The Winslow Incident (46 page)

Panic propelled her forward. “Come
out, come out!” Her voice rang shrill with desperation.

And then she prayed that they hadn’t taken to the
woods, because Bigfoot eats children for breakfast.

W
hen Hazel reached Dead Horse Point, she expected
to see the barricade blocking the bridge that spanned the Lamprey River
canyon—the one way into town, the only way out. What she
didn’t
expect to see was the grain distributor’s flatbed truck wedged beneath the
first truss.

“So much for Fritz Earley to the
rescue.” Frustrated, she kicked dirt and rocks over the side of the cliff,
wondering if anybody knew he was up here. If anybody cared. She imagined him
living alone, eating cold cereal for dinner in front of his television.

Doc Simmons’ red Ford was crammed
against the bridge railing and that didn’t sit well with her either. Did that mean
that Daryl and her mail truck would simply be added to this collection? No
help, no rescue, just a growing blockade until the bridge collapsed altogether under
all that vehicle tonnage?

She watched five ranch hands mill
about the barricade, and tried to suppress the panic she knew would do her no
good.
Trapped. Trapped like rats.
The cowboys bore arms.

The sun continued its ascent in
the cloudless sky, growing hot on her back. This day would bring no relief from
the heat, no relief of any kind, she speculated. The pine trees looked dry and
unhappy—braced for the misery of another afternoon in the furnace. The
river below remained in shadow, but she could hear it: dark water slipping past
as if there were nothing peculiar going on above its banks . . . just another
ordinary Wednesday morning.

Every bug on the side of the
mountain awoke then and mobilized to buzz around Hazel’s ankles and ears.
Swatting at them, she paced along the edge and debated where to look next.

Her miserable arm was begging for
mercy so she inventoried the contents of her pockets: Daisy’s garnet ring, the
matchbook she took from Honey Adair in the kitchen of The Winslow, the bottle
of eye drops, a half-empty box of candy, but no more Percocet. If only she’d
known how desperately she’d need it, she would’ve taken the whole bottle from
her grandmother’s medicine cabinet. As it was, not even the promise of a
reprieve from pain could compel her to return to The Winslow—nothing
seemed worth that.

Despite the turmoil of sugar that
was her stomach, she sucked on a mouthful of hard candy as she stood on the
brink, sensing the altitude and sheer nothingness all around. Nothing except
Yellow Jacket Pass, empty of vehicles, just narrow blacktop indifferently and
unhurriedly bending its way down the mountain. When she turned to glance at the
ridge that rose behind her, she felt the void beyond those mountaintops as
well, and recalled Tanner saying that they could all eat each other over the winter
and nobody would even know.
A Donner Party waiting to happen
, she had agreed
then.

I’m alone
, she thought now, with both wonder and dread.
We are so
alone.

She noticed for the first time how
precariously the boulders were balanced in their haphazard formations up and
down the mountainside. And across the canyon, the leaves on the aspens
shimmered in the sunshine as if the trees wore sequined gowns.

Then it occurred to her:
Maybe
this isn’t just happening here—maybe it’s happening
everywhere,
the whole country, the entire world.
Somehow, the notion brought her
comfort.

She popped more candy into her
mouth, wondered how many horses really had toppled over this point to their
deaths. After inching closer to the edge she peered down into the ravine. And
the lure of gravity pulled, willing her to fall off and plunge into the Lamprey
River below . . . and the candy box slipped from her fingers and went bouncing
down the rocky side.
So this is how it happens.

Snapping her body out of gravity’s
grip, her jaw clamped down on a piece of hard candy and her right rear molar
cracked with an ugly sound and a bolt of pain, followed by a shiver of shock
chasing down her spine.

“Help me!” she screamed at the top
of her lungs across the chasm, and drawing her breath through her mouth brought
fresh agony as air brushed the exposed nerve.

Tears flooded her eyes. Maybe she
should just leap off. It’d be quick, and at least she’d know what to expect.
No
skeleton but my own.

Instead, she plopped down,
defeated, into the dirt.

