“What did you see?” Amber whispered to George.
“The sun burned him out. He looks like an electrical circuit that’s been fried from too much current. His eyes are just two scorched holes.”
Ricky looked over the edge of the hole for a long time and then reached out to firm the position of the mirror. He moved the sticks a little too, so that when he flopped the door back over on its hinges, the mirror stayed in place, pointed straight down.
“Just in case,” Ricky said.
When the door was shut, the three of them went to it and got down on their knees to push dirt back over it. They ended up mounding dirt, sticks, and leaves over the site.
“Is it enough?” Amber asked.
“I think so,” George said. “I really do.”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes before she let it out. Amber thought about all the times she had sensed the creatures. There had been such a heavy feeling of dread associated with that patch of forest when they started. It seemed like it was gone now, but she didn’t want to trust that feeling.
“There has to be something more,” she said. “Something we can do to be sure.”
“Water?” Ricky asked. “Fire?”
“Concrete,” George said. “Turn this whole place into a parking lot.”
Amber smiled.
Forty-Three: Alan
By the time they pulled onto Route 6, Alan had fallen in behind Mary and Vernon. They seemed to understand that he was back there, following them. Alan’s fingers tapped on the steering wheel and his left foot pounded out a staccato rhythm on the floor of his car. He kept checking his rearview mirror, telling himself that the kids were going to be okay.
His phone lit up as soon as he was in range of a tower. He had to wait another five minutes before he had enough signal to make a call.
“Are you okay?” Liz asked.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“Ricky? Amber?”
“They’re good too. I mean, they were when I left them. They’re going back to the gravesite. We rescued them from Libby. He’s dead. We’re going to have to talk about how to deal with that. Oh, and he killed another woman. It’s a whole thing. There are a lot of details to sort.”
Liz was silent for a moment.
“And they went back to Prescott’s grave? That’s where they were headed this morning, right?”
“Yeah,” Alan said. “I’m coming home—to you guys, I mean. They’re continuing on.”
She waited. He imagined that he could hear her holding her breath.
“I am,” he said. “We talked about it, and they wanted to keep going, but I have to come home.”
After another long pause, she said, “Good. I think they’ll be okay. And if we don’t hear from them before dawn.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be heading back this way to find out what happened.”
Just saying the words aloud, preparing for that possibility, he felt the weight of it in his chest.
He thought that Liz could feel it too.
“Stay up there,” she said. “You want to?”
“Huh?”
“Stay with Mary and Vernon. They’re at Amber’s house, right? It will be safe there, and you’ll have a jump on getting up there in the morning. A lot less time on the road.”
“Are you… I don’t know if I should.”
“I’ll feel better if you don’t have to drive all the way down here and then go all the way back. If they were okay in Amber’s house last night, you’ll be fine tonight.”
“I’ll call them and see what they think.”
# # #
Alan woke before dawn. Tiptoeing, he tried to not make a sound. Before he reached the bathroom, he realized that someone else was already awake. He met Mary in the hall.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked.
“Actually, I was about to hit the road.”
Mary smiled. “Good. North?”
He nodded.
“We can ride together.”
Twenty minutes later, they were driving north again. This time, they took Mary’s SUV. It was easier to fit the dogs. Alan turned to look at them back there, side by side. They almost looked like brothers—one dark and one light. Tucker and Albert sat side by side, both looking through one window and then turning to look through the other. At the same time, they both decided it was time to settle down for a nap.
“Liz has some ideas about what we can say,” Alan said.
“About?”
“Romeo Libby and Jan Libby. The kids were in Jan’s house, so we might need to explain that, although Ricky said he was careful not to disturb the crime scene. There’s evidence of us all over Romeo’s house. Not to mention that we have his dog.”
“From the looks of his place, it could be years before anyone notices he has passed,” Mary said. “Did you see all the food he had stockpiled.”
Alan shook his head.
“I think he has been isolated there for a while,” she said.
“That fits with what Ricky said.”
# # #
When they pulled past Jan’s house, it was just a few minutes before dawn. Mary’s headlights reflected off of Romeo’s truck. Amber’s car was just beyond it. Mary stopped long before the vehicles and they sat, looking at the empty truck while they counted off the time until sunrise.
Alan took a deep breath. The dogs were sitting up in their seats. Tucker had his nose to the window, even though it was up.
“Sometimes I think that they don’t know much,” Mary said.
“Huh?”
“Tucker, for instance. When Ricky leaves for work, he looks through the window for a few minutes, like he’s waiting for Ricky to turn around and come back for him. Then, he gives up and I think that all is forgotten. He’s ready to move on with his day and he’s already adjusted to the idea that Ricky is no longer in his life. But sometimes I catch him looking off at nothing and I think that maybe he’s
