Page 68 of When the Night Comes Knocking

“Just go. Please,” she says, nudging him in the direction of the store.

Beneath the dark blood staining his eyebrows and half of his face, she sees the pain and fear pause, then loosen altogether. He stares at her until his deep frown is replaced with a small smile of amusement.

“You keep surprising me, Jane,” he says, in a voice no longer laced with panic. “But I think I understand you now. I understand why you feel such a need to save all these people.”

He shifts closer, dropping his face down toward hers. A small gasp escapes her as she lurches backward, but he grips her wrist tightly, tugging her forward so his hot breath touches her skin. “You didn’t cry once for him, did you?” he asks.

“Hey! What’s going on, Jane?” Thomas calls out from overhead as Jackson’s grip tightens, until a pop sounds in her wrist and a pitiful squeak escapes her.

“You didn’t cry at his memorial. You didn’t cry for his mother,” he continues, until his hands slide up and gently cup her face. “You didn’t cry, because you’re not sorry that Aiden Jones is dead.” He leans in, searching her eyes with insatiable focus.

He shakes his head, frowning. “You’re not sorry that he couldn’t be saved, because no one saved you.”

A shudder rocks through her body as she peers into Jackson’s dead eyes, where the last of the warm hazel vanishes. Kimi and Thomas scream at her to move, but their words only half register in Jane’s mind as she notices the lack of space between her body and his.

She tries pulling away again, but Jackson’s grip only tightens.

“Isn’t that right, Jane?” he asks, with all the softness of someone trying not to wake the dead from their sleep. He brushes his thumb across her cheek, until a claw lengthens in its place. “You’re not sorry.”

She’s trembling so hard her teeth chatter. She digs her feet in.

“You’re right,” she whispers, refusing to look away. She leans in closer. “I’m not sorry.”

At her words, he goes very still. He lets the clawed hand drop from her face and stares straight through her with the night-black eyes of the Mimic. A peaceful smile befalls his face.

“It’s time now, don’t you think?” he says.

Yes, she thinks, fixing her grip on the hair spray and lighter.

As she opens her mouth to speak for a final time, the roar of an engine comes to life. Red brake lights flash against Jackson’s face, casting him in a demonic glow. His smile disappears as Jane’s eyes widen.

His voice shouts, though it is not coming from the body standing in front of her.

“Move, Jane!” the voice calls out. “Move!”

Then the tires on Jackson’s Jeep spin and squeal against the dirt, stirring up dusty clouds as the car reverses backward in a rush. Thomas and Kimi scream from the roof as Jane leaps out of the way just before the Jeep hits.

Jackson’s copied body snaps forward with a crunch, slamming against the hood of Jim’s truck and pinned as severely as the tree had pinned Thomas in their own accident.

A cry of shock escapes Jane as she observes the broken, motionless form where it’s trapped between vehicles. “Holy shit,” she gasps.

“Holy shit!” Thomas cries out from overhead.

She shuffles forward and looks through the passenger window of the Jeep, nearly falling to her knees at the sight of Jackson’s bloody profile. His arms are tense, gripped tightly around the steering wheel as though it’s the only thing holding him together.

He turns, meeting her eyes with his own slightly unfocused ones. “Are you okay?” he asks, and she feels something bright and warm tug within her gut.

There you are.

“Are you okay?” she asks back, eyeing the dried sheen of blood along his cheek and the corner of his eye, nearly identical to how the Mimic had presented.

His answer comes a few seconds delayed. “Not even a little bit,” he says.

From between the Jeep and the truck, a sharp crack draws both of their attention. Up on the roof, Thomas and Kimi lean over the edge, craning their necks to see as more bones break and shift.

The form begins to change, face sinking in and limbs lengthening and growing until they simply burst out of what used to be Jackson’s skin. As the human flesh pulls apart, graying and thinning until it’s taut against the creature’s sharp bones, a gust of wind rushes past, carrying with it the smell of rot and decay.

It hits her suddenly, what the scent reminds her of: the mildewy tunnel in the fraternity house, dark and old and full of buried secrets.