A Soft Barren Aftershock

  “Please—Karla.”

  “Okay. But only if you call me Ethan. I’m still not used to ‘sheriff’ as my first name. But listen, Karla: It’s probably best all around if you go back and let me handle this.”

  “No! No way! That wolf or bear or whatever it is has my Joanna and I’m not leaving her. I can’t go back to that empty house and just sit on my hands while somebody else looks for her. I can’t and I won’t!”

  “But you said yourself you don’t know a thing about that weapon you’re carrying. You’re just as likely to shoot me or yourself as something that needs shooting. Why don’t you just—”

  “No justs, sheriff! I’m here till we find her!”

  He looked frustrated. Finally he shrugged and moved past her, heading uphill. “Okay. Let’s start looking.”

  She had to work to keep up with his long strides.

  “Looking for what? What could have taken her? I know it wasn’t human.”

  “You’re completely sure?”

  “I saw prints where it must have been hiding in the bushes. Not shoe prints, not human feet—definitely some sort of animal. But what kind of bear or wolf waits to attack like that?”

  Sheriff Burke’s expression was about as readable as the rocks poking up through the fallen pine needles. “I know next to nothing about animals.”

  “But do we have wolves and bears in Pines?”

  “I can’t imagine not having them, although I haven’t heard reports of either.”

  She stopped walking. “Hey. How did you find me? I could have gone any direction from the house. I headed north for a while, then turned east.”

  He kept walking. “You have a compass?”

  “No.”

  “Then how could you tell your direction?”

  “The mossy side of the trunk is north. Everyone knows that.”

  “No, everyone should know that, but hardly everyone does. How do you? Camping? Hunting?”

  Come to think of it, how did she know that?

  “None of the above. But you’re not answering my question: How’d you find me so fast?”

  “I went to your house, saw the break in the brush, and followed your tracks.”

  “What tracks?”

  “You scuffed up a lot of pine needles as you ran. You were a cinch to track, and I’m hardly Daniel Boone.”

  She looked back at her trail. Yeah, it was kind of obvious.

  She caught up to him again. “But I don’t know if I chose the right direction. I mean, every once in a while I’ll see roughed up needles and so I go that way, but for all I know, a squirrel could have disturbed them.” She felt another sob building. “Isn’t this hopeless? I mean, there’s just two of us.”

  “It’s a lot of territory, I know—”

  “Can’t we get the state police or a helicopter or—?”

  “I put a call in but they can’t get here for a while.”

  “Couldn’t we cover more ground if we split up and—?”

  “No!” He fairly barked the word. His voice was calmer when he continued. “The last thing I want is for you to find yourself facing some wild animal alone. We’ll move quickly, keeping a good pace to cover as much ground as possible.”

  Another sob broke free. God, she hated being such a cry baby—it helped nothing—but she felt so useless.

  “We have to find her! And soon! She’s got to be terrified!”

  “Tell me about her,” he said.

  Why did he want to know? Oh, maybe to distract her from the hopelessness. She didn’t see how that would help, but . . .

  “Her name’s Joanna and she’s almost four and she’s afraid of snow.”

  “What?” he said through a laugh.

  “I know, I know. Pines is not the place to be afraid of snow.” God, did it ever snow here. “But snowflakes terrify her. She’s fine playing in the snow once it’s done falling and all on the ground, but the falling flakes freak her out. She thinks they’ll cover the house and we’ll never get out.”

  “Where’d she get that idea?”

  “I don’t know. It does get pretty deep at times. She’s got a little bit of an OCD thing going for her, and I think she watched it drifting halfway up the windows during that big storm last winter and extrapolated that it might go on piling up and up until the house was covered.”

  “I’m sure she’ll grow out of it.”

  “I think she already has. I told her that no two snowflakes are alike and showed her how to make them from a piece of paper. You know how you fold and refold a sheet into a wedge and then cut into the edges? I showed her a couple of times, gave her a pair of blunt-nosed scissors, and let her have at it. She makes at least one new snowflake a day and tries to make each one different. She’s fascinated by the process and by how she can’t tell exactly how each one is going to look until she unfolds it.”

