Nice Girls(91)

I imagined John Stack putting a bullet in me. Knocking me down and killing me. Just one more set of body parts to chop and dump into a lake. Another trophy for the freezer. He and I both thought the same thing.

And that made me absolutely, uncontrollably angry.

I rushed toward him, a guttural screech coming out of my mouth. John Stack was fumbling with the rifle, but I was too close. His face scrunched up as I came at him, my muscles screaming as I swung the ax.

The blade sliced into the upper half of his right arm, almost as if I’d sliced into a piece of meat. The rifle clattered to the ground.

I flinched.

But John Stack was frozen, the two of us watching the blade sink into his arm.

Then he snapped. He screamed, his voice hoarse, his body jerking backward. I clung onto the ax, getting dragged along with him.

The blade suddenly dislodged—and I stumbled backward, slamming into a worktable. The ax was still in my hands, the blade dipped in blood.

John Stack clutched his right arm, his breathing heavy. For a second, I could only see the pale of his hand over his plaid shirt. Then the blood began to leak through his fingers. We were facing each other, separated by a few feet.

I imagined that there was nothing else outside of the basement. No snow or trees or homes or city streets. No families sitting snug in front of their TVs. No warm meals to eat.

Nothing except for me and John Stack.

He wasn’t even looking at me. John Stack looked off to the space beside me, his breathing ragged and heavy, as if I wasn’t worth the look.

Then he lunged.

I backed up into the worktable. His shadow flew at me, his free hand falling over mine, the two of us wrestling for the ax. His hand was larger, coarser. The ax was slipping out of my grip. His warm coffee breath was near my face.

I kicked him, slamming my foot somewhere against his leg. John Stack recoiled. I swung my knee into him, harder, driving it into what felt like soft flesh. He suddenly let go, buckling backward.

And for once I didn’t think.

I swung.

There was a dribble of blood. Dark red, like wine, and reeking of metal. I saw John Stack’s eyes grow wide in shock, the blood dripping out across his chest. He seemed to inch back a little, his body heaving.

I dropped the ax. Heard the crash screeching in my ears. John Stack suddenly collapsed onto his knees.

I found myself staring at the empty patch of space where he’d been—staring but not quite seeing. I felt the seconds creep by, slow and painful.

I realized he was looking up at me, his eyes wide. The blood flowed down his body. It was mesmerizing, the way it seemed to crawl away from him, inch by inch.

Something inside of me shuddered.

I backed away, then bolted up the stairs into the blinding light. Before I slammed the hatch shut, I saw John Stack still staring at me from below.

He wasn’t moving.





47




I hobbled out of the bedroom, slamming the door shut. I instinctively reached for my phone in my jacket, but neither of them was on me. John Stack had taken them.

I needed a phone, and I needed help.

I needed to get out.

I stumbled down the hallway and passed a bathroom.

When I reached the kitchen, I leaned against the counter for support. I noticed the blood on my hands. It was dark red and sticky. And it wasn’t mine.

Dazed, I looked around the kitchen. The walls were eggshell yellow. The room was clean.

But I couldn’t see a phone in sight. No landline on the walls or on the counter.

John Stack had planned it that way. He made sure the cabin stayed remote.

I yanked open a drawer, the pain shooting up my wrist. But my cell phone wasn’t inside. There were just cooking utensils.

My pulse was racing, the panic swelling inside me.

The only other cell phone here was John Stack’s. He’d gotten a call earlier. The phone was likely still on him. And to get it, I needed to climb back downstairs to his dead body.

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t force myself to be near him.

At the other end of the kitchen, there was a glass sliding door. Outside, it was growing dark. Within the hour, it would be nightfall. The earth was white, and the snow was higher than I remembered. But it wasn’t snowing. It seemed as if the storm had flown by. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed.

I was stuck. If I wandered in the woods at night, I wouldn’t make it far. I would either get lost or I would freeze to death.

I needed my cell phone.

I bit down the panic and searched through the kitchen. I riffled through the cabinets, the drawers, the trash bin, the microwave. I pushed aside cans of soup and bags of cereal, lifted out the spoons and forks and knives and utensils and dumped them all on the counters.

I was so desperate I even checked through the refrigerator. In the freezer, he had stockpiled bags of frozen vegetables and microwaveable meals. On the bottom shelf, John Stack had stored bundles of meat. They were wrapped in plastic. I could see little spots of red and pink and the veins that ran through them. I closed the freezer, my stomach churning.

Frantic, I moved to the living room. There was a closet next to the hallway. Inside, he’d hung up an orange hunting vest, a dark green camo jacket, and his deerskin jacket. I found nothing in each pocket. My jacket was nowhere to be seen.

I slammed the closet shut.

Something creaked.