Page 32 of Mazywood

Rory ran.

He was dismayed at his feet’s clumsy steps in the snow, motion so labored that he might as well be standing still. But the snow flattened beneath his soles as he rounded the house to the better-maintained front yard, his feet no longer sinking. His sudden speed startled him so much that he nearly lost his balance, his arms pinwheeling in his panic to stay upright.

That was when he dropped his phone.

But fuck his phone. Three times, Rory had felt like he had to hide for his own safety—once in childhood, twice on the cop beat—but he had never known to his soul that he was running for his life. His heart drilled in his chest so hard that he could be drowning.

As he ran, Rory noted that he didn’t hear any swishing snow behind him. Was it still chasing him, or had it only wanted to scare him away? If so, it had worked.

When he saw his Jeep parked beyond the gate at the roadside, Rory yelped with relief. The keys were in the ignition, he remembered. No fumbling. He just had to get the door open.

Rory had just slipped out of the gap in the fence, within steps of his Jeep, when snow reared up from the snowdrift beside his car and flew into his face. It took him a moment of blinking frost from his eyes to realize that it wasn’t just snow. It was also fur.

And eyes that were white, silver-rimmed, but glowing red at the pupils in the sunlight.

And sharp, sharp teeth. Those too were close enough to see the golden tartar stained pink with blood. The hot, rancid breath might have made him vomit if not for the wall of fire when those teeth clamped into his shoulder, a rupture of bones. Those teeth found his neck next, silencing his screams.

Rory had come to Bear Creek Lodge yearning to see something extraordinary.

He barely saw it at all.

Ten

HE IS RUNNING IN WHITE, snowy woods. And he is small, still a child, with branches and twigs spider-webbed above him as he runs.

He hears music—distant, tinny-sounding trumpet fanfare from the Duke Ellington Orchestra—before he sees the light. The vague glow is brighter with every step, until darkness parts to reveal the wooden rail fence of his grandmother’s lodge. One rotting rail has fallen out of place, leaving a breach he can easily run through.

But he doesn’t. He stops short, staring at the lodge. And the kitchen porch.

And the woman sitting there.

In his dreams, Grandmother doesn’t look the way she did the last time he actually saw her, when she was already emaciated and sharp-jawed from illness. This is Mazelle Washington the way she has immortalized herself in the photos framed all over her house: hair hanging long and loose (straightened, of course), in radiant makeup, shoulders nestled in the fur collar of her red silk bathrobe with a furred collar and hem, the kind of garment only movie royalty would wear. She shines so brightly that the light seems to glow from her.

Grandmother’s face snaps toward him: Her eyes are the color of blue ice. She opens her mouth, and her jaw hinges beyond any human length.

“Welcome home, Johnny,” she says in the voice of the dead.

Eleven

McCLOUD, CALIFORNIA

SATURDAY

2 P.M.

“THERE’S NO WAY THESE ARE the world’s biggest chocolate chip cookies,” Imani said, eyeing the smudged display case at the front counter of the Gas N Go.

“Right?” Sharise said, huddled close to her. “People just put anything on a sign.”

Their voices were too loud for the small space. Johnny distanced himself from his daughters behind one of the store’s four aisles of candy, chips, and auto supplies. The mart sold an array of tire chains, luckily, since the ones he had brought from home hadn’t fit the silver RAV4 they had picked up in Redding. Johnny flicked melting frost from his hair’s tight curls and rubbed warmth into his right shoulder, where he had lain beneath the RAV on the cold asphalt to secure the last chain. He’d felt chilled underneath the car despite his puffer jacket, his ungloved fingers trembling against the cold chain links. What did a Miami boy know about snow chains, anyway? YouTube videos had taught him how to install chains after multiple winter trips to Big Bear, but he knew sand better than snow.

The woman behind the counter had been watching Imani and Sharise with tightly pinned lips from the moment they clambered in full of restless giggles fueled by the early plane ride from LAX and the hour-long drive from Redding. The cashier’s elf-red sweater was as festive as the rest of the mini-mart’s early Christmas decorations, but her face was stone. Johnny had seen those same suspicious eyes from the clerks at Spencer Gifts when he and his high school friends browsed through psychedelic posters, Jimi Hendrix T-shirts, and piles of gag dog shit.

Were Sharise and Imani deliberately trolling her by insulting her overpriced and misrepresented cookies? The woman’s glare was If looks could kill come to life, but Johnny decided they could take care of themselves. Sharise was nearly grown. Imani was in good hands with her big sister. His wife was the one he was worried about.

Johnny angled himself safely toward the bathroom at the rear of the mini-mart, where Tasha had been holed up too long. Tasha’s morning had started out badly, and she’d excused herself to go to the plane’s bathroom twice during the short flight. But she’d ignored his hints about putting off the trip before they left. It will be harder to take trips like this soon, she’d said.

Tasha was facing her day with resolve despite her nausea, but he couldn’t fight the burning certainty that he was making a huge mistake. Hadn’t he vowed he would never return to Bear Creek Lodge when he was thirteen? He’d broken that promise too often in the past couple of years with his foolish hope of turning it into a vacation income property. Money—true to his nickname, since he was a stone hustler—had convinced him to fix up the lodge and cash in on the vacation-rental wave. But even after hiring a decorator to showcase its history, Johnny had never followed through on listing Bear Creek Lodge on the rental sites. Each time he’d pulled up a website to register, something held him back. It was hard to imagine anyone experiencing joy at his grandmother’s lodge.