by Blake Crouch
Get out of this place. Don’t try to do anything. Just get out back to safety and find help. I love you so much.
Devlin set the paper on the floor and scribbled under her mother’s handwriting:
Wolves outside and blizzard. Our pilot not coming back until tomorrow.
Devlin slid the paper through. Rachael picked it up, holding it flat against the door while she wrote.
It came back quickly, and as Devlin grabbed it, she heard footsteps.
Terrible people here. You cannot let them find you. Go to an empty room and hide there until you can leave. You have to listen to me. I love you. Now go.
The footsteps were coming up from the lobby stairs. Devlin took the sheet of paper, wrote “I love you,” and held the message up to the peephole, then moved quickly into the alcove and down three steps before stopping.
Now there were footsteps climbing this stairwell, too, these faster, with a kind of clicking, like a dog’s toenails on a hardwood floor.
She backtracked to the fourth floor, glanced around the corner from the stairwell, the footsteps getting louder on the lobby staircase, at the other end, the faster ones rushing up beneath her.
She ran into the fourth-floor corridor, searching for that unlocked door, finally finding it four down and across the hall from her mother’s room. She slipped inside just as someone’s head emerged into view from the lobby stairs.
She eased the door shut, stared through the peephole.
A long black shape loped by.
Five seconds later, it returned, stood staring at the door, whining and sniffing the floor.
A man walked into view—the tall, cowboy-hatted guard with long hair. He patted the wolf’s head, knelt down, let the animal nuzzle into his neck.
Another man drew everyone’s attention—short and round, wearing a green kimono, sandals, with a red bandanna tied onto his left arm, pursuant to Ethan’s instructions.
The great black wolf sat at attention beside the guard, hackles raised, eyeing the guest.
“Hey, Reynolds,” the guard said. “Good to see you again.”
“Likewise, Gerald, likewise. Say, would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of the pregnant woman Ethan mentioned this morning?”
“Sure, right this way.”
The men and the wolf started back toward the alcove, and just before their voices diminished entirely, Devlin heard the guard say, “She’s in four twenty-nine. I think you’re going to enjoy yourself, my friend.”
FORTY-EIGHT
Devlin stood outside room 429, the corridor empty, her right arm sagging with the weight of the gun.
The high twang of Reynolds’s voice passed easily through the door: “I want you to take that off right now and sit down. You know how much money I’ve made this year?”
“How much?”
There was a sound like a hand clap. “Don’t you fucking say one word to me. Eighty-four million. One year. That moisten you up?”
Devlin thought she heard footsteps coming up the staircase at the other end, hustled into the alcove for a moment to wait, but no one came.
When she returned to the door, she could hear the bed creaking, Reynolds making noise.
Winded, he said, “Feel free to moan or whatever the fuck.”
Her mother moaned.
“You know I could kill you if I wanted?” he said, breathless.
Devlin wiped the tears out of her eyes so she could see, tried but couldn’t stop herself from glancing through the peephole, saw it happening, knew instantly she never should have looked, that the sight of the small, fat man riding her mother was an image she would never expunge, and a deep seed of rage sprouted up in the pit of her stomach, swelling her throat, flooding her eyes.
She put her hand on the doorknob, turned it, the bolt retracting, the room unlocked.
A hairsbreadth from pushing it open and walking inside, she stopped, willing back the rage. She could shoot this man right now, but the gunshot would summon everyone to the fourth floor. There’d be no hiding out until nighttime, then slipping back to the tent to await the return of their bush pilot. It might save her mother in the short term, but it would kill them all in the long.
The bolt slid back into the door frame and Devlin leaned against the wall beside the door.
She wept soundlessly, praying her mother wasn’t present, that she’d managed to transport herself to another place and time—a childhood memory, her wedding day, perhaps a family holiday, like the Christmas they’d spent eight years ago in Tahiti, opening presents at sunrise on the beach.
FORTY-NINE
When Reynolds had finished with her mother, Devlin crept back to room 420, and shut herself inside.
