Red - Jack Ketchum [53]
So that was what she did.
Oh, bad choice she heard Cleek say. Can you say anopthalmia?
But by then it was too late.
THIRTY ONE
The Woman is with them, out there with the dogs. She hears their animal spirit, something in them yet untamed. It soothes her, this wildness. It reminds her that tooth and claw is the nature of the world and the nature of each beast in it. That nothing in the wild dies without great loss and gain. That no kind of beast was ever meant to live in cages. Or damp dark places such as this one.
She hears keys at the door and a moment later it opens.
The girl rapidly descends. Turns on the light. Then pauses breathless to look at her.
Behind her she can hear the dogs’ violent voices more clearly now. On the girl she smells fear. Fear and something else. Anger perhaps. Yes. And protectiveness. The girl is protecting someone. Perhaps the baby inside her.
Protecting the baby from her? She poses no threat. Not as she is.
But then the girl does the most astonishing thing. The Woman could never have expected it.
She steps over to her, gazes once into her face and then bends down and begins unscrewing the restraint on her left ankle.
THIRTY TWO
The child had been alive for nearly ten years but knew nothing of time. She was female but knew nothing of that either.
The child knew only the doghouse and the occasional venture outside to steal food from the others who were not hairless like her — she had huddled with them against the cold, slept with them curled around her, listened to their breathing which was not like her own — or to void herself or exercise her limbs.
For the child the world was always dark. Several shades of dark but always so.
She could smell herself. She could smell the others. So that she knew she was different from them but in what way she couldn’t tell exactly except that she was hairless and they were not and they seemed to have no ability to grasp at things and hold them the way she did. Her teeth were long but theirs were longer. The pads on their feet were tougher. They were long and lean and she was thick and squat.
These things aside, they were family.
So that when she heard their rage and outrage it became hers too — and she braced herself against the wood behind her and waited for the shapes and shades of darkness to change from dark to darker. Which meant movement. Intrusion.
Perhaps the hand that stung.
~ * ~
She heard a low growl behind her and realized her mistake, that there were not three dogs in here but four, yet there was no time nor any way for her fix that because the dog outside was inching closer and closer, Genevieve hoping against hope that a growl was all she was in for and when the thing inside the doghouse leapt out at her roaring — the thing that had no eyes but only empty eye sockets, its skin like dirty melted pink wax, human, yes, but built like some kind of pit bull — when the child-thing sunk its teeth into the flesh between her neck and shoulder and its yellow cracked claws into her arms all she could do was to reach back with her roped hands and try to pull it off her and scream and scream.
~ * ~
“Brian! Hose Agnes!” his father was shouting and so he did, Brian having a fine old time here, catching the dog full in the face, backing her off and listening to Rat-on scream.
“Okay, sis,” he yelled, “let’s see what you got!”
~ * ~
Inside the house Belle heard the screaming and so did her daughter and Darleen wouldn’t let go of her, she was holding on for dear life and Belle’s ribs were doing their own screaming. Finally she pushed her away and held her at arms’ length.
“Darlin’? Baby? I want you to go back to your room right now. Lock the door and don’t come out. Don’t come out unless it’s momma or Peggy, okay?”
She was squirming in Belle’s grip, tears running down her face.
“Noooo…I want to stay here…with you…”
“You can’t, honey. Now do as I say. It’s really, really important. Okay?”
She let go of her and turned her around and gave her a little push. Darlin’ ran for the stairs.
Then she turned too