The Winslow Incident

HAZEL

Arriving at the granite wall, Hazel finds that Sean has erased I’M SORRY—SA. In place of that, he wrote, HW → SA TFC X HRC. She easily deciphers his message: Hazel Winslow meet Sean Adair at Three Fools Creek across from Hawkin Rhone’s cabin.

She fights her way down the overgrown path and hears the first helicopter as soon as she reaches the creek. Squinting west, she sees the forest service chopper hovering over the bridge. But that’s no matter to her right now. What matters is that she knows she’ll find Sean here. What she doesn’t know is if she’ll find him alive.

She wavers at the edge of the water—petrified. Every truth she’s ever known and every wild imagining she’s ever had about this place play together in a symphony of terror. She peers across the creek at the moldering cabin. What will she see when she gets there? What if it’s an animal-mauled mess outside the cabin door, like when her father found Hawkin Rhone? What if just a few locks of Sean’s brown hair plastered to the rough-hewn logs are all that’s recognizable?

Bigfoot is loose in the woods, she shudders. Hungry wolves.

She’s afraid to go, afraid to find out. Don’t think, she thinks, go!

She looks back to the turbulent water: The creek is full and raging, tossing logs around like beach balls. How did he get over there? she wonders.

She’s out of her mind, she realizes, to even consider crossing the creek.

She steps into the water anyway—

And it happens surprisingly fast.

Her left foot slips off a slimy rock and she’s sucked into the cold torrent, and with only one arm to fight with, she’s losing the battle and thinking, I made it all this way only to be the fourth fool to drown in this f*cking creek?

Just as suddenly, Sean is there, pulling her out of the water and up onto the opposite bank. As happy as she is to be alive, she’s even happier to see him again. He looks unharmed. Strangely normal. She grabs hold of him and won’t let go, spitting up creek water and trying to catch her breath, and crying with relief.


Crying, crying, I’m crying . . .

Crying not with relief, but in pain.

No, I don’t want to leave him. Let me stay here.

But it felt like her arm was on fire.

Goodbye Sean, goodbye helicopter, goodbye dream.

Hazel shifted her weight on the water tower platform and cried out at the burning pain consuming her shattered elbow. She opened her eyes, bleary with agony and tears.

The sunshine was still soft so she knew she had slept only a short while, and as she squeezed more tears from her wide awake eyes, she felt glad for the dawn that continued to rise behind her and bathe Silver Hill in light the color of orange sherbet. It had been a very long night.

She had no plans to leave the safety of the tower. Her back to the tank, the position made a perfect cat perch: high in the air and sheltered from behind, so nothing could sneak up on her, and shaded from the monster sun that by mid-morning would bake the mountainside crisp. But her body insisted she stand up, having grown stiff and sore from sitting on the metal platform.

All her aches and pains shifted into high gear as she hobbled to the railing for a better view. There were men on horseback riding around downtown. Holloway ranch hands, it looked like, kicking ass and taking names. Go back to the ranch, she wished. Mind your pigs and cows and leave us alone.

Prospect Park looked empty, while a handful of people darted along Fortune Way. Pursued, she hazarded a guess, by Tiny Clemshaw and his shotgun.

Sniffing and wiping her face, she watched a brown car swerve up the driveway to The Winslow. She figured that her grandmother must still be in the hotel, somewhere Hazel hadn’t thought to look. Regret gnawed at her—she should’ve searched harder. It was so much safer up on the tower, if only her grandmother were here with her, instead of hiding in that insane asylum.

She turned her back on the town and stared at her right arm. The lunatic in the mine had ripped away the sling, so she cradled her injured elbow against her bruised ribs. Naked now, her arm revealed a swollen kaleidoscope of color: blue black purple and red. Seeing it made it hurt so much worse, made her feel as though all her blood really had been drained by the vampire. Even the wrist broken five years ago by a different madman throbbed in aggravation.

Ice would help, she knew, but not enough to compel her to climb down from the tower. So instead she thought about milkshakes and cold water creeks, about sno-cones and the snow that come November would drape the entire mountain range, cloaking the sins of summer in pure white.

Snowflakes, Corn Flakes, I scream for ice cream—

She spied a matchbox wedged inside a hose bib. After snaking her fingers in to retrieve it, she slid open the box. Her lucky day. Nestled inside was a half-smoked joint, tightly rolled, Tanner Holloway-style. Matches, too. She had yet to strike a match when she smelled smoke.

Serious-smelling smoke.

Ignore it.

Where was it coming from?

Just stay put.

That lasted all of two seconds before she turned back to the railing and glanced down . . . beyond Silver Hill, past the apple orchard—to Rhone Bakery. Red flames caressed the immutable stone wall at the rear of the bakery, but mostly it was smoke—a skinny funnel pouring through an opening in the disappearing roof.

Panic struck with such ferocity that Hazel recoiled from the railing. With her good fist she pounded the side of the metal tank in frustration, crushing the matchbox and its precious contents, while Tanner saying, “Zachary Rhone’s looking for him,” looped in her mind.

“Where are you, Sean?” she screamed at the town, across the mountainside.

Then it occurred to her: maybe Sparks Brady would see this fire. Maybe he’d see the smoke and respond with help and helicopters.

She peered in the direction of the fire lookout tower so many miles away, then back at the white smoke coming off the smoldering bakery, where Cal Allison and Hap Hotchkiss, both armed with hoses, were spraying the last of the flames.

Her father had taught her that white smoke means a fire has been doused in water and is on its way out. Of course Sparks knows that, she realized with despair, which means no helicopters, no help.

Suddenly her heart seized up. Violet and Daisy and Aaron were hiding in the apple orchard—not far from the fire. It hadn’t been tricky to figure out where they planned to hide because it’s where Violet always hides when they play hide and go seek.

Hazel knew then that she had no choice but to leave the safety of the tower. Sally forth. Only she wasn’t a brave soldier, she was terrified. She walked toward the ladder anyway, her weight causing the metal platform to warp and clang with each step.

She stopped just short of the ladder, gripped the railing. I can’t do it.

Looking over the side of the tower, she released the matchbox and watched it fall . . . and fall. I can’t. It was so far to the ground she’d never make it all the way down; she’d break her neck trying and land in the dirt in a lifeless heap.

Besides, what could she even do? She’d tried already, hadn’t she?

But yesterday she’d deluded herself into thinking everyone would be better today.

Today, Melanie Rhone was dead.

Today, the bakery was on fire.

Today, the children were waiting for Hazel—waiting for her to finally call, “Olly olly oxen free!”

She swung herself out into thin air, her left hand clutching the ladder, the right worthless and throwing off her weight until her feet found purchase on the rungs and she started climbing down—one-armed and reckless—wondering what that Hawkin Rhone vampire had meant by, “Beware the pest house.”





THE BRIDGE

I can’t believe I’m stuck here thanks to that stupid bitch.