  “You must have quite a collection.”

  Karla smiled at the image of their first floor. “They’re everywhere—and I do mean everywhere. But I don’t mind. She feels she’s in control of the flakes now. This winter she’ll . . .” Karla pressed a hand over her mouth. “If she’s here for winter.”

  “She will be,” he said, swinging the pump-action shotgun up onto his shoulder.

  As she stared at the weapon, she experienced those same flashing pinpoints on the perimeter of her vision.

  The words seemed to pop out of her mouth. “How old is that twelve-gauge anyway?” As he looked at her, she added, “I mean, it’s a Winchester ninety-seven, right? Must be—”

  She stopped. This was weird.

  He was staring at her. “I thought you didn’t know anything about guns.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then how—?”

  “I have no idea. Oh, that’s scary.”

  “Did your father own guns? Was he a hunter?”

  “No way. My folks are Quakers—farmers back in Pennsylvania.”

  “Pennsylvania, huh? Where?”

  “Eastern. In Amish country near a place called Bird-in-Hand. Heard of it?”

  He smiled. “Sure. Drove through there once. Can’t forget a name like that.”

  “It’s nice, but there isn’t much ‘there’ there, if you know what I mean.

  “I do. You a Quaker?”

  “Not so much. I drifted away.”

  He hefted the shotgun. “But about . . .?”

  “Guns? Like I said: no idea. My father owns a lot of acreage back there but won’t allow hunting anywhere on our land. Won’t allow a gun on the property, let alone in the house. I have no idea where all that came from . . . I mean, I was going to ask you if you were loaded with double-ought, and I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It’s heavy shot, and yes, I’m loaded with double-ought.”

  “Dear Lord, how did I even know to ask?”

  He was giving her a funny look. “Good question.”

  She looked down at the revolver she gripped. A heavy thing. She saw Smith & Wesson Springfield, MA engraved near the trigger. She knew of no reason why it should feel so comfortable in her hand. For some reason she now knew the wooden grips were walnut, the wheelie thing was the cylinder, and the slots were chambers.

  How did she know? This was Jonathan’s . . . the gun he kept hidden from her.

  “Maybe you picked up something from your husband,” Ethan said.

  She shook her head. “No. I knew he had it, but he never talked about it, never even let me see it.”

  “Where is he, by the way? I’d have expected him to—”

  “He killed himself two months ago.”

  The brief stutter in his step told her she’d taken him by surprise.

  He said, “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know. How . . .?”

  “ . . . did he do it?” Karla finished his sentence and then explained, “Hung himself.” The coward.

  “Did you find him?”

  “He did it out here in the woods. A couple of miles to the west of here, I’m told. A hiker
came upon him.”

  “Did he leave a note?”

  “Nope. Just walked out one Saturday morning. I thought he was going out to shoot. He never came back. I couldn’t believe he’d do that to himself . . . to us. Still can’t.”

  “You’re not thinking foul play, are you?”

  “Why not? He never gave a hint that he was depressed. But Sheriff Pope checked it out and said there was no sign of anyone else involved. He told me Jonathan fastened a twelve-foot rope to a thick branch about twenty feet off the ground”—for some reason those numbers had stuck her head—“stood on the branch, and jumped. He said nobody could arrange that. Jonathan had to do it himself. Still . . . to tie a rope around your neck and choke yourself to death . . .?”

  Ethan sighed. “Do you really want to talk about this?”

  “I was in such shock when it happened, I never had a chance . . . but I’ve had a lot of time to think since, and I just don’t see . . .”

  “He didn’t choke to death.”

  “What? How do you know? You weren’t even here.”

  “A fall like that snaps the neck like a twig. You can be pretty sure he died in an instant.”

