Patti stared down at it for a moment or two, something in her telling her to trust him, to follow him. He had, after all, given away what seemed to be his only weapon. She knew that was hardly enough to actually justify blindly trusting some random guy, when all this weird stuff – and she still wasn’t convinced it wasn’t just an elaborate prank – was going on, but she did anyway.
The man held a finger to his lips as she approached, giving her a hard stare. After a moment, she realized he was telling her to be quiet. Then he pointed back down the path to the main building, a much clearer signal. She shook her head and, a bit reluctantly, handed the bat back to him.
He opened his mouth, then shook his head and nodded, gesturing for her to follow him. He moved quietly, slowly, glancing towards the silent cabins for a few seconds before moving on. It was Patti and Mina’s cabin where he stopped longer, apparently having heard something more.
He made her stay outside, holding her back with one hand before venturing inside.
If she’d stayed in the cabin for a few minutes longer, if the kid hadn’t been able to get to sleep, if she’d decided it was getting late, she was tired, it wasn’t worth it to trek over to the main building, she would’ve still been inside. That was one of the things that haunted her, ever since. But not the main thing.
The man stumbled out, the baseball bat tumbling to the ground, his eyes dazed. He didn’t even seem to see her. “I have to find the other,” he was saying to himself. “There’s always two…” He vanished into the darkness, never to be seen by Patti again, no matter how hard she tried to track him down, to get his help.
The “other” might have reared its head, repeated that night with everything it had learned from its master, but the next morning, after the police had gone, the place was deserted. Patti thought about it sometimes, about the weeds growing up around the cabins, erasing the baseball diamond, about dead leaves filling the pool, soaking up the stagnant water. That haunted her, too, now and then.
But it was the inside of her cabin that showed up in her nightmares most often. If she’d been there just a little longer, sure, she might have died, too, but at least she might have done something before she went, might have made some contribution to save those kids.
He didn’t look like much, the person who had done it. He was older than she had been then – though maybe about the same age as she was now – and small. But she could feel the evil coming from him, saw the work of his hands, saw the blood on his lips, and knew it hadn’t come from within, just knew it. As surely as she knew what he was, what he had been.
The baseball bat was evidence – she knew that, too – but she barely even remembered taking it with her as she slowly made her way to the parking lot, putting it into her trunk as, deep down the dark, twisting road, she saw flashing lights approach, too late, as always.
Some day she would need it. Some dark, snowy day.