Everyone scrambled. Elise stumbled toward the den. Her vision blurred as if she was drunk. All the blood seemed to drain from her head. She kneeled behind a chair that faced the garage door and readied the shotgun in that direction. The woman screamed and moaned into the cold, dead air, the sound muffled by the walls. Elise’s sight narrowed over the weapon. She wondered how someone with evil intentions could scream like that woman. Maybe, she considered, most people would scream like that as their life approached such a dramatic end. Both good and evil people, if there was any distinction.
Chapter 25
NO ONE TRIED to invade the house, but that didn’t mean the woman outside died peacefully.
When the sun rose, she started wailing and moaning again. Sean couldn’t escape the sound no matter where he went in the house. It was like a sharp pick slicing through his ear canal and scratching against his skull. She wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t die.
He suspected people may be watching the house, waiting for an opportunity to ambush. It was Elise’s turn to cut wood, but he wouldn’t let her. For an hour midmorning, the woman made no noise and he let his hopes rise, but she returned with an even more bitter scream. She cried for the man lying dead next to her. She cried out to God to end her life. Sean wanted the same thing. He guessed she would freeze to death sooner rather than later, but she wouldn’t give up her life.
He tried to put on the best face he could, act like he was in control of his emotions, but inside he was breaking down. By noon he was at his scoped rifle in the upstairs window, hoping she would pop her head up so he could finish it. She wouldn’t feel any more pain. But she stayed hidden and wailed on.
It wore on everyone else too. Sean caught Molly in a secret meeting with Michael, Sean coming around the corner, Molly shooting a glance back at him and then turning away. Michael tried to act like they were just chatting, but Sean saw. Yes, he saw. Molly never had a problem looking her father in the eye before—he knew his daughter. And he knew Michael. Could imagine Michael turning her against him, whispering deception into her ear. Telling Molly how brutal and unnecessary his actions were—like he wasn’t making the hard choices to defend his family. Michael had never understood the situation they were in and still didn’t.
They parted, and Sean followed his daughter into the kitchen. She tried to rush out toward the living room. “Molly,” he called out.
She stopped and turned, her face splotchy, cheeks a hint of red. “Yeah?”
“Is everything okay?”
She forced an unnatural smile. “I’m fine, Dad.”
“You sure?”
She put her hands into the pocket of her oversized hoodie. “It’s okay.”
The woman outside wailed, and Sean cleared his throat as if it could cover the noise. “You know why I did it, right?”
“Did what?”
“Shot the woman. Listen, I wish it hadn’t happened this way. I just don’t know—”
“That’s not it, Dad.”
He didn’t believe her. If she was telling the truth, she would look him in the eyes instead of tilting her face toward the ground. “I know some people think I didn’t need to shoot anyone. But you have to understand, I did what I thought was right. Everything I do, I do because I’m looking out for you guys. I know the woman is in agony, and I’m not happy about it. I wish I could stop her pain. It’s awful—”
A tear dropped from one of her eyes. “Dad—”
The woman outside screamed again, and for the first time yelled a name:
“Sean!”
He froze. Then she said it again. Molly covered her mouth. He stared past her toward the door. The woman called again, asking if Sean was there. He saw beyond the wall to her, taking a step forward. Molly’s voice became muffled and distant as he moved closer to the front door. He came into the living room, and Elise emerged from somewhere, shock etched into her face, shock that he could have hurt someone that knew his name. Her lips moved, but he heard nothing. Just kept looking toward the front yard. The woman outside would turn everyone against him.
She needed to go.
His intestines twisted like he was digesting razor blades. He had killed someone before. He had shot the woman’s companion just last night. He could do it again.
His thoughts bounced to the opposite conclusions—ones that told him it was murder and he should bring her inside. She knew Sean. That had to count for something. The woman screaming outside wasn’t trying to invade their home. She didn’t have evil intentions. He shook his head. She needed to go. They had nothing to give her. She was a goner. And his family was beginning to hate him over it.
She knew him, yes.
But she had to go.
He turned to leave, Elise calling out for him, her words drowned out by a loud ringing in his ears. The ringing beckoned him toward what he needed to do and killed any dissenting thoughts. “Travers was right,” he said, interrupting whatever Elise was saying. She stopped. He said, “We’re still living in our sanitized little world like we can still live by the same rules.”
“Sean—”
“Sometimes we need to make the hard decisions. Do hard things.”
He marched toward the garage where he dressed in his outdoor gear until his body was covered except a small slit for his eyes. He grabbed his rifle from just inside the door. Elise stood nearby with her sweater pulled tightly over herself. “Sean, you don’t have to do this.”
Her expression told him otherwise. He said, “I did it. And I’ll finish it.”
He exited and sealed the door behind him. He pressed the stock of his gun into his shoulder and wrapped his finger into the trigger guard. Used his other hand to unlock the latch for the huge garage door and pull it upward, the sound of the wheels scraping the track like a cry from hell until the door came to rest in its upward position.
The cry was replaced by a rush of wind blowing against his clothing. Not a fast wind, but every gust seemed to bring the temperature down twenty degrees. He breathed into the cloth covering his mouth to warm his lips and took the first few steps out into the snow and ash. The vast land surrounding him looked like the remnants from a snowplow pushing slush to the side of the road. Grimy, ugly, black. The air smelled charred and sulfuric. The snow was up to his knees. He wobbled in the muck, his eyes set on the place where he knew the woman lay.
The breeze kicked up ash and snow across his field of vision, sometimes blinding him for a second or two. He watched for any movement in the distance and step by laboring step approached the snowbank.
The snow crunched under his feet like stepping on dried leaves. He pointed his rifle forward at the snowbank. When he was five feet from the edge, he heard the woman shift around and moan. He stopped, aimed his weapon up toward the sound. “Why don’t you come over here?” the woman called out. He didn’t move. Calmed his breathing. She called out again, “I could hear you coming. Come on over here.”
His mind was telling him to walk away, but his gut told him otherwise. And his gut hadn’t been wrong yet. He sidestepped, aiming down the sights of his rifle, and the woman came into view. First, he saw her feet buried in the snow. Then, her legs. A chunk of flesh was missing from her thigh. The snow around it was partially melted and stained a deep red that mixed with the soot.
She didn’t move a twitch when he came full into view and aimed his rifle at her chest. The dead man lay next to her, a splatter of blood curled around him where he had twisted and fallen after being shot. The woman was dressed in a thick jacket and her face was exposed, showing her blackened, frost-bitten skin. Her nose was the color of coal and her forehead was peeling. And Sean knew her.