“I’ll get you something to eat, girl.”
Garret stroked her head and tugged on her ears as he’d done since she was a pup.
The yelling continued. Ma, high and shrill and grating. And Pa, angry and hurt, but trying to keep his voice low. Ma asked a question, demanded it really, like she demanded everything. Pa fell silent. Sarn’s voice answered. Garret bristled. Sarn wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be with his dorky friend, Bo.
“Goddamn it.” Garret charged the front door. This time he made it through the door without running into a retreating Sarn. Garret made it into the hall without seeing Sarn. He made it into the kitchen. Still no Sarn. That meant Sarn was trapped between his stupid parents.
Sarn’s trapped. Garret’s blood thundered in his ears. He was ready to do something foolish when he rounded the door facing to his parents’ bedroom. Sarn was sitting on a chair in the corner, slumped against the wall. He watched with dull eyes as his parents yelled at each other across the bed. Sarn’s eyes were sunken and red. He looked like a shot-up soldier. The bed was rumpled, covers tossed back. Ma was in her dressing gown, which was unbuttoned, exposing enough of her chest and stomach to embarrass Garret. His Pa was wearing a pair of pants and nothing else. Apparently they’d gotten out of bed to have this argument.
“Of course he gave it to me!” Ma screamed. Only then did Garret notice the new necklace around his mother’s neck. It was small, silver, and a single sapphire hung from it.
“He actually loves me! He understands me. He doesn’t leave me alone all the time!”
Pa’s face sagged. “How do you expect me to provide for us if I don’t work? You don’t even feed your kids.”
“If you made enough money, maybe I could! Does Sarn know you spend money at the Red Stallion for lunch every day while he goes hungry?” She turned to Sarn. “Do you know that? Do you know how little your father cares for you?”
“Shut up! Both of you!”
In the thunderous silence following the remark, Garret realized he’d been the one who’d said it. This was actually a mild fight. His Ma wasn’t hitting his Pa. Pa wasn’t crying or yelling. And his Ma wasn’t screaming disgusting details of their sex life for all the world to hear. Garret crossed the room before anyone had time to gather their wits. He knelt in front of his brother.
“Come on Sarn, let’s go.”
Sarn sat there, against the wall.
“Sarn. Sam. Samuel! Get up.” Garret kept his voice quiet and kind, but he needed to get his brother out before his parents regrouped. The back side of the hurricane was always worse.
“Samuel. We have to go now.”
Gradually, Sarn become aware of Garret.
“Where?” Sarn whispered. He sat for a moment. “Where are we going to go, brother?”
As Sarn rolled his head toward Garret, Garret saw the long red mark across Sarn’s face and neck. Someone had hit him with something.
That was when Garret lost it. He went not for his Ma, but for his Pa. Pa was six foot four and well over two hundred pounds, but Garret hit him, both palms to the chest, hard enough to make his Pa stagger.
“Do something!” Garret screamed, hitting him again, both hands to the chest. His Pa stumbled back, stunned. Garret’s Ma watched him with fascination, an excited light in her eyes. Garret hit Pa as hard as he could this time, knocking his father into the wall with a wooden crackle. “Fight back! Do something!”
Garret screamed and threw a punch, and his Pa let him do it.
* * *
Sarn stopped him. He had to half-tackle, half-bearhug Garret to do it. Garret was in a rage, blind, foaming on the inside. They tussled for a second, Sarn trying to pin him, and Garret struggling to get free and attack their father, before Sarn said quietly in Garret’s ear, “Don’t hurt him, brother. He’s hurt enough already.”
Garret crumpled. Sarn literally dragged him out of the bedroom.
Fifteen minutes later, they were both walking down the dark road. The stars were obscured by the clouds, which scraped by over the treetops, oppressively low. Sarn hadn’t said a word as they’d left. He’d simply gathered up his skunk and followed Garret into the night. After untying Babe, Garret headed down the road. Somewhere. Anywhere. As long as it was away from the house. Babe stayed at his side and kept rolling her eyes up at him. He wanted to stop and pet her, maybe talk to Sarn, but he couldn’t stop moving. So he didn’t.