There was no stopping it now, the
messy shaking kind of sobbing like when she was seven years old and fell out of
the big oak in Prospect Park. Like then, she was crying more from fear than
pain. And she felt that same eerie sensation: free falling backwards through
space out of the tree, dreading the landing but wishing it would finally come
all the same. When she’d at last hit the ground, all the wind had whooshed out
of her as she smacked down flat on her back. After her breath had returned, she
ran home hysterical to her dad, who scooped her up and hurried her over to Dr.
Foster’s to get her all patched up.

Who can I run to now?
She adjusted her arm where it lay against her ribcage,
wincing at its objection.
Who will patch me up now?

She became aware of a presence
just behind her, something that had snuck up as she cried on the precipice. It
breathed hot against her shoulder.
Trapped.
There was nowhere for Hazel
to go but down.

“Brraghh,” the breathing thing
noised in her ear.

Hazel turned and caught a hairy
mouth against her cheek and one huge brown eye staring into hers. “You again.”
She recognized the creature from the church cemetery. Hazel pushed the cow’s
gigantic head away so she could stand up without tumbling into the river. “Are
you following me?” With her left hand, she kept her right cheek pressed into
her mouth so her breath wouldn’t twinge the bare nerve again when she spoke.

“Brraghh.”

Hazel smiled a painful, lopsided
smile. “Okay, let’s go find them.”

The cow followed her only so far,
losing interest when she happened upon a patch of clover.

“Bye . . .” Hazel wiped her wet
face with the hem of her tank top, already missing the company, and wishing
Jinx were by her side like he always used to be even when she’d tell him to get
lost.

Intending to go and erase Sean’s
puzzling apology, hoping to find the kids along the way, she headed for the
woods to continue on the path that would take her to the granite wall. Only to
stop a few feet away when her right tennis shoe smacked into something
disturbingly soft.

She forced herself to look down.

Molly.

She cupped her hand across her
mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. Rose and Owen Peabody’s dog, Jinx’s
girlfriend, whose favorite leftover at the Crock was turkey potpie.

Hazel bent over her and pushed
aside tall weeds. The Lab had been shot once between eyes that looked more like
marbles now.

Hazel popped back up and scanned
the tree line. Who would shoot her?

Returning her gaze to Molly, she
noticed the dog’s mouth was bloodied; broken teeth lay scattered in the dirt
around her body. Hazel made a whimpering noise as her stomach lurched and her
bones turned to marshmallow.

She suddenly felt exposed, a
sitting duck, and headed for the cover of the forest.

Molly had been sick; that much was
clear. So maybe somebody had put her out of her misery?

Oh, no.
Hazel’s paranoia ramped up.
What if somebody’s putting
people
out of their misery?
She thought of Rose and the others in the
ballroom of The Winslow: sick, helpless, scared out of their broken minds.
What
can I do about it?
Hazel felt horrified.
What can I do?

Shaking, she forced herself to
push all thoughts out of her mind except finding Sean and the kids. All else
would have to wait.

If it will wait
, she thought with renewed alarm.

“Don’t think about it,” Sean told
her that July day a million years ago, right before he gave her a gentle shove
to keep her moving through her fear. “Just go.”

Don’t think
, she thought now.
Just go.

She waded through the woods until
reaching the ruins of Matherston Miner’s Camp, a tilted assortment of hand-hewn
log cabins smothered beneath eighty years’ worth of brambles. Once she stopped
crunching down the trail, she heard singing. She ducked behind a rusted-out
wagon and watched.

Half a dozen people were gathered
around an unlit fire pit, singing some hippie-sounding song, while Hap
Hotchkiss pushed his lawnmower in a big circle around them.

They’re happy
, Hazel marveled and stood up. Nothing to fear here, she
picked her way toward them, avoiding rotted boards and rusty nails. Closer, she
saw that inside the pit they had piled stones, pinecones and wildflowers.

