“Of course,” Alan said.
“We adjust so fast, but we lose pieces of ourselves along the way.”
Alan looked at Mary and the way she was staring at Romeo’s truck in the distance.
Outside, they heard a distant screech echo through the woods. Mary reached for her door handle.
“It’s not safe yet,” Alan said.
She put her hand back in her lap.
“It’s all just an experiment, right?” Mary asked.
“What is? Life?”
“Yeah. We want to put meaning to it, but it’s all just a set of circumstances that we find ourselves in. A thousand people can die on the other side of the world and it doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s a tragedy for them, but nothing to me. But I accidentally ran over a rabbit last fall and I cried all day. I’ve killed rabbits, chickens, deer, even a moose one time, but this one wild bunny—it was so sad the way he looked at my car bearing down. He saw it all coming but there was nothing he could do. Nothing I could do, either.”
“They’re okay, Mary. I’m sure of it.”
“Oh, I know they are. You don’t have to tell me. This is not how my experiment ends.”
Alan nodded.
They passed another couple of minutes in silence and Alan’s eyes wanted to drift shut. It was so peaceful there with the sound of the dogs quietly breathing in the back and the sunlight just starting to warm up the world.
He blinked.
The morning rays were beginning to light the tops of the trees.
“Ready?” he asked.
Mary opened her door.
After a bit of sniffing by the side of the road, the dogs led the way down the path. The morning dew clung to Alan’s shoes as he walked through the grass and down to the dirt trail. Tucker found Ricky’s trail and then Albert picked up on the scent too. The dogs raced ahead, stopping when they got to the stream.
Mary and Alan stared across the water at the carcass there. It looked like something that had been decaying in the elements for decades, but Alan doubted that was true.
“I’m glad we didn’t meet that thing when it was still up and moving,” Mary said.
Alan nodded.
After they crossed the stream, the dogs circled wide around the creature. Albert had his tail tucked so hard between his legs that Alan thought the dog might run off. Tucker sniffed from a distance and his hair was standing up until the thing was far behind them.
Mary moved through the woods almost silently. Alan kept looking back to make sure she was still following.
“It’s not much farther,” he said, swallowing and taking a deep breath.
She nodded.
Alan recognized the area before they reached the little Prescott cemetery. The dogs froze. When Alan stopped, he could hear strange sounds through the woods. It was a rhythmic scraping, mixed with weird grunts.
Tucker took off, running between the trees. Mary followed fast and Alan had to sprint to catch up.
The three young people were on their knees, covered with dirt. They were rolling a big rock into place on top of a pile of dirt.
Their three startled faces turned at the sound of Tucker bounding up.
Mary said, “Always playing in the dirt. Time to go home.”
# # #
Ricky gave him a quick rundown of the night.
“And you think he was dead?” Alan asked when the story was over.
Ricky tilted his head back and forth and bit his lip before answering.
“We think so. I mean, he looked… I don’t know—burned out, maybe? Either way, like I said, we left the mirrors pointing at him and now we’ve put a bunch of rocks over the door. We’re just trying to get a little weight on top of it, just in case.”
“You think the door will hold?”
“It seemed really solid, yes.”
Alan folded his arms and looked at the cairn.
“The downside is that it might attract attention,” Ricky said.
“I don’t know that I’m worried about that,” Alan said. “How long did this little cemetery go unmolested?”
Ricky nodded.
“Come on, you two,” Mary said. “We have things to do.”
George was standing at the far edge of the cemetery.
“This way,” George said. “We’ve already left enough footprints leading to and from Jan’s house.”
Forty-Four: Amber
Amber kept putting one foot in front of the other, but it felt like she was half asleep as they trudged through the woods. It wasn’t just because she had been up all night—it was the crash after all that adrenaline. Her body was ready to call it quits.
She practically ran into Alan’s back.
Amber stepped to the side and saw that everyone was stopped. Even the dogs were frozen in place. The carcass was stretched across the path. It looked like a horse skeleton, wrapped in old leather and beef jerky.
“Three legs,” George said.
“It’s one of Prescott’s experiments,” Amber said.
“What killed it?” Mary asked.
“Everything,” Ricky whispered.
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“This could be a good sign,” Alan said. “Romeo said that Prescott was the father of all those monsters. What if killing the father took out all of them?”
“That’s too much to hope for,” Amber said.
They veered from the path to give the carcass a wide berth.
“I suppose we’re going to find out,” Mary said.
“How’s that?” Alan asked.
“We have to go back to Romeo’s, don’t we? You people are talking about sending the police over there after his body, right? Are you going to do that without us first letting the sunlight into that second floor?”
“Oh,” Alan said.
“Good point, Mom,” Ricky said.
Amber took a deep breath and let it out slowly as they walked. When they saw her car through the woods, Amber could hardly believe it. It seemed like years since she had come back to Maine, rented a car, and started on this path. The idea that the vehicle was still sitting there by the side of the road seemed preposterous.
“So, to Romeo’s then?” Amber asked as she climbed the bank to the road.
“Romeo’s,” Ricky said. “Mom, can you
