Page 43 of The Sinner and the Gunslinger
This toy had remained a toy.
Looking around at the tiny damp room he squatted in, he was glad she couldn’t see him like this. She would be horrified. There was mold in the air. No electricity. Half-eaten packets of deli food overrun by ants. Even his cell phone screen was cracked and in need of repair. He had to charge it at the local McDonalds every morning.
Perhaps he made a mistake. Perhaps he should have spent this time away working a decent job, saving money, and building a respectable home to apologize for his mistake and adopt his wildcat.
But he wanted her to see him as a god, as her hero, a protector. Someone she could always feel safe around. Right now, he looked like a fool. He couldn’t go back until he was sure he was a man worth being around. Less like Doc Holliday and more like Wyatt Earp.
What would she look like now? Would her hair be longer, her lips plumper, her face more angular as she turned into a woman? A blush hit his cheeks as he remembered how his body had started to react at seeing these changes. Then how he’d cocked it up and pushed her away. He scrubbed his face, still angry at himself. He shouldn’t have taken out his confusion on her.
He could have just calmly told her they were too old for such cuddles. She would have understood.
His cell phone lit up with a notification. He’d set up Google Alerts for house fires in the area his wildcat now lived in. He’d also set up alerts for her name... to monitor her safety no matter where she was. But those had never activated.
Frowning, he picked up his phone and read. With each passing second, dread grew like weeds in his chest, suffocating his heart.No.
Local Orphan Girl Dies in House Fire.
The boy, who was now a man, fled out the door and was on a bus, using the last of his money to buy a ticket. He didn’t stop until he arrived at the right neighborhood, two hours away, and stood in the shadows of the night, watching as the last remaining firefighters finished securing the hazardous area. It seemed they were done.
All bodies had been taken to the morgue.
Nothing was left but charred walls, coal, ash, and debris.
Nothing was left.
Smoke threatened to make him cough, giving away his position. But he had to get inside the house. Had to see for himself. Lifting his shirt to cover his nose and mouth, he slipped passed the officials and crept into the creaking and groaning house. He cared little for his safety, only for the few feet ahead lit up by his cell flashlight.
He went from room to room, scouring every inch, not knowing what he was searching for until he found it. A charred red string stuck out of the rubble beneath the black remains of a bed.It’s not it. It’s not hers.With his throat closing up, he flicked away coal and tugged the string out. A sob burst from his lips when he saw what dangled from the end of the string—a white bead with the evil eye painted on it.
His wildcat was dead.
Nineteen
Zeke
The bar isn’t on fire, only the trash cans outside.
As I warily approach, I take in the row of Harleys and Ducatis filling the parking lot along with pickup trucks and old beat-up cars. The red blinking fluorescent sign on the tin roof readsThe Last Stop.
A slice of foreboding settles in my gut. But I force myself to walk up the rickety wooden porch steps and stop at the frosted glass door. Music filters through. It’s Kenny Rogers . . . “The Gambler.”
Taking a breath, I scan the front of the bar one last time. As far as I can see in the darkness, no dead bodies or demon-possessed people are outside. Maybe nothing is wrong after all. Maybe we were randomly attacked.
Still, I hover my finger over the trigger, and the gun is cocked as I open the door, step in, and slip on something wet. I grip the doorknob, stopping myself from ending up on my ass.
The smell of death assaults my nose with an eye-watering stench. I’ve smelled decay in my life but this... I don’t know what it is about this, but it’s worse. Like a hot oven of infestation. I’m too nervous to look inside, so I stand there in the doorway, gathering my courage.
The jukebox skips and then starts the song from the start. After a moment of standing in the doorway and breathing fresh air, I brave another look inside.
Blood and death are everywhere. Bodies. So many bodies... if you could still call them that. They’re pulpy red messes on the floor, on the bar, flopped over tables and beneath them. Some corpses are frozen in rigor mortis, grasping broken bottles and wooden stakes made from table legs.
Was this a bar fight to the death?
Then I see the bloody footprints leading from the puddles at the bar toward me at the door. Two sets.
Whooshing outside jolts me into alertness. I twirl and aim my gun, but it’s only Leila using her mini extinguisher on the trashcan fires. I quickly step outside, shut the door, holster my pistol, and use my body to hide the splashed blood on the frosted window.
Leila tosses her spent can when the fire is out and stalks up the steps with a murderous expression. She stops before me and punches me in the face.
