Page 28

Another sharp cry comes from outside, though this one is from Sheila. The officer crawls toward the store, agonizingly slow. Her fingers grasp at the leaves on the ground uselessly, digging into the dirt and drawing herself forward mere inches at a time. Every movement elicits another pained cry that fuels the roaring heat building up in Jane’s chest like a powder keg.

No one’s going to help her, she realizes.

She imagines their faces pressed against the glass, staring blankly as this woman’s ravaged body fails her, doing nothing so that a monster can claim the rest for scraps.

Sheila pulls herself another inch forward, and Jane’s fingers find the door’s lock. “I won’t ask you to help me,” she tells Thomas, not bothering to look his way. “But I won’t watch this.”

His fingers manage a loose grip on the back of her sweater before she slips away, taking off at a run outside. She ignores her brother’s voice whisper-shouting after her, instead keeping all her focus on getting to where Sheila lies. Only seconds pass before the sound of footfalls across the leaves starts behind her.

Jane drops down next to Sheila a moment before Jackson does.

“Thank you,” Sheila gasps weakly.

Jane shushes her, her hands hovering delicately over the officer’s leg, where two claw marks have sunk through the black uniform pants down into the skin, where leaves stick, red and shiny. The cut’s not as deep as Billy’s arm, though Jane’s and Jackson’s eyes both go wide at the amount of blood oozing out, as they realize there’s no way her body can be moved like this.

“Are you wearing a belt?” Jane asks.

Jackson raises the hem of his flannel so that the bare loops of his jeans flash. Then he points to the utility belt Sheila is wearing.

Jane nods, fumbling at the officer’s waist. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, tugging it through the loops of her pants until Jackson pulls off the rest. He carefully fashions it above the wound on Sheila’s thigh, while Jane looks across the parking lot, listening carefully.

The only sounds are that of the wind tearing through the trees and the police radio filtering out through the cracked window of Whitmore’s cruiser, a voice asking for updates on the situation at Kimi’s. Above them, the moon hangs like a smile in the black sky.

Jane looks back to the store, where Thomas stands pressed against the glass with wide, furious eyes. He waves at her urgently, but she shakes her head, turning back toward the police car.

Sheila winces as Jackson finishes tying off the belt, then hooks an arm beneath her shoulder. “Jane?” he says, following the direction of her stare.

“The police radio. We need more help,” she says. “Get her inside,” she adds, then quietly runs across the lot toward Whitmore’s cruiser.

Screw sounding insane, she thinks. She’ll tell them there’s a bear, an ax murderer, a bomb about to blow Blackwell’s Country Store clear into the sky. She’ll tell them to bring every reinforcement possible or else this mountain will run red with blood.

The cruiser door is unlocked. She slips inside, glancing back once to see Jackson rise and carefully draw Sheila up to lean against his side. Jane shuts the door and scans the car, where a laptop is set up over the center console, hooked up to the main computer system. She fumbles for the radio secured by a wire to the dashboard.

Jane drops it once, then shakily grabs it again, holding down what she hopes is the receiver button. It beeps back at her in a loud chirp, and she holds up the radio, pressing it against her lips. “Hello?” she says quietly. “Hello? Please, we’re in trouble. Is there anybody—”

The words die off in her mouth as whistling echoes out through the air, sweet and familiar against the cold night. In the rearview mirror, a figure emerges from the gaps in the trees, tall and lean.

Icy fear spreads in a rush through Jane’s veins, begging to freeze her in place. She looks out toward Jackson’s Jeep, just in time to see him and Sheila slip around to the other side of it, out of sight.

The melody grows louder, more cheerful, and soon Jane can hear heavy boots crunch across the leaves on the ground—coming toward her. With a trembling hand, she sits the radio back in its holster and gulps down the saliva that’s begun to pool in her mouth.

The footsteps approach the vehicle in long, relaxed strides. As quietly as possible, Jane crawls across the center console and into the passenger seat, where a large winter jacket lies discarded. She drops down onto the floorboard and draws her legs up to her chest tightly, curling into a ball. Then she pulls the winter jacket over her just as the car door opens and the chill of the night pools inside.

She glimpses him beneath the jacket. Officer Whitmore looks as he did before—free of any blood, no exposed ribs, superior eyes. Just a man who looks slightly older than his actual age, with a mustache that is trying too hard to be taken seriously.

Though of course, it’s not him at all—not the eyes, not the whistle, not the mustache. Not the skin or the bones or whatever rotten heart now beats inside.

Jane presses her face into the floor’s carpet, listening as he taps his thumbs along the steering wheel to the melody he’s whistling. She doesn’t realize she’s been holding her breath until the burning starts in her lungs.

When the radio chirps, her body nearly jumps.

“Unit Three, go ahead,” a voice crackles through.

Whitmore clears his throat. “Cancel any backup to Kimi’s,” he says. “It’s all clear here. Just some stupid kids playing a prank, looking to waste our time.”

Jane squeezes her eyes shut.

“Ten four, Whitmore,” the voice on the other end responds. “What is it about holidays that get idiots acting up?”