The wreckage of the lobby took them by surprise. They couldn’t help gawking as they piled into the damaged VW. The camper’s top had sheared off and the rear end was crushed, leaving a tight space inside. Cracks veined the windows. A strong odor of gasoline tainted the air. Max insisted it was fumes and the Westy would run and get them where they needed to go.
“Where are we going?” Vera asked.
“Away from here . .. you have the stone?”
She patted the satchel. Ann-Margret was sandwiched between her legs. Max reached over to scratch the setter’s head, as if for luck. Adam tried to clear a seat for his mother. He passed a Ziploc bag of chalk to Max.
“Want these up front?”
Max grabbed the bag and tossed it on the dash.
Opal gazed backward over her shoulder at the vacant stairs. Her eyes glistened, though she wasn’t crying. That worried Adam. Cheeks gaunt, she took on the pallor of wet clay. She moved like a person submerged. Her fingers felt wooden inside Adam’s hand. He feared she was slipping into shock.
A slender figure in a red ski mask lurked at the far end of the lobby. He sprung up, holding a club of nails, the end of the club engulfed in flames. His torch ignited the lobby couch, the wide- backed chairs, and the curtains.
“Close your eyes,” Adam told his mother.
She didn’t. Her mouth gaped in horror.
Their motel. Destroyed. Their home. Invaded.
Wyatt gone.
How could it all happen in a night?
A ceiling of filthy smoke lowered. Heat from the roasting furniture penetrated the camper, palpable, suffocating.
“Get us out of here,” Vera said.
Max released the brake. They rolled into the lot.
Adam glanced through the demolished doors. The red-masked intruder climbed into the apartment access, ducking under a pair of shattered two-by-fours. Fire writhed like a serpent at the end of his club. He ascended the stairs nimbly, tapping the steps, scorching the carpet, dragging the tip of his club along the walls. Paint bubbled, charred.
Adam expected others would attack the camper. They’d rush the vehicle from every direction at once. Defeated by numbers. It would be over soon. He didn’t even have a gun.
But that didn’t happen.
The town looked desolate.
A siren wailed.
Then abruptly fell silent.
As they slid into the unplowed drive, he noticed the lights were back on inside the motel. Lamps blazed at every window. Only it was the fire. The boards they’d hammered over the windows were burning. Smoke boiled out from under the eaves.
Max turned onto the highway.
Most of the Pitch had disappeared. Where had they gone?
From the side view of the motel, Adam saw the torch pinwheeling out of the attic vent. Next came the red-masked arsonist. He hit the snow and seized his still fiery club before skidding off the roof and out of sight.
Adam wasn’t watching him anymore.
He saw the chain.
A body swayed from it. A man’s body, stripped down to only
underwear, was hanging from the peak of the roof. Firelight and shadow played over the stained flesh—darker because of all the blood. Smoke seeped from every cranny of the building. He lost sight of him. The wind gusted and back he came: a smudged face turned aside as if in embarrassment, neck broken, clearly dead.
Dad?
It had to be.
The Hook Man killed him.
He’d left him hanging there for everyone to see. Adam raged. Death didn’t satisfy the Pitch. They needed desecration. To take what was good and shit on it. Defilement. There was no reason. No balance. That’s what made it worse. The absence of logic, the insanity. Evil for evil’s sake.
Killing his father over a rock? Or was it what Max said?
Did Vera carry a compass to Hell inside her satchel?
Opal screamed.
She was looking up there. Following her son’s attention, through the gauze of blowing flakes, the coal dark night, she’d seen it, too: the hanging corpse. Beneath it—columns of smoke, a rising red dome—the motel reduced to a roaring funeral pyre.
Adam yelled at Max and slammed the back of his seat.
“Drive! Drive!”