The Piper's Graveyard
Date: 2021-03-31 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: Could you confront an ancient, buried evil, if it meant saving your little sister? Cessy’s little sister Kate is missing, and it’s Cessy’s fault. She follows Kate's trail back to their hometown: Hamlin, West Virginia. She finds Mom and Dad—and the whole town—enthralled with a phantom talk radio host. His staticky rants vow to “Make Hamlin Great Again.” All he asks is to be allowed to exterminate the town’s vermin. Cessy’s investigation links Kate to the broadcast. If she can find the source, she’ll find her sister. But when the radio show started broadcasting, the “deplorable” citizens started

The Piper’s Graveyard

Ben Farthing

Copyright © 2021 by Ben Farthing

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

From the Author:

1

A rusty storm door creaked loose on its hinges.

It was the final barrier between Detective Cessy Timms and her biggest arrest of the year.

Still, Cessy’s mind lingered elsewhere.

“SWAT’s twenty minutes out.” Her partner, Detective Landis, wiped at the foggy glass to peer inside.

Thick August humidity draped over everything like a moist blanket.

They’d crept behind the neglected rear of a three-million-dollar McMansion. Virginia creeper coated dull brick in sickly greens and browns. A looming willow oak kept the evening sun from beating down on the guest house which hid their suspect.

Cessy checked her phone. Still nothing. “We can’t wait for SWAT.”

Landis exhaled, bristling his graying mustache. “Slow down. Where exactly would Peterson run off to? Through us to his car? Or out the back, across the golf course? We’ve got time.”

“I don’t.”

Softness entered Landis’ face. His fatherly instincts struck at Cessy’s ego. He was only ten years her senior--she didn’t need another dad.

“I’ll help you find her,” Landis said, “after we bring in Peterson.”

Cessy’s baby sister had graduated from American University, started her dream job as a tenants’ rights advocate, and then disappeared.

This evening marked two weeks since Cessy had heard from Kate. One week since she’d noticed. Two hours since she’d checked Kate’s apartment to realize Kate wasn’t just ignoring Cessy--she was missing.

“It’s not your fault,” Landis said. “She’s probably off visiting friends.”

“Which is it? My sister going missing isn’t my fault, or she’s not really missing?”

Landis rolled his eyes. Probably the same look he gave his teenagers.

Cessy should have noticed earlier. She shouldn’t have assumed Kate was avoiding her. She was an inattentive detective and a neglectful big sister.

Sirens in the distance, but slow and whining. A fire engine, not SWAT.

Cessy looked through the guest house windows. The foggy glass blurred movement inside.

She needed this arrest to be over so she could get back to Kate’s apartment, turn the place upside down.

The call from Peterson’s coal-lobbyist father had interrupted Cessy’s earlier search. The prodigal son had returned, and was out back in the guest house.

Peterson had put two tellers and a security guard in the hospital. He’d made off with twenty-eight thousand dollars, less than he received in a month from his trust fund.

Selfish thrill-seeking motivated him, which meant he was dangerous.

Cessy reached for the door handle.

Landis gently grabbed her wrist. “We’ll find her. Twenty minutes won’t make a difference.”

She knew that was true, but she couldn’t sit around for that long, basking in worry and guilt. She’d rather distract herself with what she was best at. “I hear Peterson escaping out the back,” she lied. “No time to lose.”

Cessy yanked open the door, swept the room with her pistol. “Police!” she warned.

Landis covered her rear. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“You need hearing aids, old man.”

A cat fled from the front room, scampering over leather furniture nicer than anything Cessy would ever own. Its claws scraped over the kitchenette’s tile, and then the hallway’s wood flooring.

Cessy followed the cat, Landis close behind.

Peterson stepped out from a bedroom. Sunlight silhouetted his overweight form against a window at the end of the hall. Cessy intently watched his raised hands. Empty.

“Don’t shoot!” he yelled.

A tinny shriek assaulted Cessy’s ears.

It warbled like a train passing, but scraped and whined and gurgled like the train was dragging a mountain of barbed wire through sticky mud. The sheer volume of it hurt, but it was the nightmarish sound itself that clawed over Cessy’s skin, raised goosebumps and made her want to scratch like a crack addict.

The light in the hallway did not change, but it felt darker, like on a summer day when approaching storm clouds are already tinting the sky a darker blue.

Instinct took over against the invading noise. Cessy covered her ears. She needed to flee the thing she didn’t understand.

She looked to her more experienced partner for guidance, but he had his ear buried in his shoulder, his hand over the other. “What?” he pleaded. His voice was muffled, far away.

This wasn’t natural. There must be a hallucinogen in the air.

Cessy refocused on Peterson, who was doubled over, clutching his ears. Cessy ignored her throbbing ear drums and itching skin to dash at the bank robber. The sound slowed her strides like water. She tackled Peterson, letting his bulk absorb their impact with the floor. Handcuffs clicked into place.

She yelled into his ear. “Where’s the speakers? What did you drug us with?” She heard the contradiction, but didn’t care. She’d take any escape from this violating, squelching thrum.

Peterson twisted his head to shove one ear against his shoulder, and the other against the carpet.

“Turn it off!” she yelled.

A hand on her shoulder sent ripples across her tingling skin.

“Timms.” Landis, still covering his ears, had amped up the concerned father look. He pointed at her pocket.

Cessy pulled out her cell phone. The sound exploded. The phone’s speakers vibrated her hand.

The screen showed the active call animation, with a ticking duration of eight seconds. Her sister’s name on the screen: Kate.

The shock didn’t dull the auditory assault. It clawed at her. She clawed back. “Kate?” she screamed into the phone. “Are you there? Where are you?”

She jammed the volume-down button, and the screen showed the volume decreasing, but the tiny speakers pulsed at impossible levels.

Underneath the pounding and wet scraping: a voice. Male. A winding, unhinged rant, but the only word Cessy caught was, “vermin.”

Landis snatched the phone and ended the call.

The hallway emptied of noise.

Cessy’s lungs lifted and lowered her shoulders. The guilt of her failure with Kate blended with the shock at the offensive noise.

“What was that?” she whispered.

Landis leaned over, hands on his knees, chest heaving. “How’s your speakerphone so loud?”

Cessy didn’t know. The phone didn’t have the power to make that level of noise. And no noise should have the power to make Cessy’s skin crawl and the hallway seem darker.

The cat appeared in a bedroom doorway to hiss at Cessy, then sprinted past them. The storm door squeaked and slammed.

Peterson groaned. “I was surrendering. What the fuck was that?”

Landis rested his boot on the side of the younger man’s gut, applied pressure to squeeze it against the floor. “Watch your language, son.” His fatherly instincts expressed themselves differently with criminals.

Cessy caught her breath. “Give me my phone.”

Landis scratched at his arms. “We should get someone to check it out first.”

Cessy’s skin still tingled. Despite the sunlight coming through the window, the dark feeling of the hallway persisted. But Cessy could worry about that weirdness--and the technical feat of her phone--after she figured out why that noise came through a call with her missing sister.

She snatched the phone out of Landis’ hand.

She tapped the screen to call Kate back. Straight to voicemail.

Cessy was comfortable with Landis. She didn’t have to hide fear like she did with most of her colleagues in the Fairfax County Police Department. But right now, she did anyways, because she didn’t want to face it herself. She knew a threatening call when she heard one. A ransom demand might follow. Or just a corpse on a river bank.

She inhaled deeply. Fear was overcome by resolving the situation.

“Think we can get a warrant for the phone records?” Cessy asked. “Find out where that call came from? It’s her work phone, if that’d make it any quicker.”

“Sure. A guy in cybercrimes owes me a favor. We’ll piggyback off another warrant.” He checked his watch. “Might even get it today.”

Cessy couldn’t imagine a judge would sign off on that, but Landis was a well-loved veteran. His pull consistently surprised her. “That would be amazing, thank you.”

Peterson had gone still, wide eyes over pudgy cheeks curious at the problem that had overshadowed his arrest. “You don’t have to wait for that to find out where she is.”

Cessy and Landis looked down at Peterson.

“You lie there quietly,” Landis ordered.

“Now hold on.” Cessy crouched down close enough to smell Peterson’s deodorant. “Do you know something about my sister?”

“No!” For the first time, Cessy saw how young he was. Barely over twenty. Even younger than Kate. “Nothing but what you’ve said right here.”

“Then why wouldn’t I need to wait for a warrant?”

“He’s trying to rattle you,” Landis said. “Thinks he’s a Batman villain.”

“I’m being helpful so you’ll go easy on me. I don’t want to sit in jail.”

“You robbed three banks.” Landis was getting distracted.

Cessy cut him off. “Be helpful, then. How can I tell where my sister is without a warrant for the phone records?”

“You’ll get me a deal to stay out of prison?”

“I’ll do everything in my power as an officer of the law.”

Landis started to interrupt but Cessy swatted his ankle.

“Alright,” Peterson said. “You said she had a work cell phone, right?”

“Yes.”

“Call in and pretend to be her. Get them to reset her voicemail password. Then listen to her voicemails.”

“What’ll that tell me?”

Peterson shrugged. “More than you know now. If that doesn’t help, get her credit card company to tell you her last transactions. Or I don’t care, wait for the warrant.”

Landis asked, “Did you start out stealing identities before you turned to banks?”

Peterson laughed. His chins jiggled. “I never admitted to robbing banks.”

Cessy called Kate’s office.

“Whoa,” Landis said. “Right now? Let’s get him in the car first.”

“He can wait.” The guilt still wriggled in Cessy’s gut, now agitated by the unnatural noises she’d heard from the call with Kate. She couldn’t let it fester.

Kate’s office answered. Cessy raised her pitch, hid the gruffness that fourteen years of police work had caused, and managed to pass for her sister who was thirteen years her junior. The receptionist believed she was Kate. The HR rep asked about her sick mom. Kate had given them a lie before disappearing--that was good news. They asked when she’d be back in, and Cessy stumbled over an answer, but they gave Cessy the password. Cessy called Kate’s phone, interrupted the voicemail greeting with the star key, then put in the new password.

Landis grumbled and pulled Peterson to his feet. “One thing at a time, Timms.”

Cessy ignored him.

Kate had four messages. The most recent three were from clients complaining about landlords. The oldest was a familiar voice.

Cessy’s heart dropped. Peterson flinched away from her.

“Kate, it’s me again.”

The young male voice paused. A sound of fingernails scratching beard stubble.

“Did you get my email? You see what I’m talking about?”

Cessy knew that voice. She’d sat across from it at Christmas dinner five years ago, and listened to it demean her little sister.

Jackson Wilder.

“I need you here. You heard the email. You’re coming, right?”

“Who says ‘hear’ an email?” Peterson humphed. “I don’t like him.”

“Timms? You look like you’re ready to strangle someone.” Landis stepped between her and Peterson. “Who’s the hillbilly on the phone?”

“Kate’s high school boyfriend.”

“Bad news?”

“Yeah.”

“Violent?”

“Not five years ago. But he was headed that way.”

“Your sister’s not missing,” Peterson crooned. “She’s heartsick.”

