a real grandmother, but Jessica’s grandparents took being old a little too far, she thought.
They were a long way from the house. “Jessica . . .”
“I know. We’ll take a look at it and get right back to the house before my mom and dad get home.”
Lucy nodded. What, she wondered, was “it”? She was frightened, but a little thrilled. She reached between the buttons of her jacket with the palm of her hand, to see if she could feel her heart beating. She could.
“Now, whatever you do, don’t look up . . .” Jessica whispered. Both girls laughed, and it broke the tension for a moment. “Don’t look up” had become a comic mantra at school ever since the news of the mutilations had come out. Sixth-graders, some from Sheridan’s class, said it to scare the little kids on the playground. When the kids did look up, usually with a fleeting, half-terrified glance, the sixth-graders would lunge forward and either tickle the youngsters or push them backward over a co-conspirator who was on their hands and knees behind them.
he funniest thing to have happened so far though was when two boys in their class had started selling foil- covered baseball caps for seven dollars apiece. One of the boys had stolen the caps from his father’s collection, and the other had borrowed a large roll of aluminum foil from his own mother.
“Why get mutilated?” They cried out like carnival barkers. “Protect yourself with these babies ... only seven dollars each or two for twelve dollars. . . .”
ow much farther?” Lucy asked. They must be near the edge of the property, she thought. They had never been this far from the house before.
“It’s right up here,” Jessica said. “Man, wait until the next time Hailey comes over. We’ll ditch her right here. It’ll serve her right for always trying to scare us.”
Nervous, but giggling, they ducked under a low-hanging branch and pushed through tall, dried brush. Lucy froze when she saw the dark building in front of her. She looked it over. It wasn’t as large as she initially thought it was. In fact, it was more of a shack. It was old, unpainted, with one window that still had glass in it. The other front windows were boarded up. There was a sagging porch with missing slats where yellowed grass had grown through and died. The roof was uneven, and an old, tin chimney was black with age.
“Wow,” Lucy said. “When did you find this?” “Yesterday,” Jessica said.
Lucy looked over at her friend. Jessica smiled and raised her eyebrows expectantly. Lucy wasn’t sure she liked this, even a bit.
“You want to look inside?” Jessica asked. “Maybe we should go back now.”
“Don’t you want to know what’s inside?”
Lucy folded her arms across her coat. “I’m not going inside of that place.”
Jessica looked disappointed, but not as disappointed as she could have looked. This made Lucy feel a little better, knowing that Jessica was scared too.
“How about if we just look in the window?” Jessica said.
Lucy weighed the idea. Her first impulse was to go back to the house. But she didn’t want to show she was afraid and give Jessica something to tease her about later.
Lucy quickly nodded yes. She chose not to speak, because she was worried her voice would betray her fright.
The two girls walked tentatively to the shack. Lucy could see that the window would be too high to look in without standing on her tiptoes. Jessica was an inch or two taller, maybe tall enough that she could see into the window without extra effort. Lucy wished it wasn’t overcast, and thought that everything might feel different if the sun was out.
They approached the window silently. The bottom sill was gray and warped, and Lucy reached up and closed her fingers around it to help her stretch higher. Lucy strained, balanced on the toes of her shoes, and pulled herself up so her nose touched the top of the sill.
There was just enough light inside the building that they could see. They both suddenly gasped.
What terrified them wasn’t the pile of dirty bedding, or the opened food cans and cartons, or the pile of books on the floor. It was the sound of rustling from somewhere in the shadows out of view, and the thump of a footfall as if something was trying to get away.
They ran back to the house, screaming all the way.
14
After the task-force meeting, Joe Pickett drove his pickup through the breaklands into the foothills of the mountains. He pulled off the road, on a steep overlook to eat his lunch—a salami sandwich, and an apple—while surveying the vast valley below. The day was cloudless and cool, the eastern horizon limitless. Below him, several miles away, was a small camp of three vehicles and a pop-up camper near the brushy crux of small streams. He glassed the camp through his spotting scope recognizing a group of antelope hunters he had checked a few days before. They had asked him if he thought they were in danger from the sky. He didn’t know how to answer the question then, and he still didn’t.
Despite the new task force, Joe still had a job to do. Pronghorn antelope season was open, as was archery season for elk in the high country. Deer season would open in two weeks, and for a short, furiously busy time, all of the big game seasons would be open simultaneously. Joe hoped that the task force would have reached some conclusions by then, or his absence in the field would be noted. Most hunters were dutiful, but the criminal element—the lowlifes who would try to take too many animals or leave the wounded in search of a bigger trophy —would keep close track of his comings and goings.
Portenson’s presence, and threat that he was going to look deeper into Joe and Nate’s roles in the federal-land manager’s death last winter wormed through his thoughts. When he saw his reflection in the rearview mirror, he saw a man with a tense, worried scowl.
Joe got out of his pickup and sat down on the tailgate, flipping open his notebook to his notes from the meeting.
· CULTS · DISTURBED INDIVIDUALS · GOVERNMENT AGENTS · GRIZZLY BEAR · ARABS (stupid)
