by Ronald Malfi
Again, she thought she heard the beams above her head creak. Someone is up there…
No. She couldn’t stay here.
Couldn’t.
In the living room, she found her hand on the dead bolt. Holding her breath, she turned the bolt until she heard and felt it slide home. When she opened the door, daylight slivered into the living room like a laser beam. She could feel the cold wind against her skin and hear insects buzzing in the grass. Beyond the patio steps, she could see the footprints her bare feet had made in the soft earth two nights ago. Retracing those footprints should bring her to where her cell phone—
Not bothering to complete this thought, she rushed out into the yard and ran pell-mell across the lawn, the dew-covered grass cold and slick against the soles of her feet, the cold autumn wind in her hair. Her breath rasped in her throat. She stopped halfway across the yard, the chrome on the Volkswagen Beetle glinting in the sunlight that managed to poke out from behind angry-looking thunderheads. Looking down, she saw her toes and her feet were grungy with mud. There was no cell phone but there were striations in the dirt and dime-sized holes in the hood of the Beetle where the creature’s acidic sludge had burned through the tempered steel.
Full-fledged panic didn’t strike her until she turned around and saw just how far she was from the house and the door. A trembling began at the base of her spine and quivered, like a knife stuck in a piece of plywood, up to the base of her skull. Her blood suddenly felt like ice water.
Her cell phone was nowhere to be found.
When she turned back around, she found that her feet had unconsciously brought her closer to the Volkswagen. With horrific vividness, she could see the barrel of the shotgun jutting up out of the dirt from behind the VW. There were tufts of fabric on the ground, too—shreds of Evan’s flannel shirt.
Unable to help herself, Maggie drew closer and closer to the vehicle until she was able to peer over the VW’s hood.
Evan’s body was gone. The shotgun was still there, as were a few tattered ribbons of fabric that Maggie was certain had come from Evan’s shirt, and there were clawed trenches in the dirt and blood on the ground and splattered against the hood of the car…but the body of her husband was not there.
Losing my mind, losing—
Bits of bloody flesh speckled the Volkswagen’s windshield.
She felt herself begin to hyperventilate. In the periphery of her vision, she saw figures shifting, taunting her like blurry jesters. When she looked directly at them, they disappeared. The pounding of her heart actually hurt.
Losing—
A high-pitched keening rose up from her throat. It broke through to the air like an alarm. Clumsily, she pivoted in the dirt and began running back toward the house. Mere feet from the house, she believed she saw the image of her dead father standing behind one of the living room windows, a cadaverous grin spread across his colorless, skeletal face.
Screaming, Maggie cut to the left and tore across the western field. The gate in the fence was wide open and she ran straight through it, knocking over a couple of trash cans. While she ran, she imagined someone’s hand falling on her shoulder. This only caused her to run faster. And finally, when hands did grab her, she passed out.
2
Fifteen minutes later, Ben’s squad car pulled up the Morelands’ long driveway toward a whitewashed, two-story farmhouse. As he approached, a figure rose up from a bench on the front porch. It was Jed Moreland, nervously rubbing his bristling chin and neck with one large hand. Jed nodded and said Ben’s name as Ben mounted the porch steps and took off his campaign hat.
“Hey there, Jed. I’ve got Eddie La Pointe on his way out here, too.” The porch creaked beneath Ben’s boots. “What the hell happened?”
“I caught her about a half hour ago running through the field,” Jed said, opening the screen door. He was nearing sixty but looked younger; working in the fields year-round kept him healthy and in good shape. “She was screaming her head off and nearly socked me in the face when I grabbed her. When she finally got herself under control, she said someone did something to Evan. I didn’t quite know what to make of it so I figured I’d best call you guys. She’s inside with Bev now. She’s calmed down some but she still ain’t makin’ a whole lot of sense. Talkin’ gibberish, if y’ask me.”
Ben followed Jed Moreland into the house. It was a traditional country home, the ancient wallpaper bearing a corncob pattern and adorned with framed needlepoints. Miniature tractors and hand-carved angel figurines stood on shelves in the hallway that led into the kitchen. The kitchen itself was spacious, with a bay window overlooking the Morelands’ property and, beyond, the immense panorama of the Allegheny Mountains.