All night Tanner Holloway had been forced to ride roughshod over the town with Kenny Clark and Old Pete Hammond, rounding up sickos (as Kenny called them) and dumping them at The Winslow. Then once the streets were clear they’d started knocking on doors and dragging people out of their houses if they looked like they might have the sickness.

Now Tanner was crusted-over tired and his leg hurt like hell. But he was glad the night was finally through, and wondered when someone would get wise to what was happening in Winslow. Tanner could understand nobody driving up here with the rodeo over, but wouldn’t somebody at least try to call and then question why the phones were dead? Nice going, Uncle Pard, real nice.

Sitting on the El Camino’s tailgate he watched Old Pete and Kenny descend the steps of the hotel. They wore bandannas tied over their noses and mouths, and thick suede cattle-rustling gloves. Kenny slapped his hands together as if rubbing away dirt. They’d just dropped off Patience’s parents. They’d really fought, those two, claiming they didn’t have it.

He hadn’t seen Patience around. Too bad. He realized she’d been right, of course, when she told him that nothing good would come to him.

“Headin’ out.” Pete clapped Tanner hard on the shoulder, as if Tanner were a lazy cow that needed a good shove to get it moving.

When Tanner climbed into the truck bed, his left leg painfully crackled and popped. And as they drove down the driveway, the hotel still looming large, he thought, At least I’m not stuck in that hellhole.

He wiped his face on the sleeve of his already damp t-shirt. It hadn’t cooled off—all night long he’d sweated like a roasting pig.

They cruised down Civic Street, Kenny driving moronically slow and Pete with his rifle poised out the window, ready to fire at anything that moved.

But all was quiet. If people knew what was good for them, they’d keep quiet. And not answer their door.

Kenny swung a sudden hard right onto Fortune Way and gunned it, causing Tanner’s head to snap forward and then back against the window with such force he worried his skull might crack. Then Kenny eased up, crawling slowly by Clemshaw Mercantile to Rhone Bakery. Where the bakery used to be, anyway, wasn’t much there anymore.

“Whatever happened here is over now,” he heard Old Pete say.

Kenny flipped around at the corner of Park Street, then punched it again down Fortune Way.

As they passed back by the smoldering bakery, Tanner imagined he saw charred bones piled up in front of the blackened oven that stood alone amid the ruins, and he supposed maybe he smelled something like cooked meat. Maybe Sean got deep fried in there.

He thought about Sean puking his guts out over the railing of the water tower Sunday night and even then acting as if he were better than Tanner. And the last time Tanner saw him, Sean had just stood there going “uh uh uh” when Tanner asked him why the hell he was talking about mayo and deliveries. It was almost as though he wanted to be responsible. The guy had a guilt complex or something. But if that’s the way Sean wanted it, who was he to argue?

Tanner wondered how Hazel was faring. Wondered how surprised she would be to see him again. And wondered how sorely he could make her regret that he was stuck here thanks to her holding him up for so long.

He shifted his weight off his aching, burning leg. As soon as he got a chance he intended to whip that horse Blackjack for doing this to him.

They left town on Winslow Road and drove past the church cemetery, into the tunnel of trees, back toward the bridge. Time to relieve the troops, Tanner thought with great weariness. He threw back his throbbing head and watched the sun speckle in and out through the branches. I could sleep for a hundred years—Rip Van Winkle . . . and he did semi-snooze in the truck bed for a couple of jostled minutes.

But there was trouble at the bridge when they pulled up—screaming yelling guns-raised trouble.

Kenny slammed on the brakes, spinning the El Camino in a complete one-eighty before it jerked to a stop that nearly flung Tanner out the back. Then Kenny leapt out to join the fray.

Old Pete got out slow, him and his Winchester, no rush . . . just stretchin’ his legs. “C’mon, kid.” He gave Tanner that shoulder shove again and Tanner knew he’d better cooperate.

But he didn’t like the looks of it. Didn’t want any part of it. In front of the barricade—which now included the fat man Fritz Earley’s truck—the nervous vet was arguing with Uncle Pard. Behind Doc Simmons was the red truck Tanner knew to be his since he’d seen it parked next to the barn the day Simmons came to slice Indigo apart. The Doc didn’t have his glasses on but his hand kept going up to the bridge of his nose anyway, pushing at the rim that wasn’t there. Obviously Pard Holloway was winning this argument: he was the one with the gun.

Tanner hadn’t seen his uncle since the wake-and-bake in the south pasture yesterday morning, when he’d told Tanner that drastic situations call for drastic measures, then forced him to light the cattle carcass bonfire. He realized that Pard looked haggard now, sort of diminished. His uncle noticed him climbing off the truck bed and gave him a nod. Tanner felt glad for that in a way.

Kenny loped up to the red truck and pulled a knife out of his boot. You are a complete moron, Tanner thought. The truck was dented, its windshield cracked on the driver’s side. Kenny stabbed the left front tire, sinking the long knife deep before he rocked it back and forth.

Simmons didn’t notice; he was too busy blustering at Pard. “You can’t keep me here.”

“Where’re you aimin’ to go?” Pard asked.

“Stepstone.”

“What for?”

“Supplies.”

“What kind of supplies?”

“Medicine.”

“What kind of medicine?”

Simmons stammered and sputtered, “Just . . . you know . . . medicine.”

“Only place you’re going is to The Winslow so you can do your job, Doc. Now get your scrawny ass up there and start treating people.”

Simmons shied back from Pard. “I don’t want to get involved.”

“You’re involved, all right. Whether you want to be or not is none of my concern.”

Tanner was walking behind Pete and wondering what chance he had of making a break for it. He’d have to leap up and scramble over the flatbed and then run like hell, dodging bullets no doubt. But it’d take them a while to untangle the trucks and give chase and by then he’d already be across the bridge and hiding in the woods. There was just one problem: his leg was bad, his foot was even worse. He wasn’t sure how fast he could run, if at all.

While Old Pete joined Pard, Tanner continued to the north side of the bridge where the Kawasaki had been wedged to block the pedestrian path. Someone had sliced the clutch cable in two. Big surprise, wonder who? He shot a hateful glare at Kenny Clark.

Pete asked Simmons, “So will you be driving yourself up to the hotel or riding with me?”

Simmons shook his head fiercely. “I’m leaving. Got to go now. Right now.”

Tanner could see how desperate the vet was to get out, but couldn’t tell if he was babbling because he was sick or due to that nasty-looking crack across his forehead.

Ignoring the vet, Pard asked Old Pete, “What’s the situation in town?”

“Rhone Bakery burned clear to the ground. No sign of Zachary Rhone anywhere around.”

“Who’d want to burn down the bakery?”

“Maybe Rhone himself.” Old Pete glanced at Tanner. “The kid says it’s the bread making folks sick.”

Now everybody turned to look at him.

“That right, Tanner?” Pard asked.

Tanner tried to sound casual, “Yeah, it all came from Rhone Bakery. They used bad flour to make bad bread.”

Tanner saw Doc Simmons’ face tighten with panic. But his uncle’s very slight smile told Tanner that he was pleased with this offering, relieved to finally have the heat off Holloway Ranch.

