Endurance Read online

  That thought was followed by one even more distressing.

  I’m not their first victim. They’ve done this before.

  Oh, Jesus, they’ve done this before.

  Maria clutched the pepper spray in both hands, but she couldn’t keep it steady. She was so terrified her legs were trembling—a first for her. A nervous giggle escaped her lips, but it came out more like a whimper. Taking a big breath, she screamed, “Help me!”

  The house carried her plea, bounced it around, then swallowed it up.

  A moment later she heard, “Help me!”

  But it wasn’t her echo. It was a male falsetto, mocking her voice.

  Coming from the stairs.

  “Help me!” Another voice. Coming from the living room.

  “Help me!” This one even closer, from a closet door less than ten feet away.

  “Help me.” The last one was low pitched. Quiet.

  Coming from right next to her.

  The statue of Washington.

  It smiled at her, its crooked teeth announcing it wasn’t a statue at all.

  The incredibly large man dropped the Welcome sign and lunged, both arms outstretched.

  Maria pressed the button on pepper spray.

  The jet missed him by several feet, and his hand brushed her shirt.

  She danced away from his grasp, and then barreled toward the stairs as the closet door crashed open and someone burst out. Someone big and fat and...

  Sweet lord, what was wrong with his body?

  Maria pulled her eyes away and attacked the stairs with every bit of her energy. The hundreds of hours she spent training paid off, and she climbed so quickly the man—don’t look at his horrible face—on the second floor couldn’t react in time to grab her. She ducked past, inhaling a stench of body odor and rot, heading for the only other room she knew to be occupied, the two men arguing sports.

  And they were still arguing, behind the door labeled Theodore Roosevelt. Maria threw herself into the room without knocking, slamming and locking the door behind her.

  “You’ve got to help—”

  The lights were on, but the room was empty. Maria looked for the voices, which hadn’t abated, and quickly focused on the nightstand next to the bed. Setting on top was an old reel-to-reel tape recorder. The voices of the arguing men droned through its speakers in an endless loop.

  A trick. To distract her. Make her feel like she wasn’t alone.

  Or maybe the purpose of the recording was to lure her into this room.

  Then the tape recorder, and the lights, abruptly went off.

  Maria froze. She heard someone crying, and with no small surprise realized the sound was coming from her. Dropping onto all fours, she crawled toward the bed. This room was laid out the same way as the Lincoln room, and she quickly bumped against the dust ruffle, brought her legs in front of her, and eased underneath on her belly, feet first, keeping her head poking out so she could listen.

  At first she couldn’t hear anything above her heart hammering in her ears and her own shallow panting. She forced her breathing to slow down, sucking in air through her nose, blowing it out softly through her puffed cheeks.

  Then she heard the footsteps. From the hallway. Getting closer. First one set, slow and deliberate, each footfall sounding like a thunderclap. Then another set, equally heavy, running up fast.

  Both of them stopped at the door.

  “I think the girly is in here.”

  “That’s Teddy’s room. We can’t go in.”

  “But she’s in there. It’s bleedin’ time.”

  Maria heard the doorknob turn. She scooted further under the bed, the dust ruffle covering her hair.

  “You shouldn’t do that. You really shouldn’t do that.”

  The door creaked, inching open. Maria saw a beam of light sliver through the crack. It widened until she could see two huge figures silhouetted in the doorway. They each held flashlights.

  “The one that catches her, bleeds her first. Them’s the rules.”

  “I ain’t goin’ in. You shouldn’t neither.”

  “Shuddup. This girlie is mine.”

  “It’s Teddy’s room.”

  “Shuddup!”

  The man dressed in the George Washington outfit shone his light on the other man’s face. Maria put her hand in her mouth and bit down so she didn’t scream. His face was... dear God... it was...

  “Watch my eyes!”

  “I said shuddup!”

  “I’m tellin’ on you!”

  “Hey! Don’t!”

  The door abruptly closed, and both sets of footsteps retreated up the hall, down the stairs.

