25 Days, page 4
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
Once up and dressed, Abby goes down to the kitchen with her little sister, where she grabs a juice box from the fridge and brings it with her outside. It’s not exactly a nutritious breakfast, but it’s better than nothing, and she has to get something in her stomach. Besides, she can always find something better when they get back in. It shouldn’t take long to check the stupid stocking.
Stepping out the door almost makes her change her mind and jump back under the covers. Because it’s cold this morning. So cold that it feels like the wind is blowing through her clothes, skin, and flesh, reaching all the way into her bones.
The Christmas stocking still hangs in the same spot as the day before; on a rusty nail in the middle of the barn door. Before she puts her hand into it, Abby touches the outside. Not that it’s of much help. The fabric is so stiff from the cold that she can’t tell if there’s anything inside it or not. There is no way around it. She’ll just have to get it over with and put her hand into the stocking.
For a moment, that conclusion fills her with a strange uneasiness and makes her hesitate. Not for long, of course, because she has an audience, and she doesn’t want to lose face in front of her little sister.
Carefully, she moves her hand down past the fuzzy white edge at the top of the stocking and down toward the bottom. The uneven—and icy—structure of the fabric prickles against her fingers. It feels as if the entire inside is coated with tiny ice crystals.
“Is there anything in it?” Chloe asks with a hopeful, almost begging tone of voice.
“Just a sec, I need to get all the way down to… whoa, wait.” Abby hesitates and then purses her lips into a smile. “I do believe we’ve got another slide.”
She pulls her hand up and shows the slide to Chloe, who immediately snatches it from her. After a moment’s inspection, however, she hands it back, clearly disappointed.
“Man, it’s just the same as yesterday. The cabin and the mountains.”
Abby holds the small image up in front of her face and tilts it from side to side a couple of times. Then she shakes her head.
“Not exactly. This one is closer.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at this part,” Abby says, running a finger along one edge of the image. “Yesterday you could see the trees at the point where those two mountains meet. Today, they’re out of the frame. The photographer was closer this time.”
“Oh, maybe it’ll get a bit closer every day until we can see where the treasure is hidden,” Chloe suggests.
“That would be pretty cool, huh?” Abby says, smiling, even though a part of her feels a brief sting of unease again.
“Do you want to try and see if we can find him?”
“Find who?”
“Our Secret Santa, of course,” Chloe says, sighing as if it’s awfully draining having to explain everything in such detail to her dopey big sister.
Surprised that she hasn’t had that thought herself, Abby lets her gaze drift down to the ground in front of the barn door.
No footprints? How can that be? It did snow a bit last night, but not nearly enough to cover—
A new observation breaks her stream of thought. Because there is a track, she realizes. It’s just not footprints, but rather a much wider track, about three and a half feet from edge to edge, which runs from the barn door out to the trees on the east side.
Someone has been walking there, dragging something behind them to cover their tracks. Something that digs just deep enough into the surface of the snow to loosen it and spread it out.
“If we do it, it’s on two conditions,” she says. “First of all, we’ll do it later, because I’m cold and I’m hungry. Secondly, we don’t say a word about it to Mom and Dad. We just tell them that we’re going out to collect pinecones or something. Deal?”
Chloe glances back at the cabin and makes a strained swallowing motion. Then she nods.
“Deal.”
* * *
“Maybe we should just give up and go home.”
Chloe’s voice sounds fragile. Almost like she has trouble squeezing out the words.
Abby knows why. Chloe is scared. The sounds of the forest are starting to get under her skin: The snow crunching under their feet. The remote flapping of bird wings and branches breaking. The wind’s constant whispering in the treetops.
Truth be told, Abby isn’t exactly immune to it, either. But now they’ve followed that stupid track this far, and she intends to find out where it leads. Therefore, she gives her little sister a light pat on the back and says:
“Nah, let’s keep going. We’re close, I think.”
At least it’s still early afternoon, so they have plenty of time to get home before darkness falls. Even Abby would set the limit there. This forest at night? That would be a firm no.
The track is a bit narrower now that they’re some distance into the forest, but it’s still the same weird furrow, as if someone has dragged a wide leaf rake behind them.
Or perhaps a bundle of thin branches? That is probably more likely, she concludes.
Whatever it is, there can be no doubt about the purpose. Their Secret Santa intends to remain secret.
A sound, somewhere farther up the mountainside, interrupts her thoughts. It’s a faint whistle—gone again so quickly that she wouldn’t be sure she had actually heard it if her little sister hadn’t also stopped and glanced around.
“What was that?” Chloe asks.
“Just a bird,” Abby replies, though the answer to the same question is different inside her head. Because it didn’t really sound like a bird’s chirp, did it? It sounded like a person whistling.
Would you relax? It’s just Chloe’s edginess that’s rubbing off on you.
Maybe. But that doesn’t change the fact that the tiny seed of doubt has been sown in her mind… and it’s growing, much faster than she’d prefer.
“I’d like to go back to the cabin now, Abby.”
