Page 27
Its body hunches over Whitmore with a heaving, desperate want. Jane blinks hard, but somehow it’s still there looming tall in the night with pale gray skin like that of a human, only it’s stretched far too thin, spread nearly translucent against the bones beneath. Its long spindly claws wink in the reflection of the store lights as they raise up in a single breath and begin swiping across Whitmore’s chest in fervent, even turns.
“Nate! Oh God, Nate!” Sheila screams while pulling the handgun from her holster. She starts shooting, unloading the entire clip into the Mimic’s back while it ravages Whitmore. The creature’s body contorts against the bullets, shifting and snarling so that a glimpse of sharp teeth flash.
A fever pitch strikes in Jane’s ears as she gapes at it, horrified and mesmerized and feeling suddenly like a small child. The violent blur in the darkness freezes her every joint, bone, and muscle in place, until her body stands stiff with an impossible heaviness, and her knees feel weak enough to give out entirely. Her hand flies up to cover her mouth as Whitmore’s blood slides down the glass of the entrance doors.
This can’t be real, she tries to say, but her tongue is dead and useless, her jaw locked painfully.
The Mimic turns to face Sheila after she fires off the last shot of the clip. The officer fumbles to reload, her eyes so wide they look close to bursting.
Help her, my God, help her, help her—
But the words are a numb train of thought in Jane’s mind, her mouth frozen shut as she grips Jackson’s arm tight enough to bruise. She blinks, and it has swiped its talons at Sheila’s leg.
“What’s it doing?” Ashley nearly shouts, pressing her face against the glass next to Jane’s. “What’s it doing!”
There is a trail of blood as the Mimic drags Sheila across the parking lot in a loping, uneven stride, until it drops her on the ground in a graceless toss near Jackson’s Jeep.
“It’s leaving Sheila there,” says Kimi as the creature slinks back across the lot.
It returns to Officer Whitmore where he lies in tatters on the ground. His chest rises and falls in quick, shallow bursts, and the cashier seems to be trying to memorize each of them. When she gasps his name, it is both a strangled plea and a bitter goodbye.
The Mimic grabs Whitmore by one arm and drags him away, far less gently than it did with Sheila. “Wait! Wait!” Whitmore cries out, coughing up a spray of blood. His body twists and thrashes amidst the leaves as he digs his fingertips into the hard dirt.
Jane trembles at the perfect lines they leave behind as the officer is pulled farther and farther away, until he disappears into the belly of shadows waiting at the forest’s edge.
Ten
or the darkness it would seduce.
The inside of the store is silent as they all stare at the new indentations tattooed across the parking lot. Officer Sheila’s shouts feel like mere background noise beyond the ringing in Jane’s ears, high pitched and nauseating.
Beyond the glass doors and near the back right tire of Jackson’s Jeep, they watch Sheila’s body rock back and forth. Her voice carries through the darkness, forcing its way inside Jane’s brain.
“Hey! I need help!” The officer tries to sit up and clutches at the deep gash across her thigh for only a few seconds before she collapses back onto the ground.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” says Ashley, shivering from the cold air that slipped inside. She grips Kimi’s arm, tight and unrelenting. “Why would it just leave her behind?”
Jane knows what the woman really wants to ask: Why did it kill my husband and not her?
Kimi shakes her head, looking close to fainting. Her eyes dart back to the tree line, where Whitmore’s scream rings out in a shrill echo again. “I don’t know, I don’t—I don’t have all the answers to this thing, alright?” she says in a rushed, weak breath.
Thomas puts his back toward the door and hangs his head. He closes his eyes, clutching his cast as he seems to momentarily be counting his breaths. “That thing is using Sheila to try to draw us out,” he says, glancing around at the others. “This is just another one of its tricks to try to get to us. That’s why it left her behind too injured to get away on her own.”
“Wait a minute,” says Jackson, straightening his shoulders. “We all watched that thing go into the woods. We know it’s there with Whitmore right now.” Another tortured cry rings out from the trees then as if in answer. “We have time to grab Sheila and get her inside. Jim could follow close by with the gun,” he adds.
Jim raises his eyebrows then, letting the shotgun rest over his shoulder. “That’s awful sweet of you to volunteer me, son, but I ain’t going out there for shit.”
Kimi tucks a few strands of hair behind her ears after they slip free from her ponytail. “It does feel like a trap, Jackson,” she says quietly, flinching as another of Whitmore’s screams dies off abruptly.
Jane looks from Kimi to her brother, frowning. It’s different from what happened to Evan—he never stood a chance with his wounds, could never have been saved. But Sheila’s face still shines with undeniable life, scrunching up in pain with every desperate move she makes toward survival.
Jane places her hand against the glass; from outside someone would make out another scar, this one across her palm, small and shaped like a half smile. She squeezes her hand into a fist. “That woman’s going to die if we leave her out there,” she says.
“And we might die if we go get her,” replies Thomas before pulling away from the doors and moving farther inside. “That thing is too fast and too unpredictable.”
Jane stares back at her brother, wondering if he feels as stripped raw by Whitmore’s earlier words about the accident as her, but if he does, he doesn’t show it. He simply clings onto his broken arm with his mouth set in a hard line and his chin pointed away from her.
Sometimes she wishes he would just lash out, that he would yell obscenities at her, scream that she has ruined his life. Anything would be better than the indifference he has perfected—than treating her like a lingering ghost he is forced to pass through.