  Maria’s whole body shivered like she was freezing to death. Terror locked her muscles and she couldn’t move. But she had to move. She had to find some kind of way out of there.

  Were all the windows bricked-over? Maybe some of them weren’t. Maybe she could get out of a window, climb down somehow. Or get up on the roof. The roof sounded a lot better than waiting around for those freaks to come back.

  Maria heard something soft. Faint. Nearby.

  Some kind of scratching sound.

  She concentrated on listening, but couldn’t hear anything above her own labored gasping. She took a deep breath, held it in.

  And could still hear the breathing.

  Raspy, wet breathing.

  Right next to her.

  Someone else is under the bed.

  “I’m Teddy.”

  His voice was deep, rough, and hearing it that close scared Maria so badly her bladder let loose.

  “I’m gonna bleed you, girly girl. Bleed you nice and long.”

  Then something grabbed Maria’s legs, and she screamed louder than she’d ever screamed in her life, screamed louder than she’d ever thought possible, kicking and clawing as she was dragged down through the trap-door in the floor.

  One Year Later

  “Why don’t you go with your grandmother,” Mom said, wiping the sweat from her forehead and replacing it with a streak of grime. “Take JD for a walk.”

  Kelly Pillsbury frowned at her mother, who’d been trying to change the flat tire for more than ten minutes now. The last nut refused to come off. Each of the women had taken a turn with the tire iron, but it was rusted on tight. Grandma was the one who suggested a squirt of WD-40. Now they were all waiting around for the lubricant to soak in, loosen the nut up, so they could get back on the road.

  “I’m cool,” Kelly said.

  She took a furtive glance at the wilderness around her. More trees than she’d ever seen, covering the hills and mountains in every direction. It was gorgeous, and being out here made Kelly forget her established role as a sullen tween. Make that teen. She was turning thirteen in only three days.

  Something caught her eye at the tree line, alongside the winding road. A quick streak that looked like a man.

  A man darting behind some bushes.

  But it had been too big for a man. A bear, maybe?

  No. Bears don’t wear overalls.

  Kelly squinted into the woods, but the figure didn’t reappear. She listened for a moment, and heard only the faint click click click of the wind spinning the rear wheels of their three bikes, bolted to the rack on the Audi’s roof. After a moment, Kelly believed she’d imagined the figure, that her eyes were playing tricks on her after such a long road trip.

  Who would be way out here in the middle of nowhere anyway? We left modern civilization two hours ago, the last time we stopped for gas.

  She looked back at her iPod and unpaused her game, Zombie Apocalypse, on level 64, with only ¼ of her health left. Kelly had never beaten level 65, and she’d been playing the game for more than a month.

  “Kelly?” her mom said.

  “Huh?”

  “That wasn’t a suggestion.”

  “What?” Mom was seriously breaking her concentration.

  “Go help Florence walk the dog.”

  Kelly flicked the touch screen, pausi
ng again. Mom had her bare arms folded, her muscles popping up like a man’s. Kelly subconsciously checked her own arms. She prided herself in being strong, but she never wanted to look like that. Never. Muscles on women were gross.

  “Grandma’s doing fine.”

  The women both looked at Grandma. The sixty-five year old was tugging on JD’s leash. JD was sitting on the road, licking himself between his legs. At over a hundred pounds, the German Shepherd weighed about as much as Grandma did.

  “Kelly. Don’t make me say it again.” Mom lowered her voice. “Give her a chance. Please. For me.”

  Kelly sighed loudly and rolled her eyes, even though Mom never said please. Then she tucked her iPod into her fanny pack and stalked over to Grandma and the dog. It was bad enough that Grandma was coming to live with them after the Iron Woman race, but Mom had also insisted Kelly give up her room and move into the much smaller third bedroom.

  Totally unfair.

  Kelly didn’t understand why Grandma was moving in anyway. She and Mom had some kind of falling out years ago, after dad died, and Kelly hadn’t seen her grandmother since she was six. She had no idea why they’d been out of touch for so long, but now here they were, pretending to care about each other. One big happy.

