The grounding isn’t helping. Black dots appear at the edges of my vision. If I don’t get out of here, I could pass out in the store.
“Well, thanks,” Beck says.
“We’ll call you. You got bars here?”
“Not really.”
“You’re camping, right? I’ll have Cheryl call Natalie the ranger. She’s got a reliable landline.”
I need to go.
But thank god, Beck turns to leave then, grabbing my arm in a vice grip as we go. Any lightness or sense of accomplishment we felt walking out of the general store a few hours ago has completely dissipated. I squint against the sun; despite being in there for what felt like an eternity, it’s still the early afternoon.
A breeze against my skin helps push away the anxiety and claustrophobia, but Beck’s arm on me isn’t helping get all the way back to calm.
“Beck,” I say. “Please let go of my arm.”
If that’s even possible knowing what we know.
Beck lets go with a softening of her mouth. “Sorry.” She exhales.“Well, I guess we should just go back to camp, huh?” She rubs her arm. “Maybe Natalie will let us call the police. That mechanic is delusional.”
I look out toward the couple blocks back to the campsite. Maybe it’s naive, but the welcome center feels safer than anywhere in town. Just thinking about being back there and talking to Natalie slows my heart palpitations like the grounding is supposed to. “Okay. Yeah, that sounds good.”
It’s only three blocks. Maybe Gerry was right and the fuel line was just old.
I’ll believe it if it’ll get us safely to the welcome center.
Fifteen
It’s still light out when we make the trek back to the welcome center. It shouldn’t be surprising—we were barely at the mechanic shop for more than two hours—but I still give a big sigh of relief when I have to throw on a pair of sunglasses. There might be something deeply wrong with this town, but so few horror movies take place during the day for a reason. It’s a hell of a lot harder to get away with murder when the sun’s bearing down on you and who knows what outsiders are roaming around town searching to add to their Christmas ornament collection or try local fudge.
“I bet Natalie’s computer is hooked up to ethernet or whatever,” I say. “She could check if the mechanic’s bullshitting us.”
“Are we being naïve to just let Natalie in on what’s happening to us, though?” Beck replies.
Honestly, I’m not sure what kind of people become park rangers. But you need to get a degree, right? She must either not be from here or have left for a bit. She’d have had time either to not drink the Kool Aid or to have been deprogrammed. “I don’t know,” I say, rubbing the backof my neck as we cross to the next block. “She did feel a little weird the first time, but it felt more like how I feel weird around people. I kinda think she genuinely would help us.”
Beck gives me a nod. “Okay. If you think so.”
A lot of pressure, but okay. My first instinct is to backpedal and come up with another plan, but this one truly is our best shot right now. “We can start simple. We can ask her if fuel lines can just break. That’s a pretty innocuous question.”
Beck’s nods intensify, giving me a pretty clear sign she’s fine with this. So, we finish our walk to the visitors’ center in silence.
Despite my own belief that Natalie is trustworthy, my heartbeat picks up again when we walk through the visitors’ center door. There’s one other person in the room with Natalie, an Asian girl a few years older than us in a camp T-shirt and fraying jean shorts. She takes the same route Beck did earlier in the day, walking past us without giving us a second glance. Natalie types for a few seconds before looking back up.
“Hey,” Natalie says. “Any issues setting up your campsite?”
“No,” Beck says, digging her hands into her pockets. “We had another question, though.”
Natalie plants her elbows on the counter and leans toward us. “Shoot.”
I hold my breath as Beck speaks.
“So we found my car with the fuel line broken.” Natalie’s mouth twitches, giving me a bolt of hope. “The mechanic in town—”
Natalie’s eyes narrow. “Gerry.”
“—yeah, Gerry. He said that can just, like, happen?”
