Near the Bone

by Christina Henry

  Mattie needed to know if her sister was still alive, if Heather was somewhere waiting for her. She needed to know if she had a home to go home to.

  They reached the stream, and Mattie pointed out the place where there were some rocks to cross and indicated they should follow her.

  “C-cold,” she said. “Don’t . . . fall . . . in.”

  “Yeah, because I’m really worried about hypothermia or frostbite at the moment,” C.P. said as he followed behind Mattie.

  “You should be,” Jen said, the last one to cross. “It’s not a joke.”

  “I know it’s not, but hypothermia is kind of low on my list of things that could kill me. A gunshot wound seems more likely.”

  C.P. was the one who’d suggested going to the cabin but he seemed reluctant now. Mattie didn’t have time to soothe him, to make him feel better about his choice. She walked along the bank of the stream until she found the place where they kept the snares. No one had checked them in the last couple of days, and there were two dead rabbits in the traps. One of them had tried to gnaw its foot off but bled out before it finished. A dark stain of blood was visible against the snow.

  She indicated that the other two should follow her. “Stay . . . close. No . . . light.”

  The deer path was obvious to Mattie, who’d walked it so many times, but she knew it wouldn’t look like much to those unfamiliar with it. She didn’t want to lose one of them in the dark.

  Jen followed Mattie, and C.P. behind. The path was wide enough to admit two side-by-side but Mattie stayed close to the edge of it, hugging close to the trees. She had a vague idea that this made her less obvious, that anyone (anything) watching the forest would have trouble deciding if it was her or a tree they’d seen.

  It was hard not to remember the last time she’d walked this trail in the dark, how the creature had moved in time with her, how it had stalked her so silently.

  It’s not there now, she told herself. You would know. You would feel it.

  But she couldn’t be certain. Jen and C.P. both wore clothes that made a lot of noise—the slick surfaces of their jackets, the rough cloth of their pants. They both walked heavily, too, and their boots squeaked in the snow with every step. She couldn’t detect the presence of the creature—or of anything else that might be nearby—with all the racket. Mattie felt like they were announcing their presence to William, who’d hear them coming even with all the cabin windows closed. She tried not to be irritated, because she knew they couldn’t help it. They didn’t know how to be quiet because they’d never really needed to be. They didn’t have to hide from monsters that might hurt them.

  The tip of Mattie’s boot touched something hard in the dark—a rock, she thought—and she automatically moved right, skirting around it. The last thing she needed was to trip and fall. The other two were following so close behind that they would probably fall on top of her.

  Then there was a sound of metal, a hideous snapping, and Jen was screaming.

  The trap. William’s bear trap. She’d forgotten all about it. He’d gone out that morning to set it, to catch his demon.

  “Jen! Jen!” C.P. said. Mattie saw his silhouette against the trail, standing stock-still.

  “Flashlight!” Mattie said to C.P. Maybe Jen wasn’t hurt too badly. Maybe they would be able to get her out of the trap.

  He clicked the light on and Mattie heard him say, “Oh, god.”

  The trap had imbedded itself in Jen’s leg, below her knee. Blood poured from the wound, rolling down her pants, making a stain in the snow.

  Just like the rabbit, Mattie thought.

  She twisted and writhed on the ground, screaming, “Get it off, get it off, get it off me, oh my god, get it off!”

  “Hold still,” C.P. said, but Jen was thrashing around, the part of her body not caught in the trap trying to escape. “Hold still!”

  William will come, Mattie thought. They were too close to the cabin. He would hear Jen screaming and C.P. shouting and he would come and finish off the other two and drag Mattie away.

  “Shh,” Mattie said, falling to her knees next to Jen. She grabbed the other woman’s flailing hands and squeezed them tight. “Shh.”

  “It hurts,” Jen whimpered. Mattie saw the gleam of tears on her cheeks. “It hurts.”

  Mattie squeezed her hands tighter, trying to comfort. This is my fault. I should have remembered the trap.

  C.P.’s flashlight bobbed around as he knelt down to inspect the trap. “I have to loosen the springs. When I do, you pull your leg out as fast as you can. Don’t move around until I loosen it, OK?”

  He put the flashlight on the ground close to the trap.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Jen asked. Her voice was strained. Mattie could tell that she was making an enormous effort not to cry out.

  “I saw this in a movie once,” he said.

  “Oh, great.”

  He ignored her comment. “You press down on the springs on either side and it loosens the jaws, but you have to get your leg out fast because I don’t know how much pressure the springs need or how long I’ll be able to hold it.”

  Mattie looked at C.P. It was hard to tell with the puffy jacket but he didn’t seem muscle-bound. She didn’t think he’d have enough arm strength to open the springs, and it seemed to her that faster was better. They needed to get Jen out of the trap quickly.

  “Stand,” she said.

  “What?” he said.

  Mattie pointed at the springs. “Stand . . . on . . . it.”

  “She’s saying to step on the springs instead of trying to do it with your hands, dope,” Jen said. She sounded stronger, like the act of potentially arguing with C.P. gave her energy.

  “Oh. Good idea,” C.P. said.

