John Hart - The Last Child

“I’m dialing.” A lie.

Silence, sudden and complete. She held her breath and listened. She imagined his own ear to the door, his fingertips pressed white on the dirty paint. The silence built. Ten seconds. A minute. She screamed when he kicked the door a final time. Then she felt vibration as he descended the steps. His car started and headlights stabbed through the tattered lace curtains as he turned in the yard and sped up the road.

She collapsed against the door, shaking so violently her jaw hurt. He had to be drunk or coked up. But she’d made a decision. Johnny first. No drinking, no pills. And that meant no Ken Holloway.

Katherine bit down on the heel of her hand. At least Johnny was not here. At least he was safe.

She waited until her heart slowed and her breathing settled. Five minutes. Maybe ten. She was about to stand when she heard stealthy movement in the yard: gravel under foot, a rasp of bare earth. Fear paralyzed her so badly that she literally could not breathe. Outside, an old plank bent with the sound of wind through a dead tree. Weight on the porch. A thump against the door, very quiet. Katherine heard the bottom step groan and then silence.

Total, terrifying silence.

She had the phone in her hand but decided that 911 was not good enough. She wanted Hunt, trusted him. Keeping low, she moved to the kitchen. His card was in the top drawer. He answered on the first ring. She spoke in a whisper.

“Do not open the door,” he said. “Whatever you do. I’ll have a car there before you know it.”

She kept the phone in her hand even after they’d disconnected. She crept to the window and risked a glance. She saw shadows and trees, the friction of light and dark as low clouds raced across a rising moon. Nothing on the road. Nothing in the yard. She leaned right, pushed her cheek into the glass. She saw part of the porch but not enough. At the door again, she listened and heard a scratching sound, like a fork on wax paper. She heard it twice, faintly, then the unmistakable sound of a muffled cry. Faint. Somehow familiar.

She heard it again. It was outside the door. On the porch.

Katherine looked at the phone, then heard the cry again. For one wild second, she thought it was a baby. Someone had left a baby on her porch; but that was insane, she knew it; but the sound came again, and she found her fingers on the deadbolt, one hand on the knob.

She froze, thinking of Ken.

In the distance, an engine turned over. The sound rose then drifted south. The cry came again and she felt air on her cheek as the door opened to the length of the security chain. She did not remember making the decision to open it.

On the porch was a cardboard box sealed with silver tape. An envelope sat on top of it. The box shifted and the sound from within came more clearly. Johnny’s name was written on the envelope. “Oh my God.” She studied the yard, found it empty, and stepped out. The envelope was unsealed, a single piece of paper inside. The message was typed and unsigned.

You saw nobody. Heard nothing. You keep your damn mouth shut .

Katherine stared in dread at the box. She knelt and peeled back the line of bright tape. It came off with a tearing sound. Inside was a cat. Alive.

Its back was broken.

Katherine fell backward into the house, frozen, and one thought filled her head.

Johnny .

She punched in the number for Steve’s apartment but misdialed. She tried again, fingers clumsy. “Please, God,” she said.

The phone rang six times, ten; but no one answered. In mortal fear, she hung up the phone. Then she called Hunt again.

Johnny opened the garage door and started the truck. It ran rough and spilled blue smoke, but it was drivable. He stuck to side streets until he hit the four-lane, then he stepped on the gas and the truck jolted beneath him. He slowed as he approached Main Street, then cut right down a one-way to avoid traffic.

He drove slowly. Neighborhoods decayed the closer he got to the tracks. Johnny heard music and raised voices, the crump of a misaligned door slamming shut. He found Huron Street and turned left. Parked cars cluttered the narrow street and glass winked in the gutter. Weeds grew tall from cracks in the curb and a dog exploded at him from the darkness. It was a patch of brown on black, a jagged outline that jerked to a halt at the end of its chain. Johnny drove on, but there were other dogs in other yards. He imagined fingers on thin curtains, people stained television blue as they bent to peer through filthy windows. And it was not just imagination. To the left, a man stepped through his front door and onto the porch. He had pale feet, wore jeans with no shirt, and sucked on the cigarette that hung between his lips. Johnny ignored him and drove on.

Freemantle’s house solidified ahead and to the right. It was a lightless hulk pinned on a dark lot. Behind it, pale gravel spilled down the bank that led to the tracks. Johnny smelled creosote, rock dust, and oil. He pulled to the curb and killed the engine. Behind him, in a house the color of mustard, a baby cried.

Johnny stepped onto the street and the baby fell quiet. The dogs settled down. Stepping into Freemantle’s yard, Johnny saw yellow tape strung between the posts that held up the porch roof. Ducking beneath the tape, he cupped his hands around his face and tried to see inside. Nothing. More dark. Johnny pulled down more yellow tape. The door swung open at his touch. Johnny stepped inside, but there was no one. The house was empty. He flipped on lights and saw blood on the wall.

That scared him.

That was real.

The blood was streaked and black. Gray powder stained light switches and doorknobs. In the back room, the blood was worse. So was the smell. Oily and thick, it stuck in his throat. Dried blood was a desert on the floor. Tape marked where the bodies had fallen.

Two bodies.

A desert of blood.

Johnny turned and ran for the front door. The hall constricted and his shadow twisted as he ran. The door stood open, a hard, black empty with yellow tape that slapped at his arms. He leapt off the porch, landed badly, and tore skin from his palms. He stumbled once more, then cranked up the truck and got the hell out. The dogs rose to send him on his way.

Hunt bulled his way through town. He crested the last hill doing eighty and felt the car rise on its shocks; then he was in the trough, foot pressing down as the needle swung to ninety. He braked hard at Katherine’s drive, hung a right, and slid to a halt.

Lights burned in the house. Darkness gathered in the trees.

No squad car.

Hunt spilled out, lights thumping blue behind the grille of his car. He scanned the tree line and the yard, one hand on his holstered weapon. It was quiet and still; the porch felt hollow beneath his feet. He hammered on the door, sensed movement inside and stepped back, checking the yard behind him once again. The lock disengaged and the door opened a crack, then swung wide. Katherine Merrimon stood in the light, tear-stained and small, an eight-inch butcher’s knife gripped between fingers squeezed to bone.

“Katherine-”

“Any word on Johnny?”

Hunt stepped through the door. “I’ve already sent a car to Steve’s apartment. It’s probably there already.” Hunt held out a hand. “May I have the knife?”

“Sorry.” She handed it over and Hunt placed it on the counter.

“You’re okay,” he said. “I’m sure that Johnny is, too.”

“He’s not okay.”

“We don’t know anything yet.”

“I want to go to Steve’s.”

“And we will. I promise. Just sit down for a minute.” He got her onto the sofa and then straightened. The box was on the table. “Is that it?” Hunt asked.