Cessy put her phone in her pocket. “Rough him up a bit for me, would you?” Landis didn’t have it in him, but Peterson didn’t know that.

Landis rubbed his brow. “Where are you going? We’ve got to bring him in.”

“I guarantee you that shitstain Jackson never left our hometown. I know where Kate is. I’m going to Hamlin.”

2

The sun set before Cessy made it home to pack.

As she stuffed clothes and toiletries into an overnight back, Landis called for the fifth time.

She answered. “I need another favor.”

“I spent the last half hour covering for you! Not to mention the paperwork that still needs doing.”

Cessy dug through the closet for her rain jacket. “I need you to break into Kate’s apartment. Find her laptop.”

“You’re acting unreasonably. The Bureau arrived with SWAT. They would have been drooling at recruiting you if they’d seen you arrest Peterson.”

She hadn’t considered that. She’d never make lieutenant with the current chauvinist chief, so her next career move should be lateral into the FBI.

She yanked her phone charger from the wall and tossed it into the bag. “There’ll be other bank robberies. Can you check Kate’s laptop or not?”

“Don’t you have a spare key?”

“She’s only been there a couple months.” Cessy didn’t add that Kate had grown frustrated with Cessy for not making more time for her. She’d finally moved out the dorms into a real apartment. She was a real adult, just like her big sister, and all Cessy could offer was weekly lunches, which Cessy canceled half the time.

“You’re sending me to hunt down the emails that Jackson mentioned in his voicemail.”

“Bingo. See, this is why you’re the best detective in the D.C. metro area.”

“No, that’s because I work with the team. Timms, how dangerous is this guy?”

Cessy exhaled and leaned on her dresser. Jackson wasn’t violent as a teenager, but he was angry enough that he could be now. Especially if a screw had twisted loose somewhere upstairs. If Kate was in danger, it was Cessy’s fault for not checking in with her sooner. For not being the older sister Kate could come to when an ex-boyfriend called.

She should tell Landis right now, yes, I’m afraid my sister’s in danger. I’m afraid she won’t listen to me. I need help.

Instead, she said, “I’m handling it. Kate’s a smart girl. I just gotta go remind her of that.” If I can find her.

“You want me to come with you? Or get Missing Persons involved?”

“No. Just tell me what’s in those emails.”

“I’ll do a wellness check and sweet talk management to unlock the door.”

Cessy zipped her bag. “Right. That makes more sense than breaking in.”

“In case management gets curious, remind me what Kate looks like.”

Cessy texted him a photo she’d taken when they’d moved Kate into her first D.C. apartment. Kate was sweaty from hauling boxes. Her permanent smile had a tired lilt on the edges.

“I forgot how young she is,” Landis said. “She could be your daughter.”

“I’d have been a thirteen-year-old mom. But thanks for pointing out how old I look.”

“Is that why you’ve been skipping your get-togethers? Not enough in common?”

“How’s that relevant to finding those emails?” The truth was, Cessy loved hearing Kate babble about her first “real” job, and how much good she’d be able to do. She enjoyed advising her little sister on the surprisingly tricky basics of adulthood like setting up a home security system, or negotiating salary. She’d only missed their lunches because of work. She didn’t understand why Kate didn’t confide in her that Jackson had called.

“It was just a question. I’ll help you out. If you do our paperwork the rest of the year.”

“The rest of the month.”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Fine. Call me when you get those emails.”

They ended the call.

Cessy resisted the urge to call him back. She would handle this on her own. She had no evidence Jackson was dangerous, and she’d be accused of being an irrational woman if she reported a missing person who’d obviously gone to rekindle an old flame.

She’d had enough of those comments from her colleagues after Pat had divorced her. He told Cessy she “tried too hard to be normal,” as if that were the reason he was getting blowjobs from college girls at the 24-hour gym. She’d become short-tempered at work for a couple months, and five years later, still had the reputation.

Cessy checked through her bag one last time. Everything she’d need for a few days. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be that long.

She filled extra bowls with food and water for her cat, and texted her neighbor to ask him to check in.

Cessy took another look around the empty house. It was peaceful, being able to leave everything after just a phone call and a text message.

Sad, Kate would argue.

Cessy shushed the imagined insult. Her life was fine. The world was chaotic around her, but Cessy did her part. She charged in, did what needed doing, and then retreated back home where she was isolated from the chaos.

She carried her bag to the truck. Traffic rumbled from the highway a quarter-mile away. Her street was a tightly-packed row of brightly lit houses. The cloudless sky was blank charcoal, light pollution drowning the stars.

Cessy started the engine.

Time to charge in, talk some sense into Kate, and then retreat back home.

And if Jackson had hurt Kate, well, then Cessy would do what needed doing.

3

At 4 a.m., Cessy still drove like a caffeinated bat out of hell to reach a town of people who wouldn’t spit on her if she were on fire.

Exhaustion now flavored her guilt, and together they tasted like anger.

If Jackson had just kept to their backwater hometown, and left her baby sister alone, Cessy would be home asleep with her cat curled up and purring between her ankles.

And who thought it was a good idea to block the one road into Hamlin, West Virginia?

Cessy braked to a stop. Her one working headlight shone a tight tunnel of light over cracked asphalt. It reflected off a yellow and orange barrier.

Cessy groaned. She couldn’t catch a break. How often could there possibly be maintenance on Mud River Road? But the one time she needed it, it was closed.

Okay. She’d had her pity party. Time to solve the problem.

She couldn’t drive around the barrier. The steep mountainside and wild forest made that impossible.

Really, since this was the only road over the mountain and into Hamlin, the barrier didn’t make sense. Unless someone was laying a trap for a carjacking.

Cessy laughed at the thought. Carjacking on a backwoods West Virginia highway. Outside a town of two thousand people. At four in the morning.

That’d be the luckiest carjacking ever.

Unless they had a specific target in mind. If Jackson knew Cessy was hunting him, he’d know she’d take this road.

Cessy opened her door. Cool mountain air chilled her. Cicadas shrieked from the dark forest that surrounded the road.

She hopped down out of her idling 4Runner to investigate.

What better way to find this asshole than to spring his trap?

Her shoes squelched into mud, releasing a scent of rotting earth that mingled with the engine’s burnt oil. Her stomach flinched. With only gas station coffee and Ranch sunflower seeds to sustain it, Cessy’s gut wasn’t happy. And worry for Kate was the icing on the stomachache cake.

Her weak headlight revealed a thick copse of young trees encroaching on one side of the pavement, and a steep gulch on the other. At the edges of the light, old West Virginia oaks towered over the lonely road.

Cessy peered into the darkness between tree trunks. If Jackson was out there, Cessy was an easy target. Maybe she shouldn’t be so bold.

Except the shitstain she was chasing was too cowardly to be dangerous to anyone willing to fight back. Cessy wasn’t in danger.

Her little sister’s cheery demeanor had become genuine in the five years since Kate left their hometown. Reason number one was getting away from Jackson.

If Cessy had to haul Kate back to D.C. in handcuffs, she would. She wasn’t going through another three years of convincing Kate that Jackson’s smug grin concealed a dangerous manchild.

But a closer look at the ROAD CLOSED barrier told Cessy that this wasn’t an ambush planned by a 20-something drug dealer. She walked towards it. Her gut relaxed, grateful to step away from the rotting mud her shoes had disturbed.

The barrier was mounted on thick posts that plunged down into the asphalt. Gray splashes of cement around the posts said that this was a long-term blockade.

Cessy couldn’t imagine what road hazard warranted such a permanent solution.

Hell, this cut off Mom and Dad and their neighbors from Walmart. They should be rioting.

Cessy rapped her knuckles on the post. Too solid to drive through. She headed back to the truck.

She froze. Someone was talking.

A muffled male voice hung in the forest air, an angry undertone to the screaming cicadas and the raspy V6 engine.

She only caught fractures.

“-lazy vermin, who turn our home into-”

Cessy froze. The hairs on her neck stiffened. She jerked around, trying to pinpoint where the voice was coming from. In the dark woods, the animal corner of her brain insisted that whichever direction she faced, the man was directly behind her.

“Jackson?” she demanded.

The voice continued, still muffled like it was coming through a rag. “-we don’t deserve this, not after we’ve worked so hard-”

Cessy whipped around again.

That wasn’t Jackson. Kate was the same age as her ex--not yet twenty-five. The man somewhere here in the night had a raspiness to his anger. He sounded closer to Cessy’s age--pushing forty.

Cessy wasn’t afraid of Jackson. The nasally teenager she’d met had verbally abused her little sister, but been too afraid to look Cessy in the eyes. She suspected he’d now be willing to raise his hand against Kate--but Cessy would love for the little shit to try it with her.

This older man whose voice surrounded her, he was an unknown.

She strained to hear his steady ranting, but the cicadas drowned him out.

Cessy became very cognizant of the fact that she’d left her gun in its holster on the passenger seat.

If she dashed back now, would the ranting man reach her first? Where would he emerge from? She couldn’t see what hid behind slender tree trunks and low branches.

But the man didn’t sound that far away. He sounded within arm’s reach, only muffled by the cicadas.

She caught another piece of his rant.

“-do they deserve the charity that we’ve offered? I think you know the answer to-”

Cessy inched back to the truck. At every movement she waited for him to burst from the trees.

The cicadas’ screeching grew quiet.

The furious, still-muffled voice surrounded her, suddenly fully audible.

“We built it with our blood and our parents built it with theirs. It gets under my skin, the vermin’s audacity, their entitlement, their disrespect.”

Cessy ducked, spun around, certain the man had left his hiding spot to finally attack.

“But we’ve called the rat catcher and the rats are drowning, ladies and gentlemen. Their little babies cling to their vermin mothers’ backs and they all go down together.”

The street was empty. Nobody was attacking her.

“Water in the lungs. It’s a burning shame, but they do it to themselves.”

Cessy looked down. The man’s choked rant came from beneath her feet. From beneath the asphalt.

The cicadas picked up again, from above her in the trees. They drowned out the voice underneath.

Her queasiness grew. Pressure up her esophagus. She swallowed.

Jackson in the woods she could deal with. An unknown man in the woods was more dangerous, but she could handle dangerous.

Cessy didn’t know how to react to a voice from under the ground. Unprecedented situations by definition couldn’t be prepared for. Couldn’t be defended against.

She crouched down to hear better.

The cicadas’ din still made his rants unintelligible.

She pressed her ear against the cold asphalt. Bits of gravel stuck to her cheek.

She caught only a few words, “-day after tomorrow-”, but clearly heard the hate that dripped from his voice.

The narrow trunks of young trees swayed in the wind. They looked sideways with her cheek against the ground like this.

Cessy suddenly felt vulnerable. Her back was exposed, and some sort of insanity was happening beneath the ground.

She considered whether stress and worry and exhaustion were making her hallucinate.

Her phone rang.

The electronic xylophone tune was disjointed in the dark woods.

Cessy jumped to her feet and jogged to the truck.

It was Kate.

Relief flooded through Cessy. A week of unreturned calls, and finally some confirmation that Kate was okay. She answered.

