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“The owner as he crosses the board floor, moving between shelves, past stacked crates and burlap sacks bulging with sugar and flour. “Jessup? It’s Brady! You in back?â€� The twelve burros crane their scrawny necks in his direction when Brady emerges from the merc. He reaches into his greatcoat, pulls out a tin of Star Navy tobacco, and shoves a chaw between lips and gums gone blackish purple in the last year. “What the hell?â€� he whispers. When he delivered supplies two weeks ago, this little mining town was bustling. Now Abandon looms listless before him in the gloom of late afternoon, streets empty, snow banked high against the unshoveled plank sidewalks, no tracks as far as he can see. The cabins scattered across the lower slopes lie buried to their chimneys, and with not a one of them smoking, the air smells too clean. Brady is a man at home in solitude, often spending days on the trail, alone in wild, quiet places, but this silence is all wrong—a lie. He feels menaced by it, and with each passing moment, more certain that something.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“The worst moments of your life you never see coming.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“Are you with them?â€� he whispered again. “With who?â€� Abigail asked. “The men in masks. There were—Get back!â€� he yelled and Abigail saw the machine pistol shift to her father.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“The man behind the divan stood up, the machine pistol quivering in his grasp. There was a flash, Abigail thinking he’d pulled the trigger, the walls of the sitting area lighting up, the snow glinting. It went dark again. Muffled thunder rolled through the basin, shook the chandelier, the weakened floor trembling beneath her feet.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“is the sound of money being made, and only two things will stop them—Christmas and tragedy. He dismounts his albino steed, the horse’s pinked nostrils flaring, dirty mane matted with ice. The single-rig saddle is snow-crusted as well, its leather and cloth components—the mochila and shabrack—frozen stiff. He rubs George’s neck, speaking in soft, low tones he knows”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“town, and the mule skinner knows that something is wrong. Two miles south stands Bartholomew Packer’s mine, the Godsend, a twenty-stamp mill that should be filling this box canyon with the”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“a.m. It was still raining, still pitch-black inside the tent. The sound of Scott unzipping the sleeping bag had woken her, and now he was crawling out of it. “What are you doing?â€� Abigail whispered. “I put it off long as I could stand it. I gotta go like nobody’s business.â€� “Here, take this”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“two things will stop them—Christmas and tragedy. He dismounts his albino steed, the horse’s pinked nostrils flaring, dirty mane matted with ice. The single-rig saddle is snow-crusted as well, its leather and cloth components—the mochila and shabrack—frozen stiff. He rubs George’s neck, speaking in soft, low tones he knows will calm the animal, telling him he did a good day’s work and that a warm stable awaits with feed and fresh water. The mule skinner opens his wallet, collects the pint of bust-head he bought at a bodega in Silverton, and swallows the remaining mouthful, whiskey”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“She said, “Jerrod’s dead, and Scott’s hurt bad.â€� Wood creaked in a structure across the street. “Listen,â€� Lawrence said, “there’s a house up that slope, with a bay window in front. I want you to go there, hide inside, get out of the open.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“I’m curious,â€� she said. “All this time, and now you contact me.â€� “I’ve followed your journalism career, subscribe to all the magazines you regularly contribute to, and I thought this . . . expedition . . . might be good fodder for yourâ€�”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“I don’t have close friends. There are acquaintances, a brother I talk to on the phone once a year on Christmas morning. Occasional dates, but no real love life. My work’s been my life and love.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“He felt like the true translation of himself again.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“Wind rips through the crags a thousand feet above, nothing moving in this godforsaken town, and the mule skinner knows that something is wrong. Two miles south stands Bartholomew Packer’s mine, the Godsend, a twenty-stamp mill that should be filling this box canyon with the thudding racket of the rock crushers pulverizing ore. The sound of the stamps in operation is the sound of money being made, and only two things will stop them—Christmas and tragedy.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“Do you know how a gun works?â€� “They hurt you.â€� “They can. I shot a bullet into the back of Molly’s head so she wouldn’t be sick or sad anymore.â€� “Did it hurt her?”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“He dismounts his albino steed, the horse’s pinked nostrils flaring, dirty mane matted with ice.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“Stu, where you at?â€� “Up here in the library.