In my fever dreams, they caught me in the black depths of the forest. They pinned me to rocks, scraping and cutting into my skin. Their mouths were all lined with long, needle-thin teeth. They bit me, one after another, jaws extending like some horrid fish from the deep, and I screamed—
I woke up thrashing and kicking, the scream still reverberating in my throat. It was dark and sweltering; something thick and wiry covered my legs. I struggled out of it, pulling the vague indistinct edges, gritting my teeth at the sharp pain in my legs. My hands and legs dripped with sweat, God why was it so hot—
A door opened with a creak, blinding me with a beam of light. I squawked in rusty fear and threw myself backward, right against the wall behind me. “Son of a—”
“Whoa, whoa, what’s going on?” A silhouette consumed the light, looking in. It moved closer and I recoiled, pulling my legs up to my chest. “Oh, it’s okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Here, let me just . . .”
A light flickered into life overhead, sending shooting pain through my sensitive eyes. I blinked and squinted.
Behind him the walls were god-awful plastic laminate painted to look like wood. I squatted on a mattress eight inches off a stained and ragged carpet. The heavy wooly thing around my feet turned out to be a thick blanket. An electric heater wheezed in the corner. Sweat beaded beneath my hairline and slid down my face and back. My clothes were mostly dry. How long had I been here?
Like he was answering the voice in my head, the man spoke again. “I found you in the river this morning, pretty messed up. I brought you here, I hope that’s okay. I—I heard you screaming.”
The stranger knelt to the floor a few feet away. A black beard covered most of his face, but no twisting, melted scar carved through it.
“Where—where am I?” I croaked. My throat was dry. It hurt to swallow.
“You’re in the guest bedroom,” the stranger said, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. Something silver glinted in his teeth. When I didn’t burst into hysterical fits of laughter, the smile vanished. “Sorry, little joke. You’re in my house, on the outside of town.”
“Town?” He only added to the headache I felt gathering force at the tip of my spine.
“Oh, right, sorry. Bedal. I live in Bedal.”
Bedal. Sarah’s Diner, the General Store. Ronnie Coors, before he went tits up. The memories lurked in the too-close past, many-toothed, waiting for me to bring them into the light.
“Would you like some tea?” the stranger asked. I swallowed past the dry lump of concrete in my throat and nodded. Tea, dirty wastewater, a muddy puddle—I’d take pretty much any form of liquid I could.
“I got you. Be right back.” He stood up and left.
I swung my legs over the side of the cot and raised my hands to grind the images out of my eyes.
“Oh, shit.”
My wrist was . . . bad. Covered in a livid riot of purple and black, the swelling reached from my fingers to the middle of my forearm. Even rotating it a fraction forced lancing pain to shoot up all the way to my armpit. Broken. Shattered. Perhaps beyond repair. I wondered if it needed amputation.
I heard footsteps on the stairs and he shouldered open the door, holding a chipped mug.
“Here you go.”
I took it in my good hand, wincing. I ached in a dozen places, from my back to my shoulders to my shins . . . but I was alive. I took a careful sip of the tea; it was terrible. Watery, weak, and lukewarm. I sipped it anyway. The stranger sat down on the floor, didn’t say anything. He just . . . looked at me.
“Do you have a phone?” I had a single number memorized. Nine-one-one would ask questions, too many questions. I’d call Deb, get her to drive me to a hospital in Everett, maybe Bothell. Could be the trauma talking, but I was excited at the prospect. She’d call me Puggs and pretend not to be terrified at my wrist. Fuss at me every second of the drive for being stupid.
“Naw,” the man said. I waited for him to follow the statement up with qualifiers. Why he didn’t have a phone, and wasn’t it a funny story, see there he’d been down by the river et cetera et cetera, but he . . . sat there.
“Oh. Okay . . . do you know where I could find one? I need to arrange a ride.”
“I can give you a ride.”
I looked up. “Really? I mean, I don’t need to go too far. Maybe just Verlot, or even as far as Granite Falls.”
“Yeah. Yeah, no worries. Happy to do it.”
Something in the way he smiled. So eager. Happy to do it, happy to help.
“How about that phone, though? I gotta, you know . . . make some plans,” I said.
A flicker of something in his features, half hidden in the shadows from the overhead light. Disappointment.
“Sarah’s got a phone, in the diner.”
Again, I waited for a follow-up sentence and got nothing. Was he being unhelpful on purpose? No way, right? He took the trouble to drag me out of the river and get me inside. If he wanted to be unhelpful, he could’ve let me float on by. He wanted to give me a ride.
