Gun Shy(52)

Until it comes again. CASSIE!

It’s Damon. He’s screaming my name. I haven’t heard somebody scream my name like that since they were trapped in a well with a dead girl.

Mom.

Is it my mother? Is she dead?

No, that’s right — she died already.

CASSIE! HELP!

Damon’s voice is definitely coming from upstairs. From the attic. Has he hurt himself? What could he have possibly done to himself in the attic? There’s nothing in there except my father’s ghost and some old shit I keep meaning to box up and sell, or burn. Old family photos and my mother’s wedding dress are about the only things I would keep from the piles of junk up there.

The drugs make my brain slow. He’s called me three times now, and I’m still sitting up in my bed, sweat pouring off me, my feet tangled in sheets. I extricate myself from the mess of blankets and feel the sudden urge to pee, but there’s no time. I shuffle over to my door; fling it open, and take the stairs two at a time. The hallway light is on and it burns my eyes. I squint as I make my way up the rickety stairs, marveling at the way they don’t creak anymore.

The attic door is open when I reach the landing, a lone lamp illuminating the low-ceilinged space where old things go to die.

It’s different than I remember. It’s tidy; devoid of clutter, everything pushed against one wall and itemized thoughtfully. I see clear plastic boxes full of vinyl records; the front cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors presses against the side of the closest container, begging to be let out.

The smell of dust and must that is usually present is gone, replaced by a thick metallic smell that makes my stomach twist.

On top of the stack of neat containers sits the heart-shaped box that holds my mother’s wedding dress — her first dress, the one she wore when she married my dad.

Away from the window, there is a large pine box, it’s lid ajar; built for storage but a box that looks eerily coffin-like in its shape and dimensions. Above me is the thick wooden beam that my father used to hang himself from.

Beside the pine not-coffin box is Damon, blood on his palms as he kneels on wooden planks that are full of splinters.

And in front of Damon there is a horror I cannot fully comprehend.

“She’s dying,” Damon chokes, his blue eyes bloodshot and wild, her blood all over him. I open my mouth to speak but no words will come, so it just stays open like that, a shocked O as I try to blink away the bloodbath in front of me.

I look at the dead girl cradled in Damon’s arms and that’s when everything slams into place. I meet her eyes; she’s not dead after all, just dying. Her eyes beg me for help; eyes I’ve seen before. She is the spitting image of her older brother, even down to the shape of their lips, their straight white teeth, the color of their eyes.

“Jennifer,” I choke.

I look back to Damon. “What did you do?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT





CASSIE





Jennifer Thomas is no longer missing; at least not to me.

She is no longer a smiling face printed onto a stack of posters that I left in the trash. She is flesh and blood, emphasis on blood, and she is breathing in a way that suggests she is gravely ill.

I look Jennifer over, but I can’t see any wounds. “Where is all the blood coming from?” I ask breathlessly, kneeling beside Damon. He puts a hand on her stomach — her swollen stomach — and that’s when I realize she is pregnant.

“She’s having a miscarriage?” I ask. Damon runs a bloody hand through his hair. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

I touch Jennifer’s hand; it is drenched with blood, warm and slippery. She hasn’t uttered a word yet; as my eyes adjust to the dim light, I can see why. Tape on her mouth. Tape around her wrists. This poor girl isn’t just bleeding to death; she’s doing so completely unable to move or speak.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” I whisper, realizing I’ve got my phone in my hand. I must have carried it up here. I stand as I unlock it and start to dial, nine, one, but I don’t get to punch in the third one. Damon follows my movements, snatching the phone out of my hand with his wet fingers, Jennifer’s blood streaking across my palms like angry lashes of a cane.

“Damon,” I say urgently, glancing down at Jennifer. “She’s bleeding everywhere. We have to call an ambulance. Now.”

“No.” He takes my phone and throws it down the stairs, all the way to the kitchen where I hear it shatter. I bite my lip and try not to cry as I look around the attic for a weapon, for something.

“Damon,” I try again. I keep glancing at Jennifer because I want to make sure she’s still alive. She is. She’s hyperventilating, her skin lily-white, her breaths dangerously shallow.

“No!” Damon roars. I slap him across the face, so hard that my wrist goes numb and fresh blood beads along Damon’s bottom lip. Good. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but she’s going to die.”

Damon takes a step back. “We need to call Ray.”

“Call an ambulance,” I urge him. “Or don’t. We can dump her in front of a hospital and leave. Damon, if you don’t get her to a hospital, she’s going to die.”

Jennifer Thomas is in my attic, dying. Damon was getting me to put up posters of her beaming face in the cold, in the snow, while she was in our fucking house.