A now-familiar tinny shriek erupted from the phone. It pierced Cessy’s ears, cutting her off from the cicadas and the muffled monologue. Again, a warbling like a train passing, and again, with a gurgling and scraping like it was dragging wire behind it.

Cessy doubled over. She jammed her palms against her ears.

This time, the sound wasn’t just coming from phone.

The earth beneath her shoes vibrated. It shook in sync with the pulsing of the shriek.

She staggered toward the truck.

The forest grew darker, even though her truck’s single headlight stayed strong.

The sense of a train passing subsided. The keening whistle continued.

Cessy forced the phone in front of her face, reached for the end call icon, and then he spoke.

“-sneaking into our town like they didn’t try to burn it down years ago-”

The same angry voice, no longer muffled, now yelling from her phone, even though Kate’s name was still on the screen.

“-but we remember who’s vermin and who’s not-”

Her head throbbed near to bursting, but Cessy now had a target for all the stress and fear of the past night. She yelled back into the phone. “Who the fuck are you? Where’s Kate?”

He didn’t acknowledge her.

“-we take care of our own, more generously than-”

Cessy closed her eyes, breathed cool air deep into her lungs, and made the most honest threat of her life. “Anything you do to my little sister, I’ll do ten times worse to you.”

She ended the call.

The whistling ended. Her head stopped throbbing. Her ears felt empty. Her heart still pounded.

“Kate,” she whispered.

A breeze rustled the pine needles behind her.

The voice had gone quiet. The cicadas, too.

The forest was still. Dead.

Cessy tried to think, but she couldn’t get that noise out of her head. The warbling, whumping train had somehow carried the same hate as the man.

Cessy squeezed her eyes shut then opened them.

She was overreacting. The only thing to fear here was still Kate’s disappearance after Jackson contacted her.

She jumped into the driver’s seat and shut the door. She felt safer.

Inside the truck, it was easier to convince herself that someone had hacked her phone. Jackson had made some smart friends, older, with deeper voices. He’d known that Cessy would follow Kate. This was his attempt to scare her off.

That explanation didn’t ring true. Jackson wasn’t that clever. But Cessy stopped her thoughts from exploring that path.

Her priority was still to find Kate.

Someone had blocked off the only paved road over the mountain and into town? Cessy had enough run-ins with the Sheriff twenty years ago when she’d been the town’s favorite teenager to hate. She knew the back ways: Fire access roads over the mountain, and down into the valley.

Cessy put the truck into gear, turned around, and headed for the town she’d fled after high school: Hamlin, West Virginia.

4

It took Cessy half an hour to find the fire access road.

She remembered it hidden between two houses on the mountainside. One of those had been razed since she was a teenager. The other was now boarded up, the roof caved in.

She almost drove right past the dirt road before she noticed the red rusty gate. That was standard for fire access roads. The shiny new chain holding it closed was not.

Someone really didn’t want anybody reaching Hamlin.

Cessy had a hacksaw in her toolbox in the back, but her 4Runner could get around the gate easily enough. The forest was thinner here, and there was no gulch.

Before she took off up a neglected dirt road up a jagged West Virginia mountain, Cessy reached for her phone. She should check in with Detective Landis.

It was four thirty in the morning. Her partner would have been up for half an hour already, tinkering with his fishing boat before heading back inside to make his daughters breakfast, and then heading out for the day to deal with the criminals of Fairfax County.

She called him as she pulled off the road and around the gate. Her shocks squeaks and the truck rocked. Dead branches broke under her tires.

The phone rang twice, then Landis answered. “I don’t have the laptop yet. I was up until eleven dealing with paperwork from our arrest.”

“You mean you spent the night sleeping instead?”

“After I filed the missing persons report on your behalf. Any news?”

“I’m just checking in.” She explained the roadblock. “I know a back way over the mountain.”

Cessy drove back onto the dirt road and pointed her headlight uphill.

“Whoa there.” A tool clanked in the background. “Isn’t there another paved road into town?”

“It’d be a two-hour drive. I’m exhausted as it is. This’ll be fine.”

“If you thought that, you wouldn’t have called to check in.”

Cessy rolled her eyes. Sometimes she appreciated the fatherly care he started showing after her divorce. Now was not one of those times.

Cessy looked back at the chained gate. Fifteen years with the department had trained her to always plan a quick exit route. After she crossed this mountain, there’d be no quick exit out of Hamlin.

“It’s not the offroading that has me worried.” She headed up the mountain. “When I was checking out the barrier, it was... weird.”

“Because it was cemented into the ground? I can call West Virginia’s DOT and ask about that. Might not be official.”

“No, I’ll do that.” The truck bumped over a rut. She rounded a curve, and was swallowed by the woods. “There was a speaker or something underground. Like a talk radio host angry about something.”

“They usually are.”

“Underground?”

“Angry. You think someone buried a radio? That’s what has you freaked out?”

“Not just that. I got a call from Kate’s phone.”

She knew Landis well enough to hear him freezing with concern. “But not from Kate?”

“No, it was the radio show. And that noise again.” Her ears hurt and her head throbbed just thinking about it.

“You think someone hacked your phone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or someone has Kate’s phone.”

Cessy didn’t want to think about that. “Or Jackson spoofed her phone number to fuck with me.”

Landis signed. “It’s a mess, that’s for sure. Once the office opens, I can pull some strings to get a warrant for her cell carrier. Get a location on the phone.”

“Thanks.”

“Cessy,” Landis said with too much compassion, “what if Kate didn’t go willingly?”

Then she might not be alive. Cessy couldn’t consider it. It’d taken her a whole week to notice she hadn’t heard from Kate. Then another week of unreturned phone calls and text messages before she finally went to investigate. She was a shitty big sister. If anything had happened to Kate, it was her fault.

Her tire skidded in loose dirt. The other three compensated and she kept on up the mountain.

“Willingly or not, my job’s the same,” Cessy said. “I’ll see if my parents want to change their story about not hearing from Kate.”

“Why would they lie?”

“They were always in denial about Jackson. They might cover for her.” Cessy slowed to make a hairpin turn. “After that chat, I’ll talk to the Sheriff.”

“I thought he hated you.”

“That was the Sheriff twenty years ago. And like I’ve told you, I deserved it. Hopefully the current guy hasn’t heard any stories.”

“Maybe use a fake name.”

“We’ll see. I’m hoping he’ll update me on what Jackson’s been doing with his life for the last five years. Give me an idea of how dangerous he is. Then I’ll go visit Jackson myself.”

“With the Sheriff, you mean.”

No, she didn’t want anyone else there. If she found Jackson without Kate, she intended to get answers. “Yeah, of course.”

“Good. That’ll be safer. Remember, you’re not a cop in West Virginia.”

“I’m still a big sister.”

Landis sighed. “Be careful. Will you do that for me?”

“Sure.”

“Perfect. Now I’m going to spend the day catfishing the next bank robber. Think you could text me something seductive to lure him to the McDonald’s parking lot?”

“You’re on your own there. Talk about how big your breasts are, and he’ll believe whatever you say.” She could practically hear his face turn red.

“When are you back? Maybe I’ll lead him on a bit first.”

“As soon as I can. Ideally, a day or two.”

“Right then. I’ll let you know if I can get a warrant for Kate’s phone location, and when I get into her email. See what Jackson sent her. You keep me updated on all the interrogations you have planned for today.”

They ended the call.

It took another twenty minutes to scale the mountainside. Her 4Runner made easy work of the dirt road. Blackberry bushes and branches from young trees encroached on the path. They scraped at her shiny paint.

Cessy cringed at the buff job she’d have to pay for, but was already enjoying bragging to Detective Landis about her off-roading adventure, showing off the scratches as a trophy.

Once atop the ridge, the road was in better shape. She bumped along it.

The trees were just as thick up here. These weren’t the Rockies--few mountains in Appalachia towered above the treeline, where cold and thin air strangled trees to leave the vegetation scraggly. Here, lookout spots were few and far between. Through the trees to her left would be a view of the valley northeast of Hamlin. To the right, in the valley northwest of Hamlin, the remains of the coal mine that gave birth to and then abandoned the town. But she’d have to climb a tree to see it through the thick forest.

The ridge dipped before a final gentle climb up Black Gold Peak. Mud River Road was somewhere down the mountainside to her left, infinitely out of reach.

With her luck so far, Cessy half-expected to run into another gate.

As if confirming her suspicion, as she reached the top, her headlights reflected off of pale metal.

The yellow light bounced back off something off the side of the road, hidden behind a pair of pine trees.

Cessy suddenly remembered stumbling upon this spot as a teenager. Some kind of forestry station, a squat steel shed near the top of Black Gold Peak.

She pointed her headlights at it now. Twelve-by-twelve, corrugated steel walls under a black tar roof.

She’d broken into it nearly twenty-five years ago. It was already out-of-use at the time. The owners had left behind shelves and cardboard boxes, which contained paper field notes on an invasive species of crawler vine.

Sheriff Miller hadn’t caught her that time, but the memory of breaking in triggered memories of times she had been caught. The high school for her senior prank. The feed shop when she thought her neighbors were starving their goat--the damn thing was fine, she’d been an idiot. The gas station when she couldn’t find anybody to buy her beer. That time, Sheriff Miller dragged her home and lectured Mom and Dad on how this was a step beyond teenage exuberance.

Another reflection in her headlights pulled Cessy from her thoughts.

Next to the forestry shack was a truck, crudely-painted camouflage. Her headlights glinted off the tail pipe.

Cessy would recognize that garish monstrosity anywhere. How many times had it pulled into their driveway, for her underage baby sister to run out and hop into the passenger seat?

That epitome of redneck aesthetic belonged to Jackson Wilder.

5

Cessy hesitated only a moment.

What were the chances that she’d find Jackson and Kate before even reaching the town?

She wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She parked the 4Runner. She’d taken off her holster soon into the trip, so now she reached over and drew her pistol before hopping out of the SUV. She grabbed her flashlight from the pocket in the door.

Chirper frogs and crickets screeched. The air was cool up here, and leagues less humid than Fairfax.

She crept to the camouflaged truck. The tires were fully inflated. No rust anywhere. It hadn’t been abandoned.

She turned to the shack and clicked on the flashlight.

Metal creaked inside, like someone had shifted on an old bed frame.

Cessy held her breath, but no further sound came. She crept forward to inspect the shed.

Up close, it looked even worse for the wear. Panels of corrugated steel curled up at the edges, revealing strips of rotting plywood behind them. The tar roof had been patched with clear caulking–an amateur repair.

On the side opposite the road, a rough lean-to had been built from branches and brown tarp. Beneath it were stacked canned food, two-liter soda bottles filled with water, and green ammunition boxes.

She hadn’t considered that Jackson might be armed. Now that she did, of course he was. The type of teenager who drove a lifted, camouflage F-250 became the type of man who open-carried, and ranted about .45 having more stopping power than 9 mm.

She hadn’t pegged him to become the type of man who stocked bunkers in the woods, but it didn’t surprise her. Vain disdain for others could take you down paranoid avenues.

She pointed the flashlight at the shed’s door. It was flakeboard on hinges, tightly closed. The outside latch hung free, meaning there was a fastened latch on the inside.

