Page 33 of When the Night Comes Knocking

He grinned as he held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m kidding. Go have fun,” he said, before slipping off his baseball cap. He dropped it over her face with a quick flourish. “Just be smart and pace yourself with the drinking, alright? I’m not bailing you out of jail.”

“Jesus Christ, Tommy.” She coughed, plucking daintily at the sweat-drenched fabric. “That smell could kill.”

She chucked it back at him, making a show of wiping her hands down her face. He hadn’t washed the hat since Coach Scott told him a scout for the Braves had reached out after seeing some videos of the last no-hitter Thomas had pitched. He just had to finish junior year, and then he’d be MLB draft eligible. He just had to wait a little bit longer—just had to keep pushing a little bit harder, and it would all finally pay off.

“That’s the smell of good luck, Janey,” he told his sister, imagining how much his life was about to change. “Just wait and see.”

—

Wait and see.

Now, Thomas curls his hand into a fist and stands, ready to flee from his thoughts and Kimi’s probing stare.

“You alright?” the cashier asks him.

The anger claws away inside his chest, making quick work of any scar tissue that has started to form. He’s about to tell her off—for asking so many personal questions, for sitting next to him, for running a grocery store in the middle of fucking nowhere on a cursed mountain. He doesn’t care, really, and that somehow only makes it all worse because he used to be someone who cared about everything.

Before he can start, his eyes catch on the far end of aisle five, where Ashley emerges covered in blood. The bright overheads beat down upon her blank, focused face and light up the veiny belly poking out from beneath the hem of her long-sleeved shirt.

“We should regroup,” she announces in a tone of hollow resignation that comforts Thomas slightly, as no one else in the group has inspired much confidence in the way of exhibiting leadership or simply calming the fuck down.

He follows Kimi soundlessly down the aisle, ignoring the curious looks she keeps flashing at him. Jim is the last to join their circle, moving slower and clumsier than before as he places his shotgun on a nearby shelf. The barrel knocks over a box of Lucky Charms, though the man doesn’t seem to even register it clattering to the floor next to him.

“How is Sheila?” Kimi asks. Thomas notices any softness in her features from their conversation before has swiftly slipped away, revealing the hard mask beneath once again.

Ashley scrubs at her red-stained hands with baby wipes, letting them drop to the floor, scrunched up and soiled, one after another. “It doesn’t look good,” she says. “If I had to guess, I’d say she’s lost around a liter of blood. She needs to be in a hospital.”

Thomas eyes the blood on the woman’s skin, which only seems to be smearing further where she rubs at it. “How can you tell?” he asks.

Ashley lets another bloody wipe drop. “I used to be a trauma nurse.”

Jane perks her head up curiously, with Winnie leaving her side only to sniff at the pile of bloody wipes on the linoleum. “Used to be?”

Ashley lowers her blue eyes to the floor. “Evan didn’t think I should be working with the baby,” she answers. It is impossible to miss the shadow that befalls her face, like a storm cloud rolling in over the sea. Thomas recalls the delicate way her husband held her back when Billy’s body first got brought into the store, torn apart and fading from the world. How badly had she wanted to drop down to his side then?

Ashley clears her throat, tossing a final soiled wipe for Winnie to fixate over. The skin on her hands shines, though blood is caked beneath the fingernails like red crescent moons. “We need to get Sheila out of here if she’s going to live. The sooner the better,” she says.

Jim scoffs from where he leans with his elbow propped up against the shelves. “We all need to get out of here,” he says, swiping the back of his hand across his chapped lips. He takes another swig of beer before crushing the can. “Fat chance of that.”

Ashley glares back coldly. “Maybe you want to switch to water, Jim?”

He belches. “Maybe you want to mind your own business.”

Kimi shifts into the space between them, and though she stands much shorter, her piercing stare adds a few inches. “We need to come up with a plan,” she says. “A plan where we all can leave.”

“She’s right,” Thomas mutters. “My family is going to start wondering where we are, and I’d really rather they didn’t come poking around here with that thing still lurking outside.”

He sees Jane’s eyes drop to the floor then, wide and panicked in an instant; his sister has never been good at hiding how she feels, even when he knows she’s desperately trying to.

Jackson tugs Winnie back from the wipes. “Kimi, do you think the Mimic can come out during the day?”

The cashier’s brows furrow slightly. “I don’t know,” she says, sliding her thumb gently back and forth across the surface of her pocketknife. “I’ve only ever heard stories about it coming at night.”

“Well, maybe that’s it, then. Maybe it goes back inside the mountain during the day,” Jackson suggests, petting a hand down Winnie’s back as she whines again. “That’d mean we just need to wait it out until morning.”

Thomas frowns, glancing around at the others to confirm this is really the best idea they’ve got. “That’s it? We just stay in here and twiddle our thumbs all night?” he says as Kimi shrugs and Ashley stares at her shoes, now stained with Sheila’s blood.

“Didn’t you say something about iron?” Jane asks, turning toward Jim. “You said that’s what Billy used to keep the Mimic away from his house, right?”