Брайан Фриман - Alter Ego

“There was no assault,” Chris insisted. “Please don’t characterize it like that.”

“Who?”

Chris looked over his shoulder as if to make sure they weren’t being watched. Spies were everywhere. His voice sank to a whisper.

“Jungle Jack,” he said.

Stride was restless. He didn’t go home.

Instead, he drove north out of the city on Jean Duluth Road until the buildings, traffic, and people disappeared around him. It didn’t take long to leave civilization behind in Duluth. There was nothing but small towns and dense forest all the way to the Canadian border. Sometimes he felt as if the city were the last pioneer outpost, holding back the encroaching wilderness. It was grayer up there. More primitive. And more ominous.

His headlights guided him. He had to be cautious about deer at night, as John Doe had learned too late. This far north, he had to think about wolves, too. Stride stayed on the road until it ended, and then he turned onto Highway 44 and continued into the middle of nowhere. There was nothing on either side of him but evergreens crowding the pavement. He passed no homes and no crossroads. A few snow flurries kept him company by skittering across his windshield.

He knew where he was going, but he didn’t really know why. He hadn’t been to this place in years. He hadn’t even thought about going back until Chris had mentioned it. This was the part of the Northland where Art Leipold had owned hunting ground. This was where three women had died.

Instinct guided him. He remembered what he was looking for and knew when to slow down. Ahead of him, through his headlights, he saw a spur road snaking off the left side of the highway. It was a dead-end road that didn’t get much attention from the plows. Stride turned onto the road, and the tires of his Expedition chewed through the packed snow. He went slowly. Every so often, a rusted mailbox leaned into the road. A couple of recluses lived up here, but not many.

He drove until the road ended at a yellow gate marked with “private property” and “no trespassing” signs. On the other side of the gate was an old bridge over the Cloquet River that wasn’t likely to support the weight of anything other than foot traffic. That was the border of Art Leipold’s land.

Stride pulled to the gate and stopped. He wasn’t alone.

A red Toyota Yaris was parked in the tall weeds. Chris was right. The killing ground from years earlier had become a tourist attraction for beer parties, ghost stories, and teenage make-out sessions. Beyond the gate, he could see that the deep snow was riddled with footprints.

Stride got out of the truck and walked around the gate. The ribbon of river water was frozen solid under the bridge. He listened for the noise of whoever had come there in the Yaris, but the only sound was the creepy rattling of tree branches in the wind. He remembered where he was going. Even if he hadn’t, the overlapping footprints in his flashlight beam showed him the way. The trail went north into the pines, and it was so narrow that he had to turn sideways in places and duck to avoid the low-hanging branches. Snow dusted his hair and melted down his back like cold fingers.

He didn’t have far to go. The cabin was built only a hundred yards into the forest, but the cold and night made it feel like a long trek. He still didn’t know why he had come back after so many years. Maybe, like Chris, the movie made him want to confront old demons.

Ahead of him, the trail widened. A tiny clearing had been hacked out of the woods. The cabin was in front of him, or what was left of it. His flashlight lit up beams scarred into black charcoal by fire. One wall had fallen, and so had most of the roof. Snow and dead brush pushed up to the door. Much of the forest had burned, too, but nature had begun to bring it back to life. Saplings had squeezed in on the ground, and the branches of the surviving pines spread overhead like the open arms of a priest.

He remembered.

Here, in here!

Mags, get a lock cutter out here now.

Is the ambulance on the way?

Water, we need water.

She’s alive, she’s alive!

His voice echoed down to him over the years. He remembered ripping open the cabin door much the way Dean Casperson had done it in the movie. Every second counted. He remembered the cage itself, built of steel mesh and covered with sound-resistant foam. You could stand next to it and barely hear someone screaming inside. He remembered the microphone wire that had been used in recording the messages to him.

Save me, Jonathan Stride.

He remembered dragging Lori Fulkerson from the cage, her muscles atrophied, her hair dirty and brittle, her lips desiccated. Later, the doctors said she would have died if they’d reached the cabin even two hours later. It was that close.

They’d found the bodies of the other three victims buried in the woods behind the cabin. Kristal Beech. Tanya Carter. Sally Wills. He’d been too late for them. They’d died in the box. Along the way, terrible things had happened as they dealt with hunger, thirst, and desperation. Stride had never shared the graphic details with anyone else. Not even Serena.

Stride directed his flashlight beam into the open, burned interior of the cabin. He was startled to find a bone-white face staring back at him like one of the walking dead. He wondered for an instant if he was dreaming, but he wasn’t. It was Lori Fulkerson. She was the one who’d driven here in the Toyota Yaris. She stood in darkness in the same place where she’d been held prisoner eleven years earlier.

Lori was pointing a gun at him.

“Who are you?” she screamed. “Get out of here!”

Stride turned the flashlight toward his own face. “Ms. Fulkerson, it’s Jonathan Stride with the police. You’re safe. Put the gun down.”

He didn’t hear an answer.

“Ms. Fulkerson? There’s no reason to be alarmed.”

He waited again, and finally her voice murmured out of the black night, barely audible. “Okay. I’m okay.”

He pointed his flashlight toward the ground. He stepped closer, through the missing wall, inside what would have been the entrance of the cabin. Lori was six feet away. The cage would have been right there where she was standing. He watched her slip the gun into her pocket.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

She said nothing. He didn’t like what he saw in her face. Her skin had no color. Her lips were pushed tightly together and blue with cold. She wasn’t dressed warmly enough for the night. Her dark eyes had the fury and fear of someone who’d never gotten over what was done to her, and she trembled like a deer that was ready to run. She was tall and stocky with tight brown curls on her head. She’d been twenty-two years old when she was imprisoned, so she was only in her early thirties now. She looked much older.

“Ms. Fulkerson?” he said again.

The trance she was in seemed to break. She slumped and could barely hold herself up. He went to grab her, and she was ice cold.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said.

Stride coaxed her arm around his shoulder and helped her toward the forest trail with an arm around her waist. Her trembling turned into out-and-out shivering. Her knees were weak, and she stumbled as they inched through the snow. He bent her down when the branches were low. She didn’t say a word. When they finally broke from the trees near the river, he took her to his Expedition and guided her into the passenger seat. He got in and made the truck’s heater roar. He grabbed blankets from the rear seat and draped them over her shoulders and lap.

“Let’s get you to the hospital,” he said.

“No.”

“You may have hypothermia.”