around to the front of the truck, gripping the pocketknife in my hand. I’m about to cross back to the shack when I pause. If I’m going to make it, I can’t use this old road. It’ll be too easy for them to find me. The distance back to town is too great, the bridge too far away. I’ll have to go through the woods to where Cal fell from the sky. Where my father died.
They can still beat me around in the truck, I think. I won’t be fast enough.
I grip the knife in my hand and go back to the driver’s side. The knife is sharp, well cared for. Abe said he could never let the blade become dull because it’d feel like he’d sullied his wife’s memory. “Always keep it sharp,” he’d told me quietly. “It helps me remember.”
“Thank you, old man,” I whisper out loud. I tighten my grip around the handle and stab the tire repeatedly. It takes a moment; the tire is thick. But eventually, after hitting the same place repeatedly, the knife goes through the rubber. I do the same thing in three other places, the air hissing steadily.
Low Voice and High Pitch return, carrying crates covered in blankets. I crouch down at the front of the truck and wait until they go back into the cave. Once they’re out of sight, I do the same to the left tire. They won’t go completely flat, not for some time, but it’ll slow them down when they attempt to drive the truck. It has to be enough. For now.
I hobble back toward the shack, moving as fast as I can. I move past the propane tanks and press my back against the wall near the door, out of sight from the truck and the cave. Down the hill behind the shack, the woodland stretches out, intimidating, like the biggest forest I’ve ever seen. The river is about a mile away, maybe less. I don’t know how much time I’ll have before they come back to the shed to find me gone. If I’m not on the road, they’ll know I’m in the woods. With my ankle slowing me down, it might be easier for them to catch up with me. I’m fucked either way. I should hole up somewhere nearby and wait for them to leave, but I don’t know if there’s anyone in the cave with them who I haven’t seen yet. I don’t know how many people are in on this. For all I know, Walken is already on his way up.
Distraction. I need a distraction.
What I need is for them to die.
The wind blows and metal rattles against metal. The propane tanks, stacked against the shack. Completely full. I don’t have matches. I don’t have a lighter. I don’t have a gun to shoot them, though that might only happen in movies.
Something creaks inside the shack.
Abe is awake, I think, even though I know he’s dead.
I open the door to the shack. Abe still lies on the floor, unmoving. The two old light bulbs overhead swing on their wires. Rain pounds the roof. There’s no—
The light bulbs.
No fucking way could this work. It’s nuts. I’ll get myself killed. They’ll never fall for it. I’ll get caught before it could ever work.
But that doesn’t stop me. I turn back and peer around the corner. No one is at the truck. I move back into the shack, flicking the light switch off. The bulbs hiss quietly as they darken, the only light left from the lantern. I take the pocketknife out of my pocket and use the handle to break the glass of the light bulb. The glass is hot. The filament is exposed. I crack it with the tip of the knife. I do the same to the other bulb.
Abe says nothing about my insanity.
I move back to the door and out into the rain. Movement around the truck. High Pitch. Low Voice. They head back into the caves.
I reach around the corner and grab a propane tank and haul it over to me. I push through the door into the shack and set the tank down in one corner, near the garbage bags. I do my best to ignore the words in bright red that says “Flammable” on one of the discarded bottles. My hands shake as I turn the propane canister so the nozzle faces into the stuffy room.
Not much time.
It takes me two minutes to bring in the three