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The page’s placement is no accident. It’s their trail of bread crumbs, marking the way back to the lake and their canoe.
I step over the paper, tighten my grip around the flashlight, and, like the girls before me, vanish into the woods.
37
The forest at night isn’t silent. Far from it. It’s alive with noise as I move deeper through the woods. Crickets screech and frogs belch, competing with the calls of night birds rustling the pines. I fear that other sounds are being drowned out. The footfall in the underbrush. The cracking twig signaling someone is near. Although there’s no reason to believe I was followed here, I can’t dismiss the idea. I’ve been watched too much not to be on alert.
My flashlight remains aimed at the ground a few feet ahead of me. I sweep it back and forth, looking for another page ripped from Krystal’s comic book. I spot one where the ground begins to slant upward. It, too, sits beneath a rock. As does another one placed fifty yards ahead.
I pass five more pages as the incline sharpens. Captain America, leading me higher. Another page waits where the land flattens out at the top of the incline. It shows Captain America deflecting bullets with his raised shield. The dialogue bubble by his head reads,I refuse to give up.
I pause long enough to swing the flashlight in a circle, studying my surroundings. The beam brightens the birches around me, making them glow white. To my right are patches of starlight. I’m now atop the ridge, mere yards from the cliff that drops away into the lake. I turn left, approaching the line of boulders that punctuate yet another steep rise.
Captain America is there as well, placed atop several boulders, held in place with small rocks. I scramble among them until I reach the massive rock. The monolith. I aim the flashlight up the hill, angling for a better view of the path ahead.
There’s still no sign of the girls. Not even more Captain America. Just more boulders, more trees, more leaf-strewn earth pitched sharply upward.
The forest around me continues to hum. I close my eyes, trying to tune out the noise and really listen.
That’s when I hear something—a dull thud that sounds once, twice.
“Girls?” I shout out, the echo of my voice booming back at me. “Is that you?”
The forest noise ceases, save for the frightened scatter of some spooked animal fleeing to my left. In that blessed moment of silence, I hear a muted reply.
“Emma?”
Miranda. I’m sure of it. And she sounds close. So wonderfully, tantalizingly close.
“It’s me,” I call back. “Where are you?”
“The hobbit house.”
“We’re trapped,” someone else says. Krystal, I think.
Miranda adds one more desperate word:“Hurry.”
I rush onward, my flashlight gripped in my hand. I leap over tree roots. I dodge boulders. In my haste, I trip over a downed branch and fly forward, landing on my hands and knees. I stay that way and crawl up the incline, my fingers clawing the earth, feet flicking to propel me higher.
I don’t slow down, not even when the crumbling stone foundation comes into view. Instead, I go faster, climbing back to my feet and running toward the root cellar cut into the earth. At the door, someone has pushed the ancient slide bolt into place, locking the girls inside. A knee-high boulder has been rolled in front of it for good measure.
Another thump arrives from inside the root cellar. The door shimmies. “Are you here yet?” Miranda calls. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”
“In a second!”
I rap on the door, announcing my presence, before giving the slide bolt a mighty shove. It rasps past the door itself, allowing Miranda to open it a crack before being stopped by the boulder. A thick, sickly odor drifts out. A mix of damp earth, sweat, and urine that makes my stomach roil. Miranda presses her face to the crack. I see one bloodshot eye, a red-rimmed nostril, her parted lips sucking in fresh air.
“Help us,” she says with a gasp, giving the door another desperate rattle. “Why aren’t you opening it?”
“It’s still blocked,” I say. “I’m working on it. How are Krystal and Sasha?”
“Awful. We all are. Nowpleaselet us out.”
“One more minute. I promise.”
I crouch, place my palms flat on the boulder, and give it a push. It’s so heavy I can barely move it. I try again, this time gritting my teeth and grunting with exertion. The boulder doesn’t budge.
Using the flashlight, I scan the ground for anything that can help. I grab a rounded rock that had chipped off the crumbled wall nearby. Then I spot a fat branch on the ground that’s almost as long as I am. It looks sturdy enough to be used as a lever. I hope.