Four Live Rounds by Blake Crouch

completely from memory—more impression than detail. But a
few of their trips remained clear, intact.
    The first time they’d come and accidentally
discovered this place, the twins were only six years old, and
Michelle had lost her front teeth to this gap while she and
Jennifer wrestled and rolled in a meadow one sunny afternoon, cried
her heart out, afraid the tooth fairy wouldn’t pay for lost
teeth.
    There had been the trip seven years ago where
he and Sue had to fake happy faces for the girls, crying at night
in their tent, while fifteen hundred miles away, in a laboratory in
Minneapolis, a biopsy cut from the underside of Sue’s left breast
was screened for a cancer that wasn’t there.
    Three years back, he’d been anxiously
awaiting news on an advertising campaign he’d pitched, which if
chosen, might have netted him half a million dollars, remembered
trying not to dwell on the phone call he’d make once they left
these mountains, knowing if he got a yes, what that would mean for
his family. He’d pulled over once they reentered cell phone
coverage at an overlook outside of Asheville. Walked back toward
the car a moment later, eyes locked with Sue’s, shaking his
head.
    But looking at the time they’d spent here as
a whole, forest instead of tree, it felt a lot like his life—so
many good times, some pain, and it had all raced by faster than he
could’ve imagined.
    Roger crawled to the thicket’s edge and
started up the hill, the flashlight and the Glock shoved down the
back of his fleece pants.
    After five minutes, he stopped to catch his
breath.
    He thought he’d been making a horrible
racket, dead leaves crunching under his elbows as he wriggled
himself under the low branches of the rhododendron shrubs. But he
assured himself it wasn’t as much noise as he thought. To anyone
else, to Donald, it probably sounded like nothing more than the
after-hour scavenging of a raccoon.
    Roger was breathing normally again and had
rolled over on his stomach to continue crawling when he spotted the
outline of a tent twenty yards uphill. The moon shone upon the rain
fly, and in the lunar light, he could only tell that it was dark in
color.
    He pulled the gun out of his waistband.
    His chest felt tight, and he had to take
several deep breaths to make the lightheadedness dissolve.
    Then he was crawling again, though much
slower now, taking care to avoid patches of dead leaves and
low-clearance branches that might drag across his jacket.
    The tent stood just ahead, a one-man A-frame.
He was still hidden in shadow, but another few feet and he’d emerge
from the cover of darkness, into the moonlit glade.
     
    Roger lay beside the tent and held his
breath, listening for deep breathing indicative of Donald sleeping,
if in fact this was even the man’s tent. He didn’t know how long he
lay there. Two minutes. A quarter of an hour. Whichever the case,
it felt like ages elapsed, and he still hadn’t heard a sound from
inside.
    Maybe Donald wasn’t in there. Maybe he’d
already found a spot to hide and watch their tent. Maybe he was a
silent sleeper. Maybe he’d heard Roger crawling toward him through
the rhododendron and was sitting up right—
    “That you out there, Roger?”
    Roger jumped up and scrambled back toward the
thicket.
    He stopped at the edge of the glade, his gun
trained on the tent, trembling in his hand.
    “Would you tell me something?” Donald asked.
“Was she alive right after you hit her? She was dead when the
paramedics arrived.”
    Roger had to wet the roof of his mouth with
his tongue so he could speak.
    “She was gone instantly,” he lied.
    “You didn’t tell your wife, did you?”
    “No.”
    “She seemed surprised. Does she know you came
over here? Did you discuss it with her after I left? Tell her what
you’d done?”
    “What were you going to do to us?”
    “Not a thing.”
    “I don’t believe that. How’d you find
me?”
    “When the police gave up, I spent thousands
of dollars