“Damn good thing we stick to Maggie’s soda sinkers,” Pard said, and Maggie and the other cowhands laughed.

Damn good thing . . . only Tanner had eaten more than ranch biscuits over the past few days. There was that ham on rye at the Crock early Saturday. Hazel had taken his order and called him a stoner when he asked for double fries. Then there were those donut holes Sunday morning: ninety-nine cents a dozen—here, take two for a buck and a half, Sean had convinced him.

If I didn’t know better, Tanner thought dully, I’d think they were trying to kill me.

Pard addressed Simmons, “What’s in the bread? I know that you know—I can see it in your eyes.”

Simmons closed his revealing eyes. “Ergot.”

“What’s that?”

“A fungus. Grows on grain crops if they’re rained on too heavily.”

Tanner decided he might as well help his uncle along. “Maybe the same fungus found its way into your feed as Rhone’s flour.”

Pard squinted at him one-eyed.

“Kid could be right,” Old Pete said. “Could be ergot is what’s got into the herd. I’ve witnessed it before—a cow loses the tip off its ear, half if it’s real bad, sometimes a tail. But never to this extreme, never seen the animals go strange before, and I’ve certainly never seen it happen to folks.”

“That sonofabitch!” Pard made tight fists. “Get Fritz Earley and bring him to the Buckhorn. And act friendly, Pete. I don’t want him showing up there all balled up. I’m damn near worn out trying to figure out what the hell we’re up against here and need some honest answers out of him.”

Suddenly Pard lunged for Simmons and grabbed the frightened vet by the shirt. “I need some answers out of you too. What happens if it is this fungus? What do we do about it?”

Simmons went white. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Don’t give me that!”

A brown cow with white puzzle piece markings strolled up to the mouth of the bridge and stopped next to Simmons. Then she looked directly at the vet and mooed.

Pard released Simmons and turned to Maggie Clark. “Take care of that, will you?” He lifted his hat and sopped up sweat with a bandanna. “Cattle wandering the streets. Who’s leaving gates open?”

Simmons finally noticed the hiss that was his tire hemorrhaging air and swung around. Then he strode to the truck with Pard yelling after him, “Where do you think you’re going?”

The vet hauled himself into his truck and started the engine with a foot heavy on the accelerator. He reversed wildly for thirty feet and then sat for a moment, both hands gripping the wheel. Clearly he intended to crash into the barricade—try and smash through it—and take as many cowboys with him as he could.

Tanner backed up to the bridge railing. Everything shone stark in the clear morning air, the sun glinting off metal and glass.

“Dammit it, Simmons!” Pard bellowed. “Get the hell out of there!”

The vet gunned his engine. Tanner could see the madman’s gleam in his eyes. Then Simmons floored it and screeched toward the barricade.

The ranch hands scrambled off the road and onto the pedestrian walkways. Old Pete and Pard ended up next to Tanner in front of the bike. On the opposite side of the bridge Kenny Clark raised his rifle and shot into the cab and Simmons ducked below the windshield. Casings caught sunlight as they flew off the bridge and Pard shouted, “Hey hey whoa! Hold your fire!”

The red truck collided with the barricade and smashed Maggie’s Chevy aside in a scream of twisting metal. Simmons and his truck slid across the bridge, slammed into the railing, and wobbled precariously over the edge before banging back down on all fours.

Kenny started in the direction of Simmons’ truck but Pard shouted. “Hold up, Ken. Did I tell you to fire?”

“The Doc’s gone crazy.” Kenny held up his hand and looked at Pard as if to say, What else was I supposed to do?

“You’re never to let fly unless I order it. Understood?”

Kenny took on a hangdog look. “Yeah, boss.”

Simmons’ engine shuddered to a stop and Pard turned and scrutinized Tanner for what felt like a long time. Finally, he clamped his dry hand across the back of his nephew’s neck. “Go and get Simmons out of there.”

Tanner accepted the revolver his uncle handed him. Then Old Pete gave Tanner that cow shove again. His heartbeat ramped up as he approached the vet’s truck. Why does he want me to do this? And why did it seem so quiet all of a sudden? He sucked in his breath and peered into the cab.

Curled up on his side, the crazed glint in Simmons’ eyes had been replaced by sheer terror. Tanner let out a long breath before he looked back at the ranch hands standing at the barricade. They were all staring at him.

I’m gonna puke. He was sure of it, felt it right there, but swallowed hard instead and stepped onto the running board.

Simmons sat up and scooted across to the passenger’s seat.

Tanner aimed the gun at the vet’s head, but his hands were shaking so bad he’d be lucky to hit the sky. “Get out.”

“I can’t.” Simmons shook his head.

“Get out, you cowardly piece of shit.”

The vet made a bleating noise a lot like the calf had at Holloway Ranch the other night right before Kenny blew its brains out.

Tanner raised the gun to point above Simmons’ head. He pulled the trigger. A resounding boom and the bullet punched through the roof of the cab. Tanner’s ears popped first, then settled into a roaring ziiinng. He lowered the gun and took shaky aim at the vet’s astonished right eye.

“Okay okay.” Simmons mouthed but Tanner couldn’t hear him. The vet scrambled back to the driver’s side and Tanner stepped down and opened the door.

“Take him to The Winslow,” Pard barked from what sounded like a million miles away. “And bring me that sonofabitch Fritz Earley.”

Simmons shrank back, giving Tanner a look that seemed to say, I know what you’re hiding.

Kenny Clark shoved Tanner aside to grab Simmons out of the cab. “C’mon, Doc,” Kenny said in a faraway voice. “It’s to the pest house with you. Time to take care of the sickos.”

Tanner’s damaged hearing made him feel as though he were deep underwater and all this commotion was occurring distantly above the surface.

Simmons tried to squirm free but Kenny held fast. “I can’t hear you!” Simmons screamed. “I’m deaf! I can’t hear you!” Tanner noticed blood trickling out of the vet’s left ear.

Sickos . . . Tanner’s fingers went to his own ears to see if they were bleeding too but they came away clean. You’re the ones who are sick. He turned around to find his Uncle Pard and the other ranch hands eyeing him with something like approval.

But damn did his leg hurt. The pain had been shifting toward a burning sensation, and the heat kept getting cranked up.

He hobbled over next to his uncle and through the ringing in his ears barely heard him ask, “What’s that smell?” Pard sniffed the air. “Like meat gone bad. Do you smell that?”

Tanner forced his eyes to meet Pard’s, terrified he’d betray himself. “I think we scared the shit outta Simmons. Literally.”

Tanner glanced around at Uncle Pard and Old Pete missing a few teeth and Maggie Clark, all laughing in their rough way, big heads lolling on thick necks.

And finally he had to admit it to himself: this was worse than a rodeo injury. Something else was wrong with his leg, something worse than wounds suffered from the spill he’d taken off Blackjack. Tanner felt his throat closing up with panic and his mouth went so dry he gagged when he tried to swallow.

