“Drop it, you little shit,” Corbin said, and pushed the top of his head into Ricky’s chest to move him around the room. Blood was spilling everywhere from Ricky’s arm and nose.
He tried to backpedal and throw punches with his left hand, but they landed clumsily against Corbin’s neck and seemed to have little effect. Her father had at least eighty pounds on Ricky.
Grace watched, frozen, as it all unfolded like a movie. Then she snapped out of it and realized she was still holding the knife. She started to cut at the rope on her other wrist. And just as she freed herself from the pipe, her father and Ricky slammed into the doorjamb, tumbled outside, and were swallowed by the darkness.
She tore the tape away from her mouth and began to drag herself toward the door. She could only hear a scuffle outside—then another gunshot and a quick flash of yellow.
“Daddy!”
She couldn’t see anything. Then, from out of nowhere, a white light streaked across the darkness. There was a loud crack!
Then stillness.
9
Peter stood over Ricky, the flashlight in his hand. The bulb had flickered but hadn’t gone out when he connected with back of the kid’s head. He shined it down. Ricky wasn’t unconscious, but he was slowly moving around on all fours, moaning like a hurt animal. The sizable gash in his arm oozed blood. Peter picked up the pistol on the ground beside Ricky and pointed it at the kid, his hand unsteady. He had never held a gun before, let alone pointed one at a person who needed one pointed at him.
“Who hit me?” Ricky mumbled.
Corbin picked himself up off the ground and fell on top of Ricky, driving his knee into the center of his back.
Ricky didn’t put up a fight, only wheezed at the weight holding him down. “Get off me,” he said, a pained groan.
“Helluva swing you got, Peter. You all right?” Corbin grabbed his pistol, which was still stuck in Ricky’s waistband, and holstered it. Then, one hand at a time, he pulled Ricky’s arms behind his back and pinned them under his knee. He looked up at Peter. “You want me to take that, or are you good?” he asked, gesturing to the pistol.
“I’m fine,” Peter said, looking around in a semi state of shock. The whole thing felt surreal. It had happened so fast. Then he caught scent of something foul. “What’s that smell?”
“You don’t want to know,” Corbin said.
Ricky started to yell incoherently. “I am the judge! I decide! Get the fuck off me! I decide! Not you!” His screams started to sound like a pig’s squeals. “Get off me! Get off me! I decide… I decide!”
Corbin tried to reach behind and lift his coat. He groaned and let his arm hang at his side. “Do me a favor and grab my handcuffs off my belt and put them on this nitwit. The bastard stabbed me. My arm isn’t working so good right now.”
Peter got the handcuffs and secured them on Ricky’s wrists. Then Corbin turned him over and sat him up. Ricky crossed his legs Indian style, let his chin drop against his chest, and fell silent. The front of his white T-shirt was covered in blood.
“Daddy? Say something… please,” a girl’s voice called from inside the shed.
“Hold tight. I’m here, baby. I’m here.” Corbin started toward his daughter. “Watch him,” he said on the way by. “If he moves, hit him with your flashlight again. Or shoot him. I don’t care which.”
Peter’s gaze followed Corbin, and he looked into the shed. He saw a young girl in a dirty blouse and a plaid skirt leaning on her hip, dragging herself toward the door. She was squinting, looking out. One of her legs looked badly injured. Then from the corner of his eye, Peter saw a flicker of light and heard snapping groundcover. He turned. In the near distance, Benny emerged from the woods and came into the clearing. He was soaking wet.
“I swam across the river when I heard a gunshot. Then I heard a lot more. Everyone okay?” he said, approaching. He had his gun drawn like a slick cowboy, but Peter thought he looked a little like Elmer Fudd.
“Looks like it,” Peter said.
“What the hell happened?” Benny shined his flashlight on Ricky. “Holy Moses. How’s the other guy look?”
“Okay, I think,” Peter said.
Ricky lifted his head, eyes shut. “Get that thing out of my fucking face,” he said hoarsely.
