Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Afew nights later, well after the fire dimmed and I fell into a restless sleep, I sprang awake from a vivid dream.
I ran through the forest, fleeing from a wall of people that made up a quickly approaching search party. Dad was linked arm-in-arm with Bobby, Tate, and Leonard, along with several other faces I recognized, all dressed in bright pink shirts.
Were they looking for Janine? They weren’t calling out her name, though.
They were shouting mine.
I sat up. Panting hard, my sleep shirt clung to my chest, soaked in sweat nearly down to my belly button. I wiped at the moisture on my upper lip.
“It’s too hot in here, it’s giving you bad dreams,” Charlie said, speaking quietly into the dark. He was curled up in the chair by the fire, exactly where he’d been when I fell asleep.
“Are you still cold?” I asked, voice thick.
He smiled softly. “No, Reece. I’m not cold anymore. No more fires after tonight. Let’s open the windows for a breeze.”
I reached for the one next to my bed, and he opened the opposite across the cabin. “You’re getting good at that,” I remarked.
I swore I saw the faintest blush darken his cheeks. Was that even possible? It made me want to reach for my sketch pad again.
His eyes tracked the V of sweat down my chest, honey-bright in the gloom. “I want to try leaving the lookout tomorrow.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. “Can you do that?”
He shrugged, still staring at my chest. “I don’t know. I couldn’t before. If I tried, I’d only end up going back to that other place. The only time I’ve ever managed it was when you nearly fell. But…” His eyes darted up to mine. “I think I want to try again.”
“What does it look like? That other place?” I asked.
He turned toward the smoldering fire, face hidden in shadow.
“It’s like I’m here, and not here,” he whispered.
“I’m in the lookout, but it’s full of shadows.
There’s no color, or light, or warmth. The windows are all boarded up.
There’s no door. I don’t think it’s really death.
Or, it is, but not the final place you go when you die. It feels more like… Waiting.”
What have you been waiting for?
Instead, I asked, “So then how do you find your way back?”
Charlie looked at me again, eyes molten. I felt seen by him. Like all the layers separating life from death peeled away, and he gazed at the truest heart of me. His lips parted in answer, and my breath caught.
A piercing scream interrupted the moment, cutting through the forest all around us.
I shot out of bed, wide awake. “What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie replied, striding over to look out the windows. His voice shook. “I can’t tell which direction it came from.”
We heard the scream again, and again. Three, four, five times. They were short, wordless staccato wails, like someone crying out for help. Charlie grew increasingly distressed with each.
“Reece, what do we do?” he cried, spinning around, as if searching for a way to make the sound go away.
Abruptly, they stopped.
Panting, we stared at each other in the near dark, panic-frozen in fear.
And then Charlie pointed at something over my shoulder. “There,” he whispered.
I spun around. A light, bright against the inky darkness, bobbed and darted around below the tower. It was far enough away to be well into the trees, had we been able to see where they began.
And then I realized.
“That’s a flashlight,” I said, frantically tugging on my boots. I didn’t bother lacing them. “It could be Janine.”
“Reece, wait—” Charlie said, but I was already out the door.
“Janine!” I yelled, eyes darting around to find the light again as I rounded the tower toward the stairs. “Janine!”
I realized I’d forgotten my own light source when I reached the landing, the glow from inside the tower too dim to make out the steps ahead.
But then Charlie was there. “You’ll trip and fall again, you idiot,” he huffed.
We didn’t have time to marvel that he’d done it—he left the tower.
Handing me the lantern I usually kept on my nightstand, he followed me down the stairs before we booked it for the tree line, barely illuminated ahead of us.
I’m definitely buying that high-powered torch.
The flashlight still bobbed ahead of us, too far into the trees to make out properly. “Janine, is that you?” I hollered.
As if in response, the light switched off.
Charlie put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me to a stop just before we entered the forest. “Wait,” he said, panting. His face paled, and his outline flickered, pieces of him turning hazy and see-through. “Something’s wrong, Reece. I don’t like this.”
“We have to help her,” I answered, also struggling to catch my breath.
“We don’t know if it is her. And I think I know—I mean, I think I remember what ha—pened—”
His eyes widened as his words became choppier. Frantic, he gripped my shoulder tightly, looking more and more frightened as he tried to communicate. “I can’t—R—ce. You can’t—alone!”
