25 Days, page 8
He reaches down, picks up the telephone cable, and shows it to Chloe and Abby.
“This isn’t just any cable. It’s the cable from the cabin’s landline phone. Someone has cut it and removed it. And without it, the phone is useless, so we’re no longer able to call 911.”
“Where was the cable?” Abby asks. “Before it was taken, I mean.”
Their dad isn’t eager to answer the question, that much is clear from his eyes, but he does it anyway.
“It was on the wall in our bedroom.”
“So, you’re saying someone was inside the house?”
“That’s the only explanation we can think of, yes.”
“When?”
“Impossible to say for sure, but probably last night.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Abby mumbles—and to Chloe’s surprise, neither parent reacts to the swearing. That says a lot about the gravity of the situation.
“That’s one thing,” their dad says. “The other is this.”
He picks up the Christmas stocking from the coffee table and stares at it while his face works its way through a palette of gloomy expressions.
“We haven’t been completely honest with you,” their mom says. “The stocking has been out there more mornings than just the first three. And there have been other things in it than just slides.”
“Mom, I don’t think we need to—” Abby begins, but their dad silences her by shaking his head and raising his hand.
“Mom and I discussed it, Abby,” he says. “And it’s time for all the cards to be laid on the table. For your own sakes.”
He takes a deep breath and then turns his gaze to Chloe, who suddenly feels very small.
“Bumbleball didn’t run away, sweetie. It was taken from its cage, and we, um… we found something in the Christmas stocking that leads us to think that it’s not alive anymore.”
She hears what he says, but she has trouble decoding the words. It’s like staring into a kaleidoscope where the patterns are constantly changing, so it’s impossible to hold on to an image. Only when she feels the gentle touch of Abby’s hand on her back does it sink in properly.
“Bumbleball is d-dead?”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. This isn’t how we planned to tell you, but with everything that has happened over the last few days, we can’t keep pretending nothing is wrong. You need to understand just how serious this is so you’ll stay vigilant. And so you understand why we need to follow a pretty strict set of rules from now on.”
“What rules?” Abby asks.
“First of all, no walking around alone. Especially not outside. And yes, that goes for Mom and me, too. Secondly, you keep your eyes open—and if you see anything weird, you let us know. Even if you think it’s probably nothing.”
“But… you make it sound like we’re going to stay up here,” Abby says. “Can’t we just go down to the town?”
Their parents exchange a tormented look, and their dad shakes his head.
“Unfortunately, it’s not that easy,” he sighs. “Do you remember how long it took to get up the mountain? And that was by car. On foot, I’m not even sure we can do it in one day. Especially not with the amount of snow that’s out there now. And even if we get down to the main road, we’re still far from Crimson, which is the nearest town. That was the town where we met with Bill at the gas station when we—”
“I don’t want to stay,” Chloe exclaims, rubbing her tear-filled eyes with the bottom of her palms. “I want to go home!”
Her dad steps closer and crouches in front of her. Next, he strokes a hand over her shoulder.
“I know, sweetie. But we have to wait for some of the snow to thaw so it’s less dangerous for us to walk. We’ll just have to try to make the best of it, okay?”
“We’ve talked about putting your mattresses on the floor in our bedroom so the four of us can sleep together, just like we did when you were younger,” her mom says. “That could be kind of fun, don’t you think?”
Chloe nods and purses her lips in a frozen smile, but it’s pure acting. A role she takes on solely for the sake of her parents.
Because she knows that the real reason why they want the girls to sleep in their bedroom is completely different.
DECEMBER 9
Adam
“YOU KNOW THIS isn’t going to last, right?” Beth whispers in Adam’s ear as the early light of dawn slowly creeps across the floor in front of the bed, closing in on the two sleeping girls lying on mattresses down there. “Snow or no snow, we can’t stay up here. Not as long as that maniac is strolling around out there.”
Adam rubs his face and nods solemnly. He has had the same thought, and he doesn’t disagree. The problem is that it feels like stepping out on a tightrope without knowing if there is a safety net stretched out over the ring beyond the blinding spotlights. To leave the cabin would mean giving up a number of important things. Things like water, food, and heat.
Particularly the latter two worry him. Because he isn’t exactly the outdoorsy survivor type. The closest he gets to building a campfire is lighting a disposable grill in the backyard for the annual summer party at home. And one year this resulted in a large, scorched patch of grass that his neighbors quickly dubbed Adam’s crop circle—a recurring topic of conversation every year. So, he has his concerns about whether he’d be able to take care of his family if they were to get stuck out in the snow.
He lifts his head from the pillow and glances down at the girls. They’re still sleeping like logs. Oh, how he wishes he could just tiptoe over and pick them up, carry them down to the car, and drive back home with them snoozing in the back seat, just as he used to do when they were little and a visit or a family party had drained all their energy. Heck, he wishes someone would pick him up while he was sleeping and take him home.
“Tomorrow,” he whispers. “We’ll prepare for the journey today, and then we’ll leave tomorrow morning.”