Benny sniffed but moved the beam off the kid’s face. He and Peter both looked toward the pump shed at the same time. The silhouette of Corbin came walking toward them, his daughter’s arm around his neck as she hobbled forward on one leg.
“Corb,” Benny said, rushing over. “Grace, you all right?”
Grace didn’t say anything. Peter thought she was probably in shock.
“She’s okay,” Corbin said, eyes straight ahead. He continued away from the pump shed, all of his focus devoted to Grace. “We need to get to a hospital. Her foot’s broke bad. Probably her leg, too.”
Benny stayed outside the shed’s doorway and watched them pass by for a moment. His attention seemed to slowly shift to what was inside. “Christ. Peter was right. Look at this place.” He flashed his light on Peter, then to Ricky, then back inside the pump shed. “This is sick.” After a short moment of what looked like contemplation, Benny brought a handkerchief to his face and disappeared inside, his flashlight sweeping around wildly.
From where he was standing, Peter understood well enough what was causing the smell. The shed was full of dead animals. He glanced down at Ricky and took a half-step back. Then he looked at Corbin’s daughter. He could only imagine what it must’ve been like to be stuck in there for as long as she had been. Then he saw the look on her face. And he saw the look on her father’s face, too. Something was already festering there. What else had gone on in that shed? Peter wasn’t so sure he wanted to think about it.
They stopped near Peter. For a moment he thought Corbin was going to do something dramatic like say: This is Peter Martell, the man who helped find you. But that didn’t happen, and he was glad it didn’t. Instead, they all stood in silence, a bloody, and probably dying, Ricky Osterman sitting between them.
He snapped his head up, showing a bloodied and swollen face. “Ahhh, Gracie, why’d you do this to me? We had so much fun together, didn’t we?” He smiled. His front teeth were all missing, and he wiggled his tongue between the gap.
“Shut your mouth, or I swear to God I’ll leave you out here to die and let the birds pick your bones,” Corbin said.
Ricky started laughing. But it was the weak, tired laugh of a delirious mind. “You can’t do that… You could, but you won’t. Chief ain’t like me. Chief ain’t got my friend.” He dropped his head again and went quiet.
“How are we getting out of here?” Peter finally asked. It seemed to be the biggest question of the moment. The way Corbin was looking around, he appeared to be pondering the same thing.
“There’s a canoe somewhere. That’s how he brought me here,” Grace said. “But I don’t know where it is.”
Head down, Ricky muttered, “No. That’s my vessel. Don’t touch.” More laughs. Then he continued with a little chant: “Chief ain’t like me, Chief ain’t got my friend. Chief ain’t like me, Chief ain’t got my friend…”
They ignored him as he repeated it over and over again, weaker and weaker each time.
“Hold on,” Peter said. “I’ll look around.” It took him about thirty seconds to find the canoe sitting behind the pump shed. He dragged it over. There was one oar inside, and a few empty beer cans. Schlitz.
Corbin looked at it, then looked at his daughter. “Can you do a boat ride, Grace? It’s a mile or two to the Sawyer Falls fish ladder. Could be there in forty-five minutes or so. I can radio ahead to their department, tell em we’re coming. It’ll be a whole lot quicker than any other option we got.”
“Uh-oh, he found it,” Ricky said in the background, breaking his chant.
They continued to ignore him, until Benny said in a tone of complete shock, “It was him.”
Peter turned to see Benny standing outside
the pump shed, looking down at something in his hand.
“What’s wrong, Benny?” Corbin said.
“He killed her, Corb.” Benny held up what he was looking at, shining his flashlight on it. “It’s Maddie’s necklace. I bought it for her on her birthday. It was missing when they found her. I…” He turned to Ricky. “It was you… You killed my girl. I always knew it wasn’t no accident.”
“All these years, and here I was, right in front of you. Ta-da.” Ricky turned his bowed head to Benny and smiled. “Benny like me now. Benny got my friend in his heart.”
Benny pocketed the necklace. Then raised his pistol as he moved in front of Ricky and pointed it at him. “It was you. Dear God, it was you.” He wiped a hand down his face. “Why?”
