Hurrying now, she sipped the warm drink while she crossed back to the front doorway, and tugged the door open, aware that Ashley was still watching her. “Yo, Darbs, where are you going?”
Darbs. She hadn’t been called that since fifth grade.
“Trying again to get a cell signal. My mom’s got pancreatic cancer and she’s in a hospital in Provo.” Without giving Ashley time to respond, she stepped outside into the howling storm, flinching against a wall of bone-chilling air, and recalled an offhand little saying she’d heard once from her mother: The easiest lies to tell are the true ones.
NIGHT
9:25 p.m.
Darby walked to the Nightmare Children first.
This was part of her plan — it would be suspicious to beeline straight for the cars, and she had to assume Lars would look out the window after he exited the restroom and found her not there. Plus, she was leaving tracks in the snow. She recognized her own from an hour ago, and Ashley’s, and Lars’s (her size-eight shoes were so much smaller than theirs). All filling with snowflakes.
Tonight, every decision would leave footprints.
As for decisions, the hot chocolate had been a dumb one. About as dumb as Devon’s “Strength in Chinese” tattoo. She didn’t know why she’d taken the time to pour a drink while a possible child predator took a leak one room over. She just did it. She’d burnt her tongue when she sipped it on her way outside, like a real badass.
She circled the chewed-up statues, and then looped back around the visitor center. The building teetered by the cliff’s edge — just a narrow precipice behind a cement foundation wall, made narrower by stacked picnic tables. On the building’s back wall, she spotted two more windows. One for each restroom. They were small and rectangular, about ten feet off the ground, nestled under the icicled overhang of the roof. She was certain Lars was finished in there already — she’d heard the urinal flush minutes ago — but she moved quietly, just in case.
She walked uphill, still play-acting the role of Girl Without Cell Service. Of course, her iPhone detected nothing. She tried re-sending her 9-1-1 text message every few paces, but it never took. Her battery was now four percent.
From up here, she could survey the entire rest area, laid out like a diorama. Wanapa — Little Devil, in the local tongue. The stout little building. The flagpole. The cedar trunk. The Nightmare Children. The huddle of snowbound cars. Particularly, she watched the visitor center’s front door, waiting for Lars to step outside under the orange glow of the sodium-vapor lamp. Waiting to see if he’d follow her trail.
The door didn’t open.
No sign of Rodent Face.
Melanie’s Peak towered to the left, a sloping shadow. The intensifying snowfall had obscured most of it, but it was still the tallest mountain within view. It would be a useful landmark for navigation.
From this vantage point, she could also see State Route Seven, bathed in circles of overhead lights. It looked like a giant ski ramp, glittering with fresh powder. Utterly impassible for everything here except (maybe) Sandi’s truck. Blue wouldn’t make it five feet up — or down — that.
She waited there with snowflakes in her hair, listening to the distant gusts of high-altitude wind. Between them, a bleak silence. And in it, Darby’s own tortured thoughts ran wild, like an echo chamber.
You’re the reason Dad left. And if I could have chosen him instead of you, I would have, in a heartbeat.
In a fucking heartbeat, Maya.
Before hanging up, her mother had answered: If he really wanted you, Darby, he would have taken you.
She sipped her hot cocoa again. Lukewarm.
Now that she was certain Lars wasn’t following her, she could finally approach his van. She crossed the exit ramp and came at it from the north, her eyes never leaving Wanapa’s front fa?ade. From the interior window, you could see the van’s right side but not the left, and she had to assume Lars would be keeping an eye out. Walking in the deep snow was exhausting; she clambered and panted, spilling her drink. The air was abrasive on her throat. Her nose burnt. She felt the moisture freeze on her eyelashes, turning them crunchy.
Strangely, though, her body itself didn’t feel cold. Her blood was hot with adrenaline. She felt radioactive. She didn’t even have gloves, but she felt like she could spend all night out here.
Crossing the section of the parking lot designated for RVs and semi trucks, she was close enough now to the building that she could discern seated figures through the smudged glass. She saw Ashley’s shoulder. The top of Ed’s balding head. No sign of Lars, though, which suddenly worried her. What if he’d followed her outside after all? What if he’d just exited the building when she was behind it, and he was tracking her footprints right now, creeping behind her in the darkness?
She couldn’t decide what was scarier — seeing Rodent Face, or not seeing him. Her hot chocolate would soon freeze in its cup.
She kept moving toward that mysterious van, and the stupid cartoon fox floated closer with every lurching step. That slogan: WE FINISH WHAT WE START. The powder on the parking lot was shallower; only ankle-deep under a skin of ice. It had been plowed within the last twenty-four hours, which was reassuring. Approaching from the left, she used the van’s long side as cover.
She approached the van’s rear doors. A Chevrolet Astro. She assumed AWD stood for all-wheel-drive. An older model, judging by the hard wear. Dirty scrapes on the bumper. Charcoal gray paint, peeling off in crunchy blisters. To the right, she recognized the faint outline of her own footprints from an hour ago, passing between the van and her Honda, and pausing right here. This was where it happened. This was where her night took a hard turn.
And now, this was her moment of truth.
She set her Styrofoam cup in the snow and leaned up to the Astro’s rectangular back windows, half-obscured with knives of creeping frost. She cupped her hands to the glass again and peered inside. It was even darker than she’d remembered. No shapes. No movement. Just murky blackness, like looking into a stranger’s closet.
She tapped the glass with two fingertips. “Hey.”
No answer.
“Hey. Is someone in there?” It was strange to be talking to a van.
Nothing.
Only Darby Thorne, standing out here like a car prowler, feeling more and more awkward with every passing second. She considered using the LED flashlight on her iPhone, but that would consume battery and worse, be as bright as a supernova. If Lars happened to be facing the window, he’d definitely see it.
She rapped the metal door twice with her knuckle, just above the California license plate, and waited for a response. No activity inside. Nothing at all.
I imagined it.
She stepped back from the door, sucking in a cold breath. “Listen up,” she hissed, her voice hoarse. “If there’s someone trapped in there, make a noise right now. Or I’m leaving. This is your last chance.”
Still no answer. Darby counted to twenty.