Laura saw the gray wall break open, rusted nails popping like gunshots, and Mary Terror kept falling.
There was a scream. Mary’s bloody hands clawed at the edges of the hole she’d gone through, but more of the rotten wood gave way beneath her fingers. The scream sharpened.
Mary’s hands disappeared.
Laura heard a moist-sounding thump.
The scream had stopped.
She could hear sea gulls. Mist, the silent destroyer, drifted through the broken wall.
Laura looked out. Mary Terror had gone through the side of the house and fallen to the ground forty feet below. She lay on her stomach, amid rocks and weeds and broken bottles, the detritus of someone’s party. A graffiti artist had been at work on the larger rocks, adorning them with names and dates in Day-Glo orange. Twenty feet from Mary’s head was a spray-painted peace symbol.
There was something in Laura’s right hand. She opened it, and looked at the Smiley Face button that had been ripped from Mary Terror’s sweater. Its pin had pricked her palm.
She shook it out of her hand, and it clattered facedown to the floor.
Laura staggered out of the room, and near the staircase she knelt down on the floor beside her son.
His gaze found her, and he shrieked. She knew she was no beauty. She picked him up—a major effort, but a pleasure she would not be denied—and rocked him, slowly and gently. Gradually, his crying subsided. She felt his heart beating, and that miracle of miracles broke her. She lowered her head and sobbed, mixing blood and tears.
She thought she must’ve passed out. When she awakened again, her first thought was that Mary Terror was coming after her, and God help her if she got up and looked out and saw that the woman was no longer lying where she’d struck.
She was afraid to find out. But the thought passed, and her eyelids drifted shut again. Her body was a kingdom of pain. Later—and exactly when this was she didn’t know— David’s crying brought her back to the world. He was hungry. Wanting a bottle. Got to feed a growing boy. My growing boy.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, David.” She zipped him out of the parka and inspected him: fingers, toes, genitals, everything. He was whole, and he was hers.
Laura held him close against her, and she crooned to him as the ocean spoke outside.
It became time to think about what she was going to do.
She believed she could get the Cutlass out of the bog. If not, maybe the keys were still in the Jeep wagon. No, she couldn’t bear to drive that. Couldn’t even bear to sit in it, because that woman’s smell would be in there. If she couldn’t get the Cutlass out, she would have to walk to the rangers’ station. Could she do that? She thought so. It might take her a while, but she’d get there eventually.
“Yes we will,” she told her baby. He looked at her and blinked, no longer crying. Her voice was froggish, and she could still feel the pressure of that woman’s fingers on her throat. “All over now,” she said, shunting aside the darkness that kept trying to claim her. “All over.”
But what if she looked out and Mary Terror’s body was not there?
Laura attempted to stand. It was impossible. She had to wait awhile longer. The light seemed brighter. Afternoon light, she thought. Her tongue probed around her mouth and located no missing teeth but some blood clots. Her ribs were killing her, and she couldn’t take deep breaths. Her broken hand…well, there was a point in pain where pain no longer registered, and she had passed that. When she got back to civilization, she was going to be a doctor’s delight.
Getting to the rangers’ station was not the real test. The real test involved Doug, and Atlanta, and where her life would go from there. She didn’t think Doug was in her future. She had what belonged to her. He could keep the rest.
And there was another question, too. The question of a woman who did not want to be forgotten, and who feared strangers might pass her grave and never know her story.
Laura would make sure that didn’t happen, and she would make sure Bedelia Morse got home.
She thought Neil Kastle of the FBI might take her calls now, too.
Laura got her legs under her, held David against her, and tried to stand. She almost made it. The next time, she did.
Moving slowly and carefully, she descended the staircase. Downstairs, she had to rest again. “Your mama’s an old lady, kid,” she told David. “How about that?” He made a gurgling noise. She offered him a finger, and his hand curled around it with a strong grip. They had to get to know each other again, but they had plenty of time. There were scrapes on his face; he wore his own medals. “You ready to try it?” she asked. He offered no judgment, only a curious blue-eyed stare.
Laura hobbled out of the house into the afternoon light. The mist was still drifting in, the Pacific thundering against the rocks as it had for ages. Some things were steady, like a mother’s love for her child.
The road beckoned.
But not yet. Not just yet.
Laura went around the house, her heartbeat rapid in her bruised chest. She had to see. Had to know that she could sleep again without waking up screaming, and that somewhere in the world Mary Terror was not driving the highways of night.
She was there.
Her eyes were open, her head crooked. A rock was her pillow, red as love.
Laura released her breath, and turned away with her son in her arms.
Both of Thursday’s children had far to go.
About the Author
One of the founders of the Horror Writers Association, Robert R. McCammon (b. 1952) is one of the country’s most accomplished authors of modern horror and historical fiction. Raised by his grandparents in Birmingham, Alabama, McCammon published his first novel, the Revelations-inspired Baal, when he was only twenty-six. His writings continued in a supernatural vein throughout the 1980s, producing such bestselling titles as Swan Song, The Wolf’s Hour, and Stinger.
In 1991 Boy’s Life won the World Fantasy Award for best novel. After his next novel, Gone South, McCammon took a break from writing to spend more time with his family. He did not publish another novel until 2002’s Speaks the Nightbird. Since then he has followed “fixer” Matthew Corbett in two sequels, The Queen of Bedlam and Mister Slaughter. His newest novel is The Five. McCammon and his family continue to live in Birmingham.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Stinger Copyright © 1988 by The McCammon Corporation
The Wolf’s Hour Copyright © 1989 by The McCammon Corporation
Mine Copyright © 1990 by The McCammon Corporation
Cover design by Thomas Ng
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5300-6
This edition published in 2018 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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ROBERT R. MCCAMMON
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Robert R. McCammon, The Monster Novels: Stinger, the Wolf's Hour, and Mine
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