The Narrows(83)

It was the same mantra she had convinced herself of last night. Now, she tried to recall specific details of yesterday but found that, aside from brief and flashy snapshots of jumbled, nonsensical images, she could remember very little. She had slept most of yesterday away, hadn’t she? She’d been practically unconscious with fear for a full twenty-four hours.

Or possibly longer, she thought now, trembling all over again. I could have been asleep for days. Or even a week…or a month. What if everyone else in Stillwater is gone? What if I’m the only one left and that thing is still out there, waiting?

Ceiling beams creaked. She froze, petrified. Could something be on the roof? Christ—in the f*cking attic?

Can someone die from fright?

From the kitchen window, she could see a scrabble of footprints in the dirt. They were erratic, like those of some frantic animal. Sunlight angled off the dent in the Pontiac’s hood and winked at her. That damn shotgun barrel seemed to be pointing straight at her.

She forced herself under control. Closing her eyes, she grew conscious of her breathing and forced it to regain some semblance of composure. From the roll of paper towels on the wall, she ripped off a streamer of paper and went into the living room, where she cleaned up the spilled wine and collected the pieces of broken glass like someone hunting for treasure on a tropical beach.

Through the window over the sink, she could see the fenceposts and, beyond that, the backyard. The wet grass rippled in the wind.

You can’t stay in this house forever. It was the head-voice again, although this time she couldn’t tell if it was her unborn, undead child or some other ethereal voice booming down on her from the heavens. She couldn’t be sure. Nothing was real and nothing made sense. If she stayed in this house, she was certain she’d crisp up like something excavated from a fire…that she’d blacken and turn to a heap of muddy soot. Her soul was shrinking.

“Daddy?” Her voice carried down the hallway and echoed through the empty house like someone shouting down into the belly of a mineshaft.

Momentarily, she was confused again…uncertain about who she was and where she belonged…

Again, she thought she heard the beams above her head creak. Someone is up there…

No. She couldn’t stay here.

Couldn’t.

In the living room, she found her hand on the dead bolt. Holding her breath, she turned the bolt until she heard and felt it slide home. When she opened the door, daylight slivered into the living room like a laser beam. She could feel the cold wind against her skin and hear insects buzzing in the grass. Beyond the patio steps, she could see the footprints her bare feet had made in the soft earth two nights ago. Retracing those footprints should bring her to where her cell phone—

Not bothering to complete this thought, she rushed out into the yard and ran pell-mell across the lawn, the dew-covered grass cold and slick against the soles of her feet, the cold autumn wind in her hair. Her breath rasped in her throat. She stopped halfway across the yard, the chrome on the Volkswagen Beetle glinting in the sunlight that managed to poke out from behind angry-looking thunderheads. Looking down, she saw her toes and her feet were grungy with mud. There was no cell phone but there were striations in the dirt and dime-sized holes in the hood of the Beetle where the creature’s acidic sludge had burned through the tempered steel.

Full-fledged panic didn’t strike her until she turned around and saw just how far she was from the house and the door. A trembling began at the base of her spine and quivered, like a knife stuck in a piece of plywood, up to the base of her skull. Her blood suddenly felt like ice water.

Her cell phone was nowhere to be found.

When she turned back around, she found that her feet had unconsciously brought her closer to the Volkswagen. With horrific vividness, she could see the barrel of the shotgun jutting up out of the dirt from behind the VW. There were tufts of fabric on the ground, too—shreds of Evan’s flannel shirt.

Unable to help herself, Maggie drew closer and closer to the vehicle until she was able to peer over the VW’s hood.

Evan’s body was gone. The shotgun was still there, as were a few tattered ribbons of fabric that Maggie was certain had come from Evan’s shirt, and there were clawed trenches in the dirt and blood on the ground and splattered against the hood of the car…but the body of her husband was not there.

Losing my mind, losing—

Bits of bloody flesh speckled the Volkswagen’s windshield.

She felt herself begin to hyperventilate. In the periphery of her vision, she saw figures shifting, taunting her like blurry jesters. When she looked directly at them, they disappeared. The pounding of her heart actually hurt.

Losing—

A high-pitched keening rose up from her throat. It broke through to the air like an alarm. Clumsily, she pivoted in the dirt and began running back toward the house. Mere feet from the house, she believed she saw the image of her dead father standing behind one of the living room windows, a cadaverous grin spread across his colorless, skeletal face.

Screaming, Maggie cut to the left and tore across the western field. The gate in the fence was wide open and she ran straight through it, knocking over a couple of trash cans. While she ran, she imagined someone’s hand falling on her shoulder. This only caused her to run faster. And finally, when hands did grab her, she passed out.



2



Fifteen minutes later, Ben’s squad car pulled up the Morelands’ long driveway toward a whitewashed, two-story farmhouse. As he approached, a figure rose up from a bench on the front porch. It was Jed Moreland, nervously rubbing his bristling chin and neck with one large hand. Jed nodded and said Ben’s name as Ben mounted the porch steps and took off his campaign hat.