Maggie Quedentock sat at the kitchen table with Jed’s wife, Beverly. Beverly was a stout, stone-faced woman in her fifties who looked both concerned and unnerved sitting at the table with Maggie. There were two cups of coffee on the table between the women but it didn’t appear as if they’d been touched.
Maggie looked up at Ben, and he was immediately taken aback by the swimmy, unfocused quality in her eyes. It was like looking at an asylum inmate.
“There’s some stuff out in the yard that needs tending,” Jed said to his wife, who rose quickly from the table and appeared more than happy to be ushered out of the room.
Once they left, Ben pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. On the tabletop, Maggie’s hands gyrated like seismographic instruments. Having spent his whole life in Stillwater—among the people of Stillwater—he often tried to put his own opinions about certain people out of his head when he was acting in an official capacity. As someone with little interest in gossip and innuendoes, he was usually able to do this without difficulty. Therefore, it bothered him when he suddenly found himself sitting here with Maggie and hearing his father’s voice rise up into his head from the grave, warning him to steer clear of the Kilpatricks. That Aaron Kilpatrick, his father had once told Ben when he was just a boy, he ain’t too right in the head, boy, and I don’t trust what he’d do if he ever caught you over there doing something he didn’t like.
Ben shook the thought from his head. “Seems like you’ve been having one busy week,” he said, putting a hand atop one of Maggie’s. “Did something happen to Evan?”
“There’s something going on,” she rasped in a partial whisper. Her voice sounded hoarse and her hand vibrated like a tuning fork beneath his.
“What’s that?” he asked gently.
“I don’t know what it is.” Then her eyes went distant and seemed to stare right through Ben and at the kitchen wall behind him. “Or maybe I do. I don’t…I don’t know…”
Ben squeezed her hand but then slid his off hers. He felt uncomfortable touching her and feeling the bones trembling beneath her flesh. He glanced over his shoulder, following Maggie’s gaze to the wall. A large silver crucifix hung there. A chill in his bones, he turned back to Maggie. “You told Jed someone hurt your husband,” he said, deliberately phrasing it as a statement. “Do you remember?”
“Not a She began to slowly shake her head. Her eyes refocused and clung to him now, burning holes in his flesh. He almost preferred her staring at the wall. “I don’t know exactly…” Her voice trailed off.someone.”
“Maggie, what happened to Evan? Tell me what you know.”
“What I saw.”
“Okay. What did you see?”
“Evan was out in the yard yesterday. Or maybe it was two days ago. I can’t really remember what day it was. Time’s all screwed up.” On the table, her hand trembled audibly. “We’d had a…a fight. It was dark so I couldn’t see. Something…” She squared her shoulders, her body going rigid. “Something came out of the dark and got him.”
“Could you see who it was?”
“It wasn’t she screamed, startling him. Her own chair skidded against the tiles. “It was a anyone!” thing! It looked like a person but it wasn’t!” She jerked forward and clutched at Ben’s shirt. “It was the thing
I hit with my car. Remember? Remember what happened?”
“I remember,” he said in a small voice, trying to pry her claws from his uniform. “You said it was a boy.”
“It looks like a boy,” she said, “but it’s not.”
“Do you—”
“It’s haunting me and breaking me down. It’s making me pay.”
“Pay for what, Maggie?” He managed to get one of her hands off him, though it still retained the hooked shape of a bird’s talon. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Why do you think it’s the same person from the accident?”
“It’s not a person,” she reiterated, more calmly this time.
“Okay. But the night of the accident you said it looked like a child had come—”
“It may be a child and it may look like a person, but it isn’t. Don’t let it fool you.”
“No one’s going to fool me,” he told her.
She froze and gaped at him, as if she suddenly forgot who he was. Almost too casually, she withdrew her hands from him and brought them close to her body, crossing them at the wrists over her chest. Ben watched as her nostrils flared and sweat began trickling down her temples.
