Unbury Carol(101)

“Absolutely not,” Manders said. Then he continued to escort the widower up the hill…



* * *



—

…“He’s telling the truth, Sheriff. I seen him myself.”

“Cole, it’s part of your job not to be as crazy as the prisoners. That’s basic policing.”

“No, Opal. I seen the man myself. He looked like he’d been dropped from hell’s heaven. Looked like he passed through some pig-shit on the way.”

Opal frowned.

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“On what grounds, Sheriff?”

Opal searched for an answer.

“I don’t know, Cole! Mystery!”

“I don’t even know what that means, Sheriff.”

Opal felt like he was running out of time on something he wasn’t sure existed…



* * *



—

…Farrah was in an alley and the woman Lafayette had just said to her, “I’ve got to make sure it looks like an accident.”

Her heart beat hard and she pined for Clyde or anybody else to come running into the alley and find this woman who had her cornered. She’d already tried asking why she’d been brought here, but she knew the answer. And the woman didn’t give her any other one. She stood before her, her big frame blocking most of the way out, as she absently wiped a razor on a razor strap.

“It’s gonna be sad to cut you up, Missus Darrow. You seem like a nice girl.”

Farrah wanted desperately to run, but there just wasn’t enough room. Lafayette blocked the exit whole.

Useless concerns cluttered her mind:

Was Carol already buried? Was this woman Lafayette somehow involved?

“So,” Lafayette said, her voice direct and cold. “You worked in the Evers home?”

Farrah did not answer.

Lafayette set the razor down on a stack of wood boxes and ran her fingers through her hair. She adjusted her ponytail and looked up to the sun. When she looked back, Farrah had already begun swinging her arm. The blade shimmered in the sunlight and Lafayette gasped and believed Farrah missed her. She opened her mouth to say something like you’re quick but her throat wouldn’t let her. She brought her hands to her neck and observed in wide shock as the color red ran down the length of her fingers. She looked down at her shirt and saw blood like a baby’s bib covered in lobster sauce.

Farrah watched as Lafayette fell to a side of the alley. Then she dropped the razor, stepped over her, and ran…



* * *



—

…Illusions, Moxie thought. Like Molly and Silas Hite. Tricks.

He recalled Rinaldo shouting two syllables:

Magic!

“After she dies, I will come for you, Moxie. I will come for you in the crowded street in the bright burning daylight. I will be under every bed you lie upon and within every closet you open. I will be in the food you eat and I will be beneath the water you wash with. I will be in every mirror you gaze into and I will be with you when you realize it is not yourself you see. I cannot kill you Moxie, I cannot take, but I know those who can.”

Moxie fired at the window where the second shroud stood and the glass shattered and the hall came at him, fast. He shielded his face but felt nothing hit. When he lowered his arms he found that the dimensions of the hotel had returned. He whirled and the man was already coming at him, his eyes insane, many faces alive. Moxie fired but the bullet passed through him and shattered the glass there, too. He stepped back and fired and stepped back and fired and the fiend was upon him.

Moxie felt the broken glass of the window cut into his back, his arms, his hands. Then he was falling out the window, toward the dirt street below.

A lady screamed as Moxie landed hard. Rot hovered above him, his face no longer a face at all, now only features pell-mell, many eyes, many mouths, and the deep overwhelming wheezing of what sounded like a sick sky.

Then, as Moxie made to inch back, Rot suddenly became whole again, a singular face, looking beyond Moxie, horror in his eyes.

“What is it?” Moxie said, knowing it had to do with Carol. Knowing the only thing that could frighten this fiend was Carol.

Then Rot was gone. And the space above Moxie was only blue sky, the unfair morning of a funeral for a woman who did not deserve one.

Moxie, his legs pained from the fall, dragged himself onto the boardwalk, to where horses rested at hitching posts. Standing, he untied the nearest and used the stirrups to pull himself up.

Harrowsers called out for Sheriff Opal. But Moxie was already getting away…



* * *



—

…Can you imagine if they buried you alive? he’d once asked her.

I used to worry about that. But I’m past that now.

Moxie rode fast by the finer homes of Harrows. Then through the forest where he’d left Old Girl, where he’d followed Molly’s corpse. The graveyard in sight, he brought his heels down hard against the horse, traveling quick down the long slope of trail that would take him to where the Cripple stood his last stand.

Was Carol in the earth?

Was she?

Moxie reached the border of the cemetery and stopped the horse. He was afraid. Afraid to go on.

Not because there was no wind, no heat, and no sound. Not because the cemetery was empty of all people and not because it meant that the funeral was over, passed, and that Carol was indeed buried out there.