Monsters

Probably best. Closing her eyes, she luxuriated in sweet chocolate melting over her tongue. Might bring it up if I eat too—

A fizz-fizz, pop-pop boiled into her nose, and she knew, a second before he gave her shoulder a warning nudge: Darth was getting impatient.

“Sit on it and spin, Darth.” Yet when she reached for her knife, she did it slowly. No reason to give Darth an excuse. Placing the bar on the wood floor, she jockeyed the blade’s tip into the chocolate, right behind that first almond, then rocked the knife back and forth, applying steady pressure until the bar broke in a small shower of chocolate-covered coconut.

“Oooh, you don’t know what you are missing, Darth. On the other hand, more for me.” Wetting a finger, she dabbed up all the shards, then popped the finger into her mouth. “Oh, thank you, God,” she moaned. She was definitely taking all the wrappers for later. Give ’em a nice, long lick. Popping the bit of broken bar into her mouth, she tucked it into her cheek like a chipmunk. The rest she carefully wrapped and then slipped into an inside pocket, where her body warmth would thaw out the treat. She was still starving, but even that little bit of chocolate made her blood surge.

Yeah, well, don’t get giddy, honey. The candy might be the extent of her luck. She didn’t see any fishing gear, and her nose hadn’t sussed out anything else other than that strange campfire odor and that hospital smell. Where were they coming from? There didn’t seem to be much else here but the bureau and another bookshelf, made of sagging two-by-fours propped on cinderblocks, filled with hardcovers and paperbacks. A lot of novels, all stuff she’d either read or been meaning to but never got the chance: Tolkien, Asimov, Bradbury, Matheson. A broken-spined, scotch-taped copy of Childhood’s End. Lord of the Flies. Dune, a book she’d read while getting chemo, that mantra about fear as the mind-killer ringing true as she watched the drip-drip of yellow poison flow into her veins. A good collection of Stephen King, too: The Dead Zone. Desperation and The Stand. Duma Key. A Wrinkle in Time was falling apart, and the spine of Watership Down was so creased she could barely make out the title.

But there were also a ton of newer textbooks: Lupine Biology. Mammalian Speciation. The Ecology of Genetic Rescue. A Head of the Pack: The Wolves of Michigan’s Isle Royale. A larger clutch on population genetics and evolution. A third of one shelf was devoted only to history: Where the Buffalo Roam: Roosevelt and the Embattled Wilderness. When Darkness Reigned: Civilizational Collapse in the Middles Ages.

“Whoa,” she muttered. A voracious reader who also had been a history buff and hard-core mammologist was the last thing she’d expected. On the other hand, Peter was a problem-solver, a guy who’d obviously thought about allocation of resources. Someone who would’ve recognized that feeding the Changed garnered additional benefits, like a tidy buffer between Rule and the rest of the world. Fitting, somehow, that he’d read up on the Dark Ages.

She wouldn’t mind crashing here awhile. Childhood’s End looked awfully tempting. So did all that Stephen King. Rereading Wrinkle would be like picking up where you and your best friend left off. Chris would love this, too. A boy who’d dismantle and move an entire bookmobile’s collection would want a crack at these. If she got out of this, she ought to bring him here.

Don’t get ahead of yourself. She had to be practical. You can dream, but food comes first.

Searching each jacket, turning out pockets got her nothing but a crumpled handful of dollar bills liberated from a denim jacket, which she crammed into a parka pocket. Tinder was tinder. She was putting the jacket back when she paused. The garment was big, just as the boathouse had an older-boy feel to it. Its aroma was stark wintergreen and icy iron. While in Rule, she’d never paid that much attention, but now she inhaled deeply, wondering how scents this bold could hide so much.

So, was the house a gift? The chocolate of that Almond Joy chunk was gone, her tongue pebbly with coconut. Flipping the almond from the pouch of her cheek, she chewed, mulling this over. Her curiosity was stoked, which was somehow better than focusing only on that beaky gnaw in her stomach. Or was this just a really old family vacation house where Peter went when he needed to think things over? That felt right. Yesterday, when she swept the woods to set her snares, she’d also discovered an ancient, weathered tree house about thirty feet up a towering oak around back. Judging from the lake house’s unfinished porch, Peter had been busy. The house had also been recently winterized, with double-paned windows redolent with the reek of putty and caulk. She scented relatively fresh insulation behind the drywall downstairs, the lingering tang of paint. A woodstove, so new the house smelled of scorched cast-iron, gave off heat in spades. (A lucky thing, too. There were two fireplaces, one upstairs and one down, but both were very old, the hearths blackened and cracked. The sting of creosote on her tongue was so strong, she bet you could take a chisel to the coal-black residue caking that flue and still not chip it all away. A wonder no one had started a chimney fire and burned the house down.)

