by Lukens, Mark
“Who opened the door?” Cole asked.
“It was like that when we woke up,” Jose answered.
Cole walked to the front door in his thick socks, his gun still clenched in his hand. A knot of fear wormed its way around his insides. Something was wrong here.
He stood in front of the solid wood door and watched it for a moment. Then he brought his pistol up, ready to aim it at whatever might be outside. He could hear Jose and Trevor getting to their feet. Cole pulled the door all the way open. He stared out at the front porch which was empty – nobody there. Cole relaxed a little, lowering his weapon.
“Is he out there?” Jose asked from behind Cole.
“I don’t see him,” Cole said. He stepped through the doorway and looked out past the front porch to the front field which was hidden under a blanket of pristine white snow. The line of dark trees stood in the distance like a wall. The snowstorm had stopped sometime during the night and everything was quiet and calm. The scene outside could be the front of a post card, Cole thought. The freezing wind bit at the skin of his face and hands almost immediately, and his feet were turning into ice blocks. “Frank!” Cole called out. “You out here?!”
No answer.
“Frank!” Cole took a tentative step onto the floorboards of the porch. Something in the snow caught his eye, something just beyond the four steps that led down from the porch into the snow. He stared for a long moment.
Cole hurried back inside. He shut and locked the door. He saw that Trevor and Jose were still standing on their blankets and sleeping bags, their guns ready, but they weren’t making a move towards the front door. Needles struggled to come fully awake on the recliner; he knuckled sleep from his eyes.
“Maybe Frank’s in the bathroom,” Cole said as he stood in front of the door, almost like he was blocking it.
“I don’t think so,” Trevor said. “But I’ll check.” Trevor took off for the bathroom. They could hear him stomping around in the hall, and then in the bathroom.
Cole’s mind was still a little sluggish. He had slept like a rock even though he didn’t think he was going to be able to sleep at all, especially with the corpse of the former homeowner stuffed down inside the kitchen freezer. Yet he had slept deeply and without any dreams that he could remember.
Trevor came back into the living room, shaking his head. “He’s not back there anywhere. Back door’s still locked.”
“Where the hell would he go?” Cole asked as he hurried over to Frank’s blankets. He rummaged through the blankets and sheets. He found Frank’s coat balled up in the blankets. “His coat’s still here,” Cole said, holding it up. “His gloves. His hat. He wouldn’t have gone outside without his coat and hat.”
“What about his gun?” Jose asked.
Cole moved the blankets and sheets around; he tossed the pillow across the room. “I don’t see it anywhere.”
Jose let out a frustrated sigh.
“Oh shit!” Trevor yelled, startling all of them. Trevor sprang into action; he rushed across the room to the fireplace hearth. He grabbed one of the metal cases, laid it on its side, popped the latch, looked down inside and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Looks like it’s all still here.”
“You thought Frank ran off with the money?” Jose asked in a disgusted voice.
“Yeah, it crossed my mind.”
“Frank would never do that,” Jose growled.
“Well, I wanted to rule it out. Is that all right with you?”
“Okay, guys,” Cole interrupted. “Let’s stay calm and think about this.”
Needles, fully awake now, looked around at them. He had stripped down to only his thermal underwear at some point in the night, the small crucifix hung outside of his shirt. The sleeves of his thermal shirt were pulled up to his elbows, revealing even more tattoos covering his thin, sinewy arms. “What happened?” he asked.
“We just woke up,” Trevor told Needles. “Frank’s not here.”
“What do you mean, Frank’s not here? Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
Cole grabbed his boots and walked to the dining room table. He pulled a chair out, the chair’s legs scraped at the floor. He plopped down and put his boots on, lacing them up. He had seen something when he’d opened the front door all the way. At first he wasn’t sure if he’d really seen it, but he was pretty sure he had.
“Where are you going?” Trevor asked Cole.
“Outside to look for Frank.” He looked at the others. “Alone,” he said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cole stood at the edge of the porch, at the edge of the steps that disappeared down into the snow. And there they were, just what he’d thought he’d seen when he’d opened the door earlier.
Footprints.
There was a set of footprints in the snow that led from the front porch steps out towards the line of dark trees in the distance. Cole stared down at the footprints, trying to understand why Frank would walk out of the cabin in the middle of the night to the woods. Did he see something out here? Hear something?
Cole pulled his nine millimeter out of his coat pocket. He always wore thin leather gloves on bank jobs, they allowed him to grip his pistol better; they were almost like a second skin covering his own hands. His hands were cold now, but he sacrificed the cold for the increased sensitivity and mobility in his hands. His index finger caressed the trigger lightly as he stared out at the line of trees. There was a ribbon of deep blue sky right above the trees where the sky was beginning to lighten up with the sunrise. But there was also a mass of dark clouds building up in the sky in the other direction, the next storm in this series of snowstorms; right now they were in the calm of the storm, like an eye of a hurricane, a moment of peace and calm.
His boots crunched in the snow as he stepped down into it. He stood in the snow for a moment, which came up to his mid-calf. He stared down at the set of footprints. A man’s footprints. Regular gait. Not like this man was running. Like he was walking; a leisurely midnight stroll through the freezing snow to the dark woods.
