Her voice sounded choked, and when Evan glanced at her, he saw it was Becky Tram dressed in scrubs. Her head was a mangled mess, oblong and crushed on the left side. Raw meat and gray bits of brain hung from shards of bone along her scalp, and her jaw sat like a partially sunken ship off to one side of her face.
Evan sucked in a breath to scream, his hand flying to his mouth. He blinked and saw the nurse coming toward him, concern on her very normal, very whole features.
“Sir, are you okay?”
Her hands reached out to steady him, and he nearly did scream as she touched him, sure that her skin would be cold and hard. Dead flesh.
“I’m fine. It’s a shock seeing him like this,” Evan said.
The nurse nodded, giving him a sympathetic smile. He realized she looked a little like Becky—dark hair, a little overweight, same chin. Just a trick of the light.
“I’ll leave you two be. You can push the call button mounted on the bed if you need anything.”
“Thank you.”
Evan watched her leave the room before he went to Shaun’s bedside. He placed a hand on Shaun’s forehead and smoothed back his hair. He could feel a few sticky spots where, he assumed, they’d attached the electrodes for the EEG.
“I’m sorry, buddy, really sorry.”
The blood-pressure cuff around Shaun’s bicep puffed up on its own accord, and he shifted. Evan glanced over his shoulder at the door, then leaned in close to his son.
“We’ll go home soon, okay? There’s no reason to stay anymore. I’ll write that article for Justin, and if we have to, we’ll move in with Uncle Jason for a while until we get back on our feet.”
Saying the words somehow made him feel lighter, less burdened, and he realized what it was. He was giving up on the clock, on the crazy idea that had plagued his thoughts ever since seeing Bob’s message in the basement.
“We’ll go home, son.”
Evan brushed Shaun’s hair back one more time, and then settled into the chair beside the bed to wait.
~
They pulled up to the dock at five in the morning. The storm that battered them on their journey in was gone. The air was cool and smelled rain-washed, fresh. The somber glow of dawn spread in the east, and Evan had never been so glad to see a sunrise. He carried Shaun up to the house, the feeling of his small arms wrapped around his neck comforting, so right. Evan didn’t want to put him down when they came inside. Shaun had woken on the ride back, but his eyes were only half slits when Evan placed him in his bed.
“You can go back to sleep, okay, buddy?” he said, spreading a blanket over him.
Shaun nodded and reached out with one hand toward Evan’s face. Evan leaned in, and Shaun’s fingers grazed the bit of stubble on his cheek.
“Da.”
“I’m right here, honey. Don’t worry.”
Shaun’s eyes fluttered and then closed. Evan waited beside the bed, anticipating the moment when his small body would arch again, wrung with pain and spasms that he couldn’t bear to watch again.
I’d rather die than see him go through that one more time.
He stood and made his way back out to the living room.
He hadn’t flipped on any lights when they entered, and the house held a smoky quality, with shadows beginning to give up their posts. Evan walked to the kitchen and observed the mess he’d created in his frenzy to find the winding key. He sighed. Despite his tiredness, he’d have to clean this up before Shaun rose for the day. He didn’t know if the boy would understand or not, but Evan was embarrassed by the scene of chaos. Silverware on the floor, towels strewn out of cupboards, plates and dishes stacked in uneven piles. He placed the heel of his hand against his right eye and wondered when he’d begun to lose his mind.
“You haven’t lost it yet, bub. Get your shit together,” he said, and strode toward the front door.
The blanket from their trip sat at the edge of the living room, along with the rain slicker. Evan picked them both up, intending to put the blanket on the porch to dry and the jacket back inside the closet. As he gathered up the slicker, he caught a powerful whiff of something. He paused and pulled the jacket to his face, inhaling. It wasn’t the jacket, and it didn’t smell like mold or mildew—more like something rotten. It smelled like the moment he’d opened the refrigerator their first day in the house.
Scowling, Evan sniffed once more, wondering if a mouse had crawled into the house and died. If so, he couldn’t see it in the dark. He snapped on the light near the entry and turned around to put the slicker away.
Two sets of toes poked out from under the closet door.
Evan stopped, his hand reaching out to pull the door open frozen, fingertips shaking. Every inch of his scalp cinched tight to his skull. The toes were discolored, the skin patched with purple and green, like mottled bruises or rot. The smell of decay grew stronger, but Evan couldn’t look away from the toes. Some of their nails were missing, and some were broken, sticking up like open car hoods. As he watched, the toes wiggled, a wave of motion from one direction to the other.
Evan wheezed a strangled breath and dropped his hand as he stepped back, his momentary paralysis broken. There was someone—something—in the closet, waiting on the other side of the door. His jaw trembled, and the thought of speaking withered away. As if reading his mind, the feet attached to the toes shifted, like whatever waited there was eager to come out, to open the door and rush at him. He didn’t want to see what was attached to those feet. Oh God in heaven, he didn’t want to see it.
Evan didn’t realize he was moving backward until his arm brushed something beside him, and he spun, raising a fist. The table lamp he’d bumped rocked on its edge, and he caught it before it fell to the floor. It was made of a heavy piece of lacquered oak, with a burnished brass base. Its cord draped out and led to a nearby outlet in the wall. With a jerk, Evan pulled the cord free, and yanked the lamp’s shade off. He gripped the lamp’s smooth torso like a batter waiting for a fastball.