away to be sure.
At least he was no longer alone with Rory.
Uprooting herself, Lynn resumed her pilgrimage to the shower tent, her thoughts grim. The question ran through her mind again, unbidden: Was she having fun yet?
Not!
Fortunately she and Rory slept in the same tent, so she’d be able to monitor her daughter’s whereabouts at night. Each woman had been placed with four girls. Lynn’s group included Rory, Jenny, Melody, and Lisa Hind, a newcomer to the school.
Of course the other three girls, fast friends, excluded Lisa. Lynn had already had a chat with them about that.
Not that talking seemed to do much good. To any of them. About anything.
Lynn sighed. This was a vacation? Give her work any day.
Ducking inside the shower tent, Lynn was grateful for her lack of height for one of the few times in her life. She could stand upright with several inches to spare. Something brushed the top of her head. Lynn reached up to discover a lantern flashlight hooked over a tent pole, obviously put there to provide illumination. Turning it on, Lynn eyed the facilities. Primitive, but adequate. A showerhead attached to a hose dangled through a hole in the roof. Lynn presumed it was connected to a water tank set up outside.
With a quick glance around to make sure her shadow wouldn’t be thrown on a nylon wall for the world to view, Lynn stripped out of her clothes and fumbled, shivering, with the valve that controlled the flow of water.
A hot shower was just what she needed to soothe her aches and pains and wash away the grit, horse smell, and insect repellent, which, combined, made for a pungent eau de trail.
The valve proved resistant. Lynn took hold of the hose to steady it, grasped the cold metal handle in her other hand, gritted her teeth, and twisted. Success! She could hear the water coming, creaking and gurgling as it rushed through the narrow channel.
Releasing the valve, she stepped back and turned up her face in anticipation.
Water gushed forth, cascading with surprising power over her face and hair and down her body.
Ice water.
Gasping, Lynn jumped back out of the stream. For a moment she stared, naked and shivering, at the pouring water as realization slowly dawned: Arctic was as warm as it was going to get. There was no hot water.
Even as you experience the wilderness you will be provided with every amenity, including showers .
The word hot had not been mentioned.
When she got back to civilization, Lynn vowed, whoever had written that freaking brochure was going to get sued.
5
June 20, 1996
10 P.M .
M ICHAEL S TEWART WAS HOME . Her brothers Thomas and James would be with him. From her hiding place in the root cellar Theresa heard the braying of the burros they used to haul gear from the camp to where the truck was kept, out near the gravel road some five miles away. For the first time since the nightmare had begun, she felt a glimmer of hope.
Daddy would save them. He would work a miracle, as he always did.
A miracle was what it would take to defeat the demons in the cabin, Theresa knew.
But miracles were what Daddy was all about.
Elijah whimpered, squirming in his nest of old clothes that were being stored until they could be turned into rugs or quilts or something useful.
“Don’t cry, baby. Please don’t cry.”
Theresa found him by touch and picked him up with a hand over his mouth, thrusting her little finger between his lips to pacify him as she felt around for the nurser she had jury-rigged out of a plastic water bottle and a rubber glove.
The root cellar was so dark that she could see next to nothing. It was small and cramped, hardly more than a crawl space, gouged out of the dirt and rock under a portion of the cabin more than a century before. The storage-room floor was its ceiling. The only entry was a trapdoor behind the washtub.
So far the demons hadn’t found the trapdoor. They had entered the storage room only once, for what seemed like a cursory look around, and left
At least he was no longer alone with Rory.
Uprooting herself, Lynn resumed her pilgrimage to the shower tent, her thoughts grim. The question ran through her mind again, unbidden: Was she having fun yet?
Not!
Fortunately she and Rory slept in the same tent, so she’d be able to monitor her daughter’s whereabouts at night. Each woman had been placed with four girls. Lynn’s group included Rory, Jenny, Melody, and Lisa Hind, a newcomer to the school.
Of course the other three girls, fast friends, excluded Lisa. Lynn had already had a chat with them about that.
Not that talking seemed to do much good. To any of them. About anything.
Lynn sighed. This was a vacation? Give her work any day.
Ducking inside the shower tent, Lynn was grateful for her lack of height for one of the few times in her life. She could stand upright with several inches to spare. Something brushed the top of her head. Lynn reached up to discover a lantern flashlight hooked over a tent pole, obviously put there to provide illumination. Turning it on, Lynn eyed the facilities. Primitive, but adequate. A showerhead attached to a hose dangled through a hole in the roof. Lynn presumed it was connected to a water tank set up outside.
With a quick glance around to make sure her shadow wouldn’t be thrown on a nylon wall for the world to view, Lynn stripped out of her clothes and fumbled, shivering, with the valve that controlled the flow of water.
A hot shower was just what she needed to soothe her aches and pains and wash away the grit, horse smell, and insect repellent, which, combined, made for a pungent eau de trail.
The valve proved resistant. Lynn took hold of the hose to steady it, grasped the cold metal handle in her other hand, gritted her teeth, and twisted. Success! She could hear the water coming, creaking and gurgling as it rushed through the narrow channel.
Releasing the valve, she stepped back and turned up her face in anticipation.
Water gushed forth, cascading with surprising power over her face and hair and down her body.
Ice water.
Gasping, Lynn jumped back out of the stream. For a moment she stared, naked and shivering, at the pouring water as realization slowly dawned: Arctic was as warm as it was going to get. There was no hot water.
Even as you experience the wilderness you will be provided with every amenity, including showers .
The word hot had not been mentioned.
When she got back to civilization, Lynn vowed, whoever had written that freaking brochure was going to get sued.
5
June 20, 1996
10 P.M .
M ICHAEL S TEWART WAS HOME . Her brothers Thomas and James would be with him. From her hiding place in the root cellar Theresa heard the braying of the burros they used to haul gear from the camp to where the truck was kept, out near the gravel road some five miles away. For the first time since the nightmare had begun, she felt a glimmer of hope.
Daddy would save them. He would work a miracle, as he always did.
A miracle was what it would take to defeat the demons in the cabin, Theresa knew.
But miracles were what Daddy was all about.
Elijah whimpered, squirming in his nest of old clothes that were being stored until they could be turned into rugs or quilts or something useful.
“Don’t cry, baby. Please don’t cry.”
Theresa found him by touch and picked him up with a hand over his mouth, thrusting her little finger between his lips to pacify him as she felt around for the nurser she had jury-rigged out of a plastic water bottle and a rubber glove.
The root cellar was so dark that she could see next to nothing. It was small and cramped, hardly more than a crawl space, gouged out of the dirt and rock under a portion of the cabin more than a century before. The storage-room floor was its ceiling. The only entry was a trapdoor behind the washtub.
So far the demons hadn’t found the trapdoor. They had entered the storage room only once, for what seemed like a cursory look around, and left
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