The Schuyler House

by Cade Haddock Strong

  Ellen climbs on the first snowmobile and Kat slips behind her. Sarah and I both eye the second snowmobile. “You and Ellen practiced driving these things, right?” Sarah asks while she fidgets with the strap of her helmet.

  “Yeah, it’s a total piece of cake,” I say with a confident chuckle as I climb onto the driver’s seat. Sarah reluctantly climbs on behind me after I fire up my machine, and I look over at Ellen and give her thumbs-up to indicate we’re ready to go. Ellen squeezes the throttle on her snowmobile, and slowly Sarah and I follow her and Kat out of the small parking lot and onto the trail.

  I have to admit it’s sort of fun to drive the snowmobiles through so much fresh snow. Even with the roar of the snowmobile engines, it feels almost peaceful—we’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere and the trail through the woods is pitch black minus the beams of light emitting from our headlights. The trail cuts through a heavily wooded area, and our headlights bounce off the snow-covered trees that line the trail.

  It takes us about thirty minutes to reach the Schuyler House. As we approach the estate, we slow down and park our rides off to the side of the snowmobile trail at the point where it comes closest to the main house. We grab our supplies and set off on foot toward the main house. The snow is incredibly deep, and I curse myself for not thinking to bring snowshoes as we trudge through drifts that are thigh deep. It takes us nearly ten minutes to travel the three hundred yards to the house from where we parked.

  The main house is built into the side of a hill, and the back deck hangs over a large cliff that leads down to a fast-moving river. We head for the west side of the house where there’s a side entrance as well as a set of wooden steps that lead up to a large deck. Once we reach the steps to the deck, we stick the black plastic Home Depot sleds in a snowbank and head up the stairs. We plan to gain access to the house by climbing through one of the windows that overlook the deck because, as Kat discovered while attending the retreat, the doors off the deck are wired for the burglar alarm but the windows are not.

  Once we have the art, we plan to exit the house using the side entrance near where we left the Home Depot sleds. If the guard on duty activated the alarm then we will most certainly set it off when we open the side door to escape, but this is a risk we are willing to take. Two of the pieces we plan to steal are fairly large, and it will be much easier to take them out the side entrance rather than try to maneuver them back down the steps from the deck. We’re banking on the fact that, given the snow, it will take the police at least thirty minutes to reach the house via the long dirt driveway, and possibly even longer than that. This will leave us more than enough time to drag the art back to the snowmobiles and disappear into the forest. Kat confirmed that the guards at the Schuyler House are unarmed—fortunately, we don’t have to worry about being shot at while we escape.

  The steps leading up to the deck are treacherous, and we have to kick our boots into the snow as we work our way up them. I’m breathing hard by the time we finally get up the thirty steps to the deck only to find that, unsurprisingly, it hasn’t been shoveled recently either and is covered in at least two feet of snow. The deck is dimly lit, illuminated only by small lamps that hang over each door.

  We work our way across the deck until we reach one of the windows and pause to stand before it.

  “Well, here goes nothing,” Ellen says as she digs a hammer and small crowbar out of her backpack so she can jimmy open the window.

  We all watch her in silence, and in less than a minute she has the window open. Ellen stuffs the tools back in her coat, gives us all a nod, slowly slips inside without incident and disappears into the darkness of the house. We all wait on the deck while she completes her first task: check on the guard’s location and peek in the guardroom. The guardroom is a small room up near the front of the house that has a few computer screens displaying images from the security cameras around the property, but not from the back deck since no security camera is installed there.

  Ellen returns less than three minutes later. “Good news! It looks like there is only one guard on duty tonight and he’s lying on a couch outside the security booth watching a movie on his iPad,” she whispers. “Apparently, the Schuyler House had to settle for the B-team security on Christmas Eve. Lucky for us!” Kat murmurs with a smile.

