Page 9 of When the Night Comes Knocking

The husband takes a tentative step forward, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He can’t be more than a few years past thirty, and there’s a well-rested softness to him that’s striking compared to his wife with her ramrod straight posture and tight ponytail.

“Listen, kid, maybe we should just stay put,” the husband tells Thomas, and it nearly causes Jane to laugh; her brother is a natural at many things, but staying put certainly isn’t one of them.

At Thomas’s hardening expression, the husband steps back. “It’s just—well, this is a nerve-racking situation for all of us, and if this gentleman says he saw something out there—”

“This gentleman was downing PBRs in the parking lot not ten minutes ago,” Thomas cuts in sharply. “Why the hell should we listen to anything he has to say, huh?”

“Thomas,” Jane mutters, staring at her brother in slight surprise.

His words send a new feeling trickling down over her skin, sticky and unshakable like cellophane. She sees it clinging over the husband and wife at the doors just as quickly, as they seem to measure up the distance between themselves and Jim’s bloodied hands.

Jackson shifts forward, pausing next to her brother. “It’s Thomas, right?” he says.

Thomas’s eyes remain alert and cold as he gives a small nod.

“I’m Jackson.” The young man holds out his right hand to shake, though his eyes briefly fall over Thomas’s own right hand wrapped up in a cast and tucked back in a sling. He clears his throat and drops his arm.

“I’m thinking maybe we should take what Thomas is saying into consideration,” he says, addressing the whole group. “I know we’ve all got places to be for the holiday, and that’s my dog barking out there. I need to get to her,” he explains, looking each person in the eyes as he speaks.

“What’s happened here is awful, sir. I’m so sorry for your loss,” he says, giving Jim a sympathetic nod. “But the important thing now is that the cashier is getting in touch with the authorities as we speak, and they’ll be able to help you through this, sir.” His words are calm and steady, like a salve being spread over the open wound they are all currently standing in.

Jim peels back from them, jabbing out an accusatory finger. “You people,” he mumbles with a trembling lip. “You don’t know a damn thing. I told you what’s out there. I saw it with my own eyes!”

The husband shifts in front of his wife, looking at Jim like he’s a house pet that’s gone rabid. “Let’s just take it easy, alright? There’s no need to get worked up.”

“Do you see this?” Jim asks, while stepping aside to expose the full view of Billy’s corpse. “No need to get worked up? When my cousin is lying here dead!”

“How do we know you didn’t have something to do with that?” Thomas interjects, and again, Jane gapes at the dark aggression radiating off her brother.

That clingy unease in the air permeates further as they all eye Jim. Despite his poor posture, the man is tall and sturdy, with a hard body visible beneath his wrinkled work shirt; “Meadow’s Auto Shop,” the logo reads over the left breast pocket. It is dappled with Billy’s blood.

An animal-like whine escapes Jim. “You’re suggesting that I could have done this? To my own flesh and blood?” His wild eyes take on a shine of desperation as his face begins to crumple. His shaking hands grab at empty air, searching for something to ground himself with before settling on the sides of his neck.

The skin turns bright white where he grips it between his bloodstained fingers. “They don’t believe me,” he whispers to no one in particular, though his watery eyes are pointed at his cousin’s body. “They don’t believe me,” he repeats, choking on a harsh laugh.

“Evan, I think we should leave,” the wife says to her husband in a hushed voice, tossing an apprehensive look at Jim as he laughs again with an edge of insanity creeping in. “We should let the police handle this.”

Thomas looks at Jane then with more focus and attention than she expected to get from him for the entire trip. “We’re leaving too,” he says, gesturing outside. “We just go straight to the car, alright? This isn’t our problem anymore.”

She realizes she is still clutching the mini marshmallows in her hands, crushing them. Was it really only some thirty minutes ago that they were on the phone with Cassie, on track to arrive at the cabin by nightfall? And is she really supposed to leave now, to go bake tomorrow’s pecan pie with the smell of someone else’s blood lost in her nose?

“This doesn’t feel right, Thomas,” Jane finds herself saying.

She cuts a glance back at Jim’s shiny face, then down at Billy’s ruined corpse. It is not the first time she and her brother have been so near to the dead, though there is something undeniably different about this—something dark and wrong poisoning the brightly lit space, pressing inward against her lungs.

“You should listen to her, boy,” Jim says, stepping up to them in a jerky rush. His eyes are red and rimmed with an anguish that sets Jane’s teeth on edge. “Don’t you want to keep her safe, boy?” he adds.

What a foolish assumption, Jane thinks.

At the tight clench of Thomas’s jaw, she wonders if her brother is about to rebreak his arm knocking out this stranger. The surge of violence paired with all the spilled blood causes a twisting in her gut, until her mouth waters like she might start heaving at any moment.

The loud bark of Jackson’s dog still grates at the night outside. Jane stiffens at it as the husband, Evan, raises his voice at Jim until both men are nearly shouting. The wife joins in, going on about the police and protocols while Thomas demands they leave before they catch Jim’s craziness.

The dog’s bark seems to grow in volume with them, and Jane’s breathing quickens, creating a tug-of-war inside her chest as it all pulls together in a hot blur, with Jackson repeating that he needs to get his dog, the wife that she wants to leave, and Thomas—Thomas stands there vibrating with barely contained anger as he looks at everyone with such disdain, likely pulled out from the same place he stores all his resentment for her.

“Shut up!”

The voice cuts through the chaos sharply, popping the rising bubbles of panic in Jane’s lungs in quick succession. Kimi marches out from aisle five with her cell phone in hand, looking around at the group of shoppers with her mouth pulled back in disgust. “For Christ’s sake, a person has just died,” she snaps.