After five minutes, Sarn finally asked. “Where are we going, brother?”
Garret waved angrily in front of himself. “The shop. We can sleep there tonight. We’re not staying in that house with them.”
Garret felt Sarn drift to a stop behind him. Garret turned. Babe pressed herself against his leg.
Sarn stood in the middle of the road, with the blasted skunk cradled in his arms like a sleeping baby. His plain, open face was marred by the red line from where someone, Ma undoubtedly, had hit him with something. It looked like that damned ivory back scratcher her last boyfriend had given her.
Garret seethed for a moment. The constant anger was making him sick to his stomach.
“I’m sorry, brother,” Sarn said. “I can’t go to the shop tonight. I’m gonna go to the Millers’ house.”
Where you were supposed to be anyway, Garret thought.
Sarn nodded, though Garret had said nothing. Neither did Sarn ask if Garret wanted to come. Bo Miller was a good friend to Sarn, and his family would take them both in for the night, but Sarn didn’t offer. He knew Garret wouldn’t come.
“Be careful,” Garret said. Sarn stepped forward, and they hugged. Garret pushed him towards the edge of the road. “Watch for snakes in the creek.”
Sarn disappeared into the woods, dropping quickly over the hill. Garret stood in the road until Sarn’s leaf-crunching footsteps had fallen silent. Garret was alone, as always. He was alone with his dog. He was alone in a crowded room.
From the corner of his eye, Garret thought he caught a movement. He spun. A heavy shadow, which he had thought was that of a boulder, had shifted. Or had it? Garret stared at it, and felt like it was staring back. Keeping watch on him. Interested. Considering. But it was still as the stone before it. It was too big to be an animal anyway, even a bear.
Garret backed away from the shadow and hurried down the road. Sarn was gone, the night was cold, and the shadow didn’t move. Garret didn’t want to go to the shop. He needed to see Molly. Badly.
Six hours later
Molly crouched on the roof of her house. She clung to the eve of her bedroom dormer with one hand and worked steadily to pry the window open with the fingernails of her free hand. Behind her, the sky was opening its eye into a grey dawn. She’d stayed out longer than she’d meant to. With a squeak, the window frame scooted towards her a fraction of an inch, then jammed. She kept prying.
When she used the window to be with Garret, she knew better than to close it behind herself, but when she’d seen the look on his face, everything else had flown from her mind. She’d been in bed, buried under a down comforter, reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer when he had pebble-pecked the glass. When she opened it, one look at him sent her down the trellis to his side. They stayed together until almost dawn, late enough to risk being caught, but there had been no choice. Garret had been on the edge, and she’d barely pulled him back from it. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could do this. Though she hated to admit it, nights like this one left her wondering if she stayed with Garret more because she loved him, or more because she felt sorry for him. Either way, if one of the servants entered her room early and found her missing, they wouldn’t care what her motivation was, they would tell Mother and then the ol’ battleship would hunt Garret down like a wounded fox.
The thought of her mother sailing around the house with flank guns and main cannons brought a tired smile to her face. It would kinda fit you, Mother.
She shook her head and kept prying at the window frame. It’s love. I love Garret. Despite the fact that
he’s a stupidhead sometimes. His love was clear enough to her, anyways. The way he held her, the way he tried to take care of her and do clumsy things to make her feel better. Even this night, as bad as it had been, was still worth it. I’m just discouraged by how down he was.
Molly finally worked the edge of the window out far enough to get a real grip and swing it open. It squealed and resisted her as if the hinges were bent. She cringed. It’s never done that before.
Inside, she closed the window and picked up the hem of her dress, assessing the tattered rag she’d made of it. She’d have to get rid of it in a way that none of the servants would see and report to Mother. Molly let the dress fall and closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about that right now. All she could think about was Garret, scurrying around the fire, piling up branches, making sure she was comfortable, piling up more branches so she wouldn’t get cold, fretting about how the fire stank like sulfur.
