Page 106 of Stay Buried

If there was a moon, it was too covered by clouds to let any light through. I hadn’t brought a lantern, and I trudged forward into the darkness, sensing that I wasn’t alone out there. There were lights on in some of the houses, but most people had turned in for the night. Or just shut their curtains and sat behind locked doors clutching guns, waiting.

Each time I slowed or stopped, I heard footsteps behind me, but when I turned to look, squinting into the darkness, I saw only the empty street.

My mind playing tricks on me, I told myself.

The physical exhaustion and mental strain of the past few days catching up.

But what if it wasn’t?

I wrapped my hand around my uncle’s gun in my coat pocket.

I’d learned to shoot when I was young, hunting squirrels and rabbits in the woods with boys from town. I am a decent shot, but have never aimed a gun at another person. I am in the business of fixinggunshot wounds, not inflicting them.

I stopped in the middle of the street, spun around, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was following me.

“Hello?” I called. “Who’s there?”

The wind blew, swaying the branches of the trees, sending clumps of snow thumping down. I stood, frozen, listening, my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, drowning out other sounds. I imagined Benjamin in the woods—that he’d stood up from the table, shrugged off the sheet covering him, and followed me out into the snow naked, the crudely stitched Y-incision dark against his skin.

We’re all the knackerman.

I turned back toward the Stoddards’. I could make out the house just twenty yards ahead. There was a light burning inside in the upstairs room that Luther and Henry must have forgotten to extinguish.

Keeping my eyes on the light, I broke into a run.

Someonewasrunning behind me.

It was not my mind playing tricks.

Hand on the gun in my pocket, I didn’t slow, didn’t stop to look back, just fixed my eyes on the house and ran as fast as my legs would carry me. At last I reached the front door, flung it open, and stepped into the dark front hall. I was sure I’d made it, that I was safe, pulling the door closed, when it was yanked open and a dark hooded form burst through the doorway, reaching for me.

An arm, in a long leather coat, moving closer, going for my neck.

Still holding the gun in my coat pocket, I aimed up at him, squeezed the trigger.

The sound was deafening.

He fell back with a cry and a thud.

I scrambled, reached for the lamp on the table, pulled matches from my pocket and lit it with shaking fingers.

“Frankie?” a small voice said.

I brought the lamp closer.

It was Pearl there, lying crumpled on the floor. Pearl in her father’soversized waxed coat.

Pearl holding her stomach, dark red blood oozing through her fingers.

FORTY-FOURASHLEY

October 18, 2016

All set?” Malcolm asked. He was carrying biscuits and a little jar of Josephine’s raspberry jam.

“Yeah,” Ashley said. “Let’s go see if we can find Willy.”

Josephine had come up to stand in the hall beside Malcolm. “I can’t thank you enough for all your help today,” she said.