  Sarah nods. “Well, no time like the present, ladies. Let’s do this!” She moves to slip into the house through the window. She gets her head through the open window, but she’s wearing a bright-yellow fanny pack around her waist and it catches on the window frame as she tries to swing her legs in behind her. “Crap,” she mutters. Sarah steps back on the deck, unclips her fanny pack from her waist and tosses it to me. I smile at her as I catch it and then look down to attach it around my waist. Seconds later, the deck gives out an incredibly loud groan.

  We all freeze, and my eyes dart around. “Shit, shit, shit!” I mutter under my breath and pray that the deck is not succumbing to the weight of the snow.

  Ellen is still the only one in the house, and she steps away from the window. The three of us still on the deck move from the open window and into the shadows. We all stay completely still, listening and waiting to see if the noise attracts the attention of the guard. Sure enough, it does.

  The guard peers out the windows of one of the many doors that lead from the main house to the deck and then tentatively opens the door and takes a small step out onto the deck. There is an overhang above the door so the area right in front of the door is fairly clear of snow, but beyond that, he would have to walk in knee-deep snow. There is a light over the door and I can see his face, but we are all in the shadows and I’m pretty sure he cannot see any of us. He shines his flashlight around a bit, and it reflects off all the new-fallen snow. Apparently, he sees nothing of concern. He clips his light back onto his belt and turns to go back inside.

  I breathe an almost audible sigh of relief as he grabs for the door handle, but just then, the deck emits another even larger groan. This causes him to pause and again reach for his flashlight, but the deck begins to give way. It seems like it crumples in slow motion, and I feel it weaken beneath my feet while looking around frantically for something to grab on to. There’s nothing but mounds of snow everywhere. Kat and Sarah are both standing slightly closer to the house than I am, and they’re both out of reach. I look up and see fear displayed across their shocked faces before I start to fall away from them.

  I know the deck hangs over the cliff behind the house. As I fall, I wait to feel my body crash into the rocks below. Instead, I slam into a large, steep snowbank and roll down the side of it until I smash into the fragile ice that has formed on the edge of the river. By some miracle, I missed the rocks beneath the deck. It is only December and the fast-moving river has yet to totally freeze over. In fact, I can hear running water very nearby. I’m in pain and begin to panic as I try to get to my feet only to hear the thin ice starting to crack under my weight. In a matter of seconds, my left foot and then my right punch through the thin ice. Both my legs plunge into the freezing cold water.

  I look back up toward the house but can only see darkness except the light outside the door from which the security guard appeared. I yell out but can hear nothing over the sound of the river. The riverbed on which I fell is very steep and covered in deep, deep snow. I cannot see any way to scramble back up toward the house. Unable to go back the way that I came, I set my sights on the opposite side of the river, which appears to be relatively flat. I start to wade through the icy water, which becomes deeper and starts to seep over the top of my Sorel snow boots and eventually soaks through my ski pants. The freezing water stings against my skin, and I know that hypothermia could kick in quickly even though the top of my body is still above water. The current of the river is not incredibly strong, but it still forces me slightly downstream away from the Schuyler House as I wade for the opposite bank. The river has got to be at least one hundred feet wide, and when I finally reach the opposite bank, I drag myself out
of the water and up onto the snowy shore.

  Once I reach a standing position, I turn to look back across the river. I can see lights from the Schuyler House, and I’m shocked to see how far away it seems. I scream out for my friends again and again but hear nothing but the roaring sound of the river running past me. My gaze darts back and forth along the riverbank looking for any sign of life. I’m near the point of hysteria and I step one foot back into the water, desperate to reunite with my friends. My feet are numb and the snow has started to fall even more heavily. Gradually, I come to grips with the fact that there’s no way I can get back there.

  At this point, I’m shivering uncontrollably. It occurs to me that I need to get warm, and fast. I turn away from the river and see nothing but trees all around me. Under different circumstances, I might even say it was pretty.

  With no other choice, I head off into the trees. It’s immensely difficult to walk in the deep snow, but the exertion may be my only hope to stave off the hypothermia.