“Garret,” she’d said. “It’s fine. Why don’t you come sit down?”
“You’re not warm enough.” His tone was tense, almost frantic.
“Garret, I’m fine. Come and sit down with me. Just relax.”
“Maybe there are some more branches over the hill. I’ll be right back.” He stopped and turned back to her. “You’ll be here when I get back, right?”
“Of course I will.”
When he came back, she had begged him to sit down, but he still fretted she wasn’t warm enough. At one point, he even offered her his shirt, a move that would have had her laughing at the cheap sexual ploy any other time, but the look in his eyes made her tear up instead. She gently refused and tried to get him to sit, but he was frenzied by that point, trying to fix everything in sight, whether it was broken or not.
It was hard to be with him when he was like that, pain brimming over and spilling out on everyone and everything, but it was worse not to be with him. Her family could be hard and even cruel to one another, but the Vilners eviscerated each other with a vengeance that struck her as more demonic than human. She kept wondering when Garret was going to turn it on her, but he never had. Other than his stubbornness and occasional fits of temper, he hadn’t treated her badly.
She had begged him to sit with her and he finally did. But then there was the Other Thing. She still didn’t know what it was, but her suspicions were growing stronger. The Other Thing always reared its head at times like this, when he was beaten and cornered. She didn’t know how to articulate what she felt from him, it was a different kind of pain than she had personally experienced, so she had trouble grasping it. This night, it had manifested in a new way. When she finally got him to sit, he fidgeted and fretted, and tried poorly to hide it. He wanted to hold her so badly that she could feel it coming off of him in waves. But he didn’t touch her until she’d touched him first. When she did, he flinched. Once he had taken her in his arms, it was over an hour before she felt him relax and take some comfort from her touch. Then and only then did she ask him what was wrong.
“Ma and Pa had a fight,” he said simply. A full minute later he added, “Ma hit Sarn.” He fought with a rush of rage that made her skin crawl. Eventually, it collapsed into sorrow and he managed to say hoarsely, “Pa didn’t do anything. He didn’t protect Sarn. When I saw him, I wanted to… I wanted… Molly, I think I hate my own Pa.” He couldn’t say more.
She didn’t push. She needed to know more, but it had cost him dearly to say what he had. What he told her was bad, but not nearly bad enough to put him where he was. He was rubbing the semicircular scars on his wrists again, though he never seemed to be aware of it when he did it. Maybe that was why she didn’t push for more. Some part of her suspected he wouldn’t be able to tell her even if he wanted to.
If she eventually found out that her suspicions were anywhere close to correct, she didn’t know what she’d do. She feared the knowledge of it might break her. It had certainly broken him.
Molly stared out her window as the first rays of sun reached across the treetops, gilding the edges of the rough hills. Elsewhere in the house, she could hear the servants stirring. She pulled off her night dress, folded it, and tucked it away in the bottom of her closet where the tears and soot stains from her and Garret’s fire spot would be hidden from prying eyes.
As she closed her closet door and tried to figure out how to act chipper at the breakfast table, her eyes fell on her bookshelf. There was an empty space. There were several empty spaces, of course, one for Tom Sawyer, which was still lying on her bed, a couple more for various books she’d loaned to friends, but there was one particular space which absolutely should not have been empty. Two spaces from the bottom left corner. That book hadn’t move in two years. She hadn’t touched it, and she knew her mother would certainly never touch it again, but it was gone.
Quickly, she checked behind the shelf, atop it, around it, in the tall basket beside it where her parasols stood. It wasn’t there. She went all over the room, checking all the places it shouldn’t be. She came up with nothing. When she caught herself checking inside her armoire, she realized she was trying not to accept the fact that it was gone. Someone had taken it. She glanced at the window, remembered the squealing hinges, and a horrible possibility took root in her mind.
She was still standing there by her armoire, in her undergarments, staring at the window when her bedroom door opened. Mrs. Lemley, the sharp-faced warden of the kitchen and garden leaned through the open door and looked at Molly with too much curiosity. “Ms. Antonia, is everything alright?”
