He took a quick look at his captor, who appeared lost in thought, the wrinkles on his forehead so deep and bunched that they looked almost fake, like a movie prop or a mask you wore on Halloween.
Zach turned away.
A small garage, set apart from the main structure, opened away from the two of them and onto a gravel driveway that curved around a stand of trees in the distance and disappeared. Zach wondered about that garage, about what kinds of things might be inside. Shovels, rakes, brooms, the same kinds of things Zach and his mom had in their own garage, probably, but maybe also something more useful. An ax, or (dare he hope?) a machete or even a shotgun. He knew lots of people in these parts kept guns around the house. The mountains had bears, mountain lions, wolves—you had to be prepared, or at least some people thought you had to. Whether or not Zach could have pointed a gun at anybody and pulled the trigger, he had no idea, but he guessed if there was ever a time to find out, this was it.
He chewed his lower lip. If he could just get a look inside. Maybe he’d find nothing more helpful than a spare tire or a box of old clothes, but you never knew.
He formed half a dozen plans in his head but eventually gave up on them all. Each required the ability to outrun the maniac, and Zach had already proved himself unable to do that on more than one occasion. He didn’t see any way around it; unless and until the situation changed, the garage was simply off limits. He’d have to wait.
Davy made a grunting sound, and although it sounded like the kind of noise you made if you were upset about something, the look on the man’s face seemed more like confusion.
What a weirdo.
Zach didn’t exactly have telescopes for eyes, but when eye exam time rolled around at school, he could always read every letter of the bottom line without squinting or anything. One of the nurses had told him he had a pilot’s eyes, and Zach had thought that was pretty cool. But despite his amazing peepers, through the reflected daylight and from such a distance, Zach couldn’t be sure if the windows were curtained, and he certainly couldn’t see into them. Still, although it was mostly just a feeling, Zach didn’t think anybody was home.
Funny. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.
The limb supporting the swing to his left creaked, and the tire beneath it continued to sway. Zach listened to it, then listened past it and heard singing birds, chirping crickets, and those dogs in the distance still woofing away at one another.
He shuffled his feet, and the sole of his ruined shoe filled with dust and pine needles and one sharp twig. The twig stabbed through Zach’s sock and into the webbing of skin between his first two toes. He growled.
“Hush it,” the man said, sounding honestly angry for the first time.
Zach lifted his shoe until he could reach the toe, like he was doing stretches in gym class, then flipped back his sole and let the junk inside pour onto the forest floor below. He rubbed at the sore spot through his sock and wondered if he was bleeding. Have to check later, he guessed.
If there was a later.
Shoe back on the ground, mind already drifting again, Zach almost didn’t notice Davy dropping his hands to his thighs, patting at his bloodstained cargo pockets, and heading out from cover and across the manicured forest surrounding the house. For one second, Zach thought about turning the other way and running, but he’d already tried that. He had nowhere to go, nowhere but forward, into whatever nightmare this man led him.
They didn’t go straight toward the house, but circled around the side instead, following a route Davy seemed to have already mapped out in his head. A weathered picnic table sat among some cedar trees at the far edge of the property, and fifteen or twenty feet from that, a hammock spanned the space between two large oaks.
Comfy, Zach thought again while jogging to keep up with Davy’s long strides. How strange it was to be here, kidnapped and still able to rate the comfort levels of other people’s homes.
The sheers over the windows were drawn, but the drapes weren’t, and from this close Zach could see vague shadows inside the house, probably furniture and bookshelves, those kinds of things, but maybe people inside too, despite Zach’s previous impression that the place was empty. He had what might be a dangerous idea but went through with it anyway after a cursory glance at the man ahead. As Zach moved, he waved his hands at the windows and repeatedly mouthed the word help. If someone was inside and could see him, that person might think he was just some trespassing nut, but maybe he or she would understand the situation for what it was and help him. Just a chance, but he had to take it.
He continued waving his hands, feeling ridiculous, like he was doing jumping jacks, but not stopping until Davy turned the corner. He dropped his arms and turned away from the windows, trying to act as if he’d been following along normally the whole time.
They continued around to the front of the house, Zach huffing a little. A bluebird took flight from the porch railing just beneath an old wind chime. The bird’s sudden movement set the chime fluttering, and it tinkled. On another day, in other company, it might have sounded nice; but trailing behind his gore-streaked abductor, Zach thought it sounded ghostly and cold. Like Hell’s bells.
They reached the porch steps, and Davy stopped and stared at the front door for a long time. He touched his cargo pockets again, and Zach wondered what he had inside them. Davy turned to Zach and looked at him for the first time since stepping out of the untrimmed forest.
“—truck,” Davy whispered, shaking his head as if confused. “Should be here.”
Zach waited.
“You’re gonna knock on the door,” Davy said suddenly. “If they answer, get them out onto the porch.” He motioned for Zach to join him on the porch steps, and Zach reluctantly obeyed.
When Zach had planted his first foot on the riser, feeling like a caged animal even out in the open, Davy grabbed him by the shoulder and squeezed him tight.
“No funny stuff,” he said, and then let go.
The man dropped onto his hands and knees and pressed himself up against the side of the porch, still visible from Zach’s position on the steps but probably out of view from the door and the house.
This might be his chance to run. Once on the porch, Zach could sprint down the floorboards, vault the railing, and rush into the garage before the man with the little boy’s name knew anything was happening. But Zach worried about what might be in Davy’s pockets. The man might not catch him if Zach got a head start, but a bullet sure as heck could.
Zach walked across the porch feeling like a remote-controlled toy.
The door was solid wood. No window. No peephole. Zach couldn’t warn anyone coming to the door, couldn’t mouth help again or yell for them to stay back, or to grab their guns and come out firing. He couldn’t do anything.
Except….
Zach reached for the doorbell, actually let the pad of his thumb brush against the cool plastic, but didn’t push in. Instead, he waited for what he hoped was a good thirty seconds and said over his shoulder, “I guess there’s nobody home.”
“I didn’t hear you knock,” the man hissed.
“I rang the bell,” Zach lied. “Twice.”
“Knock,” Davy said simply, in a way that seemed both commanding and instructional.
So much for that. Zach knocked.
After another thirty seconds, no one had come to the door, and Zach turned around. “There’s—”
“Again,” Davy said coolly.
Zach turned back to the door and knocked again.