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Authors: Bijou Hunter

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BOOK: Lost Highway
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Chapter Nine

Odessa

 

 

T
he mind can’t sit idle for long
before fighting back. I’m trapped in a room with no stimuli. The view outside
is blocked now by a wooden plank. Quill made the adjustment the morning after
his hunt. I pretend this gesture is to protect me from what’s in the woods
rather than to drive me mad.

I stumble around the small
room, examining every marking. How many trophies left behind their blood? Would
any of them find relief in knowing Tom was dead? Why did so many violent
perverts gravitate to this place? What did it say about me that I ended up here
too?

Without the sunlight through
the window, I lose track of time. Quill only visits to bring water and bread.
He doesn’t speak to me. He shows no reaction when I ask if I can come out.

Losing my appetite, I stop
eating the bread. I sit on the ground and hum any songs I can remember.
Ain’t
No Sunshine
by Bill Withers becomes stuck in my head. Even when I dream, I
hear the song and can’t forget I’m trapped.

My dreams offer no reprieve. In
every single one, I run through the woods, never finding an escape.

I notice something about Quill
during one of his visits. Despite not knowing how long I’ve been in the room, I
do know it hasn’t been long enough for the scratches on his face to heal
completely. However, after a few visits, his cheeks reveal not a single mark.

Stunned by how the deep cuts
are completely gone, I reach for his face. He snatches my hand mid-air and
frowns at me.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Why?”

“Do you want strangers touching
you?”

“You touch me.”

Quill blinks a few times as if
he hadn’t considered the idea he needed to follow the same rules. I doubt he
mulls over many things. He seems more reactionary than analytical.

“If you grab me, and I feel
under threat, my instincts dictate I kill you.”

“That would be a real shame,” I
mutter, yanking my hand free. “Imagine all of the beautiful experiences I’d
miss of staring at the same walls.”

Quill doesn’t smile. I don’t
know if he’s capable of such a gesture. My mind can imagine him spending a
lifetime with only frowns and blank stares.

After he leaves me alone again,
I think about his wounds. My leg still throbs, but he’s completely healed.
Somehow, this revelation inspires me to escape.

At some point over the last few
days, weeks, eons, in my cell, I noticed the cameras. Two of them face the
mattress while a third is pointed at the bathroom. Though Quill can see me, he
makes noise before opening the door. His movements are typically silent, but
the tray and cup clink when he reaches for the lock. If I can time his arrival
and my move to behind the door perfectly, I might get the drop on him.

I sit on the mattress and stare
at the door for hours. Calming my breathing, I wait for the right moment. If it
doesn’t come the first time he enters, I’ll wait until the next. Or the time
after that. In my current situation, time and patience are luxuries I have in
spades.

During his next visit, Quill
manages to open the door without making a single noise. I wonder if he’s
figured out my plan. He shows no sign of knowing I want to lock him in my room
and make a run for freedom. Of course, Quill’s face remains a puzzle. Even if
he were preparing to kill me, I doubt I’d know it.

The next time Quill arrives,
I’m in the bathroom. Now I’m convinced he knows my plan and is timing his
visits accordingly.

I don’t give up. What else do I
have to do than plan an escape?

All day and night, I wait for
him to open the door. My plan repeats in my head. Sooner or later, I’ll make my
move. What happens afterward is best left unplanned. I don’t know what is
outside the cabin or how to return to the highway. The first step to answering
those questions is escaping this room.

I lose track of how many visits
Quill makes before he creates enough noise to alert me in time. The moment I
hear him at the door, I bolt from my spot and nearly lose my footing from
sitting for so long. I’m ready, though, and I reach the door as it opens and
blocks me from his view.

Only a second passes before I
slam the door into him and knock him away from the entrance. I rush around the
door and yank it shut. I’ve gotten it nearly closed when his hand grips the
inside handle.

A shot of panic passes over me,
and I nearly let go. My instincts take over. When I release my side of the
knob, and the door flies toward Quill, he loses his balance. Though he stumbles
for only a heartbeat before reaching again for the door, it’s all the time I
need. His face is the last thing I see before the door shuts, and I slide the
lock into place.

Quill’s final expression is one
of intense rage.

Staring at the lock, I can’t
believe my plan actually worked. I outwitted the enigma.

Quill doesn’t struggle against
the lock or turn the knob once he realizes he’s trapped inside. Instead, he’s
silent, which scares me more than any rage I could imagine.

