Chapter 4: The Cabin on the Ridge

I ducked under his arm, and his hand closed on the empty air where my shoulder had been.

"Run," Ansel said again, and this time it sounded like it hurt.

He turned after me with that blank, dark look on his face.

The phone lay in the gravel between us, with Corbin's voice still coming out of it, soft and patient.

"Bring her in, Ansel. Bring her in."

Hattie came out of the truck, and she didn't run.

She went straight at the phone and stomped on it with the heel of her work boot.

She stomped three times, until the screen went black.

"Bring her," said the voice, and then there was nothing.

Ansel dropped to his knees in the gravel.

He stayed there, breathing hard, with both hands flat on the ground.

I stood over him, shaking.

"Are you back?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Say something only you would say."

He looked up.

His eyes were gray again, tired and ashamed.

"I would have broken your arm," he said. "I could feel myself deciding which one."

"But you told me to run."

"I got one word out before it took the rest."

"Good enough for me," Hattie said, and stuck her hand out to help him up.

"My mother kept a hammer by the landline for the same reason," she added. "Call comes in from the Speaker, boom."

Ansel stared at her hand and took it.

"It only lasts as long as his voice does," he said. "He has to be speaking, or I'm free."

"Then he'll just call back," I said.

"He'll call back on every phone I own. We can't stay on this road."