Alone in a Cabin

by Leanne W. Smith

  Did I just undress a stranger?

  She could hear him grunting and working to get his pants off on the other side of the door, so it must have been happening. Maggie looked down at her hands, remembering the cold of his skin, the ice in his shoes and socks. He was talking to himself on the other side of the door, but she couldn’t make out the words.

  In a moment of panic, Maggie feared he would pull the tub over. But surely it was weighted enough by the water to support his heavy lean against it. Finally, she heard a splash and knew he’d rolled over the side. She pressed her ear to the door to make sure he wasn’t drowning. Presently, the sloshing of the water stilled and Maggie heard a clear “ahhhh.”

  That’s when she tiptoed across the hall to the bedroom and slid Cal’s gun case out from under the bed. With trembling hands she unsnapped the case cringing at the loud pops it made. She took the gun out then looked for a place to hide it. Under the pillow didn’t seem especially clever, but Maggie couldn’t think of any better place so she tucked it there and went to check on the soup.

  Soon she heard more water running.

  * * *

  Canon wasn’t a dreamer. Sometimes work crept into his nighttime thoughts, but dreams? Hardly ever. That one from back in August had lingered in his mind because it was so rare.

  This one started with him in the woods helping Tim Drexler up the snow-covered bank. Then he was in an unfamiliar woods. Instead of helping Tim, he watched another man—a thinner man—dragging a body up a bank. The body was a man on the ground who wasn’t dead yet, but soon would be if he didn’t get in from the cold. He’d been knocked in the head with a fallen branch, knocked in the head by the thin man dragging him.

  How did Canon know all this? He just knew. Dreams ran that way. He was a silent observer, watching. He may not have seen the thin man strike the other one down, but in his dream he knew this had happened—knew it with conviction.

  Canon watched a killer disposing of a body.

  * * *

  Maggie watched the snow still falling outside the kitchen window and tried to get her heightened nerves to calm down. Then she went from the kitchen to the front windows to study the man’s tracks wondering if he had made the noise she heard before falling asleep. If so, why stay out there? She couldn’t make sense of it.

  There wasn’t a single track around the house that she could see. The man must have come up the dirt road, but the white blanket outside was undisturbed…pristine. The snow was falling hard, but it didn’t seem possible it would have fallen hard enough to cover the route he had taken in so short a time.

  She went back to the kitchen, pulled out a frying pan and assembled his sandwiches. Once they were searing she picked up the phone to call Mr. Thompson. As it rang, she heard the water drain, surprised the frozen man didn’t stay in the bath longer. Or was Maggie not keeping good track of time? The clock on the microwave said 2:36.

  * * *

  Canon watched as the killer strained, pulling the body up the wooded hill, leaving a deep swath in the snow. Canon was a mist that floated behind, leaving no tracks of his own.

  When the thin man finally reached the top of the embankment—the top of a ridge—he stopped to catch his breath and look back down the hill. Canon followed his gaze. A cabin lay nestled in a clearing below, soft light flickering in a window. He couldn’t see inside.

  The man on the hill began pulling again, hauling the body over the edge, shoving it hard, sending it rolling down a ravine. Canon watched until the spiraling body came to rest below, then watched the man reach down to pick up a handful of snow, using it to wash his hands. His breath came in hot vapors. The killer started back down the hill. Canon followed.

  As they got closer to the cabin, Canon could see that the window was steamed—clouded—but light flickered on the other side as if made by the dance of a candle. A woman was in there bathing—a dark-haired woman—the same dark-haired woman Canon had seen the last time he dreamed. He could not explain how he knew this.

  Then Canon was inside Ollie Thompson’s cottage. The old man was drunk. Of course he was, it was snowing. Empty beer cans littered the place.

  Ollie’s phone rang, but the old man couldn’t hear it. Canon tossed fitfully, his hand reaching for the phone. The dark-haired woman was in trouble. Ollie was closest, but Ollie couldn’t help her.