“Yes. Everything’s fine. I take it breakfast is ready, then?”
“It is, dear,” said Mrs. Lemley, but she remained in the doorway. Either it was Molly’s imagination, or the woman’s eyes narrowed just slightly. “Is that a leaf in your hair?” Mrs. Lemley asked.
Molly covered a flutter of panic with her best imitation of her father’s authoritative tone, which didn’t hold a candle to Charity’s imitation. “Thank you Mrs. Lemley, I’ll be along momentarily.”
Mrs. Lemley’s eyes were definitely narrow now. “I’m sorry miss, I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Molly had just acted unnaturally. And there was a leaf in her hair. And Mrs. Lemley was probably on her way to report to Mother. None of that mattered, because the book was still gone. The gaping hole glared at her, taunting her, daring her to figure out why. Her stomach flopped and flopped again.
It could mean anything, she told herself. Anybody could have taken it.
No, they couldn’t have. They didn’t. She knew it.
There was only one explanation. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Molly felt herself turning white.
Oh my god, what have I done?
Germany, 1589
The deadwalker erupted from the ground, flinging howling wolf-cousins all directions. Two, it snatched out of the air as they flew, grabbing both of them by the heads and driving them into the ground. Youngblood winced for them as they howled in pain and shock. The other five wolf-cousins climbed all over the deadwalker, barking and biting, but they may as well have bitten stone for all the deadwalker seemed to mind. It ignored the five which were on it, and kept hold of the two it had pinned by their heads.
The two wolf-cousins on the ground scrabbled at the leaves, their whines of pain rising in pitch. Youngblood quivered, squeezed his eyes shut. The deadwalker was tightening its grip around their heads, but slowly. The two wolf-cousins were screaming, flopping, but the deadwalker held them against the ground, squeezing tighter and tighter. With two wet snaps, their skulls gave under the pressure, collapsing like eggs.
The deadwalker released the dead wolf-cousins and turned on the other five. One of the wolf-cousins found itself snatched off the deadwalker’s back and twisted in two, as Youngblood had once seen a man twist a rag. Two other wolf-cousins found themselves in its grip, and one in the deadwalker’s long, misshapen mouth. The deadwalker shook the wolf-cousin in its mouth so violently that Youngblood heard its bones breaking all the way across the
river, then bit it in half.
The deadwalker flung the right-hand wolf-cousin into another leaping wolf-cousin, driving both of them into a rock with more than enough force to kill them. With its right hand now free, it grabbed the snout of the wolf-cousin in its left hand and rammed its head backwards, shattering its neck, driving its skull down into its chest, then into its abdomen until it appeared as though the deadwalker was going to turn the wolf-cousin inside out.
Only one wolf-cousin remained. It tried to run, but it had no chance. The deadwalker was on it, claws tearing. The sight made Youngblood want to heave up all the rabbit he had eaten that morning. All seven wolf-cousins were dead, and the deadwalker was moving like dark wind again. Drawn by the sound of their wolf-cousins, the men had rounded the edge of the draw. The deadwalker met them at high speed.
Limbs went flying and screams filled the night, but death was not the only sound. From deep within the deadwalker bubbled out a raspy hacking. Youngblood had heard something like it once before, when men sat around their Crackling Terror after a long day’s work.
As it ripped the men apart, spraying their blood, the deadwalker was laughing.
Chapter 9
The Appalachian Mountains, 1912
It was an uncomfortably warm day for November. Garret fumed his way down Main Street, hunched on the wagon seat. His little horse, Violet, was either oblivious to his stew, or chose to ignore it. She pranced across the rutted dirt, stepping high and holding her head up as if pulling a carriage for the queen of England rather than a rattling old wagon loaded with junk.
Garret touched the brim of his cap and forced himself to smile at Mrs. Johnson and her daughter Ruby as they bustled by, sweating into their long dresses and high collars. Garret had to rein Violet to a stop when two boys rolled off of the boardwalk and into the street, fighting. It probably had to do with the crushed bouquet of daisies lying on the sidewalk and the pigtailed girl standing beside them.
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