He went to college, studied genetics and evolution, history. So maybe that was the point of the house. Peter had had a whole other life. From the looks of the house, he might have imagined eventually living here year-round.

At her back, she heard Darth suddenly hitch as his reek went from fizzy rot to grouchy stink. Despite everything, a grin crept over her lips. She knew what was bugging him. Darth might be an ox, but he had a bladder the size of a walnut. This might explain why Darth got to babysit. A guy who needed a potty break every couple of miles could be a real drag. For her, Darth’s frequent need to go wee-wee wasn’t a problem, although he had this habit of doing his business, like, practically right on top of her, which not only was TMI but ticked her off. Want rabbits to stay far away? Pee on the snare. Jerk.

She was tempted to hurry this up but then thought, Oh, screw it. Don’t rush this. There’s something here, something important.

As she stepped up to the bureau, a second flashbulb of memory popped: of Tom, eyes bright with fever, thigh shiny and taut with infection. But why? Chemistry lab and Tom . . .

Because I had to sterilize the knife before I cut him. That was it: that smell like burnt match heads, like flint against a striker. So, were there matches in the drawers? No, the odor was too strong for that. Gunpowder?

Or a gun. Swallowing against the knot in her throat, she leaned in a little closer, opened her mouth, and tasted the air. Don’t get your hopes up. It’s probably not. But the smell was stronger here and coming from the bottom drawer of this bureau.

So. If it was a gun, what then? She couldn’t sneak that past Darth. Unless I shoot him. But it would have to be loaded, and there’d be no way to check. Might even blow up in my hand if it’s old and dirty or the mechanism’s frozen.

But Darth did need to take a whiz. She slid her eyes in a sidelong glance. The boy was doing the dying-to-pee two-step. Wear him down. When he goes potty, that’ll be your chance.

As slowly as she could, she tugged the top drawer. The wood was swollen and yielded in grudging squalls. From the weight and hollow thock of wood against wood, she could tell it was empty. The second drawer held two pairs of boy’s underwear and three pairs of balled socks.

As she pushed the second drawer shut, Darth broke, bolting from the boathouse. A moment later, she saw him hustling for the dock. Well, that’s one way to melt a fishing hole. Wasting not a second more, she dropped to a crouch and pried that bottom drawer free. The balky wood jammed on its metal runner. Come on, don’t blow this. Risking a fast peek around the bureau, she saw Darth stripping his gloves with his teeth. Minute and a half, max. Squelching her impatience, she wrestled the drawer shut then slowly pulled straight back.

This time, the drawer cooperated. Hell. Two pairs of jeans, two cargo pants. While that burnt magnesium scent was still strong, she had no hope of going through each and every pocket before Darth made it back.

“Come on.” She slipped a hand beneath the jeans. “Please, God, just cut me a—” She gasped as her fingers curled around smooth metal. “No way,” she said. “It can’t be.”

But it was.

A pistol.

60

“Penny killed someone?” Chris felt his jaw drop. “When? Who?” “Well, more like got her killed. About two and a half years ago.”

With a weary sigh, Hannah dropped back into her chair. “It’s a long

story.”

Two and a half years ago, he was a sophomore in high school.

Simon would’ve been sixteen. Isaac Hunter had said that Penny was a

year younger than Simon. “Give me the short version. Did you grow

up in Rule, or are you Amish or . . .”

“Was. I left years back.” She shrugged. “I wanted more. School,

an education beyond the eighth grade. Peter and I met in Houghton

when I was a freshman at Michigan Tech. He was already a senior.” “Peter went to college?” He blinked in surprise. “I always assumed

he’d been a deputy since high school or something.”

“Hardly. He was the TA for my freshman seminar in comparative

zoology, managed the lab. Nice guy.” Her mouth moved in an almost

wistful grin. “Very forceful, a million opinions. There was this coffee

place a block or two up from the river—Cyberia Cafe? Peter treated

a couple times after lab. We’d grab coffee, hang outside the library

along the Keweenaw Waterway.”

Keweenaw. He had a vague notion that this was way north and

east. “I’d never been much outside of Merton until I got to Rule.” “Oh, the Keweenaw’s really beautiful. There’s this bridge between

Houghton and Hancock, which is a much smaller town on Copper Island right across the waterway. Once you get past Hancock, there’s virtually nothing on the island all the way out to Lake Superior except farms and golf courses, and then Copper Harbor at the very tip. I think about it sometimes, maybe settling up there?” Her expression turned dreamy. “Raid the university library, then go on past Hancock, find a nice, isolated farm just off Superior. Fish, grow crops, read ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">