Both hoods were up.
I crawled back to Sylvia. “When you drove in, was the hood up on my truck?”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
“You didn’t lock your car, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. Alex, what are you talking about?”
“He’s got both hoods up,” I said. “He must have taken out the distributor caps or something. He obviously doesn’t want us to go anywhere.”
“So now what?”
I thought about it. He was out there somewhere. He knew that Sylvia was here in the cabin with me. No phone. No vehicles. My other cabins were a quarter mile up the logging road. But there were no phones in those, anyway. Nearest phone was in Vinnie’s cabin. That was a good half mile away in the other direction, down by the main road. If I snuck out the back I might be able to make my way down there, but I didn’t want to leave Sylvia alone. And I didn’t want to take her out there, either. “I think we should just sit tight for a while,” I said. “See what he does.”
“What if he tries to come in?”
“Then I’ll shoot him,” I said.
“I don’t like this,” she said.
“I’m not too crazy about it, either.”
She leaned her head back against the rough wall. A long minute passed, and then another, and then I lost track of the time altogether. It was just the two of us sitting on the floor behind my couch, listening to the silence.
Finally, a sound. A car starting, a roar and a rattle. The car needed a new muffler. And then the sound of the car on the logging road. The noise grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared.
“I think he’s gone,” I said. “He just drove away.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Who knows? The guy is nuts.”
“But why would he just leave?”
“Sylvia, he’s absolutely fucking crazy. There’s no reason for anything he does.”
“Are you sure it was him?”
“Had to be,” I said. “Who else would it be?”
“So what do we do now?”
“Stay here,” I said. I went to the window again and looked outside. Nothing. His car was gone. I turned off the outside light. We were in total darkness now.
“Alex, why did you do that?”
“I want to go see what he did to our cars. But I don’t want that light on. I’ll use the flashlight”
“Don’t go out there!”
“Sylvia, if I can get one of the cars started, I’ll pull up next to the door. As soon as I’m close, come out and get in. We’ll get out of here.”
I opened the door a crack and looked outside. The cold air rushed into the cabin. I stepped outside and then made my way to the vehicles, the gun in one hand and the flashlight in the other. I didn’t want to turn the flashlight on unless I had to. There was just enough moonlight to see where I was going.
When I got to the truck, I took a quick look inside the cab. The cellular phone was gone. I looked under the hood, snapping the flashlight on just long enough to see the engine. He hadn’t taken out the distributor cap after all, but all the spark plug wires were loose. I put the gun and the flashlight down and tried to reconnect them in the dark. Just relax, I told myself. Relax and think. How do these things go on? One through four on this side. One here, two, three, wait a minute. Is that right? Goddamn it. If I could just see what I was doing… I turned the flashlight on for a second, looked it over, turned it off, and tried to keep the image burned in my mind. The fourth one was right here. I could feel a thin line of sweat running down the side of my face. Where’s that fucking wire? All right, five is where? Where the fuck is five? I turned the light back on for a second.
A sound! I threw myself to the ground, fumbling with the flashlight. When I finally got it turned off, I just lay there on the ground, listening. My heart was pounding in my ears.
It was just a bat, whistling by in the air above me. A motherfucking bat.
I got up and tried to find my place among the spark plug wires. My hands were shaking.
All right, five goes here. Six, seven. Is this right? Am I doing this right, goddamn it all to hell? Is this fucking truck going to start now? Eight is next. One more wire. Where is it? Where is eight? Where the fuck is eight? I turned the light back on for a moment. There it is. Connect it here. I’m all done. I hope.
I eased the hood down, didn’t even bother to close it all the way. Just get it out of the way so you can drive. We’ll get out of here, go down to the main road, maybe go to the Glasgow if it’s still open, call the police. Have a drink or two or five. Let’s go let’s go let’s go.
I opened the door, slid into the seat. The key! Where the fuck is the key? I put the flashlight and the gun down on the seat next to me, fished around in my pockets. Motherfucking keys! Here they are. I pulled them out, felt through all the keys on my ring for the car key. Why the fuck do I have so many fucking keys on here? The car key, the key to the cabin, that’s all I need. What are all these other fucking keys for?
That’s when the window exploded. The sudden blast of the gunshot, the spray of glass, the scream that came out of my lungs all on its own, they all seemed to happen in the same instant. I threw the door open and dropped to the ground. Was I hit? Was I bleeding? I didn’t even know.
No, you’re not hit, Alex. You’re still alive. For the moment. Get a grip on yourself. Try to breathe. I can’t breathe. Breathe, damn it! The gun. Where’s the gun? I picked my head up. There, on the car seat, covered with a million small shards of glass. The gun and the flashlight. I grabbed them. I could feel the glass cutting into my hands. All right, you have a gun. You have a flashlight. Now just breathe. Make yourself breathe.
Where is he? He shot out the passenger’s side window, so he must be on the other side of the car. Is he over in the woods? What is that, twenty yards, maybe thirty? By the woodpile? Or is he standing right there next to the car, waiting for me to show myself?
What do I do? Do I wait? Do I make a run for it?
Speak. Say something to him. Make yourself talk.
“Rose!” I yelled. “Rose, are you there?”
There was no response.
“Rose, is that you?”
Nothing. I shook my head. The gunshot was still ringing in my ears.
“Rose, goddamn it, say something!”
I heard laughter. How far away? I think from the woods. I moved down toward the back of the truck and peeked over the edge. Too dark. I ducked back behind the truck, turned the flashlight on. I raised my hand, waiting for the next bullet.
Silence.
I peeked over the edge, keeping the flashlight as far away from my head as I could. If he’s going to shoot, let him shoot at the light. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I trained the light on the pine trees. No sign of him.
“Rose, where are you?” He had to be there somewhere. In the trees. “Show yourself!”
More laughter. Yes, from the trees. He was there.
“Rose, I’ve called the police! They’ll be here any second! Come out and throw your gun down now!”
“Nice try, Alex!” That voice. Is it him? It was so long ago. What did his voice sound like? On the phone, he spoke in a whisper. It was so hard to tell.
“I know you cut the phone line, Rose! But I have a radio!” It was a bluff, but I figured it was worth a shot. “The police are on their way!”
There was a long silence. “I don’t think so, Alex,” he finally said. “Just give it up.”
“What do you want from me?” I said. How can I reason with him? What do you say to a madman? “What do you want me to do, Rose?”
“I want you to be scared, Alex. That’s all I want. Are you scared?”
“Yes,” I said. I kept moving the flashlight across the tree line. Where was his voice coming from? Which tree is he hiding behind? “Yes, I’m scared.”
“That’s good, Alex.”