Page 59 of Mazywood

“Puh-put on your shoes,” Johnny said, his voice both unsteady and a roll of thunder. “We’re leaving—now.”

None of them moved, transfixed by his terror. Johnny clutched Tasha’s shoulders to break her stupor. His eyes danced with an unholy message before he whispered feverish breath into her ear. He had to say it twice because he thought she hadn’t heard him—but she had. She was just chewing over the words in search of their meaning.

“There’s a body under the Jeep. I found somebody’s hand.”

Her imagination heard him say that somebody needed a hand doing bodywork on the Jeep. She would have sworn to those words on a Bible. But why did he look like he was on the verge of a heart attack? The second time, as his grip on her shoulders pinched, horrid illumination slapped her. He had found a severed hand under the Jeep.

“What’s going on?” Imani asked.

Thinking of the deer’s head made Tasha spit up a little, but with effort she swallowed back the bile. She didn’t have time to be sick. Whether it was the work of an animal or a psychopath, they were alone in a killing place.

“Hurry up!” she said. “Put your shoes on—and your jackets.”

Sharise moved toward her duffel bag sitting beside the sofa, but Johnny stopped her in her tracks with the new thunder in his voice. “No. Leave your things. No time.”

“Dad, what?” Sharise said. “I can’t leave my—”

“Get your shoes on!” Tasha said. She had never shouted at either of them that way, and their combined fierceness got Sharise scrambling to find her shoes. Imani had put on her shoes right away and was already zipping up her jacket. Tasha saw Imani slip her firestarter into her back pocket and wriggle into her backpack, throwing her duffel bag over her shoulder so quickly that no one had time to chide her. Imani’s responses often lagged her sister’s in ordinary circumstances, but in crisis she apparently was as focused as a soldier.

“Over there!” Imani said, pointing, as Sharise struggled to find her second shoe.

As an afterthought, Tasha grabbed her purse from the table beside the love seat. Her useless phone lay underneath it, plugged into a charger, so she grabbed that too. She mourned the Duke Ellington sheet music and boxes of memorabilia she had planned to bring with her. She spotted a framed black-and-white photo on the wall near the door that she’d missed—Mazelle, not much older than Sharise was now, in Hollywood glam, posing beside a smugly smiling Clark Gable on a studio lot where Mazelle’s was the only black skin in sight. The photo made her heart leap even now, in flight. Tasha snatched the photo from the wall, clutching it tight.

“Where’s your jacket?” Johnny asked her. Now that he had conveyed his urgency, his breathing wasn’t the strained, ragged pants that had worried her.

Tasha spotted her jacket folded across a chair that looked a mile from the door. “I’m fine in this robe,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She could see the RAV a few steps away through the window. They were just driving to Redding, she thought, then flying home. The caretaker could ship anything they had left behind. As long as they were safe, their belongings didn’t matter. Anything else could be replaced.

God, she thought, get us home and I will never again take my blessings for granted.

Tasha would remember this prayer, and this moment, for the rest of her life.

“Wait,” Johnny said.

Tasha and the girls were crowded behind him, ready to go to the RAV, but he stuck his head out first to appraise their surroundings with his rifle ready. The iconic photo of Malcolm X posed with his M1 by his window came as a flash of memory that was strangely calming, guiding him through this dangerous terrain. By any means necessary was more than a slogan, although its meaning had never fused so deeply to his bones.

The sky was brighter, so he had a clear view of the front of the property, the cabins, and the adjoining woods. He leaned out a bit farther and could see the gate to the ski trail. He searched for the tracks that had emerged near the generator and was glad when none were visible. Even if last night’s tracks had been snowed over, the fox-thing hadn’t come back recently to circle the house, as he had feared. He surveyed the treetops last, remembering the sound of it sliding down a trunk from above.

“Okay, let’s hustle,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Sharise asked in a childish whine.

Neither Johnny nor Tasha answered, silently urging the kids to move faster toward the waiting RAV. The doors were unlocked, so they climbed in fast. Slam. Slam. Slam. Slam. Their doors echoed against the tree trunks. The rifle was awkward in such a small space, so Johnny had to rest the muzzle in Tasha’s floor well, clear of her toes if it fired, the butt pointed high between the front seats. She steadied it, keeping her hand clear of the trigger. It was a piss-poor way to transport a gun, but he would unload it and store it in the back when they got to town. For now, he wanted the rifle close. He was glad the box of cartridges was still in his jacket pocket.

“No one touch the gun,” Johnny said.

He pushed the car’s keyless start button, halfway expecting the engine to ignore him like a scene in one of his scripts. But the engine roared to life. Johnny hit reverse, lurching the RAV back to turn toward the driveway. The rear tires skidded slightly in his hurry, despite the chains. His pulse pounded through his fingertips while he gripped the wheel.

“Slow,” Tasha said.

“Seat belts,” Johnny said, an afterthought. He stared at the rearview mirror to watch Imani and Sharise strap themselves in before he moved the gear into drive. He nodded to Tasha: I’m okay. Her face released some of its worry, but not much. Seeing her gripping the rifle looked so incongruous, more than the robe, and he felt a stab of grief. What were they doing here?

“Welp,” Imani said. “Shortest vacation ever.”

“Hush,” Tasha said. “Let him drive.”

Johnny drove. Nosing out of the driveway to the road felt like dropping a weight behind him, but the Jeep still loomed ahead.