“Because she was there… and I’m here. I decide,” Ricky whispered.
A low sound rose up, like tubas playing underground at a barely audible frequency. The smoke smell permeated the air. Everything went tight.
Peter glanced back over his shoulder. Corbin stared at Benny, a look of awe dawning on his face. Grace’s forehead was pressed against her father’s shoulder, eyes closed.
When Peter turned back around, fear grabbed him. A gishet stood behind Benny, but Benny didn’t seem to notice its presence. It was there but not there. The shimmering face loomed over him like an electric cloud. Peter knew if he looked hard enough, he would see the ominous red sky on the other side, in that basement dimension where all was stored. Where all was waiting.
“Do you see that?” Corbin said. “Please tell me you do.”
“I do.”
“I’ve seen it before,” Corbin said.
“So have I.”
“What the hell is it?”
Peter wanted to answer: I think that’s our maker. But instead, he said, “I don’t know.” It seemed like the only thing to say. And it was closer to the truth.
“Benny…” Corbin said with an unsteady tone in his voice. “I can’t just—”
“Go on,” Benny said. Something in him had switched, a softness hardened. “Go on now, you hear me? Take care of your daughter. I’ll take care of this monster.”
Peter thought maybe there would be some sort of argument on the matter. There wasn’t. But neither he nor Corbin could tear their eyes away from what they were seeing. The creature just stood there, a witness, a puppeteer. And Peter knew why: it was drinking it all in. It was harvesting what it had sowed.
Ricky sat up straight, staring at the gun Benny held on him. Beneath the blood on his face, his skin was pale. If Benny didn’t kill him, the severed artery in his arm would soon enough.
He started to scream again: “I decide! I decide! I decide! I decide…” Louder each time. Angrier, more defiant each time.
“We’re going, Peter,” Corbin said. “Now.”
“Okay,” Peter said, dazed. Finally, he broke away.
He helped Corbin get Grace into the canoe. Then together they dragged it through the woods, leaving the pump shed behind. But what had happened in there, Peter knew, would not disappear for Corbin and Grace quite so easily.
No one spoke as they went. Ricky’s two repeating words—I decide—played the whole way, a haunting soundtrack that faded more with every step they took. Everyone was waiting for the silence. Peter kept his eyes straight ahead, knowing that if he looked into the dark pockets of the woods, he would see one of those horrible faces. It wanted him. It wanted them all. It had planted sadness and anger in them and wanted to reap it. That was its doorway into the heart. Hate made a person vulnerable.
I decide… I decide… I decide… I decide, Peter thought, one hand on the canoe, the other holding the flashlight and lighting the way, his eyes knowing only the next ten feet. Then the next. Then the next. Until they finally reached the river. The moon had broken through the clouds, and the water caught little silver peaks. It didn’t look so black anymore.
“Get in,” Peter said. “I’ll push us off.”
Corbin stepped into the canoe and sat down up front so that Grace could lie back against him, her swollen foot resting on the gunwale. “I have you,” he said. “Just close your eyes and be still. We’ll be away from here soon.”
She wrapped her arms around her father’s leg and started to cry quietly.
Peter launched them most of the way, then got in. He gave a final push with the oar, and they were heading down the Gilchrist River in the direction of Sawyer Falls. He paddled gently, kept them centered in the river, away from any shores. And after a few minutes, the punctuation mark they had all been waiting for finally came. Six gunshots rang out, even and calm in their spacing. Decisive. Deliberate. They echoed through the woods, and in their wake, complete silence came, save for a flock of crows that took to the sky and flew away forever.
Day would break soon, and so much lay ahead.
“Is Mom mad at me?” Grace asked. “I hope she’s not too worried.”
“No, baby. No. She’s not mad.”
Peter watched Corbin’s broad back bend down as he kissed the top of his daughter’s head. His shoulders were wide. Strong. They would bear what they had to.
Peter continued to paddle, each dip and pull of the oar taking them away. Just away.
