*
The events of the day follow me into the disjointed world of my dreams. I’m at the Slabaugh farm, in the barn, standing a few feet from the manure pit. I’m holding a baby in my arms, and though I’ve never had a child, I know the baby is mine. I feel the connection as surely as I feel my heart beating in my chest, the blood running through my veins. James Springer stands before me. Only this apparition is not Springer. His eyes are the color of blood, and I see hatred in them, a barely controlled rage.
“Dirty Amish bitch,” he says.
He’s looking at my baby. His eyes burn red, and I see the veins pulsing in his face. I’m aware of the child’s warmth against my breast, and I know Springer wants to take him from me. He wants to hurt him. Kill him. I’m willing to die—or kill—to keep either of those things from happening.
When he lunges, I’m not fast enough to get away. I’m not strong enough to stop him. I feel hands on my arms and look over to see Willie Steele and his brother, Kevin, on either side of me. They yank me back, so violently that my head snaps forward and my teeth clack together. I lose my footing. Springer jerks the baby from my arms. Then the baby is falling into space. I struggle against the talonlike hands, fingers digging into my skin. I hear my own scream, so loud that it rattles my brain. But the hands that catch the baby are not mine.
Springer grins and looks down at the baby in his arms. I see rotting black teeth. He smells of death and decay. He stares down at the baby as if he wants to tear into it with his teeth, devour it, consume it. And in that moment, I know I’m going to kill him.
I reach for my sidearm, but my fingers fumble the grip. I grapple with my holster. I know my .38 is there, but I can’t get my hand around it. My certainty that I have the upper hand evaporates. Ten feet away, Springer holds the baby by its tiny foot, dangling it over the manure pit. The infant’s face is red. His cries ring in my ears, shatter my heart.
“Don’t kill my baby!” I scream.
Then I’m running toward them, but I’m not moving. When I look down, I see that my feet are immersed in black muck. And I know I’m not going to get there in time to save the baby. Already I feel the horrific loss the child’s death will cause; it’s like a baseball bat slamming into my body. The terrible shock of that is almost too much for my mind to bear.
Don’t kill my baby!
It’s Salome’s voice screaming the words. I look around, but she’s not there. When I look down, I’m wearing her blue dress. Don’t kill my baby! It’s Salome’s voice, but my thoughts. It’s my heart that’s breaking. My life that will end with the death of that child.
Springer’s fist opens. The child flails, then tumbles headfirst into the black muck of the pit. I scream out a name I don’t recognize. Then I hear the terrible splash, and I tell myself my baby can’t be gone, because I know God would never be that cruel. Not twice in one lifetime.
Then I’m falling. Above me, I see the rafters of the old barn. I smell the stench of the liquid manure. I feel the methane gas stealing the oxygen from my lungs. Then the black ooze rushes up and slams into me, as cold and black as death. The noxious liquid sucks me down, like a huge, voracious mouth swallowing me whole.
Blackness closes over me, but it doesn’t silence the baby’s cries. Nothing will ever silence that tiny voice, because it’s inside me. Hearing those cries and not being able to reach the child is like dying a thousand tortuous deaths. I thrash and struggle against the muck. But it sucks me down, smothering and digesting me until I cease to exist.
“Kate.”
I’m still thrashing when I wake. Tomasetti is leaning over me. Even in the dim winter light slanting in through the window, I see concern on his face, and I realize I must have cried out. I blink at him, shaken and embarrassed. A cold slick of sweat covers my entire body. My hands and legs are shaking, and I can still feel the dark grip of the nightmare. For several disorienting seconds, I think I can still smell the muck of that terrible pit.
“Jesus.” Sitting up, I shove the hair from my face. “I’m sorry.”
“You okay?”
I draw a deep breath, willing myself to calm down. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Must have been a bad one.” He sets his thumb beneath my chin and forces my gaze to his. “If I ask you how often that happens, would you tell me the truth?”
“Probably not.”
“Kate…”
I look at him, not liking the way he’s staring back at me, as if I’ve just been diagnosed with some fatal affliction. “It’s been a while,” I say after a moment.
He nods. “You want to talk about it?”
I try to smile but don’t quite manage to. “Think you could check under the bed first?”
“There’s no monster here.”
“Just you.”
“A monster with a heart.”