Cole followed the footprints, staying three feet away from the footprints, careful not to disturb them. His eyes darted around as he followed the trail of footprints to the trees; there didn’t seem to be anything threatening out here that he could see, but a hard knot of fear sat in his stomach like a stone.
*
Inside the cabin, Stella got up and walked towards the kitchen.
Jose watched her in shock. “Hey, lady! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Stella stopped, she looked right at Jose, but she showed no fear of him. “David needs something to eat.”
“Did we say you could just get up and walk around?” Jose spat out.
“I didn’t ask,” she said.
Jose was about to explode with rage, but Trevor’s words grabbed his attention. “Leave her alone, Jose.”
“What?” Jose said, turning on Trevor now.
“I said leave her alone. She’s not our prisoner.”
“You aint my boss.”
Stella ignored the two men and continued to the kitchen. She wasn’t going to wait around for them to quit arguing with each other – that might take forever. She looked through the cabinets.
Trevor turned his attention away from Jose and he watched Stella. “What are you making him for breakfast?”
Stella didn’t look at Trevor as she spoke to him. “There are some packets of oatmeal up here.”
“How about some coffee for us?”
Now Stella looked right at Trevor who was giving her his sweetest smile, she was sure it worked on most of the ladies. “Sure,” she finally answered in a sarcastically sweet voice. “Coffee coming right up.”
She pulled out some instant coffee from the cabinet along with the packets of oatmeal.
Oatmeal would be good for her and David, Stella thought to herself as she boiled water on the stove for the oatmeal and started the coffee maker. They were going to need all of their
strength for what was coming soon.
*
Outside, Cole followed the footprints. He was almost to the woods now. He glanced back at the cabin, which was at least fifty yards away. He looked back down at the footprints and followed them for a few more feet – then he stopped dead in his tracks.
He stared down at the snow in disbelief, having trouble believing what he was seeing.
A crackling noise deep in the woods startled him. He brought his pistol up and aimed it into the dark woods, his hand shaking slightly, his breath pluming up in front of his face from his heavy breathing.
Nothing moving in the trees that he could see.
He turned and ran back to the cabin. Even in his panic, he made sure that he stayed well away from the set of footprints in the snow. He didn’t want to disturb them at all – he wanted the others to see what he had just seen.
*
The oatmeal was ready. Stella poured some in a bowl for David. She looked at David on the couch. “David, I made you some oatmeal.”
David stared at her, but he made no move to get up. His long hair was a little rumpled from a night’s sleep.
“Come on, David,” she said. “You need to eat something.”
Trevor got up from his sleeping bag and came to the dining room table. He looked down at the bowls of oatmeal sitting on the table. He looked at Stella with a half-smile on his face. “What kind of oatmeal is it?”
“Apples and cinnamon.”
“My favorite.”
Stella looked past Trevor at David who still wasn’t moving.
Trevor sat down and took a big bite of his oatmeal. “How’s that coffee coming?” he asked around a mouthful of oatmeal.
Stella sighed, but she poured cups of coffee and set them on the dining room table. Trevor took a sip. “Perfect,” he said.
Jose sat on his blankets and laced his boots up. “I can’t believe you’re eating that,” he told Trevor. “How do you know she didn’t poison that stuff?”
Trevor stopped eating suddenly, his mouth hung open as he made choking noises, his eyes bulging. He dropped the spoon back into the bowl and grabbed at his throat, clawing at it, some of the oatmeal dribbling out of the corner of his mouth.
Jose stood up and shook his head. “You’re really an asshole, you know that?”
Trevor erupted in a fit of laughter.
Even David cracked a smile.
Stella smiled, too. Her eyes met David’s eyes for a moment and she grabbed a bowl of oatmeal for David and brought it to him.
Needles didn’t look at anyone or join in the conversation. He sat curled up in the recliner, rubbing his crucifix with his fingers and staring at the front door.
Jose grabbed his coat and slipped it on. He fished his gloves and hat out of the pockets of the coat.
“Where are you going?” Trevor asked around another mouthful of food.
“Going to help Cole look for Frank.”
“Who said you could do that?”
“I never asked for permission, did I?”
“He said he wanted to go alone,” Trevor reminded him.
“I don’t give a shit. Just because Frank isn’t here right now doesn’t make you and your brother the boss.”
Jose turned away from Trevor and took a few steps towards the front door, but then he stopped as the door flew open and Cole rushed inside.
Cole slammed the door shut and twisted the deadbolt lock. He backed away from the door, and then he turned and looked at the others with wide eyes of shock.
“What’s wrong?” Jose asked. “You find Frank?”
“He’s gone,” Cole said in a hoarse voice.
“Yeah, no shit,” Jose said. “We can see that.”
“No, I mean he’s … just gone.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They all followed Cole through the snow, all of them bundled up in their coats, hats, and gloves. Cole stopped when they got close to the trees. He pointed down at the snow.
They gathered around, all of them careful to stay away from the set of footprints in the snow. The footprints led from the cabin almost to the woods. About twenty feet before the woods, the footprints stopped, like the person took a step, and then he was gone.
