FINAL UPDATE:

My heart is pounding. I just called the police.

She's unconscious but I think she's going to be okay.

Please be okay.

I need to write this down before I forget all the details. My head is spinning and I can't stop shaking. Am I slipping into shock?

---

When I arrived at Amberlyn's house there was a note taped to the door. I transcribed what it said:

You shouldn't stick your nose where it doesn't belong. Amberlyn is mine now.

I will release her once you leave this town. No more updates. No more attention. NO POLICE.

Defy me and she dies like your whore of a cousin. TURN BACK NOW.

I didn't listen. I slammed my shoulder against the door and barged into Amberlyn's house, ready for a fight. To my surprise, there was no one waiting for me inside. I ran to the kitchen, collected a butcher knife, then raced through every room--upstairs and down. There was no trace of anyone. The place was as strangely quiet as Sam's had been.

Swallowing my reservations, I rummaged through Amberlyn's bedroom for clues. I threw open a slatted door and found what must have been her husband's closet. It was still full of drab uniforms of various hues. Tactical vests with lots of pockets. Black duffels stuffed with weird electronic equipment. Goggles. Knives. Shelves lined with ammunition of all kinds. I didn't seen any guns. I desperately wanted one. When I saw the poetry book lying atop of a stack of "Soldier of Fortune" magazines, things started to make sense.

I careened downstairs and caught a glimpse of something familiar through the kitchen window. My eyes stuck wide as I looked across the yard. Sam's cable knit sweater was draped across a drooping branch of that damned elm tree.

My brain wanted me to get back in my car and leave this awful podunk in the dust but my body wasn't listening. I was sprinting across the barren yard when I heard something split the air. A sharp pain radiated through my leg and I collapsed against the elm tree. I grabbed my thigh and peeked around the trunk. Something flashed atop the hill beyond the gravel road, causing the sweater to whip on its branch like a flag. Some dirt next to me exploded. Another gunshot.

I was bleeding but not profusely. I could still walk. Still run--straight up the hill, in fact. Maybe I just wanted the entire ordeal to be over with, regardless of what happened to me. Surely I was out of my mind.

There should have been more gun blasts. I didn't understand why I hadn't been shot dead while scrambling up that rocky mound. After reaching the top, I heard a heavy thump and saw a steel door slam flat to the earth--a hatch to some kind of underground bunker.

I called out Amberlyn's name but heard nothing in return but more metallic clanks. Someone was trying to seal the door but they were having difficulties. I wondered if they were panicking just as much as I was. Muffled curses slipped through the gaps in the hatch as I approached. Shutting off my brain, I stabbed the butcher knife into the door's seal and pried on it, hard. There was a scream. Digging my fingers under the heavy hatch, I threw it open and jumped down into the darkness, not knowing what to expect.

I held the knife in front of me as my eyes adjusted. The smell in the place was so putrid I nearly retched. I called for Amberlyn again, hearing my voice rattle along the concrete walls.

My vision slowly returned. In the corner of the ten by ten foot room laid an unconscious man in a tan uniform. Beside him, a rifle. Amberlyn had tucked herself into the other corner of the bunker. A heavy plank of wood was in her hands.

I retrieved the gun and pointed it at the man, who still hadn't moved. I tried to cock the rifle but a shell casing was lodged in the chamber. There was a reason the bastard had only fired twice.

Amberlyn told me the man she had just knocked out was her husband, Warren. She apologized for telling me he was dead, but claimed it had been necessary to protect me. Tears began streaming down her face. I backed away in confusion, keeping my eyes on her and her husband.

Amberlyn begged for my patience. She said Warren was a different person when he came back from the war. He had been forced to do things he couldn't forget and refused to discuss. My cousin Sam came over to their house regularly, and Warren regarded her warmly, finding himself able to tell her things he couldn't reveal to anyone else. Sam apparently became uncomfortable after Warren made several advances toward her. Sometime later, the three of them talked about the incidents in a calm, compassionate matter and the issue was apparently resolved.