Chapter Sixteen
TIME TO GO
1
Peter returned to Shady Cove after the night in the woods. It seemed the only place to go. Corbin and Grace had been taken to the hospital, and Peter had been offered the same by the Sawyer Falls police, but he had declined and instead asked for a ride. He was tired, and he didn’t want to think anymore. He just wanted to wrap himself in deep folds of sleep and forget about his problems for a while. He knew they would be there waiting for him when he woke up. But for the moment, it was enough already. Enough.
When he walked into Shady Cove, he pulled off the muddy muck boots, stripped down to his underwear, then went into the bedroom and fell asleep immediately.
He slept for twenty-four hours.
2
He awoke on Friday morning. And when he did, he wasn’t sure what to do. So he did nothing. In a way, Shady Cove felt like a sort of purgatory where his problems and responsibilities couldn’t quite reach him if he didn’t want them to. He knew he needed to call Sylvia’s family, to tell them what had happened to their daughter—although he had no official confirmation of her death yet—and begin to unravel the knot. But he didn’t know how to start. The damned thing seemed too huge, somehow elusive, and he didn’t know at which angle he should come at it. So he chose a passive approach. Or, rather, the passive approach chose him. The solutions to his problems would find him when they should.
And they did.
One by one, they did.
3
Peter’s first answer found him the next day. He was sitting down at the dock, his feet in the water, when Corbin showed up. There was no awkward hug or anything like that, because they hardly knew each other. And Corbin wasn’t that sort of guy. To be honest, Peter wasn’t, either. Not at that moment, anyway. But there was a bond between them, ugly as it might’ve been, so Corbin sat on the little bench on the dock, and the two of them talked for a little while.
Corbin told him his daughter was doing okay, despite a shattered foot and a broken leg. But when he said it, he squinted a few times and looked everywhere except into Peter’s eyes. The subject changed quickly, and Corbin thanked Peter once again for what he’d done; even if, he said, he didn’t understand it. Peter said he didn’t understand it himself—not entirely—but that he was glad Grace was home safe.
“How’d she take the news about her mother?” he asked, trying to be delicate.
Corbin folded his arms, unfolded them, then scratched his temple with a finger. “She took it,” he said. “She’s a strong girl. Just like Meryl. She’ll be okay.”
Peter was staring down at his feet in the water. “You want some advice about losing someone?” he asked, lifting his gaze.
Corbin looked at him curiously. “What’s t
hat?”
“It’ll always hurt, but you’ll learn to live a life with it. It doesn’t sound like good advice now, but you’ll understand eventually.”
“I’ll try and remember that,” Corbin said, studying Peter closely.
Peter returned his gaze to the water. “You hear from your friend yet?”
“Benny? No. Not a word,” Corbin said. “But something tells me I won’t.”
Peter looked at the rippling reflection of his face between his legs. “Are we going to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” Corbin said. “I didn’t see it, if you didn’t.”
Peter realized they could’ve been talking about any number of things, given the ambiguity of that statement. But he knew they were on the same page; he had seen the haunted look on Corbin’s face.
“Something’s dangerous here,” Peter said. “You know that, don’t you?”
Corbin leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and sighed. “I know it. Jesus, I know it.” He paused. “I think I always have.”
“It’s not going away,” Peter said.
“No, I don’t think it is. And I have no idea what to do about it.”
“It doesn’t strike me as the sort of thing you can do anything about.”
“That’s what scares me the most,” Corbin said.
When the conversation eventually began to sag, and both of them had been staring out across Big Bath long enough without a word spoken, Corbin finally said, “You know why I came here today?”
Peter looked at him sideways. “No. Should I?”
“I don’t know.”
“I told you I’m not a psychic,” Peter said. “But now I’m starting to suspect it wasn’t just a friendly drop-in.”
“Right now, I think I wish you were psychic, Peter,” he said, and his tone carried no humor in it. “God, it would make this a whole lot easier.”
Peter’s heart dropped, and he closed his eyes. He had been waiting for this. He just hadn’t known how it would actually arrive.
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