It, at some level, at some foundational core, was his fault, and that was a burden he was looking forward to no longer having to carry. Soon.
“Is Walter all right?” Matt said.
“Yes,” Becca said.
It wasn’t giving up, at least not in Matt’s view. It was something else, the manifestation of the chaos to which had been brought upon his life, the desperation, the anger, the fear, all of it coming forth and making him do one thing, and him having the strength and fortitude to look chaos in the face and tell it now.
But Becca wouldn’t understand any of that.
“You’ll understand someday, or at least I hope you will,” he said. “Maybe by then, you’ll remember me as I once was and not this thing in front of you.”
He felt it then. He let go of his side, and the blood started to come out then.
“I’ll tell Mom you say hi,” he tried to say, but the energy didn’t come to his throat. He fell off the log and into the snow. It felt good on him, so cold and comforting. He reached out and felt it. This wasn’t the worst way to die, and he liked it. Maybe, all of this had been worth something after all. He closed his eyes, and darkness fell completely.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Odd Occurrence in Atkins.
By Charles Newhall
Following a terrible storm that racked most of central New York this past week, no other place got hit as bad as the small town of Atkins, New York.
Akins, an old lumber town that, like many across central New York, experienced an odd sight during a random winter storm, witnesses say. Meteorologist Greg Blush reported that the New York State area was hit with almost two feet of snow over a two day period. Roads were shut down, and I-88, which cuts right next to Atkins, was shut down following concerns about the weather and snow.
At 8:34 p.m., every window and pane of glass in the small town shattered. People also reported having heard sounds coming from their radios and TVs.
Upon further investigation, the Atkins police department, with the assistance of the nearby town of Barrenly have been reporting the issue.
There was also talk of seeing people flying, with colored lights moving under their skin. One such report from a mother and her daughter claimed they saw an angel bring someone to heaven on I-88, but Police Chief Denny had no comment on that. Aside from the windows and the radios, there were large sections of the road that were messed up as well, with cracks in the ground and other things.
The Davenport Lumberyard, which is currently up for the market, was either broken into or experienced some sort of problem. Large chunks of wood had fallen from their piles, large sections of the metal gate and chain-link fence were ripped up and missing. Police Chief Denny, likewise, made no comment.
It appears as though we might never know what exactly happened in Atkins, New York that night . . .
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Janice drove through a broken neighborhood.
Well, perhaps broken wasn’t the right word. Janice had been down and even lived on worse streets than the one she was currently was driving down. She currently lived on a pretty bleak street, though in an apartment now rather than in a house. She hadn’t had a house since she was a kid, before her mother lost her job. Since then, apartments had been the name of the game, though not one she liked playing.
And currently, she was losing. Ever since Dan died, making the monthly payments for rent had been hard on her, but much harder on the kids. Hell, she had to spend almost every waking hour of her life at the Stewarts, trying to make enough money to cover rent, groceries, and the hundreds of other mysterious expenditures that kids seem to bring with them. She wouldn’t have changed her children for the world, but they were expensive little things. They were supposed to have a bright future in spite of all that, though, one where they didn’t have to worry about the things that they worried about at the present moment.
But all of that was supposed to change.
Janice was surprised when she got the call. She was just about done with Trucker Mike’s order when the phone rang in the back of the store. Now, most of the phone calls that come to individual Stewarts stores were either personal or corporate.
Janice almost never got calls at work, and the only reason one might call her was that something had happened to the kids. That’s why, when Lydia called out her name and handed her the phone, time seemed to stop.
What could it have been? Little Molly hadn’t looked all that great that morning before the bus came, but Janice wouldn’t have been able to find a sitter in time to cover her while she stayed home, so she just packed her daughter right up onto the bus as though things were normal. Maybe the chicken Janice had cooked the night before had been undercooked, and the two children were sick? Maybe Brenden got into a fight again and was currently being brought to the hospital, where the doctors there would learn that no, in fact, Janice didn’t have health insurance.
Her thoughts kept on like that for a second or two, before she brought the phone to her ear.
Walter spoke through the phone.
She hadn’t seen Walt since the great blizzard a few days back. As far as she was aware, she occupied that position