Kicking down the door of an armed man was a quick way to get shot. She’d try the gentleman’s way, first.

“Jackson, come on out. I want to talk.”

The chirper frogs and crickets continued their grating songs.

“Kate?” ventured Cessy. “Are you in there?”

Wind rustled the forest floor of dead leaves, and crinkled the lean-to’s tarp roof.

Cessy pointed the flashlight through the cracks in the door. She couldn’t make anything out. “Come on out, or I’ll come inside.”

Maybe no one was home. Cessy tried the door. The inner latch held it closed. She reared back to kick it open.

A breathless voice from inside. The same Appalachian drawl that still lingered in Cessy voice. “I’m on your side, I swear it.”

That wasn’t Jackson. This voice was melodic, quietly confident, and female. None of which described Kate’s scummy ex.

“Who’s in there?” demanded Cessy. “Why do you have Jackson’s truck?”

“Huh,” said the woman inside. “That spittin’ idjit sold me this truck two years back. Why don’t you know that? Either you blinked every time I rumbled my way to and from the library, or you’re not from Hamlin.”

Cessy heard the unmistakable creak and click of a rifle’s hammer being slowly lowered.

She dropped to her stomach. The blow winded her. She aimed her flashlight and pistol at the closed door.

“What was that noise? Is someone with you?”

“Open the door and show me the gun!” Cessy wheezed.

“I already put down the gun. You ain’t here to hurt me. Unless you didn’t come alone.”

“I’m just one person,” Cessy said. “Just come out. Nice and slow.”

The scraping metal of undoing the latch, then the creak of hinges. The door swung wide.

A woman stood in the doorway. She wore camo pants and a green army jacket four sizes too big. Greasy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Pudgy cheeks that used to suggest youth now sagged.

She squinted at Cessy’s flashlight.

“Alright then, who the hell are you?” she asked.

Cessy’s tongue caught, shocked by the familiar face.

6

Cessy lowered her gun but kept it ready. She stood and brushed decaying leaves from her thighs and chest. “You’re Valerie Watkins,” she said to the woman in front of her. “What are you doing up here?”

“I know who I am.” Valerie squinted past Cessy’s flashlight. She jerkily looked into the dark woods at any little sound. “I asked who you are.”

Cessy didn’t see any risk in being honest. “Cecilia Timms.”

“Angry Cessy?” Valerie looked shocked.

Cessy swallowed the anger that flared up over the twenty-year-old insult. “That’s what you used to call me.”

Valerie had been Cessy’s babysitter when Cessy was little. By the time Cessy was in high school, Valerie had left to college and returned as assistant librarian. It was a part-time job in Hamlin, and last Cessy had heard, Valerie was living with her parents.

Valerie put her hands on her hips. Her sleeve stretched up, revealing a tattoo on her wrist of a book with an orange cover. “Well hot damn. I haven’t seen you since you left town after... after what happened with my cousin.”

Cessy didn’t want to talk about Marissa, the final victim of Cessy’s reign of teenage terror. She hadn’t come here to stock up on guilt. Although that’s what she’d be doing regardless, if she couldn’t find Kate.

“What are you doing up here?” Valerie gestured with a flippant wave at the wooded mountaintop around them.

Cessy looked around. She hadn’t been this isolated for months. A mile downhill through the woods to get to Hamlin. Miles and mountains to the next closest house. Dozens of miles to the next closest town.

And now she was face-to-face with someone who had familial reasons to wish harm on Cessy, and the mental issues to be up here hiding. Legal issues, too, most likely.

She inspected Valerie’s waistband, checking for any concealed weapons. The only odd part of Valerie’s getup--apart from the size of the camo jacket--was the patch sewn into the breast with stitched wording: I love reading.

Cessy’s pondering silence didn’t shake Valerie.

“Probably trying to get into town, huh?”

“Why is the road closed?” Cessy asked. “Why are you up here? Why do you have Jackson’s truck?”

Something small crunched through the leaves out in the darkness. Cessy pointed her flashlight into the trees.

“Stop!” hissed Valerie. She lunged towards the flashlight.

Cessy jumped back and pointed the pistol.

Valerie held up her hands, eyes wide, but in pleading, not fear. “Don’t aim the light towards town. You know what? Switch the damn thing off.”

Cessy complied. She kept the gun trained on Valerie until her eyes adjusted to the moonlight. Valerie’s army fatigues and dirty face blended into the deep grays and blues of the night.

“Come on inside and I’ll answer your questions. Grab yourself a water bottle, if you’re thirsty.”

“I’m good.” Cessy didn’t know how long the two-liter soda bottles had been sitting up here, but at least one of the Coke bottles had an outdated logo. She flexed her fingers around her pistol, then followed Valerie inside.

Valerie switched on a battery powered lamp which was covered in red cellophane. It filled the shed with a crimson glow. A cot sat in one corner, next to a stack of paperbacks and cardboard boxes holding clothes. Against another wall was a folding table and chair. On top was a laptop wired up to what looked like an old TV antenna. Next to the laptop sat a pile of handheld radios. Loose batteries were strewn about the shed.

Valerie turned the chair around and sat down. “Take a seat on the bed. I’ll answer your questions.”

The cot creaked under Cessy’s weight. She kept her eye on the librarian-turned-mountain-woman.

“Easiest answer first: I bought Jackson’s old truck after he downgraded to a Camry. Better family car, he said.”

“Jackson has a family?” It looked like Kate wasn’t his only victim.

“He married Olivia Goodman.”

Cessy felt her jaw drop. “But she’s so nice.”

Valerie laughed. “So is he, if you ask Olivia. You’ve been gone a long time. People change.”

“Not much they don’t,” said Cessy, aware of the self-condemnation she risked by declaring that to someone in Valerie’s family. “Jackson’s been in touch with Kate, trying to lure her back here.”

Valerie went stiff. “She said no, didn’t she? Oh no. That’s why you’re here.” She pounded her fist on the flimsy table. The lamp wobbled, shuddering the shadows and red. “Stupid boy.”

“Kate must not know he’s married. She’d never purposely mess up a marriage.”

“You’re chasing your tail with this romance obsession. Don’t think I didn’t notice your last name is still Timms. But not everything’s a bodice-ripper.”

“I was- I’m not- tell me why you’re freaking out. Is Kate in trouble?”

Valerie exhaled, cheeks puffing out. “Could be. Depends on why Jackson called her. He was asking for help, wasn’t he? That stupid boy’s going to get himself killed.”

Cessy waited.

“Answers to your other questions: I’m not the librarian anymore. I was head librarian for eight years, did I tell you that? Good gig. Two months back, my parents kicked me out of my basement apartment, and Sheriff Miller convinced Mayor Briggs to fire me.”

“Sheriff Miller? Did his son grow up to take his job?”

“Nope. The same Sheriff Miller who wanted to run teenage you out of town. Retired fifteen years ago, then strapped back on his pride-parade cowboy hat and won the election last year. The man’s nearly eighty.”

Sitting on the cot, Cessy’s exhaustion caught up with her. She’d have to ask Sheriff Miller for help. The same man whose groin she’d kneed during an arrest. “Wait, why are you telling me about Sheriff Miller getting you fired?”

“You asked!”

“I didn’t.”

Valerie raised her voice an octave, mocking Cessy. “Why’re you up here?”

“You got fired and your parents kicked you out so you moved up here? You’re not communing with nature. You’re hiding.” Cessy had talked down paranoid schizophrenics before; and more often failed to talk them down. Sometimes, they believed their delusions so much, that you started to believe them. She could feel it happening now. Valerie lost her job because of mental health issues. Her parents kicked her out after giving up dealing with her. It was sad, but not uncommon. “Your parents don’t know where you are? Are they looking for you?”

Valerie’s head drooped. “Sheriff Miller is.”

“How long ago did your parents make you leave?”

Valerie shrugged. “Six weeks? And they didn’t kick me out as much they were going to tell Sheriff Miller where I was.”

Cessy’s heart dropped. Valerie had probably hurt somebody. Cessy needed to tell Sheriff Miller where Valerie was, asshole that he may be, before Valerie hurt someone else.

She felt selfish for thinking it, but if Valerie couldn’t help her, then Cessy couldn’t stick around. “I need to go find my sister.”

“I didn’t answer your last question yet.”

Any answer Cessy got from Valerie was suspect. But easier not to agitate someone going through a mental health crisis. “You’re right. Why is the road closed?”

“To keep everyone in.”

Cessy leaned forward. “Everyone? Is the road west of town closed, too?”

“Every road is blocked off.”

“The state police haven’t noticed? The postal service? Anyone commuting to work?” And how would Kate have gotten in?

Valerie shrugged.

Cessy knew she shouldn’t encourage delusions, but she asked anyways. There might be some truth behind Valerie’s paranoia. “Who wants to keep people in?”

“Lockler,” said Valerie. “The Maple Table.”

It wasn’t clear whether she was listing multiple parties responsible, or whether “The Maple Table” was another name for “Lockler.” Regardless, Cessy felt foolish for trying to get information from a mental breakdown.

Cessy slapped her knees. “Thank you for your hospitality, but I need to get into town now.”

Wide eyed, Valerie shook her head. “You need to skidaddle back down this mountain and drive on outta here, is what you need to do. I’d like to follow you, but I’ve been keeping an ear on what they say.” She picked up a handheld radio to gesture with it. “And it’s getting even more aggressive. Lockler’s trying to gather everyone. I haven’t been down there to see how folks are reacting.”

“Is Lockler a radio host?”

Valerie’s hair went wild as she nodded. “You’ve heard him already.”

“I think so.” Cessy hated angry talk radio. Their rants had real effects on vulnerable people. But, she supposed, if it wasn’t the radio show, Valerie would have found something else to latch onto.

“Listen,” Valerie said, “and I mean no offense, but this town didn’t like you much twenty years ago. Being as you’re a Timms, they might stick you in the ‘good apple’ barrel at first, but all it’ll take is a backwards glance for them to taste rot. They’ll say you’re vermin.”

Cessy stood up. “I’m sorry, Valerie. I’m not following you.”

Valerie sighed. “There’s no slowing down Angry Cessy, is there?”

Cessy grimaced. “I gotta find Kate.”

“Go on then.”

Cessy moved to the door, keeping her eye on Valerie and the rifle at her side. “She didn’t pass by here, did she?”

“No, but there are other ways into town. If you know them.” Valerie said. “Do me a favor?”

Cessy geared up to lie, to tell Valerie don’t worry, I won’t run straight to your parents or Sheriff Miller to tell them where you are.

Valerie scratched her elbow, stared at the dirt floor. “Check on me on your way out of town? Everything going on has me all riled up. Don’t like how it feels, you know? Got me jumping every time I see a bug crawl across my skin. I keep thinking they’re holes.” She looked at Cessy over her glasses, a classic librarian image, now flavored with willing vulnerability.

Cessy avoided pulling on that loose thread of delusion. Holes? Still, at seeing Valerie’s vulnerability laid bare, Cessy’s heart softened. “Of course. I’ll make sure you’re okay.” Not in the way Valerie expected or wanted, but in the way that she needed.

