inside all the bunks. And then she heard a sound, unidentifiable at first—she almost thought it was an engine catching—but then, unmistakably, she realized it was the sound of a dog barking. A faraway sound, probably from the lodge. And then it stopped.
So maybe a plane actually had landed on the island, bringing a dog. Or, more likely, several dogs. She only hoped that they wouldn’t deploy them until morning, that they’d given up hunting for her for the rest of the night. It was time to make her move.
She crawled out from under the shelf in the alcove and stood up in the closet. She held the knife in her right hand and pressed her ear against the closet door. The snores coming from Bruce were deep and regular. Even so, she turned the doorknob as slowly as possible and swung the door open, worried it might creak, but nothing creaked here at Quoddy Resort, all its hinges well oiled. The interior of the bunk was dark, but less so than the closet, and she could see Bruce’s shape under the blankets on the bed. There was silvery light coming through the windows where the curtains didn’t meet, and she thought that that boded well for a clear night.
After taking two steps toward the back door, she doubled back in order to close the closet, worried that Bruce might wake up and notice that the door he’d closed was now open. She pushed it slowly shut until she heard a click. She was making her way toward the door again when she realized that Bruce was no longer snoring; she turned back to look at him. He was standing at the edge of the bed, his face obscured by the darkness.
“Hi, Bruce,” she said.
He shook his head once and came after her in a rush, bent low and making a strange humming sound in his throat. Even though she had the knife in her hand, she froze, and he was on her fast, grabbing her around the throat and pushing her, her head snapping back into the closet door. He squeezed her throat, and she opened her mouth wide like a fish out of water, gasping for oxygen. Darkness crept into the edge of her vision, weakness flooding her limbs, but she remembered the knife in her hand. Tightening her grip, she swung it in a low arc, hitting Bruce in the rib cage. He jerked backward, swatting at her hand as though he’d just been stung by a bee. She brought the knife back by her side, then swung it a second time, this time in an upward motion, hoping to hit him somewhere in the ribs again, but he was taking another step backward and the blade hit his chin instead. Abigail felt the knife jolt in her hand when it struck bone. Bruce brought a hand up to his chin, where a flap of skin now hung, dripping blood. His face contorted in pain, and Abigail realized he was about to scream. She jabbed at his throat with the point of the blade and it sank in, only about an inch, but when she pulled it away a spray of blood immediately pumped from the wound, going in a high arc over her right shoulder. Bruce dropped to his knees, then fell over onto his side. She sucked in a long, ragged breath.
Even though she was married to him and had made love to him just three nights earlier, Abigail, watching Bruce die, felt as though she were watching a stranger.
No, not a stranger, but something worse. An animal that had to be put down.
She watched the blood pool under his head, spreading rapidly, seeping into the cracks in the floor. The raw coppery smell was filling her nostrils, and she cupped her hand over her face and turned away.
She thought about changing out of her bloodied clothes and went to her bureau, pulling open a drawer just as she realized that she’d already packed her clothes, back when she thought she was going to catch a flight off the island. She quickly looked around the bunk, not seeing her rolling duffel bag anywhere. She was about to give up when she crouched and checked under the bed, and there it was, shoved there by Bruce. She pulled it out and opened it. She decided not to change, but took her phone from the outside pocket and a hooded windbreaker that lay on top of her