The Narrows(80)

Bob felt his bowels loosen.

And just as he opened his mouth to scream, young Billy’s eyes flipped open.





Chapter Thirteen


1


It had been Brandy’s intention to stand watch throughout the night, yet despite her terror, the long and lumbering hours had ultimately conquered her and put her down. She awoke hours later, in the stillness of a Wednesday morning that already promised rain, asleep in the wicker loveseat on the back porch.

The first thing she realized was that she was freezing—her teeth chattered, the sound not unlike someone tap-dancing across her skull, and the exposed flesh of her arms and legs was broken out into hard little knobs of gooseflesh. Stupidly, she’d fallen asleep out here in nothing more than her nightshirt and panties. It was a wonder she hadn’t frozen to death in the night.

Or worse, she thought, her eyes already on the garage that faced the back porch. In the daytime it certainly looked less ominous. The bats were no longer dangling like Christmas decorations from the eaves. Matthew’s bike had fallen over on its side—had she done that last night in her panic?—and looking at it again sent a wave of sorrow through her.

Then a piece of last night’s dream returned to her—her eyes opening to a darkened world, where bitter winds whistled through the valley and the mountains groaned like restless giants in slumber. Matthew stood down in the yard, staring up at her. He was nude except for his underwear and his scalp was patchy where clumps of his hair had fallen out in places. His eyes took on the predatory black stare of a shark. He dug his toes into the black soil and spoke to her telepathically without actually opening his mouth. Yet his words—if they could even be deemed as such—were like a thousand bleating trumpets at the center of Brandy’s brain. In her dream, she shrieked into the night. Her brother—or the thing that had once been her brother—fled back through the cornfield.

Sitting here now, in the bright light of day, she wondered if it had been a dream after all…

Also, she had to piss so badly she could taste it.

She crept back into the house, conscious of the fact that her mother was probably still asleep (which she was), and went directly to the upstairs bathroom. She urinated then washed her face and hands before heading to her bedroom. There, she dressed in a pair of running sweats and tied her hair back with an elastic band. She laced on her good running sneakers, too—the Adidas with the cleats. They were a bit dirty and the cleats had been worn to ineffectual little nubs, but it felt good to climb back into them again.

Back outside, she stood for some time, staring at the shards of broken glass in the dirt then up at the small window in the side of the garage, jagged glass spearheads still protruding from the frame. She went around to the other side of the garage, took a deep breath, her hand on the doorknob. Then she shoved the door open, expecting the unexpected.



2



It occurred to her at that moment that prior to last night she hadn’t actually stepped foot in the garage since before her father had left. The small, musty work area was filled with his personal belongings: his tools, his workbench, his lawnmower and Rototiller and gardening supplies, his various automotive supplies, paint cans stacked into pyramids, ancient stereo equipment, including several old turntables blanketed in dust as thick as fur, a Baltimore Ravens cheerleaders calendar pinned to one wall, countless other sundry items. Yet it wasn’t just the items but the place itself that channeled Hugh Crawly. The smell of the wood mingled with turpentine mixed with the overly sweet scent of antifreeze and motor oil…

All of it.

She found herself fighting off tears. And she hated herself for it. She hated her father, too. This has nothing to do with you, her mind quipped, addressing the father who had abandoned the rest of them. This is about Matthew right now. You have no right intruding on me right now, damn you.

She took a deep, shuddery breath and was able to bring herself back under control. Looking around, she realized that she had no idea what she had expected to find coming in here. She considered going to the police, maybe talking with Ben Journell again, but she really had no idea what to tell them. That someone had been hiding in her garage, probably for several days now? That she had the horrific impression that the someone had, for some inexplicable reason, been her brother? No, she couldn’t do that.

Instead, she went back out into the yard and over to where the rickety chain-link fence separated their property from the Marshes’ cornfield. Brandy leaned over the fence and saw a perfectly outlined footprint in the hard soil on the other side of the fence. She looked up and could make out a subtle parting of the cornstalks, which suggested the direction the person might have traveled the previous night as they cut through the field.

Without giving it a second thought, Brandy hopped the fence and proceeded through the corn.



3



Bryant and Sylvia Marsh owned about a hundred acres of farmland, much of it utilized for the growing of maize. The fields abutted the Crawly property, close enough that Brandy and Matthew, when they were younger, could reach over the fence and pluck the ripe ears right out of their silky husks without leaving their backyard. The Marshes, who were kind people, encouraged this and would often bring barrels of the crop over to the Crawly household after a plentiful harvest. The cornfields yawned clear across the southern crook of Stillwater, right out to the bristling green-and-brown foothills of Wills Mountain. To the west, the fields overran the wooded hillsides straight out to Gracie Street, where abandoned farmhouses and barnyards stood eerily like props from some long-forgotten movie set.