He slid the recliner out of the way and unlocked the door handle. He opened the door up to the freezing air, and then he slipped out into the pre-dawn darkness and closed the door behind him.
Stella opened her eyes and she watched Cole slip outside and close the door. It was a surreal moment for her as her mind drifted back to a similar scenario for her when she had slipped out into the night from the trailer at the dig site in New Mexico and ran outside for David.
She turned and looked at David. She thought about waking him up, but she didn’t. Let him sleep some more; he needed his rest; he needed to be at his strongest in a little while when they made their escape.
She had read Cole wrong, she realized that now. She had believed that he was really going to stick around and help them. But she should’ve known better. He was a criminal and no matter how much he said he was going to change, he couldn’t do it. He was still just a criminal.
She looked into the kitchen at the single dining room chair that was left. Cole had been sitting in it, she guessed, because one of the metal cases of money was on the floor. It was open, and even from here in the living room she could see that some of the stacks of money were gone.
She thought about taking some of that money. A pack or two could help her and David get far away from all of this.
She had decided not to go to her aunt’s house. What would she do if this thing followed them up there? What would she do if it took her aunt and then sent her aunt back as a hollowed-out husk that asked for things in a gravelly voice?
Or maybe this thing would try a different approach next time. Maybe it would tear her aunt apart piece by piece; her aunt would scream and beg Stella to help her, to kill David so this thing would stop hurting her.
Stella closed her eyes for a moment and tried to push the terrible vision out of her mind. No, she couldn’t risk hurting her aunt or anyone else that she knew. She needed some of that stolen money so they could run and find somewhere safe.
Stella got up and she hurried through the murky cabin and crouched down in front of the open case of money. So many stacks of money inside – one hundred dollar bills collected into a brick of money wrapped in plastic. Stacks and stacks of the plastic bricks of money. She was about to grab one of them, and then she thought of the old man who had been killed in the bank robbery. The one Cole said Needles had killed. This was blood money. A man had died for this money.
And many had died since then.
But she couldn’t let that get to her, she needed to protect David, and she needed some of this money to take him somewhere safe, a place where he could grow up and become strong. Maybe she could find someone who could help them, a shaman or Medicine man who could train David to harness his powers.
That might mean going back to the Navajo reservation, back to where they had come from, back to where all of this had started.
But what else could she do?
She rolled up her pants legs and grabbed a few stacks of the money. She stuffed the money down into her socks and then rolled her pants legs back down to her hiking boots. She stuffed more stacks of money into the waistband of her pants. She took a few more stacks so she could stuff them into her coat pockets.
And then she glanced into the kitchen and saw the numbers on the microwave oven that sat on the counter. The numbers were moving; counting down.
And now she could smell the odor of gas coming from the stove.
And that’s when she heard the thump from the freezer.
She jumped up to her feet and stared into the kitchen at the freezer against the far wall. The lid bumped again; it opened just a bit and then thumped back down.
“Oh God,” Stella whispered.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Cole stepped off the porch and his boots sank down into the snow. He had his gun in his coat pocket, but he didn’t take it out; he wasn’t even sure it would do any good anymore, yet he still felt better knowing that it was there.
He scanned the snowy field and the dark blob of trees with his eyes, but he couldn’t see much in the darkness. The moon was already setting low in the sky behind the trees, but even with the scattering of clouds across the night sky, he could see a little bit into the darkness. He didn’t turn on the flashlight yet, he would wait until he was inside the garage to use it. He didn’t know if using the flashlight would attract this thing out here, but he had a feeling that it didn’t matter either way – this thing knew he was out here now, he was sure of it; he could practically feel it watching him, waiting to see what he was going to do.
Waiting to see if he would follow instructions.
As long as Cole was following instructions, he felt sure that he was relatively safe for the moment.
Cole trudged through the snow towards the hulking black shape in the darkness that was the garage. He walked past Tom Gordon’s pickup truck and it blocked the freezing wind a little. Already his face felt numb and his fingers were turning into ice blocks underneath his thin leather gloves. He paused for a moment at the end of the pickup and looked around one more time – nobody moving in the darkness. He looked back at Frank’s spot in the snow, but Frank wasn’t there. He looked back at the cabin which was dark except for the yellowish glow of the kitchen light in the windows. He didn’t see any movement inside and the door wasn’t open with Stella watching him from the doorway.
He turned back to the garage. He needed to hurry; he could see the digital numbers from the microwave oven (bomb) counting down in his mind.
He hurried through the snow to the garage doors which were already partway open from when he’d entered the garage days ago. But he would need to push the doors open even wider to drive the snowmobile out.
And what if it doesn’t start? What if the battery is dead? What if that thing has known about the snowmobile the whole time and destroyed it already? What if it has known about your plans the whole time?
Cole pushed these thoughts away. He had to try. What else could he do?
He pushed at the other wooden door with his hands and immediately he felt the sting of the cold through his gloves. He pushed against the door, but it wasn’t budging. He leaned into it more, driving with his legs, trying to find some traction in the scattering of snow on the concrete of the garage and the gravel of the driveway in front of the doorway. One last push, and he nearly screamed with effort as …
… the door broke free with a crackling of ice; the garage door let out a wail of protest into the freezing air as he slid it all the way open until it thumped to a stop.
That might have woken Stella, he thought.
He hurried into the darkness of the garage. It was like entering the mouth of a cave. He thought about looking for a light switch somewhere on the wall; if the electricity worked in the cabin, then it must work out here. But he didn’t want to waste time with a search for the switch; he had to hurry. The flashlight should be enough to light his way. Besides, he knew exactly where he was going in the garage.
He turned on the flashlight, its beam knifed through the darkness and he could see the clouds of his quick breaths in front of his face. He moved forward through the pathways of boxes, crates, shelves, and junk. He came to the tarp over the snowmobile – it was just how he had left it, with a few boxes toppled down on top of the blue tarp.
Cole set the flashlight on a nearby shelf, and he tried his best to angle the light beam down onto the tarp. He pushed the boxes to the side and he ripped the tarp away; it made a loud crinkling noise when he stuffed it down between some boxes. He could see tiny ice crystals and dust floating in the air through the light beam.