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She looked up at the sky. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “I just want to go home.” No answer came, so she went back inside. She wrapped herself up with a blanket from the couch and settled into a chair that faced outward into the room. All she had to do was wait until morning, she told herself. Her eyes finally became heavy and she fell asleep.
Hayley’s eyes opened some time later. She’d left a lamp on beside the chair an it threw shadows against the walls. Upstairs a floor board creaked. She sat bolt upright in the chair. He was alive. Robert Markham, or so said his driver’s license when she’d gotten up the nerve to search him, was alive and moving around upstairs.
She threw off the blanket and dove for the light, turning it off quickly. The room was plunged into black and she waited, crouched, for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The floor upstairs creaked again and Hayley became light-headed from breathing so hard.
Painstakingly she crept toward the kitchen to retrieve a knife, which was closer that the front door. She edged her way along the wall, feeling for the entrance to the kitchen with her hands, not daring to take her eyes off the closed door to the bedroom that loomed above her.
Once in the kitchen, she quietly slid a knife out of the block and gripped it with her left hand. She wasn’t left handed, but he was injured, badly, and she had the advantage. She took her eyes off the closed door long enough to look at the front door. She’d have to cross the living room to get to it. She looked down at her bare feet. She had a cut on her foot and had taken her shoes off to rest. There wouldn’t be time to get them.
If she could get out quietly, she could run. The bedroom faced a different direction so even if he looked out the window, he wouldn’t spot her. She took a step forward and another creak in the floorboards sounded from the second floor. Hayley swallowed hard. She gripped the knife in her good hand and crept silently across the living room toward the front door. When she reached it, she had to look away from the bedroom door and the stairs to the lock, which she had thrown. Her bad hand trembled as her her fingers, wet with her blood, slipped on the metal. Heart pounding, she tried again as another creak sounded over head. She twisted the lock, the sound of the bolt sliding back was impossibly loud.
She gripped the doorknob and twisted. Suddenly, a hand clamped down over her shoulder. “FILTHY WHORE!” he shouted, spitting blood into her face. Hayley screamed and dropped the knife.
Hayley’s eyes flew open and the sound of her own screaming filled the small cabin. The knife really did fall. That much was real. She’d taken it with her to the chair to rest and she’d dropped it during her nightmare. She scooped it up, sobbing all the while. Her feet were bare, that was real too. She winced as she slid her shoes on in spite of the cut on the sole of her foot. She was done taking chances. Unable to sleep anymore, she turned the chair to face the window and waited for the sun to rise. When it did, she shuffled to the front door.
The air was cool outside and the weather was decent. That was something, at least. The cabin was situated at the end of a long, dirt drive, and that was the easiest part to navigate. Unfortunately, she saw no other cabins as she trekked down the hill. She stopped when she came to a crossroads.
There were no signs. No indicators of which way led toward civilization. She might not even be in South Dakota anymore. Wyoming wasn’t that far away and she’d been unconscious for a long time. It would be just a guess. She turned East, for no good reason that she could think of, and just put one injured foot in front of the other. Chris wasn’t dead, she assured herself. Not even injured. It was all lies. Now all she had to do was find him. She had no idea how long it was before she saw the silhouette of a similar cabin up ahead.
As she got closer, a sign out front said “Rental Office” and Hayley had to force herself to keep from sobbing in relief. She shuffled up the wooden steps of the small building and pushed open the door. A man in a John Deere hat was perched on a stool behind a counter. He glanced up from his magazine and blinked at her.
Hayley took a deep breath, about to speak, when the man shouted, “Bert!”