Abby stops and lets her gaze drift along the track, which takes a sharp turn about twenty-five yards farther on before continuing up a slope and disappearing from sight.
“Okay, what do you say we follow the track up there?” she says and points. “And if we can’t see where it ends from there, we’ll turn back.”
Chloe hesitates, long enough for Abby to feel a twinge of guilt, but then finally nods.
“Good, then let’s do that,” Abby says, offering her a hand. “And don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”
Chloe takes her hand and lets herself be led. She almost immediately has to let go of it again, though, as the slope is both steep and slippery.
“Use the trees for support,” Abby says, demonstrating by wrapping her arms around a tree trunk. “Hug a tree.”
Chloe rolls her eyes but still follows the advice and leans on trunks and branches as she climbs the slope.
Abby reaches the top first, but much to her disappointment, the track’s mystery remains unsolved as it continues over a wide depression, which could be a path or a narrow road, and from there into a new forest area.
Damn it.
She starts to turn around to tell her little sister the discouraging news, but then stops dead in her tracks.
A movement. A dark silhouette who was there for a split second and then disappeared behind one of the tree trunks.
They’re not alone. There is someone in the forest. Someone who is keeping an eye on them.
She almost screams as something brushes against her leg. She spins around on her heels and sees Chloe kneeling on the ground, reaching out a hand.
“Hello! I asked if you could help me up!”
For a moment, Abby just stares at her blankly, unable to understand what it is she wants her to do. Then the words finally sink in, and she kneels next to Chloe.
“It’s not worth it,” she says, “so crawl back down. The track just continues, so I say we go home now.”
Chloe stares at her warily.
“But I’m not really scared anymore, so it’s okay with me if we—”
“We’re going back to the cabin now, Chloe. I’m also pretty cold.”
Another moment of skeptical staring, then Chloe shrugs and starts crawling down the slope again.
DECEMBER 4
Chloe
IT’S 1:46 P.M. on their fourth day at the cabin, and Chloe is disappointed. On several levels.
The first letdown was the Christmas stocking this morning. In it was yet another dumb slide, which also showed the cabin, just a little closer and from the other side. She’s starting to doubt that they’ll even get all the clues before the vacation is over.
The second disappointment of the day is her big sister. Her boring big sister, who didn’t want to play the old Monopoly game that Chloe found in one of the cupboards, and who also didn’t want to go out in the backyard because she needed to kick back and recharge a bit. As if Abby has anything to be stressed about! She is popular at school, she has plenty of friends, and she doesn’t even have any real chores at home.
“She just wants to seem more grown up than she is,” Chloe mumbles and lifts Bumbleball up so that its soft fur touches her cheek.
Bumbleball is her favorite bunny among the five who live in the cage out in the barn. It’s curious by nature, it likes to cuddle, and it’s insanely cute with its black-and-white spotted fur, which makes it look like a soccer ball. The latter is also the reason why she named it Bumbleball.
In the absence of her older sister, Bumbleball has been given the honor of acting as Chloe’s confidant today. Thus, it must listen to her troubles. That doesn’t seem to bother it, though. It sits comfortably in her arms, softly twitching its nose with half-closed eyes.
“What do you think I should do today?” Chloe whispers.
The rabbit doesn’t respond. It just turns its head away from her and looks down at the hatch of the cage as if it wants to ask her to put it—
Wait a minute. Maybe the bunny has just answered her question after all. Not on purpose, of course, but still. Because there is another hatch, out in the backyard. The one that Bill told them about.
Chloe has stared at that hatch several times. She knows that Bill said it just leads down to a room where they store extra food… but there could be other stuff down there, too, right?
Opening that hatch would be exciting. Opening it by herself, without saying anything to Mom and Dad and Abby, would be even more exciting. And she knows where the key is.
Chloe ponders for a moment, after which she glances back over her shoulder, gives Bumbleball one last hug, and puts it back in its cage.
* * *
Chloe walks slowly on the tips of her toes, but the living room, like the rest of the cabin, has wooden floors, and the planks creak treacherously underneath her feet. Behind the half wall of the kitchen, her mom turns around.
“Hi, sweetie. Did you have fun with the animals?”
“Yeah, I, um… I’m going back out in a minute, if that’s okay. Just need to get warm.”
For a fleeting moment, her mom squints her eyes as if somehow able to sense that her daughter is up to no good. Then she smiles and nods toward the fireplace.
“If you’re cold, it’s warmer over there.”
Chloe looks at the fireplace and then down at the shelf in the half wall where the jar holding the key is.
“It’s okay. I’d rather be here with you.”
Her mom’s eyes widen. Then she smiles.
“That was a very nice thing to say.”
Chloe replies with an awkward smile, hoping it will take the focus away from the reddish hue that the lie gives her face. Her cheeks feel burning hot. So does her neck.
For what feels like an eternity, her mom keeps staring at her, and with each passing second, Chloe’s doubt grows until she is convinced that she has been exposed.
But then, completely calm and undramatic, her mom shrugs her shoulders and turns around.
