Susan did the math. That was seven days. If the batteries were fresh. If the bulbs were new. If the sticker was even accurate.

A terrible notion occurred to her: What if she was down here longer than that?

The darkness seemed to press in around her. Susan felt goose bumps rise on her legs and arms.

It was clear what she had to do.

She would have to ration herself. She would have to save the light.

She was in the Trinities, and she was in her tent, and her father was there right beside her, and it was time for bed. They had down sleeping bags. And books to read in the morning. And Bliss had made them terrible trail mix with flaxseeds and when they woke up they were going to feed it to the birds.

“Good night, Dad,” Susan said softly into the darkness, and she put her finger on the lantern’s on/off button and pushed it.

The blackness was absolute. It was somehow darker than it had been before she had even found the Coleman. She had to blink to reassure herself that her eyes were still open. It was like death. It was like her consciousness and her body had been separated. This was what Gretchen did. She terrorized. She tortured. It wasn’t enough that she was going to kill Susan, she was going to make her scared first.

Susan reached for the lantern and turned it back on.

Fuck it. She had never been very good at rationing anything. She pulled her T-shirt over her knees for warmth, scraped a bit of peanut butter off the front of the shirt, and ate it.

Anyway, she wasn’t camping with her dad. Her dad was dead. She wasn’t sure now that they had ever been camping. Maybe she had just seen that tin Coleman in the basement.

Susan hugged her knees and kept her eyes on the edge of the light.

She was on a submarine. She was on a submarine in the deep Pacific, exploring the Mariana Trench. And she was absolutely alone.

Chapter 39

CHAPTER

39

The island was a dark shape in the distance. Archie stood next to Gretchen in the thick woods of an undeveloped lakeside property. The trees went right down to the lake’s waterline and were dense enough to obscure the houses on either side of the two-acre lot. The ground was a soft bed of cedar needles and the branches of the hulking evergreens blotted out the stars. They had parked on the side of the road and then Gretchen had led him through the trees with only a small penlight to guide them. He’d tripped on tree roots and fallen twice, but she navigated the woods easily, as if she’d memorized the terrain. She also had the advantage of not being high.