Bill Pronzini - Nightcrawlers

He tore some of the grass away, pulling up huge clumps and hurling them away. Then he could see the graves. One large, one small. No markers… he didn’t need markers to know… they deserved markers, didn’t they? A little moan came out of his throat. Wetness leaked from his eyes.

Angie. Mia.

Alone.

For a long time he stood looking down at the grassy mounds. Cold wind dried his cheeks, started him shivering again. He listened to it in the trees, in the eaves of the barn. It made sounds like a shrieking harpy’s voice. Mia’s voice. Screaming at him that last night, calling him names, telling him she’d get a restraining order if he didn’t leave her alone, telling him she was going to sell the property and take Angie away, back east someplace, telling him he’d never see her again never see her again never see her again until he couldn’t stand it anymore and he’d stopped the shrieking harpy’s voice

… he’d lost control and he’d… and Angie, she’d come out of her bedroom crying and saying Don’t hurt Mommy leave Mommy alone! and he’d… his head felt like it would burst and he’d swung out blindly and the crying stopped too and Angie… all the blood on her face where she’d hit the wall and she didn’t move… both of them lying there so still… oh God no!.. not Angie, his baby, she couldn’t be… he couldn’t have… she wasn’t dead she wasn’t dead!

She was dead.

And he put her in the ground, put Mia in the ground, and went away and tried to pretend none of it ever happened, Angie was still alive, none of it ever happened. And then one day he saw her playing on the street, he was so sure it was her. And he took her. And brought her up here and put the screens on the trailer windows and kept her here and tried to make her play the game in the woods, play with her toys, play on the swing set, showed her his dollhouse surprise, but she wasn’t Angie and all she did was cry and cry, like the other one who wasn’t Angie cried and cried, like the one in the trailer now who wasn’t Angie cried and cried…

The first two were over on the far side of the knoll, by the trees; he didn’t want strangers sleeping too close to his family. He took the pick and shovel over there and found new places and dug two more graves in the soft earth, one large and one small. Dug them deep, deep, like he had all the others, so animals would leave them alone and they could rest in peace.

When he finished he was tired and thirsty, but his head didn’t hurt so much anymore. He put the tools back in the barn and made sure the gun was still in his jacket pocket and then went out again and walked slowly to the trailer.

Now that it was time, he’d do it quick like he had before. The last thing he wanted was for anybody to suffer.

TAMARA

She’d just woken up, flat on her back on the single bed, held there by the weight of exhaustion, when the skirling noise of the power saw cut through the early-morning stillness. Deep into the night she’d worked on that screen, until her arms and body were a mass of hurt and she was too weak to lift and maneuver the frying pan. All but collapsed on the bed and passed out for a while and then alternately jerked awake and fell back into a matrix of crazy, terrifying dreams.

She was so foggy she thought at first she was dreaming the saw noise. Then it was like getting a jolt of something, adrenaline or speed, and all at once she wasn’t foggy or exhausted or lying down half dead. On her feet, the frying pan clutched in stiffened fingers, ripping at the screen and that last clinging screw with all the strength she had left. It was close to coming out, had to be almost free, this kind of hell-with-the-noise effort was all it would take. Had to be!

The shriek of metal slicing through wood stopped and pretty soon the other burring sound started up. That was even better because it stayed loud and steady instead of stop-and-go. She manipulated that pan in a frenzy, prying and twisting. Her fingers were already scratched and bloody; scabbed cuts began to bleed again and she opened another rip in her thumb when the handle slipped and snagged flesh on a sharp edge of the screen. Blowing like a horse, sweat in her eyes, her tongue like a fat lizard in a sand hole. Thinking: Keep it up out there, you son of a bitch, just give me a little more time, a little more time…

Breaking loose?

Yes! Squeal of ripping metal, the pan slipping again as the gap suddenly widened and the screw came flying out.

A kind of wild joy welled up in her. She threw the pan down, stepped back for leverage, slid her fingers through the mesh. Now that the one side was free, she was able to bend the screen away from the window; the other side of the frame dug into the wall, putting enough pressure on those two screws to bend them sideways. The gap widened, kept widening. Another few inches and it’d be wide enough for her to get up to the window The burring sound quit.

Quiet again. Dead quiet.

No, not when she was this close! Come on, come on!

Birds chattering, nothing else.

She let go of the screen, staggered into the kitchen to the window. Her stomach churned. Skin on her neck crawled.

Lemoyne was standing in front of the open barn door. Just standing there, looking at the trailer.

But he hadn’t come outside because he’d heard her. Looking was all he was doing. Ten seconds, fifteen he stood there… and then he turned back into the barn, shut himself inside again.

Back to the bedroom, shaky, wiping her face. There was a folding chair in there; she positioned it under the window, waited a couple of minutes, but Lemoyne didn’t start using the power tools again. Couldn’t afford to wait any longer. She got up on the chair, took hold of the screen.

A couple of pulls, pause to listen, check the gap. Again. Again. Again. Wide enough? She moved the chair and tried to squeeze her body up between the bent screen and the window. Almost, not quite-wedged her shoulders, scraped skin off one arm. Too goddamn fat! Get out of this, she’d lose another twenty pounds if she had to turn anorexic to do it.

Pull, pull, pause.

What was he doing in that barn now?

Pull, pull. The deadness was back in her arms and upper body. Couldn’t keep this up much longer.

Pull, pull, check the gap.

There! Tight fit, but she could make it. Had to make it. Would make it.

In the other bedroom Lauren lay so still under the blanket that Tamara, coming in, was afraid she might’ve slipped into a coma. No, just deeply asleep. Still running a high temp, her breathing labored and wheezy, but her color seemed better than it had yesterday. Or maybe that was just imagination, wishful thinking. She lifted the child, making sure the blanket stayed tucked around her, then shook her gently, talking to her, until she was awake and more or less alert.

“We’re going home now, honey. You understand? Home to your mommy and daddy.”

“… Honest?”

“Honest. But you have to do exactly what I tell you, okay?”

“I promise.”

Tamara told her. Twice, slowly, to make certain the kid understood. Then she climbed up on the chair again, holding Lauren in the crook of one arm, and slid the window open.

Sounds came to her then, faint, from somewhere over past the barn. Digging? Lord… hurry, now, hurry!

She unwrapped the blanket, slung it over the back of the chair. Thank God Lauren was a featherweight; no problem lifting her up and through the window, hands under her thin arms. Her own shoulders jammed in the opening and she had to wiggle sideways to free them so she could lean out, lower Lauren down the outer wall. Even when she slid first one hand up to grasp the girl’s, then the other, dangling her as far down as she could reach, there was still a drop of a foot or so. Lauren didn’t struggle, just hung there as she’d been told. Ground looked soft enough-grass and pine needles. Tamara said a silent prayer and let go.