“And come find me if you have any other questions.” Valerie followed Cessy to the doorway as Cessy walked outside. “You know ‘Angry Cessy’ was just a tease, right? Won’t ever nothing wrong with you. It was Hamlin had the rot. Just a few bad apples back then, now it’s spread through most the bushel. Be careful down there.”

“I will.” Cessy walked to her truck. Her watch said it was almost five. The sky would be brightening in the east, but the tree cover kept her in darkness.

She started the 4Runner and switched on the headlight. The forest lit up before her.

She drove down the south face of Black Gold Peak, headlights sweeping through the oaks and pines at each switchback. Beneath her tires were the closed-off tunnels and shafts of the coal mine that had birthed and then abandoned Hamlin. At the end of the dirt road, the town that birthed her.

7

Sometimes, a town could be described as “dying.” In Hamlin’s case, it had died with the coal mine thirty years ago. Now it was a corpse in denial about decomposing.

Cessy stopped the truck where the forest thinned out, still high enough up Black Gold Peak to look over the town.

The first glow of morning faded the stars in the eastern sky. The Mud River snaked in from her left, ran parallel to Mud River Road, and then became the southern border of the town.

To her right, a mile-long strip of downtown businesses, surrounded by a square mile of houses.

She’d lived four blocks south of Main Street until middle school, when Kate was born, and her parents decided they wanted a bigger yard than was available in the heart of town. They moved to Rooster Estates, the new neighborhood with quarter-acre lots southeast of downtown. It had since lost its status of “nicest neighborhood in Hamlin” to Ulton Ridge, a development of McMansions tacked onto the lower slope of Goat’s Jaunt, the smaller mountain directly west of Black Gold Peak.

Straight ahead, above Rooster Estates and nestled on a foothill of Hamlin’s southern mountain barrier, was the Church of the Morningstar. In her elementary school years, she’d laughed that her Sunday School teacher worked for a vegetarian sausage company. As she grew into an arrogant teen and learned more about the faith her mother studied every morning, she more contentiously challenged her pastor with questions of, “Which angel was called ‘Son of the Morning?’”

In her 4Runner, Cessy shook her head. She’d been a terrible mix of precocious and disdainful. The church sat on a hill on the southeast end of the valley. The sunrise silhouetted the steeple. The name of the church was a natural result. “You don’t gotta be a jerk about it,” Dad had scolded her on more than one occasion.

She hoped she’d hear that same reasoned scolding now. Maybe there was a perfectly rational explanation for Kate disappearing, and Dad would condescendingly explain what Cessy should have realized right away. He was perfectly at home in this backwater town, but he loved his daughters, and had a simple and direct way of looking at things that often rescued Cessy from overthinking.

Cessy drove down the mountainside. She allowed hope to grow. Maybe Dad could make this all better.

The fire access road ended in a gate, and again, Cessy drove around chains. She drove out of the trees and onto an asphalt road behind the Farmer’s Grocery.

The sun peeked over the mountains. The town of Hamlin was waking up.

Cessy drove through the Farmer’s Grocery parking lot. Three cars were already parked there, probably the first shift clerks getting ready for opening. Although, the glass front revealed a dark store.

She drove along Mud River Road for half a mile, then turned left to cross a wooden truss bridge over the Mud River to reach Rooster Estates.

Cessy wanted to feel like coming home, but the neighborhood felt foreign. It was like Fairfax, in that forests had been cleared to build the town, and trees dotted most yards. Green grew freely. The difference between a well-tended lawn and an abandoned lawn was only in the uniformity of the blades of grass.

But once she looked up from the dirt and plants, Hamlin was miles different from the D.C. suburbs. She drove past a house that couldn’t be more than thirty years old, yet the siding was drooped and rotting, and one of two front windows was boarded over with plywood, old enough that it had been painted white to match the house and then left to decay.

A third of the houses were like that, even here in Rooster Estates. The cheaper homes in town would be even worse.

More houses looked abandoned than she’d noticed during her last Christmas visit. Fewer cars in driveways, more lawns left to grow thick and wild.

Maybe the migration out of Hamlin had gained momentum.

The coal mine had closed thirty years ago, taking away the town’s only real economic reason for being. Now half the money that came into the town was Medicare funds paid to in-home health care and hospice services. Housing was dirt-cheap because that’s what the market demanded, but the Hamlin housing market didn’t affect the price of windows, which resulted in plywood repairs. It also didn’t affect the price of shingles, siding, fence posts, and house paint.

Hamlin got a little more depressing every time Cessy visited. Now that rate of decay had spiked.

Mom and Dad’s house was one of the nicer kept homes. It was a two-story colonial, yellow siding with blue shutters. Dad kept it in fresh paint and shingles.

Mom and Dad spent their careers as a psychologist and accountant saving their pennies to buy up houses. Now that they were retired, they enjoyed a comfortable income from their five rental properties throughout Hamlin. They’d probably lost a fortune in declining property values, but if rent was priced low enough, it was usually paid on time. Often with funds from church or state welfare, but on time. So Mom and Dad had learned how to maintain a house on a budget.

Cessy pulled into the driveway at 5:50 a.m.

Too early to walk in and wake them up.

She turned on the radio, scanned until she found something, then leaned back and closed her eyes.

Morning talk radio filled the car.

A woman’s cheery voice, with an enunciated version of the Hamlin affect. “-the most delicious meal of venison, homemade bread, and freshly grown cucumber. The seasoning on the meat was to die for.”

A young male voice, sure of himself. “Oooh, I love a medium-well venison steak, grilled to perfection. The secret is to only flip it once.”

A grandfatherly voice, speaking reason. “See, this is why those yelling ‘the sky is falling’ need to take a deep breath. When we work in unison, no stumbling block can impede us.”

Cessy opened her eyes. Soft beneath the radio hosts’ discussion, a whistle. The same piercing noise from the phone call.

8

Outside the car, birds sang. Inside the car, the three hosts discussed their meals, and why people who complained about simple foods were “vermin.”

The stabbing whistle was almost inaudible, but it was there.

Cessy’s exhaustion clouded her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut against the morning sunlight.

Blue and red flashes from squeezing her eyes too tightly.

Cessy tried to think through what she was hearing. Did this mean that Kate had been near the radio hosts themselves? Or at the radio station? Could a cell signal accidentally pick up a radio broadcast?

“Cessy?”

She opened her eyes.

Dad stood on the front porch in his bathrobe, arms folded across his chest. Wire frame glasses perched on his thick nose, against his round face. His hairline had receded another inch since Cessy had seen him last Christmas. His belly poked out another inch against the bathrobe. “What are you doing sitting in the driveway? Come on inside. I’ll make us eggs.”

Cessy’s shoulders relaxed. She’d made it. Dad could help. This wouldn’t be all on Cessy anymore. She stepped down out of the truck.

“Did you drive all night? What are you doing here?”

“Is Kate here?”

Dad furled his bushy eyebrows. “No. Is something wrong?”

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “Let’s talk over breakfast.”

Inside, the house, Dad had his radio set to the same station.

“I had a slice of homemade bread, toasted, with honey drizzled over top this morning. Anyone who says that’s not a filling breakfast isn’t letting their dough raise for long enough.”

The living room was cluttered by familiar knick-knacks. Shelves lined the walls, each displaying porcelain animals, or small wooden windmills, or shot glasses with the names of mundane tourist destinations. Dad had raved about their visit to Pigeon Forge. Mom couldn’t get enough of Nashville.

Cessy scratched at her ear. “You don’t hear the whistling noise?”

Dad shook his head. “No, but my ears aren’t what they used to be.”

Cessy banged her shin against a coffee table. That was new.

She rubbed her leg. It would bruise.

The table was a brute. Thick, pale wood on top. Corners still sharp.

“When did you get this?” asked Cessy.

The living room opened up to the eat-in kitchen. Dad’s head was stuck into the fridge. “The table? Gordon Wilder made it.”

“We take care of ourselves here in Hamlin. If it’s broke, we fix it. If we need it, we build it ourselves. If we’re hungry, we cook a good meal.”

Cessy turned the radio down. “Jackson’s father built your table?”

Dad set a carton of irregular brown eggs on the counter. He banged around in the cabinet for a pan. “That’s the one. He’s been milling his own lumber, and making furniture for folks, oh, four years now.”

Cessy started the coffee pot. “Didn’t realize you were friends with the Wilders. Especially after everything that happened with Jackson.” She watch intently for Dad’s reaction, suddenly convinced this was all a cover-up to hide from her that Kate and Jackson were rekindling their romance.

But Dad was hiding in his breakfast rituals. He set four eggs in a bowl by the stove, turned the burner exactly to the notch marked “Medium.” He set a timer for 60 seconds, his way of making sure he started frying the eggs at the exact same temperature each morning.

He waved a spatula dismissively. “Ancient history. We can’t carry grudges against potential friends.”

She didn’t like where this was going. “Are you quoting something?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Didn’t sound like anything I’ve heard you say before.”

Dad shrugged. “Maybe I heard it somewhere. Gordon’s a good man. He understands what’s important.” The timer dinged. He cracked the eggs into the pan.

Cessy tried to segue casually. She didn’t want to panic her father. “Have you talked to Gordon lately?”

“Sure. Your mom and I see him at the diner. He’s actually milling a log into siding for our rental house on Eighth Street. I’m fixing to use that old pine in the backyard of the house on Sunshine Avenue. Over by the library? I’ll be bringing out the old chainsaw today.”

He spoke as if his using a chainsaw was perfectly normal, and he hadn’t spent Cessy’s childhood as an accountant, hiring out any actual manual labor that needed doing around the house. It was only once Mom and Dad invested in rental properties that Dad proudly assumed the role of handyman.

“I remember the house.” Cessy pulled the conversation back. “What’s Jackson up to? I heard he got married.” Assuming Valerie wasn’t completely off her rocker.

Dad focused on his sizzling pan. “He made some bad decisions. That’s a sad story we don’t need to talk about right now.”

Of course Dad wasn’t covering for Jackson. Not after the way the boy had treated his little princess. Cessy felt dumb for even thinking it. He would help. “Dad, I can’t find Kate. Her work hasn’t seen her for two weeks. But Jackson sent her some text messages, asking her to come home to Hamlin. I’m worried.”

Cessy felt naked, admitting to Dad that she needed his help.

Dad froze. A fried egg clung to his spatula, halfway between the frying pan and the plate. It slid toward the edge. Then he plopped the egg onto the plate and checked the toaster.

When he spoke, it was far too casually. “You know Kate. She gets focused on a new noble cause, and nobody hears from her for weeks. Doesn’t mean you have to worry.” He avoided eye contact after the barb.

Cessy processed what she’d just heard. “I’m saying she’s missing. She came here to Hamlin.”

“Sounds like all you know is Jackson invited her. She probably deleted that message right after she heard it.”

Cessy stared at her father. “Are you serious?”

“You two didn’t always get along.”

