screen.
Finley, hunched over, broke away from the line and took one step toward the window before Abilene clutched the damp collar of her shirt. Finley glanced back at her. Abilene shook her head. Frowning, Finley shrugged. But she said nothing, and resumed her position behind Vivian.
They passed the rear corner of the cabin.
There were two windows, one on either side of the back door. Wooden stairs descended from the door to a path which led through the center of the garden and into the woods. Scanning the area, Abilene saw no one.
She watched the door and windows, only turning away from them when Cora halted in front of the first shed. It looked to Abilene like an outhouse. Its flimsy door had no handle and was latched shut by a hook and eye.
Cora reached for the hook.
Cora flicked up the hook. The door swung open, groaning on its ancient hinges. The draft of its opening swept out a miasma of hot, foul air.
Nothing inside but a bench with a hole in it, and a swarm of buzzing flies.
While the others stepped away from the foul aromas, Cora closed the door and hooked it shut.
They followed a path through the garden to the other shed. It was three times the size of the outhouse - a more likely place for keeping a prisoner. Abilene could picture Helen inside, sprawled on the dirt floor, bound with ropes, a gag in her mouth.
But Cora opened the door and nobody was there.
Peering into the gloom, Abilene saw shovels, rakes, hoes, a scythe, fishing gear and an ax. Shelves laden with bottles and jars.
‘Jeez,’ Finley whispered, ‘we can sure improve on our weaponry.’
They stepped into the shed. The hot, heavy air smelled sweet and musty.
Finley dropped her rock and picked up the ax.
‘I don’t know if you should do that,’ Vivian whispered.
‘Christ on a crutch,’ Cora gasped. She took a jar down from a shelf and looked at it more closely. ‘Chicken heads.’
‘What?’
They gathered around her.
In the dim light from the doorway, Abilene saw that the heads of at least half a dozen chickens were drifting about in the jar’s murky yellow fluid. She glimpsed their tiny black eyes, their open beaks. Then she looked away fast.
Vivian gagged.
‘Why would anyone want to save chicken heads?’ Cora asked.
‘Appetizers?’ Finley suggested.
Cora replaced the jar on its shelf. She lifted down another and held it toward the light. ‘Oh my God.’
Abilene took a quick look.
The things suspended inside the bottle looked back at her.
Eyeballs.
‘Holy shit,’ Finley said.
‘They probably aren’t human,’ Cora whispered. ‘Maybe from pigs or…’
The crash of an explosion slammed Abilene’s ears. She jumped. They all jumped. Cora dropped the jar. Ears stunned by the blast, Abilene didn’t hear the jar shatter. But it did. Warm liquid splashed her ankles. Eyeballs rolled.
The door of the shed slammed shut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The explosion must’ve been a gunshot. From the noise of it, Abilene figured it had been fired from only a few feet away. During the moment between the blast and the door flying shut, however, she’d seen none of her friends react as if hit.
‘Is everybody okay?’ she whispered.
‘Just fine,’ Finley muttered.
‘What was that?’ Cora asked.
‘Sounded like a shotgun,’ Vivian said.
‘We’re in deep shit,’ Finley said.
Abilene flinched as something - probably the butt of the shotgun - crashed against the door.
‘Whatcha doin’ in there?’ called a high, scratchy voice. It sounded as if it came from someone old, but Abilene couldn’t tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman.
‘We aren’t doing anything,’ Cora answered. ‘We were just looking around.’
‘ Snoopin’!’ He - or she - struck the door again. ‘I don’t abide no snoopers!’
‘We’re sorry,’ Cora said. ‘We didn’t mean any harm. We’re looking for someone.’
‘Y’found someone. Me!’
Abilene turned around slowly to look at the door. She stepped on an eye. It popped and squished under the soft sole of her moccasin. She groaned.
‘Who are you?’ Finley asked.
‘Who y’lookin for?’
‘A friend of ours,’ Cora said. ‘Her name’s Helen.’
‘Ain’t me.’
‘She’s twenty-five,’ Cora said. ‘Dark-haired, pretty husky.’
‘A fatty?’
‘Have you seen her?’
‘Ain’t in there.’
‘Do you know where she is?’
Silence.
‘Gonna letcha out. I got my over-’n-under here, so come out easy ’r I’ll blow y’innards out her backside.’
‘For Godsake,’ Vivian whispered, ‘drop the ax, Fin.’
‘We’d better all empty our hands,’ Cora said.
Abilene let her rock fall. It clinked against some glass in the darkness. She heard soft thuds as the others discarded their weapons.
The door swung wide. Abilene squinted into the brightness. Standing just outside the shed, aiming a shotgun at her belly, was a short, skinny man - or woman. Abilene still couldn’t tell which. The person had wild gray hair. The wrinkled, leathery face bristled with stubble, but Abilene had seen old women who had similar whiskers.
‘C’mon out.’
Finley raised her hands overhead and stepped through the doorway. Abilene did the same, followed by Vivian and Cora. Just in front of the shed, they spread out. They stood abreast, their arms high.
A quick look around satisfied Abilene that their captor was alone.
One is all it takes, she thought. One lunatic with a shotgun. And the person in front of her did look like a lunatic.
Both earlobes were adorned with small tufts of bright red and yellow feathers. Not earrings, but fishing jigs. Flies. Fixed to the ears by tiny, barbed hooks. From a rawhide thong around the stranger’s neck dangled a pendant of dry, white bone. It looked like the skull of a rodent. The leather strip passed through the skull’s earholes. The jaw hung open, showing a snout packed with sharp little teeth.
