My Home In The Cold Dark

[Espi]

((Nate Chauncey continued from Earth Sky From Venus))

She'd slept that night in the woods, focusing her mind on the faint sound of waves rather than the baying of the wind through the trees. She'd been terribly cold, but even while trying and failing to curl her body against the elements, she didn't think to look for something to cover herself in her bag.

She was preoccupied with other thoughts.

Making an abrupt exit at school was maybe not so polite, but Nate had never really thought much of it. Usually she'd take her leave after the talk got awkward and she had something else to do. Nate never professed to being a paragon of politeness. It was always something her family joked about, her mom gently encouraging her to work on.

She missed home again. Darn.

Besides that, she'd never run off out of fear before. In fact, Nate wasn't sure she'd ever really been truly afraid. Startled, perhaps a bit nervous or unsure, but fear? That was new. Denton was rough on places, yeah, but Nate had lived in the nicer parts, and she'd never really dealt with urban hazards in any real, tangible way. In all her 18 years she'd never seen a real gun in person.

Had she been rational? Was it possible to tell? She didn't know the names of those two. If tomorrow it turned out they'd killed people, would she know the difference? Nate didn't know.

--

Waking up among the tangled knot of roots of the tree she'd taken shelter in wasn't a great start. Nate only took notice of the voice she heard when she heard mention of Richard Ormsby and William Lohman. That made her wake up, aches and pains forgotten.

The list hurt. By Nate's count, eight of her classmates had died. Seven had been murdered, though two of those killers were now dead themselves. The odd one out was the boy who fell into a tar pit. That seemed odd to Nate; an accident like that was certainly possible, but given that there were actual murders happening, she had the feeling something else was at play there.

Apparently the cabin on her map was no longer a hospitable location. Touching the thing around her neck, she realized how quickly it'd grown tolerable, familiar. She was moving out of the in-between, going the wrong direction into darkness.

Nate ate slowly, trying to quell the combination of post-waking queasiness and the sensitivity of her empty stomach to force-feed herself. It was a dangerous habit to forget to eat here; at home, she had people to remind her, and when she did get hungry food was usually available. After a few slices of bread, Nate gave up. She could try the bars or crackers later, but she wasn't making any progress here.

--

Wandering the woods with her backpack slung over her shoulders, Nate found her gaze becoming anxious, darting about with any sense of movement in any direction. There were birds, who occasionally called out and gave Nate pause with every startup sound.

This was horrible. Nate had walked in one direction as far as she could tell, and she was still surrounded by trees. She sat down on a misshapen stump, wiping her brow and downing half a bottle of water. A few crackers chased it; hydration was good, but Nate had gotten sick enough to know that her stomach didn't sit with water only.

The sense of dread was much stronger today. That pair back on the beach had truly rattled Nate, put her on edge more than any other time in her life. She was nervous and fearful, emotional states that were completely unfamiliar to her and wholly unpleasant.

Nate didn't know what to do. She had no idea how to cope with this. What was the logical response here? What kind of goals could she have, when she was isolated with people she barely knew and who might well want to kill her.

This sucked.

--

The tunnel entrance was gaping, but ominous. Nate had shone her flashlight into the dark maw, not sure what she'd expected. It wasn't terribly appealing, but at least it was cover. The woods were pretty, but she was becoming a jittery wreck from the constant sounds around her.

The passage through the tunnels was a nightmare. Nate hadn't considered the lack of airflow, and by the time she found herself seeing sunlight again she was all but she sure was going to die. Gasping for breath, she'd dropped her backpack and race as fast as possible around the dark and windy ruins.

She'd survived, and found herself at the opening near the cabin, it seemed. Staying a few feet back from the tangle of the entrance didn't seem to register in her collar, though, which was lucky because Nate had been so out of breath that she'd almost collapsed once she got there.

It was near dark again when she'd recovered enough to retrieve her bag. Luckily she'd apparently made it most of the way to this entrance, and it wasn't as hard to return to that spot and reclaim her goods.

She'd decided to stay in the entrance by the cabin, in the twilight behind the mess of roots. The cabin was a danger zone, supposedly, so she didn't expect too much in the way of company. She wasn't suffocating, and she felt relatively secure in her new nighttime dwelling.

The tunnels were a little warmer, too, given the lack of exposure to wind chill. Using her backpack as a slightly-less-uncomfortable-than-otherwise pillow, Nate finished off the open tin of crackers and closed her eyes.

She'd figure out something to do tomorrow besides panic and run. Hopefully.

((Nate Chauncey continued in Crawl, Into the Nothing))