This didn’t make any sense to Sam at all, and she said so.
“If you want it to be easier then you should come and live with us and we can all take care of each other. That’s what Mom always says—that we take care of each other. She wouldn’t send me away with you.” She wanted to get out of the truck. She wanted to go back home. She was cold and hungry and scared and she didn’t understand any of this.
William’s smile faded, and when he spoke his voice had the frozen-river quality she’d heard earlier, the one that made her feel cold deep in the pit of her stomach.
“Now listen to me. From now on you will do as I say and when I say it. You will not argue or talk back. You will not speak of your mother or your sister anymore. You are to forget about them.”
“I can’t forget about Mom and Heather! They’re my family! You’re not my family! I don’t belong with you!”
Sam started to unbuckle her seat belt even though the truck was on a highway and she should never unbuckle her seat belt while the truck was moving. She didn’t even know where she would go. If she jumped out she’d probably die.
“Do not unbuckle your seat belt,” William said in that dead-of-winter voice.
Sam didn’t care what he said. He wasn’t her father. He wasn’t in charge of her. She was going to unbuckle her belt and as soon as she saw another car she was going to roll down the window and shout for help.
She never saw it coming. One moment she was pressing on the red seat belt release and the next moment there were stars in her eyes and her mouth tasted like blood.
“I didn’t want to do that,” William said. “But I will, if you don’t listen to me, Samantha. You’d better start listening right now. Do not unbuckle your seat belt.”
He hit me, she thought in a daze. No one had ever hit her before, not for any reason. Her mother didn’t believe in spanking, and Sam wasn’t the sort of child who got in fistfights on the playground.
“You can’t hit me,” she said. “My mom doesn’t even hit me.”
She was just as unprepared for the second blow as the first.
“I told you not to speak of your mother again,” William said. “As far as you are concerned, your mother no longer exists.”
Sam wanted to shout again, wanted to scream that he couldn’t take her mother away from her, couldn’t do what he was doing. But her head hurt and her cheek hurt and her mouth hurt and she was really scared now, scared of what he would do if she didn’t do what he said.
But he can’t make me forget Mom and Heather, she thought. He can’t see what’s going on inside my head. I can remember them all I want. And as soon as I have a chance I’m going to run away from him and go back to them. I just have to pretend to be good, to think and pay attention.
“Where are we?” she asked.
William flashed a smile at her again. His smile used to seem so happy but now it made her feel sick.
“We’re on our way to a special place, my pretty girl. A special place just for you and me.” He frowned then, looking at her bare feet. “We’ll have to stop somewhere and get you some shoes, though. And warm clothes. It’s cold where we’re going, even in the summer.”
If they stopped for clothes then she could run away from him in the store, could shout and scream until someone came to help her. There were usually security guards in big stores and security guards were almost like police, right? Some of them carried guns.
She’d seen security guards with guns at the mall where Mom took her and Heather shopping sometimes. They couldn’t afford new things very often but they all liked to go and window shop, and imagine how they might look in new jeans or a new blouse. They’d go into the department stores and spray all the perfume samples, and sometimes ladies would try to put makeup on Mom but she always said no. Mom didn’t really wear a lot of makeup, just lip gloss or mascara sometimes, and Sam knew that even though the ladies were acting like trying on makeup was free, they really would want Mom to buy some of it after.
After they sprayed lots of different perfumes on themselves Mom would take them to get ice cream cones from the McDonald’s in the food court. It was fun when they did that, and Sam didn’t even feel so bad that they didn’t have the money for new clothes or shoes. She didn’t mind just looking as long as she got to go somewhere with Mom and Heather.
Sam looked at William out of the corners of her eyes. She didn’t think shopping with William would be like shopping with Mom. She remembered how hard his arms had been wrapped around her on the stairs. She’d have to pay attention for her chance and run so fast when it was time, or else he’d just grab her and cover her mouth again and she’d never get away.
She must have fallen asleep again because the next thing she knew the truck had stopped and William was opening the passenger door and lifting her out.
“Come on, my sweet girl. Rest stop.”
She wished he’d stop calling her that. He used to say things like that at home, when Mom and Heather were there, call her “sweet girl” or “pretty girl,” but he’d say them to Mom and Heather, too, and it didn’t seem so weird. Now it felt strange and it made her belly feel sick.
They’d stopped at a small brick building next to a long parking lot. There was no one else in the lot and it was so cold. Her bare feet felt like bricks of ice. William held her very close as they went inside.
“Hey, this is the boys’ room!” she said as he took her into the restroom with him. “I can’t go in the boys’ room!”
“You have to stay with me,” William said, and she knew better than to say anything else because his eyes were like chips of ice and she sensed danger.
He set her down in front of a stall. The tile floor was freezing and dirty, and the bathroom smelled of disinfectant and pee. “Go do your business.”