  Canon’s breath grew short. He reached for the phone again but his hands wouldn’t work. He couldn’t pick up the beer cans either. He couldn’t wake Ollie. He couldn’t see the scanner. He couldn’t help the woman. His hip radio wouldn’t come off the set.

  Canon wanted to yell—to shake the old man with his fists. Hadn’t they had enough of this? Would Ollie not ever be over his grief? But even as Canon cursed the old man, he understood. Grief is a ghost that never leaves your mind.

  Then Canon woke, the sheets of his bed soaked in sweat.

  * * *

  Maggie counted six rings, but Mr. Thompson never picked up. When she heard the knob on the bathroom door twist, she hung up the phone and reached for the spatula. As she turned off the burner she heard steps in the hall.

  There he stood, the mysterious man, a towel wrapped around his waist, everlasting scrolled across his chest. “My hands work.” He flexed them to show her. Blood dripped below the towel down his injured leg. He followed her eyes and saw it. “Sorry. I didn’t have a bandage.”

  As he looked around for something besides the cloth at his waist to blot the blood, Maggie pulled off a wad of paper towels and handed them to him.

  “My clothes were wet with snow,” he explained.

  “Come eat and I’ll find something to wrap that wound.” Maggie had a first aid kit in the trunk of her car, but maybe there was one in this cabin.

  Instead of sitting at the table while she checked, the man picked up one of the sandwiches, devoured it in four quick bites, then picked up his soup bowl and sipped from the rim as he followed her to the bathroom.

  Maggie checked every cabinet—no bandages.

  “I have a first aid kit in my car.” She scooped up his clothes and stepped past him to the dryer to pitch them in and start it running. Then she stepped past him again to get the keys from her purse in the bedroom.

  A man wrapped in a towel is in my cabin. ‘Everlasting’ on his chest. I’m not sure this is really happening.

  As Maggie reached for her coat the man’s hand was suddenly on her wrist. Her skin was already pricking from the way he had followed her. Now he had her by the arm. When Maggie had brought him inside, the man had seemed so helpless. He wasn’t helpless now.

  She went still.

  6

  "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?... Search me, God, and know my heart…lead me in the way everlasting." Excerpts from Psalm 139, NIV

  “You’ll come back, won’t you?” he asked.

  “Of course.” Maggie’s heart rapped hard against the cavity of her chest. “I’m just getting the first aid kit.” She looked down at her purse, wondering if she should take it with her, make a run for it. But the weather didn’t lend itself to a hasty exit, plus…Maggie felt strange, like a fog had moved into her mind, like she was still half asleep despite the events of the night.

  The man smiled and let Maggie’s wrist go. She could still feel the urgency in his fingers, though, as she walked through the living room. He stopped at the dining table and finally picked up the spoon for his soup.

  Perhaps she was over-reacting. The man might simply feel needy or frightened to think she would leave him. Still, it was an odd feeling to open the door and walk out of the cabin. What if the man closed and locked the door? Maggie had her car key. If he did, she would make that exit, hasty or not.

  I’ll be okay.

  An icy blast met her on the porch. Thick snow swirled. There must have been four inches on the ground by now. Twice going down the steps Maggie caught herself on the rail.

  Slowly—gingerly—she made her way out to the ca
r, popped the trunk and grabbed the first aid kit. Tom had insisted she keep the kit in her car, but she had never once used it. Maggie wasn’t even sure what was in there.

  The biting snow stung her cheeks. It was colder now than when she had gathered the wood. No wonder the man had nearly been frozen. How long had he been out here? Where was his car? And why were there no tracks? It was as if he had materialized on the porch.

  If Mr. Thompson’s house wasn’t so far down the road Maggie would have made a slog for it. Or was Mr. Thompson even home? Could he have gotten caught by the weather on a trip to town? Maggie hoped not. That would mean she was truly alone with the man in her cabin.

  For how long?

  Maggie made her way back to the porch steps clutching the kit to her chest. The man watched her from the door and held it open as she came inside, helping to brush snow from her shoulders and hair.

