Those Who Wish Me Dead Read online

  Fire might be.

  The flames rolled across the living room and drove them away from her, pushed them back toward the front door. The canister exploded in her hand then, and new needles pressed into her nerves. The shotgun was just to her left, still leaning against the couch, still loaded. She rolled to it and when she grabbed the metal barrel, it seared her palm, but she was hardly aware of the pain. Her right hand didn’t respond the way she wanted it to, didn’t seem to respond at all, so she braced the butt of the gun against her stomach and dropped her left hand to the trigger. The flames rose in a wall before her but she could see twin shadows on the other side of it. The cabin was bathed in scarlet light. She pulled the heavy trigger back with two fingers of her left hand.

  The shotgun bucked wildly and she dropped it, which was bad because she had wanted both shots, but she was on fire now and that thing that she had treasured—time—was no more.

  Roll, she thought. Roll, roll, roll.

  Common sense. A child’s knowledge. If your clothes were on fire, you rolled to put them out.

  But what did you do when everywhere around you was more fire?

  She had no answer for that, and so she continued to roll, out of the scarlet and into the black.

  They stood in the yard and watched the cabin burn.

  “You’re bleeding pretty well.”

  Jack looked at his side. Against the black shirt, the blood was hard to see; it was just added shine. He removed the shirt. A scattering of birdshot. Small-gauge shotgun, smaller load.

  “It’ll stop.”

  “I’ll go back for her.” Patrick lifted his pistol and gestured at the cabin. “Don’t know if I hit her or not. I was walking backward, she was rolling. I’ll go finish it.”

  “I think she finished it herself. And if she didn’t? Well, we’ll come for her again. Not now. Time to ride.”

  “I’d like to know it’s done.”

  “I’d like to be gone when they answer that distress call. Somebody will. And you know how I feel about this highway.”

  “I do.” Patrick was staring into the burning house.

  “You’re displeased, brother. I understand. But I’m shot. Let’s head out.”

  They walked together into the darkness and away from the orange light. The truck was a half a mile away and they covered the ground swiftly, not speaking. Jack’s breath came heavy and uneven but he did not slow his pace. When they reached the truck, he handed the keys to his brother.

  “Right or left?” Patrick asked.

  “We go right, we have to go through the gates into Yellowstone. It’s the only way.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d expect there are more police in the park. More places to close the highway too.”

  “Left is longer. All those switchbacks. Even driving fast, we’re on the road for a good while.”

  Jack nodded. “As I said, I don’t care for this highway. We’ve found ourselves in the only part of the country that has just one damned road.”

  “Call it, and call it fast.”

  “Left.”

  Patrick gunned the motor to life and turned on the lights and swung out of the gravel and back onto the asphalt. On the hill above them, the firelight flickered through the pines.

  “Havoc,” Jack said. “We are leaving havoc in our wake. Could be trouble.”

  “We’ve never left one standing before. Not like this.”

  “I doubt she’s standing.”

  “We don’t know. We need to be sure.”

  “She set herself on fire, and the fire is still burning.”

  “Regardless, they may know we’re coming now. Serbin and the boy.”

  “They may.”

  “We could leave. Call it off,” Patrick said.

  “You’d consider that?”

  Silence filled the cab and rode with them for a time.

  “Yes,” Jack said at length. “That was my feeling on it as well.”

  “We came a long way for him.”

  “We did. And we came in good health. Now I’m burned and bleeding. That leaves me even less inclined to call it off. Leaves me, in fact, completely unwilling to do so.”

  “Understood.”

  “This will bring him down, you know. Out of the mountains. He’ll have to come back for her, and he will have to bring the boy with him.”

  “Yes. And the boy will vanish again quickly. They’ll move him fast.”

  “It would seem we should be there, then.”

  “It certainly would.”

  Part Two

  Point Last Seen

  14

  The message came for him in the dead hours. Predawn, when the night sounds had dulled but the gray light of day hadn’t yet broken.