Ben stood. Something’s seriously wrong with her, he thought. “Do you want to go to the hospital?” he asked her.
“No.”
“Are you sure? I can have someone take you.”
“I don’t need a hospital. I don’t need doctors.”
She’s afraid they’ll lock her up in the loony bin, Ben thought.
“I’m going to go over to your place and check things out,” he said. “Is the house unlocked?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you say this happened to Evan? Out in the yard?”
“Yes. In the back. By the cars.”
“Okay. Now I want you to try and relax. We’ll talk about this again when I get back. Meantime, you stay here with Jed and Bev.”
“Be careful over there,” she said in a near whisper.
Nodding, Ben stepped backward out of the kitchen. He found Jed and Beverly Moreland on the front porch, Beverly sitting ramrod straight on the bench while Jed leaned over the porch railing, smoking a Capone cigarillo.
Jed turned and looked at Ben as he came out of the house. “Well?”
“I’d appreciate it if you guys could keep an eye on her until I get back from checking out her house.”
“Something’s funny with her,” Beverly Moreland intoned. She had the strict, no-nonsense voice of an aged schoolmarm.
“She and Evan have always been a little off,” Jed opined, waving a hand at his wife.
“This,” said Beverly Moreland, “is more than just off, Jed. Something scared that girl.”
Another squad car pulled up the Morelands’ driveway, its heavy tires splashing through puddles. It parked beside Ben’s car and Eddie La Pointe got out, blotting his sun-reddened forehead with a handkerchief. He held his campaign hat in his other hand.
“Don’t worry, Ben,” Jed told him. “We’ll keep an eye on her till you get back.”
Ben intercepted Eddie at the bottom of the porch steps.
“Shirley said to hump it out here ASAP,” Eddie said, looking puzzled. “Something about Evan Quedentock…”
Still within relative earshot of the Morelands, Ben dropped his voice as they both walked back to their squad cars. He filled Eddie in on what Maggie had told him then added, “She sounds completely out of it. Whatever happened over at her place, it scared her half to death.”
“Goddamn,” Eddie muttered.
Ben said, “Let’s take my car.”
Since the Quedentock house was just on the other side of the Morelands’ farm, the drive took less than two minutes. Ben swung the squad car around to the rear of the house where the Quedentocks’ two vehicles sat at the center of a muddy turnabout. The house did not appear to be disturbed and Ben could make out no overtly obvious signs of a struggle—broken windows or items strewn about on the lawn—that would have caused him any further concern. Yet the quietness of it all was what bothered him most.
Maggie’s right about one thing, he thought, shutting down the car’s engine. Something’s going on, all right.
Ben and Eddie got out of the car just as a cool autumn breeze swept down from the mountains, shaking the orange leaves in the trees like maracas. The fronds of a weeping willow tree at the edge of the property waved at them, unfurled like the tentacles of some undersea beastie.
Ben pointed at the two vehicles. “She said it happened over here.”
They walked toward the cars, their pace seeming to slow down simultaneously as the items on the ground came into view—a shotgun and what appeared to be torn ribbons of clothing. What first looked like mud patterns along the side of the Volkswagen revealed itself to be a spray of blood as the two men drew closer.
“Jesus,” Eddie intoned. “That’s blood.”
There were bits of matter stuck to the windshield. Ben leaned forward and examined the gore.
“What?” Eddie asked, his voice high and panicky. “What is it?”
Ben dropped down beside the shotgun and felt the barrel to see if it was hot. It wasn’t. Looking around, he could see the dirt had been disturbed, and there were two distinct trenches leading away from the vehicles and into the grass. Ben stood uncomfortably.
“This ain’t good,” Eddie said.
“What’s that?” Ben asked, pointing to something on the ground beside one of Eddie’s boots.
Eddie bent and picked it up. “Looks like pieces of a shirt,” he said, examining the frayed ribbon of fabric. “She said this happened when?”
“She wasn’t clear. Maybe two nights ago. The blood is dry.”
“That’s really all blood, isn’t it?”
