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Is the day really fading that fast, or am I?
What the eff just happened here? 😧
“And you’ve got the permits to visit Abandon?”
You need a permit to visit and abandoned city?! 😳
Abigail caught something, but it was subtle, and she instantly let it go.
Nop... see? You never let go of something you think you got when you’re about to go into nature and explore a misteriously abandones city... tsk tsk
What she saw was a glance between Scott and Lawrence—just two seconds of eye contact that looked something like relief.
Hmmm 🤨
Abigail realized they hadn’t been following a trail since breakfast.
Another dead giveaway ... what if they fall and you need to get help?! You’ve no idea where you are!!
A few miles below, perhaps at the lake where they’d stopped for lunch, a column of smoke rose out of the forest. As she walked back toward their campsite, she felt glad to have seen it, relieved to know they weren’t completely alone out here.
Somehow I don’t think it’s reason for celebration...
This town of a hundred and twenty-three souls just up and disappeared on Christmas Day.”
Taking note
Everyone assumed they’d find the remains of Abandon in the summer, when the snow was gone, but they never recovered a single bone.”
Spooky indeed
A couple years back, she’d written a piece for the Times about soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, interviewed dozens of vets with PTSD. No question, he had it. She saw the damage in his eyes.
Having someone with ptsd on a hike of this sort might be a big no no
Abigail took out her cell phone. It roamed for a moment, got a signal. She called her mother to tell her how beautiful it all was.
Oh man... we know where this is going...beautiful now, a nightmare later. Also enjoy your signal while you have it. It’ll soon eclipse
Of course, she never had her reckoning in Arizona. Jocelyn vanished with everyone else that Christmas Day.”
Could she be the reason why it happened?
Not particularly cold, but it should be all snow above nine thousand feet. As you know, Abandon sits at eleven.” “How much they predicting?” Lawrence asked. “One to three feet. Winter storm warnings are already up. Supposed to start late tonight.” “So what does this mean?” June asked.
It means you need to leave. Last time snow was in that town a whole lotta people vanished. You don’t want to be seconds to go
“We’ll take our chances,” he said as Abandon vanished in the fog.
You are gonna regret those words. Your chances.. not looking good.
He stopped. He walked back to the piano. His weak heart pounding, he leaned down and kissed Lana on the cheek. She stopped playing and bowed her head. They both trembled. “I apologize,” Bart said. “It’s just that . . .” He hurried outside and shut the door.
Awww.. heart warming... please tell me she’s not a wraith
Joss took a candle out from under the bar, went over to the stove, opened it, and held the wick to a flame. She set the burning candle in the windowsill behind the bar, stood there watching torrents of snow fall through the darkness, wondering if they could see her signal in the blizzard.
Setting to flee, are we...? Hmmm
watching the little girl devour her supper, dripping sauce on her white pinafore.
Who’s she?
“Save you? No. God saves. I am a very small part of that equation. Besides, it would be an insult to your intelligence for me to think I can convince you of your need for God. You’re a smart woman. You’ve lived many a year in this world and have certainly heard the Gospel at some point. You’ve chosen not to accept Him. It saddens me, certainly saddens God, but you have free will. I respect that.”
Lovely bit, wish everyone who’s strong and fervent on Hod would have the same view
When God speaks to you, His voice is unmistakable.
Somehow, Stephen, I’m not too sure that’s God you heard...
“That’s a bunch of garbage. All you need is a camera and film, because if you can’t walk into a room and feel it in your bones, you’re in the wrong business, wasting your time.”
Sometimes it’s not so much a matter of being able to feel it but to prove it to others, namely naysayers and non-believers
“You got extra batteries for your light?” “Back at camp. Why?” “Yours is dying.”
Oh no, you don’t, here we go!!
“No,” Abigail said. “We’ll all go.”
Exactly!! No, let’s split idiocy
Snowflakes passed through the beam of Emmett’s headlamp.
Oh, I can feel something ominous is afoot
“Run,” Scott hissed. “They’re coming.”
Omg runnnnnnn
two men garbed in night camouflage and face masks, suppressor-fitted machine pistols slung over their shoulders.
What the hell is going on?!!!
Are they military? Are they descendants of the Abandon villagers? Is this some kind of The Hills Have Eyes sort of plot?
Why kill Jerrod but tase Abigail? Do they only want women? If that’s the case, June better be alive...
I don’t believe in that God anymore.” “But you did last Sunday, so something changed your mind?” “Not something, Gloria. God Himself.” And there were sparks in the preacher’s gentle eyes—deep loss and rage at that loss—as
Hmm... what could’ve happened to the preacher man?...
