Her feet kick at the dirt. Mud splatters her shins and the bottoms of her exercise pants. I don’t let Lauren get her feet under her. Instead, I pull her up the ragged steps and onto the porch of the cabin. At the door, I let her fall to the planked floor.
“You move and I’ll fucking kill you,” I say.
With an eye on her, I unfasten the padlock and push the door open. The smell rolls out over me, earthy and thick. There is a cloying hint of death that sticks to the skin of my face and burns my eyes. I don’t know if it was there earlier, or any other time I entered the cabin. It might be in my head, in fact. But it makes me angry.
“Get up,” I say, standing over her.
She freezes, so I grab her by the arm. Right where she showed me her bruises. She flinches but I pull her up and push her into the cabin. Lauren stutter-steps, but I push her again, toward the tarp.
“I’m sorry,” she cries.
I grab her by the back of her jacket, pulling her now. I bring her down, forcibly, closer. My hand rises, getting a fistful of her shining black hair. It is soft and perfect against my fingertips, which just makes me clench tighter. She whimpers as I reach down and slip my other hand under the tarp.
I push her head down. Closer, closer. The tarp comes up. The first bone appears from under the plastic. It is more black than ivory. A femur. Even she must know it is human by the size. I stare at it for a second. It bores into me. Right to my soul. But I don’t have time for that.
The tarp folds over. And the remains sit on the floor in a haphazard pile. Atop the ribs and the bones of an arm, the top half of a skull stares darkly back at us, like oblivion rests just inside those empty sockets. The detached jawbone hangs at a jaunty angle. Like it’s laughing at us. At me.
My fingers somehow tighten, nearly pulling the hair from her scalp. I force her lower. Closer.
“Look at it!”
She fights, trying to turn her head. Her eyes are closed. She keeps making that sound. Where it drove me insane earlier, now it just grates. Making me even angrier. I push harder. Her nose is an inch away from the skull.
“Look at it!” I scream.