I f*cking have it!

His eyes darted from unfriendly face to face—it seemed as though the cowhands were surrounding him now—and he realized then that he couldn’t beat ’em so he sure as hell better join ’em before he was found out and tossed in the pest house too.

He handed his uncle the gun. “Let’s go rustle us up some more sickos.” Then he managed to force a cold laugh past the fear wedged in his windpipe.

His Uncle Pard regarded him with a shifting mixture of skepticism and favor, then Old Pete clapped Tanner on the shoulder again but this time in a more fatherly way, less lazy cow ass-slap.





THE WINSLOW

The creeks at high water never bode well, Sarah Winslow thought. Neither does everybody getting themselves all riled up like when Samuel Adair—such a fool—poked the end of his broomstick into a nest of yellow jackets beneath the porch eave.

Sarah sat before a rosewood vanity among the other retired furniture in the attic of The Winslow. A collection of spent history. What clutter, she thought. How much can we hold onto before we can no longer bear the weight of it?

When Hazel and Patience were small girls, they used to fuss at this dressing table. Donned in Sarah’s old gowns and musty furs, they’d edge each other out for the spot in front of the mirror, puckering on lipstick and piling on costume jewelry. Once thus adorned they’d emerge and dramatically descend the hotel’s wide staircase to the parlor where Sarah sat waiting. She’d pretend they were fine ladies visiting from San Francisco and welcome them to sit, “Won’t you take tea?” and offer them Vienna Fingers (Hazel’s favorite).

Patience would always say, “Why, thank you.”

And Hazel would proclaim in a ridiculous British accent: “I do say you have a lovely place here, although it is a bit tired.” Her granddaughter had overheard a guest say that, Sarah guessed. Nonetheless it was visible even then: the hotel layered in a dank patina that wouldn’t rub clean—the exhausted past.

Sarah sighed. They still found thirsty yellow jackets in the bathrooms and laundry room on the first floor. Not sure how they were getting in, they seemed to find a way.

Studying her reflection in the vanity’s beveled glass mirror, she thought, I’ve watched myself grow old in this mirror . . . will my granddaughter be afforded the same luxury?

There was no point in continuing to cower in the attic; it wasn’t doing her or anybody else any good. So Sarah rose, pushed open the attic door, unfolded the stairs, and stepped down with the care old women take.

She now saw what the crunching noise had been earlier: a crystal glass lay crushed. Underfoot, it would seem. She had heard her granddaughter calling her but willed herself not to answer. She’d suspected that Hazel would insist she come with her, and Sarah didn’t care to leave or argue about it because she was too old and too tired for either. Relieved once Hazel left the tower, she then hoped that her granddaughter would leave the hotel altogether, for Sarah was not so convinced that the ghosts were friendly here.

Now as she reached the second floor landing of the servants’ staircase, she sensed things stirring. Decidedly unfriendly things.

The hotel is too full.

A helpless sensation washed over her.

The same helplessness she had felt after she’d watched Randall get out of their bed and collapse, and her husband was gone to her forever in the two seconds it took her to reach where he lay on the soft pine floor. It’d been different with Lottie Mathers because of all the blood. Sarah could never bring herself to remember how much blood there’d been, nor could she ever stop mourning the loss of her friend.

The adage proved true that summer, she realized. Death came in three: first Lottie then Hawkin Rhone then, worst of all, Randall.

Voices rose to Sarah from the kitchen as she continued down the staircase from the second floor. She recognized those of Honey Adair and Owen Peabody, but didn’t know to whom the third voice belonged until she reached the bottom stair.

Fritz Earley, the distributor from down mountain, sat eating at the table. Honey hovered over him, spoon in hand, waiting to refill his bowl from the pot she cradled in the crook of her arm.

Squatted before the breakfront, drenched in sweat and holding a stack of saucers, Owen was peeling off the saucers one at time and placing them on the floor. “Ten. Eleven,” he counted. Shards of porcelain surrounded his bare feet—broken pieces of Ruby Winslow’s French china. He shifted position and left smears on the tile where his cut feet had bled.

When the final step creaked beneath Sarah’s weight, Fritz and Honey looked up in alarm, as though she’d caught them in an illicit act. “Oatmeal?” Honey offered.

“No, thank you, dear.” Honey looked even worse than the last time Sarah had seen her. Her dress sagged like a hand-me-down from a much bigger sister, her brown curls wilted around her face. So fond was Sarah of Honey and the boys that they were the sole reason she kept The Winslow running. (Samuel Adair she could just as well do without but it was a package deal.)

Only now she wished she hadn’t kept the hotel open . . . wished she’d closed it for good after Randall died. Boarded it up like the old mineshafts and left it to the ghosts. Because things are stirring, she knew. Things not properly laid to rest in the past.

The sound of a saucer breaking was followed by Owen’s “Oops.”

Sarah took the chair across the table from Fritz Earley and quickly assessed his state. His face was bruised but he was not ill. Nervous though. No—frightened. He looked at her with the same critical eye and she doubted his conclusion was any different.

“What’s happening up here isn’t right,” he stated the obvious.

“No, it’s not,” Sarah agreed.

“Where’s your son?”

“In the woods.”

“Isn’t he Sheriff?” Fritz Earley kept eating. He appeared to be a man who ate often.

“Yes, he is.”

“Then where is he?”

“In the woods.”

“We need to do something.” His eyes took on shiny panic. “Things have gone too far.”

“What are we to do?”

“People need medical attention.” He continued to eat that oatmeal as if it were the last meal of a condemned man. “Immediate medical attention.”

“And if they don’t get it?”

“People are going to die.”

He said it with such certainty that Sarah knew it must be true.

“Four, seven, six, five . . .” Owen kept on.

Honey moved to sit next to Sarah, relinquishing the spoon to the pot and the pot to the table. Sarah could hear Samuel rassle-frasseling upstairs. Arguing with someone, it sounded like. Another piece of Ruby’s precious china shattered against the tile. It’d always been intended that the set would go to Hazel.

“Rare nowadays,” Fritz was saying, “but before anybody identified the cause, epidemics of ergotism weren’t uncommon. Whole towns would go stark raving mad. People imagining that their limbs are on fire, others hallucinating that they can see and talk to the dead, others bizarrely compulsive.” He rolled his eyes Owen’s direction. “Obsessed, even. Animals bashing their heads against walls as if possessed. Women accused of witchcraft.”

“So I’ve heard,” Sarah said. Randall had once told her about a convent that lost its collective mind after eating ergot-contaminated bread. The nuns began to curse and spit and raise their habits and make lascivious gestures. Their priest was accused of bewitching the entire convent and for that, the sorcerer was burned alive at the stake. The devils of Loudun, Randall had called the hysterical episode. And Sarah had asked her husband where he got such stories.

“Happened in southern France in the early 1950s,” Fritz continued. “Doctors thought it was food poisoning at first. Took them a week before figuring out that the grain used to mill flour for the bakery in the small village had been full of ergot. Bread of madness, they called it.”

