The Bargaining (33 page)

I see her now, her green Converses with their dragons doodled on the rubber soles. She's staring up at the moon. Stars form a halo over its big, glowing face.

“You're going to freeze out here.”

“I don't feel a thing,” she says. I narrowly miss crushing the
­needle under my foot, and I sit on the other side of her to put some distance between me and it.

“You should come back to the fire.”

“There's nothing for me over there.”

“I'm over there,” I say.

“You're nothing,” she says.

“I know.” Her words don't sting. I've already felt the venom of them, my skin numb to her bite now.

“You should have just drifted away,” she says. “Isn't that what you do when you don't want to be where you are anymore? You just float away?”

“Maybe,” I say, staring up at the stars she's staring at. And for the first time, I think we might be able to share them. “But I was afraid if I did that, I'd just drift forever.”

I turn to look at her, but her eyes are glass reflecting the sky.

“I have to tell you something,” I say.

“Say it then,” she says.

“I'm sorry.”

“I am, too,” she says. “Because it's your turn now.” She faces me suddenly, her drooping eyes as white as the moon. “You're it.”

The heat on my face shocks me awake, but I don't move. Because even though my nightmare has ended, it left something behind in the room with me.

A gurgling so close, its breath threatens to melt my skin. A pressure on the bed that tells me it's inches away.

When I open my eyes, the ones staring back at me are whited out but far from blind. Pearlescent skin turns almost purple under the sweeping clouds from outside the window, veins so close to the surface they threaten to break through. The gurgling comes from somewhere deep inside the little boy, but it's not emanating from his mouth, even though it's open so wide the blackness threatens to swallow me. The gurgling grows high in pitch, escalating to a maniacal laughter. The skin beneath his eyes sags to the bottom of his face.

I try to roll away, but the sheets twist and bind my feet, ensnaring me. The boy lunges, and his hand is around my wrist, his long, bony fingers with nails like curled, crisp leaves. They pierce my skin under his grip.

I try to scream, but my lungs are thick and heavy, choking the sound back. I wrench my wrist free and disentangle my feet to find my boots still on. I kick the side of his jaw, but it's softer than it should be, and I only succeed in giving him another limb to grab.

With horrifying speed, he rips me from the bed and drags me to the floor, my knuckles scraping wood planks when my fingers fail to grasp something—anything—to hold.

He drags me to the open window, and with a snap of strength from someplace that could never exist in an actual child, he's hoisted himself out the window, his full weight on my leg.

I kick the dry night air, the rain betraying me now as it hides in the clouds. In another second, he'll pull me out of the window with him.

I slide a few more inches out the window. The boy's nails are dragging across my skin, and I feel the searing pain of flesh tearing.

Warm trickles slide down my calf under his unnatural grip, and his long fingers slip to my ankle.

One more wild flail at freedom releases his hold so fast, I fall hard to the floor of the bedroom.

I try to find the air that can't fill my lungs, but my eyes are watering now, and the air in the room is hazy and ­sweltering.

I slam the sash closed to the threat that found its way in through that same bolted window, and I nearly collapse under the billowing smoke that fills the room instantly.

I crawl into the hallway and see the room with the mural engulfed in orange flames. The pile of mattresses leading to the closet forms a mountain of tinder on which the flames climb, licking the ceiling and spreading like corrosion across
every surface, lighting wood and wallpaper and blankets and everything else it touches.

Everything but the wall with the mural.

The flames have melted the paint to oozing streams, the wall bleeding all around the boy's face. His eyes are as white as the primer that streams to the molten floor underneath him, the skin below drooping to the painted grass. His jaw is open in a scream I can finally hear. It sounds like the hiss and wheeze of wood being eaten alive.

Smoke overtakes my vision, and I squeeze my burning eyes, backing away from the room at the end of the hall. But just as I crawl away from the epicenter of the fire, I see through the ripple of smoke filling the upstairs glimpses of those same pearlescent hands and purpled veins wrapping their twig-like fingers around the frames of windows that should be closed. White eyes emerge, bodies dragging toward the doors.

Toward me.

I scramble to my feet and stumble down the stairs. Each gasp for air fills my lungs with a thickness that hardens them against expanding, and I resist the urge to collapse in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

The screaming from upstairs has given way to the crackle of flame, but I know that those white hands are close. The
blood from my ankle puddles in my boot and slicks the back of my heel, chafing the skin.

I round the corner to April's room, and the smoke is so thick it takes me a second to find her. She's in bed in a sleep so deep, I know right away it isn't sleep at all.

“April!” I wheeze, but it doesn't matter. She's inhaled too much smoke to raise her from unconsciousness.

I hoist her from the bed and hook my arms under hers, backing out of the room in time to see a white hand close over the railing at the top of the stairs. With the same speed the boy ripped me from my bed and halfway out the window, this boy takes three lunging steps to the middle landing.

Just above the roiling smoke that billows down the stairs toward us, choking only the living, I see something different about this boy. A purple cap with the head of a wolf emblazoned across the top.

“Danny,” I wheeze. It's a whisper, nothing more, but it's enough for him to hear. His mouth, already on its way to dropping to horrifying depths, closes, and his eyes clear of their white. In their place, I see the clearest green.

I see the fog of confusion and anguish clear. The smoke lifts for a single second, and in it I see the same realization in his eyes that Miller's father must have seen when he left him for the woods to take. I see the comprehension fill a
face too young to experience a betrayal that deep.