  He knew the GPS chime was bad before he opened his eyes. Middle-of-the-night phone calls scared you with possibilities. Middle-of-the-night distress calls didn’t even tease you with possibilities; they promised you the truth.

  He sat up, bumping against the plastic and showering himself with drops of the condensation that had gathered on it overnight, and fumbled in his pack for the GPS.

  It told him no details. Just that Allison had issued a distress call. When the SOS went out, it was shared with Ethan’s device as well as with the emergency responders. There were two ways to call for help on the GPS—send a message with some details, or send one with none. The whole point of the advanced unit was that it let you add those details.

  Allison hadn’t.

  He sat there looking at the GPS and tried not to imagine the scenarios in which this could happen. His breathing was slow and steady and he was on the ground, still half wrapped in his sleeping bag, and yet it felt as if he were no longer connected to the earth, as if he were drifting away from it fast, as he stared at the glowing screen that told him his wife was calling for help.

  From their home.

  “No,” he told the device reasonably. “No.”

  The device didn’t change its mind. The screen went black in his hand and he was alone in the darkness. Through the milky-white plastic, the night woods looked like something from another world. He pushed the plastic back and rose from his shelter and stood in the cold air and tried to think of what could be done. If he ran all out and left the boys behind, he could reach town in perhaps four hours. Perhaps.

  He clicked the GPS messenger back on. Sent a one-word text.

  ALLISON?

  There was no response.

  Her message would have gone to the International Emergency Response Coordination Center. An underground bunker in Texas, just north of Houston. Staffed every minute of every day, operating on an independent and backed-up electrical grid. Painstakingly designed never to fail a call.

  He sent the next message to them.

  RECEIVED DISTRESS SIGNAL. WHAT IS RESPONSE STATUS?

  Above him in a beautiful night sky an unseen satellite inhaled his Montana message and exhaled it toward Texas. The satellite would check for a response in sixty seconds.

  It felt like a very long time.

  Scattered around him on the hillside were the other shelters. He could hear one boy rolling over and another snoring. If anyone was awake and aware of him, he was silent. Ethan stared at their shelters as if he did not recognize them or even understand their purpose. Everything in the world was foreign right now.

  The chime again. He looked back down at the GPS unit.

  LOCAL AUTHORITIES ADVISED AND EN ROUTE.

  The closest local authority was going to come from Yellowstone. They’d pass through Silver Gate and Cooke City and reach his driveway. Fifteen minutes, at least. Maybe twenty. By the standards of those in the Texas bunker, that was swift. No ship would be lost at sea, no climber would be stranded on an icy peak. A fast response.

  So very fast.

  He could measure the seconds in heartbeats.

  The wind rose and the plastic shelters rustled all around him and he began to stare at them again. He did not like the way he was l
ooking at them. Did not like anything of this night or of this world. The messenger unit in his hand was silent. Heartbeat, heartbeat. Local authorities en route. Allison not answering. Heartbeat, heartbeat.

  He turned his face to the wind and then he stood motionless and waited. Above him the clouds had pulled away to the northeast and the moon was bright and the stars glittered and a satellite circled amid them, looking down on his world and ready to destroy it. Catch a signal, sling it back. Break him in a single message.

  The wind kept blowing and the moon kept shining. Time passed slow enough for him to become well acquainted with it. To make friends with the minutes. He urged them to hurry by, but they winked at him and lingered.

  Finally, a chime. The GPS claimed that only nineteen minutes had passed. He could not agree with that assessment. All that impatience, all that desperate need, but when the device finally chimed, he no longer wanted to see the message. The waiting was suddenly not so bad.

  He took his eyes off the moon with an effort and looked back at the display.

  HOUSE FIRE REPORTED. FIRST RESPONDERS ARE ON SCENE. SEARCHING FOR SURVIVORS. WE WILL ADVISE IMMEDIATELY WHEN NOTIFIED. WHAT IS YOUR CONDITION?