  “Stubborn, isn’t he?” Grandma let the leash go slack. Like Kelly, she was dressed in jogging shorts and a loose tee, though even at her ancient age, Grandma filled the clothes out better. “I don’t think he likes me.”

  “He only walks for me and Mom. If he didn’t like you, you’d know. He’d be growling and the hair would stand up on his back. C’mere, JD.”

  At the command, JD’s ears pricked up and he pranced over to Kelly, the leash pulling out of Grandma’s hand. He bumped his massive head into Kelly’s hip, and gave her arm a lick. He then switched to licking the scab on her knee—a training injury from a few days ago.

  Grandma walked up to them. She wasn’t as muscular as Mom, and just a bit shorter, but the resemblance was amazing. When the three of them stood next to each other, it was like looking at the same woman at different stages of her life. Each of them also wore their blond hair the same way, in a ponytail, though Grandma’s was mostly gray.

  “Want to go north?” Grandma said, pointing her chin over Kelly’s shoulder. “I hear a waterfall. We could go check it out.”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “You will, as we get closer. Come on.”

  Grandma moved at an easy jog, cutting across the road, into the thick trees. Kelly lived her whole life in southern Illinois, flat as a bowling alley with no flora taller than corn stalks. West Virginia, with its mountains and forests, seemed like a different country. It was beautiful, but Kelly refused to admit it aloud, sticking her nose back in her iPod whenever Mom or Grandma pointed out something pretty during the long drive. She didn’t want to give either of them the satisfaction, still sore about the bedroom thing, which Mom sprung on her when they picked Grandma up at the airport yesterday.

  Why didn’t Mom give up her room to Grandma? It was all a bunch of BS.

  No, not BS. It was straight-up bullshit.

  Just thinking about the swear word made Kelly feel older. She frowned, then followed her grandmother.

  Ten steps into the woods, Kelly felt like she’d been swallowed. The trees were everywhere, and she lost all sense of direction. Grandma weaved through the forest like a jackrabbit, her pace increasing, and Kelly began to fall behind.

  “Slow down! JD can’t keep up!”

  In fact, JD was doing fine. Kelly was also doing fine, at least in the stamina department. She’d trained for seven months for the triathlon, and was enormously proud to be the youngest contestant this year. But Kelly was used to running on asphalt, not rocky wilderness. Her steps alternated between jagged outcroppings and soft dirt that sucked at her gym shoes. Kelly spent so much time watching her footing she was afraid Grandma would get too far ahead and disappear.

  “Don’t look at your feet.”

  Kelly startled, coming to a stop. Somehow Grandma had materialized right in front of her.

  “I’m gonna break my ankle.”

  “Look into my eyes, Kelly.”

  Kelly did as instructed, Grandma’s eyes were blue, like hers and mom’s, but set in a valley of deep wrinkles. Kelly couldn’t remember Grandma ever smiling. Not that she was a mean woman. But she was serious all the time.

  “Can you see my hand?” Grandma asked.

  Kelly glanced down at Grandma’s wriggling fingers.

  “No, Kelly. Keep looking at me while you do it.”

  Kelly sighed, then stared at Grandma again.

  “Keeping your eyes on mine, can you see my hand?”

  Kelly couldn’t see it, at least not clearly. But she could make out an indistinct blur.

  “I guess.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “Wiggling your fingers.”

  “Good. Now watch me.”

  Grandma took a step back and stood with her legs apart, her hands at waist-level, one in front of the other. She quickly raised her arms up over her head, then brought each hand around in a circle. They met again at her belt-line, palms out. The entire time, her gaze was locked onto Kelly.

  “What’s that?” Kelly asked.

  “The beginning of a kata called Kushan Ku. It helps improve your peripheral vision. The goal is to be able to see your hands while looking straight ahead.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “To be aware of everything around you, and not just what’s in front of you.”

  “So?”

  “So then you’ll know if someone does this.”