I hurry down a hallway toward
the front door. My feet are bare because he’d have noticed if I wore shoes.
Before walking outside, I stop in the kitchen and search for a weapon. Long
shiny knives sit in a cutlery block on the counter. Grabbing the longest, I
head for the porch.

If I believed Quill couldn’t
free himself, I might take my time searching the house for a phone or supplies.
Even without knowing how he’ll break out, I sense he’s already working on his
escape.

Standing outside the front door,
I scan the woods for movement. The porch feels grainy under my feet, but I
don’t look down. I keep my gaze focused ahead.

I take one step down from the
porch and then a second. My heart beats wildly in my chest, and I steady my
shaking hands. The feel of the dirt under my feet erases my fear. The wind
warms my skin, and I shudder at the sensation of being outside. Locked up for
too long, I look upward to allow the sun to warm my face. This simple gesture
changes everything.

Rather than an open sky above,
I discover a mirror image of my world. I crouch instinctively, feeling as if
the other cabin will tumble down on me. The trees around my cabin nearly touch
the ones on the other side.

I sit on the steps and stare
upward, unable to look away. Did I lose my mind waiting so long to escape? Had
Quill drugged the food? Was I still hallucinating in the closet?

After some time, I realize the
world above isn’t a mirror image at all. I spot a Winnebago and cars parked
near the other world’s cabin. A large family carries bags inside. Kids play
ball. None of them see me except a dog who stares upward and barks.

I finally glance around to see
how far the worlds connect, but the trees block my view outside of the small
clearing around the cabin.

Standing up, I walk inside and
sit on the couch. Escaping feels like a dream from long ago. I imagined
returning to the highway and hitching a ride to safety. Even if I spent my life
in prison for killing John, I’d be away from here.

Unfortunately, there’s no
“away” any longer.

Chapter Ten

Quill

 

 

O
dessa’s final look before
slamming the door shut on me is one of surprise. I’m startled by her strength
after days of appearing more and more dazed. I watched her on the monitors and
waited for signs of her unraveling sanity. Despite her passive demeanor the
last few days, Odessa looked quite lucid when she locked me in her room.

Tom showed me a secret door in
the wall of the trophy’s bedroom. He was very proud of his additions to the
cabin. I wasn’t nearly as impressed as he hoped, but his ingenious efforts do
help me escape.

Having never been used, the
door sticks when I push on it. Only a hard kick breaks through the sealed
hinges. I crawl into the tight opening, having trouble wedging my shoulders
into the space.

Tom was quite a bit smaller
than my six foot five frame. I struggle in the tunnel, becoming stuck more than
once before tearing through the outside exit. Once I grip the sides of the
opening, I yank my large build through the small doorway only feet from the
bedroom’s one window.

Shaking out my arms, I focus on
catching Odessa before she stumbles into one of my traps. I run around the
front of the cabin and scan the woods for which direction she might take. She’s
a simple woman and likely ran straight ahead.

I return to the cabin to
collect my weapons. There on the couch, I discover Odessa. She looks at me when
I enter, but makes no effort to flee or fight back despite the knife in her
lap.

“You looked up,” I say, sitting
in the green chair.

“What is this place?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who are the people in the
other cabin?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do they know we’re here?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

“The answer to what you really
want to know.”

Odessa stares at me, and I see
her struggling against tears. “Tell me.”

“There’s no escape.”

“How can you know that when you
don’t know anything else?”

“Tom told me.”

Shaking her head, Odessa sighs.
“How could he know?”

“He looked for an escape for a
decade. Or so he claimed.”

“So you don’t know.”

“I know enough not to waste
time searching for a lie.”

“What about the highway?”

“That’s where people enter.
There’s no exit.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve searched up and down the
highway.”

“There was a town before I
merged onto the highway. Can we walk to it?”

“It’s not there. The highway
ends.”

“How can it just end?”

“You can walk along the highway
for maybe twenty minutes before a wall of darkness stops you. I’ve tried both
directions.”

Odessa’s eyes flash around the
room as she frantically searches for a logical end to her predicament.

“What happens if you pass
through the darkness?”

“You are in darkness. After a
minute, something pulled at my flesh. I turned back before it tore me apart.”

“What if you kept going? Maybe
if you ran into the darkness, you could reach the other side before you died.”

“Or maybe you’d get lost in the
darkness.”

“I want to try.”

