April Henry: The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die

Instead, I open my lips to look at my teeth. Even and white. I slide my index finger in my mouth and touch the tooth that felt loose before, the bottom left eyetooth. It wiggles. I snatch my hand back, afraid I’ll make it fall out. I’ve already lost so much: my fingernails, my name, my identity. I don’t need to lose my tooth, too.

I peek out the red-and-white-checkered curtains next to the front door, then push one aside when I see nothing and nobody. Just an empty dark blue SUV and trees and a muddy road. I tuck the gun in my waistband then take the keys out of my pocket and press the fob. The taillights of the SUV flash, and something inside me loosens. I’ll be able to get away.

I’ve got to get help. Get to safety. Before I go, I take a quick look around for anything useful I can take with me. For any clues as to what happened here, who I am, why someone would want to kill me.

The black stove is unlit. Above it is a stone mantel made of river rocks, the only place that hasn’t been subject to the search-and-destroy mission. The two men must have seen no point in tossing the found objects lined up there: a long, speckled feather; a leaf reduced to a white skeleton; half a sky-blue eggshell that could fit over my pinkie. And in the middle, a framed photo. In it, a man stands with his arms around a woman’s shoulders. The woman holds a little boy, a toddler, by the hand. A girl stands next to them, grinning. She holds her hands apart as if she is measuring something.

I am that girl. I look in the mirror again and back down. Even though I think I’m a little older than the girl in the photo, it’s clearly me. I have no idea who the rest of them are.

I take the coat off the hook. It’s heavy brown canvas with a green plaid lining. I think it’s a man’s coat, maybe the man in the photo. I put it on, curling my damaged fingers when I push them through the sleeve so they don’t touch the cloth. The cuffs hang to just above my fingertips. I slide the photo into one of the coat’s front patch pockets.

I quickly check the two small bedrooms. One has a double bed, the other has two sets of bunk beds. The sheets have been yanked off and the mattresses hang half off the bed, slit open. On the floor of each closet, there’s a small heap of clothes and hangers, along with a jumble of boots, skis, snowboards, fishing poles, old games, mismatched sheets, and faded blankets. Dresser drawers gape open, but the drawers are nearly empty. I see wool socks, a blue bandanna, a hairbrush with a few blond hairs wound around the bristles. I’m too nervous to keep looking. The back of my neck itches, and I keep jerking my head around, expecting to see the guy I left tied up standing in the doorway.

Only, no one is ever there.

In the bathroom, shampoo, conditioner, and sunscreen have been squirted from their now empty bottles. I get lucky and find a few dry Band-Aids lying next to a mess of ruined ones. I wrap my poor throbbing fingers and let the wrappers fall to the floor. I’m heading toward the door before I’ve even got the second one all the way bound.

Twenty seconds later I’m sitting in a stranger’s car, with a stranger’s coat on my back, and with the picture of some more strangers in my pocket.

And then there’s the gun on the seat beside me.

I put the key in the ignition, turn the key, and release the emergency brake. All these things happen automatically.

So I guess I know how to do this. I revise my age upward. I’m probably at least sixteen. With my hands slick on the wheel, I turn in a big circle and head for the road.

I follow a set of graveled tracks pitted with muddy puddles. They wind between tall fir trees, and then suddenly ahead of me is a road. I come to a stop. It’s a narrow road with soft shoulders, just big enough for two cars. Not even a white line down the middle. No street signs. Nothing to tell me where I am. Or where to go.

I wait for a few seconds, but no cars pass. There are no streetlights or even telephone poles, and it’s only then that I realize it’s growing dark. The clock on the dash says 5:23. It must be late fall, or early spring. No signs of old snow, so I’m guessing fall.

Which way should I go? Left or right? The road slopes down from left to right. It feels like I’m up in the mountains someplace. If I turn left and go higher, I could be turning away from civilization.

So I turn right, my damp palms sliding on the wheel. And realize only after I hear the tick-tick-tick that I put on the turn signal first, like there’s someone else out here to see.

As I drive down the new road, I look for other cabins, other roads, signs, some evidence of people, of a place I can go to for help, but there’s nothing. Just trees pressing up against the edges of the road. The speedometer says I’m going only thirty miles an hour, but I’m afraid to go faster. Are my lights on? I watch the road and see them, two pale cones of light pushing ahead of me. It’s definitely getting darker. The sun is sliding down behind the trees on my right. That must mean I’m driving south.

Why do I keep gathering scraps of facts? Like, what difference does it make if it’s day or night? Winter or summer? What difference does it make which direction I’m going?

What’s important is that I don’t know who I am.

And that two men want to kill me.

As I’m going around a bend, a blue Subaru wagon suddenly appears and passes me. It’s gone before I can decide what to do. The next time I see a car, should I honk and flash my lights and scream out my window that I’m in trouble? But the person driving the car that passed me was a guy. And I never saw the man who gave the order to finish me off. What if I try to stop someone and it turns out to be the person who ordered my death? What if he’s coming back to find out where his friend is?

It’s not safe to ask for help out here. Not where there aren’t any witnesses. I’ll keep driving until I get to a town. And then I’ll find the police station. They’ll know what to do. They’ll know how to help me.

Then I remember the guy’s phone in my pocket. I could call 9-1-1 right now!

Without thinking, I slide my hand past my open coat and start to wiggle my fingers into the left pocket of my jeans. Ouch! Tears spring to my eyes, and I yank my poor bloody fingers back as if they just got bitten.

The pain gives me a chance to think. What would I tell the 9-1-1 operator? All I know is that I’m on a road up in the mountains. Period. That isn’t enough for them to come find me. Cell towers are probably few and far between out here. And I don’t want to sit and wait while they figure out where I am.

Because what if someone else finds me first?

No. I’ll just keep driving. I won’t stop anyone for help, and I won’t try to call anyone.

But that doesn’t stop someone from calling me. Or rather, from calling the guy I left tied up in the woods, barely breathing. Because there’s a buzz coming from my left hip.

What will the person calling do when the guy doesn’t answer? Will they know that something is wrong? Will they find him—and then set out to find me?

I push down on the accelerator.

The phone finally stops buzzing. My hands hurt from gripping the steering wheel. My teeth chatter even after I figure out how to turn on the heat. Waves of shivers wash over me.

I’m in a nightmare. But I don’t need to pinch myself to know that it’s all real. My fingers hurt too much for this to be a dream. Who am I? Who are those people in the photo? They looked like a family. Like a mother and a father and a daughter and a son.