She watched him eat for another moment, then asked, “How could you let this happen?”

“Look.” Fritz waved his spoon and a clump of cereal fell to the table. “I’m just the middleman here. I don’t grow the grain. I don’t harvest the grain. I don’t mill the grain. Hell—I don’t even see the grain outside of the bags. And even if I did, how would I know what ergot looks like?”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Nothing more than a delivery boy then?”

“Distributor,” he corrected.

“So there was no way for you to know.”

“No.” Fritz quickly looked away from her, down at his bowl, then spooned in another mouthful. “But I do know that if ergot sickness goes left untreated—” He stopped chewing and squeezed his brows together. Sarah thought he was considering the repercussions of rampant ergotism but then he reached his thumb and forefinger into his mouth and pulled out what looked to be a raisin. He held it up before his one unswollen eye but could make no sense of it and tossed it aside, spooning more oatmeal into his mouth before going on.

Sarah glanced down at Honey’s hands, which lay like dead chicks in the lap of her apron. The very tip of her right thumb was missing.

Things were stirring. Things are coming back to haunt us all.


Ben Mathers was reasonably certain he was getting through to Samuel Adair. Ben had figured it might take some convincing, except perhaps if the person he was attempting to persuade was given to drink—was, in fact, plastered now—and had a propensity toward the bitter and a willingness to take advantage of the situation. But for the moment Samuel slept on the sofa, snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

’Cept the dead never sleep in this wretched place, Ben remembered. If only they would.

Samuel had passed out in mid-sentence (“Not my fault that—”), his gesturing hand dropping to his lap before he slumped over on his side.

Thus here Ben sat in an uncomfortable chair in the living room of the Adairs’ apartment on the second floor of The Winslow, waiting for Samuel to come back around.

Ben had sworn he would never return, since clearly the hotel intended to consume him too. Murder haunts here. His father shot in the head, his aunt drowned, his wife poisoned and stabbed, and now his granddaughter was sick and possibly dying.

But Ben had changed, his fear shoved aside by his determination to finally finish what she started. So when he’d approached The Winslow this time, there’d been no hesitation. Even after he’d pulled up the driveway and the hotel glared its rapacious intent, he’d maintained his resolve.

All out in the open now, he’d thought as he strode through the yard without a hitch to his step. Then he’d pushed open a heavy walnut door and marched up the main staircase as though he had every right in the world to be here.

Clearly it’d been left to the Mathers family to take control of this situation and get things back on track. He’d have to stay out of Pard Holloway’s hair but that shouldn’t be difficult—the man was preoccupied. No matter, Ben felt spryer than he had in years and fully capable of finishing (once and for all) what was started a long time ago.

Samuel stirred. “Huh, what?” He blinked at Ben Mathers five times before it registered that the old man really was sitting a few feet away, watching him. Samuel sat up and rubbed his face with both hands while blubbering something incoherent. Then he announced: “I’m awake.”

Ben leaned forward in his chair. “Do you remember what we were discussing?”

“What do you want, Mathers?”

“We decided that with her out of the way, it could be yours.”

Samuel grimaced as if he had a rotten taste in his mouth. “Yeah—I remember.”

“That the way to rid ourselves of this scourge is to clean the pest house,” Ben said. “Remember?”

“Yeah, yeah. Vile. The whole stinking place.”

“Then you’re up to it, right?”

Samuel stared at Ben for a moment before he threw up his hands. “To hell with it. Hope the roof caves in. Could, you know? Nearly impossible to fix that dry rot. Who cares? It’s not my rotting hotel, where the sick come to die and the dead won’t ever leave.”

Beneath the red in Samuel’s bloodshot eyes, Ben thought he saw greed. “So you understand what we’re going to do then, right?”

“Right, yeah, yes already.” Samuel reached for his bottle of bourbon on the coffee table.

“Now isn’t the time to be drinking,” Ben said.

“Now isn’t the time not to be drinking.”

Ben stood, intending to tell Samuel to lay off the booze, then thought better of it and left without another word.

But he would need to recruit more than Samuel Adair. And there was the possibility that Samuel could sober up and reconsider. Tiny Clemshaw, perhaps; he didn’t much care for her either. Ben was confident that Cal was on board. What about Doc Simmons? Maybe. Ben decided to head first to the Mercantile to firm things up with Clemshaw. If he planted enough seeds, some were sure to take root.

I warned her, didn’t I?





THE WOODS

I smell you . . .

It smelled of damp possum fur, and urine.

Nate Winslow knew how to hunt. His dad taught him like every good father teaches his son what he knows about recreation and survival. But he’d never enjoyed killing. Even as a boy, he’d felt custodial toward the wildlife in the forest.

This was different. This creature meant them harm. This time he would relish the kill. And he would strap the carcass across the hood of the Jeep and drive up Fortune Way and down Ruby Road for everyone in Winslow to see how well he’s protecting them.

The revolver felt good in his hand now, natural, as though the longer he held it the more it became a part of him.

Pausing along the trail that parallels Ruby Creek, he quieted his feet, body, mind . . . and listened. Except for the whir of bugs in the air and murmur of water running in the creek, the woods were silent. He bent at the knees and scanned the forest floor—looking for tracks, scat, clumps of fur, anything peculiar—but saw nothing unusual.

Could be deer, he’d supposed more than once. But he dismissed it again. Judging by the trampled low branches he’d come across, it was larger than even a mature buck. And there was that dank scent that reminded him less of deer and more of an animal of prey.

He returned upright and popped open the cylinder of the Smith & Wesson. Two rounds spent. Where did they go? Maybe it wasn’t fully loaded to begin with? But he knew that wasn’t true. Then he remembered being at Dead Horse Point with the chocolate Lab, the Peabodys’ good sweet dog. He’d had to put her down. No other choice. He retrieved two cartridges from his belt, loaded the cylinder, and pushed it back into place.

Despite the old growth mountain hemlocks shading his path, Nate felt the temperature rising and the air around him growing heavy with heat. The creek will be cooler was his only thought as he headed right, leaving the trail and tree cover for the banks of Ruby Creek.

When Nate saw the deer lying dead—half in, half out of the creek—his first thought was I shot it. But as he got closer he knew he hadn’t. This was something else entirely.

He crouched next to her. The young doe had a foot-long gash in her side that still bled into the clear water. What did this? Nate didn’t know what would do this. He could see clear into her. It didn’t appear as though anything was missing; she remained intact. So this kill was not for food.

Paranoia crept up on him. He lifted his eyes to the shady woods, then back up the creek bed where the water rushed toward him, threatening to overflow the banks. He swiveled to glance over his shoulder at still more forest, more water. It could be anywhere . . . watching me. Lurking in that stand of hemlock, concealed behind that boulder.