Fuck! He must not be able to get this far away from the tower. Or maybe it was the adrenaline?
Either way, I couldn’t let him leave. “No, wait, Charlie—please, don’t go. It’s ok, we’ll go slow. I’m sorry, please stay,” I begged, trying to hold on to him.
But it was too late. He blinked away.
And I was left alone, in the dark, with whoever—or whatever—wandered through the woods in the middle of the night.
My panicked breaths were too loud in the hushed quiet.
A leaf crunched somewhere ahead of me, just outside the glow of the lantern. I swung it wildly, hoping to catch sight of whoever was out there, watching.
Predator, predator, predator, my instincts screamed.
“Janine?” I asked tentatively. My voice cracked. I really fucked up. I hadn’t stopped to consider what I’d do if it wasn’t Janine I found all the way out here, defenseless and alone.
And Charlie was gone.
He might not return for hours, or even days. I’d reacted without considering him at all, and whether he could handle the running and stress.
Another rustle of leaves, this time to my left. My heart pounded in my ears. I took a step back, and another. If it were Janine, lost and hurt, she would announce herself. She wouldn’t do this… Whatever this was.
She wouldn’t stalk me, like a predator.
Suddenly, footsteps pounded the ground, fast and loud as they charged.
Stumbling backwards, I turned and sprinted for the lookout, barely able to see anything. I could hear someone behind me, breathing heavily.
I kept running.
Reaching the stairs, I took them two at a time, uncaring of whether I slipped on the damp condensation. My boots crashed along the wrap-around deck. I slammed the door of the lookout shut behind me and threw the bolt into place.
Flicking off the lantern, I grabbed the can of bear spray.
Fucking useless, I thought. What’s bear spray going to do to a homicidal maniac? Crouched down with my back against the opposite wall from the door, I waited.
Listened.
Everything was quiet. I was almost certain they hadn’t followed me up the stairs, and the thud of their steps along the deck would give them away before they reached the door.
Wouldn't they?
Maybe they left.
I strained my ears, searching for any sound at all.
Crunch, crunch, crunch
There. Boots on the gravel behind me.
Then on my left.
In front, now.
On my right.
Behind me again.
They circled the tower.
Why would they do that? Why not come up here?
Maybe they weren’t willing to risk it if I was armed? Or maybe, they’d realized I wasn’t a small person and weren’t confident they could overpower me?
I held my breath as they circled again, and again, and again. Boots crunched on gravel, steady, sure, and deliberate.
It felt like a message.
I know you’re up there. I know you’re all alone. I know you’re afraid.
Frozen, I sat there. I should’ve found my phone, should’ve called someone, but I was stuck in place, terrified of making any noise in case it prompted them to climb the steps and attack.
Just as I convinced my muscles to unclench and stretched one leg in front of me to crawl across the small cabin in search of my phone, the sound of their steps shifted.
Scratch, scratch, scccraaatttchhhh
What the hell were they doing? I froze again, afraid to even breathe, terrified I’d drawn their attention with my movement.
Scratch, Scraaaatttchhh
For once, being high above everything else didn’t make me feel comforted and safe—it made me feel trapped.
I wasn’t sure how long I waited, listening to the shifting gravel before the cadence of their steps changed again and grew distant. Slowly, breaths shallow and trembling, I raised my head just enough to peek out the window. As I’d noted so many times before, I couldn’t see anything in the dark.
Then, as suddenly as it’d gone out minutes or hours ago, the light appeared again.
It was a ways away from the tower already, moving at a steady clip back into the trees. I watched as it drifted farther and farther away, until it finally disappeared, swallowed by the inky blackness of the night.
I still couldn’t move.
For whatever reason, they hadn’t followed me up, and I didn’t want to turn on a light to draw their attention and cause them to change their mind.
So I sat on the floor of the lookout for hours, praying they wouldn't come back.
And that Charlie would.
When the sun appeared over the ridge, burning away the damp condensation and fear glueing me in place, I stepped out onto the deck. The knots in my stomach clenched further at what lay waiting for me below.
L E A V E
Scratched into the dirt and gravel beneath the tower, dried, rust-colored streaks decorated each large, jagged letter like grotesque calligraphy. Splotches of the deep red liquid pooled in divots where a boot must’ve dug in too far.
Is that blood?