Page 114 of Nightwatching

Where is he? Has he been getting closer this whole time? Stalking you? He’s on top of you, that’s where he is, he’ll murder you any second.

The snow was bluish white under the first wisp of moonlight. Her skull ached as she opened her hurt eyes as wide as possible, trying to see where the Corner might be, but still slightly blind from staring so long at the screen. She strained to hear his footsteps through the snow, twigs breaking as he charged through the forest. But there was only the black of branches and the white of snow, the crack of wind through iced trees and the slow, heavy sound of snow knocked from treetops.

What’s he waiting for? He must have seen you. What could he be doing? Where could he be?

Just as the doe and fawn had frozen on seeing her, at first stillnessseemed the only safety, the only thing that might allow her to think, assess if she was being hunted. Every bit of cold air that slipped across her neck made her startle, sure it was smooth glide of a knife.

Slowly her damaged eyes adjusted to the darkness. Tree on tree on tree stretched before her. She couldn’t see any outline of a human figure in the moonlight. No one reaching out to grab her. The small of her back, wet with cold sweat, itched as if eyes were on it. She whipped around to look behind her, fearful the Corner might have circled around, but the only movement was the wind catching the high branches. She pressed her lower back, but the awful feeling didn’t go away.

It came to her all at once, shamed her that she hadn’t thought of it before.

Call 911! What are you doing? Call the police!

She reached for her phone. It wasn’t in her right pocket, where she could have sworn she’d felt its weight. She set the wildlife camera down on the snow and frisked herself, frantic.

Where is it? Where is it?It’s not here, it’s not here! Did you drop it?

She hiked up the coat to feel the pockets of her sweatpants. With gratefulness bordering on answered prayer, she found the phone. The light from the screen was painful. Did it light up her face for the Corner to find her? Her hand wavered so horribly that the phone wouldn’t unlock. She squeezed her husband’s wedding ring tight against her palm to calm herself, and at last held the phone still enough it recognized her face and unlocked. She dialed.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

The voice was so chipper that her mind turned blank, unable to meld it with the dark forest, the threat, her terror.

“Hello, what is your emergency? Hello?”

The irritation slipping into the voice on the other end of the phone wakened her.

“Yes, yes! There’s someone here. He’s after me. Please!”

“What is your address?”

She told the dispatcher, repeated it, gave her name, and at the end of every piece of information heard her dry tongue rasp out, “I’m in the woods. Behind the house. Please, send someone. Please, he’s here, he’s back, please.”

The woman kept asking questions, told her to stay on the line, but it became increasingly difficult to speak as fear swelled her lips and tongue. The risk of standing there, phone alight, swelled through her brain, her whole body shaking now, trembling beyond her control. She didn’t hang up, but she clicked the phone screen off, turned off the ringer, and put it in her pocket, unable to bear the light, the sound.

At first she thought her shaking was caused simply by the sheer terror of her position, her panicked mind not knowing what to do. But as the forest continued to surround her dark and quiet, she realized she was cold. Extremely cold. For twenty minutes she’d walked the snowdrifted forest. For the last fifteen minutes she’d been standing still, hatless, with a mitten off, on her frostbitten legs. Standing in a snowbank that was sifting ice into her boots in the dark woods.

She dazedly picked up her mitten. It had fallen onto the snow during her search for the phone. She put it on her frozen hand. Made a fist inside of it, like a child does, to warm it.

What now? What now? What do you do? Where is he?

Nothing moved. Anytime she shifted, looked around, all she could feel was the freeze of inhaled air, a consciousness of the sweat-slicked chill of the sore knot at the small of her back.

Wait. Wait for the police. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is wait.

She picked up the wildlife camera from where it lay near her feet, half sunken into the snow.

Stupid to leave it. Don’t lose it. You have to protect it. It’s proof.

She cursed her fractured eye socket, how dusty her vision was at its edges, especially in the darkness. She felt herself a tiny, broken thing under the eye of the Corner. He’d come up from behind her with that otherworldly weapon, the one too small and soft to exist, and the last word she’d hear would be “delicious.”

Light swept over her, cut to shards by the trees, and at first it was the beam of a flashlight, it was the Corner, trapping her, blinding her, in that spotlight, no escape.

But then she heard the metal squelch of a car door. A voice.

“Hello? Ma’am? Where are you?”

Relief punched her in the gut, and she ran and scrambled through the snow toward thesergeant.

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