins said.
Audra curled her finger around the Glock’s trigger, put the muzzle against Collins’ temple.
‘Please don’t,’ Collins said.
Audra looked at Danny.
‘You do what you need to do,’ he said.
‘Oh Christ, oh Jesus,’ Collins whispered, her hands trembling. She brought them together. ‘Oh God, forgive me for my sins.’
A dark stain spread from the crotch of her jeans.
‘Please, Jesus, forgive me. Look after my boy, Lord, please, and my mother. Please, God, have mercy on me.’
Audra watched her pray, imagined the bullet tearing through this woman’s head, her existence spread over the forest floor.
‘Goddamn it,’ she said, and lifted the Glock’s muzzle away from Collins’ head. Then she brought it down again, slammed the butt into her skull. Audra felt the force of it up through her wrist, her arm, into her shoulder.
Collins collapsed forward, her eyelids flickering, a rivulet of dark red snaking past her ear to her jaw. She muttered something incomprehensible into the pine needles.
Danny looked at Audra from the other side of the clearing. ‘What now?’ he asked.
Audra turned in a circle, studying the faint currents of mist between the trees. ‘We look for my children.’
‘Out here?’ Danny came to her side. ‘They could be anywhere by now.’