I just needed to think about it differently. My filter, skewing things in my vision. He’s helping. Let him help.
“Is the diner open? Can I go right now?” I set the mostly full cup down, struggled to lean forward and get on my feet. Even the small amount of movement almost sent me careening to the side. My sense of equilibrium had apparently gone out for a drink and hadn’t returned yet. Spots flashed in my vision.
“Whoa, whoa, partner, go easy.” The stranger came alive long enough to lean forward, ushering me back down to the cot. “It’s almost ten thirty at night; Sarah’s been sleeping in her armchair for over an hour by now. I go over before I hit the bait shop every morning; I’ll take you. You need to get some rest anyhow. You look like you been through it and back. Tomorrow morning you and I’ll go down to the diner, then I’ll give you that ride. No problem. Happy to do it.”
I slumped back down—even that little effort left me hollow and drained. His words, like magic, echoed and stretched, growing farther away. My eyelids turned heavy and dragged over my eyes like ten-pound weights. He grinned down at me, and his teeth winked silver.
“I’m Mike, by the way.” He shucked up his canvas coveralls and knelt back down, extending a calloused hand. I shook my head, trying to pull myself together. Mike. Mike with a beard and a glint of something silver in his smile. Gilded onto his grin. I shook his hand, my vision weaving and folding on itself.
“Switchback. They call me Switchback.” For a second, my real-world name hung on my lips but I kept it back, bit it off at the last second. He didn’t get my real-world name. If I said it, then all this was real—it was happening to Josh Mallory, and I’d have to deal with the fallout. But Switchback? I could forget Switchback, crumple him up like a newspaper and toss him away, trauma and all. Switchback lived in the nightmare, not me.
“I bet they do. Get you some sleep, Champ. I’m sure it will all be better in the morning. And hey.” I looked over. He swam in the light from the hallway, nothing but an empty silhouette. “Don’t forget about that ride.”
The gritty blackness behind my eyes replaced reality before he could leave the room.
The nightmares waited for me. Fresh deer carcasses with smoke pouring out of their eyes, stacked deep in a cave like cordwood. Their cold bones clattering, they stood, row upon row, staring at me with hollow sockets. I turned to run, but they surrounded me, trapped me. Something writhed beneath me, disturbing the bodies. I tried to run, but I was too slow. The cave swallowed my screams.
“Hey, brother.” A hand shook my shoulder and I tore through the veil of sleep with a shuddering gasp of relief. Mike’s bearded face loomed over me, lit by a hall light filtering through the cracked door. “You good?”
“Yeah.” My voice was rusty and my throat still hurt. I swallowed with some difficulty and sat up. “Bad dreams.”
Goddamn, it was still hot in here. I should have had the foresight to turn off the space heater before I fell asleep.
“Want some tea? I just brewed some.”
I shook my head. “Water, if you got it.”
“Sure, sure. In the kitchen, come on. Up you get.”
Standing took no small amount of effort. My thighs and calves screamed in exhaustion, and my ankles refused to hold any weight at all. I cradled my wrist against my chest and attempted a sort of half hobble to the door. To no one’s surprise I wobbled and fell back onto the mattress.
“Ah, God damn it,” I swore, hissing more in irritation than pain.
“Easy there, my dude.” Mike helped me back up. “Here, let me.” He threw my arm over his shoulders and helped me out of the room.
The second floor of the house consisted of the coffin-like room I woke up in and a bathroom, lit by a bare bulb swinging from the ceiling. I caught a glimpse of myself in the smudged mirror and grimaced; dirt and sweat trails caked my face. My skin was stretched too tight over my bones like a cheap Halloween mask.
We descended a flight of stairs that creaked and groaned beneath our weight into a dingy and dark living room. The street outside the window was still black. No surprise, because the clock over the oven said it was a quarter after five in the morning.
Mike deposited me in a chair, shoving various fishing rods, lures, and tackle boxes out of the way. Hard to tell which of us was more relieved when I settled down. A flush had crept up his neck, and his breathing came in unsteady snorts. I shook from effort, already starting to sweat again. My head felt like someone had stuffed it full of napkins, which I guess was a relief from the crushing headache. God, I was already tired.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I’ll find something to use as a crutch.”
