I saw the trawler in the distance, probably headed home for the evening as the first streaks of orange criss-crossed the sky.
I hurried to strap my snowshoes on my feet, regretting I’d taken the time to eat at the first bridge. Walking through these woods at night wasn’t a memory I wanted, but at least I knew there was life nearby.
I snapped the snowshoe buckles into place, picking up my pace when I set off through the snow again. I worked my ski poles, feeling my thighs burn after a few minutes. I trained my eyes on the coastline in the distance, imagining the tiny seaside village that might appear just around the edge of the next bend in the cliff. I moved faster, encouraged when another boat appeared on the opposite horizon, making its way slowly into the same port. It disappeared around the same bend, and tears of joy began to hover at my eyelids again.
Almost home.
I could feel it in my bones.
I broke around the bend then, the evergreens splitting to reveal a town, much smaller than I imagined, and far more charming. A few warm yellow street lights already twinkled at the end of a long dock, people and cars moving down the singular main street that curled along the bay.
“What is this place?” I hummed, smiling, turning my lips as I moved quicker across the snow, snowshoes no longer holding me back but shuttling me closer and closer to the hustle and bustle ahead of me. I reached the bottom of a small dip, catching the end of the street before it dead-ended at the rocky cliff.
Welcome to Seaport.
Population 600.
I read the sign over and over, wondering where exactly Seaport was. I continued walking, eyes on the busier downtown section that this street led to. I grinned, unbelieving of my luck when a sign grew larger.
Seaport Motel - Vacant
“Seaport, how cute.” I slipped my gloves off of my hands, then freed my shoes from the snowshoes and stepped out of them. I carried them over my back the rest of the way to the front steps of the Seaport Motel.
My new home for the night.
I imagined bursting through the doors and screaming at the top of my lungs that I’d been kidnapped. I needed the police, the secret service, and federal agents to track down the man that’d left me at the top of that mountain to die alone. I curled my fingers around the doorknob, forcing my brain to push forward as I stepped into the motel lobby.
A heavyset man with a long dark beard was hunched over the reception desk, a capped syringe between his teeth as he focused on something out of my view.
“Hello?” I ventured, unwilling to turn back now.
He dropped the syringe from his teeth and shot out of his chair. “A beautiful day for snowshoeing!”
I jumped in my boots when the man behind the counter boomed.
“Y-yes,” I agreed quickly, pushing my knit hat further down my brow. “Do you have a room for the night?”
“Sure do. Haven’t had a guest in weeks, we’ve always got room.”
“Weeks?”
He shrugged. “Forty-five dollars a night, just started our special, off-season rate.”
I nodded, passing him my credit card.
“Cash only.”
“Cash only?” I panicked, searching through the folds of my small wallet for dollars. “Is that even a thing anymore?”
“It is here. Some teenagers screwed me in chargebacks, so I made cash king again.”
“Nice.” My fingers shook as I finally wedged a tightly folded hundred dollar bill I kept only for emergencies out of my wallet.
“The last guest, was he tall with dark hair and dark blue eyes?”
The man behind the counter cut me an interested look. “Maybe.”
“Did you get his name?”
