Their walk through the brambles took longer than Cohen thought possible. He began to imagine he could see the light gathering in the east, the sun preparing to rise, but it was a trick of his mind and the sky stayed dark, except for the moon that hung at the tree line.
“What if it’s in there?” Cohen whispered at one point when the three of them stopped. They were at the edge of the hollow, and his eyes went from window to window to window. Even in the dark, he could see the blackened parts of the trailer, the melted playthings.
“We need to finish this,” Hippie whispered, looking over at Cohen. He glanced at her, then at Than, and in Than’s eyes he could almost see the long dark hall, the room with the desk, the gun hidden in the air duct. Cohen swallowed hard, nodded. Than nodded back. The three crept toward the front door.
Cohen’s heart beat in every part of his body: his chest, of course, but also in his hands, his head, his ears. Each moment, each step, sent a sharp sensation through him. At the empty front door, he reminded himself to breathe.
Hippie crept up into the trailer on all fours. She disappeared inside. Than crouched at the steps and motioned furiously for Cohen to follow her. The burned carpet was brittle under his fingers, and a scent like burned hair came up off it where his hands crushed the fibers. He tried to move without making a sound as he followed Hippie deeper into the ash. He reached up and itched the corner of his eye, and his hands smelled charred. Behind him, he sensed Than coming inside.
They were in the hall faster than he had hoped. Hippie was silent as a shadow. Than was so quiet he might have been behind him, or he might have been floating above him, or he might have fled, leaving them alone. Cohen was too scared to look over his shoulder, terrified that he would look back and see nothing, or see the Beast.
As they moved through the hallway, his hands and knees grew icy cold, and he thought water had gotten into the trailer, soaking into the carpet, and they were crawling through melted ice. The cold worked its way under his skin, pumped deeper with each beat of his heart, and he realized they were crawling through shadows that had leaked from the Beast. Another surge of panic jolted him—what would it do to him if he didn’t wipe it off right away?—but it was too late for running.
Sometimes as they crawled, his hands came down on the soles of Hippie’s shoes. The three of them were close together again, and he could hear Than’s breathing, feel the floor creaking under his weight. They were being too loud. Of that he was certain.
The bedroom door was on their left, and they passed it without giving it a second glance. Outside, even at night, it was brighter than inside the trailer. Maybe the moon had reversed course, maybe the stars were brighter, maybe morning was approaching. Cohen felt a sharp desire to be out there, out in the lung-burning cold and the wind, running through the path that wound up the hill, blackberry brambles grabbing at his coat. But he crawled forward.
At the door to the room with the small desk and the heat register that had swallowed the gun, Than tapped his leg and pulled on his jeans to tell him to go into that small space. Cohen grabbed Hippie’s foot. She turned. He raised a finger, telling her to wait. What he could see of her face in the dark looked confused, but she nodded. He went a few crawls into the room, a few silent movements, and there was the register. He lifted it, trying to stay silent, willing it to come up without a scrape or a bang. And it did. It slid out soundlessly, like a secret.
He reached down, and there it was: the gun. He lifted it, and it was heavy, and it was death. Than was right there with him, taking the gun from him, taking the sock full of bullets.
Than leaned in close, so close Cohen could feel his breath tickle the folds of his ear. “It’s loaded and ready to fire,” Than whispered, handing the gun back.
Cohen nodded nervously. The two of them crawled back into the hallway. Than grabbed Hippie’s leg and pulled her back. He pushed Cohen forward and Cohen balked. Than put his hand on Cohen’s back and nudged him forward again.
The door to the back bedroom had been pushed up against the frame by whoever or whatever had gone in last, but it had not been closed so that it latched. There was a narrow space of darker than dark that Cohen tried to look through to get a glimpse into the room, but he could see nothing. The windows were covered with something. The room was pitch-black.
Cohen leaned back and stuck his head in between Than and Hippie. “I can’t see anything,” he whispered.
The three of them stayed there for what felt like a long time, waiting. What happened next, happened fast.
The creaking sound of steps moved from the back of the trailer to the bedroom door. The door opened. The Beast saw them, even in the darkness, and it roared, charged. There was a ferociousness to it, and Cohen knew it was coming for them. He stared into that heart of darkness, a cold cloud of shadow, and the numbness in his hands and knees was nothing compared to the cold that emanated from the Beast and descended on all of them in that moment. Cohen didn’t think. He raised the gun. He pulled the trigger.
He had never felt anything like it. The sound of it, the flash and the smell, the kick of the gun, and the scream of Hippie who did not know there was a gun—all of it pushed back the darkness. There was a roar, a wounded bellow, and the cloud of darkness gathered in on itself and swept away from them, crashed through one of the bedroom windows in a tangle of black curtains and glass, and was gone.
The three of them sat there for a long time, listening, shocked, not saying a word: Cohen with his back against the hallway wall, Than lying on his back, looking up through exhausted eyes at the ceiling, and Hippie beside Cohen, her head on his shoulder. The gun was on the floor in between Cohen’s feet, his forearms resting on his knees.
“It’s okay,” Hippie said quietly, reaching up and putting her hand on his head, the way a traveling preacher might touch someone’s head before they’re baptized. “It’s okay.”
Cohen looked at her. He shivered violently. She took out a new, clean handkerchief, and again she cleaned the icy shadows from his hands. He put his head on his forearms and wept.
Light came through the bedroom windows as the sun rose in the east, but there was no warmth in the light. Spring felt distant. A winter wind blew through the window, nudging pieces of glass that had broken but didn’t fall, sweeping over all three of them. They eased their way to their feet, and no one said another word as they slipped from the trailer.
The stars were still there, barely, fading as the pale sunrise leaked through the naked trees.