When Nate returned his gaze to the deer he was shamed by her unblinking, incriminating stare. Why didn’t I help you? He ran his hand across the patch of white adorning her chest. “I’m sorry.” He felt himself choking up. “Why did this happen?” If I couldn’t save Melanie Rhone, who can I save? Nate swallowed his tears and swiped angrily at his stinging eyes with the back of his wrist. Three murders he lay witness to now: the doe, Melanie, and Hawkin Rhone.

The last, a while ago. Five years. After the children had confessed what happened, Nate and Jules Foster had hurried out across Three Fools Creek and found what was left of the baker in a wet pile next to the cabin’s only door. It appeared the man had been trying to crawl into the shelter of the cabin but something got him before he could make it through the doorway.

“Was it an animal that killed him?” Nate had asked the doctor hopefully.

“Could be animals got at him after he was already dead,” Jules replied.

Either way, Hawkin Rhone’s remains were a snarled, soaked pile and even Dr. Foster couldn’t sort them out.

But that was hardly murder, Nate reminded himself. If Sean Adair hadn’t hit the man, had instead run away to get help, who knows what Hawkin Rhone would’ve done to Hazel? And nobody missed him when he was gone. Zachary Rhone had seemed almost relieved when Nate went to him and said that he was sorry, but he’d been to the cabin and while he couldn’t be certain, it looked as though a bear had gotten the better of his father.

Sean had protected Hazel, and nobody ever saw a good reason to punish him for that. Nobody had ever even brought it up again. Until now. Now an exhumation felt imminent. Pard Holloway had threatened as much to keep Nate from getting the help from down mountain that Nate was convinced they needed. “We are the authorities, Winslow,” Pard said Monday night, back before it was too late, “and we clean up our own messes around here. You know that better than most.”

So Nate had had to go along with the quarantine, with not radioing for a doctor, because now it was his turn to protect Hazel and Sean.

Staring at the wound that gaped along the doe’s side, he felt devastated.

He placed the Smith & Wesson on a flat rock, grabbed hold of the deer beneath the ribcage, and pulled her out of the creek. He could do that at least. Corpses pollute. “I’m sorry,” he repeated as he released her into the ferns.

He returned to the creek bed and plunged his hands into the cold water, scrubbing his palms together and then wiping them dry against his pants.

When he turned and reached for the gun, it was gone. Oh, no.

Defenseless, he jerked his head from side to side. Where was the gun? Where was the creature? Nate knew it could rip him to shreds in seconds, his only shield his bare hands, and the thing would bite off his fingers before tearing through his tendons with its barbed claws.

Feeling it at his back he spun around—not ready to face it but left with no choice—and there it was.

The gun. Right where he’d left it.

He stooped to pick it up (too relieved to berate himself) and offered one last apology to the doe before turning away from the creek.

Calm down. Your heart’s beating too fast. You’ll have a heart attack like Dad.

Then what good will I be to anyone? You’re no good now. You know that.

Have I moved? My feet are stuck in these bristlecones. So crunchy and dry. I hope there’s not a fire. I’m hot. I’ll get in the creek. The water smells clean. No—don’t get any closer to the edge. Stay here. Keep the revolver out. It’s safe here. But while I’m out here, nobody’s safe.

Okay. Then I’ll track it down and make sure it doesn’t hurt anybody else. I smell you . . .

Nate climbed up the embankment to the trail. “I’m sorry, Anabel, that I let you down. I’m sorry, Melanie. I’m sorry, Hazel.”

Go find it. He resumed hiking down the path, heading east toward the ponds. Go now.

“Don’t lose the scent,” he instructed himself. “That’s what Dad would say. Don’t lose your bearings.”

Bearings. Nate suffered a sinking sensation. Losing . . . He blew out his breath. Lost.

I wish I didn’t know. Now he felt his brain weeping—twisting and wringing with sobs. Better not to know. And if only I’d lose it a little bit more, then I wouldn’t have to know anymore.

What am I thinking?

He kept his eyes on his feet, trying to stay on the path and not lose himself to the trees. But he knew; he understood: “I’m thinking it’d be better not to know that I’m losing my mind.”





GHOST TOWN TOUR

A ring around the moon means soon it will rain. A red ring heralds something worse. Once the moon rose last night Patience Mathers saw the red ring. There was no use denying it: the ill omen that misfortune would soon befall her or someone she loves.

Patience clapped her hand around the charm bracelet on her opposite wrist and walked toward the tourists waiting at the entrance to Matherston. It seemed even dustier than usual so she looked down and saw her pony-hair boots kicking up dirt, and she was almost there when she realized she didn’t have on her Victorian dress. Too late now, she’d have to give the tour in the rodeo outfit she’d changed back into after Hazel abandoned her in Prospect Park.

I don’t want to do it I don’t want to.

When she reached the half dozen tourists she said, “Look—I’m shaking.”

And they looked at her shaking.

She said, “Welcome to Matherston.”

And they said, “Give us the ghost town tour!”

“If you’ll follow me,” Patience turned and led the group up Prospectors Way, “we’ll start with the blacksmith shop on the right and the livery stable next door where you’ll see a collection of mining equipment, including the original Burleigh drills and rolling mounts.”

But they passed the livery without stopping, clomping along the warped plank sidewalk.

Patience felt faint. It was too hot and she felt thirsty and empty and weak. “Hazel told me I’m looking for more trouble,” she said, “but that’s not true. Trouble is coming even if we close our eyes.” She glanced back and saw the tourists spread out all over the place, not even listening to her. “Pay attention!” she reprimanded. “Stay with the group!”

Hazel never pays me attention, except when I said he wanted me.

“I begged her don’t leave me, I need you,” Patience told the tourists. “She knows what the crystal ball said, but doesn’t care. She only says, ‘Where’s Sean? Where’s Sean?’”

“Where’s Sean? Where’s Sean?” the tourists echoed.

“I could tattle on him, you know? Tell what he did that summer across the creek.”

“What did he do?”

“But I crossed my heart and hoped to die.” I don’t want to die—

Patience abruptly halted in front of Holloway Harness. It’s so simple, she suddenly realized. I’ll find him first.

She faced the group. “I’ll find him first—he’s so sick, I could see that when he tried to kiss me—and then she’ll know how it feels to be low fruit nobody wants even if they are easy pickins and she’ll pay me attention and she’ll help me then.”

“You’re not giving us the tour!”

“Oh.” She glanced around at the false front buildings up and down Prospectors Way before pointing at the Chop House Restaurant across the street. “Thickest steaks and . . . and something else-est in the West courtesy of Holloway Ranch . . .” she trailed off.

“What now?” the tourists demanded.

Patience suddenly felt sick to her stomach all over again and bent at the waist and dry heaved over a hitching post. Then she stood, took a deep breath, straightened her suede vest, and looked into their expectant faces. “Now Hawkin Rhone is back to punish us for what Sean Adair did.”

“You’re scaring us!” the tourists cried.

“Me too,” Patience agreed and then led them through batwing doors into the Mother Lode. “This is one of three saloons in Matherston—”

The dog, Hazel Winslow’s familiar, was crouched beneath the cursed poker table, red fur matted, ears forward, wet eyes narrow. “Easy, boy, easy.” Patience held up her hands to placate the dog as he drew back his lips to bare sharp teeth. He smelled like mushrooms, which sent her stomach roiling again.

