Chapter 21
LANDON - NOW
Cody is quiet in the back seat. Alice is quiet in the front. I watch the highway disappearing in front of us, and the passing fields, the sprinkling of oak trees slowly replaced by a blanket of pines.
“So you think Detective Baldwin might be wrong about the direction I ran from?” Alice’s eyes are fixed on the landscape beyond the windshield, but her mind is obviously on much less peaceful scenes.
“No, I think he underestimated how far you ran. We’ll be doing a little bit of a hike this morning.” I glance over at her shoes. They aren’t great for hiking, but she should be okay in them. Worst case, I carry her.
Who am I kidding? That isn’t the worst case; it’s the best. I’ll take any excuse to put my hands on her.
I pull up to the location where she was found. This time, there are no media vans, no news crews. Her story, in the span of two weeks, has been chewed up and spit out in favor of other sordid tales.
“Well.” Alice glances around. “Here I am again, I guess.”
We get out of the car. I point out past the field and into the trees.
“Baldwin thinks you came that way, based on the state of the grass and the soil and vegetation found on your clothes. He could be wrong, and he thinks maybe he was wrong, because there’s nothing back that way.
But he thinks you ran for one to three miles, max.
I think you could’ve gone for much longer. ”
Cody is walking up the road. “There’s a service road up here—do you want to drive part of the way?”
“Sure.”
We get back in the car. The service road is pitted and warped. It isn’t going in the exact direction of Baldwin’s estimate, but it’s probably close enough.
“When you were kidnapped,” Cody says, “when he first brought you here, did you walk for very long to get to the cabin?”
“No, he drove most of the way. At least, that’s what I think. The detectives didn’t seem to believe me, and honestly, I could be wrong. We walked some, but I’m sure it was less than a quarter mile.”
“This is good info.” I reach over and squeeze her hand.
“Nice to hear.” She flashes me a small smile. “I feel so useless most of the time, even though I’m the only one with the information. It never feels like enough.”
“It will be,” I promise. “We’ll figure it out.”
Up ahead, a gate and cattle guard cross the road. On either side of the gate, a barbed-wire fence is half-fallen over, the posts rotted and leaning. I could try driving over the fence, but I don’t want to puncture a tire.
Cody gets out and checks the gate, yanking on a thick chain that holds it closed. Returning to the car, he says, “Locked up tight. We’ll have to walk from here.”
I can tell Alice is still nervous, so as we walk, I ask her about running. “If I wanted to take up running today, what would I need to do?”
“Shoes,” she says without hesitation. “You could run in the ones you have, but good shoes will save your feet so much pain. They’ll also help your stride, and prevent other issues with your back, knees, and hips.”
She continues giving me tips on everything from training to gear. I hope she starts running again, because it’s obvious she always loved it. She and Cody went a few times together. I should ask if she wants company on a run sometime.
Over a distance comes the long, mournful sound of a train’s horn. It can’t be close, but it echoes through the hills.
“The train.” Alice grips my forearm. “I’ve heard it before.”
It means we’re close. With wide eyes, she looks from left to right, searching for danger. We’re covered in shadow, as pines reach into the sky all around us, blotting out the sun.
Cody comes up on her other side. “We’re here with you, Alice. You aren’t alone.”
She gives him a short nod. I’m not sure if she heard him entirely.
Especially because I can hear chickens, and as we come around a tight grouping of trees, a cabin comes into view.
Alice freezes in place.
CODY - NOW
Landon has done a pretty good job keeping Alice distracted, but he can only do so much in the face of what I am pretty fucking sure is the cabin where she was held captive.
She stops walking and stares.
A beat-up SUV, the sides covered in mud and scratches, sits in front of the rundown cabin. The building itself looks like it’s held together by duct tape and prayers. I doubt there’s any insulation on that thing—in fact, I think I can see through cracks in the wall to the interior.
“This is it?” Landon asks.
Alice doesn’t move or respond.