Emily Bolinger, James’s tall
mother, who taught the occasional art class at their school, greeted Hazel with
a warm smile. Then she frowned. “You’re hurt, Hazel Winslow.” Gently, Emily stroked
her blood-encrusted arm, then touched the hand that Hazel held pressed against
her cheek to protect her tooth.

“I’m okay,” Hazel lied. “How are
you?”

Emily cocked her head. “I’m
different than I used to be.”

“Is that good?” Hazel couldn’t tell.

“I haven’t decided. I also haven’t
decided whether or not I’ll fly off the bridge.”

“
Don’t
do that, Emily. That
would
not
be good. Okay?” Hazel waited for Emily to nod convincingly
before she asked, “Have you seen Sean Adair?”

Emily finger-combed Hazel’s long,
tangled hair, looking as if she might cry out of pity. “You poor girl.” Emily
caressed Hazel’s cheeks. “There, there.”

Hazel wanted to beg Emily to adopt
her, beg her to do and say more motherly things because she found it so comforting.
Instead, she asked, “You knew my mother, didn’t you?”

The question seemed to puzzle
Emily. Then she replied, “None of us really knew her. Did we?”

Sighing, Hazel found it impossible
to imagine Emily ever leaving her own son, or locking him out of the house, for
that matter, as James claimed his parents had done on Sunday night. But right
now, she needed to stay on track. “Have you seen Aaron Adair? The Rhone girls?”

“No, but I’ve seen Heaven.” Emily
twirled away, taking all of that comfort with her.

Hazel turned to Hap Hotchkiss.
“Have you seen—?”

He shook his head, looked
sympathetic.

No use
, Hazel thought.

As she walked away, back into the
trees, Hap called after her, “You can stay with us, Hazel, if you like. You’re
welcome to.”

She continued toward the trail.
This was confusing. They were
happy.
Were there others like them? She
realized some people must be holed up in their houses, sick or otherwise, like
Constance and Chance Mathers, and maybe they have
no idea
what’s going
on.

Maybe I should stay with Emily
and Hap—

Hazel halted. A figure stood on
the trail up ahead. From so far back it looked to be half man/half ape with
long dark hair.

And she had to wonder:
Am I
hallucinating too?
The cow, Molly, the hippies . . . now a Sasquatch?

The shape dashed away. Hazel could
trace its movement by the upset of low branches as whatever it was cut a path
through the woods and then disappeared over the rise.

Am I hallucinating?

Maybe her arm was infected and
causing delirium. Maybe she was losing her mind too.

The horror of it struck
then—maybe she’d already lost it. Or worse:
Maybe I’m the only one and
none of this is even happening. Maybe I’m straightjacketed in the rubber room
at Stepstone Sanitarium loaded on Lithium and drooling like a toothless hag.

“That’s too easy.” She laughed a
little, like a crazy person would. “That’s
way
too easy.”

Besides, what difference would it
make? There was no getting off this ride now.

I
mpossible as it was for Hazel to believe, her
tooth hurt even more than her elbow. Dueling agonies now, engaged in fierce
competition for her attention.

Rooftops of ramshackle buildings
on Prospectors Way came into view as the trail climbed toward Matherston. Five
more minutes and she’d reach the granite wall. Five more hot, exhausted minutes.

Matherston.
Her breath caught and her heart hiccupped.
I bet that’s
where Sean is, with the kids. That makes sense. They’re probably all together
in the assay office eating ice cream sandwiches.

The first pleasant thought she’d had
in days, she held onto it as she hurried toward the ghost town, embellishing
the image until everybody was there, kicking along Prospectors Way, feeling
better and licking the ice cream that melted down their arms. Sean and
Aaron—Aaron imitating Sean’s every move in that worshipful way he has.
Violet and Daisy chasing each other around the hitching posts. Her grandmother
with the calm returned to her eyes. And her dad, confident and brave in his
uniform, his arm sure and strong across Sarah’s shoulders. Owen and Rose Peabody
awake and looking like their old Popeye and Olive Oyl selves again. Even her
mother Anabel (why not?), still young because Hazel didn’t know what she looked
like now. And Jinx running elated circles around the girls . . .