KIN (37 page)

Kara had just lit a cigarette. Now she froze, smoke streaming out around the filter, and thought of the boy. More specifically, she thought of his truck.

She's waiting for an opportunity.

Their mother was at the doctor's office.

Kara was here.

You just gave her one.

"Damn it." As if by some miracle he might sense it, Kara cast a brief apologetic glance up at her boss's window on the fifth floor, then started the engine and reversed out of the parking lot fast enough to force the driver of an oncoming car to jam on his brakes and slam on the horn.

Tires screeching, she headed home.

*

She estimated she'd been gone from the house less than forty minutes, but it could have been a day for all the difference it made.

After only a few minutes, she quit searching the house. The silence that had greeted her should have been enough to confirm what she already suspected. The boy's truck was gone. So was the boy, and with him, Claire.

"Shit," Kara growled, struggling to keep the panic out of her voice because to hear it only worsened the fear that was trying to paralyze her.
Calm down
, she commanded herself.
They could be gone anywhere.

But they weren't, and she knew it.

Quickly, she made her way into the kitchen, and picked up the phone. She had already dialed 911 when she spotted the single piece of notepaper on the kitchen table. She did not hang up, but reached out and snatched up the page, reading as the call went through.

Dear Kara
, it said.
You know where I'm going. What you don't know, and probably wouldn't understand even if I broke it down for you, is why I'm going there. Pete, in his simple way, does. Together we're going to do this because we have to. There's no other way. I'm guessing you're gonna call the police on us. That would be you all over. But do me a favor. Give it a few hours. Give us a head start. If you don't, I promise you we'll find a way around it. We're young, not stupid. So do this for me. You've been trying to help, and I appreciate it even if you're a pain in the ass 90% of the time. Now's your chance to really do something for me. You never know. This might have a happy ending. Love, Claire.

Kara shook her head and crumpled up the note. The breath had evaporated from her lungs. She stared in shock around the kitchen.

I did this
, she thought.
This is my fault
.

Already she saw what it would do to her mother.

She pictured them standing over Claire's grave, the sky cold and gray, rain speckling the polished oak of the coffin.

"911. What is your emergency?" said a voice in her ear.

She's going to die down there, and I let it happen
.

"Hello?" said the dispatcher.

"I'm sorry," Kara said into the phone and ran a trembling hand through her hair. "I need the police."

*

Joshua was tired, and cold. Night was coming and the soft breeze had gathered strength, become a sharp chill wind that scoured the peak of the mountain, blowing red dust in his face.

He kept moving to keep the worst of the cold at bay, his eyes continuously scanning the flat plains that stretched out around the mountain. It was getting harder to see anything out there, and he didn't think whoever was coming would be dumb enough to have their lights on, so it seemed silly that he was up here at all. The thought took hold until it began to let suspicion creep in. What if Papa had posted him as lookout just to keep him out of the way? What if he was slowly beginning to wonder if all his children might be turning against him like Luke and Susanna had? He'd been a baby when his sister had been killed so didn't remember a whole lot about it, but from what Aaron told him, she hadn't gone quietly and so the end, for her, had been messy. Joshua wished he'd been there though because he couldn't imagine it being any different from the other people they'd killed and yet when Aaron spoke of murdering their sister, the gleam that entered his eyes told him it had been very special indeed. Perhaps she had been so corrupted she had changed, revealed her true hellish form before he'd stilled her heart. He'd never know because his brother only spoke about it when the mood came upon him, and never answered questions about it. But it didn't matter. She'd been poisoned and Papa had ordered her death. Luke had been poisoned too, and Joshua couldn't imagine what it must have felt like to spend so much time wrapped up in Momma's dead body. He shuddered at the thought of it, but knew if offered a choice between what Papa had done to Luke and what Aaron had done to Susanna, the former would be the obvious choice. Luke had been granted mercy, the chance at rebirth only because he'd been Momma's favorite. They all knew that. But Joshua was nobody's favorite and so he didn't much like the idea that he'd only been given the job of lookout because his usefulness to the clan was in question.

He stamped his feet and wondered if it would be wise to desert his post, just for a little while, long enough to find Papa and swear an oath that he hadn't been poisoned, that he would serve God until He chose to pluck him from the earth and make him an angel.

He shook his head and frowned, deeply troubled by the direction his thoughts had taken. He was
sure
he hadn't given Papa cause to doubt his devotion, but now the worry nagged at him.

Then a sound stopped his pacing and his thoughts at the same time.

He was facing out over the west side of the mountain, where a thin ribbon of dirt road threaded through the trees and twisted itself around for miles before coiling around the chemical waste facility and out into the world. From here the road was little more than a pale snake in the gloom, but from somewhere, he was sure he'd heard the distant drone of an engine. Such a thing might have gone unnoticed in a place where traffic was expected, and normal. But this was not such a place and so it registered immediately. For what seemed like hours Joshua stood frozen, ears strained, his heart thumping slowly in his chest.

Then, out there in the growing dark, a muted light pulsed briefly and was gone so fast Joshua wasn't sure he'd seen it at all. It had been as if a giant hand had passed in front of a lantern. He waited another few moments, breath held, the cold forgotten, eyes struggling to bring whatever was out there into focus, but it didn't come again. The trees were thick at the borders of the clearing, so it was possible he'd imagined it, that it had been little more than the effect of staring too long into the dark. But he didn't think so, and if he was wrong and ignored it, they might all pay with their lives.