  He stood up and positioned himself in front of the trap.

  “Don’t move around,” he said. “I don’t want to make this worse.”

  C.P. raised up the toes of his boots in front of each spring and then pushed down on the metal on either side of the jaws.

  The teeth loosened so suddenly that Mattie wasn’t ready for it. She’d had an idea that it would be a slow process, but once C.P.’s weight was on the springs, the jaws popped open.

  “Pull your leg out!” he cried, but Jen didn’t need telling. She was already freeing herself, pulling away with another cry of pain.

  As soon as Jen was loose, C.P. stepped off the trap, which snapped shut again with a clang that seemed to echo all through the woods.

  “Oh god,” Jen said. “Oh god, it hurts like hell.”

  Then she turned her head away from Mattie and threw up.

  “Did that guy put this trap out here?” C.P. asked Mattie.

  She noticed how C.P. never called him “William”—always “that guy” or “that nut” or some equivalent. It wasn’t really the right time to ask about this quirk, though.

  “Yes,” Mattie said. She wanted to explain that William thought the creature was a demon, and that killing it was a trial sent by God in William’s eyes, but her limited ability to talk made it impossible. Perhaps she could tell them tomorrow.

  If we live until tomorrow.

  She realized she didn’t feel very certain about this. Griffin had been taken by the monster, and now Jen had been caught in the trap. Jen wouldn’t be able to run or climb or even walk very well with that leg—what Mattie saw of it did not look good.

  Mattie herself was hardly at her physical peak—she still bore the bruises and pains from William’s beating and choking her.

  One missing and two wounded. Only C.P. is still standing. How are we ever going to get off the mountain like this?

  C.P. held his hand out to help Jen stand. She did, whimpering and crying, and leaned heavily on his shoulder. Mattie picked up the flashlight and turned it out again. No point in broadcasting their location any mo
re than they already had.

  “Do you think you can walk?” C.P. asked.

  “I can’t stay here,” Jen said.

  “I think you’re going to need a tetanus shot,” C.P. said.

  “I think I’m going to need stitches.”

  Jen took a few tentative steps forward with C.P.’s assistance. Mattie didn’t need the flashlight to tell that the result was not good. She heard Jen’s labored breath, the little cry of pain when Jen tried to put weight on her injured leg.

  “What about Griffin?” Jen said, and Mattie heard the tears in her voice. “I can’t go after him like this.”

  “I’ll go myself,” C.P. said. “Don’t worry about Griffin.”

  “You can’t drag him on your own. And the animal might have hurt him.”

  “Samantha will help me. Won’t you, Samantha?”

  Every time one of them said that name, Samantha, Mattie had to stop herself from correcting them, from saying, “No, my name is Mattie.” Mattie wasn’t her name. Mattie was the name William had forced on her so that she would forget herself.

  She realized that they were waiting for her answer. Did she really want to go to the creature’s cave again to find a man that she was fairly certain was already dead? No, she did not. She thought their hope was foolish.

  But as long as there’s a chance . . .

  And these people had been good to her. They’d helped her. What kind of person would she be if she didn’t help them?

  I don’t know what kind of person I am. William took that from me.

  “Yes. I’ll . . . go . . . with . . . you,” she said.

  “See?” C.P. said to Jen. “We’ll find a good place for you to wait and we’ll find Griffin and come back for you.”

  Mattie heard Jen’s indrawn breath, thought that the other woman was about to argue with C.P. as usual. Then another sound intruded.

  The crunch of a boot and then a slide through the snow—the unmistakable sound of a person limping.

  Thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag.

  It was coming from the direction of the stream.

  Mattie whispered, “William.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The only reason William would be coming from that direction was because he’d been following their tracks. Mattie couldn’t tell how far away he was but the noise made it clear that he moved steadily, if slowly, in their direction.

  “Cabin,” she said, pushing Jen and C.P. along the trail. “Hurry.”

  Mattie wanted to run, wanted to sprint for the safety of the cabin, wanted to lock the door and pull the curtains shut and huddle under the bed. She realized then that she was more scared of facing William again than the creature in the woods. William was the boogeyman, the monster in her nightmares. William could hurt her far more than the creature ever could.

  Thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag.

  The creature must have hurt William’s leg and that was why he was walking that way. It explained the horrible scream they’d heard earlier, when she thought (hoped, you hoped with all of your heart) that William was dying.

  They hurried as best they could, Jen stumbling frequently, C.P. dragging her along when he had to. Mattie darted ahead and then back again, biting her lip, her throat burning with sick acid bubbling up from her churning stomach.

  Hurry, hurry, she thought.

  For no matter how fast they moved, she heard the inexorable thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag behind them.

  They weren’t even trying to be silent now. All three of them knew that William was following their tracks in the snow, and the only thing that mattered was reaching the cabin before he did, so that they could bolt the door against him.

  Hurry, hurry, hurry.

  Mattie thought she heard William approaching faster, thought she felt his hands reaching out to grab her braid, pull her down into the snow, his fists pounding into her body, his lips saying, A man’s got to have sons, Martha, and you’re the one to give them to me.

