I supposed some could have eyes that looked normal. The woman banging on the window with the rock had normal-looking eyes. Eyes that still haunted me when I was least expecting them.
I swallowed down my fear and said, “Hey, are you … are you okay?”
“I want my mama,” she said.
That’s what one of them would say, of course.
“What’s your name?”
The little girl looked like she might cry. “Tina.”
“Hey Tina.” The dead things didn’t have names, right? They didn’t know who they were, what they were. They just screamed and cried for help and sang creepy songs. Right? “Do you know where your mama went?”
She nodded. “Outside.”
“When?”
The little girl shrugged. Her pink coat was ripped and dirty and she was missing a glove. Probably cold, too. I wiggled my fingers. “Come on, let’s get you warm and then I’ll get you a snack. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Her hand was cold in mine as I led her back to the living room. It had a small pellet stove in one corner, and I got it started with only a few muttered curses. When that was going, I went back out to the truck and brought it my supplies, food, and water.
She drank an entire bottle without many breaths between swallows, and I wondered how long ago her mother had left and why. Why would she leave her little girl behind?
I laid out my sleeping bag and Paisley’s too, feeling a small pang when I thought of her disappearing into the snow. I opened a can of chicken noodle and poured it into a pan I found in the kitchen, then set it on top of the pellet stove to warm. The little girl was still shivering, so I moved her closer to the warmth and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. I’d have to find her a different coat. The one she wore looked like it had been through the wringer. What had happened to her, I wondered. And where was her damned mother?
Although I didn’t admit it aloud, I was grateful I wasn’t alone. Even if she was a little girl and maybe a liability, I was glad for her company.
We finished up our food and then I took her to the bathroom to do her business. The toilet paper had an inch of dust on it, so I doubted they’d been staying in the house for long. For some reason, the mother had stashed her kid here and then never returned. I couldn’t imagine leaving her behind and wondered what would have driven someone to do that to such a sweet little girl.
“You ready for bed?” I asked when the girl yawned for the fourth time. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes droopy as she nodded. I got her tucked into Paisley’s sleeping bag and settled in myself, telling her a story until she dropped off into sleep.
I laid there for a long time after, listening to her breathe and counting my blessings that I’d found her before she’d died from the cold or thirst.
How could someone leave their kid behind?
Sometime in the middle of the night I was awakened by a sound. I wasn’t sure what it was, exactly. The creak of the gutters in the wind, maybe. I pushed myself to a sitting position and stared around the room for a long moment before turning on the flashlight. The living room was empty. I’d used a heavy bookcase to block the front door. The back had a deadbolt. Still, I got up and made another round of the house, checking the closets, the cabinets.
We were alone.
When I went back to the living room, I startled. The little girl was sitting up in the sleeping bag, staring right at me. “Hey, honey. It’s okay. You can go back to—”
“Mama? Help me.”
My guts turned to water. Her voice sounded so much like them I froze right there. After a minute of terror, I forced myself to say, “It’s okay, Tina. You’re safe.”
“Help me!” She moved then, struggling out of the sleeping bag to get to her feet. When she straightened, she did so jerkily, as if her joints weren’t working properly.
“Tina? Where’s your mama?”
“Mama! Mama please!” She drew out the last word, holding her grasping little hands out to me. “Please!”
Oh goddess. She was dead. Somehow in the middle of the night she’d died.
She’d died.
And then she came back.
“Please?” she asked again and took an unsteady step toward me. “Help.”
I lifted the gun, though my hands shook so much I doubted I’d be able to hit the broad side of a barn, let alone one little girl’s head. “Stop, Tina. Please. Just stop. Lay down, okay? I don’t want—” Don’t want to what? Shoot a little girl?
“Please?” She took another step and I stumbled back, into the hallway where the air was cooler.
“Not real,” I whispered. “You’re not real. This isn’t real.” I pictured myself shooting the girl. Pictured the mother coming back, pictured her screaming her daughter’s name. What would I do if I came upon someone who had killed my boys? “I’d kill them.”
The little girl came closer still and this time I could see her eyes. They were cloudy. She was dead. She was gone.
She was one of them.
Had she been bitten? Had she been sick?
Is that why her mother had left her?
Dear goddess, was that why?
I couldn’t shoot her. I knew I couldn’t. Instead, I kept backing up, leading her into the hallway. I’d shove her into one of the bedrooms and leave her there. I’d drive away in the morning and leave her there for her mother to find, if her mother was even alive.
“Come on.”
She did, but instead of stumbling she charged at me. Her mouth opened in a snarl of hunger as