Beth stares at him with eyes that contain something he doesn’t like. It’s not exactly anger, but close. Disappointment, perhaps. In the end, however, she nods, after which she carefully pulls off her comforter and sits up in bed.
“Are you getting up already?”
“I’m going down to make breakfast. I… need to think about something else. A break.”
“Wait for me,” Adam says. “I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Actually, I do. It won’t look very good if that’s the first thing the girls see when they get up, will it? Us breaking our own rule about not walking around alone.”
For a while, Beth sits still on the edge of the bed, her back turned to him so he can’t read her face. Then she shrugs her shoulders in what he assumes is a fair enough, then let’s go gesture, upon which she gets up, slips into her robe, and quietly leaves the bedroom.
Adam does the same, except that he puts on a sweater and a pair of jeans before following her downstairs.
He finds her standing in the middle of the living room, a hand on her neck and her eyes locked on the coffee table.
Damn it, Adam thinks. So much for thinking about something else. Why didn’t we pack away that crap last night?
“I’ll get it,” he whispers, stroking Beth’s arm as he passes her on the way to the coffee table. Once there, he picks up the Christmas stocking and the cable.
His plan is to throw both into the garbage container outside, but that solution is trumped when his gaze wanders to the left.
Hell yeah. Be done with it once and for all.
“You go ahead and get started on breakfast, honey,” he says. “I’ll take care of this in the meantime.”
Beth looks at the Christmas stocking in his hand and then follows his gaze over to the fireplace. And then, for the first time on this cold morning, she smiles at him.
* * *
If ever there was a perfect definition of the concept of cleansing fire, this has to be it; the flames in the fireplace, greedily eating away at the symbol of their distress in the last days. The Christmas stocking, whose bright red color gradually turns black while the threads of the fabric melt and char.
Adam could spend a good while just sitting here staring at it. In fact, he probably would have if it wasn’t for the sound of creaking steps behind him.
“Good morning, girls.”
“Good morning, Dad. What are you doing?”
“Lighting a fire. It was freezing down here.”
“Did it snow again last night?”
“A little.”
“So, we won’t be going home today, either?”
The disappointment in Abby’s voice is so tangible that Adam can almost feel it as a physical weight on his shoulders.
“No, we’re going to spend the day up here. But it will be the last one. Mom and I have agreed that we’ll give it a day… and if we still haven’t heard anything from Bill, we’ll go hiking tomorrow.”
“Down the mountain?”
“Yup.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
Definitely. Some would call it insane.
“Well, we have the road we can follow. Of course, it will take some time, but if we get up early, we’ll have the whole day for it.”
Silence and skeptical eyes. That’s the answer he gets from both his daughters. He can’t blame them for that. If he’s not even sure it’s a good idea, how can he expect to sell it to them?
* * *
As the day progresses and he doesn’t spot Bill’s SUV, no matter how many times he looks down the road, it becomes increasingly clear to Adam that help won’t come. They will have to take matters into their own hands. Therefore, he starts preparing for tomorrow’s hike as best he can. He chooses his warmest outfit and asks the others to do the same. Next, he gets Beth and Chloe to prepare a backpack for the trip with food and water, as well as a first aid kit they found in a cupboard in the bathroom, while he heads over to the barn with Abby to fill the feed troughs so the animals won’t starve.
In truth, Adam also has another agenda in there. He intends to see if he can find a tool in the barn that he can use as a weapon in case they need to defend themselves. After all, they’re going out into nature and risk encountering wild animals.
That’s how he presented it to Beth earlier, even though they both know full well that it isn’t bears or wolves that haunt the back of his mind. It’s their stalker. Their Secret Santa, whose gifts are as disturbing as they are crude.
The assortment of potential weapons is gathered in the southwest corner of the barn, just to the left of the pigs’ enclosure, and while Abby fetches feed for the chickens, Adam takes the opportunity to study them closely.
There are several good options—a hammer, an axe, a metal pipe—but his choice falls on the pitchfork that he has previously used to change straw on the floor inside the pigpen. It has an advantage over the other tools because he can use it as a walking stick on the trip. Meanwhile, its tines pose a solid threat to a potential opponent.
Are you hearing yourself? Since when was “just in case” an acceptable excuse for trudging around with a fucking pitchfork?
Since a stranger cut the foot off their daughter’s favorite rabbit and put it in a Christmas stocking for her to find. That’s the answer, plain and simple.
“Am I supposed to do everything myself?”
The sound of Abby’s voice makes him jolt—causing both of them to burst out laughing.
“No, of course not,” he says, putting the pitchfork back with the other tools. “I’m coming. How far are you?”
“Everything but the pigs. If you get the feed from the cabinet, then I’ll change their water in the meantime. Use the blue bucket in the back. It’s the biggest one.”
“You’ve really gotten the hang of this, huh?”
Abby winks at him and makes a gesture with her hand in front of her forehead, mimicking pulling down the brim of an invisible cowboy hat. Then, in a thick Texan accent, she says:
“Ain’t my first rodeo, you know.”
