Free Abandon by Blake Crouch Page A

suddenly and went back to the open wardrobe, began fingering one of the evening gowns, her face still radiating a blank, trancelike intensity. With June out of the way, Abigail took the opportunity to walk over to the bay window. From the vantage point, she could see down through old glass onto the street below.
    She lifted Emmett’s camera and stared through the viewfinder.
    “Lawrence, can you give me some light, please?”
    He came over and shined his flashlight at the saloon across the street.
    “You know, I want to apologize, Emmett,” Lawrence said. “For fucking with you last night about the spaceship and Abandon.”
    “It’s all right.”
    “No, I was being a dick. Let me share with you my theory on what happened.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah. Now, I’d have been laughed out of academia if I’d ever published this.”
    Where the beam passed, the night glowed in deep reds, and Abigail suddenly knew she would write about this moment, what it felt like to gaze into the viewfinder, through the number twenty-five filter, searching for lost spirits in the sea of red. Maybe Emmett wasn’t actually looking for spirits when he snapped his photos, but she could embellish. Make his whole bizarre profession sound sexy and strange. She had the first inkling that this could be a phenomenal piece.
    “But because of the way the town disappeared—everything abruptly abandoned, no record of what happened, no bones . . .”
    Something stepped out of the saloon and ran up the street. She lowered the camera.
    “I came to the conclusion that—”
    “Lawrence, you see that?”
    “What?”
    Emmett came over. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “Something just came out of the saloon and ran up the street.”
    “Probably a deer,” said Scott, who’d been leaning against the wall by the door, quietly observing. “Tons of wildlife out—”
    “It didn’t move like a deer.”
    “How’d it move?”
    “Like a man. You didn’t see it, Lawrence? It moved right through where you were shining the flashlight.”
    “I didn’t see a thing.”
    Abigail handed Emmett his camera and walked through the suite and out the open door, moving quickly down the hallway to where the staircase had previously merged with the second floor.
    “Hey!” she called down into the dark lobby.
    Jerrod had extinguished his headlamp. Abigail turned hers on, directing her light across the collapsed staircase, to the front desk, where he’d been standing several minutes ago.
    “Did you see something out there? . . .” Her words trailed into silence.
    She swept her beam of light at each archway.
    “Jerrod?” she called out. A shadow moved down the corridor toward her. “Scott?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Jerrod left.”
    Scott came and stood beside her, flipped on his headlamp, moved his lightacross the lobby. “Jerrod!” he yelled, then cupped his mouth, shouted again, “Jerrod!
Where’d you go?
” Abigail heard the others emerge from the suite.
    “What’s wrong?” June asked as they approached.
    “Jerrod’s gone.”
    The five remaining members of the party peered down into the lobby, listening.
    Lawrence finally said, “You think something happened?”
    Scott knelt down, unzipped his backpack, and dug out a climbing rope.
    “I’ll see what’s going on.” Standing there, watching Scott unspool the rope, Abigail realized the soberness in his voice unnerved her. He jogged into the nearest suite, wrapped the rope three times around a heavy chest of drawers, and tied a knot. Then he came back out into the corridor and kicked the pile of rope. It dropped fifteen feet into the lobby. He got onto his knees, worked himself over the edge, his gloved hands gripping the rope. He slid carefully down onto the wrecked staircase.
    “If you guys just want to wait up there, I’ll be back in a minute.”
    “Hold up,” Lawrence said. “I’ll go with you.”
    The older man didn’t make lowering himself look as effortless as the guide had, but he got