The rifle rolled out of his hands. A woman screamed. Was it Leslie? He dropped to his knees and raked his fingers through the grass. His grass. Pulled it toward him as if he could gather it up in one wide swath, wrap it around his shoulders like a cape. Disappear.
His father was screaming too. What have you done? What in God’s name have you done?
Jules’s ears rang with the dull thunk of flesh hitting flesh, and over it all the music of the night—the grasshoppers chirping, the owls hooting—as if nothing extraordinary was happening.
He remembered a line from a play. Not the one he was named for. Another about a monster of a storm. Hell is empty. And all the devils are here. On this island. On his lawn. And he was one of them.