  Kelly felt wind on her cheek. She looked, and saw Grandma’s palm an inch away from slapping her ear. Kelly hadn’t seen Grandma’s hand move at all.

  JD growled, baring his teeth.

  “Shush,” Grandma said. “Be nice.”

  The dog whined, then sat down and began licking himself again.

  “Can you teach me how to do that?” Kelly asked. “To hit that fast?”

  “It’s up to your mother. She never really warmed up to the martial arts.”

  “Show me that kata thing again.”

  “Kushan Ku.”

  Grandma repeated the move. Kelly handed over the leash and tried it. She could just barely make out her hands at the very edge of sight.

  “I can see them.”

  She also thought she saw something else. Something moving in the woods. Kelly remembered the man she’d seen earlier, but kept her eyes on Grandma, as instructed. Besides, if there was a man in the forest, JD would be barking.

  That is, if JD could keep his snout out of his own crotch for more than ten seconds.

  “Good. Now use your peripheral vision when you’re running over the rocks, so you don’t have to keep your head down. Keep your eyes ahead of you, but not your entire focus.”

  “I can try.”

  Grandma took off, JD running alongside her. Kelly trailed behind, doing as Grandma said, and found she could move much quicker. She looked around for the man in the overalls, but only saw foliage.

  Kelly smiled, relaxing a little. The summer breeze smelled like pine trees and wild flowers, and she enjoyed the stretch and pull in her hamstrings and quads. It was a brief run, barely even a warm-up, before Kelly caught up to Grandma on a crest.

  “Hey,” Kelly said. “JD let you walk him.”

  Grandma wasn’t even out of breath. “Can you hear it now?”

  “What?”

  “Listen.”

  Kelly heard it. A hissing, splashing sound.

  “The waterfall?”

  Grandma nodded. “Which direction is it in?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Close your eyes. Open your ears.”

  Kelly shut her eyes and listened. The sound seemed to be coming from no particular direction.

  “Try turning around. Tune out everything else.”

  Kelly shifted slightly. She spun in a sl
ow circle, eventually locking in on the direction of the water. When she opened her eyes, she was grinning.

  “It’s this way,” Kelly said, bounding off into the woods.

  She jogged down a hill, around a bend, and then to a clearing, skidding to a stop because the ground simply ended. Kelly felt her stomach sink, staring down off the side of a sheer cliff. She wasn’t good with heights, and even though she could swim three hundred laps in the school pool she was terrified of diving boards. Standing on ledges just wasn’t her thing.

  Then she saw the waterfall.

  It was gigantic, at least fifty feet high. The vertigo made her back up two steps.

  “Lovely,” Grandma said.

  Kelly hadn’t even heard the old woman come up beside her.

  “I don’t really like heights.”

  “Your eyes can make you afraid of things you shouldn’t be afraid of. Are you standing on solid ground?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think you should trust more, your eyes, or the solid ground?”

  “The ground.”

  “So trust the ground and let your eyes enjoy the view.”

  Kelly trusted the ground and stared at the waterfall. A fine mist hovered overhead and made a double rainbow in the rays of the setting sun. It was prettier than a postcard, and not so scary anymore.

  “Is this what Vietnam looked like?” Kelly asked. Then she immediately regretted it. According to Mom, Grandma never talked about the war. Kelly knew she was there for four years as a combat nurse, but that was all.

  “Parts of it. Parts if it were so beautiful it hurt.”

  “Is that where you learned that kung fu stuff?”

  “It’s karate. And no, I learned that after my tour ended. Let’s go back, see how Letti is doing with that tire. Can you find the way?”

  “I dunno. I don’t think so.”

  “Try it. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself. If you get confused, see if you can spot any of our footprints. The ground is soft and we made quite a few.”

  Grandma’s eyes were serious, but kind.

  “How come you never smile?” Kelly asked. She watched Grandma’s eyes get hard again, and regretted the question.

  “It happened during the war,” Grandma said. “They shot my smile off.”

  What? They shot her smile off?”