“Don’t worry about it, man. Tea, you said?” Mike asked over his shoulder, going into the kitchen. The kitchen had seen better days, as well—the sink was piled high with dirty dishes, spilling over onto the counter. A cheap tin pot stood on the stove, full of whatever dinner Mike made days ago and forgot.
“Ah, no. Water, please.” Tea sounded great, but my voice still rasped whenever I spoke. I blamed that godforsaken electric heater.
“You sure? It’s good. Freshly brewed.”
I swallowed a snarky comment. He was just trying to help. “Water’s great. Please.”
“Here you go.” He came back with a glass of water and I pounded it down before he made it back to the stove. It tasted like rusty pipes, but I drank it so fast it didn’t matter. “’Bout ready for that ride?”
The world fell still. A ringing, buried in the back of my head, like a single alarm bell.
“I need to use that phone first, bud.” My voice didn’t shake, a miracle in itself.
“Oh, shit. That’s right, you said.” Easy, carefree. I was being crazy, that’s all. I looked at it all wrong. I just needed to look at it differently. He pulled me out of the river. He could have let me float on. I’d been through it, as he said. I needed to breathe.
“Mike, you got any ibuprofen?”
“Any what?” He asked over the clattering of mugs and glassware in a cabinet.
“Ibuprofen. You know, for fevers?”
“Oh, yeah. Bathroom’s just down the hall there.”
A bathroom.
“Actually, Mike, mind if I take a quick shower?”
His head popped around the corner, peering at me from the kitchen.
“A shower? Whatcha need a shower for?”
I almost laughed, but he was being serious.
“Mike, I’m . . . I’m filthy, man. Like, covered in sweat and dirt.” I pulled at my shirt, as if to show him.
His expression didn’t change a fraction. He stared at me. “Huh. Guess you are, ain’t ya?”
I waited for a follow-up. He puttered around the kitchen to the sound of water pouring and metal clinking.
“Mike?”
“Yessir?”
You have got to be kidding me. “About that shower?”
“Oh, right. Sure, go on and help yourself. Bathroom’s just down the hall there. Need some help?”
I looked around quickly, hoping there might be something useful. I also had to pee, and my pride demanded I at least attempt it solo before asking for a copilot. A hiking pole leaned against the wall beside a shoe rack stuffed with mud-coated boots.
“Nope, no I can manage.” I grabbed the pole and limped past the kitchen. Not an ideal tool for the job, but hopefully it was short term. “Mind if I use this?”
Mike looked up from the process of pouring a steaming liquid from a lethal-looking tin teapot.
“Nah, knock yourself out. Holler if you need me.”
The bathroom was around the corner, past two doors. One was cracked open, leading into a disheveled bedroom. The other was shut. I walked past it, made it three steps then stopped.
Surely not. My eyes were playing tricks on me. Not here.
I turned and limped back toward the door, bending with much effort, to scour the baseboards. Something caught my eye, a flash of color.
There, along the dirty and scuffed crease where the beat-up wooden runner met the linoleum. A spider-web of vibrant indigo strands crawling up the door frame. Mold. Electric-blue mold.
Reeking of ammonia and rot, the rippling forms of their dead packed and buried in the darkness.
No—it couldn’t be. I shook my head. I cast a backward glance down the hall—no sign of Mike. Regular old house-grown mold—I bet if I pulled his kitchen sink open, I’d find a science-lab of the stuff down there. But the color . . . so vibrant, almost neon. Once it caught my eye I couldn’t look away. It crept from inside the room, moving up the frame and along the baseboards. So what if it looked similar? Mold was mold, Josh, and jumping at shadows ain’t gonna get you home faster. An easier argument to make in my head than in practice.
I reached for the doorknob, slowly, mechanically. I didn’t want to look, but I didn’t have another choice. I had to see, had to know. Sweat beaded on my brow, and the hallway grew stuffy and still, heat hovering and pressing against my skin.
The knob didn’t turn. Locked. I breathed a little easier; I didn’t have to look inside. Average, everyday mold.
I moved on, ignoring the screams from the shadows of my imagination.
I fumbled for the light switch in the bathroom with my free hand. Two out of four lights set over the mirror buzzed into life.
Cramped and out of style, but semi-clean, which I was grateful for. I closed the door behind me, debated for a moment, then flipped the lock as silently as I could. I didn’t want to be rude, but there was something . . . off about my host. I couldn’t put my finger on it yet, but if the last three days taught me anything, it was to be better safe than sorry.
