Matt Hults - Husk

As if cued by their conversation, the figure in the window moved out of view. Mallory rubbed her arms, still feeling like she was being spied on despite the man’s absence. She started to follow the others to the house but stopped short when the Andersons’ garage door growled open behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see a large conversion van back out into the street.

Mallory tried to catch a glimpse of the driver, but the van’s tinted windows obscured her view.

The van’s tires screeched on the pavement as it accelerated away.

The Killer drove into a dirt parking lot at the middle of a forest clearing, braking to a stop before an abandoned church. The silence that followed after shutting off the engine became a mute testament to the remoteness of the location.

Despite the solitude, the Killer slid out of the van and cast a wary gaze toward the church. In the past, the humble one-room sanctuary accommodated some sixty people under its wood-shingled roof and steeple. Now, deserted by its parishioners and weathered by neglect, the edifice once built for divine purpose appeared like any other earthly object subject to degeneration. Even the day’s bright sunshine did little to alleviate its dreary look of decay. On the contrary, the light intensified the darkness peeking between the cracks of each boarded-over window and deepened the shadows dwelling within the empty loft of the crumbling bell tower.

Noisy cicadas singing in the nearby brush silenced their buzzing when the Killer rounded the van and opened the back doors. There, sprawled in the cargo space behind the rear seats, lay the Andersons’ bloody bodies.

The Killer seized them by the hair and heaved them out of the van, slamming their corpses to the dirt.

Their untimely deaths only made things more difficult.

Now the Killer needed to find another to aid in the tasks ahead.

Like the girl from this morning.

Mallory they had called her.

“Maa-lll-oo-reee.”

The Killer knew her arrival at this pivotal moment couldn’t be by chance. Not at all. She was a gift, a boon delivered by the unseen forces of the cosmos in favor of the nearing holocaust. Properly slain, her death would be the catalyst for the start of a new age.

The mere thought of her demise sent a tremor of excitement throughout the Killer’s being, lessening the disappointment of the Andersons’ rejection. But before Mallory could die, preparations needed to be made, strength gathered, and for that the Killer needed others. Tonight, the Killer must hunt.

A crow cawed.

The Killer peered around the van’s open door, at the plot of land to the left of the church.

The cemetery.

Bordered by a four-foot-high wrought iron fence, the graveyard held several dozen former residents of the surrounding area, most long forgotten.

The Killer strolled to the fence and stared at the maze of slabs. Dry grass surrounded every tombstone, accompanied by brittle skeletons of parsnip and thistle.

Another crow shrieked from a canted cross not far away.

Dozens more perched amongst the headstones and along the church’s roof and steeple, hundreds of them. They stared at the Killer with dark, seditious eyes.

Below the birds the grass fluttered with the movement of numerous other animals that had congregated in the churchyard: mice, squirrels, woodchuck, garter snakes. A mother raccoon and her two cubs hurried out of sight as the Killer moved along the fence, and a stray cat hissed from its perch atop a tombstone. The killer faced it, causing the beast to retreat into the grass. It fled to the far end of the graveyard, where a trio of deer paced back and forth, flashing the whites of their tails.

Ignoring the animals, the Killer fixed on a specific headstone within the assemblage of graves, the newest addition to the lot.

No dates marked the stone’s surface. No heartfelt words of memory.

Just a name.

Kale Kane.

After putting BJ to bed and locking the house, Paul Wiess switched off the downstairs lights and started up the stairs to wish Mallory a good night.

It had been a productive day. The kids were moved into their second floor bedrooms, the last of the decorations were in place, and the house had come together nicely.

Paul rolled his right shoulder, stretching the muscles. He had a few minor aches from lifting some of the larger pieces of furniture, but they were the satisfying pains of a job well done.

Best of all, he had his children back.

At the top of the steps, he found one of BJ’s superhero action figures lying on the carpet. He picked up the toy, staring at it with a smile on his lips until his eyes began to water.

Who knew you’d miss cleaning up after the kids so much?

He wiped his eyes and thought of the day after he and Vicky split up. His new apartment had only been a mile away from the home they’d shared, but the silence he’d awakened to that morning felt like ice water in his face, cold and merciless, and it washed away all false hopes that his fractured family could somehow be repaired. But that torment lay behind him now. Here he had a second chance to reconstruct his relationship with Mallory and BJ, an opportunity to rebuild some semblance of the life they’d had up until the divorce.

His prayers had been answered.

Paul set BJ’s toy on the hall table at the landing and turned left, heading toward Mallory’s bedroom. He’d just reached the end of the hall when the phone rang, followed by the sound of Mallory’s voice from the other side of her door.

“Hey, Becky, what’s up?”

Paul went to knock, knowing that waiting out one of Mallory’s phone conversations with her best friend would require a paperback novel and two bathroom trips.

“What do you mean Derrick Nolan dumped his girlfriend?” Mallory asked before he could announce himself. Her voice pitched with a note of astonishment. “He’s been asking about me—asking who? You’re lying, right? Please tell me you’re lying. I can’t believe this is happening now!”

There was a pause. Paul lowered his hand, listening.

“ Good news?” Mallory cried. “Don’t you get it? Derrick finally breaks up with his bitchy girlfriend, and I’m stuck way the hell out here in Loretto. I know it’s only a forty-five minute drive out of town, but I don’t have my driver’s license yet. Hell, I don’t even have a car. Shit, Becky, I might as well not even exist. Argh! This is a disaster. What am I going to do? I’m trapped.”

Another moment passed in silence while Mallory listened to her friend. Paul looked to the far end of the hall, to his open bedroom door, but the disheartening tone of his daughter’s last statement had tethered him to the conversation like a noose.

“Yes, talk to his sister, put in a good word for me,” Mallory said. “And call me the second you find out anything new. Crap, I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight… What do you mean you know what I’ll be doing? Hey! Shame on you!”

Once they’d said their goodbyes Paul tapped on the door.

“Hey, pumpkin, can I come in?”

“Sure, Dad.”

He crossed the room and sat down on the bed.

“Was that Becky?”

“Yeah.”

She’d already switched off the lights, but he easily discerned the melancholy expression on her face.

“Sounded like she had some pretty interesting news,” he said.

“Nah. Just the usual girl-talk.”

He touched her chin and turned her head to face him. Light from outside caught her eyes, and in the softened glow he glimpsed the child within his daughter’s maturing features.

“I’m so sorry about all this, Mallory. I wish I could put everything back the way it was.”