Chapter 2
Arthur complied instantly, retreating behind the safety of the Formica barrier with frantic, bird-like movements. He kept his elbows tucked in, his oversized yellow sleeves flapping as he clasped his hands behind his messy mop of light brown hair.
Marcus followed him, his boots squelching on the damp linoleum. He reached across the counter and grabbed the heavy black rotary telephone sitting beside the brass bell. He yanked the receiver off the cradle and pressed it to his ear.
Dead silence. No dial tone. Not even the faint hum of an open exchange. Just the cold, inert weight of bakelite against his cheek.
Marcus slammed the receiver back onto the cradle with a furious clatter. "Why isn't this working?"
"T-the lines, sir," Arthur stammered, cowering against a metal filing cabinet. "The ice storm took down the branches on the ridge about three hours ago. The wires are down everywhere between here and the junction. The cell towers are out, too. Look at your phone... there's no signal. Not even for 911."
Marcus ground his teeth together, reaching into his pocket with his left hand to pull out his burner phone. The screen flickered to life, showing zero bars and a red *Searching...* icon pulsing uselessly in the corner. He cursed, his knuckles whitening on the grip of his revolver.
"Don't lie to me, you little shit," Marcus hissed, leaning over the counter so far his face was inches from Arthur's. "You got an auxiliary line in the back? A radio?"
"No! I swear to God, no!" Arthur’s eyes welled with sudden, convincing tears of terror. He squeezed his eyes shut, his entire body shuddering. "It's just a two-star motor lodge! We don't even have cable television! When the snow hits, the world ends out here. We just wait it out!"
Marcus stared at him for three long, agonizing seconds. The boy was practically soiling himself. Snot was beginning to glisten at the edge of his nostril; his lips were white. A creature this pathetic couldn't formulate a tactical lie if his life depended on it.
Marcus let out a slow, ragged exhale and lowered the gun slightly, though his finger remained hooked inside the trigger guard.
"Keys," Marcus ordered. "You got a truck out back? A plow? Something with four-wheel drive?"
"I—I have a Honda Civic," Arthur offered weakly, pointing a trembling finger toward the frosted picture window overlooking the front lot. "It’s parked near room four. But the drift is up to the headlights already. It doesn't have snow chains. You’d get stuck before you made the driveway apron."
Marcus glanced through the window. Through the ice-crusted glass, he could faintly make out the lumpy silhouette of a small sedan completely entombed in fresh powder. The wind was whipping snow sideways in dense, opaque curtains. Even if the car ran, driving down Dunridge Pass in this zero-visibility tempest without chains was suicide. He’d slide off the first hairpin turn and drop six hundred feet into the gorge.
"Damn it," Marcus snarled. He clutched his wounded flank, his face twisting as a fresh wave of agony radiated through his torso.
The adrenaline of the chase was finally draining away, leaving behind the punishing reality of his physical condition. The bullet from the state trooper’s sidearm at the checkpoint had only grazed his lower ribs, but the cold had kept the flesh from clotting properly. His soaked denim was stiff with ice and crusted crimson. He needed warmth, he needed a bandage, and he needed to sit down before his legs gave out entirely.
"You got a first aid kit?" Marcus asked, his voice suddenly thick with fatigue.
"In the back office," Arthur nodded quickly, eager to please. "Under the sink. Gauze, tape, rubbing alcohol. Some peroxide."
Marcus circled the edge of the counter, his revolver steady. "You’re going to walk back there, grab it, and bring it out here. If you try to lock the door behind you, I’ll blow three holes through that cheap hollow-core wood before you can turn the handle."
"I won't! I won't lock anything, I promise!" Arthur whimpered.
Arthur turned toward the narrow doorway leading to the private back office behind the reception desk.
If Marcus had been in any state to observe the room with an investigator’s eye, he might have noticed several profoundly strange details about the space he was occupying.
The lobby was utterly devoid of human warmth. There were no photographs on the walls—no pictures of an elderly Mr. Henderson holding up a prize trout, no snapshots of local high school sports teams taped to the bulletin board, no postcards sent by satisfied summer tourists. The corkboard behind the counter held only a single, laminated state tax license and an outdated calendar with no dates circled. It looked less like a functioning small business and more like a stage set constructed ten minutes before an audience walked into the theater.
More peculiar still was the door to the back office.
It was not a hollow-core interior door. Beneath the faux-wood vinyl veneer, the slab was three inches of reinforced solid birch, hung on heavy industrial steel hinges. And set into the jamb was a commercial grade, five-pin deadbolt lock.
The key cylinder was on the outside, facing the lobby. The thumb-turn was on the inside.
It was designed not to keep people out of the office.
It was designed to lock someone inside the lobby from the other side.
Arthur reached for the brass knob, his slender hand pale against the dark wood. He didn't rush. He didn't make a desperate lunge for the sanctuary of the room. He turned the knob with deliberate, gentle care, pushing the door open just wide enough to slip through the gap.
"Leave the door open wide!" Marcus shouted, his voice tight with warning. "Step back where I can see your feet!"
"Leaving it open! It’s open!" Arthur cried from within the shadows of the back room.
Inside the small office, bathed in darkness save for the amber spill from the lobby, Arthur stood beside a metal desk.
His posture altered in an instant.
The trembling stopped entirely. The rounded, defensive curve of his spine flattened out into straight, military rigidity. The terrified, watery sheen in his eyes vanished, replaced by an absolute, glassy stillness that was terrifying in its complete absence of emotion.
Arthur glanced down at his wrist. Beneath the fraying cuff of his yellow sweater, he touched two fingers to the radial artery of his left wrist.
Sixty-four beats per minute. Steady. Rhythmic. Calm as a frozen pond.
He let his gaze wander across the surface of the desk. In the corner sat a heavy, vintage Western Electric rotary telephone. The coiled black cord snaked down behind the baseboard, traveling through a newly drilled hole in the floorboards that led directly into the reinforced cellar below. The line wasn't dead from the storm. Arthur had cut the valley drop himself when the blizzard warnings posted on Monday, then wired the desk phone into a custom patch-relay linked to an emergency CB receiver down in the sub-level. Any transmission broadcast over emergency Channel 9 would trigger the rotary ringer above, converting desperate radio frequencies into the mechanical chime of an incoming phone call. Arthur had flipped the desk toggle forty minutes ago, severing the lobby bell until he was ready to activate the speaker.
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