“David’s gone,” Stella whispered.
Cole’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?” Cole finally asked even though his words sounded stupid to his own ears. Gone meant gone.
“He’s gone,” she whispered again and there was a movement in the darkness, a rustling of clothing.
“Who’s moving?” Jose called out.
“Nobody shoot!” Cole shouted. “Does everyone understand me? Nobody shoots. We can’t see anything.”
Someone was on their feet and running across the wooden floor of the cabin. Shoes pounded the wood. So loud in the darkness. Someone was running for the front door.
Cole turned to the door and saw the barest outline of the door, a dark blue line that outlined the door. It took him a second to realize that this meant that the door was open just a crack. But before he could say anything, the door swung open wide and he could make out Stella’s silhouette in the doorway.
“He’s out there!” Stella yelled. “David’s outside!”
“Stella, wait!” Cole yelled at her as he jumped to his feet.
But Stella didn’t wait, she ran outside.
Cole ran towards the dark blue rectangle of the doorway and followed Stella out onto the front porch, his gun in his hand already. He didn’t have his coat or boots on and the freezing air bit at him right away, sinking through his flesh and into his bones. He looked out at the snowy field in front of the cabin and he saw Stella running through the snow to David.
The recent snowstorm had passed and there were cloudless patches in the night sky that allowed some starlight and moonlight to filter down which cast a bluish light on the snow, and Cole could see the dark shape of Stella running towards David.
David was just standing in the deep snow, his back to the cabin as he stared at the dark woods.
Stella ran through the snow. The cold bit at her as the snow saturated her pants legs, but she didn’t care. Her only thought was getting to David. He was out here with this … this thing.
She reached David and she dropped down to one knee next to him and grabbed on to him. Tears spilled from her eyes, but she barely noticed. “David,” she said, but his name came out in a strangled sob. “What are you doing out here?”
David didn’t answer her. He didn’t even look at her for a moment. He just stared at the dark trees in the distance. They looked like a black mass of the purest darkness, only the outlines of the tops of the trees to tell what they were.
“David,” Stella said as she touched his arm, trying to make contact with him, trying to bring him out of his trance. “You can’t be out here. You know that.”
David finally looked at her; his dark eyes reflected the moonlight back to her. His expression was calm. “He called me out here,” he finally told her. “Didn’t you hear him?”
“No, I didn’t,” she told him. “But you can’t be out here,” she said in a soft voice, her teeth beginning to chatter, her body trembling from the cold. “It’s not safe out here.”
David took her hand and held it. It was like his way of apologizing.
Stella smiled and held on to his hand as she stood up. She could feel the snow saturating her pants legs even more. “We need to get back inside. Okay?”
“Okay,” David answered.
They turned and walked back to the cabin through the snow, hand in hand.
Jose, Trevor, and Needles funneled out of the doorway of the cabin and gathered on the porch next to Cole. They all had their guns in their hands, ready to shoot, ready to kill.
Jose looked out at the field where Cole was looking. “What the hell’s going on?”
Cole couldn’t take his eyes off of Stella and David as they walked back towards the cabin. At some point in the night David had walked outside into the snow. Just like Frank. Did he see something in the woods? Did he hear something?
“What the fuck’s going on?” Jose said, his voice getting louder and louder. “What are they doing out here?”
“I don’t know,” Cole finally answered. “David must’ve walked outside.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Cole said.
“Something’s not right about this,” Jose grumbled.
Cole didn’t respond.
“You know he’s right,” Trevor said. “Why would that kid walk out here in the middle of the night?”
Cole watched as Stella and David walked up the steps onto the porch. They were both shivering, but Stella was shaking more than David even though he’d been outside longer than she had. Cole thought her trembling had more to do with fear than the cold – not only the fear of who was out here, but the fear of losing David. She had never admitted that David was not her son, but it was obvious that she loved him like a mother.
Stella stared at the four men. “You mind moving so I can get him inside?”
Trevor and Needles moved out of the way. Jose hesitated for a moment and then moved aside. Stella and David hurried inside the dark cabin.
Cole turned and followed them inside. Trevor and Needles entered next. Jose took a few more looks around out at the dark night, he didn’t see any movement anywhere, didn’t hear any sounds. He turned and entered the cabin.
Jose closed and locked the front door of the cabin, plunging the cabin into near pitch black darkness again.
“Trevor,” Cole called out. “We need to get some kind of light on in here.”
Trevor’s Zippo lighter flicked in the darkness. Trevor’s face came into view right behind the flickering flame of his lighter; his face was an eerie mask floating in the darkness. He turned to the kitchen and his mask drifted towards the counters. Cole could hear Trevor rummaging around in the drawers and cabinets.
“I can’t find a – ” Trevor’s words were cut off as he found something. “Wait. Here’s a candle. And another one.”
Trevor lit both of the candles and put them on small plates. They didn’t give off a tremendous amount of light, but they pushed the darkness back a little.
Trevor held one of the plates and gave the other one to Needles. Needles seemed a little more relaxed now that he was holding the light.
Jose went into the kitchen and tried a few of the light switches. “So what happened to the fucking power?” Jose finally said.
No one had any answers.
“Those psychos out there cut the power,” Jose said as he walked back into the living room.
“No power means no heat,” Trevor said. “That’s not good.”
“Let’s not panic yet,” Cole told them. “We have a fireplace if we get desperate.”
Jose looked at Stella and David who stood a little behind Cole, like he was protecting them. Stella wrapped her blanket around her and David. They had both stopped shivering now. “I want to know what that kid was doing outside,” Jose said.
“Leave them alone,” Cole said.
“No. I want to know. I’m sure everyone else here wants to know. There are some psychos outside cutting the power and that kid decides he wants to go outside and stand in the snow.”
“We don’t know that the power was cut,” Cole said as he sighed. “We just had a snowstorm. It could’ve caused a power outage.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I don’t think so.”
“He was just scared,” Stella said. “That’s all. He was just confused for a moment. He had a bad dream and forgot where he was.”
Jose laughed out loud, a sharp and insane sound in the darkness. “Oh, you’re trying to say he was sleepwalking? That’s bullshit, lady!”
“Jose,” Cole said in a warning voice.
“No, wait,” Trevor said. “Jose’s right for once in his life. There’s something weird about that kid being out there. You have to admit that, Cole.”
Jose took a step towards Stella and David, but he stared down at David. “What were you doing out there, kid?”