Had I missed it? Had it rotted and fallen down in the intervening eighteen years or so since I’d been out here? Was I mistaken about where I was? If so, I was dead. The end.
No—there. There it was in all its leaning, hollow glory. The clubhouse tree. From this vantage point, it looked whole, and only when you went around to the northern side would you see a jagged split large enough to admit one person if they turned sideways and crouched. In the dark, the entrance would be almost invisible.
I careened around the side of the tree, hands fluttering against flaking bark until I felt open air. Turn, crouch, shimmy your adult body—that fits so much worse than your thirteen-year-old self—inside.
I was in.
The ability to keep my heart beating and my neurons firing for the foreseeable future depended on one thing now: if I could be quiet.
So many games we’d played here as kids. Tag, kick the can, hide-and-seek. This was the same except with much higher stakes. Hide out until you’re the last one—you get the remaining grape Popsicle at home. Stay hidden now—you get to keep your blood and organs inside you.
My breathing slowed, and I cupped a hand over my mouth and nose to muffle the sound even more. A twig snapped under my heel, quiet, but I winced. Any sound now would be a giveaway. There were no do-overs. No restart of the game.
The hollow of the tree was still damp from the spring thaw. Moisture seeped through my T-shirt, and something with too many legs skittered quickly across my neck and was gone. A limited swath of night sky was visible through the gap in the trunk. Stars skimmed the treetops. Somewhere in town, a car horn honked. Other than that, it was silent.
Minutes ticked by. Sweat cooled on my body.
Maybe the killer had given up or taken a wrong turn at the stream. Maybe the sound of the water had hidden my passage and he’d gone back toward the neighborhood. That seemed likely if he thought he’d lost me, since he’d want to vacate the area as quickly as possible in case I called the cops. And I could do just that when I got home. No reason I couldn’t let the police know I’d seen a flashlight sweeping around in the Barrens’ house when I’d gotten up to get a drink of water. Maybe they’d send someone right over and bump into whoever it was—
The stars outside the tree went away.
For a second I didn’t know what had happened. Then my guts shriveled.
He was standing directly in front of the tree, blocking my view. He was right there, close enough to touch. Facing toward or away, I couldn’t tell.
Again time slowed. Drizzling out like chilled honey. It was beyond dark in the tree. My breathing came in shallow hitches, and part of me wanted to spring forward, try tackling him. If his back was to me, I might be able to do it.
But he also had a gun.
Another dozen seconds, my legs cramping from crouching for so long.
The stars came back.
The sound of his passage drifted away. Crackling leaves, a snapping branch, then nothing.
I sagged sideways and uncoiled my legs from beneath me. The cold air soaked through my saturated jeans. I shivered.
And woke up to my teeth chattering.
The sky was beginning to gray to the east, and the stars were fading. I’d fallen asleep somehow leaning against the inside of the tree. Once the killer had moved on, my adrenaline must’ve dropped and my ability to stay awake with it. I shuddered with cold.
Outside the tree, the little valley was still. A gentle breeze nudged the treetops, stirring new leaves. I picked my way down toward the stream and followed it as quietly as I could before climbing a gentle rise through a span of old-growth trees. Maybe the guy was still waiting for me, gun cocked and pointed at my head even now as I walked. I was too cold and tired to care.
The trees thinned, then vanished completely, and suburbia took hold. My backyard. I’d come out perfectly behind my house.
Inside I stripped off my damp clothes and snagged the bourbon out of the cupboard on the way to the shower. Underneath the scalding spray, I shivered and drank from the bottle until I was warm inside and out.
After toweling off, another kind of shakes hit me. I had to sit down at the kitchen table with my elbows on my knees, head down for several minutes, before I was steady enough to make a call.
The police dispatcher asked a series of questions in a calm, nearly bored voice. Had I actually seen a person prowling near the residence? Was I sure the light was coming from inside the house? Would I be willing to make a statement if necessary? Twenty minutes later a squad car rolled up and began combing the Barrens’ yard with a spotlight. By then I’d hidden my sodden clothes in the laundry underneath a pile of blankets. An officer stepped out of the car after turning off the spotlight and disappeared around the side of the house. A few minutes later he returned and climbed back inside, then cruised slowly away, not even pausing before my place.