Only as she lets the air out between her dry lips with an unexpected sigh does Chloe realize that she has been holding her breath for a long time. Long enough to feel a bit dizzy. She doesn’t have time to worry about that, though, because now is the time to act.
With that in mind, she takes an extra look around the living room behind her. Her dad is still lying on the couch with his eyes closed, dried out drool on his cheek and an open book resting on his chest. Good. Behind him is the stairway up to the upper floor where Abby is. And the steps creak like crazy, so even if she were to come down, Chloe would get a heads-up.
Okay. This is it.
She leans forward and supports the elbow of her left arm on the top edge of the half wall while her right hand feels its way over the objects on the shelf. She locates the jar, slides her hand into it, and grabs the key.
At that very moment, her mom turns around, holding two wet hands up in front of her.
“Would you mind handing me the dish towel? I hung it to dry on the chair behind you.”
Chloe looks at her mom’s hands and then at the chair where the dish towel hangs. As she does so, her quivering right hand transports the key from the jar up to the pocket of her jeans.
“Yeah, of course, Mom,” she says, after which she grabs the towel and hands it to her mom.
“Thanks, sweetie. You’re an angel.”
Chloe doesn’t answer that.
* * *
Not only is the padlock old and rusty, it’s also covered in a thin—but hard—layer of ice and snow, which Chloe has to break off in small pieces before she can insert the key.
At least the lock only protests briefly before it gives in and the shackle pops open with a click.
With fingers shaking, partly due to the cold, partly due to the excitement, she removes the padlock and grabs the handle of the hatch.
The hinges squeak as she pulls, and gradually, what was once a bomb shelter is filled by daylight.
She stares down the narrow staircase that leads to the concrete floor at the bottom of the small room. The walls are also made of concrete, gray and dull with sporadic patches of moisture that look like abstract paintings from the world’s least inspired artist.
Along the walls run rusty metal shelves heavily loaded with supplies of canned food, dried fruit, and water bottles, all covered in dust and cobwebs. There are also a couple of oil lamps of the same type as the one Miss Morris had when she came out to the barn.
With hesitant steps, Chloe walks down the narrow staircase. The steps creak under her weight, but they seem stable enough.
Halfway down, it hits her. A heavy, nauseating smell of mold and… time. That’s the best way she can describe it. It smells old. The way their granddad’s basement smelled when it was flooded.
She pulls up her scarf, covering her mouth. It takes the edge off.
Reaching the floor, she stops and lets her gaze drift over the shelves once more. This time she notices something that she didn’t spot before.
The… thing is on the top shelf by the back wall. If possible, it’s even more covered in dust and cobwebs than the cans are. It sort of looks like an old-fashioned camera, just bigger.
She walks over to the shelf and stands on her toes so that she can reach the device. As she touches it, she disturbs a cobweb stretched between the device and the wall, and a disgusting, light-brown spider darts across it before disappearing into the shadows under the ceiling. It doesn’t touch her, doesn’t even come near her… but it still feels like it does. In fact, her brain does her the dubious favor of telling her how it would feel if it had crawled over the skin of her neck instead of the wall.
She shakes off a chill and makes another attempt, this time with more success. She gets a hold of the device and pulls it down.
It has a lens, but it’s not a camera. It can’t be. It’s far too big and clumsy. Besides, it has a power cable—and that would make it nearly impossible to take pictures outside.
Could it be some kind of projector? Like the ones they use in movie theaters, or… wait a minute. Could it be one of those things that her dad told them about? A machine that can show the slides?
She wipes dust off the lens with her sleeve and lifts the device up in front of her face so she can examine it more closely. However, she has hardly focused her gaze on the curved glass dome before she freezes.
On the left side of the lens is a small square of light. It’s the reflection of daylight from the entrance behind her, above the stairs, where she herself entered.
And in the middle of the square of light is an outline. The silhouette of a human being.
With a new sensation of spider legs crawling over her neck, she turns around and fixes her gaze on the only exit from this reeking concrete prison.
For a split second, her brain remains on high alert, and the silhouette becomes all the things she fears the most. A vampire, a monster, an evil man.
But then the monster opens its mouth and speaks… in Abby’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing, Chloe? Did Mom and Dad say you could go down here?”
“A-Abby, I…” Chloe’s lips continue to move, but no words come out. She probably looks like a fish in an aquarium.
“Seriously, Chloe,” Abby continues. “Mom is gonna freak if she finds out about this. You’ve got to come up. Now.”
Chloe looks down at the device in her hands and then up at her older sister.
“But I found this. I think it’s for the pictures from the stocking.”
Abby stares at her while her face works its way through a variety of different emotions. Confusion, reflection, hesitation, doubt, and finally determination.
“We… found it over in the barn,” she says. “Understood?”
Chloe’s heart sinks a little. This is the second time in less than twenty-four hours that Abby has asked her to lie to her parents—and Chloe doesn’t like to lie.
On the other hand, she was the one who took the key and snuck down here in the first place.
“I mean it, Chloe,” Abby says. “We can’t tell them that you found it down here because then I guarantee that they won’t let us see the slides. And I don’t know about you, but I really want to see them.”
