Where the beam passed, the night glowed in deep reds, and Abigail suddenly knew she would write about this moment, what it felt like to gaze into the viewfinder, through the number twenty-five filter, searching for lost spirits in the sea of red. Maybe Emmett wasn’t actually looking for spirits when he snapped his photos, but she could embellish. Make his whole bizarre profession sound sexy and strange. She had the first inkling that this could be a phenomenal piece.
“But because of the way the town disappeared—everything abruptly abandoned, no record of what happened, no bones . . .”
Something stepped out of the saloon and ran up the street. She lowered the camera.
“I came to the conclusion that—”
“Lawrence, you see that?”
“What?”
Emmett came over. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Something just came out of the saloon and ran up the street.”
“Probably a deer,” said Scott, who’d been leaning against the wall by the door, quietly observing. “Tons of wildlife out—”
“It didn’t move like a deer.”
“How’d it move?”
“Like a man. You didn’t see it, Lawrence? It moved right through where you were shining the flashlight.”
“I didn’t see a thing.”
Abigail handed Emmett his camera and walked through the suite and out the open door, moving quickly down the hallway to where the staircase had previously merged with the second floor.
“Hey!” she called down into the dark lobby.
Jerrod had extinguished his headlamp. Abigail turned hers on, directing her light across the collapsed staircase, to the front desk, where he’d been standing several minutes ago.
“Did you see something out there? . . .” Her words trailed into silence.
She swept her beam of light at each archway.
“Jerrod?” she called out. A shadow moved down the corridor toward her. “Scott?”
“Yeah.”
“Jerrod left.”
Scott came and stood beside her, flipped on his headlamp, moved his light across the lobby. “Jerrod!” he yelled, then cupped his mouth, shouted again, “Jerrod!
“What’s wrong?” June asked as they approached.
“Jerrod’s gone.”
The five remaining members of the party peered down into the lobby, listening.
Lawrence finally said, “You think something happened?”
Scott knelt down, unzipped his backpack, and dug out a climbing rope.
“I’ll see what’s going on.” Standing there, watching Scott unspool the rope, Abigail realized the soberness in his voice unnerved her. He jogged into the nearest suite, wrapped the rope three times around a heavy chest of drawers, and tied a knot. Then he came back out into the corridor and kicked the pile of rope. It dropped fifteen feet into the lobby. He got onto his knees, worked himself over the edge, his gloved hands gripping the rope. He slid carefully down onto the wrecked staircase.
“If you guys just want to wait up there, I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Hold up,” Lawrence said. “I’ll go with you.”
The older man didn’t make lowering himself look as effortless as the guide had, but he got down safely, and the two men disappeared out the front door of the hotel.
June, Emmett, and Abigail sat down in the corridor.
“I hope everything’s all right,” June said.
Emmett looked over at Abigail. “You got extra batteries for your light?”
“Back at camp. Why?”
“Yours is dying.”
Abigail pulled off her headlamp just in time to watch the bulb fade out.
FIFTEEN
A
bigail pressed the light feature on her watch: 9:59 P.M.
“They’ve been out there ten minutes,” she whispered.
June and Emmett had turned off their headlamps to conserve the batteries, so all she could see of them were