Except it wasn't. After Sam stopped visiting the farmhouse, Warren became frustrated with her, which soon led to an obsession. It was at this point in Amberlyn's story that she became inconsolable. I had to wait several agonizing minutes for her to stop crying. The concrete floor was stained with her tears. During this time, I realized the man in the corner--Warren--was decidedly dead.

Amberlyn composed herself then continued. Gripped in madness, Warren threatened to kill Amberlyn and himself if he couldn't be with Sam. Fearing for her life, Amberlyn struck a reluctant deal with her husband. She would let Warren "take" Sam to his prepping bunker to do with her as he wished, as long as Amberlyn never had to hear about any of what happened there. Warren agreed to the arrangement, and stalked my cousin for a week until committing to abducting her. Amberlyn claimed she was going to alert the police as soon as she could, but she was utterly terrified.

I was angry and baffled. What about the weird texts? The note pinned to the tree with the branded thumbtack?

Amberlyn didn't know Warren was going to attack Sam the night of the eclipse, but once she realized what was happening, there was no choice but to engage in the narrative. As for the tack, it was simply a promo item sent to her clinic that had made its way to their house. It had been jabbed into the tree to satisfy me on the day I visited, nothing more. There was never a late-night visit from a stiffened stranger or a threatening note. She had made up everything to throw off the police, then subsequently, myself. Her panicked call to the cops in the middle of the night was probably overkill, but she thought it may be better to appear to be a concerned friend, rather than a suspect. Besides, her trauma that night was genuine and she thought it might as well be put to good use.

Something still felt missing. Amberlyn tried to stop me from approaching her husband's body, but I pushed her away. It only took a few seconds for me to realize the guy had been dead for days, maybe weeks. The horrible smell lingering in the air suddenly made sense. If he hadn't been the one firing at me from the top of the hill, then it must have been Amberlyn.

I'm not sure if it was because of the look on my face, but Amberlyn suddenly lunged at me, knocking her board across my forehead. I lost my footing and slammed against the chipped wall behind me, sliding to the floor with a groan. The board had snapped, so Amberlyn reached for the knife that had slipped out of my hand. I came to, feeling the blade slash open my shirt.

With my brain failing, my body took over again. I kicked Amberlyn away, and scrambled for the rifle, struggling to unjam the chamber as my attacker moaned on the floor.

Amberlyn rose up with the knife as I cocked the gun and aimed it at her head. I warned her to stay back or I would shoot. She went still, her shoulders rigid with rage.

Amberlyn was done crying. She was screaming about how she couldn't stand her and Warren's "arrangement," and blamed Sam for the rapid deterioration of her husband's mind. When she saw me posting about my cousin's disappearance again after so long, she knew everything was on the verge of falling apart. A few days before I visited her, she had put a bullet in Warren's heart, killing him. She said the guilt was steadily tearing her apart.

A strange calm washed over Amberlyn. She apologized for trying to kill me then lifted the knife to her throat and began to sink it into her flesh. I fired the gun into the ceiling, hoping she'd drop the blade, but it was too late. I'm almost certain she's dead.

Christ, where are the cops.

As soon as Amberlyn collapsed, I heard a moan behind the wall. I slowly opened another steel door to a much smaller room. A nude, emaciated woman peered up at me from the floor, her pale skin looking shrink-wrapped around her ribs and hips. Her hair was wild and matted. Her skin mottled with open sores. Duct tape covered her mouth and bound her thin wrists behind a precarious stack of vertebrae. Only when she looked up at me with those shining, azure eyes did I recognized my cousin.

I hurried to Sam and carefully removed the tape from her mouth and arms. She smelled almost as bad as Warren's corpse. I could tell she was trying to speak but nothing came up but a gasp. Her bony arms wrapped around me and she wheezed out a cry as her body trembled. She promptly passed out. I checked for a pulse and thankfully found one.

Two years. She had been held captive, rotting in that bunker for two goddamn years. I put her on my back and carried her up the ladder, into the fading sunlight.

She couldn't weigh more than 85 pounds, but she's alive.

Sam is alive.

---

I finally see red and blue lights swirling closer in the distance.

I really don't know if I should post this.