Page 30 of When the Night Comes Knocking

Eleven

At the hungry hands…

Claustrophobia scrapes against the edges of Thomas’s mind. It started with its usual song and dance, brushing across his skin in a slick of sweat, then timidly knocking against his chest with a rapid heartbeat. He has been able to ignore it thus far due to the various distractions of dead bodies and mountain monsters, but now, with the front doors barricaded and the table piled high with large bags of dog food and charcoal, his breathing comes out flimsier and his head feels like it’s stuffed with wool. They have trapped themselves, just as much as the Mimic has trapped them.

Thomas knows he cannot survive being trapped again.

A collective numbness has overtaken their little group, just as he feels the numbness that has overtaken his right arm and fingers for the past minute. The cast is supposed to come off on Monday morning, after eight long weeks of holding the limb together, and then there will be no more mystery to his damage.

Thomas never really cared about having to spend the weekend in some backwoods cabin with his family; he would have been miserable wherever he was, forced to wait until Monday for a reality he’s already painfully aware of.

He shuts his eyes, forcing a deep breath in and out. The walls are not closing in, he tells himself. You can still move. You are not pinned in place.

He opens them after another long exhale and switches his focus to the others. Kimi sits behind the cash register, fiddling with her knife and mumbling what sounds like the melody to a song or a nursery rhyme. Jim is on his second beer from a case he pilfered from the refrigerator section, sitting next to Billy’s covered body and staring down at the Thanksgiving-print tablecloth with unmoving eyes, like his cousin might decide to hop up and shotgun one with him at any moment.

Then there’s Jackson, sitting next to Jane in aisle five. She looks terribly small in comparison, with her legs pulled up to her chest, peering over her knees while Winnie whines on the ground in front of them. Jackson offers Jane a water bottle, leaning in to tell her something, and Thomas sees the smallest smile crack across his sister’s face.

It is hard to remember the last time he saw her really smile. He knows she used to, big and bright enough to earn her a high school superlative for it the spring prior. And though she has the same brown eyes and thick eyebrows as himself, it feels like he is looking at a perfect stranger.

“What’s the deal with you two, anyway?”

The voice startles him, and he turns to where Kimi has snuck up on his left. “What do you mean?” he asks, taking a sip from the Gatorade he snagged from the drinks fridge; apparently being held captive by a supernatural Appalachian entity comes with snacks free of charge.

Kimi closes her pocketknife. “I don’t mean anything. You and your sister just don’t seem particularly close for people whose lives are at stake.”

Thomas glances back at Jane, frowning slightly. There’s an undeniable pull to her, one instilled by his father from the time he was just learning to dress himself.

“You look out for your sister now, Tom, do you understand? It’s your job to keep her out of trouble—that’s what big brothers do.”

But no one ever talked about who was supposed to look out for the big brothers.

Kimi drops down next to him, stretching out her legs. “Nate—he said that y’all were in some kind of accident?” she asks while crossing her ankles. “Is that what broke your arm?”

Thomas looks down at the cast, clenching his jaw. He was barely conscious when the search and rescue team had cut him out of the car and gotten him back to flat ground to be airlifted to the nearest hospital. Everything was a twisted blur, including the swarm of uniforms and the body smeared across the road beyond recognition.

It makes him sick that someone like Whitmore could simply look at him and see tragedy—that a stranger could think they really know anything about that night at all.

He can feel Kimi’s eyes on him, curious and remarkably still. “I’d rather not talk about it,” he tells her.

She places her hands in her lap and gives a small nod. “That’s fair,” she replies, then lets them tumble back into a thoughtful silence.

Thomas appreciates that quality in a person—when they know to stop pressing at open wounds or saying useless things like I’m so sorry this happened to you and I can’t imagine how you must be feeling, or his personal favorite, God works in mysterious ways.

He stares at her black Converse, stained and flecked with blood across the edges and soles just like the front doors are with Whitmore’s blood. It occurs to him that somewhere out there in the woods the officer’s body has been left for nature to have its way with, just another tally mark on the night’s surface. “How did you and Whitmore know each other?” At the look she gives him, he adds, “You two reeked of history.”

Her shoulders rise and fall on an exhale as the corner of her lips flicks downward. “I’d rather not talk about it,” she says.

The cashier sits quietly, fiddling with her necklace. There’s a certain severity to her face when she addresses the entirety of the group, but now, sitting alone next to him, her features are more relaxed—pretty, even.

“Can I ask you something else?” he says, running a hand back through his hair. When her dark eyes lock onto him, he’s reminded of a bird of prey. “How do you really think this night ends?”

The police only provided more victims for the taking, as clearly demonstrated by Officer Sheila lying bloody and unconscious in the back office, and the last thing he wants is his family to come out searching for him and Jane only to stumble upon this fresh hellscape. So who exactly is going to help them?

Kimi shrugs. “Nothing good comes to mind,” she says.

He waits for her to add something more, though she merely gazes toward the front doors with glassy eyes, her mouth set in a deep frown.

“That’s it?” Thomas asks, raising an eyebrow. “No more sage words recycled from your grandma?”