Red - Jack Ketchum [58]
She stoops again and plucks out the boy’s right eye and tosses it back into her mouth and chews. Let the dogs have the rest. There’s a small child inside the house. Sighted, not like this one — and younger. She has seen her in the cellar with the rest of them.
The child will be tasty.
She scoops her weapon off the bloody dirt floor and walks out into the fallen night.
THIRTY FIVE
Darlin’s really scared again.
It’s dark and they only have the one flashlight which keeps blinking on and off so that Peggy has to shake it to make it come on again and she doesn’t know the woods at all — she’s not allowed to play there. And where’s momma? Why isn’t momma here? And why’s Peggy’s hand so sweaty?
And what are they doing in the woods at night in the first place?
She’s got the water bottle tucked under her other arm tight because Peggy said don’t drop it whatever you do but then the light goes off again and her big sister’s shaking it to get it to work and all of a sudden she’s falling because her big sister’s falling and she’s going with her and the bottle gets away from her and Peggy says ahhh! and shit! shit! which she’s not supposed to do.
~ * ~
The house is empty. She’s knows that the moment she enters.
The Woman is amused. The child with no eyes has followed her and pads around her now on all fours panting like a dog as they make their way through the house. The child is very like her in a way. It can’t see her but it can smell her. That sense has developed greatly.
Just as the Woman can smell the girl and her little sister. Their fear lingers in the air like the scent of a mudbank by a stream. They have gone out the back. When she crossed the yard to the barn she noticed that behind the house was all woodland.
They are in the woods. Standing on the porch her keen eyes discern a footpath and beyond that a trail.
They will be easy to follow.
Outside she bends into the light breeze and listens.
~ * ~
Peg’s in a lot of pain. Her ankle’s twisted badly. She knows this trail through the woods. It leads to a little stream and a mile or so after that, to Weber Road, which in turns leads out to the highway. She and Brian used to come down with empty Campbell’s soup cans to catch crayfish in the stream when they were kids. But she’s never been out here at night and with the goddamn flashlight on the blink there was no way to anticipate that hole she’s just stepped into.
The flashlight’s fallen from her hand but it’s lying right beside her and ironically the jolt seems to have done it some good, its beam is steady now. She picks it up. Almost afraid that if she touches it the beam will disappear again but it holds.
She locates Darleen who is in a panic, crawling around in the dirt trying to find her lost water bottle. She shines the beam across the trail
“There it is,” she whispers and holds the light steady on the bottle. Her sister crawls over and snatches it up and stands.
Peg needs to stand too but damn! it hurts to put any pressure on that ankle or even to move it at all.
But they’ve got to get out of here.
There’s a sapling a few feet to her left just off the trail. She crawls to it on hands and knees and hauls herself up. Darlin’s at her side trying to help. Of course she’s no help at all. The beam skitters through the leaves of the trees above as she pulls herself up hand over hand and finally she’s standing. Limping back onto the trail again. Every time she puts the foot down pain rockets through her leg all the way to the hip. She wonders if she’s broken something. But she can’t just hop. Not on this surface. She’d be down again in no time.
Suddenly Darlin’ is standing stock-still in front of her.
She hears a twig break and then another and points the beam to where Darlin’ seems to be looking. At the same time Darlin’ raises the water bottle and holds it out in front of her as though the bottle were some sort of talisman to ward off evil.