Cessy wanted to convince Dad to take her seriously, to set aside his fried eggs and help her. Instead, she found herself arguing the logic of her position. “Kate’s lived in D.C. for years now. We get lunch every Wednesday. Hang out on the weekends at least once a month. You don’t know our relationship.”

Dad set eggs and toast in front of her. He shrugged. “You have a habit of seeing the bad in things, is all I’m saying.”

Cessy flinched at the insult from the man who’d raised her. “We’ll come back to that,” said Cessy. “Right now, I’d like a direct answer. In the past two weeks, have you heard from Kate?”

“No. But I can guarantee she wouldn’t come here for Jackson.”

His calm expression discomforted Cessy. A father should be panicked about a missing daughter. Dad would occasionally insist that reality fit his worldview, like after Cessy’s divorce. For over a year, he’d insisted that Pat would come back to Cessy and give them grandchildren. But this was different. He should be panicking about Kate disappearing, and reassuring Cessy that he would make it right.

He seemed to need Kate to not be in Hamlin, the same way he needed Cessy’s marriage to not end in divorce. But why? Maybe he hated Jackson more than she did. He refused the entertain the possibility that Kate would go back to him. “You’re not listening to me. How can you be so sure Kate didn’t come here?”

“For starters, I would have heard about it. Gordon keeps me updated on his son.”

It was easier to accept his claim then get hung up on this point. “What if Jackson was keeping secrets? Please, help me find Kate. Tell me about Jackson. He contacted her and then she disappeared. What’s he been up to? You said he’d made bad decisions. What were you talking about?”

Dad mixed orange powder into a glass of water. “I’m telling you, it’s not Jackson.”

“Please, Dad. Humor me.”

Dad shook his head, annoyed. “The boy had been mouthing off to people he should respect. Hot rodding up and down Main Street.”

“Doesn’t he drive a Camry?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Dad said in a huff.

Another point for Valerie. Maybe the librarian-turned-mountain-woman wasn’t entirely delusional. That was an uncomfortable thought. “How do you ‘hot rod’ in a Camry?”

“He wasn’t being responsible, is all I’m saying.”

“You’re holding back. What do you know about him? Is he involved in anything illegal?”

Dad’s mouth tightened. “That’s not my business to share.”

“Your youngest daughter is missing. Why aren’t you more upset?”

Dad mixed the orange drink vigorously. The spoon banged on the inside of the glass. “Kate’s not missing. Maybe she took a private vacation.”

Back in circles. Cessy scooped up runny yolk with her toast. This was why she and Dad butted heads when she was a teenager. He’d see things the way he thought they should be, and then dig in his heels. Any attempt at persuasion would loop back to a single stubborn belief. But since she’d moved out and matured, she could sometimes whittle him down with reason.

“Dad, will you sit down with me a second?”

His shoulders slumped. He turned around, pulled out a chair, scraping it on the vinyl floor, then sat down. He wiped grease off his glasses onto his shirt to avoid looking her in the eye.

“Please listen to me. You know I’m a detective. I’m good at it.” Not good enough to notice Kate had been missing for a week, but she didn’t need to bring that up. “Trust me when I say that Kate is missing. Since Kate graduated and moved closer to me, every Wednesday we get together. If I’m not in court, and Kate’s not putting the fear of God into a scummy landlord, then we meet in Alexandria and have lunch. Are you listening?”

Dad’s smile raised his bifocal line directly in front of his pupils. “Honey, of course I’m listening. If this is important to you, I’m listening.”

His casualness infuriated her, but actively listening was a big step for Dad. It was the first step to changing his mind on something.

“Kate missed two lunch dates in a row, no phone call, no text, nothing.” Cessy left out that she herself had failed to schedule those lunch dates, and hadn’t noticed that Kate had gone radio silent. “So yesterday, nearly two weeks since I’ve last seen her, I went to knock on her door. She wasn’t there. I called her work. They said she took two weeks off.”

“Well there you go. She’s on vacation somewhere.” Dad perked up at the possibility. He was worried, too. But Cessy couldn’t get through his denial.

“She was planning a vacation to New York in December. Broadway and bookstores, she kept telling me. That was going to be her first ‘grown-up’ vacation.”

“She moved it up.”

“She would have told me.” Cessy touched his arm. It was thicker than when she was young, muscles grown through manual labor. “Dad. Jackson was calling her. Please believe me.”

“Of course I believe you.” Dad stared above Cessy’s eyes as he spoke. He took on a terse tone. “I can listen to reason. Sounds like Kate ran off with Jackson somewhere. He called her up and wooed her, like when they were teenagers. She ran off to meet him somewhere. Maybe New York. He probably never even showed up, and she’s on her way back to her apartment right now.”

He smiled. This story he’d just invented, he liked that more than the other options he’d been considering. Was it not Jackson that worried him? Was it something else about Kate being in Hamlin?

Cessy wanted to pick apart his claims, force him to be honest, but exhaustion slowed her thinking. “Wait. Is Jackson missing, too?”

Dad nodded. “Gordon said he hasn’t seen his boy since last week. Olivia’s worried sick.” His eye twitched, and he stared at his plate.

Cessy leaned down, trying to look him in the eyes. “You sound unsure. If Jackson’s missing, why didn’t you say that a minute ago? You’re dodging the facts so much you’re changing your story.”

Shuffling from the living room.

Mom stood in her nightgown, which hung loose around her diminutive form. She had curlers in her gray hair. She covered a yawn. “I saw Jackson walking the trails last week. What do you mean he’s missing?”

Dad’s lips tightened. He shook his head at Mom. “All I know is what Gordon told me.”

Mom shuffled over to embrace Cessy. “When did you get here, sweetie?” She’d worn so much rose-scented perfume over the years that it had bonded with her skin. “What are you two talking about so serious? Mornings are for reflection and calm.”

Cessy caught her up on Kate’s disappearance.

Mom furrowed her brow, looking at Dad, who refused to meet her gaze.

“She’s fine, I’m sure she is,” said Mom. “If she drove down to talk to Jackson, it was to tell him to stop calling. She wouldn’t get involved with vermin like that.”

Cessy’s tired mind grew frustrated. “Hold on. Is Jackson in town or isn’t he?”

“If your father says Mr. Wilder says he’s missing, then he’s probably missing. Maybe I saw someone else. Mike Redding looks a little like Jackson. Same mustache. Lordy, can you imagine, I think I said ‘Hi Jackson’ to little Mike Redding. I need to call his mother and apologize.” She went back to the living room. The phone clicked off the receiver.

Cessy took another bite of egg, now cold. This conversation had been as useless as interrogations usually went. More confusing, though. Mom and Dad were saying whatever came to mind without bothering to be consistent.

Dad crunched on his toast.

Cessy had wanted him to share the burden of finding Kate. He was their Dad. Sure, they argued. Terribly, when she was a teenager. But he loved her. He was proud of her career. Once he accepted that Pat wouldn’t be supplying any grandchildren, he hated the man more loudly than Cessy did. His occasional bullheadedness should not extend to his younger daughter going missing.

And Mom? Her decades as a therapist helped her flow with any situation. When her practice went under, she never ignored that it was happening. She watched the numbers sink deeper into the red, and then pulled the plug and retired. It didn’t make sense for her to deny that Kate was missing. Maybe it was her deference to Dad keeping her quiet.

She needed to get Mom alone. If she waited until Dad left for his handyman tasks, she and Kate had perfected getting what they wanted from Mom.

She scooted her chair out. It screeched on the floor.

“You okay, honey?”

“I’m going to go lie down in my old room, if that’s okay. I drove all night.”

“Of course. If I’m not off cutting down trees when you wake up, we can drive over to Gordon’s after you rest your eyes. He might know where Jackson and Kate ran off to.”

Cessy walked upstairs.

9

Cessy went to Kate’s room.

The twin bed’s purple comforter was tucked firmly beneath the mattress. A half empty bookshelf in the corner; Kate had taken all the books she cared about. Board games on another shelf--games Kate enjoyed enough to buy a copy for Mom and Dad, so they could play as a family at holidays.

Cessy sat at the desk under the back window. She’d given it to Kate before she moved away.

Cessy had been nineteen. Kate was in kindergarten. The desk was too big for her, but she clapped and jumped when Cessy said she could have it. Dad said he’d later found Kate sitting crosslegged on the desktop, hunched over a coloring book.

Kate had wanted to be just like Cessy, even when her friends repeated the rumors about Cessy from their parents. Kate never saw the people Cessy had hurt as a teenager. She only saw the fun grownup who visited every month and brought gifts from the big city.

A plastic replica of the Lincoln Memorial sat on the desk. Cessy picked it up. Kate had rubbed the paint off the sides from handling it so much.

When Kate was seven, Mom and Dad took her to visit Cessy in D.C. Cessy’d been working as a federal security guard. After a weekend of museums, monuments, and restaurants, Kate kissed Cessy’s cheek and said, “I know you’re the best policeman because you love me.”

Sitting in her baby sister’s room now, Cessy tapped the badge on her belt. She’d gone back to school, then applied for the force, and now sixteen years later was a detective because her seven-year-old sister saw her as more than she was.

By the time Kate turned thirteen, her respect for her big sister had plummeted. Kate came into her cheery, happy self. She noticed that Cessy didn’t smile all the time. By middle school, Kate knew all about Cessy’s reputation, and she overcompensated to be different. A smile for everyone she passed. “Sir” or “Ma’am,” for every adult. “Sweetie” for every little kid.

Cessy normally hated people like that, but Kate was family. And she was genuine. She didn’t overcompensate superficially in order to build a different reputation--she was making up for the damage Cessy had done.

That’s what she yelled at Cessy one summer vacation when Cessy teased too hard about being a goody-two-shoes.

Cessy backed off and learned to appreciate Kate for who she was. The world needed aggressively loving people. But that emotional distance made Cessy powerless when Jackson showed up.

Cessy imagined Kate saw a careless bully and thought she could change him. Maybe she thought she was saving Hamlin from another Cessy. Just as likely, she fell for the bad boy with the cool truck. For three years, Cessy tried to warn her. Kate would stop answering her calls, so Cessy would drop it for months at a time, then come back to it.

Mom and Dad wouldn’t listen.

Kate’s smile became less genuine. Jackson was an ass. Rich, compared to his classmates. He thought he was doing Kate a favor by dating her, and he let her know it. By the time Kate left for college, she was withdrawn, and saw herself as worthless.

Cessy was thrilled when Kate chose American University. She helped her move, bought her dorm furniture, and showed her the hippest restaurants so Kate could impress her new friends. It only took a few weeks for Kate to rediscover her confidence.

When Kate called her sobbing that she’d broken up with Jackson, Cessy had never been so happy.

Cessy stood up from the desk.

It was five years later. Two college degrees, her dream career as a tenant’s rights advocate, a close knit circle of likeminded friends, and Kate still came racing back when Jackson called.

Cessy remembered Landis’ overly compassionate warning: if she came willingly.

Fear for her baby sister threatened to overtake her.

Cessy wasn’t ready to confront it. She hurried out of Kate’s room.

Dishes clanged from downstairs. Dad was still here.

Cessy went into her old room to lie down until he left. Then she’d get some answers from Mom.

