CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN NOW

The car door bangs shut.

“Hey,” Steve bellows, the word exploding with fury. “Where do you think you’re going?” His footsteps creak in the snow behind me.

My limp slows me down, my hip jolting with every step. The frigid air stings my lungs, but I keep running as best as I can, not daring to look back.

A hand swipes my backpack, and I shake it off and keep running.

I have no idea where I am or where I’m going. All I know is that I need to escape him. My backpack bobs against me, sending riveting pain into my hip, and my elbow feels loose, hyperextended. I ignore the pain, just focusing on outrunning him. And he remains right on my tail, his footsteps inches behind me. My footing slips, but I catch myself.

Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!

The nursery rhyme worms into my head. I have no idea why. But I feel like I’m trapped in some warped fairy tale. The people who should be helping me are not helping me. The farmer’s wife wanted to cut off my tail with a carving knife, and I just got into a truck with the Big Bad Wolf. But I’ve gotten no closer to finding Lainey and Melody.

All I’ve done all night is run away from crazy people.

“Get back here,” he screams in frustration. But he’s huffing. Maybe Mr. Army Man hasn’t kept up with his training. “It’ll only be worse for you when I catch you.”

That may be true, but I’d rather not test the theory, so I do not stop. We keep running, his breathing growing as ragged as mine.

At some point, I can feel distance expanding between us. A half foot. A foot. Three feet. His footsteps thump in the snow, but then grow fainter before slowing down.

“Come back here,” he yells, catching his breath. The command sounds halfhearted, and his voice fades behind me. Hopefully, he’s deciding I’m not worth the trek.

I don’t dare slow down or look back. Sucking in the freezing air, I keep moving ahead until I don’t hear his breathing anymore, or his slogging in the snow.

You can slow down now, my brain says. But I can’t chance it. He could still catch up with me. I focus on my feet, ignoring the throbbing, burning air in my chest, the aching stitch in my side. I run until I hear the faintest sound of a door slamming behind me.

Only then do I dare to look back.

Steve has disappeared.

The truck engine revs, and an odd thought strikes that the truck has somehow swallowed him up and saved me from him.

When the truck takes off, the wheels squealing, I finally relax.

I keep half running in case he returns.

After a while, I take a chance, slowing my pace, slower and slower until I am walking more than running. Finally, I stop. He’s not coming back. Bent over, I put my hands on my thighs, catching my breath, my backpack strap digging into my shoulder. Out of escape mode now, I look around me.

I am in the middle of a field.

White. All around me, shadowy white.

The sky has turned from inky black to gray black, a dark slate. Pine trees are capped with snow. Fields and fields of snow surround me.

With no better plan, I decide to go back to the street. I can barely see it now, with his truck gone. I’m turned around, not even sure I’m walking the right way. I flip out my compass, but the moonlight isn’t strong enough to see the face. And I don’t have the energy to rifle around my backpack for the flashlight and the map.

Then it’s obvious. Another fairy tale. Hansel and Gretel. Just follow the breadcrumbs, or in this case, my footsteps. So I turn back around, going to the street yet again. As I walk, questions bounce in my head in rhythm with my feet.

Could it be Eric Myers?

Could he have escaped? He talked about it. But they all talk about it.

I never took him seriously. Eric Myers was full of bravado. They all brag about escaping one day, but how many prisoners actually manage that feat? I answer myself. Not even 1 percent (a tidbit from my research on a prison break called “The Great Escape,” another episode of Fletcher Fox overacting.) And even if he did manage to escape, why would he try to hurt me, the only one who could help him? On top of that, how would he even know I was there?

Unless he was revisiting the site of his former glory and we just had the bad luck of hosting a surprise bachelorette party there. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But even then, why would he come back to the 666 House, and not just lay low? Why on earth would he risk doing something that would surely get him caught this time?

The questions keep multiplying.

Why, why, why? A scene from my past floats into my head. I was ruminating over a slight from a childhood frenemy. “But why would she do that?” I sobbed to my mom. Why? Why? She shrugged and said that’s like asking a snake why he’s a snake. If Eric Myers is a snake, no use asking him why he’s a snake. (She referenced that phrase a lot. Even at a young age, I realized it was an oblique reference to my father.)

My sore ankle twists again on an icy patch of snow, and I suck my breath in pain, nearly tripping. I pause a moment, letting the rolling pain even out, before starting up again.

So, there was a prisoner escape. But as Steve said, his radio picks up a lot. That doesn’t mean that was Eric Myers’s prison. If Eric Myers didn’t escape, could it be the real 666 Killer?

It’s possible. Maybe the real killer came back, and Eric Myers has been innocent all along. The real killer would certainly know all about the 666 House. Maybe the timing is just coincidental. He just happened to be away for ten years, jailed and released, or off killing somewhere else. We’ve seen it on Crimeline before, both plausible scenarios. Alternatively, there could be some random psychopath out there with no connection to the case.

I keep walking, the wind scorching my ears, snow soaking my jeans again.

Or, maybe it was me.

I have to accept this possibility. Maybe I was dreaming it.

