Molly and Laura spent the day on the front porch. It had now become routine. The days had started to blend together, each passing hour melting into the one before. They tried hard to guess what day of the week it was, even made a little game of it, but ultimately decided that since there was no way to verify the answer, the game had little point.
Laura kept looking for the horse and riders to return, envisioning herself in some cheap dime-store romance waiting for her cowboy to come home. She couldn’t explain why she felt a sense of calm come over her when Boots had left, but something about the old man’s countenance had convinced her that he would return with Jack in good health.
Molly sat next to her, her dark hair blowing across her face. She had become a chatterbox now that they were alone, as if the men in the house had left her feeling unsure of her own voice. The girl started talking of home, and though she had been through a lot, a trauma that not too many people could fathom, she seemed to be returning to the same mall girl she might have been in Columbus.
Laura tried her best to listen, to keep the conversation going, mostly because she knew it offered a release for Molly, but her thoughts were in other places. Plus, out here in the desert, and with her own experiences the past week, she didn’t feel like talking about the follies of teenage boys. No, her mind was on the quiet praying for Jack to come back in one piece.
The morning slowly gave way to day, when out in the distance the women could see something stirring. Faintly at first, the dust trail of a moving object appeared like pencil lead across a blank page.
“What is that?” Molly asked.
“I don’t know.”
Laura stood, put her hand to her head to shield the sun, and squinted her eyes. She fought to focus on the distant object until it became clear what it was.
“It’s a car,” she whispered, and then her excitement poured out. “It’s a car!”
Molly stood up and imitated Laura. They felt like hugging each other. The ordeal was finally over. The rooster tail of dust grew larger as the vehicle sped across the desert. Closer and closer into view.
Ominous.
Malignant.
“That’s not a car,” Molly said, her exuberance subsiding. “It’s a truck . . .”
“Are you sure?” Laura said, still trying to make out the details.
“Oh my . . . it’s him . . . it’s him!”
Molly grabbed Laura’s arm and did her best to drag her into the cabin. The realization slowly dawned on Laura when she saw the horror on the young girl’s face.
The pickup.
The man who had kidnapped Molly.
He had found them.
They got inside and slammed the door. Molly stood in the middle of the room screaming, looking frantically for a place to hide, a weapon, anything to protect her from what was coming. Laura grabbed her and tried to calm her down while working to quell the fear that was crawling on her own skin.
“What are we going . . . what are we going to . . .” Molly stammered frantically, unable to catch her breath.
“Shhh . . . calm down, you have to calm down.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We gotta get out of here . . . we got to hide . . .”
Laura pushed Molly to the bedroom and toward the window facing the back, all the while looking around for inspiration, something that would jump up and tell her that everything would be all right. Some object of comfort. Molly stood ashen, staring back at Laura with eyes begging for rescue.
The women could hear the truck pull up outside.
“Shhh . . .” Laura whispered, as she placed one hand over Molly’s mouth.
The girl nodded wide-eyed.
Fear.
Laura could feel it envelope the cabin. But there was no one else to face it for her. All these years of passively waiting in the shadows, leaning on other people’s actions would not serve her now. Her father was not here, Jack was not here, and now Boots was gone. Staring at Molly’s face, she could read the panic racing through the girl’s mind and how this young soul was looking to her for resolution. For rescue. For determination. A position that Laura had shied away from most of her life.
But now it had arrived. Fear of harm mixed with the fear of standing strong.
They listened as the door of the truck opened and a man got out, his footsteps strutting up to the cabin door.
Laura removed her hand slowly from Molly’s mouth and motioned for her not to move. The girl nodded again. Turning, Laura quietly walked out to the main room, careful not to make the old floorboards creak. She stared at the cabin door and imagined the evil on the other side just waiting to come in.
———
Colten stepped slowly onto the porch and tried to look into some of the windows, but the glare from the sun prevented him from seeing anything. He moved slowly.
He had been led here.
The woman was inside.
Alone.
Acting calm, but with anticipation mounting in his blood, he knocked three times on the door.
———
The sounds reverberated through the cabin like the slow tap of a ball-peen hammer on hollow steel. Laura could feel the waves pass through her, settling in the base of her spine. Her stomach was forcing itself up into her throat. Her eyes darted around the room, from the couch, to the table, to the kitchen area, back to the door, looking for some source of salvation . . . a movie cliché of arrival and rescue. There was none.
It was just her and a homicidal maniac separated by a rotting cabin door.