Nice Girls(90)

If I sprinted out of the basement, John Stack would know. He would catch me, and he’d be armed with a knife or a gun. If I tried to sneak out, I ran into a similar risk.

I couldn’t leave unprepared.

I hurried over to the display of axes on the right side of the room. There were six of them hung up in a neat row, their blades resting atop a wooden shelf. I picked up the one that looked lightest—its blade was small and its handle was red. I yanked it up. My wrist shot with pain as I lugged it toward the stairs. The ax was light, but my arms were trembling.

I had one chance to sneak out. If anything went wrong, I would put up a fight.

But on the bottom step, I stopped.

There was a gap between each step of the staircase. At eye level, I could see a flash of blue and white from behind the stairs. It looked sturdy and mostly white, and the lid was a darker blue than the plastic tarps.

The chest freezer.

My head spun. The panic seemed to rise like a wave. I saw too many possibilities, too many ways to die. And I was glued in place, stuck between each and every path. They all seemed scary, uncertain. But only one of them was blue.

My pulse quickened. I slowly peered around the stairs, almost afraid to find someone looking back at me.

But I found only a chest freezer tucked away.

I already knew what I would find inside. I knew it instantly, the way you’d know a familiar face in a crowd. I knew what I was going to find, and yet . . .

I put down the ax. And I opened the blue lid. A blast of cold air rushed up to my face, like a cloud of smoke.

Then I retched.

I leaned away from the freezer, gagging on the cold air that exploded from inside. Lines of drool dripped from my mouth onto the cement floor. I wanted to spill out my guts and everything else inside of me. But nothing came out except saliva.

Before I knew it, I found myself peering into the freezer again. As if I hadn’t believed it the first time. I immediately doubled over, my gag reflex now screaming.

It wasn’t the shock that was awful. It wasn’t the fact that everything had been so neatly arranged over the ice, like artifacts on display. It was the expressions on their faces, empty and dismal. Their eyes were closed as if they’d just fallen asleep, on a bed of grocery-store ice. Their hair was neatly tied in place.

I shut the lid. And I gagged again, my heart nearly climbing out of my throat.

I needed to go.

Then I heard the hatch unlock.





45




The hatch door swung open.

Instinctively, I crouched down, leaning against the chest freezer as if I could melt into it. I tried to keep my breathing as still as possible. And I clamped my eyes shut.

The stairs creaked as John Stack climbed down quietly. I felt the weight of each creak over my head.

Then he stopped. It sounded as if he were standing right above me.

If I looked up, would I find him looking back at me?

I kept my eyes shut. There was silence as he stayed still. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest, so loud that John Stack could likely hear it as well.

The two of us seemed to stay like that forever, the seconds creeping by. I could feel my legs starting to buckle under my weight, the rest of my joints ready to crack open. Ready to break.

And if I moved, then it would be over.

John Stack suddenly exhaled, the air tumbling out of his lungs like a car off a cliff. In that one breath, I could hear the frustration and the panic—John Stack looking over at the empty pile of plastic tarps and rope and soiled fabric. The rest of the room would be empty, as if a young woman hadn’t been bound there earlier.

And after that . . . then what?

There was a loud creak over my head. John Stack was trundling back upstairs, his footsteps disappearing into the cabin.

I jolted out of my stupor, the seconds thumping in my ears.

One second.

Up.

Two seconds.

Ax.

Three seconds.

Go.

I stood beside the freezer, the ax burning in my hands, my head spinning. I could see the white walls of the bedroom upstairs. John Stack hadn’t closed the hatch.

I saw myself racing up there, making a break for a door. Before John Stack could do anything, I would be flying into the woods. Free.

But I couldn’t move. I kept staring up at the hatch, frozen.

The blood was pounding in my ears.

I was afraid.

And I could hear Olivia’s laugh ringing in my head, twinkly, like ice falling into a glass. Mary had the chance to escape, and she couldn’t even do that. Mary, eternally weak and pathetic.

A door slammed.

I backed up against the wall just as John Stack pounded down the steps. He beelined for the corner of the room, where the blue plastic lay. His back was turned as he flicked on a white flashlight.

He was piecing together how I’d gotten out.

And then I saw it slung over his shoulder, black and austere—a hunting rifle.

“Damn bitch,” he muttered. John Stack bent down, his flashlight scanning the tarps.

My body was panicking, moving on its own toward him.

I knew what I had to do.

I crept closer, daring not to breathe, my hands shaking, and then—

John Stack turned around, the rifle slipping off his shoulder.





46




My body was burning, the fear and rage exploding in my veins.