As Ezekiel ascended toward the servants’ quarters, he filled with an exhilaration he’d not experienced in some time. It wasn’t fear—he couldn’t recall ever having been plagued by that emotion, even as a younker in Virginia—but an airiness in his stomach, birthed by the anticipation of something he’d always had a taste for, and still did. It reminded him of the rough old days, helling around with the boys. In all honesty, he had to own up to missing aspects of his former self. Much as he loved Gloria and his life with her, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt this alive.
You can’t deny your true nature, I suppose, the things that make your heart race and your Brian tick will always do so, even if you’ve reformed yourself, they’ll still have an appeal like no other, unless if linked to some kind of traumatic experience, I guess.
“Is it any wonder, Zeke, that He hates us?” “Who?” “God.” “Wait. You sayin God hates His own creations?” The preacher gestured at the carnage. “Wouldn’t you?”
A good question indeed...
“Look at this place.” He waved a hand at their shanty. “We live in squalor,” he said. “Ain’t ye tired of it yet?
Oh shit... he isn’t answering... you know that answer is going to be foul...
What I’ve heard, Molly went crazy as a sheepherder over it. Hasn’t left that room in five years. Still thinks her husband’s comin for her.”
Oh... so I was right... no husband there with her
“We have to go to Emerald House.”
Ok... I definitely did not see this coming 😳
Abigail heard it, too—the rapid patter of footsteps.
Omg omg omg is it the devil little girl?
A half-dozen coyotes blitzed past
Phhh... anticlimactic much? 😅
“You’re fuckin kidding me.”
Nop... those two back then made sure that’d be empty for youuuuu
“I don’t think I caught your name.” “Emmett Tozer.” “Cool if I call you Em?”
Oh we know where this is going...
1893
Blake Crouch, you do know how to drive me insane 😂
Gloria threw her arms around his neck, felt the sandpaper of his face against hers, caught that smell of his that still melted her knees. “You come back to me,” she whispered. He lifted his hat and pulled off Gloria’s sealskin cap so he could kiss her forehead and tug at those blond curls. “Always have, Glori. Always will.”
If that doesn’t melt snow I don’t know what does ..awww
“Doc, I’m sorry to break up your conversation, but—” The ball made a loud crunch as it entered Russell Ilg’s head through his left eye,
Goodness gracious, this book is graphic and I’m here for it!
He thought of all the people in that haunted town two thousand feet below, how they’d endured this brutal wilderness and all its impositions—the cold, the thin air, the loneliness, maddening isolation—for just a fraction of what he held in his hand. And in that moment, he no longer regarded the residents of Abandon and the thousand other mining camps scattered like bacteria through the West as people of ambition and courage. They were a cold, dirty, desperate, miserable lot. He saw them now so clearly. They had crossed the plains and made homes in these savage mountains and borne their myriad
...more
Got a point
The trail they climbed had no destination but Abandon.
The crude description that preceded this line made stop eating my breakfast... damn...powerful writing, Mr. Crouch, bravo!
2009
Why are you doing this to meeeee?
“You better hope this fucking kills me,” he said, and disappeared over the edge.
Just what I was thinking
“What am I missing, Abby?” She looked at his purple right eye, the line of dried blood cracking down his cheek like old plaster. “It’s still all about you.
That’s it.
Wanted to catch just a glimmer of self-loathing or shame in her father’s eyes, though it wouldn’t have changed much. But it might’ve been a start. Lawrence had gone hard. He scowled, as if deeply offended, and in the light of the flames, his face appeared faintly grotesque and very old.
Oh, Lawerence... wrong move
Stephen Cole tore down Main Street, hell for leather through waist-deep snow, his horse kicking up clouds of powder, and the Bible-puncher shouting as if the apocalypse were upon them, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
Oh lord...
Bessie reached down and took her daughter’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But he is my husband. I ain’t got nothin else.”
Oh, Bessie
“Somethin about Indians. Come on, they’re callin for you, Billy. Want you to ride up to the pass with some a the other men, help head ’em off.”
Oh, they’re not heading off... nop
A man crouched behind a rat-eaten divan, his knees drawn into his chest, rocking slowly back and forth and shivering with cold.
Where the hell did he come from?! Who is he?!!!
no words spoken, no direct communication with another human being in three years, since that Christmas night in Santa Fe.
Hmm... interesting... but also.. os no soul in this forsaken town free from a dark past?
Although it does make sense everyone has a burden to carry, seeing how else would anyone willingly go to such an inhospitable place, right?
Isaiah slipped two cigarettes between his lips, lit them both, handed one to Jerrod.
Shoot...they’re both alive 😰
“You wanna pray or something, Jerrod?” “Wouldn’t know what the fuck to say. Haven’t prayed a day out of my whole life. God ain’t a fool if He’s up there, and I don’t wanna insult the Man, particularly now.”
Truer words...