10

Cessy woke to a pinprick of pain on her ankle.

Sunlight seeped through blue curtains, which covered the one window in the claustrophobic bedroom.

Cessy lied on a twin bed, atop the potato sack comforter, still in her clothes. A white painted dresser squatted next to the door. A matching bookshelf served as a nightstand.

Sunlight filtered through the curtains to taint the white furniture with a sickly blueish gray.

Pain pricked the top of her foot.

Groggy, she swatted at it. Probably a mosquito. She suddenly remembered the black widow spiders that often took up residence in the crawlspace.

Something light brushed up her ankle.

She jolted up. Swatted at the cuffs of her jeans. The tingling wrapped around her calf, circled her knee, then was gone.

She smacked her jeans, determined to crush whatever it was before it bit again. If it was a black widow, she’d have to drive thirty minutes to the hospital. Back over the mountain, so more like an hour. Wasted time that she wasn’t looking for Kate.

She took off her jeans and turned them inside-out. No spiders, squashed or otherwise.

She shook the comforter. Nothing. She leaned over the side of the bed.

There.

Eyes still heavy with sleep, she spotted a black dot gliding across the carpet. Not black, a deep violet. She didn’t see a red hourglass, but her eyes were still groggy. She needed a closer look.

She rubbed goop out of her eyes. The dark speck slid towards the closed door.

When Cessy was a child, she’d play in the creek that ran behind the Post Office. She watched the fingernail-sized waterbugs swim across the water’s surface, legs invisible underneath so they looked like their namesakes: boatmen.

She thought of that now as she watched the dark dot that had tickled her ankles glide across the carpet. She couldn’t see any legs. She told herself it was due to the unnatural lighting, or her groggy eyes. Even still, it didn’t bump and judder like a beetle as its six legs launched it forward. It slid like a boatman from the creek behind the Post Office.

And there was something else strange about it. The way the light hit it. Too much shadow. As it if weren’t on top of the carpet, but a pencil-eraser-sized hole within.

Last night, Valerie had said she was afraid of bugs being holes.

It disappeared under the door.

Cessy flopped out of bed. Sweat dried on her bare legs. Her shirt hung heavy and damp. She probably still had half-decayed leaves down her shirt from Valerie’s shack. She needed a shower.

But right now, she wanted to see the violet pest that had woken her. It couldn’t have been a moving hole. Maybe her exhaustion had recreated the delusions that Valerie had put in her head.

She opened the door. The hallway was a corridor of uniform closed doors. Two more bedrooms, a bathroom, and a linen closet. A tiny blur in the stairway to her right.

Still with its gliding movements, the speck slipped down the stairway wall. It glided over high school portraits of Cessy and Kate. The inch-thick frames didn’t slow the thing, even for a moment.

Cessy chased it downstairs.

“Cessy?” Mom called from behind her closed bedroom door.

Around the corner, the living room. Cessy took in the room’s clutter all at once, a panoramic focus waiting for movement. Late morning sunshine poured in through the front windows. It pierced a glass Nutcracker ballet. The Rat King and Sugarplum Fairy cast twinkling sunbeam ribbons across the carpet, coffee table, and bric-a-brac.

Under the coffee table. The dot moved through a glimmering sunbeam. It shrank within the light to the size of a pinhead. Darted up the inside of the table leg.

Cessy stepped over to the table. She carefully flipped it onto its side, straining with the weight. The edges of the thick tabletop had barely been sanded, leaving an uncomfortable grip. The legs and frame were built from a dark red wood with tight grain patterns, an odd contrast to the pale top with wide, looping grain.

She braced herself and lifted the heavy table once more to flip it fully upside-down.

In the corner, a patchwork of holes. They varied in diameter from a freshly-sharpened pencil, to a pencil eraser. Looked like insect damage, but Cessy didn’t know enough to guess termites or ants or worms.

She waited for one to move.

She laughed at herself. Grogginess had blurred her vision and her thinking. Valerie’s delusions had latched hold for a few seconds, that was all.

With the flashlight from her phone, Cessy peered into the holes. Too narrow to hold her phantom bug. Unless bugs could squeeze through spaces tinier than their bodies. Which they probably could, now that she thought about it.

Her flashlight only revealed that the tight tunnels curved upon entry into the wood. Cessy took another look around the room. A cuckoo clock ticked from the wall. It was juxtaposed between a blurry Monet print of a harbor, and an airbrushed print of high definition Jesus holding smiling babies on his lap.

She tapped her fingernail on the table. Her insect--that’s what it was--had either buried itself in the table, or scuttled away into the chaos of her parents’ living room.

She scratched at her ankle and foot. She couldn’t see anywhere the skin was broken, although in two spots, it was pink and mildly swollen. Probably not anything dangerous, or the bite itself would be visible.

Cessy checked the time. Nearly eleven.

She’d slept too long. But four hours gave her enough rest to function. She headed to the bathroom to wash off a day’s worth of sweat and grime. And hopefully wash away Valerie’s delusions. The thought of a tiny hole gliding through her skin made her shudder.

After her shower, she’d head out to get some answers.

Dad’s idea to visit Gordon Wilder wasn’t half bad. But first, she’d pay a visit to the man she’d tormented as a teenager: Sheriff Miller.

11

By the time Cessy showered and changed, Mom was in the kitchen filling the counter with lunches. A casserole version of Tex-Mex beans and rice, shoveled into sixteen washed-and-reused ziplock freezer bags. The radio was back on, and the same roundtable hosts were now sharing their favorite Hamlin memories.

“Christmas caroling up on Rag Hill,” opined the cheery woman.

Now that Cessy had Mom alone, maybe she could talk some sense into her. Cessy sat at the counter. “I’m worried about Kate.”

“I wish you wouldn’t be.” Mom plopped a spoonful of casserole into a bowl and set it in front of Cessy. “I’ve got to make my rounds delivering these, but your father should be back in an hour or so, and he’ll go with you to talk to Gordon. You’ll see that everything’s just fine.”

The dish smelled of cumin and canned enchilada sauce. It managed to taste both bland and spicy at once. “The old folks like this?”

Mom smirked. “They wouldn’t tell me if they didn’t. They’re always kind to me.”

Since Mom’s retirement from counseling, she’d been amused to take on “housewife duties” full time. Her decorating aesthetic led to the crowded knick-knacks in the living room, and her taste for cooking led to mediocre-but-palatable dishes like this. Her career helping others left a hole that she filled with a local version of Meals-on-Wheels.

“In fact,” Mom said, “it’s almost a miracle some of them still have a nice bone in their body. So many of their children turned out to be vermin.”

“Like me?” Cessy asked.

Mom laughed a little too hard, as if the idea scared her. “Heavens, no. We don’t always see eye-to-eye, but I know you’re trying to do the right thing.”

“Then like Jackson?” Cessy suggested. “Dad called him vermin.”

Mom piled her bags into a cardboard box. “You won’t get any gossip out of me.”

“I need to find him. But you guys can’t decide whether he’s in town, missing, or out hiking.”

“He’s missing, just like your father said.”

Cessy quashed a flare of frustration. She spoke calmly. “Remember when I was worried that Pat was cheating on me? Before I found out for sure? You told me I was being paranoid.”

“I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re fine. But after you said not to worry, you still talked me through how to deal with my worries. How to validate my fears, and have an open talk with Pat.”

Mom hugged Cessy. “I’m sorry I put you through that.”

“It was good. I’m asking you to do it again. I’m worried that Kate is missing. If you think I’m being paranoid, help me with what I should do next.”

Mom rubbed her fingers, probably used to fiddling with a pencil when she was running a therapy session. “Think about what’s causing you to worry.”

“Kate is missing.”

Mom shook her head. “I mean what’s going on in your life that’s causing you to project your fears onto your sister.”

“I haven’t heard from her for two weeks. She hasn’t been at work. She’s not at home. There’s voicemails from Jackson asking her to come to Hamlin.” Cessy left out the screeching phone call, and the references to emails that Landis was trying to access. “That’s what’s going on in my life.”

“Please don’t take that tone. You asked for my help.”

“Alright. I’ll play along. I’d like a promotion. My lieutenant is an ass. I’ve been divorced for three years, and haven’t been on a single date since. I can’t decide if I’m more afraid it’s because the stress eating is making my belly pudge out, or if it’s because fifteen years arresting scum has made me impossible to get along with.”

“Oh Cessy.” Mom went to hug her again. These were problems she could help with.

Cessy held her back. “Those problems haven’t changed for three years. My worries about Kate are new.”

“You can’t compartmentalize your mind. It’s all connected.”

Cessy took a breath. “Then what should I do?”

“Spend the day with me and your father. Head back home tomorrow. Work on yourself.”

“You want me to leave without finding Kate?” Cessy shrank into herself. Getting Mom to feel like she was running a therapy session was the go-to way to get what you wanted. Kate had used it to get her first car. If this didn’t work, Cessy didn’t know another approach.

“That’s not what I meant.”

In the awkward silence, the younger male voice on the radio said, “My favorite Hamlin memory was when I hit the series-winning home run, and we won state.”

“What year is he talking about?” Cessy asked.

“Probably your junior year. That’s the only time the baseball team won state that I can think of.”

“Yeah, but there weren’t any home runs that game. We were there, remember? Dad got mad about too many sacrifice pop flies, and I told him to calm down because they were getting runners home.”

Mom dropped a homemade chocolate drop, wrapped in wax paper, into each bag. “Then it must have been another year.”

Cessy didn’t buy it. The guy on the radio was lying, and for what? So the old folks of Hamlin could wax nostalgic for something that never happened?

Cessy finished her bowl of rice and beans. She felt empty. Hamlin was lonelier then she remembered. She wouldn’t get any help from her parents. “You’re absolutely sure you haven’t heard from Kate in the past two weeks? She’s not in Hamlin?”

Mom’s eyes went wide before she turned away. “Positive. She wouldn’t do that.”

Mom was just as afraid as Dad. And she was adopting his method of refusing to believe anything he didn’t like.

Cessy put the bowl in the sink. “I’m headed out.”

“Wait for your father.”

Cessy ignored her. “Oh, and you need to call an exterminator. Something bit me then crawled away into the junk in the living room.” Cessy left.

12

Butterflies danced in Cessy’s gut. It’d been two decades since she’d seen Sheriff Miller. She’d avoid it if there was any other way.

Outside, the late August heat warmed her, a stark contrast to the freezing air conditioning inside her parents’ house, but still comfortable compared to the D.C. humidity. A whippoorwill sang from the branches of the maple tree in the front yard.

The half-vacant neighborhood was still. A cloudless blue sky hung low over the old houses.

Cessy drove into town.

Every year she visited, another store was shuttered. Two out of three storefronts on Main Street were empty. This year, that decline had picked up. The bakery that had opened three years back was closed, along with the quilting store and the used bookstore.

The Sheriff’s Office sat in the middle of downtown, next to the city administration building. The administration building was the coal mine boss’s old mansion, before the mine closed and the boss went on to either pillage another mountain, or go broke. Cessy didn’t know or care.

