Fully Loaded - Blake Crouch [36]
It punches through, the window disintegrating.
Ron and Jessica wait ten seconds, eyes locked.
She says finally, “No alarm.”
“Or maybe it’s disabled ‘cause the power’s out.”
-19-
They climb down out of the storefront and walk past the cash register. Up ahead, a group of figures congeal Ron’s blood and he freezes, lets out a tiny gasp.
Jessica says, “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Just a trio of mannequins outfitted in fly-fishing gear.
They move on past the display cases containing rock climbing hardware and an array of ice axes.
Against the back wall, mummy bags dangle from the ceiling, flanked by dozens of external and internal frame backpacks.
They pass through a rear doorway into a dark, narrow hall. Jessica tries the door to the bathroom, but it’s locked.
“Damn.”
“You gotta go, babe?”
“Yeah.”
“You should squat right in front of the cash register.”
“You’re a child, Ron.”
They head back into the store.
“There it is,” Ron says.
“Where?”
The darkness makes it nearly impossible to see, but in the middle of the room, between racks of overpriced Patagonia shirts and Columbia down jackets, a diorama has been constructed—dormant campfire ring, mannequins in sandals and tank tops cooking dinner in a camp stove, their backs to a two-man tent.
Ron and Jessica untie their shoes and strip out of their wet jackets and pants and crawl into the tent, into the sleeping bags, zip themselves up.
After several minutes of intense shivering, Ron notes the return of warmth—the electricity of pins and needles in his extremities, the burn of mild frostbite on his cheeks.
“You getting warm?” he asks.
“Little by little.”
He scoots his bag toward Jessica’s until he feels her breath in his face.
“How’s the pain?”
“Quit asking.”
“Sorry, I’m a doctor, it’s in my—”
“You’re a plastic surgeon.”
“Ouch.”
“I didn’t mean that. I’m just in a ton of pain here.”
“You think this is one of those experiences we’re gonna be able to look back on and—”
“Are you kidding?”
They lie in the dark, listening to the low moan of wind pushing through the broken glass of the storefront.
At length, Jessica sits up, says, “I can’t sleep. I’m too thirsty, Ron. All that wine and walking around—I just got dehydrated.”
“All right, you know that pot sitting out there in the fake campfire ring?”
“Yeah.”
“Take it out onto the sidewalk and fill it with snow. You’ll have to pack it in really tight. I’ll see if I can fire up the camp stove.”
-20-
Before starting his practice thirteen years ago, Ron was an avid outdoorsman, spending countless weekends in the Cascades, even squeezing in a weekend a month outdoors during the slog of med school. As he kneels by the fire ring in the dark and fumbles with the camp stove, he realizes how much the gear has changed in over a decade, evidenced by the five minutes it costs him to unravel the mystery of attaching the red canister of white gas.
As he screws it in, he hears Jessica climbing back through the storefront, pushing her way between clothing racks.
“How’s it going?” she asks.
He strikes the match, holds it to the burner.
The stove flares up.
As the fire burns down, quickly consuming the modicum of propane, he opens the gas, the lazy orange flame transformed into a low blue roar.
“Put it right here.”
She sets the pot down on the stove.
“Why don’t you get three water bottles—I saw them by the daypacks—and fill them up. It’s gonna take a lot of melted snow to fill this pot.”
While Jessica goes for more snow, Ron sits beside one of the mannequins, monitoring the stove, the heat cranked up to high, using a plastic spoon to stir the snow.
It takes longer than he anticipates, but soon he has half a pot of slush, which he pulls off the heat and transfers into a water bottle that formerly belonged to the cute blond mannequin in the tight pink sports bra.
He says, “Jess, what’s taking?”
Another minute crawls by.
He puts on his jacket and cold, wet shoes.
Turning down the heat, he stands and walks toward the front of the store, past the cash register, into the storefront.
Snow