He staggered to the steps, his head thick from lack of sleep. He’d been too cold and hungry to sleep.
The rotten corn and potatoes left in the cellar had been too hard to eat. Finally, driven by hunger, he had ventured out and crouched in the thorn bushes, watching for cops. He watched for hours, finally figuring out that they came by to check the farmhouse twice a day, in the morning and again toward dusk. The cop would get out and do only a quick walk around the farmhouse and leave, like he was too cold to bother to stay.
Last night, after the cop left, he had sprinted across the field to the house, where he had gathered up what was left of the food Margi had bought — half a package of baloney and some potato chips. And the whiskey. That was best of all, the hot sting of rye on his throat as he sat here, shivering.
But the whiskey was gone now. The food was gone now. It was a different hunger that had brought him out of the hole a second time.
He had emerged into the cold, moonless night and walked the farm. Thirteen times — he’d counted — thirteen times he had walked the fields in the syrupy darkness. Listening for her voice, seeing shadows that drifted away from him as he grew close. Always conscious of the feel of the dirt under his boots, because he didn’t want to step on her.
He hadn’t found her.
Brandt stood, shivering at the bottom of the stone steps, looking up into the thin gray light leaking around the door.
He couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to get out.
He staggered up the stone steps and pushed open the old wooden door. The creak of the hinge sounded like a shriek, and he held his breath. But he didn’t hear anyone, no voices, no cop talk. He pushed aside the thorn bushes and climbed out.
A gray mist hovered over the straw-strewn cornfield. In the distance, the house seemed to float, and the barn seemed to shiver, like neither of them was real but just imaginary fixtures in an imaginary life.
Something moved. Or was his mind so gone now that he was seeing things? He started to withdraw into the hole, but then he froze.
There it was again.
Through the tangle of thorn bushes, he saw something waver, like it had just risen from the ground. A flutter of dark hair and slender build told him it was a woman.
Brandt squinted.
And she was coming closer.
His hand went to the knife in his waistband. His throat tightened with the pounding of his pulse as her form took shape in the mist.
No… it wasn’t Jean.
It was the damn girl.
But this didn’t make sense. Why would the girl be here?
Then it came to him. She had come back to meet her whore mother. The girl coming back here now to this place — just like he had! — it had been like some weird gift, like it happened this way for a reason.
He had been right all along. Jean was here somewhere.
He retreated into the root cellar, not wanting the girl to see him. He had to think about this, had to figure out what to do. He crouched on the stone steps behind the half-open door, watching, waiting.
Pink. Something pink. The pink of her jacket moving across the gap in the boards.
He heard the snap of a twig as she walked along the edge of the cornfield. So close now he could almost smell her.
He held his breath.
Silence.
Had she stopped? Why wasn’t she coming inside? She was just standing there, frozen. Her weird eyes were colored with the same look she used to get when she was little, like when the tornados were coming.
She knew he was in here.
And she was going to run.
Brandt pushed open the door. At the sound, the girl’s head snapped up, her eyes — those weird fucking eyes — pinned on him.
Suddenly, she bolted toward the cornfield.
He was slowed by the thorn bushes but he caught up with her at the edge of the field and threw an arm around her neck, knocking her to the dirt.
“No!” she cried.
He started to drag her back to the root cellar. She was light, no heavier than a bundle of sticks, but she was kicking hard, her hands clawing at his arms.
A pain seered through his hand.
She had bitten him. He dropped his hand and clenched his teeth to keep himself from yelping. Blood. The bitch had drawn blood.
“God damn you,” he hissed.
He smacked her. She cried and covered her head, crumpling to the weeds in a whimpering heap. He dropped a knee into the girl’s chest and pulled his knife from his waistband.
He wanted to slice her up right here but he couldn’t do that — not yet. He leaned close, holding the knife inches from her face.
“Where is she?” he asked.
She didn’t open her eyes, just held her cheek, crying.
“Where is she?” Brandt said. “Where’s your momma?”
She opened her eyes. “Momma?” she whispered.
Brandt grabbed a fistful of her hair, pushing the broken blade into her cheek. “Tell me now, or you die,” he said.
Tears streaked the girl’s face, and she was gulping in air like she was drowning. She sounded like she was having one of those damn breathing attacks.
“Stop it!” he hissed.
Her eyes came up, staring right into his. It was the same kind of look he’d seen in Jean’s eyes just before he plunged the knife into her chest. And the same one he’d seen in Margi’s before he pushed her from the car.
And the screaming. The same screams that Jean had made and-
But no one was screaming, he realized. It was a siren he was hearing now.
A thud. Voices.
Brandt’s eyes shot to the road. Blue lights cut through the fog.
He looked down at the girl. She had heard it, too. He thrust a hand over her mouth, his knee digging harder into her stomach to keep her still. Ten feet away, a rusting tractor sat surrounded by a heavy curtain of brush. He dragged the girl behind it.
Brandt crouched behind the tractor’s wheel, watching the cops. One of them was heading toward the farmhouse. The other was going toward the barn.
Brandt knew the second cop couldn’t see him behind the tractor. But they’d start searching out here soon enough. And there was no way he could risk trying to drag the girl back to the root cellar now.
The Gremlin. If he could make it to the creek, he could get back to the old barn where he had hidden the car and get away.
Brandt yanked the girl to her knees and held her by the neck. “Crawl,” he said. “You make one sound, I’ll slice you open and throw your body in the fucking hole where no one will ever find it.”
