The Sound of Broken Ribs(74)

She had her head down, but Harry could automatically tell she wasn’t Lei, which scared him more than he might have been had it been her.

Or maybe not.

What he knew for certain was, he didn’t want to find Lei somewhere on the grounds mumbling and sputtering like a mad woman. Like this mad woman.

He found the footprints next—massive indentions in the ground, as if God himself had come to earth and gone for a stroll. Every ten feet or so, another depressed patch of snow. The toes or claws or whatever had made the prints must’ve been a good two feet long each.

“What the hell happened here?” Harry asked of no one in particular as he followed the depressions toward the cabins.

The first structure had been obliterated. Planks and logs and furniture in various degrees of destruction lay scattered all about the property. Looked like a bomb exploded. Another fifty yards into the woods was a felled tree laying atop another one of the cabins. Yet another cabin looked as if it had been side-swiped by a Mack truck; the entire left side had been torn off.

Harry was able to follow the path of destruction to a cabin that, much like the main building up front, was missing the majority of its front. But this cabin was different in that it looked as if something had burst from the front, like the alien in that Sigourney Weaver film.

Harry saw the body lying in front of the cabin’s loveseat and staggered to a stop. He clapped a trembling hand to his mouth.

Conflicting emotions rushed over him: fear and concern, a necessity to run to her side and a need to stay back, as if not approaching the body would make her less dead. He didn’t even want to think her name. Thinking her name would somehow make the situation real, unchangeable in his mind.

“No…” he quietly sobbed. “Goddamn it, no…”

In the end, he couldn’t do it. If that made him a coward, so be it. He would go back to the car and phone the police and refuse to identify the body and the love of his life would not be dead. He would never accept the reality of the situation, because such a thing would break him, and the sound of his shattering mind would echo into eternity.

He turned and came face to face with the gibbering madwoman he’d left back at the main cabin.

Her eyes were not eyes, but yellow stars in a vacuous void—pinpoints of light at the tail end of the universe.

Hello. Harry, is it? asked a multitude of voices: some high, some low, some curious, others demanding.

Harry found he couldn’t speak in this woman’s presence. He also found he did not have to.

I’m scared.

This is obvious, young one. But you hurt and I would like to know why.

Many voices used the singular “I”. The juxtaposition was horrific.

I’m looking for my wife, he thought. He could not, would not, bring himself to utter her name.

Ah, yes. The possessed woman pointed a limp hand and finger over Harry’s shoulder, toward the cabin with the body he would not identify lying dead before the loveseat. The vessel.

Are you the devil?

It laughed. The rumble rattled his bones in his flesh.

I am Pain. I have many kin. Cruelty and Regret and the Bastard… many others.

I’m scared, Harry repeated internally. He could hear his mind creaking under the strain of the impossible woman and her empty eyes.

Those lights… like the end of the universe. Like seeing God.

Yes. Much like seeing God. But you small ones are much too… uneducated to even conceive of what is beyond my lights. One is roaming. One is withered. Two plains occupying much the same space. But to look too long is also madness. Do you wish to look closer?

Harry forced his eyes shut.

I did not think you would.

A cold hand brushed his cheek. His teeth clattered.

She is with me. And one day, you will be too. Until we meet again, Harold Duncan.

Harry listened to footfalls like thunder recede. He waited until he heard nothing more before he opened his eyes. He was frozen to the bone, all alone in a dark wood, and unsure of his next move.

She was gone, and in a way, so was he.

*

Daniel Walsh was loading the dishwasher when there came a knock on his door. Cussing, he slammed the washer closed and moved into the living room.

But he didn’t approach the door. Something didn’t feel right. Something felt far from right. Whatever was outside, in the hallway, wanted to do him harm. He could sense it on a basic level. Could feel it in his center.

“Dan?” came a voice from his past, a voice he hadn’t heard in almost three years.

He didn’t answer the woman on the other side of the door.

“I’ve come for you, Dan.”

“Go away!” he shouted, suddenly terrified. Suddenly sure that there was more than just his estranged wife on the other side of the door.

“I can’t do that, Dan. I’ve come for you.” The door bulged with every word, the wood creaking as it expanded and contracted. Next, a chorus of voices joined the one. “I’ve come for you.”

“Leave me alone!”

No response. But the door bulged, breathed.

Inhale.

Exhale.

“How did you find me? You weren’t supposed to find me!” Then, “I’m sorry!”

Belinda couldn’t be doing this. She was nothing but a woman. A weak, brainless woman. He’d fooled her into believing he was someone to be trusted. Played her for ten years while he used her to build a business and credit and funds. Then, he’d fled and taken it all with him. Left her with that baby-shit yellow car of hers and nothing else. Minutes from eviction.