No need to think on that right now. Another season. Another sacred week to remember those who came before us, to be grateful for all we have, to acknowledge the sacrifice it takes. My life’s work, ready to pass along, to give this trust to those who will linger after me, who will protect the temple and our blessings.
Oh, who am I kidding. They’re all idiots. Let Chuck Callas try to do better than I have. I pity whoever is in his first season. My contestants will never know how lucky they were that I saw them through their sacrifices. They have no idea. No one appreciates the things I do for others.
Twilight releases its grasp on the town, letting night draw a blanket of darkness. The families let out a breath of relief, a sigh of tension released. It’s almost over. Two more days. No one goes out much during the season’s seven days, fear lingering even though the gate is there, even though the beast is fed. At the end of the week, without agreeing to, they’ll have a big cookout, laughing loudly and drinking too much, the end of another season, the promise that things will continue for them as they always have, without struggle, without interruption, the sacrifice finished on their behalf, where they don’t have to hear it or see it or make it.
And Linda’s Jell-O salad is divine.
Meanwhile, in Linda’s house, three stunned people sit on the couch and stare at the end of the journal entries.
“Rulon Pulsipher is my father,” LeGrand says.
“My father was a Nicely.” Mack closes the book, running her fingers along the name stamped there. “And Brandon’s a Callas.”
“How many people have they sacrificed?” Ava asks, aghast, then closes her eyes and shakes her aching head. “And who the fuck is Hobart Keck?”
The garage door groans, announcing an arrival.
Mack picks up her discarded pudding cup on her way to the kitchen, licking her spoon clean before setting it in the sink. She opens the junk drawer she discovered while searching for a spoon and pulls out a heavy roll of duct tape.
Ava limps in, followed by LeGrand, rifle at the ready. The pain in Ava’s leg is colonizing the rest of her body, invading and settling in places it has no right to be—her head, her neck, her left shoulder. Her last physical therapist, before a paperwork error stopped Ava’s insurance and she couldn’t afford visits anymore, advised her to avoid stress and actively work to release tension from her body. That’s why Ava gave the gun to LeGrand. The trigger feels like a release, and she trusts him to make a less tense decision.
The door from the garage opens. Linda’s looking down as she roots around in her enormous alligator-skin-patterned pleather purse. Linda, who welcomed them with smiles. Linda, who stroked Isabella’s hair with maternal tenderness the night before Isabella was fed to a monster. Linda, who has planned and run this entire thing with pride.
Ava regrets surrendering the gun. A stream of words so foul they hang, almost palpable, in the air leave her mouth as she lunges across the linoleum and punches Linda in the jaw.
Lucky for Linda, pain has thrown Ava’s balance off, and her blow glances rather than pulverizes. Still, Linda is so shocked by the bright overwhelming reality of pain that she stumbles and bangs her hip against the counter, adding another burst of disorientation.
Mack takes her wrist and gently leads her to one of the ornate dining room chairs, sitting her there and getting to work taping her arms to the scrolling woodwork. It’s the most use this chair has gotten in more than a decade, a far cry from the dinner parties newlywed Linda imagined for it when she claimed and refurnished her mother’s house forty years ago.
Mack has a brief worry that Linda’s paper-thin skin will tear when the tape is removed. She tugs Linda’s jacket sleeves—another blazer, this time in a blindingly bold blue—down, but the material is stiff and won’t stretch. At least Linda is old enough that she still wears pantyhose, so that can tear instead of her legs.
This close, taping her ankles to the legs of the chairs, Mack can see the discoloration, the fine purple and blue webs of veins that have strayed from their original purpose, floating at the surface and feeding nothing.
What would it be like to grow old? Mack’s never imagined such a thing, never saw it in her own mother, can’t remember her grandparents well enough to picture them. Were they this fragile when her father took a knife to them? Mack’s so distracted, she doesn’t realize that Linda has been speaking to her, or that Ava and LeGrand are still in the kitchen, having a quiet argument.
“Did you hear a word I just said?” Linda whispers, lipstick bolder than ever against her pale cheeks, the blue of the bags beneath her eyes peeking through her thick foundation a prettier shade than Linda’s actual murky irises.
“No.” Mack steps back to check her work. She couldn’t get out of it, and she doubts Linda will be able to.
Ava lurches into the dining room, dumping Linda’s purse on the table. Gold lipstick tubes roll free, along with a massive pink leather pocketbook, an address book, a walkie-talkie radio that matches the one Ava has tucked into one of her many pockets, throat lozenges, a small handgun with a pale pink pearlescent handle, baby wipes, tissue, and, at last, car keys.
“How did you get out?” Linda demands as Ava opens the wallet and removes all the bills there, shoving them into yet another pocket.
“That’s enough gas money to get us a few states away from wherever the hell we are,” Ava mutters. “We’ll need food, too.”
“How many of you got out?” Linda’s not asking to be freed, not bargaining. There are more important things to her. “Please, Mackenzie.”
Mack looks up, startled. The only people who call her that are people reading her name off a list. That’s all she is to Linda—a name on a list.
“I need to know,” Linda continues. “How many of you got out of the park? Was it fed today? Was it fed today?” Her voice goes up an octave with panic.
Ava can’t reach the old woman across the table, and that’s probably good. She sits in one of the chairs instead, leaning back and lacing her fingers behind her head. “That’s what you care about right now? With us here, armed, knowing you knew exactly what you were sending us in there for?”
“Kill me, if you want,” Linda snaps. “But it was fed today. You wouldn’t leave friends behind if they could join you. And the guards would have radioed if it was at the gate.” She closes her eyes and sighs in relief. “Okay. That’s good. That gives us some time. Don’t touch that!”
Mack freezes with her hand on the china hutch. She was going to replace the handkerchief.
Ava smiles. “No worries, Linda, we already found your journal.”
Linda’s eyes bug out in outrage, her drawn-on eyebrows not quite matching the sheer levels of pissed off the rest of her face is giving. “Who did you leave in the park? There are only three of you.”