She waited for hours, huddled in a corner, out of eyesight from the peephole, watching the gray sky fade up, plateau, and begin its short return to darkness. She was hungry, thirsty. She prayed for Kalyn, her father and mother, and despite everything, just knowing that Rachael was four doors down brought her a comfort she hadn’t felt in years.
Dusk had come when Devlin decided it was time to leave the lodge and head back to the tent.
She got up and walked to the window, saw it was still snowing, the landscape gray and bleak. The long inner lake was wind-stirred, small waves lapping at the snowy shore, and the snow-bowed spruce trees stood completely white as she looked down on them from four floors above.
Devlin went to the door, glanced out the peephole, the corridor empty from her vantage. She slipped outside and ran down to 429, peeked through the peephole, saw her mother asleep in bed.
Devlin moved quietly toward the stairwell, descended to the first floor, and crept down the corridor, stopping along the way in 119 to retrieve her parka and snow pants.
She finally emerged into the lobby. It smelled of wood smoke, a fire burning in the freestanding hearth, and someone had placed candles on the newels of the staircase. Lanterns, mounted to the walls, glowed with firelight, casting strange shadows on the stone floor. Noise and more light emanated from the archway at the other end of the lobby, adjacent to the library.
She stole up to it, light and sound filling the passage, wonderful smells wafting out from the dining hall, accompanied by the voices of fucked-out, happy Texans.
Supper. Her stomach ached, but the thought of eating snow outside, that she might at least quench her thirst, spurred her on.
Devlin glanced at the front entrance but decided it would be safer to depart the way she’d come, down through the cellar, out the door under the veranda.
She walked into the library, which was empty and warm.
As she reached to open the cellar door, someone raced in, and a hand covered her mouth before she even had a chance to turn around.
“Don’t scream, baby. It’s just me.”
Kalyn let her go, and the girl and the woman embraced, Devlin flushing with relief.
Kalyn quietly closed the library door and knelt down with Devlin by the hearth, said, “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I’ve been hiding. Have you seen my dad?”
“No, honey.”
Devlin tried to reassure herself. Doesn’t mean he’s dead, she thought. She said, “My mom’s here. She’s alive, so maybe your sister is—”
“I know, I already found her.”
“Where?”
“She’s in a room on the second floor of the north wing, where they keep most of the pregnant women.”
“What happened to you last night?”
“The wolves came after me when I went outside to pee. I got myself treed. Stayed up there until first light, then finally found my way here a few hours ago.”
“You know what this place is?”
“I’d like to burn it to the fucking ground.”
“I was heading back to the tent, Kalyn. I thought I’d spend the night there, hike down to the outer lake in the morning, wait for our pilot to come so I could get help.”
“Yeah, that’s probably our best course
of action.”
Devlin got up, opened the cellar door. “I came in from here. I think it’s the safest—”
Kalyn shook her head. “That’s where they keep the wolves. Come on. I know a better way.”
Kalyn led her out of the library, into the adjacent passage, and up a stairwell that branched off to the right.
Climbing, Devlin noticed blood spatters across the hem of Kalyn’s pink down jacket.
After two flights of stairs, they emerged into a short corridor lined with several unmarked doors. Kalyn glanced back, put a finger to her lips. Devlin nodded.
They proceeded to the last door on the corridor, stopping just shy of it.
Kalyn turned and whispered, “Wait here for a minute.”
“What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.”
Kalyn stepped forward, palmed the doorknob, turned it, and went inside, the door closing softly after her.
Devlin waited, the ceiling lights humming above her. Then the building rumbled again and the overhead lights cut out, a vacuum of silence filled only by the hiss of the lanterns mounted to the corridor walls.
The door opened and Kalyn poked her head out.
“All right, come on,” she whispered.
Kalyn took her by the hand, pulled her inside, and closed the door.
Devlin found herself standing in an expansive bedroom suite with a low fire burning in the hearth.
She didn’t notice the man until he spoke.
“How old are you, Devlin?” His voice was soft, almost a falsetto, tinged with a slight accent that Devlin couldn’t place due to the confusion and the sudden banging racket of her heart.
He set down a book and rose from the recliner beside the fireplace, removed his wire-rim glasses so he could look Devlin up and down.