Joshua allowed himself a smile, and turned to run down the rough path to the cabin. The urge to shriek the news was hard to restrain, but he was wiser than that and kept his mouth shut. It wouldn't take long before he could tell Papa what the old man had been waiting to hear.

He'd been right.

The angels hadn't misled him.

The coyotes had come.

But then he found the way obstructed by what seemed to be darkness itself and felt his muscles tense, a startled cry forming at the base of his throat as, in one fluid move, the man reached down to Joshua's belt and disarmed him, brandishing the handmade knife before shoving the boy to the ground.

Joshua struggled to keep his balance, his arms pinwheeling, feet digging into the ground. Luck was not with him, and he went down hard, his back thudding against the rocks, knocking the wind from him.

"Stay down, kid, and this'll go a lot easier for you," a voice commanded.

Breathless, Joshua rolled over onto his side.
Only one
, he thought.
There ain't but one voice
. Bolstered, he reached out, making it seem to his attacker that he was simply trying to find purchase in the uneven terrain. His hand found a rock, heavy and sharp.

The darkness swooped down on him as if to vomit its poison into him, or breathe the foul air from its lungs into Joshua's own, and he struck out, swinging his arm out, the sharp edge of the sandstone rock aimed at where he judged the side of the man's head to be. At the last second, a vice locked on his arm, halting the arc, and dismayed, the boy felt the rock slip from his grip and fall.

He opened his mouth to scream a warning.

The man straddled him, forcing the air out of him again, and pinning his arms to the ground.

He wheezed, struggled against the man's weight, sucked in a breath.

"Don't," his adversary told him.

The breath caught. Joshua tried to scream.

The man punched him in the mouth.

It felt as if the attacker had picked up the rock and rammed it into his face, and for a moment Joshua saw stars, felt teeth come loose and lodge in his throat. He coughed. His lungs burned. He tasted blood. His lips stung. And still he struggled, thrashing beneath the man who was sitting on his legs, kneeling on his wrists, his monstrous face barely visible in the dark, as if they were one and the same.

No
, he thought, panicked.
This can't happen. He'll corrupt me. He's too close.
Papa will—

Abruptly, the pressure left one of his arms as the man tore something with his teeth. In a moment of startling horror such as he had never in his life felt before, Joshua feared it was his flesh. It made a zipping sound as it came away from bone. But no, he knew the sounds of a flaying, and it never sounded like this. Most likely it was tape to bind him or keep him quiet. A second thought followed quickly on the heels of the relief: His arm was free.

He clenched his fist, dug the other hand into the stony earth and with all his strength, bucked his hips in an attempt to knock the man off balance. Success. The pressure vanished from his second arm as the man wobbled atop him. In one swift move, Joshua brought his left hand up and threw a fistful of stones and dirt in the man's face. With the other, he punched wildly, hoping to connect, but the blow glanced off the man's cheek. Adrenaline enhanced Joshua's efforts and he planted his palms on the ground, using them to lever his body out from under his assailant.

"Stop," the man said, but his words only made Joshua's struggles more frenzied. He flailed his fists, and the man caught one of them, squeezing until Joshua feared the bones were going to snap like kindling. It didn't deter him. He swung the other, his legs still pinned, an animal-like grunting low in his throat.

The man's free hand shot forward and Joshua saw the silvery sheen of a roll of duct tape before it crashed into his nose. He reeled back, his fist suddenly free, and the attacker's hands clamped around his throat, jerking him back and slamming him to the ground.

Dazed, Joshua wondered if it might be better to just concede defeat rather than return to Papa poisoned. The attack would seem like nothing if his father decided he needed to be cleansed. But instinct prevailed and he willed his head to clear, to enable him to see the man he was bound to rend asunder with his bare hands, as he had been taught. But his head wasn't clearing because the man was leaning into him, increasing the pressure around his throat, refusing him the air he needed and forcing the blood to thunder inside his head.

Possum
, he thought suddenly, and looked up at the man whose face was pure night, as featureless as the dark side of the moon. Possum. It was a trick. And he used it now.

His face contorted. He began to cry as much as he could without the air required to power it.

For a moment the man's grip did not loosen or the pressure ease, but he could tell by the stiffening of his body that he was affected.

"God...
help...me
..." Joshua croaked, gagging as the tears trickled down the sides of his face into the dirt. "For...give me..."

As he wept, Joshua recalled the instances in which he'd lain on the road or on the forest floor sobbing while at the same time listening to the approach of strangers, their voices high with concern—"Son, are you all right? You hurt?"—only to find themselves surrounded while Joshua stood and brushed himself off, his hand moving to the knife tucked in his belt.

The knife.

If only he could remember what the man had done with his knife after taking it from him.

His attacker's grip was slackening. Joshua scarcely dared believe it. Now, though drawing breath was still hard and burned his throat, it was progress, the first step toward turning the tables on the coyote.

The knife.

The man had stuffed it in his belt. He was almost certain. Joshua let his eyes drift down, imagined he could see the pale handle. He intensified his sobbing. "Please...I'm
so
rry..." and miraculously one of the man's hands moved away from his throat. One remained, but the grip was loosening, merely holding him down and no longer strangling him. Once again, Joshua's eyes found the spot where he imagined,
knew
, the knife to be. There was nothing keeping his hands pinned this time, and gradually, in excruciatingly slow movements, he allowed them to creep toward the man's belt.

"
Sorry
..." he whimpered, fingers like spiders creeping down his own legs toward his attacker's thighs.

Then the man's arm came back around, and though there was insufficient light to see what the black shape in his hand was, there was no mistaking the sound of a hammer being cocked.