  But no, he wasn’t there, he wasn’t dragging her away, he was still behind them, not close enough to see and they could still escape, they could still reach the cabin before he did.

  Thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag.

  Where was the cabin? She didn’t think they were that far away from it. For a moment Mattie worried that she’d gotten turned around in the dark, that they weren’t on the path to the cabin at all.

  Then the clearing was before them, and the little cluster of buildings that had been her home for the last twelve years.

  No, she thought as she ran for the cabin door. It has never been a home. A home is a place where there is warmth and love and safety, and I have never had those things here.

  Mattie heard Jen and C.P. limping along several feet behind her, and beyond them the sound of William approaching.

  Thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag.

  The cabin could only be locked from inside, not without, so Mattie knew that William could not bar it against her if he wasn’t home. Her boots clattered over the porch and she threw the cabin door open.

  Inside it was cold and dark, the fire that she’d carefully tended earlier down to only a few embers.

  “Hurry,” she croaked at Jen and C.P. as she stood at the door, ready to slam it shut the moment they were inside. All the world seemed to be inside the frame of the door—the bit of clearing, Jen and C.P. seeming to grow larger and larger as they approached, the watchful trees beyond.

  Thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag.

  He was closer. He would be upon them in a moment.

  Jen banged her leg into the bottom step that led up to the platform of the porch and cried out. C.P. half-lifted Jen over the wooden lip of the porch and shoved her in the direction of the door. Jen stumbled through, past Mattie, and collapsed on the floor just as C.P. hurried in behind.

  Mattie slammed the door shut and threw the bolt home. Her heart was hammering so hard that she felt sick.

  I did it. I beat him. I locked him out in the night just like he did to me.

  Her hands shook and her teeth chattered and part of her brain was in panicked overdrive, shouting at her, Open the door you’re not supposed to do that he’s going to hurt you so much when he gets inside you need to make him happy or he’ll hurt you more oh god what have you done?

  Even through the locked door she heard him coming for her.

  Thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag.

  The windows. Could he get through the windows? No, William was a big man and the windows were small. They should try to block them, though. They shouldn’t give him any path inside.

  “Windows,” Mattie said through her chattering teeth. “We . . . need . . . to . . . block . . . them.”

  “With what?” C.P. said. “I can’t see anything in here.”

  Mattie pulled the flashlight out of her pocket. She didn’t know how to turn it on. It had been years since she’d touched a flashlight and all she could think about was William: William following their trail through the snow, William stalking through the clearing, William’s footsteps going thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag across the porch, William’s fists pounding on the door.

  Mattie’s mittened hands slid over the plastic light, panicked and unsure, but somehow she accidentally managed to click it on. Jen and C.P. appeared in the pool of light. Jen lay on her back, out of breath, her eyes streaming. C.P. knelt on the floor beside her, his head bowed, his hand held up to block the light.

  “Turn it away!” he said. “If you want stuff to block the windows then point it at that stuff.”

  The trouble was that Mattie couldn’t think of what they might use. All the chairs were heavy, handmade by William and difficult to move. They’d have to stack the chairs to get high enough to cover the glass. What they really needed were boards or something like them, but there was nothing like that in the
cabin.

  Mattie darted the flashlight all around the cabin—at the table where she’d eaten her cheese and bread earlier in the day, at the couch that hid the roll of money she’d stolen from William, at the leftover pile of supplies he’d purchased for “fighting a demon.”

  Thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag.

  Even through the walls of the cabin she heard the inexorable steps, the sound that meant William was nearly there.

  “At least let’s block the door,” C.P. said. He grabbed one of the heavy chairs away from the table and dragged it toward the front door, forcing Jen to roll away or else she’d be run over by the chair and his tramping feet.

  Mattie followed his progress with the flashlight, watched him push the back of the chair up against the door and then sit in it, adding his weight to block the door. Sweat glistened on his cheeks and forehead.

  “There,” C.P. said. “He can’t possibly get through this.”

  Thunk-drag-thunk-drag-thunk-drag came William’s boots across the porch.

  Mattie’s hand shook as she pointed the flashlight at the door. “He’s . . . coming.”

  She wanted to dive under the bed, or dive through the window at the back of the cabin. She wanted to crawl up the chimney and perch at the top, far out of William’s reach. Why had they come back to the cabin? Why had they done such a foolish thing? She’d escaped her prison. She should never have returned, not for anything in the world.

  The footsteps paused at the door. The flashlight showed the doorknob turn slowly, then the door shifted slightly in its frame as William pushed against it. Mattie saw C.P. press his feet into the ground and his back against the chair. His face was just out of the pool of light but she saw the cords of his neck straining.

  “Martha, you open this door now,” William said, and there was no hot anger in his voice, only the ice of winter, and Mattie knew what that meant.

  She shook her head from side to side no no no no no no but she didn’t know if she was saying no to opening the door or no to the inevitable punishment she’d receive for defying him.

  Mattie heard Jen shifting on the floor, heard the slide of her pants against the wood. Don’t make a sound, she wanted to shout. Don’t let him hear you. He’s going to get you. He’s going to hurt you.