Page 63 of Stay Buried

“Bring two more in,” Uncle Thomas said as he rolled up his sleeves.

I went into the waiting room and got Anthony LaRocca and Eugene Fitzpatrick, both of whom had bites on their arms.

Pearl brought us more warm water and more towels, took the bloody ones away.

We went to work, my uncle and I side by side, patching up wounds, both of us understanding just how futile it was.

We knew how the sickness would progress. That bandaging the wounds did no real good, could not prevent what was coming; but we needed a moment to think.

Just when we thought we were making headway, Aunt Margaret would poke her head through the exam room door, announcing the arrival of another terrified, injured person.

“Don’t let him possess me,” begged Mary Fletcher, who held a lace handkerchief to the wound on her hand. “Please!”

By one in the morning, we had eight stitched-up people sitting around our seldom-used formal dining room, miserable and fearful, looking completely out of place in their dirty work clothes and nightgowns. Some had lain down on the floor with the blankets Aunt Margaret had brought them. Two men had refused to stay and gone home to their families despite Uncle Thomas’s pleas for them to stay here for the sake of their loved ones. Several had gone to the church to sit and pray, sure the Lord would protect them. A few had gone to seek out Charlotte Albone for charms of protection.

“I know you’re all scared,” Uncle Thomas announced when we went into the dining room to check on the patients who’d remained with us. “But we’re going to take good care of you here. We’re going to figure this out. It’s going to be all right.”

Everyone, myself included, understood he was lying.

TWENTY-SEVENASHLEY

October 17, 2016

It was dusk by the time they got to the cemetery.

“We better hurry. We’re not going to be able to find much in the dark,” Ashley said as they entered through the front gates.

“There’s still some light. And we can use our phones,” Malcolm said.

It was about the only thing their phones would be any good for, with no Wi-Fi or cell service out here.

Behind the cemetery, the woods began.

She remembered Josephine’s words, spoken in an eerie, hushed voice:

They say that he lives in the woods outside of town.

They walked down the narrow dirt lane that bisected the cemetery and found themselves at the center, next to a dried-up fountain featuring an angel with a cracked face and a broken wing.

“You doing okay?” Mal asked.

“Fine,” Ash said.

“You seemed pretty on edge back at Josephine’s. You practicallyran out of there.”

“I’m okay,” she said, her eyes on the woods, which were already dark and full of shadows that seemed to stretch, bend, and lengthen; to move on their own as the light shifted.

“That was a creepy little doll,” Mal said. “And the story that went with it…”

“It was weird that she said she never met Mom, right?” she asked.

He was quiet for a moment. “I mean, if Mom really did come to Boone’s Ferry, it seems like that house would have been one of the first places she visited.”

“Well”—Ash’s mind spun—“maybe she did. Maybe she went and knocked on the door and Josephine wasn’t home. Or was out in the garden or something. Or—”

“Let’s not get too caught up in retracing every step she took. I think that’s just going to stress you out.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine, Mal, I swear. It was just… hearing about that creepy legend, the way she said ‘horsefeathers’ just like Gram, all those little doll faces looking at us.”