  Ethan dropped the GPS into the rocks and then, a few seconds later, fell onto his knees beside it.

  Searching for survivors.

  He knew already what they did not. He knew in his heart how it had come to pass and why and he knew that it all belonged to him. All belonged to one choice.

  I’ll keep him safe, he had said. And he had. The boy was safe, but back at Ethan’s home they were searching for survivors.

  “Which one of you is it?” Ethan said. His voice was as unfamiliar as all the rest of his world had become. The words came slowly but loudly.

  There were a few shifting sounds as some boys woke. Others, deep sleepers, remained still. Ethan lifted his flashlight and clicked it on and began to pan over the shelters. He saw reflected eyes diffused through plastic, saw hands raised to block the light.

  “Who is it?” he said, and this time it was a shout. “Get out here! Damn you, get out here! I need to know which one of you it is!”

  Two of them obeyed. Marco and Drew, heads poking out of shelters, fear on their faces. The others stayed inside. As if the plastic could protect them. Ethan stumbled to his feet and grabbed the nearest shelter, took the plastic in his fists and tore it away, and there was Jeff, cowering, hands held up to protect himself. The posture of helpless fear.

  The sight of him broke Ethan. He took a drunken man’s weaving steps backward, still holding the plastic balled in one hand, the flashlight in the other.

  “Guys,” he said, his voice strangled. “Guys, I’m going to need you to get up. My wife is…there’s been some trouble at my house.”

  They were all staring at him. Nobody answered. He realized for the first time that Raymond held a piece of wood in his hands like a bat.

  “My house is on fire,” Ethan said stupidly. “My house is…it was burning. It burned.”

  He dropped the tent he’d just ripped from over Jeff’s head. Breathed and looked at the moon and said, “Stop.” Very soft. Talked to himself now as he walked away from the boys to find the satellite messenger where he’d left it in the rocks. Whispered to himself.

  “Be what you tell them to be,” he said. “You need to do that now.”

  It felt like a stranger’s advice. He was detached from reality and needed to return to it fast. His whole life spent telling people how to deal with disaster, how to survive. What was the first priority? Positive mental attitude? Sure, that was the one. Okay, he could do that. She might be alive. There you go. How positive. How fucking positive.

  “Get your head together,” he whispered, and his mind whispered back, Anticipation, Ethan. Preparation, Ethan. The first rules, and you ignored them. You are prepared for people to come after the boy, but you did not anticipate how they might do that.

  He spoke louder then, as if he were teaching, and addressed the boys. “We need to…we need to do this right. Okay? We’re going to do this right. Bad start. Sorry about that start. But now let’s…let’s think. First things, guys, what are the first things? Respond. I need to respond.”

  None of them spoke. He found the GPS and picked it up and wiped the dirt from it. What is your condition? they had asked him from the bunker in Texas. He wondered how to share that in 160 characters.

  He sensed the boys were gathering behind him. Forming a tight knot. Good for them. That was the idea. They were supposed to learn to come together out here. Now he’d helped them do it. So, good for him too. Look at him go. Still teaching. His house was on fire and his wife was missing, but damn it, just look at him go.

  His hand was shaking as he typed a response message.

  IN MOUNTAINS ONLY ADULT WITH GROUP OF TEENS. PLEASE ADVISE THAT I AM RETURNING TO PILOT CREEK TRAIL AND SUPPORT IS REQUESTED.

  He looked away, back up into the night sky, and then typed a second message.

  PLEASE ADVISE ON SURVIVOR.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay, now we go.” He turned to face them. “I’m sorry. But we have to start hiking. My wife…I need to get back.”

  Marco finally broke the silence. “It’s okay, man. We’ll walk fast.”

  Ethan wanted to cry. He laughed instead. Maybe it was a laugh. Maybe it was a sob.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’m going to need to walk fast.”

  15

  Connor Reynolds was dead and Jace Wilson had risen from his grave.