“Okay, let’s get her out of here,” I say. I’ll carry her if I have to.
Landon shakes his head, but his gray eyes are filled with worry. “No, give her a minute. She wants a resolution to all of this.”
“We can come back for her resolution, while she stays safely in the apartment.”
“If she’s here, she’ll remember more. We could get this fixed sooner rather than later.”
“Not everything can be fixed, Sprechter.” I want to shake him. “Not everything gets better. Sometimes it stays the same, or it gets worse.”
“Fuck.” He stares up at the treetops like he’s searching for an answer. “Fuck, you really believe that, don’t you?”
I shrug. It’s the truth. “Let’s just get her back to the car.”
But Alice finally moves. She takes a slow, unsteady step forward, like she’s sleepwalking.
She walks toward the cabin.
“Alice?” Landon asks, reaching forward.
“I need to see.” She pats his hand, reassuring him. “I just need to look. I’ll be okay. The nightmare is over. I’m awake now.”
She’s stronger than we think. She’s stronger than either of us.
ALICE - NOW
If I go inside that cabin, I’ll remember more. But memories can’t hurt me physically, Cammie reminded me at therapy today. They can hurt me emotionally, she said, but if I can confront them carefully, at my own speed, they’ll hold less power over me.
And I don’t have to let them trap me.
The chickens are alive. At least, some of them are. I can’t see them yet, but I can hear them clucking away behind the cabin. I’m glad for that. There must have been enough rain up here to keep their water supply replenished. And the large coop includes plenty of grass and feed.
Abe is not here. The door is open, just as I left it. He never left it open. There was no point, really. Even on the hottest days of summer, the pitted, board walls let in plenty of air.
I step through the doorway and peer inside.
The chain, still coiled under the bed. The pan, still on the stove I never turned on.
A thick layer of dust coats everything. Leftovers from windy days, without me here to wipe it away.
I tried to keep a tidy living space, as challenging as it was.
That was my role, the only role I could remember, while I was here.
Escape was always on my mind, and I tried more than once, but when I wasn’t attempting an escape or dreaming of Before, I was fulfilling the role for which I’d been raised: compliant housewife who cleans, cooks, and keeps a calm, peaceful home.
Fuck. That.
I spin on my heel. I don’t need to see any more of this place. But I am concerned about the chickens.
“You okay?” Cody asks as I come back out.
I nod, not ready to speak. Without a word, I circle around toward the back of the cabin.
A disgusting stench fills the air, and I have to cover my nose and mouth.
A chicken probably died, which is a shame.
Flies are buzzing everywhere, more than I’ve ever seen before.
I wave them away from my face to peer into the giant chicken coop.
The chickens are fat and happy, pecking away at the ground. Not a dead chicken in sight. Their buckets of feed are fuller than I would’ve expected. I used to watch them through slits in the walls, and they can go through it fast.
So what is that horrible smell? And what have they been eating? I squat down to take a closer look through the chicken wire.
They’re eating…fly larvae? Maggots? I stand and look around. Where are the flies even coming from?
Cody and Landon have followed me back here. Feeling braver than I usually would, because of their presence, I make my way toward the other side of the chicken coop. This side has been boarded up to offer shade, and some shelter from the cold winter wind.
I’m not sure what compels me, but I have to see where the maggots are coming from. I have to figure out what smells so disgusting.
My answers lie on the other side of the coop. I think a small part of me knows what I will find when I go around the corner.
Abe. I know it’s him from the heavy boots. Also, the patches at the knees of his pants—I sewed those patches on. Otherwise, he’s unrecognizable with his face destroyed. Half of it is missing, and the other half is bloated.
I lean to the side and vomit, hot bile burning my throat.
“Fuck.” Landon’s arm comes around my shoulders and he leads me backward, away from the scene.
“That’s him?” Cody asks.
I nod. “He’s gone. Forever.”
And all of my unanswered questions remain.
A note from Calista:
Thank you so much for picking up Rescued by Midnight.