The Break-Up Retreat(79)

“What do you know about her?”

“I know you fired her, and then threatened her. Those little notes you have been sending to her drove her to closing her new practice and moving. That sounds like plenty good enough motivation to want to get back at you.”

“I never—what?” Martina asks.

Lightning flashes outside the window, temporarily illuminating the small room in harsh black-and-white.

“Fuck,” I breathe. “That scared me. Whatever. Can you please take your phone and call the police. Tell them to send someone. Anyone. Even if the regular cars can’t get through the flooding, they must have something. A fire truck. A tank. Anything.”

Martina shakes her head slowly, as though her head is on a hinge.

“If the electricity is out, that means the landline is down.” Her voice sounds strangled. “And the signal booster, too. We won’t have any reception.”

“So . . .” I don’t finish my sentence.

We’re stuck.

No one is coming.

“Shit,” I whisper.

The wind is making the walls shake. For a second, I feel like the room is beginning to spin.

But then I hear it.

All the way on the other side of the corridor.

The front door, opening slowly.





Chapter 44


I freeze.

I feel, more than see, Martina straightening up, sense her about to call out, and I move quicker than I would have thought possible; I push my hand over her mouth, and she makes a small, shocked noise, her breath warm against the palm of my hand.

“No,” I whisper.

She tries to protest, move her face away from my hand, but I look around frantically, searching for a way out of the room.

The window is too high up, and too small. It’s possible Martina could squeeze through it, but there’s no way to get her up there.

The bedrooms. The windows in the staff bedrooms are small, but they might be big enough. It would be a bit of a jump, but not bad enough to hurt either of us, given that we stick the landing. And Sandra’s bedroom is the closest one to us on the right-hand side; we can sneak in there, wake her up quietly, and get her out with us.

Still keeping my hand over Martina’s mouth, I peek out through the door. I don’t see anyone in the corridor, yet, the long, dark tunnel still empty.

Even as I look down it, I feel the taste of adrenaline on my tongue, the tingling of danger in my skin.

We don’t have more than a few seconds. We have to go.

“Turn your flashlight off, and be quiet,” I order Martina, hardly more than an exhalation, and then I remove my hand from her arm and open the door, quickly but silently.

I can hear footsteps from the small foyer. It’s a wet sound, and a heavy one.

Any moment now, I’ll see them again. That silhouette.

Shadow made flesh, come back to haunt me.

I can’t move too quickly, or they’ll hear me.

I pull Martina with me, praying with every breath she’ll listen, that she won’t decide it’s gone too far, that she’ll recognize what’s happening. With every passing microsecond, I expect to hear her voice behind me.

We’re over here! Who is it?

I let go of her and push down the door handle to Sandra’s room.

It yields.

When the door swings open, I dive in through it, and Martina follows. I swing around and close it behind her. The click sounds like thunder. I can only pray it couldn’t be heard from the foyer.

The room is dark, so very dark. Through the window, the outside looks like a biblical punishment, the forest swaying as one, as though in a trance, some dark and horrible ritual, distorted by the rain over the windowpane. The whining from the wind pushing its way through the wood sounds like the crying of an infant.

But that’s not what catches my attention.

It’s the smell.

It’s ammonia, and something else. Something thick, and sweet, and horrible. Outside, it was possible to mistake it for illness; in here, it’s everywhere, coating every surface. Unmistakable.

I’d know it even if I hadn’t ever smelled it before. I know it the way I know the smell of air, or water.

No.

Martina has pushed her hand over her nose, and her eyes are bulging out of her head. I can hear footsteps coming down the corridor, now. Slow and steady, with all the time in the world.

I hear it as though I’m underwater.

Because it doesn’t matter anymore.

Now, looking at the bed, I see what I couldn’t see through the window. The figure under the covers looks so very small. Not a person, anymore, but a thing.

The covers are pulled up over her head. Only that little tuft of hair sticking out.

But, oh, the unnatural stillness of it.

The silence of it.

I begin to walk over to the bed, but Martina catches me by the arm, shaking her head. Her eyes are full of tears, her face so pale it looks like a mask, her skin like wax.

The steps stop outside the door. I can feel the other breathing, outside, as though in sync with my own, with Martina’s.

All of us, stuck in this strange unity. The horrible intimacy of expectation.

Then that sound, again. They have walked into the storage space.

I shake off her hand, and Doctor Martina, crying, now, tries to shake her head, grab onto me, again, but it’s no use.