  Chapter Six

  I struggle through the woods for at least ten minutes before I see light up ahead. I continue to walk toward the light, and a small one-story house becomes visible. As I walk toward the house, I calculate that it now has to be close to one o’clock on Christmas morning. Finally, I reach the driveway that leads up to the house and am pleasantly surprised to find it’s been plowed recently. This makes the walk up to the house seem effortless compared to plodding through the woods. My persistent shivering brings some urgency to get inside the house and out of my soaking wet clothes.

  The house is totally dark except for a light over the front door, which prompts me to instead work my way over to a carport I can see on the far side of the house. When I reach the carport, I make note of the old, black Ford F-150 pickup truck parked beneath it before heading for the side door to the house. I give the door a tug, and it opens into a tidy mudroom/laundry room off the main house. When I step inside, I’m overcome with the feeling of warm air hitting my face. I close the door behind me and hastily pull off my gloves and reach down to unzip my wet ski coat. That’s when I notice Sarah’s yellow fanny pack is still fastened snugly around my waist. The sight of it immediately sends a wave of panic through me. I know I need to focus on getting out of my wet clothes and I need to get warm as quickly as possible, but I have absolutely no idea where my friends are nor any idea what happened to Kat and Sarah when the deck collapsed.

  I lean down and unclip the fanny pack from my waist and set it on the floor carefully, kick off my big Sorel winter boots and start to peel off my snow pants, ski jacket, down vest, and my three layers of polypropylene long underwear. As I’m doing this, I look around the room and notice some large flannel shirts strung on a laundry line in the far corner of the room and a pile of neatly folded towels on top of the dryer. I lean over and grab two towels off the dryer, wrap one around my head and use the other to dry myself off. I grab two flannel shirts off the clothesline and slip them over my cold body. I reach into a nearby laundry basket and dig out a pair of jeans and a pair of wool socks. The jeans must belong to a heavyset man; they hang off my slender five-foot-eight frame. I don’t see a belt lying around, so I use a few clothespins to keep the jeans from sliding off. The socks totally reek, but I’m not really in a position to be picky so I slip them over my ice-cold feet.

  Once I’m dressed in dry clothes, I reach down to gather my jacket and the fanny pack. I set the fanny pack on top of the dryer and begin to search the pockets of my jacket for my cell phone. I hope that one of my friends has tried to call or sent me a text. I pray that Kat and Sarah survived the deck collapse uninjured and that they, along with Ellen, were able to escape safely back to the Tahoe on the snowmobiles. At this point, the fact that we failed to reach the art is the least of my concerns; I just want to talk to my friends so I know they are all okay. And the guard… Oh God, I think to myself. I hope he is okay too.

  I find my iPhone zipped into the inside pocket of my ski coat, and it’s moist to the touch, not a good sign. I fiddle with the phone and I start to hyperventilate when I realize it’s totally dead. The salesman who sold me the ski coat went on and on about how it was both waterproof and breathable. I guess that doesn’t hold true when one wades through an icy river. I curse under my breath until I remember Sarah’s fanny pack. I reach over and grab it off the dryer and dump out all the wet contents onto the top. I start to curse again. Her cell phone is not in the fanny pack; she must have stuffed it in one of her coat pockets like I did. I take a quick inventory of the items piled up on the dryer. There’s about $500 in cash in various denominations, Sarah’s driver’s license, a credit card, a small flashlight, a Swiss Army knife, and a pack of gum. I pack everything back in the fanny pack and decide it’s time to get moving.

  I grab a nicely folded pillowcase off the dryer and stuff all my wet clothes into it. Shoes—I need shoes. I briefly consider putting my Sorel boots back on, but they are soaked and a nice puddle is forming around them on the floor. I look around the laundry room and spot a pair of women’s rubber boots beneath the line of flannel shirts, so I decide to slip those on instead. I lean down and pick up my wet boots and the pillowcase full of clothes and look around the room for keys to the old Ford F-150 parked out in the carport. I don’t see anything that looks like car keys so I’m hoping they are in the ignition of the truck—that is pretty typical in this neck of the woods.