“I don’t understand,” Jose said as he scratched at his head underneath his knit cap. He looked around. “It’s like something picked him up right off the snow.”
No one said anything.
Jose looked at the line of dark trees looming in front of them, the unending forest beyond the first line of trees. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he continued.
Stella and David stood away from the group of men, closer to the trees. David stood in front of Stella, and Stella’s hands were on his shoulders. David pulled away from her and walked towards the trees, staring at them with a fierce intensity.
“Honey,” Stella said as David took another step through the snow towards the trees. David didn’t turn around at the sound of her voice.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jose asked.
Needles watched David. “It’s like that kid can see something in the woods.”
Needles hurried through the snow towards David, a sudden rage on Needles’ face. “That kid can see something in the woods!”
Stella jumped in between David and Needles, an animal-like look of protectiveness on her face. “You stay away from him,” she growled.
Needles stopped, but he wasn’t letting it go. “What’s wrong with that kid? What’s he see in those woods?”
Cole stepped over to Needles; Cole’s hands hung at his sides like a gunfighter’s hands, ready to grab at his gun in a flash if he needed to. “Needles, back away from that kid.”
Needles looked around, nodding his head quickly. “There’s something wrong with those two. I don’t know why you guys can’t see that.”
Cole ignored the babble from Needles as he trudged through the snow and stood beside David and looked at the woods, trying to see what David was seeing. He looked down at David. “You see something in there, kid?”
David looked up at Cole and stared at him with his large dark eyes. He didn’t nod yes or shake his head no. He didn’t say anything; he just walked back to Stella and grabbed her hand again.
Stella just shrugged.
Cole looked up at the sky. Darker clouds were moving in fast, promising a lot more snow. “Let’s get back inside.”
*
The men sat around the dining room table, all of them sipping cups of coffee. Stella sat beside David on the couch. David had eaten half his bowl of oatmeal, but then he didn’t want any more.
Cole looked at the other men at the table. “I want to know what made Frank get up in the middle of the night and leave.”
“You think those are his footprints?” Trevor asked.
“Who else’s would they be?” Cole asked.
Trevor shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he heard something in the middle of the night. Or he saw something. He went out there to check it out.”
“He would’ve woken us up,” Cole said.
“Then maybe he ran,” Trevor answered.
All eyes were on Trevor. For a moment a tense silence blanketed the room.
“Frank wouldn’t run out on us,” Jose growled.
“Hey, I’m just exploring possibilities,” Trevor said. “Besides, this is a different situation we’re in now.” Trevor’s eyes rested on Needles. “We’ve never had a murder rap hanging over our heads before.”
Needles stared at Trevor, but he didn’t say anything.
“Even with a murder rap,” Jose said, “Frank wouldn’t run.” Jose stared right at Trevor. “But I have a theory – maybe somebody did something to Frank in the middle of the night.” Jose’s eyes were still locked on Trevor. “Somebody with a lot to gain.”
Trevor stared right back at Jose. “You trying to say something, Jose? Go ahead and spit it out.”
“Come on, you two,” Cole said. “Let’s think about this for a minute. Frank leave
s in the middle of the night without his hat or coat.”
“Or his share of the money,” Jose offered.
“Or his share of the money,” Cole repeated. “Then he walks straight from the cabin to the woods. And then his footprints just stop.”
“Maybe somebody else got him,” Trevor said. “He heard something, went out there to check it out and someone got him.”
“Have to be a bad motherfucker to take Frank,” Jose stared at Trevor.
“You mean like the bad motherfucker that tore a guy’s eyes out and stuffed him in a freezer?” Trevor answered.
Cole leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair as he exhaled a deep breath. “This shit doesn’t make any sense. There’s no sign of struggle anywhere. If somebody got to Frank, we would’ve heard something. Frank yelling. Gunshots. Something.”
“I slept like a rock,” Trevor told them.
“Me too,” Cole added. “It was like I passed out.”
Needles chuckled. They all looked at him. Needles sat back in his chair, the wood creaking. He laughed harder now. “Nobody’s going to say it, are they?” he said through his laughter.
“Needles …” Cole started.
“No, Cole,” Needles snapped, his laughter cut off suddenly. His eyes blazed with fear and insanity. “People just don’t go out in the middle of the night and walk into the woods. People don’t just disappear in mid-step. Something’s wrong here. Really wrong.”
They were all quiet for a moment. Needles took a deep breath, like he was trying to control himself and he continued. “Something took Frank. Not someone, it was some-thing.”
“Needles, don’t start with that shit again,” Cole warned.
“You guys know it’s the truth,” Needles said, almost under his breath. “You’re going to realize it before long.”
Cole got up and took his coffee cup to the kitchen. He poured another cup of coffee, spooned a few teaspoons of sugar into it and stirred it – the sounds were loud in the quiet cabin.
Trevor glanced at Needles, at Stella and David, then back at Cole. “Cole, maybe Needles is right.”
Cole turned and stared at Trevor. “There’s got to be some kind of rational explanation here,” Cole told him.