The shower squeaked to life with a rattling of ancient pipes, but the water ran hot. I undressed with as much grace as I could under the circumstances and stepped beneath the spray.
My muscles relaxed one by one, unknitting in the steaming cascade. I almost sagged against the wall in outright bliss. Five minutes went by before I could bring myself to go through the actual motions of cleaning, I was so happy. An anemic bar of soap sat on the corner, smelling faintly of laundry detergent. Building a lather with one hand ain’t easy, but I made it work. Scrubbing my face and torso, the water ran as brown as mud, forming an almost-cake batter at my feet. I had to waffle-stomp it through the drain, but it went down after a minute. I rinsed my injured wrist as fast as I could, gritting my teeth against the heat needling the swollen skin.
Stepping out of the shower, I felt a million percent better. A limp and gray hand towel was the only means of drying off, but I made it work. A change of clean clothes felt like a lot to ask for, so I knocked the worst of the dirt off my clothes and put them back on. My not-quite-drowning in the river had flushed most of the blood out anyway.
A mostly normal person looked back at me in the mirror. He’d caught the rough end of a business out in the woods, going off the bruises on his face, the split lip and overall gauntness. His wrist was pretty much garbage and needed an immediate looking at. But his face was clean. He tried for a smile, but it came out grotesque and he stopped almost immediately.
I wondered who I was looking at: Josh . . . or Switchback?
The steam and hot water weren’t doing great things for my fever; I swayed in place, catching myself on the counter.
I slithered to an awkward sitting position in front of the under-sink cabinet. I opened the double doors. Half-used toilet paper rolls and several gunk-slathered combs spilled into my lap.
“Oof, Mike,” I muttered, wrinkling my nose. A definite funk, rolling in a wave from the sink somewhere. If I had to guess, beneath the fuzzy-looking drainpipe punching a not-so sealed hole into the wall. See? Fuzzy looking. Mold happens, it’s fine. I dumped the junk to one side and began sorting through it, looking, hoping. My fingers touched on a square box, too small to be anything but pills. Aspirin, three hundred milligrams. I pawed the flap open and shook out an aluminum-and-plastic tray. Three pills rattled, safe in their sanitary pockets. I clutched them to my chest and leaned my head back against the wall.
“Thank you, God.”
Nine hundred milligrams of aspirin wasn’t going to take down a high-grade fever all on its own, but it was better than nothing. I dry-swallowed two of the pills and pocketed the third. I leaned forward, searching through the debris for anything else useful. More aspirin, or something a little stronger. I wouldn’t say no to a bottle of oxy or Vicodin right now, I’d earned that much.
I found it lodged beneath a moldy towel and a box of men’s hairspray.
“What the . . .?” I snatched at the object, a furrow digging between my eyes. It didn’t make sense. He dragged me out of the river, put me in bed, made sure I stayed alive. Did he forget it was there? I had to excavate it from beneath a mound of forgotten toiletries; it wasn’t front and center. Hardly used too, unlike everything else in the house. He could have bought it a long time ago, used it once and forgotten about it. A near brand-new wrist brace, still in its box. Perfect for a certain sudden house guest with a desperate need for first aid.
He also offered you tea instead of water. Old boy Mike was perhaps working a few tools short of a set.
A mistake. Had to be. I shrugged and slipped the wrist brace over my fingers. It took five minutes of hissed inhalations to get it over the swollen skin of my wrist, now growing stiff and unpliable. I tried not to think too hard about how bad a sign that was. I’d get professional medical attention, after I got to a phone and called . . . well, after I got to a phone.
Now the hard part. I took a handful of preparatory deep breaths and stuffed a handful of my shirt between my teeth. A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three.
I jerked the Velcro strap of the brace tight. My vision blurred and went black. When I snapped back to the surface, the echo of my scream still reverberated in the corners of the shower.
“You all right in there, bud?” Mike called from behind the door. I blinked past the tears and spat the T-shirt out of my mouth.
“Fine.” I was not fine. I must have kicked the toilet bowl in my thrashings, because my foot now hurt as well.
“All righty. Welp, I’m getting ready to head over to Sarah’s, if you’re about ready in there.”
“Yeah. Be right out,” I said through gritted teeth. The shadow of his feet beneath the door moved away and his footsteps faded down the hall. I slumped against the wall and took a minute. Sweat caked my face and neck, but my wrist was braced. I tested it against my thigh—it hurt, but nowhere near as bad as yesterday.
