populated by one gender? She remembered a story from childhood, a frog getting boiled alive in water that was slowly getting hotter and hotter, so slowly that he didn’t notice. Maybe that was her excuse. There were signs, but they were little ones. And now the water was boiling.
What movie am I in? she asked herself. She was hiding in a dark closet, and that made her think of Halloween, but that wasn’t right. She wasn’t being hunted by one psychopath, but by a group of them. In truth, it felt as though she were in a zombie movie, except the horde chasing her weren’t zombies. But that’s what it felt like. She was in a bad dream being chased through the dark.
As terrified as she was, there was a part of her that felt strangely alive. The fact that Bruce had spent the night just twenty feet from where she was hiding gave her a giddy sense of elation. She’d outsmarted them. It might be temporary, but she’d come this far, and, more than anything, she wanted to get off this island. It was her only purpose. Survival. Then revenge. And it was a purpose that she didn’t feel as though she was only trying on, like a new dress, or a new job, or a new boyfriend. This purpose fit her. She felt, right now, like all her life had been leading to this moment, crouched in the dark, a knife in her hand.
She crawled from the closet, then stood up, her knees clicking and her muscles stiff. The curtains at the front of the bunk were half pulled, but it was dawn outside, early morning light filtering through. She stretched her back and her legs, then used the bathroom. Peering out through a crack in the curtain nearest the unmade bed, she spotted someone crossing the lawn, dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He was too far away for Abigail to see who he was, or decide if he’d been one of the men who’d tortured her the night before. Even if he wasn’t, though, what difference did it make? Mellie hadn’t helped her and that meant no one would. She needed to wait until nighttime again. Her job right now was to survive the day, get some food and water inside of her. She was in the best place for that. If Bruce, or someone else, did decide to search the bunk, then she’d most likely be found, but not before she could do some damage with the kitchen knife.
She grabbed the apples and the cheese from the closet and brought them to the refrigerator, shoving the bag way in the back of the vegetable crisper. Even wrapped in cellophane the cheese smelled too sharp and it was too much of a risk to keep it in the closet. She drank a bottle of water, then ate a yogurt, hiding both containers at the bottom of the trash. In one of the cabinets in the kitchen she found an opened bag of smoked almonds and ate two handfuls, then took a risk and opened a package of some all-natural salmon jerky, eating about three pieces, then shoving the package toward the back of the cabinet. Chewing the smoky fish, she was suddenly struck with how good it tasted, amazed that she was finding pleasure in the food, and then just as suddenly she remembered what was happening to her and how slim her chances of survival were.
Saliva pooled under her tongue, and the food started to come back up. She bolted toward the bathroom, but once she was kneeling in front of the toilet the feeling passed and she wasn’t sick.
She returned to the closet to wait, curling herself into a ball as though she were a hibernating animal. Something hard pressed against her hip bone and she dug into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out the small stone that she’d kept from the beach when she’d been building that pile of stones. She rubbed her thumb on the stone’s smooth surface. It was too dark for her to look at it, but she remembered the stone well. An almost lucid white with a light red ring that went all the way around it. She curled up again, this time with the stone gripped tightly in her hand.
CHAPTER 30
Abigail slept intermittently throughout the day, at times allowing herself to stretch out along the closet floor.