hanging. His expression changes as his body dangles dangerously over the rock bed below. He realizes. Alison stands only a few feet away. They stare at each other. He mouths, “help me.” She is not a killer. She stands perfectly still panting, filthy, willing herself to think it through. He tries to climb up the tree root, but it is too slick, and the root too thin. He needs a hand. He turns his fraught eyes on her. She thinks what to do, oh god, what to do. He is helpless. Hanging. Death’s razor sharp rocks like an open hand waiting below. For the first time since this night terror began she has power, she has a choice. She does not know this man, but he is a human being. Maybe if she saves his life he will be grateful and help her free the others. Maybe it will be the turning point in the horror for them both. Maybe all he needs is this one hand up. Maybe they are destined to save her family together. Maybe this one act of charity is all this lost man needs. Maybe there is good inside of him. Maybe she can reach that good with an offer of kindness. Maybe. She muffles a reflexive cry as she lifts her right foot and stomps down hard on his hand because - maybe not. Theo plummets with his mouth wide open forming a soundless scream. His back and neck shatter on the unforgiving granite and even over the noisy storm, somehow she hears that ending crack. She scrunches her face, drops her head, and trembles as the pattering clap of the rain on the stones builds to a crescendo of applause. She raises her eyes, the giant pines and oaks wave their limbs at her and she imagines the woods alive and clapping - a hideous ovation. And in the core of her, a private empty space forms like a point of dark: a black hole that sucks in those elements of her that are the furthest from her raw essence: her life, her tribe, at the very center. A metamorphosis has begun. She gasps, not realizing she was holding her breath. And then, again, she runs.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
Alison bursts back into Hobbs’ cabin. Her shirt is torn. Mud and wet leaves have bonded with blood from pine cones, rocks, and twigs that have scratched her. There is a nasty streak of blood above her eye. She uses Hobbs’ bed sheet to wipe clean the mud from her face and some of her cuts as she hits the talk button on the shortwave.
“You! Where are you? Talk to me.”
Curtis replies, “Doesn’t this kind of rain just make you itch?”
“Do you have a gun?”
“You’d just hurt yourself if you don’t know how to use it.”
“Listen to me, you sonovabitch, I just killed a man.” Her voice breaks at the end, but she does not cry. She would love to cry, to sit down and sob the night away, but that will have to wait.
Inside the one-room log cabin a quarter of a mile away from her, the sixty-year-old, bearded, pot-smoking, misanthrope, Curtis Wells, sits with his hand on the shortwave. He is not sure what to think about this whole fiasco other than that it is mildly entertaining and something he is not getting involved in. His home is a mishmash of the 1960s: old peace posters line the walls, a macramé covered sofa is brown with age, a red lava lamp sits on the cock-eyed night table, a two-burner hot plate, a toaster oven, and an ice chest are within reach of the table. There are several bags of dried beans and some canned soups along with a couple of cases of Budweiser.
Her voice is steady, “Do you have a gun? Yes or no.”
“I do. But you’d have to come and get it.”
“How do I find you?”
* * *
Inside the lodge, the Burne brothers have nailed a few pieces of cardboard and some pillows over the broken window. The glass has been kicked into a pile. Ben is back to working on the carburetor. Gravel is in an armchair with his eyes closed and feet up. Kent plays solitaire.
The hostages sit in the far corner of the room in two rows. Hank, Jimmy, Mike, and Dan are in front; Julie, Ed, Bella, Grant and Bruce are in line behind them. Hank whispers. They speak without moving their lips in a very low voice,