  For the first time Maggie thought about how she must look. She hadn’t expected to see anyone. No makeup. Hair piled loosely on her head. When she pulled off her coat and boots she pulled out the tie that held her hair, shaking snow and ice to the floor in front of the fire.

  She felt the man watching her as she tied it back up.

  “Longer than I imagined,” he said.

  Maggie wasn’t sure if he meant her hair, or the time it took her to get the first aid kit.

  The man shivered and pulled a fleece blanket off the quilt rack to wrap around his shoulders, pointing to the dancing flames. “I put another log on. And added the wet blankets to the dryer.”

  Maggie heard the hum of the appliance. “You need some clothes. I have a pair of sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt. I’m sorry I didn’t think about it before.” She set the kit on the table. “I’ll patch that hole in the leg of your jeans if I can find some thread.”

  “I’d be grateful.” The man smiled again. It was nice, his smile, though his front teeth were crooked.

  Maggie went to get her largest shirt and sweats, both black. He didn't follow her this time. Coming back, she laid the clothes on the table in front of him and opened the first aid kit. He pulled a chair around for her then reached for another to prop his wounded leg. The soup and sandwiches were gone.

  The wound, just above his right knee, was a deep gash that looked like it was made by a sharper object than a piece of wood. But Maggie didn’t question him about it.

  “What is your name?” The man’s eyes bore into her. “I always like to know the name of a woman who undresses me.” He grinned when Maggie looked up.

  How many women had undressed him?

  “Maggie. Raines.”

  “Short for Margaret, or Margarite?”

  “Margaret.”

  He stuck out his hand. “I’m Zeke, Maggie. Short for Ezekiel.”

  Maggie put her hand firmly in his and smiled. “Good to see your hands working, Zeke.” She wasn’t sure she really meant it, but it seemed polite to say.

  He hesitated in letting her hand go.

  She reached for a bottle of Peroxide. “On the chance you still have debris in the wound.”

  “Do it,” he said.

  Maggie doused several cotton balls and cleaned the wound, dabbing it lightly at first, until he pressed on her hand. “You don’t have to be gentle with me, Maggie. Not now that I’m thawed out.”

  “It could use stitches,” she said.

  “It’ll be fine.”

  Maggie poured Peroxide in the bottle’s cap and dripped it into each cut until the bubbling stopped. Then she opened three large gauze pads, smeared them with Neosporin, and pressed them over the wounds. Next she took a roll of gauze and wrapped it around his leg to hold the cut skin together, and so the bandages wouldn’t come loose. She cut the end of the gauze and tucked it into a fold. “I’m not a nurse by profession.”

  “Could have fooled me. Looked like you know what you’re doing. You have kids, Maggie?”

  She nodded. “Twins.”

  “How old?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Twenty-six! Did you have them when you were ten?”

  Maggie blushed and repacked the kit. “I’m not even wearing makeup.”

  “You should never wear makeup. Shouldn’t tie that hair up either.”

  Her cheeks flushed again. What am I, a blushing girl? Was I fishing for that compliment? Maggie held up the kit. “I’m going to put this in the bathroom.”

  She stepped down the hall, set the container on a shelf, then went to the bedroom to put her key back in her purse and get him the Tylenol. As Maggie’s hand closed over the bottle she glanced at the side table where she remembered she left her cell phone. She ought to text Robbie and Cal about what happened.

  But her phone wasn’t there. Maggie’s heart skipped a beat. She lifted the pillow where she had hidden the gun. It was gone, too.

  Maggie’s mind and body went numb. She stood still, trying to think what she should do. A floorboard creaked behind her. She turned. Zeke knew she knew the gun was gone, she could read it in his eyes.

  He had donned the t-shirt and sweat pants and the fleece blanket was wrapped around his shoulders again. “We should probably talk, Maggie.”

  7

  “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” Marcus Aurelius

  Maggie wasn’t a screamer…wasn’t quick to excitement. She killed her own bugs, set her own mousetraps (that first year of college, renting an old house with three other girls—mice were never a problem living with Tom, of course), and once when grease in a pan on the stove caught fire, she calmly grabbed the handle, set the pan in the sink and used a box of baking soda to douse the flames. Just like they tell you to.