â€� “You hurt?”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“Both, in their own way, thinking, This is hell—the absolute loss borne from all those slivers of perfection that passed unnoticed, unrelished.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“But I'll tell you what I do wish. Wish we could live twice, take a different path each time. That at the end of all this, when I finished serving God in the West, I could go back to that day on the beach, put a ring on Eleanor's finger instead.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“the”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“Abigail loved her feet—small, feminine, exuding a slender, proportionate beauty her friends openly envied. These shredded, swollen blobs of flesh did not belong to her. They looked more like battered cod, blanched and translucent, with silver dollar–size blisters on her heels and ankles that peeled back, revealing raw skin the color of watermelon pulp. She got up, had to walk on the balls of her feet to bypass the excruciating pain.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“rock”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“The disappointment cuts deeper than he imagined it would, despite having warned himself she wouldn’t anticipate his actually making it back to the cavern. He hadn’t figured on it, assuming instead he’d run out of light and die of thirst, lost in the granitic entrails of the mountain. He turns away from the barred exit and walks back into the cavern among the bones, fearing his light will expire at any second, wanting at least to see and choose his final resting place.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“see again, the images swarming and vivid, inlaid at once with such beauty and unbearable regret. Chasing her little boy through an alpine meadow, sunlight caught up in his rusty hair, his high, small laughter resounding off the mountains as she tickles his ribs.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“He dismounts his albino steed, the horse’s pinked nostrils flaring, dirty mane matted with ice. The single-rig saddle is snow-crusted as well, its leather and cloth components—the mochila and shabrack—frozen stiff. He rubs George’s neck, speaking in soft, low tones he knows will calm the animal, telling him he did a good day’s work and that a warm stable awaits with feed and fresh water.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“I’m so happy, Jack.â€� Molly rose from the divan and stepped around to her husband. Even after all this time, he seemed utterly unchanged from the man she’d married in 1883—short blond hair, boxy jaw, ice-blue eyes, even that same spruce tailcoat he’d worn the night of their first encounter. “Let me show you what I want for Christmas,â€� she said, reaching back to untie her filthy corset, letting it fall to her feet. She pulled her chemise over her head, tossed it at the wardrobe, and climbed into bed. “Jaaaaack.â€� She whispered his name like a prayer, fingers already fast at work in that swampy heat between her thighs.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“Three had slumped over, face-first and half-buried in the newly fallen snow. Two still sat upright, Bart one of them, his face black, purple, and distended beyond recognition from what looked to have been a merciless beating. Their throats had been opened, the snow in the vicinity stained with great quantities of blood. “Son of a bitch,â€� he whispered. “Son of a bitch.â€� It snowed again, but the wind whipping across the roof kept the platform mostly bare. He heard approaching footfalls, spun around.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“All the headlamps went dark except for Emmett’s. Abigail stood on the threshold, watching them explore the interior, the beam of Emmett’s light grazing the listing walls and a gnawed-board floor, littered with pieces of broken whiskey bottles, rusted tin-can scraps. The pine bar had toppled over and punched out a section of the back wall, through which the fog crept in, giving the saloon a natural smokiness.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“. Lana had gone home for the night, and Joss hated to own up, but she missed the piano, sick as she was of the endless rotation of Christmas carols. Noise drowned out the hush of loneliness, though even loneliness was preferable to listening to that deputy blather on about what big shit he used to be down in Ouray. Joss had given serious consideration to cutting the young man’s throat while he slept—one deep swipe with the bowie she kept under the bar. She could picture his eyes popping open, him reaching for the revolver that she’d already slipped out of its holster, the puddle of blood expanding on the floorboards, sizzling where it touched the base of the stove. But that would just fuck everything up. Besides, where would she go, with Abandon as snowbound as she’d ever seen it? What was another twelve hours”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“When they did, the boulder field and mist and men and snow had faded to gray, and a darkness whose identity he well knew had whittled down his periphery of vision, so his whole world seemed to blacken around the edges like a winter-killed rose.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon

“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.”
― Blake Crouch, Abandon