“Did you not hear my question?” he asked.
Devlin looked at Kalyn, who just said, “Answer him.”
“What’s happening?”
“Answer him.”
“Sixteen.”
The man nodded. “You favor your mother.”
Kalyn said, “So, Paul? We good?”
Devlin ripped her hand out of Kalyn’s grasp and backpedaled into the wall beside the door. She stared at Paul. His vest, wire-rim glasses, and banker’s haircut struck her as incongruous, given his apparent station in the lodge.
“What are you doing, Kalyn?” she asked.
“Are we all set, Paul?”
“We still have the matter of Gerald. He was a good man. Had been with me for—”
“You can’t hire another guard?”
“What are you doing, Kalyn?” Devlin asked again.
Kalyn looked at her, just shook her head. “I don’t have a choice here, okay?”
“A choice? About what?”
Paul said, “Okay, we’ll call it good as soon as you find Rachael’s husband and bring him to me.”
“And then you’ll fly Lucy and me out of here first thing tomorrow?”
“Weather permitting.”
“How do I know?”
“What?”
“That you’ll keep your end.”
Paul shrugged. “Guess I’ll have to earn your trust.”
Devlin reached into the pocket of her parka, fingers grazing the .357, thinking, I should’ve taken it out, made sure it was loaded earlier today. I don’t even know how to use this thing.
Devlin ran her thumb over the hammer. In the movies, she’d seen people pull on it. She tried, and the cylinder made a clicking sound, the hammer locked back.
“You gonna kill him?” Kalyn asked.
“You really wanna know?”
Before anyone had noticed, she was bringing up the .357 and aiming it at the center of Paul’s chest. She could barely see the revolver, the metal dull in the low light. It felt so heavy, smelled of oil.
Paul was the first to notice, and he said, “You stupid cunt, you didn’t frisk her.”
Devlin said, “Go stand beside him, Kalyn.”
“Devlin—”
Devlin swung the gun toward Kalyn.
“All right.”
As Kalyn approached him, Paul said, “Your first time holding a gun, Ms. Innis?”
“Why are you doing this to us, Kalyn?”
“The way your hands are trembling, I would assume the answer is yes.”
Devlin began to cry, glancing between Paul and Kalyn, a knot tightening in her stomach. “I don’t understand.” She barely got the words out.
“Give him the gun, baby.” Kalyn seemed harder than she remembered, something different, changed about her. Devlin blinked through the sheet of tears.
“Devlin.” Paul found Devlin’s eyes, locked her in with a gaze that seemed to hum. “You come here and lay that big gun down in my hand like Kalyn just told you. What? You think I’m going to hurt you?”
“Stop moving.”
“I’m not moving. I don’t know—”
“You think I won’t pull the trigger, but I swear to God I will.” The initial shock was waning, making room for the rage. “Why’d you do this, Kalyn?”
Kalyn was crying now. “They caught me. Three hours ago, after I’d killed one of the guards. It wasn’t like I had planned all this. I told them about you, said I could find you. If I did, he was going to let my sister go. Fly me and Lucy out of here tomorrow. If I didn’t, he was gonna let one of the oilmen kill her tonight. You see? I didn’t have a—”
“You were gonna trade me for your sister.”
“I’m sorry,” Kalyn said. “Wouldn’t you trade me for your mother? To get her back?”
“I wouldn’t sell anyone out.”
“Well, congratulations on being a better person. Now come here and put the gun in my hand.”
“Fuck you.”
Devlin noticed Paul inching toward her, the subtlest of movements. He said, “You aren’t gonna hurt anybody. Fact, you’ve got the safety on right now.”
Devlin knew if she averted her eyes even for a second, it would be over. “Guess we’ll find out,” she said.
Kalyn said, “Dev, no—”
Devlin winced as the recoil pushed her back against the wall, her ears ringing, temporarily blinded from the flash.
Paul’s brow furrowed up and he looked down at the black hole in the upper left quadrant of his sweater vest, darkness blossoming below his heart.
The room smelled sweetly bitter, the cordite burning in Devlin’s nose.