  On the inside Maggie’s blood could boil or freeze, and on the outside she would look the same—unfazed, collected.

  She neither flinched nor blinked as Zeke leaned in and put his mouth close to her ear. “While we’re in the bedroom…” but a chill did trickle down her spinal cord, “…do you have an extra pair of socks?”

  Maggie, conscious the chill had landed and settled in her hip joints, stepped around him to the end of the bed. She lifted the lid of the cedar chest, pulled out the first pair of socks she saw—fuzzy, with stripes of pink and blue—and laid them in his outstretched hand.

  “Thank you.” He put them on and followed her down the hall. The pants were short on him, gathered several inches above his ankles, so he needed the socks. Cool air skimmed the wooden floors of a cabin, especially on a bone-chilling night like this one. “How about that coffee now?” he asked as they passed the kitchen.

  Maggie’s hands remained steady as she opened the cabinet. “Decaf or regular?”

  “Decaf. I don’t know about you, but I could use a good night’s rest.”

  He was planning to stay then? Where will he sleep?

  Maggie’s mind remained numb as she measured beans into the grinder and pushed the button. “How many cups?”

  “Only one for me, thanks.”

  She put two rounded spoonfuls into the basket and poured water in the carafe, then stood by the coffee maker waiting to see if he had more instructions. He watched her. She couldn’t read his eyes, but thought she detected a note of disappointment. Or was it sadness?

  Will he kill me? Rape me? Where did he come from? What is he doing here? Talk about bad timing for a week alone in a cabin. Maggie had chosen this one for its light. And now the darkest cloud since the day Tom told her about Bethany had formed just over the roof.

  Tom and Bethany are the reason I’m here.

  Ripple effects.

  Maggie rubbed her forehead. Where was Mr. Thompson? Would she get another opportunity to call him? And if she did, would he answer? Should she run out of the house and take her chances in the snow and ice?

  She opened the refrigerator door for the Half and Half. “Cream? Sugar?”

  Maggie had saved a few drops of white wine to add to a salad dressing. Her eyes landed on the bottle. If I grab that
Chardonnay, could I smash it against the counter and use the jagged edges to fend him off? Tactics like that seemed to work in the movies.

  “Neither,” he said.

  He used words like ‘neither.’ Said ‘thank you.’ Had teased her not to take advantage of him by the tub. He was docile at first, helpless, seemingly frightened when she went out to the car. Maggie kept trying to wrap her head around the changes, the strangeness of this night.

  When she closed the door to the refrigerator and turned back to the counter, she noticed the knife block. Empty. All the knives were gone.

  A slight tremor started in her hands as she filled two mugs with coffee—hers with added cream—and handed him one. Zeke’s eyes lingered on the tremor, but he didn’t comment on it, just nodded his head toward the living room.

  * * *

  Canon was asleep again…dreaming again. Same dream. Same players.

  The man who pulled the body up the hill was now standing in an all-white bathroom. Canon still couldn’t get a good look at his face. All he could see was the dark-haired woman undressing the man. Then she was undressing Canon, unfastening the buttons on his shirt.

  Her slender hands—beautiful hands—were now tending to Canon’s wounds, pouring Peroxide on a bandage, laying it over his chest.

  How did she know?

  Canon reached for her. She was in his arms. But it was no longer the dark-haired woman. It was Rita, red curls pinned up.

  When Canon looked past Rita, who’d grown limp in his arms, he could see the white bathroom in the distance…the man walking out, then into a bedroom, slipping a gun from beneath a pillow the color of newly spilled blood…picking up a cell phone…removing knives from a block.

  * * *

  Maggie and Zeke walked in and sat at opposite ends of the red sofa. She remembered that last visit with Tom. Anger had fueled her, helped her get out of the house. Could she summon enough fury to escape this man’s clutches? Fear and fury, it was suddenly clear to Maggie, didn’t mix well. Fear presently ruled. Fear had the upper hand.