“You will need to reach the
highway without a Death Dealer killing you. Then you will need to walk along
the highway for miles without a Death Dealer killing you. If you take too long,
you’ll be out in the dark when the wolves hunt. Assuming you survive all of
those obstacles, you are free to walk into the darkness and hope to pop out on
the other side. Though I should point out how you don’t know if what’s on the
other side is any better than what’s on this one.”

Odessa shakes her head,
refusing to allow reality to dissuade her old thinking. “I drove on the highway
until I crashed. I didn’t get dropped here by an alien ship. I drove here. If
there’s a way in, there’s a way out.”

“You are assuming standard
rules work in the Lost Highway.”

“Don’t you want to try?”

“I already did.”

Odessa looks at the knife in
her hand before setting it on the table. She leans her head on the back of the
couch and cries quietly. I suspect I should comfort her, but niceties didn’t
save the others, so I remain where I am.

“What are Death Dealers?” she
asks in a quiet, resigned voice.

“We are.”

“We?”

“You, me, Tom, his trophies.
Everyone here. That’s what Tom called them. I saw no reason to give them a new
name.”

“How did you get here?”

“I drove.”

“Where were you going when you
ended up on the highway?” she asks.

“I was heading to the Lost
Highway. Weren’t you?”

“No.”

“Why take it?”

“I don’t know. I was curious.”

Her answer startles me. I’d
never considered anyone accidentally making their way into this place.

Wiping her eyes, Odessa asks,
“Why would you come here?”

“I heard about this place and
wanted to see it. I heard people disappeared, and killers roamed the woods. I
wanted to hunt those who hunted others.”

“Why?”

“Why does a man hunt a deer?
For the challenge. Hunting violent humans in this terrain intrigued me.”

Odessa studies me. “Are you
insane?”

“I don’t know, but I doubt it.”

“You killed people before you
came here.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of people?”

“Whoever they assigned me to
kill.”

“Who assigned you?”

“I told Mary all of this, and
she died. I’m unsure whether I want to waste the time of sharing my life story
with someone who will soon be dead.”

“Who’s Mary?”

“The last person I brought to
the cabin.”

“How many have you brought
here?”

“Three before you.”

“How did Mary die?”

I recall the crazed expression
on Mary’s face the day I ended her life. She hadn’t meant anything to me, yet I
still resented wasting time on someone I couldn’t keep around.

“The Highway changed her. She
became feral and attacked me. I don’t know if she meant to kill me, but my
instincts kicked in, and I killed her.”

Odessa doesn’t miss a beat
before asking, “What about the people before her?”

“The other woman was named
Rachel or Rachelle. I can’t remember. She cut her throat out there on the porch
while screaming about birds. I don’t recall the man’s name. He was a short time
after Tom died. He wanted to hunt with me, and I let him until he began eating
the Death Dealers we caught. I had to put him down.”

“Is that why you lock me up? Do
you think I’ll go crazy and eat you?” Odessa asks, and I spot a slight smile on
her beautiful face.

“The Highway turns people
feral.”

“What about Tom? He sounds evil
but also like he wasn’t crazed.”

“I initially thought the cabin
kept him and me safe, but the others were here when they lost control. I don’t
know why some remain sane and others don’t.”

“Did Tom build this cabin?”

“No. It’s here because it’s
here in the other world. Why else would we have electricity, running water, and
occasional TV reception?”

“Who are the people in the
pictures in the hallway?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always
assumed they were the people in the other cabin. This place exists because it
was built in the other place.”

“Did Tom want to be here like
you do?”

“I don’t know. He lied about
how he arrived here. His lips tightened when he lied. It was his tell.”

“What if I don’t go feral and
try to eat you?”

“I suppose you can come out of
the room. Though I’ve left a large hole in your wall so locking you inside
might prove difficult.”

“The sun is going down,” Odessa
says, turning on the couch and placing her feet on the ground. “Will the wolves
come in through the hole?”

“They’re too large. The ones I
saw eat Tom’s body were at least four hundred pounds. We should keep the door
locked tonight in case something else comes inside.”

“What else is there?”

“I don’t know.”

Odessa rolls her eyes at my
answer, and I’m surprised by her demeanor. I expected more tears or ranting
after her discovery. The others refused to accept what they saw. Mary cried a
lot and begged me to wake her up. The man said he was insane and locked up
somewhere. He thought this place was a fantasy, so he embraced it without
mercy. I can’t recall the other woman’s reaction. She wasn’t here long or
hadn’t proved all that memorable.

If Odessa goes insane and I’m
forced to put her down, I hope to remember her for a long time.

BOOK: Lost Highway
12.47Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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