“What’s wrong, Patience?” the tourists behind her asked.

Then Jinx snapped his jaw.

She spun around and pushed past the tourists and through the doors, stumbling off the sidewalk onto the dirt road.

“What’s wrong?” they called after her.

But she was already running down Prospectors Way, crying and thinking, Why did she tell me to shut up? That’s no thing you say. Things are cooking. Now we’re cooking with gas, like Gramps always says. If only she would hear me, I know what’s cooking in that vile place. Gramps tells me and she should know too and be afraid.

Patience paused at the timber-framed entrance—soaked in sweat, hair hanging in her face—to look back at Matherston.

“I warned everybody,” she whispered, panted. “Dogs death, smoke fire, creeks rain. Cows on fire, bread on fire.”

She closed her eyes to it all. “I warned them they’ll come in threes.”





HIDE-AND-GO-SEEK

“Olly olly oxen free!”

Hazel’s voice had gone hoarse calling to them. She’d been searching everywhere and all she wanted was to see their little heads pop up from their hiding spot, to see them weaving their way to her between the apple trees.

In fact, she wished everyone would come out of hiding. She found it entirely odd: in a town so small, how could so many people be lost?

Her body thrummed with tension, nerves taut with paranoia. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

The orchard was hot and still and smelled of rotting fruit, although no apples clung to the branches or littered the ground. These trees are dead, she realized. She grasped a narrow gray branch and snapped it off. Ought to be chopped down and burned for firewood.

The bakery still smoldered down the hill. She’d skirted it first before looking for the children, trying to determine if Zachary Rhone were lurking about. But she hadn’t seen him or anybody else. Come out, come out . . .

The front door to the Rhone house had been hanging open like a slack mouth but there was no way in hell she was going in there. The second story appeared even more sloped than she’d remembered, the paint more severely blistered. From the recent heat wave, she supposed. Not going in there—uh-uh, no way.

Continuing now through the orchard graveyard, each tree a brittle corpse, she reached the far side of the orchard at the base of Silver Hill and yelled again with all she could muster, “Olly olly oxen free!”

Then she waited . . . while not a creature stirred.

Last night, the woman in the ballroom had cried, “Where are the children?”

“Hawkin Rhone got ’em.” Kohl Thacker had answered without hesitation.

That made Hazel’s pulse race as she approached a long wooden bin, appropriately kid-sized. Hoping coiled snakes didn’t spring out at her, she lifted the lid. Empty except for a dark red gemstone—the garnet ring she’d given to Daisy. She bent to retrieve it from the floor of the bin, mindful of her vulnerability since all anyone would have to do is kick her from behind and she’d tumble in. She snatched up the jewelry, then hopped back from the bin and let the lid bang shut.

Rubbing the cold stone of her grandmother’s ring, she blew out a long breath. “You aren’t here anymore,” she decided. “The fire scared you away.”

Then she noticed the ax lodged in the trunk of a decapitated apple tree. Her heartbeat skidded as she wondered if it were the same weapon that had been abandoned to the dandelions next to Melanie’s body. She averted her gaze, not wanting to consider it any further.

Instead, she glanced west toward the bridge, thinking that when Daryl came with the mail tomorrow and saw the bridge closed, she’d know something was really wrong.

Hazel clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, “Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

Can we wait that long?

“Tick.” No. “Tock.”

A lot could happen in one day. She thought about gangrene, about suffocated tissue and split black skin. Can spread to the rest of the body, the encyclopedia warned.

No, too much could happen in only one day.

Unable to stop herself, she looked at the ax again and thought, Who else will die if no help arrives? Her chest constricted painfully. How soon?

Panic propelled her forward. “Come out, come out!” Her voice rang shrill with desperation.

And then she prayed that they hadn’t taken to the woods, because Bigfoot eats children for breakfast.


When Hazel reached Dead Horse Point, she expected to see the barricade blocking the bridge that spanned the Lamprey River canyon—the one way into town, the only way out. What she didn’t expect to see was the grain distributor’s flatbed truck wedged beneath the first truss.

“So much for Fritz Earley to the rescue.” Frustrated, she kicked dirt and rocks over the side of the cliff, wondering if anybody knew he was up here. If anybody cared. She imagined him living alone, eating cold cereal for dinner in front of his television.

Doc Simmons’ red Ford was crammed against the bridge railing and that didn’t sit well with her either. Did that mean that Daryl and her mail truck would simply be added to this collection? No help, no rescue, just a growing blockade until the bridge collapsed altogether under all that vehicle tonnage?

She watched five ranch hands mill about the barricade, and tried to suppress the panic she knew would do her no good. Trapped. Trapped like rats. The cowboys bore arms.

The sun continued its ascent in the cloudless sky, growing hot on her back. This day would bring no relief from the heat, no relief of any kind, she speculated. The pine trees looked dry and unhappy—braced for the misery of another afternoon in the furnace. The river below remained in shadow, but she could hear it: dark water slipping past as if there were nothing peculiar going on above its banks . . . just another ordinary Wednesday morning.

Every bug on the side of the mountain awoke then and mobilized to buzz around Hazel’s ankles and ears. Swatting at them, she paced along the edge and debated where to look next.

Her miserable arm was begging for mercy so she inventoried the contents of her pockets: Daisy’s garnet ring, the matchbook she took from Honey Adair in the kitchen of The Winslow, the bottle of eye drops, a half-empty box of candy, but no more Percocet. If only she’d known how desperately she’d need it, she would’ve taken the whole bottle from her grandmother’s medicine cabinet. As it was, not even the promise of a reprieve from pain could compel her to return to The Winslow—nothing seemed worth that.

Despite the turmoil of sugar that was her stomach, she sucked on a mouthful of hard candy as she stood on the brink, sensing the altitude and sheer nothingness all around. Nothing except Yellow Jacket Pass, empty of vehicles, just narrow blacktop indifferently and unhurriedly bending its way down the mountain. When she turned to glance at the ridge that rose behind her, she felt the void beyond those mountaintops as well, and recalled Tanner saying that they could all eat each other over the winter and nobody would even know. A Donner Party waiting to happen, she had agreed then.

I’m alone, she thought now, with both wonder and dread. We are so alone.

She noticed for the first time how precariously the boulders were balanced in their haphazard formations up and down the mountainside. And across the canyon, the leaves on the aspens shimmered in the sunshine as if the trees wore sequined gowns.

Then it occurred to her: Maybe this isn’t just happening here—maybe it’s happening everywhere, the whole country, the entire world. Somehow, the notion brought her comfort.

She popped more candy into her mouth, wondered how many horses really had toppled over this point to their deaths. After inching closer to the edge she peered down into the ravine. And the lure of gravity pulled, willing her to fall off and plunge into the Lamprey River below . . . and the candy box slipped from her fingers and went bouncing down the rocky side. So this is how it happens.