  The fearless boy, the bad-attitude boy, was gone and all that remained was Jace Wilson, afraid and alone, and he knew that he would not last long.

  They had come for him. They had found him.

  He knew that he was going to die when he woke to Ethan Serbin’s wounded shout, more of a howl than a scream, demanding to know the identity of the boy responsible for unnamed crimes. Everyone was confused except for Jace.

  They had come for Jace, and they had burned Ethan’s house to the ground. Jace’s mind wasn’t on himself as they all gathered behind Ethan and began to stumble down the dark trail, headlamps bobbing and weaving. It was on Mrs. Serbin. Allison, that was her first name. Beautiful and kind and strong. A rancher’s daughter who still hired cowboys.

  She was dead now. Ethan might not know that, but Jace knew. He had seen the two men in the quarry and he had heard more about them in the days following as his parents tried to find the perfect way to hide him, before they’d decided on this place in the mountains. He knew that those men did not leave any survivors. He had been determined to be the first.

  Any hope of that was gone now.

  The group walked maybe half a mile down the trail in silence before Jace allowed himself to consider what was waiting ahead of them. He pictured their faces and heard their voices, the strange calm they spoke with as they talked of things so violent. They were here. They’d come for him.

  I wish they were dead, he thought as the first hot tear leaked from the corner of his eye. I wish they’d been with the one I saw in the water, I wish they were dead.

  And they wished he was.

  The reality of that was still hard for him to process. He understood it, always had—he was a witness and therefore he was a threat—but the idea of someone wanting to kill him was so bizarre that at times it didn’t seem real. They wish me dead. They honestly wish me dead.

  He was beginning to cry harder now and slowed his pace so that the others would not hear him. It was hard walking here even in the daylight, and in the darkness the narrow beam of the headlamp required all of your attention, so nobody saw him fall back.

  He reached up and wiped the tears away from his eyes with his right hand and watched the group pull away from him and thought of the men who would be waiting somewhere in the darkness, and then he made his decision: he needed to be alone when they found him.

  He’d hated some of the boys at the start. But as he looked at them walking ahead now, he felt sad for them,
felt like he needed to apologize, catch up to them and shout that this was his fault and they needed to let him go off on his own because he was the one they wanted, the only one, and once they had him, they would leave the others alone.

  Ethan wouldn’t accept that, though. Jace knew that, despite the anger he’d heard in the man’s voice. He would say a lot of silly things to Jace if he heard the truth, and Ethan would believe them all. Survivor mentality, all of that. He would talk of plans and backup plans and escape routes and fail-safes, and he would think that one of these would work, somehow.

  That was because Ethan had never seen them or heard them.

  Jace stopped wiping at his tears and lifted his hand to his forehead and clicked off the headlamp. He thought that the vanishing beam of light might stop them, that someone might notice the darkness had grown a little deeper. Instead, they carried on along the trail as if his light had never been a part of theirs at all.

  Jace sat down on the trail as the lights pulled away from him and he waited for what would come out of the darkness.

  They walked down the mountain in silence except for the sounds of hard breathing as the boys fought to match Ethan’s pace. He wanted to break from them and run. Once glaciers had carved the mountain on which he stood, and he understood now how time had felt in that world.

  “We good?” he said a few times. “Everybody good?”

  They muttered and mumbled and continued to struggle along the trail. He knew he needed to stop and give them a break but the idea of standing still was too terrible.

  If they could reach the Pilot Creek trail, there was the chance that ATVs could be brought up to help them. The trail was closed to motorized vehicles but maybe the police would make an exception. Maybe not, though. You had to protect your wilderness. Those who entered it were supposed to be aware of the risks.

  They’d gone just over a mile when the GPS chimed again. The boys stopped without being told. Watched him and waited. He saw a few stepping back, probably remembering the outburst that had woken them. Fearing him. He freed the GPS from the carabiner that held it to his pack and read the message.