I choose the house. Because it is easier. No, not easier. Possible.
It doesn’t take long, maybe ten minutes, to pick my way to the high-end mountain home. As with the Logan place, the sight of the house makes me feel my injuries, and there’s a new feeling in my wounds. A sort of unnatural warmth, a heat that makes me think of infection. I consider the idea that infection and fever are why I’m not connecting dots like I should.
On the plus side, I don’t feel my injuries as sharply as I did walking up to the Logan place. Maybe because I’ve lost confidence that a house means salvation.
Once I’m right up next to the place, I realize how massive it is. This thing could eat the Logan Family Lodge for breakfast.
The mountain mansion has a feeling of emptiness about it, despite the nice landscaping out front. A home alarm system sign is in the yard. I don’t like the idea of forcing it to go off, but I tell myself that if the people are home, they’ll wake up in a hurry. If they’re not, the alarm will bring the cops, so either way, the alarm is a good thing.
The driveway is dirt, which is nice on my feet, and I follow it up to the paving stones that lead to the front door.
Man, this house looks empty.
I try to coach myself into positive thinking. If it’s empty, I’ll just break into it, and if the alarm doesn’t sound, I’ll use their phone. My third broken window in the last . . . however many hours it’s been. God only knows, at this point.
Still, though, the darkness, the hulking size of the lodge, the everything—it makes me uneasy. Trepidation slows my steps. Is it good instincts, or have I already contracted PTSD from the Logan experience? The front door is right there, but I don’t want to knock.
Then, behind me, I hear something. It’s small, but enough to send me spinning around.
It’s him.
In the trees.
Watching.
In an instant it’s clear. He was following me. He saw me head for the house. The sound above me in the woods was him paralleling me, taking a shortcut. He’s playing another game, one far more sophisticated than my own.
I feel myself losing this contest, feel the Wolfman winning.
Five Years Ago
THE GIRL IS TRYING NOT to feel contempt for her mother. They’re sitting at an Applebee’s, eating dinner, but only the mother is speaking. Everyone else—the girl, her father, the boy, and his mother—just listens. Tomorrow the girl competes. Now is a time for focus, for confidence. But the girl’s grandmother has decided to make a surprise visit to watch the show, prompting a meltdown in her daughter, who cannot stop talking.
The girl doesn’t say anything. She wants to eat her hamburger and tune out the worried blather, but she can’t. The needless whining burrows itself into her mind, irritating it, forcing it to react, to judge. There is no place for this sort of weakness. The world will not tolerate it. Certainly, there is no room for the girl to be weak. It’s not a luxury she can afford, not when so much rides on her shoulders. Her father can be harsh, but he’s not wrong about his wife—if she had the killer instinct, everyone would know her name, know how good she is. She would be a success.
The girl has the killer instinct. She can feel it, a hard core of iron inside her. It does not bend or break; it does not shy away from difficulty. It is brave and courageous and it suffers no fools. Winners are ruthless. They create their own luck by controlling their environment, making it work for them. It occurs to the girl this way of being should extend outside the exercise ring.
“Let’s not talk,” the girl commands, bold and declarative.
Everyone at the table freezes. The boy’s eyes go wide, shocked at her brazenness.
The girl takes a big bite of her hamburger. Her parents, the boy, and his mother all follow suit, turning to their meals in silence.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I RUN FOR THE FRONT door and don't bother to knock. Grabbing the handle, I’m hoping by some miracle they’ve left the door unlocked. They haven’t. The glass is thick. I look around for a brick or a rock or something to smash it with, anything to get inside, to get the alarm to ring.
At my feet is a fake rock with a grinning frog on it that says WELCOME.
It looks exactly like the fake rock my Nana hides her key in. I’ve always thought it was a stupid place to keep a key. Now I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.
With fumbling fingers, I turn over the fake rock to find the key waiting for me.
I glance back. The Wolfman is in the drive, but his rifle rests at his side. He’s not hurrying. Instead, he walks slowly toward me.
The key slides smoothly into the lock, twists easily, and in a less than a breath I’m inside. It’s not until the door is locked and dead bolted behind me that I realize the alarm never sounded.
“Hello!” I scream. “Is anybody home?”