Cotton and Stuart stood next to the open sliding door on the passenger side of the van, getting soaked while Jolene fiddled with the equipment. The few splats of raindrops on the roof of the van when they’d stopped had ratcheted into rain. Not a monsoon, but a cold, drenching rain.
Then the rain stopped. Just … stopped. Like a spigot had been turned off.
The two men exchanged a look, putting out their hands like little kids as they looked at the sky, expecting drops to fall that didn’t.
A strange, keening cry filled up the sudden silence left by the stilled raindrops. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Not one voice, but multiple voices, blended like a choir so the finger-nails-on-a-blackboard sound was magnified.
They all froze, looked around for the source of the sound but saw nothing but the dilapidated gray buildings, slick with rain. And shadows.
Why where there so many shadows? Shadows were formed when something stood in front of the sun. But there was no sunshine. There was only the diffuse light of the overcast sky, which wasn’t nearly bright enough to cast a shadow.
There were shadows around all the buildings, though. Deep, dark black ones. Had they been there before?
Cotton made a sound, something like a cry or a groan and when Stuart looked at him, all he could do was point. At first, Stuart couldn’t tell what he was pointing at. He seemed to be gesturing at the treetops in the forest behind the buildings … where it was raining. You could see the rain pouring down on the branches, watch them hitch and sway from the impacts of the individual raindrops.
Stuart turned slowly in a circle, could sense that Cotton was doing the same thing.
It was raining in the woods out beyond the town. You could see it. But no rain fell on Gideon.
Not a single drop.
Rusty lay still, as lifeless as a doll when the trunk lid opened and light flooded into the stuffy space.
“Get up,” Mrs. McFarland said.
He lay motionless.
“Go on, get up, get out of there, I said.”
He didn’t move. Felt her hand on his shoulder, shaking him, and that’s what he’d been waiting for. He’d wanted her to be leaning into the trunk, maybe a little off balance, but clearly not pointing a gun at him.
Exploding out of the cramped space like he flew off the starting block at a track meet, he hit her with his shoulder, knocking her backwards.
And then he was running, full out. He didn’t recall climbing out of the trunk, but he must have done it, jumped out as part of the motion of knocking her backwards. He didn’t remember that part, only felt the cool of the late afternoon air on his cheeks and the damp earth and grass and rocks beneath his bare feet.
There had been no deciding which way to go, no looking for cover, or a way out. He’d merely acted on instinct fueled by adrenaline and saw trees coming up in front of him, maybe fifty feet ahead.
He didn’t hear the sound of the gunshot. Didn’t really feel it tear into his back. Just felt a stinging sensation, like a sand flea had bitten him, not even as painful as a wasp.
Then it felt like an invisible hand slapped him on the back and shoved him forward with a mighty wallop. The force of the shove was so great it knocked him off balance, off his feet, and he flew forward, remembered to put his hands out in time not to face-plant in the weeds. The aroma of their broken stems reminded him of the smell of the lawnmower when he opened it up to change the blade.
He felt himself slide forward on his chest, his nostrils full of the vegetation smell and dust and when he finally stopped sliding, he felt dizzy. Like he felt when he crashed his bicycle. He’d fly over the handlebars steeled for how bad it was going to hurt when he hit the ground. Then he’d hit the ground and it wouldn’t hurt — for a couple of seconds. And he’d think it wasn’t going to hurt at all! That he’d landed on the asphalt or the concrete or whatever and somehow he hadn’t even skinned a knee. Then the pain would hit. A couple of seconds after he crashed to a stop, he’d feel whatever damage he’d done.
It hit now, like that.
Only worse.
Ten times worse.
A hundred times worse.
It wasn’t his skinned palms and knees that shot messages of agony to his brain.
It was his back. His back was on fire. Somebody was standing over him with a blowtorch burning the skin of his back.
Then the world began to fade, gray out.
The pain was gobbled up by the darkness.
“Jolene …”
Stuart hated the fear he heard in his voice, hated the sensation of panic he could feel rising up in his gut, hated the terror crawling on hairy black legs up the back of his throat.
She had been fiddling with the equipment, hadn’t looked where they were looking.
She didn’t turn to him, just cast an answer over her shoulder. “Just a minute. I almost have it—”
The cry got louder. And it was a cry, a sound like children wailing. Not sobbing, not simple tears — wailing. Bereft. Frightened and alone.
Stuart’s eyes darted from one impossible shadow to another.
The rain had picked up out in the woods. But above them …
“Stu …”
That was Cotton, but he didn’t have to call his name because Stuart saw it the same time Cotton did. Above them, straight up in the air, raindrops were falling … sideways. Like there was an invisible umbrella spread out over the buildings. It was a force, an invisible something that shunted the water away.
No, not invisible. You could see it.
It was a canopy of mist.