Page 26 of Good and Gone

“Come on now, Hailey,” he says through gritted teeth. He tries to sound friendly, but the evil seeps through. “I can smell you, princess. Let’s not make this any harder than it has to be.”

My pulse pounds in my ears. I have to breathe, but I’m afraid he’ll hear. My stomach seizes and then somersaults. It feels like a thousand butterflies taking flight at once. “Don’t be afraid now,” he says. “We can fix this. No hard feelings, okay?”

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks ferociously.

“Tell you what,” he says. “How about we make a deal?”

I feel warm and wet in the dirt beneath me and at first I think I’ve wet myself, but then I take a breath and I realize it’s worse than that. I’m laying in my own shit.

“If you come out, I promise I’ll take you home.”

I burrow my face into my knees, trying to breathe and at the same time regretting every inhale. I hear the click of the flashlight turning on.

“But you have to make me a promise in return—that you won’t tell anyone. Because if you do, I’ll kill your entire family. You hear that, Hailey?” He speaks with such contempt, with such hatred, that I believe him. “If you so much as utter a word to anyone, I’ll gut you, and I won’t stop there. That boy and little girl of yours… What’s her name…Lily? I’ll fucking cut their heads off. You hear me?”

Light sweeps under the porch. I forget about the ants and laying in my own feces and I focus on making myself small. I see him crouching on his knees. He’s a large man, though not as tall as the tentative guy.

The light from the flashlight flickers, and he pushes himself up before moving on, examining the other side of the porch. He moves from one side to the other, all the while urging me to come out. His mood shifts from anger to pleading and back, until he’s full on raging. If it weren’t for that, I’d think he’d spotted me. Maybe he has. Maybe he’s toying with me. He knows if he has to come in after me it’s going to be noisy. If anybody lives in that big house, they’re going to hear the commotion. I’ll make sure of it.

“Hailey!” he whisper-shouts. “For fuck’s sake—”

I hear footsteps above me. There’s someone in the small, rundown house above me. A light comes on. And then there’s a gruff voice saying, “Can I help you?”

“I don’t want any trouble,” the man says, and I can tell by his voice that’s exactly what he’s walked into.

“Hands where I can see them!”

“Easy, now.” The flashlight drops to the ground. “My dog got loose,” the man says. “The neighbor said he saw him wander onto your property.”

“What neighbor?” the gruff voice asks. “I ain’t got no neighbors.”

“I meant mine.”

I’m afraid the man they call“Boss” has a gun, because I think sometimes he carries one, but then my memory is fuzzy around the edges, where you don’t know what’s real and what you dreamed.

“Well, I ain’t seen no dog, so I suggest you get off my property.”

“No problem,” the man says. “But you’ll let me know if you see him. He’s big—about yea high. Brown. Harmless, except he likes to run off.”

“Sure enough.”

“Should I leave my number or—”

“I ain’t got a phone. If I find him, I’ll keep him chained up ’til you get here. You just make sure you come back in the daylight. I don’t take too kindly to people lurking about my property, ’specially at night.”

“All right. I’d appreciate that,” he says with a long, slow drawl. It’s an accent I’m not sure I’ve heard. “I’ll come back after the sun comes up. I didn’t mean any trouble.”

“And don’t be nosin’ around, you hear? Because you see, I ain’t got no phone,” the gruff voice says. “But what I do have is this here shotgun.”

18

Hailey

The man leaves, but I don’t think for a second he’s really gone. I hear the guy in the house above me shuffling about. Every so often, he walks over to the door and opens it. He just stands there for a while before slamming it shut. If he knew how dangerous the man was, he wouldn’t be so brave or stupid. I can’t quite tell. I don’t know how much time passes, but it must be at least an hour. Eventually, light filters through the slats of the porch. It’s a red-gold color that brings tears to my eyes. I don’t hear footsteps overhead anymore.

I can’t stay under here forever, not with the ants and God knows what else is lurking that I can’t see in the dark. The smell is awful on account of my waste, and if I’m going to die, I refuse to go like this. I imagine the rest of me will begin to stink and then that man will have to tear up his porch and there I’ll be, a terrible inconvenience.

It’s possible that no one would ever know. It’s equally possible that my husband and children would one day read about the manner in which I died, and I’d prefer a better ending than this. So, despite being terrified, I uncurl myself and flatten, first wiggling my fingers and my toes, then stretching my limbs. As quietly as I can manage, I flip over onto my belly. Getting out proves to be much harder than getting in. I go extra slowly on account of not wanting to make too much noise. I also don’t want to relinquish the scalpel, but slithering around in the dark with it is not exactly safe. Nor easy. I sort of push it out in front of me, losing it a few times, and finding it again.

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