Luther. My fault if she died.
Candlelight bathed the walls. It was freezing in here and I had no idea of what to say to Beth.
My best friend’s widow.
So much history between us, so many unanswered questions, I just sat there beside her and tried not to let the weight of it all crush me.
'Has he hurt you?' I asked.
'No. Not bad. Where are we?'
'The Outer Banks. Been in this lodge the whole time?'
'No, just tonight. I don’t know where he kept me before that. All I remember is darkness and stone. What’s today?'
'Thursday, sixth of November.'
'Ten days.'
'What’s that?'
'How long I’ve been apart from my kids.'
She shivered. The candleflame shivered.
We sat in silence.
She said finally, 'Tell me how he died.'
'Beth—'
'I want to hear it, Andy, and I want to hear it from you. But first, pass me that jug on the table. He gave me a few sips earlier, but I’m still so thirsty.'
I fetched her the half-empty jug. She took a long pull, then gave me the water.
I flicked off the cap and we sat down in the corner, passing the jug back and forth.
The water was cool and faintly sweet.
Finally, I dove in—told her about Orson and the desert and the threat he made against her family, her children. I told Beth about how Walter and I went and found Orson and kidnapped him from his home that Friday evening seven years ago.
I said, 'So we drove out into the countryside with my brother in the trunk. Already dug the hole earlier that evening. We dragged Orson out and put him in the backseat. We needed to find out where Luther was—that’s the man who just kidnapped you. Orson had sent him to find you all those years ago.
'When Orson came to, he riled Walter, talking about what Luther was going to do to you and the kids. Walter wanted to shoot him, Beth. Right there. He lost his head. But I knew if we didn’t find out from Orson where Luther was, you and the kids would be dead. No question.'
I swallowed, growing colder, Beth’s eyes never moving from my face. Even in the poor light she seemed to have aged more than seven years since I last saw her.
'Walter pointed his gun at Orson. I told him no. He wouldn’t listen. He was so mad. It was a stupid fucking thing to do, but I pointed my gun at Walter. Told him, God I remember it so well, ‘you kill him, you kill your family.’ Out of nowhere, Orson kicked the back of my seat and my gun went off. He was gone instantly, Beth. Swear to you.'
She closed her eyes.
She let out an imperceptible sigh, then was quiet.
All I could hear was the wind stirring the pines.
The silence became oppressive.
After a long time, she whispered, 'You buried him?'
'I’ll take you to the spot when we get out of this.'
'I hate you, Andy,' she said. Her voice was thick with tears. 'Do you know how much I hate you?'
'Yeah. I do.'
She leaned into me and I put my arm around her.
As she quietly wept the candle expired and the lodge grew so dark I could see only the navyblack of the sky through the window.
Iced updrafts rising through slits in the floor.
I waited, thinking my eyes would adjust, but they never did.
'Andy,' she whispered. Her voice sounded strange and distant, as though she were calling out to me from the bottom of a deep well.
'What?'
'Something’s not right.'
'What are you talking about?'
'My head…I feel dizzy…it’s…so heavy all the sudden.'
Now that she mentioned it, my head felt weird too.
Maybe we were just hungry.
But when I glanced down at the empty jug between my legs, it dawned on me what had happened.
'Oh, Beth, I think we fucked up bad.'
46
VI leaned against the live oak as Andrew stepped into the lodge. She watched the black creek, lined with marsh grass, meandering west between the pines. Had the night been clear, she’d have seen where it widened to join the distant sound.
On the periphery of vision something moved.
She saw a black shape emerge from the woods and move quickly toward the lodge.
At first she thought it was a deer, bounding. Then her blood iced as though she’d glimpsed a demon, watching in silent terror as it reached the steps.
She screamed, 'Andrew!'
The thing with long black hair slammed the door to the lodge and padlocked it as Andrew shouted her name.
Then it looked right at her.
Vi reached instinctively for the .45, felt her bony hip.
Before she could even stand, the shadow had descended the steps and was running toward her.
Vi shrieked, sprang to her feet, and bolted into the woods, tree trunks screaming by, her animal panting drowning even the sound of her predator’s footsteps.
She ran and ran and did not look back, expecting at any moment to feel a hand come down on her shoulder and drive her into the ground.
The grove of live oaks turned back into thicket.
She tripped on a dead vine.
Fell.
Chest heaving now against the ground.
In the distance she heard her pursuer flailing about in the thicket.
It stopped.
She held her breath.
Silence.
Her ears adjusting.
Now she could clearly hear the sound of its panting. Much closer than she thought.
She prayed the woods were as dark to him as they were to her.
When her heart quieted she could hear her eyes blinking and nothing else.
A moment passed, then came the rustling, like footfalls on brittle leaves.
Craning her neck, she looked back, saw the shadow stepping gingerly through the thicket.
It stopped fifteen feet away, just a spindly bush between them.
