Dave Eggers - Heroes of the Frontier

“Can we?” Paul asked.

“By all means,” Josie said, and Ana climbed the ladder to the loft, and Paul followed. He reached down for Yachts and Yachting, which he planned to read to Ana, and Josie handed it up to him, looking around the cottage for anything left to do. There was nothing. The simplicity was complete. Maybe, she thought, they all needed one long rest — a twelve-hour binge to feel right again. She turned out the main light, leaving the cottage with only the porch light and the bedside lamp next to the kids, who she could hear under the covers, Paul reading in low murmurs to Ana.

The door opened so quietly that Josie assumed it was one of her children. But her children were in the bunk above her. Then it must be the wind, she thought. She hadn’t closed it tightly enough, and the wind had pushed it open.

“What’s happening here?” a man’s voice said. Josie jumped at the first word. She turned to find a young man in camouflage pants, a sleeveless shirt and baseball hat. His eyes were small, blue, his goatee black. In the single second that lingered between them, Josie had time to hope that he was a gentle man, a proprietor who found the note and understood, had found Paul’s child handwriting endearing. There was the possibility, in that second, that this man only wanted to know what was happening, and that Josie could easily explain it, that he’d accept their money and welcome them to stay.

“Who the fuck are you?” he said instead.

Josie didn’t breathe. His small blue eyes, his hunter’s outfit — anything could happen.

“We left a note,” she managed to say.

“Is that your RV? Are you a squatter? Who are you with?” he asked. He hadn’t seen the children yet. He stood in the open doorway, Josie standing five feet away, his feet ready to move, as if unsure he wanted to be with her in the closed room, as if he’d encountered a bat in the cottage and wanted to allow passage for it to fly away.

Josie looked up, to see where Paul and Ana were, and saw nothing. They were hiding in the loft. She couldn’t imagine how they knew to hide, how Paul was keeping Ana quiet, but she had a split-second moment of admiration for them. She thought of Anne Frank.

“You just let yourself in?” he asked.

Josie had already decided she wouldn’t mention the night before. She would tell him they’d just arrived, had written the note, had money, would settle all this. “We saw the sign,” she said, hearing her voice so thin and scared. “No one answered the door. There was nowhere else to stay.”

“So you broke in?” Now his volume spiked. Something had turned. He could be on drugs. His hands were fists. Josie looked for a weapon. Then looked up to the loft again. No sign of the kids.

“Who’s up there?” he asked, still yelling. “Who the fuck is up there?”

“Please. Take it easy. We’ll leave.”

“No, we’ll call the police. That’s what we’re doing. You stay here.”

And he left. She didn’t know where he’d gone. Maybe he didn’t have a cellphone, or had left it in the main house? But he’d left them alone, so she had a few minutes. She rushed up the ladder and found Paul and Ana under the covers and awake. Their heads were pressed together, Paul’s arms around her, in some kind of death embrace, a Pompeii pact.

“Let’s go. Now,” she said.

Josie grabbed Ana and flew down the ladder in two steps. She reached up and took Paul from the first step, pushing them both out the front door. She returned, found their duffel bag, stuffed it with the clothes she’d removed, and met the kids on the porch. She paused, looking and listening for the man. There was no sign of him.

They needed to get to the Chateau but couldn’t use the path. “Follow me,” she said. She picked up Ana and led Paul by the hand through the woods, toward the bluff, intending to follow the cliff side to the driveway. The man wouldn’t see them until they’d gotten inside the RV.

“Mom, careful,” Paul said, pointing to the sheer drop, only a few feet to their left.

“Shh,” she said, moving swiftly toward the driveway.

Now she saw a man emerge from the main house. He had a phone on his ear, the cordless receiver of a landline, and was looking in the direction of the cottage. She assumed he was calling the police.

Fine, she thought. Now all she had to do was get to the Chateau and go. The police might chase her, but they couldn’t be anywhere near here. She’d have a twenty-minute head start. Her heart was in her mouth, her ears. She watched the man, standing outside, facing the cottage. He was looking for movement from her, assuming she was still inside. All she needed was for him to return to the main house, or go to the cottage to find them. That would give her time to get to the RV and leave.

She turned to Paul. “We’re running to the Chateau. Any second. Ready?”

Paul nodded.

The man took the phone from his ear, pressed a button, and the orange lights of the receiver went dark. He tucked the receiver into his pocket and strode to the cottage, his white form crosshatched by the thicket.

“Now?” Paul asked.

“Wait,” Josie said. When he was just before the cottage, she hissed “Now,” and they sprinted out of the woods and across the lawn and toward the Chateau. They were at the gravel driveway when their footsteps gave them away.

“Hey! Get the fuck back here!” the man yelled.

Josie opened the cab door and threw Ana inside. Ana hit something with a thump; Josie knew she would cry but that she was unhurt. Paul stepped in and Josie shoved him over. Before she got in she saw the man hurtling toward her, across the lawn and down the driveway. He was astonishingly fast. She closed the door, threw the key in the ignition and started the engine. She threw it into gear and the Chateau lurched forward just as a loud bang hit the rear bumper. She’d hit him. No. He was banging his hand on the back of the Chateau. Now the side. The back of the Chateau dipped. He’d grabbed the ladder. He was riding on the back. Impossible. No, possible. He was the kind of man who would jump on.

“Go, go, Mom!” Paul said.

“I’m going!” she hissed.

She slammed the pedal down. The engine groaned and the gravel spit. They lurched forward and turned heavily to the right as the driveway wound toward the highway. There’s a man on this car, Josie thought. She imagined him hanging on the back, crawling forward to her. By the time he reached her he would be ready for murder.

Ahead the driveway rose suddenly to meet the highway and she sped up, thinking the sudden incline might toss him from the ladder. The front bumper slammed into the pavement, and the hood leaped up with a crunch. The Chateau bounced and squealed as she turned and sped onto the highway.

“Get in the back,” she told her children. Ana was bawling but Josie hadn’t heard her until now. What if the man was on the back and got in? Through the roof. Some other way. “No, stay here,” she told Paul. “Stay here, both of you. Hide down there,” she said, and pointed to the floor of the passenger seat. She wanted them near her, within view. Paul obeyed and huddled with Ana in the dark.

They were on the highway now, and reached twenty, thirty, forty. She could only assume the man was still on the ladder, but there was a chance he’d jumped off, had fallen off. But she couldn’t stop to be sure. If he was still hanging on, the man was now crazed and desperate, and would harm her. But she couldn’t just drive on, speeding on the highway with a man hanging from the ladder, could she? She had to. So she did, while waiting for the sound of the man climbing, or pounding, or the dip of the back end as the man jumped off.

In a flash of inspiration she realized she could stop at a gas station and there, under the lights, she could stop and be safe — he wouldn’t try anything. So she drove north another fifteen miles until she saw the blue-white lights of a gas station looming. She slowed, listening closely for any movement — the sounds of a man crawling on the tin box she was driving. When she pulled in, she saw a figure inside the green glass, a woman standing at the counter, watching a tiny television. Josie looked to see if the woman saw anything strange on the Chateau. The woman glanced her way then returned her attention to the screen.