Chapter 18 Cara
EIGHTEEN
CARA
Is there a seven-word sentence scarier than, “It places the lotion in the basket?” #ClassicHorror
—@FilmFanForty
Cara couldn’t decide if she was more afraid of the wild-haired, gun-toting mountain man or the ominous thwap of the approaching helicopter.
“You don’t have to worry too much about those whirlybirds,” the man said. “They look for heat signatures, and you happen to be standing ass-deep in domesticated ruminants.”
“What makes you think I’m worried about helicopters?” she asked, not looking up.
The man chuckled, which only made her feel dumb for playing dumb—and that much more worried.
“They only come around here when something’s on fire.” He pointed toward the horizon, where the red sun was lowering toward a dense wall of smoke. “If they can spare one, it must mean they’re looking for something important. Someone important.”
“Not all that important,” she mumbled.
“And here you are, in my barn, chopping off your hair with my sheep shears.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said, knowing it was. “It’s a case of mistaken identity and it’s really complicated, not because I’m guilty of anything, but because—”
“We’re all running from something.”
There was no denying that.
“There was a big car accident. Everyone but me and this other woman I was traveling with were . . . it was really bad.” It was hard to get the next few lines out, even though she was determined not to stumble like she had with Sanjay and Devin.
“I was in shock when I took off into the forest. I should have stayed put but there were things . . . totally out of my control . . . that I needed to—”
“Put an end to?” he asked, watching her down the barrel.
Cara was sure she’d run out of second chances. “Please, I don’t want to die. I’ve come so close, so many times in the last twenty-four hours.”
He chuckled. “I was talking about your hair.”
She felt around her head until she reached a tangled mass of someone else’s hair she had paid #Ridiculous money to have attached to her head to give herself fuller, more luscious locks.
Snipping quickly, she grabbed another extension and did the same.
With no mirror, and a man who lived in a trailer mansion watching with amusement, she did her best to give herself an even trim.
“If I had to guess, I’d say you need a safe spot to ride things out,” he said.
“That would really help,” she admitted.
The man lowered his gun, gave her an almost imperceptible wave, and walked past her, which she took as an invitation to follow.
She couldn’t allow herself to think about how it had all come to this—trailing a middle-aged, rifle-toting hermit through his barn, out the other side, and past a series of buildings with overhanging roofs. The route allowed them to remain sheltered from above, she noted.
He stopped abruptly in front of a wooden door set into the hillside.
“What is this?” she asked.
Instead of answering, he turned the dial of a combination lock.
With a click and a pull, he opened the door.
Inside was a U-Haul-sized earthen room stabilized with the same rough-hewn wood he’d used for his front deck.
It was filled with feed bags, farm tools, and well-maintained equipment of various kinds.
A storage shed, she thought with relief.
Cara hung back in the doorway as the man moved multiple sacks of grain. He used a broom to sweep the dirt floor underneath until a heavy metal trap door appeared.
“What do you keep down there?” she asked.
He bent down and pulled it open. “For the moment, you.”
A ladder disappeared into darkness.
Fuck. Fuck. Holy fuck. “I r-really appreciate your of-offer.” Her voice had never trembled so badly. “B-but I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
Somewhere behind them, a bell jangled.
“What is that?” she asked.
“My warning system. It means someone’s on my property.”
Was he just saying that so he could get her to climb down in the hole without pointing his gun at her head?
“Is that how you discovered me?” she asked, stalling for time. “Did I set off one of your alarms?”
“I spotted you trying to hide behind a tree and watched you slink through the grass like a starving fox coming for my henhouse. That was before Joanie, Lucretia, and Ruth began bleating away about you being in their barn.”
The bell jangled again.
“Lady, we can keep talking, but you’ve got about three minutes to make yourself invisible. Otherwise, I’m going to point my gun at you again and hand you over. Honestly, that would make my life a whole lot less complicated.”
She felt paralyzed by her two choices. Go to prison or . . . the man was twice her size and looked capable of things too horrible to consider.
“When you get to the bottom, turn away from the ladder, take three steps, and feel around on your right side at shoulder height,” he said.
Cara chose to take a tentative step into the dugout.
“What am I looking for?”
“The flashlight,” he answered.
When he didn’t push her in, she peered hesitantly down the open hatch before forcing a foot onto the ladder.
“Don’t turn on the generator and don’t make a sound,” the man instructed.
As her legs and then her torso became enveloped by darkness, Cara thought of something she’d read in a book about hostages humanizing themselves. Making friends with their captors.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Fisk,” he said, as her head went underground.
He didn’t ask hers before he sealed her in, the trap door closing with a resonant thud.
In gamer-speak, boxed in.