“Looks that way.”
“What’s she been doing since then?” Eddie asked. “For two days? Hiding in the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t make sense.”
Ben uttered, “Christ.” He bent down and picked up a spent shotgun shell from behind the tire of the Volkswagen Beetle.
“Lord,” Eddie said, his face going slack as he stared at the hollow cylindrical tube Ben held. “Do you think…?” He didn’t need to complete the thought.
“Seems likely.” Ben glanced around. “Looks like there’s only one.”
“One’s enough,” Eddie commented. “What do you think that means?”
“Can’t mean anything good, I don’t think,” Ben said. “Not with all that blood.” He leaned over the Volkswagen’s hood. Aside from the blood and flecks of spongy matter, as well as a number of rust holes that had burned straight through the hood to reveal sections of the engine block underneath, the car was in otherwise fine condition. Curiously, there was a dried greenish crust around the perimeter of the holes that looked suspiciously like the slimy webbing he’d seen around the wounds of Porter Conroy’s Holsteins. “Come take a look at this,” Ben said.
Eddie peered at the hood of the car then looked up at Ben and shrugged. “What about it?”
“That stuff doesn’t remind you of that gunk that was stuck to Porter’s dead cows?”
“I guess.” Eddie seemed unimpressed. “That stuff on the cows was like jelly, though.”
“Well, maybe this stuff had time to dry out.” Ben scraped at some with his fingernail, and the grayish flakes were scooped up by the breeze like dandelion seeds.
Overhead, the sky darkened. Eddie looked up warily. The smell of rain was in the air. “Perfect,” Eddie muttered.
Ben stuffed the shotgun shell in his pocket. He moved down the length of the car, searching for more of the strange greenish substance or any other evidence. There was none. He crossed over to the Pontiac and checked that car out as well. Still nothing.
“Christ, Ben. You don’t really think Maggie shot him, do you?”
“I don’t have an opinion on anything just yet.”
Eddie shook his head, his eyes like searchlights. He
looked like he wanted to throw up.
“Grab some rubber gloves from the car, would you?” he told Eddie.
“Rubber gloves?”
“They’re in a box in the trunk.”
Confused, Eddie mumbled, “Okay…”
Ben followed the twin trenches in the dirt until they disappeared in the grass. Damned if those trenches didn’t look like the impression someone’s heels might make if they were to be dragged somewhere…
Ben walked through the grass, his eyes scrutinizing the ground. The trail was lost here. He looked up, his eyes following the slope of the property to the billowing willow tree and, beyond the tree, the chicken-wire fence that surrounded the property. Directly overhead, thunder growled.
Ben stopped. There was something small and black on the ground next to his shoe. Ben picked it up. It was a cell phone.
Okay…so what was this about? A domestic situation gone awry? Evan’s out here yelling about the dent Maggie put in the Pontiac, the fighting escalates…a shotgun makes itself known? It was a leap, though stranger things had happened. Would Maggie have gone back into the house to get the gun? If she’d shot him right here, where’s the blood? Where’s the body? And it’s not like she did anything to cover up her tracks, so why not admit to it back at the Morelands’ place?
He slid the cell phone into the breast pocket of his uniform as he approached the willow tree. Its tendril branches seemed to finger the air, summoning him with a come-hither gesture. There’d once been a similar tree at the corner of the Journell property when he was a young boy. It had been the perfect tree for climbing. Once you were nestled securely in the upper branches, no one could see you. You were hidden from the world. Sometimes, as a kid, Ben would sit up there for hours.
Like separating a curtain, Ben brushed the spindly branches aside and stepped under the umbrella of the tree. It was incrementally cooler and darker in its shade. He bent and examined the earth around the base of the tree and then he examined the tree itself, searching for anything—though he knew not what—that he might perceive as out of the ordinary. He hadn’t liked the way Maggie had been talking back at the Morelands’ house and he didn’t much care for the shotgun and spent shotgun shell he’d found out here in the yard. He didn’t much care for the blood sprayed along the side of the car and smeared on the windshield, either.