Sam didn’t want to walk on the tile, and she especially didn’t want to go into the toilet stall in her bare feet, but she did because William was looking at her in a way that told her she’d better.
There was grit and dust and hair on the floor, and Sam tried very hard not to think about what she was stepping on. The toilet was very high and she was so small for her age that she had trouble sitting on it to pee. Her feet dangled off the ground while water came out of her in a tiny trickle. She always had trouble peeing when she was nervous, would hold on to it compulsively until she was able to relax again and then she’d have to sprint to the bathroom before she wet her pants.
After a minute William said, “Hurry up,” and he had that tone in his voice again, the one that said she had to listen. Sam wiped herself and hopped off the toilet. William picked her up again as soon as she came out of the stall. He seemed like he was in a big hurry all of a sudden.
“I have to wash my hands,” she said. She really wanted to, for a change, wanted to wash them properly (that was what Mom always said, that she didn’t wash them properly) because the toilet had been so gross and she wanted to scrub her hands really well.
William hesitated, then said, “You’re right. You should always wash your hands after you’ve dirtied them because cleanliness is next to godliness.”
Sam thought this was a very strange thing for him to say but she didn’t care as long as she got to wash her hands. He wouldn’t set her down in front of the sink, though. He kept hold of her while she wet her hands and rubbed soap all over them. A second later there was some noise outside in the entryway, the sound of voices, and a young man entered the bathroom.
Now Sam knew why William had seemed like he was in a hurry. He’d heard the other car outside and he didn’t want to run into anyone. This was her chance.
Sam saw his face in the mirror—he wasn’t too much younger than William, actually—and her heart leapt. All she needed to do was say something and the strange man would help her. But it was like William read her mind, could see inside her eyes, because he squeezed her very hard and she felt
the warning and instead rinsed the soap off her hands and dried with the scratchy paper towel that William handed her. The young man went about his business, didn’t even seem to notice Sam and William there.
She felt her chance at freedom slipping away. She had to open her mouth and say “Help me” before William took her out of the bathroom and put her back in the car and took her away forever.
Just then William leaned his mouth very close to her ear and said, “If you say one word to anyone I will kill them. I have a knife on my belt and I will slash their throats open with that knife and it will be your fault. Do not speak.”
Sam began to tremble, because the young man looked nice and he probably had a family and if she said one word, said anything at all, then William would kill him and there would be blood all over the bathroom.
Just like Mom.
Just like what William did to Mom.
But the idea that her mother had been slashed to ribbons by this man was so terrible that her mind turned away from it.
No. Mom’s not dead. She can’t be. She has to be alive so that she can come for me. She wouldn’t leave me with William. She wouldn’t.
William carried her out of the bathroom. There was a young woman, about the same age as the young man Sam had seen in the mirror, idly flipping through the tourist pamphlets and maps. She turned when she heard the door, clearly expecting the young man. She had long brown hair and a purple knitted hat with a pompom on top. She waved when she saw Sam.
“Your daughter is so cute,” she said to William. “How old is she?”
I’m not his daughter! Sam wanted to cry. Help me. Help me. He’s stealing me.
“She’s five,” William lied.
Sam wanted to cry out in outrage, I’m not five, I’m eight, I’m just small. She knew it was a trick, though, a trick that William had done to see if she would talk, but Sam wouldn’t be the one who let William kill this pretty lady with her long brown hair.
“Sooo gorgeous with that blond hair and brown eyes. You don’t really see that combination, huh? Her mom must have brown eyes,” the lady said. She’d gotten closer as she talked.
William laughed. Sam was amazed that he could laugh and sound normal when he did it, like he wasn’t doing anything wrong at all. That was the first time she realized what a good liar he was, that he could lie about anything, that his face would say one thing while in his heart he was thinking something completely different.
“Yeah, she didn’t get my eyes, that’s for sure. My pretty brown-eyed girl,” he said.
“Just like the song,” the young woman said, and she was clearly delighted. “I’m ready for a little girl of my own. I hope she looks just like you!”
Sam felt William’s muscles tighten, felt the warning there, so she didn’t say anything but gave the young woman a little smile. She hoped the smile would alert the lady that something was wrong, that the lady would see that Sam wasn’t smiling the way a real person smiles, but then William made sure the young woman wouldn’t think anything of it.
“She’s really shy,” William said. “She doesn’t usually talk to strangers.”
“I guess that’s a good habit to have, huh, cutie? So many scary people in the world.”
He’s a scary person, you’re talking to a scary person right now, oh please help, please help me get away.
A moment later the young man came out of the bathroom and the young woman joined him.
“Have a good trip!” the young woman said, and the two of them exited the rest stop.
William picked up one of the pamphlets and glanced at it like he was interested.
“That was very good, Samantha. You did exactly as I told you to do. My good little girl.”