I got back to my feet with much effort and clumsy pawing at the laminate counter. I splashed some water on my face. I still looked okay.
Mike waited for me in the kitchen, sipping something out of a chipped mug. “Doing good?” He asked over the rim. A smiling face winked at me from the cracked ceramic.
“Yeah. I borrowed this. Hope you don’t mind? I found it in your sink cabinet.” I waved my wrist and the brand-new brace in front of his face.
“No sweat. Let’s hit the trail!” He barely even looked at my wrist—his eyes passed over the brace with no trace of familiarity. He dumped his mug at the pile of dishes without looking. I followed, limping on my hiking pole turned crutch. “Sooner we get to the diner, sooner I can get you on that ride.”
Outside, the street was steeped in the navy blue gray of early morning. Down the valley, a river slipped through meadow grass like a flat mirror, a filament of white noise. A beat-up Chevy Silverado with paint peeling on the side sat in the gravel driveway, windows down. The inside of the truck smelled faintly of fish guts and cigarettes; the ashtray was full of dead butts. Curious. I hadn’t seen Mike smoke yet. The silver edge of the diner winked at me from Mike’s driveway, two hundred yards away at most. We walked, which I didn’t love.
I didn’t recognize the main drag of Bedal until we were passing the Shell station at the four-way stop. Only two buildings on the main strip were lit: the Shell station, with its monster energy drinks ad, and Sarah’s Diner. There were already two cars and a motorcycle parked on the hardpan. The light from inside the diner cast warm yellow squares onto the street. The parking lot smelled like coffee and hashbrowns.
Everything is going to be all right. I’ll find a phone, call Deb, and in three hours I’ll be on my way to a hospital. I took a deep breath. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I believed things were going to work out. Optimism or medication, I’d take either one.
Three people sat on the plush bar stools, leaning over cups of coffee and newspapers. I recognized one of them, farthest away from the door, from my last visit. A thin-wire goatee surrounded his lips. He was the one Sarah shamed into eating with his mouth closed.
“Hey, Sarah,” Mike called to the woman standing behind the counter.
“Hey there, Mike.” Her smile turned on me. “And yourself, stranger.”
Did I introduce myself last time? I wasn’t sure. The diner saw a lot of people come and go, no reason to remember one guy who stopped in for a grand total of thirty minutes. Heads at the bar swiveled toward me, ears pricked up. I nodded to Andrew with the goatee, but he frowned and went back to his paper. No nod, nothing—not even a flicker of recognition in his dull brown eyes. Weird. He and I had had what almost counted as a proper conversation last time I was here.
“Coffee?” Sarah reached for an orange-handled pot beneath an industrial-sized brewer. Almost on cue I smelled the sweet-smoky aroma of roasted coffee beans, thick enough to stand on. My mouth watered in Pavlovian response.
“That would be wonderful. Do you mind if I use your phone?” I asked. Priorities: the sooner I called Deb the sooner I got the hell out of there. Then—hashbrowns. Mike slipped onto one of the stools at the counter.
She stood, frozen in place. Didn’t bat an eyelash, didn’t move a muscle. She was standing not three feet away, how could she not hear me?
“Sarah.” Mike raised his voice. She turned. “My man here needs to use the phone.”
“In the back, sugar.” Sarah smiled, nodding to a hallway off to one side as she pulled a white mug from a rack. Like a switch had set her in smooth motion, free from her time offline. I set off as quick as my quivering leg muscles would allow, which was not very.
A plain black phone hung on the wall. I fumbled it in my excitement, whipping it off the cradle and nearly dropping it. Everything was lining up, things were finally going right—
I tucked the phone to my ear. I tried typing in the first few digits of Deb’s number. No dice—just a long, drawn out dial tone. Must be a pay phone.
After a second I found it: in the back corner of the machine, a coin insert.
I hung up and grabbed my hiking pole.
“Psst. Mike. Do you have a couple quarters I can borrow?”
Mike slapped his pockets, frowning. “Ah, sorry friend-o, I don’t have any cash on me. Sarah, you gotta couple quarters?”
“Here you go, sugar.” The walls rang with a cheery ding as the register popped open. Sarah handed me two quarters with a dimpled smile. “On the house. You look like you could use it.”
One of the patrons was missing from his stool. A plate sat in front of an empty space, still steaming.
