Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)

My boots touch something solid. I’m up against the back doors.

I let the bouncing of the van move me so that I can get a good look at the doors. There’s a simple grab-and-pull door latch on the inside. But is it unlocked, or did he use some kind of remote lock on it? The second he sees me go for it, he’ll know I’m not unconscious, and I don’t know what he’ll do then. He didn’t shoot or stab me back in front of Kezia, but Kezia’s not here anymore.

I can’t just wait for the situation to get worse. If the door’s locked, it’s still going to be locked when the van stops.

I lunge upright, grab the latch, and yank.

It’s not locked—I can hear the door move—but it’s stuck.

“Hey!” He yells it, and I know I’m out of time. I twist over on my back, pull my legs up to my chest, and kick out with all the power I’ve got. Once. Twice.

Both doors fly open.

The van’s stopping, but I throw myself forward and land on rough, muddy ruts. I don’t hesitate.

I run.

The old man gets out and tries to catch me, but I leave him behind. I run like my mom does, as if death is trying to catch me, and I don’t look back until the road curves and I can risk a quick glance.

He’s back behind the wheel, and he’s turning the van around.

I’m on a broad, sloping hill. I can’t see anything but trees and the dirty ribbon of road, but that doesn’t matter now. If I stay here, the van’s going to catch up. I have to get off the road. I’m shaking, and my skin feels like it’s all ants and sunburn, maybe from the Taser, and I’m having trouble thinking, but I have to try, because nobody knows where I am, I’m all alone, and all I want to do is scream and run and find my mom . . .

Mom. I spent so much energy being angry at her, but she’s the first one I think of. The only one. And as if she’s there with me, standing next to me, I feel suddenly calmer. I hear her voice say, You have to run, baby. Get away from the road. Go now.

I pull in a gasp and stumble over the dry, cold ruts into winter grass. I run, and I stumble where the snarled, dead stalks catch at my feet. I can hear the van coming back down the road, but I don’t slow down, I can’t. I run like my life depends on it, because it does, and all of a sudden, I’m in the cold, dark shadows of the trees.

I go far enough that I’m covered, then crouch down. I’m still shaking, and I’m not sure if I can run in this forest very well; there’s not much light coming down through the stiff pines. I can’t afford to fall, smash my head, break my leg. I have to go carefully. I wish I had a flashlight, or even the pale light of a phone screen, but I’ve got nothing at all. I start to freak out; the tremors become real shakes, and I feel cold under my thick down coat. My red coat. Why did I wear the stupid red coat? I can’t take it off. I’ll freeze.

Mom, help me.

Her voice doesn’t come this time, but that warm feeling of being safe does. Mom doesn’t panic. She plans. She finds weapons and gets ready, and when the time comes to fight, she fights. I have to be her now.

I keep going, farther into the darkness, moving slowly. I come across a pretty good broken branch with about the heft and thickness of a baseball bat. Even better, the splintered end has sharp points on it. I keep a good grip on it and move on. I can’t tell the directions. It’s too cloudy. I start looking for moss—isn’t it always on the north side of trees?—and once I find some, I start angling in the direction that I think will take me toward Norton. All I need to do is get to a highway and flag somebody down.

The van keeps going. I hear it move down the road. It rattles and creaks, and the brakes squeal at the turn.

I stop when I realize I’m doing exactly what he expects me to do. I’m heading for Norton, for safety. Down the hill.

But from what I glimpsed of the road, that curve will take him cutting across that path. He’ll be able to find me. The trees are thick here, but I can already tell they’re getting thinner on the way down. My red coat will stand out like a torch.

I need to go up. He was taking me somewhere, wasn’t he? Maybe even where he lives. And if it’s a cabin or something, there could be a phone, a computer, even a ham radio.

I don’t want to do that. I feel sick, turning away from what looks like possible safety and into the cold, dark unknown. But I know it’s what he won’t expect.

I go a long way in the trees, but I keep watch on the road. The van hasn’t come back. Maybe he’s patrolling for me down the hill. I’m starting to feel better now; the shakes are wearing off, and though I’m still scared, at least I have a club, and I’m not staggering anymore.

If something happens, I’ll run. I’m fast. I can make it.

I glimpse something up ahead. Some metal, like a fence. My heart skips, then thuds harder, because a fence means something behind it. I was right. There is something up here.

I check down the road again. I can see, in the distance, a random glint of glass that I think is the van. He’s a long way down. I have to take the chance. If I go to the road, I can move faster.

I break cover. I run so hard I think my tendons might snap, but my body knows this, it’s trained for it, and it settles into the easy, efficient motions of distance running as I eat up ground. There’s a pretty sharp slope up, and my lungs burn before I’m halfway up it, but I round a broad, rising curve and see that the road is opening up into what looks like a turnaround.

End of the line.

There’s a thick fence of welded-together scrap metal, rusted almost paper thin in places. Ancient KEEP OUT and NO TRESPASSING signs, one of which is staying on by one fragile bolt that looks ready to give way. But I don’t see anything on the other side of the fence. I climb over it and listen for the sound of dogs. Dogs would give me away, and if they attacked, I’m not sure I could outrun them. I keep low and to the trees, which are still thick beyond the fence, and run parallel to the barely visible ruts in the road that leads right up to the barrier. I’m not sure this is what I should do, but I am sure of one thing: getting lost in the woods, in the dark, in this weather, means dying. When the snow starts to fall, I’ll be frozen for sure.

I see the cabin only because of a glint of broken glass in the distance. It’s a sagging, half-destroyed thing, windows busted out and door gaping open. Nobody lives here. Nobody’s lived here for years. I slow down and look at it closely, because I am absolutely sure that if there’s ever been a place that was haunted, it’s this place. It has an awful feeling about it, a kind of terrible gravity. People died here. You can feel them screaming.