I’m not yours I’m not your little girl I want to go home I want to go back home right now
Sam heard the sound of the car engine outside, heard the people who could have saved her driving away.
William carried her outside again, looking left and right and all around to make sure there was no one else in the rest area. Then he went around to the back of the truck and lowered the gate with one arm while keeping a tight grip on Sam.
There was a long wooden trunk in the back of the truck, like old-fashioned luggage. It had a brass-colored lock on it and William opened it with a key. Inside it was lined with a blanket, and there was a pillow on top of this and another blanket. It looked like a nest.
William looked left and right again, and before Sam knew it, he had dropped her inside the trunk and shut the top.
“No!” she screamed, and pounded on the sides of the trunk. It was dark and it was small, so small, and she couldn’t breathe in there. She would die. “Let me out, let me out, let me out!”
She heard the lock clicking, then William’s voice, very close and clear.
“Stop that yelling right now. There are three holes drilled in the side so that you can breathe. I’m talking through them. Now I know you were good in the rest area but we’re going to a shopping center now to get you some clothes and some other things and I can’t take a chance that you’ll run away on me. You just stay in there until I’m done and then I’ll let you sit in the front seat again.”
“No,” Sam sobbed. “Let me out. Let me out. I’ll be a good girl.”
“I know you will be,” William said. “You’ll be my good girl forever.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mattie woke with a start, sitting straight up on the couch, her heart pounding. She’d forgotten the trunk. She’d forgotten so many things.
That trunk, that’s the same one that William keeps at the foot of the bed. He locked me inside it like I was a bad dog and left me there.
The fire had burned down but wasn’t completely out. The room was cold again, and Mattie rose slowly to put firewood on. The draft leaking in from the broken window seemed worse and she noticed that the bottom part of the quilt had come free from the window frame and was flapping in the breeze. It was no longer night outside.
She shuffled to the table where she kept the jug of water and poured some out for herself. It had little chunks of ice in it and hurt going down but she swallowed it all. She felt sick to her stomach, the lost memory lingering.
How could he have done that to me? How could I have forgotten it all?
She glanced at the bedroom. Through the open door she saw the piles of blankets and the unmoving lumps underneath them that told her C.P. and Jen were still asleep.
Today we leave, Mattie thought. I don’t care how hard it is, or what objections they raise. We have to get off this mountain, away from all the monsters.
Despite the cold and her fear she felt better than she had the previous day. Her throat didn’t feel as tender, and all her aches and pains had receded to dull throbs instead of sharp klaxons. Food and sleep were like magic.
That’s why William was always starving you, always working you when you were exhausted. Without food and sleep you couldn’t think, couldn’t fight him.
There was no food left in the cabin. Mattie wondered if the storehouse was unlocked as she’d suspected it was the day before.
She also wondered if it was safe to go outside.
No noise of any kind had disturbed her sleep the previous night. After the screaming, the roaring, the firing of William’s weapon there had been nothing. Mattie hoped that meant that both William and the creature were gone.
If we can only get a head start, she thought. The creature had to sleep sometime, and if they were lucky it had dragged William away somewhere.
The memory that had emerged while she slept prompted a fierce and burning hope that William had been ripped to shreds by the creature.
Mattie pulled on her coat and boots and went to the front door. She put her ear against it, listening for the sound of William leaning against the door. No matter how still he was he would make some noise, e
ven if it was just the scrape of his jacket against the wood.
For a moment she thought she heard him breathing, heard the sound of his heart pulsing
(pulsing like the heart the creature gave us last night when I touched that thing it was still warm and I’ll never tell anyone that never)
but then she realized it was her own heartbeat thrumming against the wood. He wasn’t out there. He couldn’t be. If he was then he would be knocking on the door, demanding that Mattie open up and make his breakfast.
Her stomach rumbled. She was used to going without food, used to waiting for William to decide what they would eat and how much she should get. But the sandwich she’d eaten the night before—that decadent, buttered thing—had somehow made her hungrier than she’d ever been. She’d been full when she went to sleep, a feeling that she could not remember ever having since she came to live with William. And having felt full it seemed that she was greedy for that feeling again, the feeling of having eaten all she wanted and not needing any more.
“Are you going out?” C.P. asked.
Mattie started. She hadn’t heard him rise from the bed. She’d been listening through the door and then she’d gotten distracted, drifted away in her mind the way William always told her not to do.
William doesn’t have any say any longer. You don’t belong to him. You never did.
C.P. stood in the doorway to the bedroom, wearing his pants and shirt and socks. His very black hair was rumpled from sleep and he yawned.
“I was going to go out to the storehouse,” Mattie said, answering his question. She was very happy to hear that her voice was practically back to normal. It only sounded a little strained, and it didn’t hurt to talk—at least, it didn’t hurt as much as it had the day before. “There’s no food left here.”
“Do you think it’s safe to go out? Not to be crude or anything, but my back teeth are floating.”
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