  I head out the door where I came in and walk over to the driver’s side of the truck, slowly open the door and reach down to feel for the keys. Bingo, they’re in the ignition, just as I had hoped.

  I’m about to try to fire up the truck when another idea occurs to me. The house sits on a small hill and, as a result, the driveway slopes down toward the road. The driveway has been plowed pretty recently, so it’s possible I can let the truck roll down the hill somewhat before starting it. This would certainly reduce the likelihood of waking up the truck’s owner when the engine turns over. I shift the truck in neutral, and it starts to roll backward slowly out of the carport. I can hear the tires crunching on the new snow, and the truck keeps rolling for about fifty yards but then comes to a complete stop as the driveway begins to level out down near the road. I shift the car back into park and grab hold of the keys while saying a quick prayer for the truck to start. It fires up right away, and I waste no time throwing it in reverse and backing out onto the road.

  As soon as I’m a few hundred yards away from the house, I look down to see if the truck is in four-wheel drive, and once I am sure it is, I lean over to crank the heat to full blast. I curse as I am greeted with a blast of cold air since the truck’s engine has yet to warm up. Heated seats would be nice but the truck is way too old to have them seats. After I finish berating the truck that, I note to myself, is kindly serving as my getaway car, I realize I’ve reached an intersection and have no idea where I am. For no particular reason, I decide to turn right. The snow is still coming down incredibly hard, and the visibility is horrible so I creep along at a snail’s pace. The truck’s headlights reflect off the falling snow and shine back into my face, but I don’t really have any choice but to keep driving. I need to get away from the house with the carport, and I want to find my way back to Chicken Foot Road where we left Ellen’s Tahoe.

  Before long, I reach a stop sign where the road I am on intersects with a more major road that has been plowed very recently. Since I took a right at the last intersection, this time I decide to take a left. Fortunately, the heat in the car is starting to kick into high gear and my brain is starting to thaw out somewhat. For lack of a better plan, I will keep driving until I can figure out where the hell I am and then hopefully set about trying to find the Tahoe. If I had to guess, it’s been over an hour since the deck collapsed and I plunged into the river. If Ellen, Sarah, and Kat survived the deck’s collapse unscathed, they should be able to get back to the Tahoe by snowmobile in about thirty minutes. If the Tahoe is gone when I finally reach it, at least I will know that th
ey made it out all right.

  I drive for another fifteen or so minutes and come to a stop sign where the road I’m on runs into Route 29A. This is very good; I know Route 29A. Chicken Foot Road is off Route 29A. I don’t have the best sense of direction and the old truck certainly doesn’t have a GPS navigation system, but while we planned the Schuyler House burglary, I spent hours poring over maps of the area surrounding the estate. I know that we left the SUV east of the Schuyler House and traveled northwest on the snowmobile trail to reach the estate. I also know that the river into which I plunged runs roughly north to south. With that, I deduce that if I head east on Route 29A, I should run into Chicken Foot Road, assuming I can find it in this weather. I do have one thing going for me though: the house on the corner of Chicken Foot Road and Route 29A was inundated with Christmas decorations when we passed it earlier this evening in the Tahoe. There had to be at least ten thousand white Christmas lights encircling the house and nearly every tree in the large front yard. In case that was not enough, the house also has a giant blowup pig adorned with red bows in the front yard.

  I crawl along Route 29A in the heavy snow for what feels like at least an hour and start to worry that I’ve missed Chicken Foot Road. It’s possible that the guy with the crazy Christmas decorations turns off all his lights after midnight or something. Without those lights, I could have easily missed the turnoff. Just as I am about to turn around and head back the other way, I see the beacon of white Christmas lights off in the distance.