Page 86 of The Souls of Lost Lake
“Pa. Pa.” Ava crawled across the floor. Her hand jostled his shoulder. He was a mess, so she turned her face from the sight. She was scared. She needed someone.
“Ricky? Arnie?”
Ava scurried past her pa. He was scary, lyin’ there like that. Strength had been conquered and defeated, and now he lay there dead. He couldn’t do a thing to help her. The hemline of her calico dress that was too small and hung just past her knees dragged through his blood. It painted a swath across the cabin floor.
Something smelled like smoke. Maybe that hadn’t been fog. A dream? Could a person smell things in a dream?
She couldn’t figure it out. Ava looked at the woodstove, thenher crawl turned into a mad rush to get past her pa. It was Ma that Ava was scraping her knees on the floor to get to.
Ma lay by the stove. Facedown. But her fingers were moving. Blood was under her nails.
“Ma!” Ava reached her side. She pushed on her ma until the woman’s head lolled to lie on her right ear. Her eyes were rolling back in her head.
Ma mumbled something.
“Mama!” Ava cried. Tears hurt, and no one could ever tell her differently.
“Ava Marie...” Ma’s voice gargled. Her eyes grew big.
“Can’t hear ya, Mama.” Ava leaned closer. Her ma’s whisper was an icy breath on her ear. A name. Just a name ... it wasn’t her name ... but she couldn’t understand, couldn’t— “Mama!”
Just like that, she was gone.
Smoke rolled across the cabin floor and up the sides of the wall. Startled, Ava sat back on her heels. “Pa?” she shouted, but she knew he would not answer. In fact, she hoped he didn’t ’cause it’d scare her more if he ever looked at her with that wide-eyed haunted gaze again.
Ava tripped as she pushed herself to her feet. She looked wildly around. Where’d her doll go? The cellar! Ava hurried to the opening and saw the ladder leading down, and it was then she saw the flickering of orange flames licking at the cabin outside the window. The front door stood open. She could see the clearing outside the cabin, the roots in the dirt, Pa’s log pile, the wheelbarrow, the lake just beyond.
She staggered from the cabin.
Where was he? She’d seen his shoes. He’d been in the cellar lookin’ straight at her not long before. But now he’d vanished. Ava noticed two prostrate forms by the edge of the clearing where the oak and cherry trees met up with the dirt line Pa had carved out of the woods.
It was them. Ricky. Arnie. A thousand dollars wouldn’t makeher go over and see to ’em. Didn’t take a doctor to figure out they were dead too. Dead as doornails. The flames behind her grew. They were going to eat the cabin like a delicious final meal. Pa once said demons were real, and Ma had followed it up with a “Yeah, demon liquor and the like.” She’d thrown a bottle out the front door, and Pa had hollered, but then he’d stormed out, not touchin’ any of them. Pa never hurt them. Never. Ricky was the hot-tempered one. From what Ava could see from where she was standing, it looked like Ricky had put up the biggest fight too.
She gagged.
Retched into the dirt.
That man was coming back. She knew it. Could sense it. Ava’s head jerked up, and she stared at the lake. Without a second thought, she raced back into the cabin. She couldn’t let Ma and Pa burn up. She couldn’t! But dragging them to the safety of the lake’s water meant she had to hurry. Fire waited for no one, and neither would the man with the ax.
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“No. No, I need to save them.” Ava grappled for her mother’s body. Her hands found the blanket in the dark, but then slid downward until they hit the floor. The blanket didn’t cover her mother. She was gone. “Ma!” Ava’s cry was garbled, horror-filled. Ma’s body was missing now. Ava pounded the blanket and floor, feeling her way across the room, unable to see much of anything. She realized her eyes were closed. Sealed tight. And they burned, not from smoke but from tears.
“Ava.”
A hand closed around her shoulder as she crawled across the floor. She flung her arm up, batting it away, a scream catching in her throat.
“Let me go!” She flailed at the man who’d returned. Come back to finish what he had started. “Let go of me!” Ava raked at the man’s face with her fingernails. He grabbed her by her wrists, and they wrestled, her on her back and him looming over her. Ava’s eyes were still closed. She couldn’t open them. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t—
His full weight fell on top of her as she scraped at his face. His body took her breath away, his chest smashing against hers. He brought his knee over her legs to hinder Ava from kicking. His hands pinned her arms over her head, his fingers gripping her wrists with an impenetrable force.
She squirmed beneath him, her attempt at screaming soundingmore like a whimper filled with the hint of weeping. Ava’s breaths came in quick gasps.
“Ava.”
She struggled to open her eyes, but even as she did, Ava didn’t stop trying to lash out. She lifted her legs as best as she could and bucked her body to throw him off.
“Ava!” This time his voice was sharp. Startling.
