chance now whispered with quiet certainty:
“Girl, you’re going to die in this place.”
CHAPTER SIX: THE CHILD
He saw me, I know he did, I could tell by the look on his face. I knew he was just tryin’ to ignore me and that he had to be able to see and hear me all along. I just knew it. And he can keep tryin’ to pretend he doesn’t but I know he can now so it won’t do him no good. I’ll keep yellin’ and kickin’ and hittin’ and every time it looks like he might be ready to pass out or something I’ll make sure he wakes back up. He has to feel every little bit of the pain, has to suffer every minute ’til he dies. If Mr. Boots was here, I’d say
If Mr. Boots had been there that day in the creek, I know things woulda turned out different. He wouldn’t have let that man point the gun at me and Mommy. I know he wouldn’t.
When he said he was gonna shoot us if we didn’t say somethin’, I started tryin’ to talk but it was like my brain had forgot how to make words. There was kind of this feeling in my throat like maybe I had tried to swallow something a little too big and my belly felt all warm and sick.
Mommy jumped in front of me and threw up her hands.
“Don’t, please, for God’s sake, no.”
The man looked like he was glad Mommy had said something, like maybe he really didn’t want to shoot us after all. But now I think that it was all just an act.
So the man said his name was Carl and he said there were a bunch of those things headin’ our way and we’d best be movin’ on if we knew what was good for us. Then he asked if he had any weapons or anything.
Mommy told him we didn’t, that it was just her and me and she didn’t understand what was going on and just wanted to keep me safe and was trying to make her way to my Grandpa’s farm. She started crying again and it was real hard to understand what she was saying after that.
Mr. Carl kept lookin’ over his shoulder the entire time and he kinda bounced from one foot to the other like he had to pee real bad. But he listened to everything Mommy was saying and for a minute it looked like he was about to cry too.
“You two better come with me.” he ended up sayin’. “You won’t last long out here without any weapons or nothin’.”
So Mommy scooped me up in her arms and waded out of the creek, but the man looked at me and kinda frowned. He told Mommy that those things were really fast and if she was gonna carry me the whole way she better be darn sure it would be quicker than me runnin’ alongside. He said those things didn’t care if I was a kid or the King of England… that they would snatch me up the minute they had a chance.
When he was saying all this, I just wanted to lay my head on Mommy’s shoulder and cry. Maybe if I cried long and hard enough I would wake up like I sometimes do and find out this was all nothin’ more than just a bad dream. But there was another part of me that told me to be a big boy, so I blinked really fast and held my breath until I didn’t feel like I had to cry anymore.
The rest of the day we spent wanderin’ through the woods. Sometimes Carl would tell us to wait by a tree or a rock while he went to take a look up ahead. And he would always say that if he wasn’t back in ten minutes then we just needed to run and keep on runnin’ and not worry ’bout what had happened to him. And sometimes, when we were waiting for him, we would hear gunshots and Mommy would try to cover my ears but it was already too late.
It was after one of these times that he came back with blood all over his clothes and that was probably the only time I ever saw him cry. He just kinda plopped down in the grass and held his head in his hands like he had a headache or somethin’. But Mommy knew right away something more was wrong with him, just like she does with me.
“Carl,” she said, “what’s wrong? What happened?”
He looked up at us and his eyes were all watery and it was weird but his face somehow looked longer than it had before. He opened his mouth like he was about to say somethin’ but instead he made these noises almost like he was chokin’. And then his entire body started shakin’ and he started cryin’ just as hard as if he’d just seen his favorite puppy get run over by a truck.
Mommy went over and crouched down beside him and started rubbin’ her hand across his back like she does when I’m sick. She was whisperin’ to him, but I was far enough away that I couldn’t really hear her very good. And Carl just kept sayin’ over and over again, “It ain’t right. It just ain’t right.”
So I was just kinda lookin’ around, not really knowin’ what to do, and I heard this rustlin’ in the bushes. I remember thinkin’ that maybe it was a deer and I got a little excited ’cause I’d always wanted to see a real live deer and never had.
I turned around to ask Mommy if I could go look at the deer, but she was holding Carl now and his head was buried in her shoulder as she rocked back and forth, pettin’ his hair and still whispering to him. So I thought she wouldn’t mind, not so long as I stayed where she could see me.
I walked over to the bushes as quiet as I could and had almost made it there when the branches started shakin’ and rattlin’. I stopped in my tracks and held my breath and watched the leaves as they moved and for the first time I started getting’ a little afraid.
What if it weren’t a deer in there at all? What if it was a monster? The bushes were big enough that two or three of ’em could probably fit in there and I wouldn’t ever know.
I bit my lip and kept watchin’ the bush, but by now the shakin’ had stopped. I tried to listen real hard. To see if I could hear any monster noises.
“They don’t make no noise.” part of me thought. “Remember? They don’t growl or nothing.”
My heart had started beatin’ really hard and I wanted to turn around and run back to where Mommy and Carl was. But I was afraid. Afraid that if I turned my back the monsters would leap out like a jungle cat.
I thought about yellin’ for help, but what if it wasn’t a monster at all? What if it was just a rabbit or squirrel or somethin’? I had been tryin’ real hard to make Mommy think I wasn’t afraid or nothin’ because I wanted her to be so proud of me.
And besides, I remembered how fast those things were when they were chasin’ us through the house. What if I screamed for help and they jumped out at me? They would have me before Mr. Carl would even be able to pick up his gun.
The bushes rattled again and I knew that whatever was in there wasn’t no rabbit. Anything that could make them shake like that had to be big.
I felt like I was about to throw up and I wished I never woulda walked over to where I was. I shoulda stayed by Mommy and Mr. Carl, stayed where I knew it was safe.
My whole body had started shakin’, just like those bushes, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.
Because I knew.
I knew there was a monster in there.
I knew it was waiting for me to make one wrong move.
Waiting to pounce.
CHAPTER SEVEN: CARL
The boy. Sometimes I still wake up in a sweat, his voice echoing through my head like a ghost trapped somewhere between the realm of sleep and reality. And the image of him from the nightmare lingers on for a moment: usually he’s crying but sometimes he’s just standing there staring at me; his eyes as hard and cold as two pieces of coal, his teeth clenched in anger, radiating accusations without actually voicing the words.