“Thanks.” I grabbed the change and hustled back down the hallway. All right, a minor setback, but we’re back in business, ready to get the hell out of this nightmare—
I slipped one of the quarters into the slot and dialed the only number I knew, waiting for the tone to change. Nothing happened. Frowning, I slipped the other quarter in. No change. I pressed the receiver, punched zero, and tried punching in Deb’s number again. Nothing worked. The dial tone droned on and on in my ear, uncaring—and then cut out entirely. No dropoff or click of an operator picking up: it just . . . went dead.
“Hello? Hello?” No answer. It took every ounce of willpower not to bury the phone in the wall, beneath a picture of JFK waving from a convertible. Fucking phone.
Could be I did something wrong. I’d never used a pay phone in my life, so it was possible I missed something big. Like I had to dial 9-9 or something stupid. For the third time I grabbed my hiking pole and limped back up the hallway. The man with the goatee was just settling back on his stool, tucking something into his back pocket. He gave me a disinterested glance and picked up his paper. Sarah stood at the register, chatting with one of the other patrons. At my place a mug of something hot steamed beside a breakfast menu. I ignored it.
“Excuse me, ma’am? I think I’m missing something with your phone back there. I put the change in, but it’s still not dialing out.” I tried to keep the lighthearted smile plastered on my face, but my heart boom-boomed in my chest and a staccato message pounded in my head. You’re trapped-you’re trapped—
“Oh, that old thing.” Mike shook his head. A single movement, one side, other side, center. “It’s always acting up. It was working last night— Sarah, looks like you’ll have to call Don and get him in here to look at it again.”
The waitress frowned at me. “Sorry, honey.”
The phone. My last visit, a problem with the pole outside, now it was just . . . acting up?
No, no it’s nothing, it’s fine. Nothing’s wrong, it’s an inconvenience. My stomach flipped, and I swallowed the not-so-nice retort that sprang to my lips.
“Does anyone have a cell I can borrow? It’s an emergency.” It wasn’t the 1950s. People had cell phones. I wasn’t crazy.
The diner patrons shifted in their seats, looking everywhere but at me. The newspaper covering Andrew’s face didn’t so much as waver.
“Please? I’ll stay right here, I won’t walk off with it or anything.” Even I heard the ring of desperation in my voice. It all came down around me—the last dregs of my optimism drained from my extremities.
Someone cleared their throat, and that was all the answer I got.
“Mike?”
The Carhart-clad fisherman’s coffee cup froze halfway to his lips. He didn’t blink.
He turned to me slowly, almost robotic, and an easy smile stretched over his lips as his eyes held mine. A little unsettling, watching his lips spread like that. Like they were going to keep stretching, the folds at the corners building until his face ripped in half. Exposing bleeding muscle and cracked flesh.
Jumping at shadows. You’re acting crazy, calm down—
“Sorry, brother. Don’t have one. Never did trust those little machines.” His voice was light, carefree, but something empty hid behind the faux friendliness. Why did he call me brother too? He knew my name—I told him last night. I remember, because I almost spilled my real name.
Had he referred to me by name? I tried to remember. Champ, sport, friend-o—Mike hadn’t once called me Switchback, even once. It could be nothing. I was emotional, hovering on the edge; who cared if Mike called me by name? Maybe he was forgetful. None of this helped me. A phone, I needed a phone. Or a computer, or something. Some way to reach the outside world . . . and quick. Because I saw the flash of dull brown over the edge of Andrew’s newspaper when he thought I wasn’t looking. Sarah hummed and bustled around her side of the counter, chipper as the breaking dawn outside. But she never went into the back kitchen, never let me out of her sight.
I looked outside. The sun peeked over the valley ridge, slanting rays of burnt orange on the valley wall above us. A bird chirped, a gust of wind sent early-season leaves tumbling along the sidewalk. Across the street, at the General Store, a closed sign hung in the window. Unsurprising, considering the owner would never see the light of day again.
Ronnie Coors. Ronnie the lecher, the drunk. The owner of the white Jeep with the bottle of whiskey and black duffels.
The sleek iPad.
What were the odds there was a phone in that store? Pretty fucking good, I would say. Only one way to find out.
“I—uh—I’m gonna go check with the Shell station. They might have a phone.” I nodded across the street in the other direction. I needed to lie, keep my real destination unknown. If you asked me why, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.
“All right, well you hurry back, darling, I’ll get some coffee brewing for you.” Sarah smiled wide. I tried not to look at the full coffeepot sitting not two feet from where she stood. I bobbed my head in response and backed out of the diner. A needles-and-pins feeling started in my hands as I crossed the street.