  Karla shuddered. “How awful.” She hefted the pistol. “He had this. You’d think he’d . . .”

  “Maybe for your sake. Blowing the back of your head off makes things messy for the survivors.”

  “How considerate.” She couldn’t keep the acid from her tone.

  “Don’t minimize it. How did he look at the wake? All in one piece and like he could have been lying there asleep, I’ll bet.”

  Yes. She remembered, but barely . . . all such a blur.

  “You think that makes up for deserting your wife and little girl?”

  “I think I don’t want to be discussing this.”

  “You’re right, you’re right. Sorry,” Ethan apologized.

  God, how did she get off on that? Joanna was all that mattered now.

  Where are you, honey? Please be all right.

  And just then a high-pitched scream echoed through the trees.

  She gripped the sheriff’s arm. “Joanna! That’s Joanna!”

  He was turning in a slow circle. “I heard. But where—?”

  Somewhere an animal screeched, followed by another scream just like the first. They seemed to come from everywhere—left, right, uphill, downhill . . .

  “Goddamn these trees!” he said. “They deflect sound all over the place.”

  “Which way do we go?” she cried.

  “Uphill!” He started running.

  She followed, shouting, “We need to split up!”

  “No! We don’t know what we’re dealing with. But the good thing is that we now know she’s still alive. Hold onto that.”

  Karla did—clutching it for dear life, like an overboard sailor clinging to a tiny bit of flotsam.

  The stinky monster still had its stinky hand over Joanna’s mouth. They hadn’t stopped moving since it pulled her off the swing. Uphill, always uphill. She saw trees flying by to the side. And now, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shelf of rock ahead.

  As they got closer, the monster made a squawking noise like a big ugly bird. Another squawk came from ahead. As the thing carried her toward the rock shelf, another monster came out from the shadows beneath it. When Joanna saw it, she screamed into the stinky hand and started fighting to get free.

  The baldheaded thing rushing from under the shelf had whitish eyes with black centers; its no-lip mouth was crammed with sharp yellow teeth. Joanna thought she could see a heart beating in the chest between what looked like two boobies. Mommy had those but these were smaller and ugly and caked with dirt. The lady monster’s fingers ended in long black claws that were reaching for her.

  The first monster held her out toward the second. Her mouth finally free, Joanna took a deep breath and screamed as loud as she could.

  But she wasn’t free for long. The lady monster grabbed her and pressed her against her chest, against one of her stinky boobies. Milk squirted from it, smearing Joanna’s face.

  The lady monster pushed her back. Holding her at arms’ length, she hissed in Joanna’s face. Her breath was more than Joanna could stand—she threw up. The lady monster bared her teeth and shrieked as she shook Joanna. Joanna screamed again.

  With another bared-teeth hiss, the lady monster slashed her black talons at her.

  “Maybe we should’ve gone the other way,” Karla said.

  It had been forty-five minutes or more and she hadn’t seen a sign of anyone or anything, and they’d heard not another peep from Joanna.

  “We already went the other way,” Ethan said. “Remember?”

  Right. Karla’s mind was a shambles. They’d run a long way to the . . . west? East? North? The trees and the clouds hid the sun, and she hadn’t been paying attention to the moss, so she was completely disoriented. Whichever way they’d gone, when they’d found nothing they turned and circled back.

  “She’s got to be somewhere!”

  “We’ll find—” His arm shot out to the side as he skidded to a halt.

  She ran into it. “What?”

  “Shhh!” He pointed.

  Up ahead, a flat outcropping of gray stone jutted from the hillside like a cantilever roof. Something had churned up the forest floor before it.

  Ethan checked the breech of his shotgun, then whispered, “Stay here.”

  Karla nodded, but as soon as he started forward, she raised her pistol and followed. As they neared the outcropping, she noticed a carrion stench. She wanted to say something but kept mum. No telling what was hiding in the shadows beneath that overhang.

  But when she saw a big bone, coated with dried blood and buzzing with flies, she lost it.