He responds by shaping a revolver with the thumb and index finger of his right hand and sending a bullet of approval in her direction.
Ten minutes later, the chores are done, and father and daughter stand together outside, taking one last look into the semi-darkness of the barn before Adam pushes the door shut and locks it.
The pitchfork is also outside. It’s leaning against the wall next to the barn door. Adam placed it there not long ago.
Abby saw him do it—and she also sees him pick it up again now and bring it with him to the cabin.
But she neither asks questions nor comments on it.
DECEMBER 10
Beth
IT’S HALF PAST eleven in the morning, and the world is cruel and blindingly white. Only an hour and a half have passed since they left the cabin and set out on the long hike, but Beth is already starting to feel the exhaustion in her body.
And the despair. Can’t forget that. It sneaks up on her, slowly but surely.
There are several reasons for this. The first, and biggest, is the weather, which hasn’t improved at all since yesterday. Quite the contrary, actually. The wind is blowing fiercely, and the icy air carries thousands of snowflakes that swirl around them, stinging like angry insects in all the places where their skin is exposed. Every inhalation burns in their lungs, and every exhalation is moaned out.
Another—and for Beth, more surprising—reason is the isolation. With the snow lying like a heavy blanket over the landscape and no sign of life for miles, it feels as if they could easily be the last four people on Earth.
They aren’t, though. At least one more person is out there—and in that fact lies the third reason for Beth’s increasing sense of despair. He is out there. Their stalker, who has been hiding in the shadows while playing his sick game. He’s the one who has driven them out here… and there is a tiny part of her that is afraid this may have been his intention all along.
She glances back over her shoulder and catches sight of her daughters. They’re walking next to each other, both with squinted eyes and cheeks that are red from the cold. Their breath forms white clouds that dissolve in the wind as quickly as they appear.
“Are you okay back there?”
Even though she speaks loudly, her voice is almost drowned out by the wailing of the wind, and she opens her mouth to repeat the question when Abby responds by raising a thumb.
“We’re fine, Mom. It’s just cold.”
“You let me know if we need to slow down, okay?”
“Sure.”
The answer is short, and there is a hint of irritation in Abby’s voice, but it’s not something Beth takes personally. After all, shouting back and forth takes energy, and this is the fourth or fifth time she has offered to adjust the pace for the girls.
Almost as an extension of that thought, Adam, who has kept his place in the front the entire trip, pulls back so that he ends up next to Beth and says:
“I think it’s better to just leave them alone. They’ll let us know if they need a rest.”
“I know,” Beth replies. “To be honest, I just wanted to let them know that we haven’t forgotten about them.”
Adam raises one eyebrow but then apparently decides that this isn’t a conversation worth the energy it will cost, either. Instead, he picks up the speed again and returns to the leading position.
He must be feeling it, too. The fatigue. Not only has he walked as far as the rest of them; he is also creating the narrow trench in the snow that they walk in. And that’s no small task. In some places, the snow reaches almost all the way to his hips.
At least they haven’t had too much trouble following the road, even if they can’t really see it. They have the mile markers (which out here consist of old wooden poles painted orange at the top) to navigate by, as well as the pine trees adjacent to the road on both sides. However, Beth is pretty sure that there weren’t trees lining the entire route when they drove up here, so it might get harder soon. But they’ll have to cross that bridge when they—
Her stream of thought is interrupted as she walks straight into her husband’s back.
“Why are you stopping?”
Adam responds by raising his hand and pointing. She follows the invisible line from his fingertip and feels her pulse increase slightly as her gaze finds what he wants to show her. A vehicle, parked in the middle of the road a bit farther down the mountain.
A vehicle that she—despite the snow on the roof and the hood—instantly recognizes.
A burgundy SUV.
* * *
It is Bill’s SUV. That much is clear. But aside from that, more questions are raised than answered as the Gray family approaches the abandoned vehicle. Because several of the details Beth registers contradict each other.
One example is the amount of snow on the SUV and around it. On the roof and the hood there is snow, but it’s a thin layer. As if it has been scraped off a short time ago. This would suggest that the car was left here recently… but then there’s the road around it. It’s covered in snow, a layer as thick as what they’ve been walking through all morning, and there are no visible tire tracks behind it either. Ergo, it must have been parked here for a while. At least a day. Maybe two.
Another mystery is the door on the passenger side. It’s open—and what possible reason could Bill have to leave it like that? The only explanation that even remotely makes sense in Beth’s head is that something forced him to leave the car in a hurry. To run.
The problem with that explanation is that there are no footprints in front of the door, either. There is some kind of track, but it’s wide and uneven. It looks as though someone has dragged a bundle of branches across the ground in random patterns with no other purpose than to disturb the surface of the snow.
“I don’t like this,” Beth whispers as she and Adam approach the open door.
“Me neither,” he replies. He looks past her and says, slightly louder, “You just stay there, okay, girls?”
