Page 57 of The Midnight Hour
“Did you punch him that hard?” I ask, glancing down at Stratton. “To knock him out cold?”
“He hit his head,” Mattie explains flatly. “That’s what knocked him out.”
I breathe out slowly, my mind whirling. This is bad, I realize. Really bad, as bad as Mattie said. If Stratton is dead—or worse, in a way, if he wakes up—Sam will be evicted from the NBSRC, just like those boys who got drunk, one of whom might already be dead. He’ll have nothing, nowhere to go, no way to defend or provide for himself. I can’t let that happen.
But what can I do?
My mind runs through several unsavory possibilities, discarding each one in turn: hide the body, if Stratton is dead, and pretend it never happened, or at least act as if Sam wasn’t involved. No, I can’t behave like such a criminal, and if he isn’t dead that’s not a possibility anyway. I’m ashamed I even thought of it, and yet I did. The other option is to deny it—leave Stratton where he is and, if he wakes up and accuses Sam, ride it out. But Stratton is vengeful, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be out for Sam even if Sam is believed, which he probably won’t be, because Stratton is Stratton, and a man of importance in this isolated community who thinks Sam is sleeping with his wife. No matter what, it won’t end there.
The third option is in some ways the most unpalatable, and yet almost the most possible: leave Stratton where he is, to be discovered, and run before we’re forcibly evicted. I won’t let Sam go alone; this is a chance for us all to leave the NBSRC and forge our own futures.
The prospect is utterly terrifying.
“Mom.” Mattie’s voice is urgent. “What do you think we should do?”
Beneath us, Stratton lets out a groan and starts to stir. Samand I exchange panicked glances, the first time we’ve looked each other in the eye in a long while.
Stratton isn’t even close to dead, I realize. He knocked his head and maybe has a concussion, but this isn’t a one-punch-killer type of situation, more’s the pity.
We need to make a decision, now.
“We need to put him somewhere,” I say, and Mattie and Sam, along with Kyle, who has been lurking behind me looking anxious, all stare at me in disbelief.
“Put him somewhere…” Sam repeats uncertainly. I feel like he’s asking me, in the same way he did back in Kawartha,Mom, are you a killer?Not in so many words, but the feeling is there, along with the accusation.Just what are you capable of?
I’m not sure I know the answer to that question, but that’s not what’s going on here. “Just out of the way,” I explain. “So we can escape.”
“We’re not in prison,” Mattie puts in sharply. I wonder if she’ll miss being here the most, with her friends and her teaching job, a semblance of teenaged normality.
“Prisons don’t always have bars,” I reply, which sounds like something I might have once read on Instagram. “But after this…Sam will be evicted, Mattie, you know that. He’ll have nothing. We have to go with him…and we have to make sure we get to take our supplies.”
Mattie is silent for a few seconds, absorbing everything I’ve said, all it means. “We don’t even know where our supplies are,” she finally points out. “Or our car.”
“I know where the cars are,” Kyle ventures. “They’re all parked out by the farm fields, near the airport.”
Mattie arches an eyebrow. “And the keys?”
I picture the keys in a locked cupboard in Michael Duart’s bedroom, like something out of the villain’s playbook in a Disney movie.
Kyle shrugs. “We don’t need the keys. We can hotwire the car.”
“Does anyone know how to do that?” I ask.
“I do,” Kyle says, surprising me once again. There’s definitely more to this kid than meets the eye.
“And our supplies?” Mattie asks.
“I know where we can get some stuff,” Sam says. “In the warehouse. Not our supplies specifically, but…”
“What about guns?” I ask bluntly, and the question seems to fall between us with a splat. Yes, I’m the one thinking and talking about guns.
“They’re locked up,” Sam replies shortly. “I can’t get at them.”
I shake my head. “We can’t leave this place without a weapon.”
Sam looks like he wants to argue, but then he relents. “I don’t know what to do, then,” he replies with a shrug.Over to you, Mom.
“Why can’t we just ride this out?” Mattie asks. “Stratton was the one who came at Sam. He was provoked. If Michael Duart wants this place to be the kind offair-minded community”—said with imaginary air quotes—“he says it is, then Sam shouldn’t be evicted.”