  “Oh, God!” she cried. “That can’t be—!”

  Ethan jumped but kept the shotgun pointed toward the shadows. Without turning, he spoke in a low voice.

  “Look at the size of that bone. No way it’s human.”

  She had to admit he was right. It looked like the thigh bone of some big animal.

  “But what—?”

  “The dairy reported a cow or two missing the other day. I’m betting that’s what’s left of it.”

  “God, the stink!”

  “Check out the prints,” he said, pointing to the ground.

  Oblong depressions pointing every which way in the dirt, all with sharp talon holes.

  “The same as by my house!”

  “One set’s about an inch longer than the other. That means two of them. Shit.” That last word came freighted with a ton of unease.

  “Two of what?”

  He didn’t answer, just stared ahead.

  They’d stopped maybe fifteen feet from the outcrop and Karla still couldn’t see anything in the shadows beneath it. What sunlight there was came in at an angle that offered no help.

  “Do you think that’s a cave?” she said.

  “I hope not. I don’t know of any caves up here, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

  He pulled a black flashlight from his belt, turned it on, and held it atop his shotgun. As he aimed it into the shadows, waving the gun and the beam back and forth, the circle of light picked up two little pink objects.

  Joanna’s sneakers?

  “Oh, no! Oh, dear God!”

  She rushed forward.

  Ethan cried, “No!” but with his hands full of flashlight and shotgun, he couldn’t stop her.

  She dropped to her knees when she reached them. The pistol slipped from her fingers. Joanna’s little pink sneakers, stained with blood. She heard Ethan approaching behind her.

  “What’ve you got?”

  She couldn’t speak. Her throat had locked. All she could do was hold up the sneakers. And just a foot away, her quilted vest—slashed and bloody, with the down billowing out.

  Ethan kept the shotgun and flashlight moving back and forth in the shadows. Joanna could see where the ground rose to meet the rock at the rea
r. Not a cave, just an overhang. The beam swept past something light blue deep in the left corner and darted back to it.

  Oh, no! Joanna’s dress!

  Karla scrabbled on her hands and knees into the shadows under the outcrop. That was Joanna’s dress and that was her in it, lying on her side, facing the rocky wall, but she was still, so still.

  “Joanna? Jo? Are you all right?”

  She saw the massive bloodstains soaked into the blue cotton as she neared.

  “Joanna!”

  She reached her, grabbed her, turned her over and—

  Screamed.

  Not Joanna! Some horrid, hairless little monstrosity, only half Joanna’s size, with translucent skin and blank milky eyes and a gaping mouth that showed toothless gums.

  She hurled the dead thing away, toward Ethan. It rolled to his feet.

  “What is that thing?” she screamed. “And what’s it doing in Joanna’s dress?”

  Ethan said nothing. He showed only mild shock as he glanced at the dead creature, then returned his wary attention to their surroundings.

  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “What?” She couldn’t believe her ears. “What about Joanna?”

  “We’re not going to find her.”

  “We are!”

  “Look at that dress, Karla. It’s shredded. And the blood . . .”

  “No, please.” She was shaking her head. “Please . . .”

  “And worse, there’s two of them.”

  “You keep saying that, but two of what?”

  He rose on tiptoe. “Hold on a minute.”

  As he hurried off to the left and out of sight, Karla scrambled from under the overhang.

  “Where are you?” she called, then spotted him above her, standing on the outcrop. “What are you—?”

  She saw his sick, horrified expression.

  “Aw, Christ,” he said in a strangled voice. “Aw—”

  He turned and vomited.

  Karla stood frozen for an instant, then she was on the move, adrenaline-fueled panic driving her around and up and onto the outcrop. Its upper surface was abuzz with flies and littered with bones of all sizes. She saw a cow’s head, and another, and something else . . . something the size of a soccer ball, decorated with strawberry blond pigtails.

  She took a step forward but her knees wouldn’t support her. The world went blank. . . .