The Cabin at the End of the World(53)
He says, “Drop the knives,” to Adriane.
She screams with her mouth closed, a terrifying sound, one that makes Andrew fear that he is nowhere near in control despite the gun.
“Drop them now! Or I swear—”
She exaggeratedly opens her hands and the knives clatter against the hardwood floor.
“All right.” Andrew takes a deep breath and alternates pointing the gun at Adriane and Leonard. “Where is Wen?”
Leonard says, “She’s okay—”
“I’m not talking to you! Eric, where is she?”
Eric points behind him, and Wen appears in the bedroom doorway. Her eyes are puffy and red, her cheeks streaked with dirt and tears. Her thumbs have retreated inside the home of her fists. Her fists seek sanctuary next to her mouth.
A warm gust of wind at Andrew’s back locomotives through the front entrance, across the common room, and rattles the deck’s screen slider. Andrew is reminded that Sabrina is still out there and could be sneaking up behind him at any time. He tosses quick and uneasy looks to the front yard. He will not close the door, even though he probably should. Being reconfined to the cabin’s space is not an option.
Leonard talks in an almost-whisper, the words too fragile, too strained with disappointment and melancholy to also burden with volume. “You’re dooming us all, Andrew. You’re dooming Eric and Wen, too.”
“I’m done with you. I don’t have to listen to another goddamn word you say.” He imagines shooting Leonard in the thigh above the knee and the streamer of blood that would spurt out as he’s cut to the floor.
“Andrew?”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” He stretches out his arm toward Leonard. The gun doesn’t feel heavy, but his fingers twined around the grip and his pointer curled through the trigger guard are stiffening again, and there are twinges of threatening muscle cramps in his forearm.
Leonard doesn’t react to the gun being shakily pointed at him. He’s more resigned than calm; the one who believes he sees the end coming.
“Andrew?”
It’s not Leonard speaking, but Eric. “Andrew? Let’s go now. We can go now. We’ll leave them here and we can go.” His voice is hoarse, raspy. How is he going to be able to walk anywhere if he looks and sounds as bad as that? They could try driving the SUV on the slashed tires, but it wouldn’t be long before the tires disintegrated and the rims got hopelessly stuck in the dirt road. It might not even make it out of the driveway and through the quicksand gravel. They are going to have to walk a big chunk if not all of the trip out of here, which if they were to walk all the way to the main road would take upwards of five or six hours. They could go in the opposite direction, deeper down the road that snakes along the lakeshore, and search out another cabin with people or a phone, but the nearest cabin is still miles—
“Andrew?”
“Yeah, all right. We’re going to tie these two up first. Only fair, right?”
Eric nods slowly and closes his eyes. He still has one hand over his forehead like he’s holding something in, keeping it from escaping.
Adriane asks, “Did you kill Sabrina?” Her hands open, and arms outstretched, frozen in their I-dropped-the-knives-like-you-said position. “She wasn’t gonna hurt you. We heard the shots—”
“No. I didn’t shoot her.” Andrew regrets answering truthfully. Why let them think Sabrina might come to help them? He’s screwing this all up. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t shoot you.”
Another breeze flutters into the cabin like a lost spirit and Andrew can’t help but take another peek over his shoulder to look for Sabrina. It’s only a glance, one that lasts two seconds at the most. When he looks back, Adriane is charging at him from a semicrouched position, teeth bared in a silent snarl and a suddenly not-so-dropped knife raised above her head.
Wen
One Sunday afternoon in late winter Wen’s dads asked her to come into their bedroom. They were superserious and had those half-amused, half-sad smiles they wore whenever she would tell them she didn’t like Chinese school. They told her there was something important they wanted to show her and talk about. Wen thought she was in trouble because they found out she was sneaking into their bedroom to look through all her baby pictures. She worried if they were mad enough they might not let her watch TV for an hour after dinner or take away her phone; both were things they had threatened but never enacted. She knew going into their room without asking was why they were mad at her, but it was their fault for keeping the pictures in there. She didn’t think it was fair those pictures were hidden away when they should be kept somewhere else for easier access, maybe even in her room. They were pictures of her after all. That was what she was going to say after telling them she was sorry for sneaking in and they were through being mad. But this meeting with her dads wasn’t about the pictures, not really. This was about Daddy Andrew’s gun and the gun safe hidden in the room (he wouldn’t say where). He held up a chunky black container the size of a shoebox that had some buttons on a front panel, but he didn’t let her look at it for long. They asked her if she’d ever found or seen it. They said she had to promise to tell the truth. She hadn’t seen it before. And that was the truth. Daddy Andrew said he got a new gun safe and he showed it to her. It was silver, smaller than the other one, and it looked like a minispaceship. (In the weeks and months after this family meeting, Wen didn’t say anything to her friends about having a gun at home, but she did tell Gita and Orvin that one of her dads had a special silver safe he kept in a secret place, and Wen and her friends spent a recess making a game out of guessing what he kept hidden in there.) Daddy Andrew turned around, holding the safe so she couldn’t see it, and when he turned back, the top was flipped open like the rear hatch of their car. Inside was a gun. She wasn’t sure what it would look like but she imagined it would be bigger, something she would have to hold with two hands. Daddy Andrew said it wasn’t loaded but it still was a very, very dangerous thing. Daddy Eric kept saying it wasn’t a toy and under no circumstances was she ever to touch the safe or the gun. He kept shaking his head when he talked like this whole thing was a terrible idea. They explained Daddy Andrew had a special license and had taken a lot of classes to learn how to keep and use the gun properly. They never told her why he had it and she didn’t ask. They knew she was coming into their room and going under the bed to get her baby pictures. They weren’t mad and her looking at the pictures was of course okay; they were going to move the pictures and put them in the hutch out in the living room so she could look at them whenever she wanted. Wen was embarrassed they knew about her sneaking in for the photos, but the embarrassment quickly faded. Daddy Andrew took the gun out of the safe and let it sit in his open hand and it looked bigger and smaller, more real and more fake. Daddy Andrew asked her if she wanted to hold it, but before she could answer yes, Daddy Eric said he changed his mind and he didn’t want her touching the gun. Daddy Andrew didn’t argue. As he put it back in the safe and shut the lid, they said so many kids got hurt and sometimes killed playing with guns, usually found guns that belonged to their parents. They said she wasn’t allowed in their bedroom by herself anymore. Daddy Andrew said, “No more snooping around in here.” They said, even though it had a special lock and it wouldn’t open for her or anyone other than Daddy Andrew, she was never to move or touch the gun safe. They said these new rules were the most important rules ever.