Vacation

2:28 A.M.

He heard the laughter.

Dunphy the cook, his helpers—shit, they were coming back. The laughter louder. No way now to get out before they returned.

He stayed crouched.

The only guide to what was happening now were the sounds. The steps outside. The cook’s loud drunken voice. The others, the human hyenas at his side, laughing at anything, everything.

The voices passed close by, and the cook’s tone shifted.

“Chuck, go give the damn oven a look. Got to be cooked down soon. And Willy, let’s finish breaking this fucker down. I wanna get some goddamn sleep tonight.”

Everyone getting back to their assigned tasks.

The human butchery getting back in operation.

But Jack hadn’t heard them shut the doors.

He edged as close as he could to the way out. There was an open space of six or seven feet before he could slip away.

If anyone looked, they’d see him. They’d be all over him.

No, he thought. That can’t happen.

I have things to do. Things that must be done.

Like a simple—what did his wife call it?—a mantra.

I have to get my family out of here.

He gave them a few minutes to get to their places, two men hacking at what was left of Tom Blair, the other at the stove. Possibly all of them looking away when Jack started to move.

Which he did.

Staying low, nearly crawling to the open doors. The blessed outside air hitting his nostrils. Step after awkward step. Not so fast that the footfalls made any sound, not with all the bubbling, and now the hacking, the chopping, the sawing.

Whack, whack, whack.

He finally got outside and moved like some insect, a hunted bug, a wounded cockroach hurrying as fast as he could to the safety of the dark woods, miles away, an eternity away as he sucked in each breath with every step.

Then deeper into the woods, still refusing to stop, though clearly sheltered by the darkness now.

Until, so deep, he felt he could stop and he fell forward.

His face catching a thorny bush, the prickers tearing at his face. He felt so happy, so goddamned happy that he had escaped, that he nearly cried with joy.

He had escaped.

He could get his family out of here.

He gave himself a few minutes to recover.

Such a small rest before he started moving again.

*   *   *

Christie sat on the couch, the throw blanket tight on her lap, when she heard the sound from the back.

She had seen the open bathroom window and realized how Jack had left. She looked in that direction and waited.

She heard a grunt. Then the sound of the window being shut, sluggish from humidity.

Jack’s steps told her he was limping.

Welcome to our vacation, she thought.

He walked into the room. He might have passed right by her.

“Jack,” she said quietly, not wanting to startle him in the darkness.

He stopped.

“You’re awake,” he said.

“I woke up. You were gone.” A pause. Then: “Where were you?”

He tossed the keys onto the coffee table.

Even in the dark room, the keys caught some light.

“I had to know,” he said. “About those keys.”

“I figured that, when I woke up and you were gone. Guess I know you.”

She looked up at him standing there like her young son would if caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“Sit down.”

Jack maneuvered around the coffee table and sat down beside her, falling into the couch. His right arm brushed hers, and she felt the cooling sweat on it. Close now, she saw his face covered with sweat, and then the scratches.

“What happened?”

He looked away.

“Jack?”

When those eyes turned back to her, she knew he’d tell her everything.

The room felt frigid. Christie had her hands locked together.

She looked at Jack as he told her about the car, how the Blairs never left, then described what he saw inside the building with the smoking chimney.

He hesitated then. He couldn’t go on. But then without any prompting, he finally finished his tale.

And when he described going into the freezer and touching Sharon Blair’s body, Christie’s hands untwisted and went to her face.

Did she sob? Or was it merely a gasp that she needed to muffle? Was her heaving all from the fear?

She didn’t know. The feelings overwhelmed her. She felt Jack put his arm around her. Somehow that brought no sense of comfort.

Finally, she brought her hands away from her face. She felt wet trails on her cheeks, drying now. She had been sobbing as quietly as possible. But that was done.

“God, Jack.” Her voice a whisper.

She looked in the direction of the bedroom, the kids. “Jack. What are we going to do?”

Thinking all the time, he has to have some idea. He was her rock. He was someone who faces fear and death and madness every night. Surely he had to have a plan here.

His voice low. “We have to get out of here.”

“Now? Right now?”

He shook his head.

“No. You’ve seen the guards out there. And I can only guess what the roads outside are like at night. No, it’ll have to be in the daytime.”

She looked right at him.

“W-will they let us?”

He took one of her hands. “I wasn’t seen. I got into their cookhouse, whatever the hell that place is, and no one saw me.”

“And the car? The Blairs’ car?”

“No one saw me get the keys. The parking lot was dark.” He took a breath. “I wasn’t seen.”

Which Christie took to mean, I hope I wasn’t seen.

After all, hadn’t Jack shown her all the cameras?

Then the details.

“How will we do it?”

And those details rolled out, showing that Jack had indeed thought about it.

“Leave everything. We split up and—”

“No. We can’t—”

A squeeze to her hand.