Page 17
“What if it left?” Jane asks, though when Thomas looks at his sister, he finds her stare pointed at Jackson instead. “What if you really did hurt it with the gun and it left Evan behind? Maybe we could still help him.”
Jim pulls himself up off the floor in a rocking heave. His boots thud heavy against the linoleum as he holds out bloodstained hands and grabs the shotgun from where Jackson left it lying. “I ain’t risking finding out,” he answers.
Thomas stiffens on instinct. He’s never liked guns. There’s too much that can go wrong, too much inevitability in the outcome, and now this one is being handled by a man that knows they all planned to leave him alone with his blood pile of a cousin.
Jim cocks the shotgun and eyes the chamber before choking on that spiteful laugh again. “Four shots,” he mutters. “All that screamin’ and beggin’ out there for four shots that won’t do jackshit.”
Ashley slams down the bottle of juice on the counter, hard enough that honey-colored liquid splashes out. Her lip still trembles, but something sharp has pierced through her hysteria. “That’s four shots to try and get Evan back,” she hisses. “Four shots to get off our asses and do something.”
“Haven’t we already been through this, lady?” Jim points the muzzle of the gun downward until it meets the floor in a dull clack. He keeps one hand on the butt of it as he readjusts his faded baseball cap and says, “I don’t see anyone around here looking too eager to go outside and join your husband’s pain party, no offense.”
Jackson steps between them then, holding up his hands as the woman’s lip curls back in disgust. “Ashley, with all due respect, I don’t think we can go back out there. It’s just too dangerous,” he says.
Thomas watches that bright flash of anger—of outrage—drown in the woman’s eyes again. Let it loose, he wants to tell her. That violent burning beneath the skin is meant to catch fire.
But he knows that flame spreads quickly and has a greedy taste for those who stand too closely. He knows that anger’s shell only lasts so long before the rot beneath soaks through, and right now, they have no time for starting and putting out fires.
Ashley shifts from her seated position, reaching out an arm so that Jane helps her to hop down from the tall stool. The outline of her belly button is visible through her shirt, and her pale, veiny skin peeks out beneath the hem like translucent marble. “Fine,” she says, then holds out her hand to Jim, eyes fixated on the shotgun. “Then I’ll go alone.”
“You can’t,” Jackson tells her immediately. “It’s not safe, especially in your condition.”
“I don’t care!” she snaps.
She doesn’t understand, Thomas realizes. She doesn’t know what they’re up against, because she wasn’t out there in the darkness, only feet away from the woods. She was safe inside behind locked-up glass, likely barely able to make out more than a vague body as it moved as fast as the cold breeze shaking the trees, as it moved like a violent play of dancing shadows. She didn’t see the long bones pressing against its skin, like they might rip through at any moment. She didn’t see the hooked talons the color of pearly bone or the eyes like chips of black scraped directly from the night sky.
Chills cast across Thomas’s skin as he stops in front of Ashley. “I know how awful this must feel right now,” he tells her, clutching his cast more tightly as her eyes plead with him. “That’s your husband out there and he’s hurt. I get it, really.”
He swallows and focuses on a point on her jaw where a trail of stained mascara drips off. “We need to stay in here and wait for the police,” he continues, even though there is little part of him that imagines someone with a badge and uniform is going to scare whatever is out there into compliance. “Evan told us that stress is bad for the baby, right? So don’t you think that the best thing you can do now is just try to stay calm?” he says, then quietly sighs. “Look, if not for any of us, then do it for Evan.”
Ashley’s face scrunches up as she looks at the shotgun in Jim’s hands. Her grip tightens on her belly, to the point Thomas can see her hands vibrating with anger.
He takes a step toward her, willing himself to stand taller. “Just don’t go out there,” he nearly whispers. “I promise the police will find your husband. They’ll find Evan.”
Dead or alive, he thinks, though he forces his face to remain as neutral as possible.
The tears slip down Ashley’s face with quick force, and Thomas begins to forget what the woman looked like before her eyes turned into permanent faucets.
Finally, she gives him a small nod. She doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes as she drifts back over to the stool with her hands braced against her baby bump.
Thomas can feel Jane watching him, but he can’t bear to see that frightened look in her eyes. She is clearly the youngest amongst all of them and still has that baby fat in her face that he himself shed in sophomore year of college. The short, choppy haircut she gave herself only seems to highlight this more, though despite the baggy clothes, he can tell that his sister has lost weight.
He turns away from her and faces the cashier, Kimi. He’s hardly acknowledged her, and under different circumstances he might feel more inclined to notice that she’s pretty.
“We wait for the police,” Kimi confirms.
To her left, Jackson and Jane both nod their own agreement. Jim grunts noncommittally, facing away from all of them as he stares at the blood on the floor, which is starting to dry into what will surely be an impossible stain.
“We should cover him,” Kimi says, and there is a soft familiarity to the way she reaches out and touches Jim’s elbow.
Jane is close beside Ashley, rubbing a soothing hand on the woman’s back, when Winnie approaches her. “Hi, sweetie,” Jane greets her with the smallest smile, crouching down to scratch the German shepherd behind the ears. The affection and warmth of the exchange feels jarring against the heady mix of terror in the air, though Thomas can’t seem to look away from it.
“Here,” says Kimi, returning with one of the folded-up tablecloths that earlier scattered onto the floor from the table now blocking the door. It is fresh out of its plastic and patterned with pumpkins, cornucopias, and words of gratitude—likely the same type of table cover Thomas’s mother will use to decorate for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.
He steps forward and takes one end of the cloth from Kimi, then they carefully place the cover over Billy’s body. It is only a minor help, as the blood soaks through the dingy paper fabric until the word “blessed” is blotted out with crimson.
“God rest you,” Jim mutters, gripping his hat in his hands. “Go on home to Grace now, Billy.”
Thomas clears his throat, falling to silence with the rest of them as they look on a bit unsurely. It is only their mixed breathing and Winnie’s panting that fill the room, ablaze with the fluorescent overheads.
