Page 42 of The Intruder

NOW

CASEY

Eleanor has the gun.

If there were a prize for the stupidest person alive, it should be awarded to me for my exemplary work in making a firearm available to a young girl who is clearly quite troubled.

Before she came here, all she had was a knife.

Yes, you can kill somebody with a knife, but it’s not nearly as easy as it is with a gun.

And now she has both, thanks to yours truly.

“Hey…” I raise both my hands in the air. “That…that’s mine.”

“It’s yours?” Her voice is slightly mocking. “Should I give it back then?”

The window shakes as a gust of wind hits the cabin. If only the storm would stop. Then I could get in my truck and get out of here. Of course, she might not let me get that far.

“Please, I want to help you,” I say. “You don’t want to do this.”

“Do what?” In the dim light of the bedroom, I can just barely make out the arch of her eyebrow. “You don’t even know what I’m going to do to you.”

Well, I have some idea. I saw the notebook.

“Do you even know how to shoot that thing?” I ask her.

“I can figure it out. I know where the trigger is.”

Yeah, I’ll bet she does.

“Look…” I have to try to talk my way out of this. Could this possibly be a matter of mistaken identity? How could she really hate me so much that she would want to do those terrible things to me when we’ve only just met for the first time? “Whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re planning to do…”

Before I can get out the words, a loud crash rings out through the house. The entire foundation shakes, and despite the fact that she is the one holding the gun, Eleanor’s eyes widen in fear.

“What was that?” she whispers. She sounds so young all of a sudden. Like a scared little girl.

I’m not entirely sure, but I have a good idea. “It was coming from outside. We need to go look.”

She narrows her eyes at me. She doesn’t trust me right now, and I can’t blame her after everything she’s been through. My brain is running a mile a minute, trying to think of how to get that gun away from her. If I can get her to put it down for a moment…

“You lead the way.” She shakes the gun at me. “Let’s go.” I start to turn around, and she snaps, “Keep your hands in the air!”

I do it. This girl is extremely frightened, and people do stupid things when they’re scared. Like flinch and pull the trigger on a gun. I have to stay calm, because that’s the only way to calm her down.

I walk slowly out the bedroom door, and Eleanor follows closely behind.

I can’t see her, but I can feel the gun pointed at my back.

As I walk past the living room sofa, I notice the cushions are slightly off-center from the last time I stashed the notebook under there.

I pray Eleanor doesn’t notice. Because if she does…

Well, I don’t want to think about that.

I take the lead, walking to the front door.

Neither of us are wearing coats, and I don’t even have anything on my feet.

I left my slippers in the living room, and my boots are stacked neatly at the bottom of the closet next to my other shoes.

Rain is still pelting the windows, so we won’t get far without some sort of protective gear.

“Can I get my boots?” I ask her.

Eleanor thinks for a moment. “No.”

It occurs to me that she wouldn’t even necessarily have to shoot me. If she shut me out of the house in the storm, wearing only a sweatshirt and jeans without shoes or a coat, I may very well not make it through the night. And it would be a terrible night.

If that happened, I would have to try to make it to Lee’s house. He would welcome me in, and it’s only half a mile. But even that short distance in a serious storm like this could be deadly.

Eleanor pokes me in the small of my back with the gun just as a crack of thunder shakes the foundations of the house. “Open the door.”

It’s hard to even get the door open with the wind pounding against it, and my hands are shaking.

I throw my weight, shoving it to try to get it open.

Finally, the wind dies down for long enough to allow me to crack it open enough to go outside.

I raise my eyes to the sky, which is heavy with ominous black clouds.

Lightning splits the clouds, and that’s when I see what caused that terrifying crash.

The giant tree in front of my house has fallen.

I worried that it might fall during the night and that there was a chance it might crush my house and everyone inside, which is why I refused to infinity promise it wouldn’t fall. Despite what Eleanor thinks, I really do keep my promises. But that isn’t what happened. It didn’t fall on my house.

It fell on the toolshed.

Eleanor stands beside me, blinking away rainwater, staring into the storm at the muddy pile below the tree that crushed my toolshed.

I can’t tell if there are tears in her eyes or just rain.

She does seem shaken by what she’s looking at: an alternate universe in which she is lying dead beneath that giant tree.

“You saved my life,” she breathes.

I nod. “I told you it wasn’t safe.”

She doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. She just keeps staring at the toolshed, blinking furiously. She’s still holding the gun, but her grip seems to waver. I can’t tell if her hands are shaking from the cold or something else.

“Let’s go back in the house,” she finally croaks.

Ever since I found that notebook filled with drawings of my own demise, I have been sorry that I allowed this girl into my house.

But right now, I’m not sorry. She would have died in that toolshed.

Whatever happens to me next, I don’t regret keeping that from happening.

She was a kid who needed help, and I helped.

Although I might feel very differently in an hour or two.