Maybe the White Widow pushed me over the edge. I don’t remember dreaming, but then again, I don’t always remember the exact details when I act them out. I could have easily dreamed that Chris was attacking me and grabbed a knife. My shocked roommates could have tried to stop me and then run away, hurt. But honestly, I don’t think I could have done that. It just seems too extreme. They would have woken me up, not fled.

So, I’m not going to waste any more time thinking about it. I can’t afford to.

I have to find them.

Once on the street, I backtrack to the old vodka billboard.

The chalky gray sky lightens. It’s got to be close to four or later. I watch for another car, but one never comes, and after my run-in with Steve, I’m gun-shy about hitchhiking anyway. So, I am left with Plan B—get back to the lodge. I keep following my footsteps, and after some time retracing my steps, I’m already halfway up the driveway. But my energy has dipped dangerously low.

I catch a tantalizing glimpse of the lodge ahead, still deceptively far off.

Maybe Noah will find me in the meantime.

Ironic that the boy from the photo could be my only chance at survival. Noah was just a side character in a profile that I treated more like a film, a fictional account. A dramatization, as they say in the subtitles, using C-list (okay, maybe D-list) actors, better looking than the real-life characters but not so much that you are distracted by them, disbelieving of them.

But this is not a film. And in any case, he probably won’t come, not for a while at least. He’d have to dig out the SUV. And who knows, his mom is crazy enough to have hidden the keys. I think back to our moment in the guest room, so close I could smell his clothes. In another life, I could see dating him maybe. Or what the hell, just sleeping with him. In another life, I would have that gap, that space, where that option might still exist. I half regret shutting down that space, perhaps prematurely. But then again, that may be cold (literally) feet talking. Marriage always means closing those doors and opening up other ones.

I quicken my pace on the driveway, skipping to keep up with my old footprints. Focusing on each one, it almost becomes a game, hopscotching over each one. The metal cans bounce in my backpack, mocking me. Because if I’ve come this far only to return to the lodge, I could have left the damn soup cans there in the first place.

Out of nowhere, a giggle escapes.

It isn’t funny. None of this is funny. But I keep laughing. I can’t even control it, the laughter rolling through me. Rollicking through me. Even the word makes me laugh.

Rollicking. Rollicking.

I keep walking and laughing until tears come, laughing and crying at the same time. My emotions rollercoaster up and down until they finally collide.

I can definitely see the lodge in the distance now, not just a glimpse, a true view, but still maddeningly far away. So close and yet … so far. The cliché sounds like a Fletcher Fox line in a Crimeline segment, with his over-the-top theatrical flair. I say it out loud to test it. “So close and yet … so far.” I’ll have to work on the delivery.

I am losing my mind.

My thoughts dash all over the place. Rollicking. My thoughts are rollicking.

This sends me into another spasm of laughter, and I keep going, desperately laughing until that fades off too and I’m left with a football field to walk. How many yards are in a football field? Rollicking, rollicking.

I move forward, automatically, lurching like a windup toy. My eyes keep closing, and I smack my face to stay awake. I can’t even feel my Novocain-numb face. With every step, I fight the temptation to just fall down, collapse into the snow and rest and wait for help. Or maybe just get my strength up. Then I could try again. My knees bend with relief at the alluring thought. Just a quick rest.

No! a voice in me screams.

I force my knees straight, not stopping. The cold, logical part of my brain cuts through the trickery, the beguiling chorus telling me to lie down. The rational voice reminds me of mountain-climbing survival stories. The ill-fated decision to take a rest in the snow is hypothermia talking, certain death.

Keep going, Alex, the voice berates me.

I keep walking, trying to imagine the warmth on my face, the sweet cedar smell of the wood from the fire in the family room.

You can do it. Keep going.

But the steps add up.

Too many steps.

I can’t keep compounding them, amassing them. My legs won’t do it. My energy falters, exhaustion sapping everything. I am walking through thigh-high water. Breathing is a chore, an extra burden. My arms stop swinging, weighing me down, chewing up more energy. I am walking in slow motion, my legs wilting with every step. I will not make it.

You must make it.

So close and yet so far away. Rollicking. Rollicking.

Time slows and quickens. Time morphs into something else. My brain tells me to give in. Lie down. Rest, just for a moment.

“No,” I moan out loud, barely making a sound. No breath left for a sound. I can’t even cry. I’m too exhausted, too dehydrated, for tears.

This close, and I will not make it. You must make it. I can’t make it.

I don’t make the decision, my body does. My bones cannot stay upright any longer, and I fall onto my knees, the snow cradling them. I hear my raspy, uneven breathing.

I can’t get up again.

My muscle fibers are tapped out, every last chemical reserve in my body spent. It is just not possible. I almost feel relief at this fact. I am not a failure. I am not giving up. I am just accepting the reality that I can go no more. Blame my body, my legs. Blame the physical fact of me. The lodge is too, too far away.

As I slump down, sitting, wet seeping into my heavy, soaked jeans, a smile crawls onto my face. Sleep. I can sleep. A sigh falls out of my mouth, fog in the air. My last breath.

My eyes close. I will snuggle in the snowy blanket. I will take a rest.

I open my eyes one more time.

But then, I blink. I blink again, and again, and still see it. It doesn’t go away. Is it a mirage? I blink again. No, not a mirage. It is real.

In the distance, I see it, in the lodge.

A light turns on.