Jack & Jill (14 page)

             
"Are you hurt?"

             
Should have told Sheila to send Dale. He'd know what to do
. Admitting this to himself only made him angry that
he
didn't know. Sucking in a quiet breath, one hand still on his holster, the other holding the flashlight, he moved closer to the woman.

             
"Ma'am? You've been in an accident."

             
She froze, and so did he. Slowly, she looked over her shoulder at him. He had the impression of a cold blue eye narrowed in suspicion, saw the pale slope of a cheek striated with old scars and new blood, and then she spoke. "Take...your child," she said in a voice her broken nose had made dull and stuffy.

             
She might have smiled at him. He wasn't sure, and when he raised the light to her face, she flinched and turned away. A moment later, she was jerking and stabbing the road again. Rather than approach her from behind, which he felt might be a mistake, he turned back and rounded the car on the other side which meant that he was half in the ditch, but at least this way she'd be able to see him coming.

             
As he drew close again, he was forced to remove his hand from the holster to steady himself against the ruined Dodge or risk losing his footing on the dew-slick grass. She did not look up at him, but at last he was able to see what she'd been doing.

             
She had a thick white nub of chalk in her hand, and she wasn't stabbing anything; she was drawing.

             
"Ma'am, can you tell me if you're hurt?"

             
"Go 'way," she mumbled. "I'm dot fiddished."

             
There was glass embedded in her face, a piece the size of a dime protruding from the skin just below her eye. Blood was pouring from her badly broken nose, and he knew he had to get her back into town before she did something to make it worse, maybe slapped herself like crazy people tended to do when they got frustrated with their own mangled thoughts, and drove that busted bone right up into her brain. Sure, it wasn't likely anyone was going to care whether she died or not, and he'd been out here long enough to figure she was alone, but he had his conscience to worry about.

             
He lowered the light to the drawing. From his position by the car, one leg on the road, one in the ditch, and his head cocked to one side, it was difficult to make out what it was. Within a ragged circle was what appeared to be a crude picture of some kind of animal's head. A horse, perhaps, but with a mouthful of jagged teeth better suited to something more predatory. Hell, for all he knew she'd been trying to draw a dinosaur. It was a simple, almost childlike depiction, and the fact that she had chosen to do it here and now, after an accident, told him his initial concern that she had come from a mental hospital might turn out to be right on the money after all.

             
"Ma'am, I'm not going to hurt you. If you'll come with me, I can get you fixed up. Get you warm, and—"

             
Abruptly, she rose. Her bones cracked and popped. Glass tinkled to the road from where it had been stuck to the flesh of her hands and knees. Other pieces sparkled from where they had been driven into her skin. Streamers of red ran down her bruised and dirty legs. She stood there, weaving slightly, her unruly hair keeping her face in shadow but for the gleam of one eye. She looked like a witch, and though he didn't quite know it then, ever after that night, that's how he would think of her.

             
"Easy, Miss," Bryce said uneasily. "I'm here to help."

             
"Don't touch me," she said. "You always touch me."

             
The moment felt loaded with tension, a taut wire that could snap or bind them together forever depending on what happened next. He edged closer, trying to make himself look smaller, less imposing, less of a threat, and reached a hand out to her. There was only about six feet between them.

             
She raised her left arm and pointed to his right, into the trees and the tall grass on the opposite side of the road. He risked a quick glance but saw nothing but shadows. Had someone else been with her after all? Someone who maybe had gone to get help? He was about to ask when she spoke again.

             
"Take your child," she said, and now he understood that she was not addressing him at all, but some figment of her feverish imagination, or some memory that would never mean anything to anyone but her. "Follow the signs."

* * *

Learn more about
The Witch
and other titles by Kealan Patrick Burke at his
Amazon page
.

* * *

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in Dungarvan, Ireland, Kealan Patrick Burke is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of five novels (
Master of the Moors
,
Currency of Souls
,
Kin
,
The Living
, and
Nemesis: The Death of Timmy Quinn
), over a hundred short stories, four collections (
Ravenous Ghosts
,
The Number 121 to Pennsylvania & Others
,
The Novellas
, and
Theater Macabre
), and editor of four acclaimed anthologies (
Taverns of the Dead
,
Quietly Now: A Tribute to Charles L. Grant
,
Brimstone Turnpike
, and
Tales from the Gorezone
, proceeds from which were donated to children's charity PROTECT.)

Kealan has worked as a waiter, a drama teacher, a mapmaker, a security guard, an assembly-line worker at Apple Computers, a salesman (for a day), a bartender, landscape gardener, vocalist in a grunge band, and, most recently, a fraud investigator. He also played the male lead in
Slime City Massacre
, director Gregory Lamberson's sequel to his cult B-movie classic
Slime City
, alongside scream queens Debbie Rochon and Brooke Lewis.

When not writing, Kealan designs covers for print and digital books through his company
Elderlemon Design
. To date he has designed covers for books by Richard Laymon, Brian Keene, Scott Nicholson, Bentley Little, William Schoell, and Hugh Howey, to name a few.

In what little free time remains, Kealan is a voracious reader, movie buff, videogamer (Xbox), and road-trip enthusiast.

His short story “Peekers” is currently in development as a feature film at Lionsgate Entertainment.

Visit Kealan on the web at
www.kealanpatrickburke.com
.