Snapping her body out of gravity’s grip, her jaw clamped down on a piece of hard candy and her right rear molar cracked with an ugly sound and a bolt of pain, followed by a shiver of shock chasing down her spine.

“Help me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs across the chasm, and drawing her breath through her mouth brought fresh agony as air brushed the exposed nerve.

Tears flooded her eyes. Maybe she should just leap off. It’d be quick, and at least she’d know what to expect. No skeleton but my own.

Instead, she plopped down, defeated, into the dirt.

There was no stopping it now, the messy shaking kind of sobbing like when she was seven years old and fell out of the big oak in Prospect Park. Like then, she was crying more from fear than pain. And she felt that same eerie sensation: free falling backwards through space out of the tree, dreading the landing but wishing it would finally come all the same. When she’d at last hit the ground, all the wind had whooshed out of her as she smacked down flat on her back. After her breath had returned, she ran home hysterical to her dad, who scooped her up and hurried her over to Dr. Foster’s to get her all patched up.

Who can I run to now? She adjusted her arm where it lay against her ribcage, wincing at its objection. Who will patch me up now?

She became aware of a presence just behind her, something that had snuck up as she cried on the precipice. It breathed hot against her shoulder. Trapped. There was nowhere for Hazel to go but down.

“Brraghh,” the breathing thing noised in her ear.

Hazel turned and caught a hairy mouth against her cheek and one huge brown eye staring into hers. “You again.” She recognized the creature from the church cemetery. Hazel pushed the cow’s gigantic head away so she could stand up without tumbling into the river. “Are you following me?” With her left hand, she kept her right cheek pressed into her mouth so her breath wouldn’t twinge the bare nerve again when she spoke.

“Brraghh.”

Hazel smiled a painful, lopsided smile. “Okay, let’s go find them.”

The cow followed her only so far, losing interest when she happened upon a patch of clover.

“Bye . . .” Hazel wiped her wet face with the hem of her tank top, already missing the company, and wishing Jinx were by her side like he always used to be even when she’d tell him to get lost.

Intending to go and erase Sean’s puzzling apology, hoping to find the kids along the way, she headed for the woods to continue on the path that would take her to the granite wall. Only to stop a few feet away when her right tennis shoe smacked into something disturbingly soft.

She forced herself to look down.

Molly.

She cupped her hand across her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. Rose and Owen Peabody’s dog, Jinx’s girlfriend, whose favorite leftover at the Crock was turkey potpie.

Hazel bent over her and pushed aside tall weeds. The Lab had been shot once between eyes that looked more like marbles now.

Hazel popped back up and scanned the tree line. Who would shoot her?

Returning her gaze to Molly, she noticed the dog’s mouth was bloodied; broken teeth lay scattered in the dirt around her body. Hazel made a whimpering noise as her stomach lurched and her bones turned to marshmallow.

She suddenly felt exposed, a sitting duck, and headed for the cover of the forest.

Molly had been sick; that much was clear. So maybe somebody had put her out of her misery?

Oh, no. Hazel’s paranoia ramped up. What if somebody’s putting people out of their misery? She thought of Rose and the others in the ballroom of The Winslow: sick, helpless, scared out of their broken minds. What can I do about it? Hazel felt horrified. What can I do?

Shaking, she forced herself to push all thoughts out of her mind except finding Sean and the kids. All else would have to wait.

If it will wait, she thought with renewed alarm.

“Don’t think about it,” Sean told her that July day a million years ago, right before he gave her a gentle shove to keep her moving through her fear. “Just go.”

Don’t think, she thought now. Just go.

She waded through the woods until reaching the ruins of Matherston Miner’s Camp, a tilted assortment of hand-hewn log cabins smothered beneath eighty years’ worth of brambles. Once she stopped crunching down the trail, she heard singing. She ducked behind a rusted-out wagon and watched.

Half a dozen people were gathered around an unlit fire pit, singing some hippie-sounding song, while Hap Hotchkiss pushed his lawnmower in a big circle around them.

They’re happy, Hazel marveled and stood up. Nothing to fear here, she picked her way toward them, avoiding rotted boards and rusty nails. Closer, she saw that inside the pit they had piled stones, pinecones and wildflowers.

Emily Bolinger, James’s tall mother, who taught the occasional art class at their school, greeted Hazel with a warm smile. Then she frowned. “You’re hurt, Hazel Winslow.” Gently, Emily stroked her blood-encrusted arm, then touched the hand that Hazel held pressed against her cheek to protect her tooth.

“I’m okay,” Hazel lied. “How are you?”

Emily cocked her head. “I’m different than I used to be.”

“Is that good?” Hazel couldn’t tell.

“I haven’t decided. I also haven’t decided whether or not I’ll fly off the bridge.”

“Don’t do that, Emily. That would not be good. Okay?” Hazel waited for Emily to nod convincingly before she asked, “Have you seen Sean Adair?”

Emily finger-combed Hazel’s long, tangled hair, looking as if she might cry out of pity. “You poor girl.” Emily caressed Hazel’s cheeks. “There, there.”

Hazel wanted to beg Emily to adopt her, beg her to do and say more motherly things because she found it so comforting. Instead, she asked, “You knew my mother, didn’t you?”

The question seemed to puzzle Emily. Then she replied, “None of us really knew her. Did we?”

Sighing, Hazel found it impossible to imagine Emily ever leaving her own son, or locking him out of the house, for that matter, as James claimed his parents had done on Sunday night. But right now, she needed to stay on track. “Have you seen Aaron Adair? The Rhone girls?”

“No, but I’ve seen Heaven.” Emily twirled away, taking all of that comfort with her.

Hazel turned to Hap Hotchkiss. “Have you seen—?”

He shook his head, looked sympathetic.

No use, Hazel thought.

As she walked away, back into the trees, Hap called after her, “You can stay with us, Hazel, if you like. You’re welcome to.”

She continued toward the trail. This was confusing. They were happy. Were there others like them? She realized some people must be holed up in their houses, sick or otherwise, like Constance and Chance Mathers, and maybe they have no idea what’s going on.

Maybe I should stay with Emily and Hap—

Hazel halted. A figure stood on the trail up ahead. From so far back it looked to be half man/half ape with long dark hair.

And she had to wonder: Am I hallucinating too? The cow, Molly, the hippies . . . now a Sasquatch?

The shape dashed away. Hazel could trace its movement by the upset of low branches as whatever it was cut a path through the woods and then disappeared over the rise.

Am I hallucinating?

Maybe her arm was infected and causing delirium. Maybe she was losing her mind too.

The horror of it struck then—maybe she’d already lost it. Or worse: Maybe I’m the only one and none of this is even happening. Maybe I’m straightjacketed in the rubber room at Stepstone Sanitarium loaded on Lithium and drooling like a toothless hag.

“That’s too easy.” She laughed a little, like a crazy person would. “That’s way too easy.”

Besides, what difference would it make? There was no getting off this ride now.