Thomas Craig: The Outkast

Sacrifice.

It had been written-even before she was conceived.

She felt cold.

The pain felt cruel.

“It feels good,” she whispered strangely.

Holly Smallwood collapsed on the floor beside her son, who cried all night long.

She was pronounced dead in her house at 2:59 AM, on Thursday, August 20.

Robert Smallwood visited Sheriff Brian Stack in the hospital nine days after his mother died, which was the day following her burial. The reason for the delay was another long story that Robert would relive over and again during his adult life.

The four sheriff’s deputies were buried on the third day, having brought their families together to bid them good-byes. So was Donnie Murphy.

After Brian and Craig had pursued The Outcast down the woods on the night of the tragedy, Allan had abandoned Dwayne, flouting Sheriff Stack’s order to stay with his comrade. He had got more hysterical and run his car into a tree at full tilt. He was brought to the hospital shortly afterwards, where he raved about seeing a monster with a chimp’s head even as he bled in his bed. He died the following evening.

Brian had asked to see the boy.

“How’re you doing today, Sheriff?” Robert said as he sat on the chair close to Brian’s bed.

Brian managed to stick one thumb up to gesture he was doing all right-even though he wasn’t. He couldn’t speak.

When Robert had turned persistently inquisitive one day, Dr. Ben Lynch had told him that the inside of the Sheriff was terribly damaged, and it would take some time for the healing to be fully made. Until then, the Sheriff would have to manage his communications through signs and gestures.

And the doctor was right. Brian recuperated really slowly, and he couldn’t utter his first word until about seven weeks thereafter. Even then, his voice never sounded the same.

He died five months later.

“Not from the damage inflicted by the bullet, but from a malignant tumor,” Dr. Lynch said, as if by sharing that snippet of news, the pang of death would be made more bearable.

Robert would have a lot of scary dreams in the years to come-especially during his time at the orphanage-and it would proceed right into his career as an FBI special agent. Most of these nightmares would involve his stepfather, Charles Smallwood, who had adopted him as his son shortly before his death.

On the day he was taken to the orphanage, early on a wet Thursday morning, Robert Smallwood lay in his bed near the window, listening to the drumming of raindrops on the roof and gazing up at the photos of his mother that sat on the shelf.

The mother he would always love.