Against all odds, she’d run to the very spot Riggs had brought her to the day of their walk. She sped up even more as she headed straight for those trees.
Glancing at the ground ahead of her, Carlise felt relief racing through her veins, making her body shake almost uncontrollably. The handle to the bunker door was right there! The snow surrounding it had melted considerably, and the earth Riggs had dug up to clear the edges of the hatch was a beacon in the otherwise undisturbed forest floor.
She came to an abrupt stop, leaned over, and yanked the handle upward. To Carlise’s immense relief, it opened without any resistance whatsoever.
Sending up a heartfelt thanks to the doomsday prepper who’d installed the bunker, she quickly turned to go down the ladder.
“No!”
At the shout, Carlise looked up—and saw Susie about fifty yards away and closing in fast.
She almost didn’t recognize her friend. Her normally elegant hair was spilling out of the neat ponytail it had been in when she’d arrived at the cabin. Snow and dirt were caked all down her front after she’d face-planted into the ground.
But it was the look of loathing and fury on her face that made Carlise freeze for a split second.
How could this be her friend?
The woman whose shoulder she’d cried on when she left Tommy. Who’d listened to her deepest hopes and fears. The woman who’d laughed and cried with her, who’d supported her.
The loss of her friend was almost as painful as the throbbing of her shoulder.
More gunshots exploded, and Carlise instinctively ducked—until another noise, unfamiliar and chilling, suddenly echoed around them.
It sounded like thunder . . . but the sky was blue—there wasn’t a cloud in sight.
Reaching up for the handle of the hatch, Carlise paused for one last glance at her ex-friend.
Susie had stopped and braced herself to shoot, but she was no longer looking at Carlise. Rather, she was staring at something beyond the bunker. Her eyes were huge, and her furious expression had morphed into one of shock and fear.
Carlise had no idea what she was looking at, but there was no time to find out. Any second now, Susie would shake herself out of whatever trance she was in and try to kill her.
She slammed the door to the bunker and fumbled with the locking mechanism. It was pitch black in the bunker, but Carlise had never been so grateful to be out of the sun as she was right at that moment. She was pretty sure the door had to be bulletproof because no self-respecting prepper would build a place like this and make the mistake of not having an entrance that was able to withstand any enemies trying to get inside.
“Let me in! Holy shit, let me in!” Susie screamed from outside. Her voice was muffled, but Carlise could hear her just fine. And there was no way she was unlocking that door. If Susie thought there was a chance in hell, she was delusional.
“The mountain’s falling! Oh my God! Please, Carlise! Please! It’s coming toward me! I’m gonna be buried! Let me in, let me in, let me in!”
Carlise heard her former friend pounding on the door, but instead of responding to the absolute terror in her voice, she backed away from the hatch, slowly scooting along the floor toward the back of the bunker.
“It’s an avalanche! Can you hear me? If you don’t let me in, I’m gonna die!”
The thunder she’d heard must have been snow and ice breaking away from the mountain.
Carlise felt physically sick . . . but she couldn’t open that door.
Susie had shot her. She was bleeding, and her shoulder hurt worse than anything she’d ever felt in her life. Her ex-friend had threatened her for months, making her think she was being stalked. She’d hooked up with her ex for some insane reason, and now she had it in her head that Carlise needed to pay for dumping him. She’d fully intended to kill her and leave her body somewhere in the Maine wilderness.
Nothing made sense right now, but the one thing she knew was that if she let Susie inside that bunker, only one of them would ever come out. Since Susie had the gun, it didn’t take a genius to know it probably wouldn’t be Carlise.
It took every ounce of strength she had to ignore Susie’s increasingly desperate pleas. She heard a sound like a train barreling through the woods, and the bunker walls shook. Susie let out a piercing scream that was abruptly cut off . . .
And then, Carlise heard nothing beyond the loudest, scariest thunder continuously booming right over her head.
She half expected the door to the bunker to explode inward, letting in the tons of rocks and snow that were currently sliding down Baldpate Mountain. But the door held. The sound went on and on as the avalanche seemed to last forever.