Chapter 3 - Into the Cold Night
The air outside felt like ice against my bare skin. I was wearing only a thin sweater and leggings; Emma was in her cotton pajamas. We sprinted down the front steps, our feet flying over the damp concrete driveway.
Our house sat on a sprawling two-acre lot surrounded by dense pine woods, a few miles outside the Portland suburbs. The nearest neighbor was a quarter-mile down a winding, unlit gravel road. The night was pitch-black, swallowed by a thick mist that crawled off the Columbia River.
"Mama, my feet," Emma whimpered, her voice cracking from the cold.
"I know, baby, I know. Just a little further," I urged, lifting her into my arms. She was heavy, but the terror pumping through my system made her feel weightless.
I looked back at the house. The front door was wide open, casting a long rectangular block of yellow light onto the lawn. Suddenly, a figure appeared in the doorway. The silhouette was sharp, framed by the bright interior lights.
He saw us.
"Rachel!" he roared, and this time, there was no attempt to sound like Tom. It was a guttural, furious shout that echoed off the trees.
I didn't answer. I turned and sprinted toward the tree line. The gravel road was too open; if he had a car parked nearby, he could easily run us down. The woods were dangerous, dark, and thick, but they offered concealment.
We broke through the brush, pine needles and sharp twigs scratching at my ankles. The darkness wrapped around us instantly. I stumbled over a exposed root, nearly dropping Emma, but managed to catch my balance against a rough trunk.
Behind us, the sound of crashing brush signaled that he had followed us into the forest. He didn't have a flashlight, or if he did, he wasn't using it. He was navigating by sound.
"Emma, we have to be completely quiet," I breathed, sliding down behind a massive, rotting cedar log. I pulled her into my lap, wrapping my sweater around her shivering frame as best I could.
We lay there in the dirt, pressed against the damp wood, listening.
The forest was alive with noise—the wind rustling the canopy, the distant rush of the river—but beneath it all were the heavy, deliberate footsteps of a man searching.
"I know you're out here," his voice drifted through the trees, eerie and disembodied. "You can't run far in the dark, Rachel. Think about the girl. She's freezing."
I pressed my hands over Emma’s ears so she wouldn't hear him. My phone was still in my pocket. I pulled it out, shielding the bright screen with my body. No service. The dense canopy and the rural location always made reception spotty, but tonight of all nights, the signal bar was a mocking, empty outline.
May you like
Then, the footsteps stopped.
He was close. Very close. I could hear the faint, wet crunch of moss breaking under a heavy boot just on the other side of our log. My heart stopped. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying to a God I hadn't spoken to in years, waiting for a hand to reach over the wood and drag us out into the open.