And maybe it's the memory I've forced him to recall that sends the white back over his eyes. His bottom lip drops, his jaw softens, and his mouth opens to a giant, gaping hole as he takes another step down the stairs.

I race to the front door and drop April on the other side before reaching back to pull her car keys from the hook. A veined hand closes over my wrist just as I pull back.

“NO!” I gasp as I pull the door closed hard over the arm attached to the hand. I slam it twice more before it loosens its hold, and I lock it shut against my attacker, knowing that will only buy me a few extra seconds. I hoist April over my shoulder and carry her to the jeep with the same sort of strength I've heard mothers find when they lift cars off their trapped children.

I shove her into the passenger seat and climb behind the wheel, throw the jeep in reverse and come within inches of a tree before shifting to drive in time to see pale arms and legs sliding from open windows, fire devouring what they don't cling to.

My throat and nose burn as I force my shaking hands to grip the steering wheel. April slumps in the seat next to me, and I consider the horrifying thought that I didn't find her in time, that she inhaled too much smoke. I reach for her wrist, but I can't get my hands to stop trembling long enough
to find her pulse. I try to pat her face, but I only succeed in tapping the side of her head.

“April? Wake up. Please wake up!” My voice rakes across my throat, but I'm relieved to have something more than a squeak finally leave it.

The jeep's wheels struggle over the still muddy road, the sticky earth even more impossible to drive on now that it's had a few hours since the rain stopped to start to dry. A shudder of lightning illuminates the tree line, and a growl of thunder follows it. I press the gas a little harder.

“Just get to the road,” I tell myself, the thought of asphalt like a white knight. “Get to the gas station.” It's the only place close enough to civilization that might have a pay phone I can use. I'll call an ambulance for April. They could send a fire truck for the house, but the entire North Woods can disintegrate to a charred mass for all I care.

The jeep finds another hole, and I temporarily lose control of the wheel. Mud clings to the bald tires and they slide over thinner patches of earth as I overcorrect in one direction to nearly hit a tree on the opposite side of the narrow road.

I've almost righted the jeep when I see a glistening ­puddle of water directly in front of me, the ripple of moon waving to stop me. But I'm too late, and we hit the hole hard, the motor
whining as I pump the gas, sending us deeper into the mud.

“Come on. Come on!” I scream at the wheel. But it's no use. The tires spin and spit up mud, and the more I try, the deeper I grind the jeep into the road.

April is still slumped in the seat beside me, but a deep moan emanates from her laboring vocal cords.

“April, wake up!” I hiss, unable to find my full voice.

April moans, then slumps deeper. I have never felt more acutely alone than I do in this moment.

I kill the engine and search the backseat for one of our purses, which would have a phone. But I know I won't find them. I'm positive my purse is still somewhere upstairs in the burning Carver House, and who knows where April left hers. But we're still in the grip of the woods, so it's not like I would get a signal, anyway.

I look out of every window I can. The trees are so close, they tap the top of the jeep, sending tiny shocks of fear through my skin. Still, I don't see any sign of those horrific white eyes.

I open the door slowly and swing my legs out, landing on the ground hard enough to splash droplets of mud across my jeans.

My calf still burns where the boy tore through my skin, but I won't let myself think about that now. I see it's the rear
driver's side tire that's stuck, entrenched in a mass of mud that sucks at the bottoms of my boots.

“Leaves,” I say to myself, the sound of my voice slightly more reassuring as the rasp of smoke inhalation clears the tiniest bit more. I search the surrounding area for anything that'll provide traction. I scoop up slick leaves and pine ­needles, even a few sticks from the sides of the road, shoving them underneath the tire at its front.

I stand back, check the road behind us once more, check the tire again. I start the car and feel the tire catch some traction, but not enough.

“Just a little more.” My heart quickens. I might get us out of here after all.

And then, just as I crouch to gather one last armful of leaves, I hear the humming. The song emanates from an ancient throat, choking on the melody as it dissolves into a frantic giggle.

I drop the leaves and throw myself at the car door, but I'm too late. Hands encircle each of my ankles and yank, whipping me high into the air and snapping me like a sheet caught in wind. I land heavy on the ground, my hands catching the blow just before my chin makes contact with the forest floor.

“APRIL!” I scream, my voice finally my own, but it's
no use. I see her head lift slightly, but it wobbles on her neck, disorientation still imprisoning her. And while she struggles to regain consciousness, she and the jeep grow smaller, the hands dragging me deeper and deeper into the forest.

I claw at the ground, bringing up handfuls of earth, rotting needles, and leaves and insects. I spit mud from my mouth and grab for branches. But each limb of each tree swats me away, making contact only long enough to slice thin cuts across my reaching arms. My stomach and chest flinch from the friction of the ground, and the hands drag me farther and farther from the road.

I scream, but I already know that these woods are full of unhearing ears.

Lightning cracks the sky open, and thunder follows it within seconds, sending buckets of rain pouring past the tree line and onto the ground. The hands around my ankles slip, and I seize that second of faltering, kicking out of their grip temporarily. But they find me again, grasping harder this time, nails puncturing my skin.

“Penny!”

The sound is so faint, I'm sure I haven't heard right. It could be April, but she'll be too late.

The moon breaks through the tree's canopy long enough
to illuminate the clearing, and I turn my head to see my captor, needles and earth raking my cheek.