Page 94 of Stay Away from Him

“What does she do there?”

Rhiannon was quiet, walking, and at first Melissa thought she didn’t hear her question. But then she answered.

“You’ll see.”

They walked for what seemed like a long time—though when Melissa slipped her phone from her pocket to light the screen and peek at the time, she saw it had only been a few minutes since they’dleft the house, her fear for Bradley making the seconds stretch out long, dripping slowly like snowmelt from a tree limb. Still, the woods felt vast, larger than she’d realized driving the winding road that bordered them to the south, the one connecting Thomas’s cul-de-sac to Lawrence and Toby’s dead-end street. The speed of cars tended to compress spaces in the mind, while the slowness of walking expanded them. Melissa let her head fall, trying to recall how long the trip took in the car, how big the woods must have been. A square mile?

“Do other people walk through here?”

“Some,” Rhiannon said. “There aren’t official trails or anything. Just little cuts, worn-down spots on the ground made by people’s shoes.”

“But nobody’s ever found Kendall’s spot?”

“I don’t think so,” Rhiannon said. “She found a place that’s pretty secluded.”

She spoke so softly, Melissa could barely hear her above the crunch of their footsteps, the tired creaking of the trees as a cold breeze passed through them. Melissa was speaking quietly too, she realized, watching where she stepped, avoiding dried twigs that could snap loudly underfoot and announce her presence. Everything seemed to have a sharpness to it; she was hyperaware of sounds, of the hard-edged cool of the air on her cheeks, every hint of movement in the undergrowth. Adrenaline surged through her veins, turning her animal, alert—and for a moment she wondered what she was, predator or prey. Hunting or being hunted.

They reached a deep and sudden cut where the ground sloped sharply downward into a hollow. Coming to the edge of it, a foul smell hit Melissa’s nostrils, and her hand shot up to cover her mouth and nose.

“What is that?” she asked, her voice suddenly too loud.

“We’re almost there,” Rhiannon said, glancing back. “Follow me.”

As if she had any choice.

Melissa stepped down into the cut, making her way carefully into the hollow. She followed a few steps behind, the rot on the air getting worse, fouler. Ahead, two jagged trees leaned together, their branches intertwined until they seemed to become one organism. Rhiannon passed beneath the branches.

Melissa bent down to do the same and then felt something catch in her hair as she stood straight on the other side of the hanging branches. She ran her fingers through her hair, expecting some leaves or sticks, but her fingers caught on something wet and soft instead. Revulsion seized her, pulled all her muscles taut and then twanged them in a shudder that rippled through her, head to toe. She swiped at her hair, panicked, desperate to get this thing—she didn’t know what it was, but she knew she didn’t want it on her—away from her body. Finally, it came free, but it didn’t fall to the ground, only swung away from her, suspended from the branches above by some sort of string. Something circular, so blackened and desiccated with rot that it took her a moment to recognize it, to see the hint of a vein zigzagging across its surface like the line of a river on a map. Then the iris, then the pupil.

It was an eye.

Melissa opened her mouth to let out a scream, but Rhiannon’s hand clamped hard on her lips, and then her face came into view, her eyes wide and pleading, communicating a warning. The scream lodged in Melissa’s throat. She nodded, swallowed it back, then looked around.

They were standing in what could only be described as—what? A torture chamber? A slaughterhouse? An abattoir? It was full of animal corpses in various states of decay, some reduced to skeletons, others fresh and rotting. Melissa spotted a raccoon, a house cat, a dog with pet tags still around its neck. Animals slit open, gutsspilling out; animals rotting on the ground, their soft parts writhing with maggots; animals hoisted into the air, the sharp ends of branches serving as hooks, a rack to pin them on.

And everywhere, eyes like the one that got stuck in Melissa’s hair. Dangling from pieces of twine or speared onto twigs like morbid little berries, some fresh and only starting to yellow, others old and blackened, desiccated, like rotten grapes.

“Oh my God,” Melissa whispered, unable to keep silent. “The coyote. It was her all along.”

“Maybe the coyote’s real,” Rhiannon said. “But Kendall has killed more animals than it has.”

“I had help,” came a voice from above, and both Melissa and Rhiannon looked at the same time.

It was Kendall, perched on the lip of the hollow. Melissa’s heart spasmed in her chest when she saw Bradley standing beside her. He was crying, his face streaked with tears and dirt, as though he’d fallen on the ground and then wiped his eyes with muddy hands. But he looked unhurt. Kendall held him by his shirt collar with one hand. In the other, she held a knife.

“You can’t blame it all on me, Rhiannon,” Kendall said. “You brought some of those animals to me.”

“Yeah, to keep you from going afterpeople.” Rhiannon looked scared, but she set her jaw, appearing to find her anger. “I’m done with that now, Kendall.You’redone.”

Kendall pulled Bradley close, moved the knife toward his neck. “I’ll decide when I’m done.”

Melissa’s gut plunged as the blade moved toward her son’s skin. “Let him go!”

Bradley wailed, his face breaking past fear to absolute terror. “Mama!”

“It’s okay, baby,” Melissa said, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. “It’s going to be okay.”

Kendall’s face glowed electric with a wild smile. “Is it, though? Parents are such terrible liars, aren’t they, Bradley?”

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