The Sheriff’s Office building was the old company store. Break your back a mile under the earth, coat your lungs in coal dust, and the company rewarded you with their special “company dollars,” good only at their overpriced store.

Even though those crimes had stopped with the labor movement at the end of the Great Depression, forty years before the mine closed for good, Cessy still couldn’t understand why the people of Hamlin were so proud to work for such an abusive industry.

She parked in front of the office.

Hard, dirty work was satisfying. Somehow, the coal companies’ marketing departments had fed the egos of their workers until they believed anyone who spoke ill of the companies did so because they were too lazy to work the mines.

That’s how she’d thought as a teenager, anyways. Admittedly, she hadn’t given it much thought since she left coal country. It was possible she’d internalized flawed teenage convictions.

But she wasn’t here to solve corporate manipulation of societal vanity, or her own unintentional self-indoctrinations.

Cessy walked into the Sheriff’s office.

The scent of a lavender candle hung thick in the air.

What had once been the storefront was now the receptionist and dispatcher’s office. A woman around thirty sat behind a desk. She wore a flower print dress, and had a phone headset over her ear.

An old boombox sat in the windowsill. It was tuned to the same station as Mom’s radio. Cessy caught the roundtable discussion show ending, and a new show beginning. A single host, middle-aged male. His voice reminded Cessy of those officers who lectured colleagues with the same rank, as if an insistent tone instilled authority.

“I recommend you sit down for today’s show. And if you’ve got a stress ball you like to squeeze when you get angry--trust me--you’ll need it.”

Cessy froze. A chill stabbed up her spine. It was the same voice from under the asphalt. The same voice from the call from Kate’s phone.

The dual-duty receptionist and dispatcher flashed a toothy smile at Cessy. She reached over and turned down the radio. “Hi there, honey. I don’t believe we’ve met.” It was an accusation. You’re a stranger. You don’t belong here.

Cessy pried her eyes away from the boombox. She wanted to ask who this radio host was. Demand to know the location of the radio station’s office.

But she needed to be cheerful. A brand new first impression for Sheriff Miller.

She walked across the lobby and offered her hand to the dispatcher, who responded with a dead fish handshake. “I’m Cecelia Timms. I’d like to meet with Sheriff Miller.”

“My name’s Betty.” Her eyes went to Cessy’s belt.

She’d removed her badge, but still wore her holster. West Virginia was an open carry state. Maybe she shouldn’t have open carried into a sheriff’s office.

“Happy to meet you, Betty.” Cessy wanted to get to the point, but she needed Sheriff Miller to respect her enough to have an open conversation, and that meant acting starkly different to how he’d known her twenty years ago. Buttering up the dispatcher was a good first step to not getting thrown out. “I love your dress. Did you get it around here?”

Betty beamed. She leaned forward conspiratorially. “The outlet mall up in Charleston.”

“That place is so much fun.” Cessy found herself leaning into the Hamlin accent of her youth. “I have to get up there more often.”

“Oh, do you live around here?” Betty raised an eyebrow at the possibility.

Cessy resisted rolling her eyes. Hamlin wasn’t so small that Betty could expect to know everyone. “Grew up here. Came in last night to visit family.” No point in spreading rumors yet that Kate was missing, or might have run off with a married man. “I used to know Sheriff Miller back during his first stint in the office. Wouldn’t you believe it, I was a little hellion. I figure I owe him an apology. After all, I ended up following in his footsteps.” She patted her holster.

She said it to butter up Betty. But maybe there was some truth to it. She’d emulated the career of the harshest authority figure from her youth.

More likely, she’d seen someone shitty at their job, said “I can do better,” and then done so. That felt more accurate, or at least better fit Cessy’s opinion of herself.

“Well I’ll be.” Betty laughed. “Reggie will love to hear that. He’s heading back for lunch right now. You wait around not five minutes and he’ll be here.”

As Cessy waited, the butterflies in her gut tightened into a ball. She tried to squash it down, but only succeeded in making it denser and heavier. She shouldn’t be nervous about seeing her teenage boogeyman, but here she was.

“So you went to Hamlin High?” asked Betty.

Cessy passed the time by chatting with the dispatcher. It turned out, Betty graduated between Cessy and Kate. She thought she might have met Kate at a party once. Cessy was confident she’d have heard of Cessy’s more notorious exploits, and their more tragic consequences, but figured now wasn’t the time to bring that up.

The front door swung open, letting in the birdsong and car engines of small town ambiance. Sheriff Miller strode inside. Boots clicked on the floor.

He saw Cessy and froze in his tracks.

“Sheriff Miller,” she said.

Betty spoke excitedly from her desk. “Reggie, do you remember Cecilia Timms? She’s back in town visiting family. She told me all about how she used to torment you. But you’ll never guess what–she’s a police officer now.”

Time had not been kind to Sheriff Miller. His six-foot-six frame had shrunk both down and inward. His broad, square shoulders now hunched towards each other. The skin on his square jaw now sagged.

His eyes hadn’t changed. Wide, blue, and determined.

His hands hadn’t changed. Large enough to palm a basketball, and strong enough to burst one.

“Cessy Timms.” His voice was a smoker’s growl. Bemusement crept onto his gray lips. “It’s still Timms?”

Cessy smiled. No bigger insult from a Hamlin resident than to point out a failed marriage. Or failure of any kind, really. Failure meant you hadn’t worked hard enough. “It was something else for a few years, but you know how that goes. How’s Gretchen?”

Sheriff Miller’s youngest daughter had been left at the altar. The cold footed groom fled the county, the state, maybe the country.

“She’s doing just fine. When did you get into town?”

“Late last night. Had a hell of a time with Mud River Road being closed.”

He put his hands on his hips, above the heavy revolver that any twenty-first-century Sheriff’s office had long since updated. “I reckon you would. How’d you get through?”

Without thinking, Cessy reverted to lying to Sheriff Miller. “The barrier was down.”

He raised an eyebrow. “We’ll have to call the state about that.”

“I’ll put that on my to-do list,” said Betty.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it.”

Cessy took note that Sheriff Miller didn’t ask her how she got past the washout, or whatever supposed hazard had closed the road. As if the “road closed” sign were the only barrier that he knew about.

When interrogating someone, if you knew a certain line of questioning was going to frustrate them, and risk them clamming up, then you started somewhere else.

“Could we maybe talk in your office?” asked Cessy.

Betty grunted offense.

Cessy ignored it. “I’d like to ask your advice on a family matter.”

That cooled off Betty. Open displays of distrust were taboo, but asking advice–which was acknowledging superiority–was a respectable enough move to outclass the faux pas.

Sheriff Miller looked Cessy up and down. Whether his gaze lingered on her holster or her hip, she wasn’t sure. Cessy straightened her back to hide the extra weight she hadn’t got rid of.

Finally, he said, “Let’s have a conversation in my office,” as if it’d been his idea.

Cessy followed him past the dispatcher’s desk, into a hallway that used to house offices and living quarters for the mine’s store clerk, and now was opened up into a small bullpen of deputy’s desks, with a single office on the far wall.

The desks in the bullpen were empty. Only one of the six even looked like someone had used it recently. Another question to ask Sheriff Miller after she’d asked about Kate.

Sheriff Miller grunted and hunched forward to unlock his office. His keys jingled. Inside, a polished oak desk, an executive leather chair, and four black filing cabinets. A sheet of glass over the desk, with a single stack of papers. No computer.

Sheriff Miller sat in the garish chair and motioned to a plastic folding chair across the desk for Cessy. She sat down. The plastic creaked. The old man smiled like a fox who’d set up shop in the henhouse.

“Can’t tell you how glad I am,” Sheriff Miller evened out the stack of paper, then slid it into a desk drawer, “to see you smiling. Always nice to see a smile on a young lady’s face. They used to call you ‘Angry Cessy.’ Did you know that?”

Cessy nodded. “No one was secretive about it.”

“And now you’re working in law enforcement. Where?”

“I’m a detective in Fairfax County.”

He wheezed laughter. “Angry Cessy’s keeping the corrupt politicians in line. Or does the government even allow you to investigate politicians? I reckon not.”

And right into the paranoia about the government. Welcome back to Hamlin, Cessy. “There’s six million people around D.C. A few hundred politicians. I haven’t run into a senator committing a felony in Fairfax yet, but if I do, I’ll be sure to share the story with you.”

Sheriff Miller wagged his spindly index finger. “Your sergeant probably has orders not to assign any cases involving congress. But that’s not how we run things around here, let me tell you. If you find vermin, you’ve got to exterminate them.”

“That reminds me,” said Cessy, “congratulations on reelection.”

Massaging his ego made him miss the insult. “I got bored in retirement, you know? If I’m not busy, the devil gets to working on me.”

Cessy didn’t want to go down that path of conversation. “I was hoping you could help me.” Always ask for help, first. Most people are good, and at the request for a favor, will want to help. Either a spiritual goodness of man, or an evolutionary need to protect the community; when someone heard “help me,” they usually did.

“I can’t promise anything,” said Sheriff Miller. “We don’t have much manpower to spare.”

So much for small town hospitality. “I just have a few questions.”

“That’s no problem, then. Shoot.”

“I haven’t seen my little sister, Kate, for a couple weeks. Based on a voicemail, I think she came to Hamlin.”

The old man frowned and nodded, like the possibility fascinated him. “Mud River Road’s been closed for almost two months. Unless the barrier was down for both of you, can’t see how she would. Did you talk to your parents? Isn’t that where’d she be if she were here?”

“That’s the thing.” Cessy had hoped she wouldn’t have to confess much information. “She’d been talking with Jackson Wilder. And now my dad tells me that Gordon tells him that no one’s seen Jackson since at least last week. But that’s a week after Kate disappeared.”

Sheriff Miller’s aging cheeks tightened at her mention of Jackson. That usually meant she was following the right thread. “What’s your question, exactly?” His eyes darted to his cell phone on the desk, then back to Cessy.

“If she came to see Jackson, and then Jackson disappeared a week later, that leaves a week I think she was here in Hamlin. But she never stopped by to see our folks. I’m asking if you saw her, or heard any mention of her. And I’m asking if you know anything about Jackson. Did Gordon or Olivia report a missing person?”

Sheriff Miller shook his head. “Gordon hasn’t talked to me about his boy, but if he thinks Jackson skipped town, that’s not something the Sheriff would need to know.” He leaned in. “I’m sorry to be frank, but Jackson’s a married man. If Kate came here with adulterous intentions, wouldn’t she keep a low profile? And this is a Christian town; if anyone spotted them together, they’d be too ashamed to go telling anyone.”

That was a blatant lie, and they both knew it.

“Don’t look at me down your nose. You haven’t lived here for twenty years. Since I won reelection, people have been remembering their upstandingness.”

Cessy dropped her filter. “With all due respect, the lifeblood of small town America is gossip. If anyone had seen so much as a possibility of adulterous intent, they’d have been on every front porch in town, inviting themselves in for lemonade and beaming with pride that they know something real juicy.”

Sheriff Miller gripped the edge of his desk. His fingers tensed and turned red. The glass top dug into the wood. A vivid memory leapt to Cessy’s mind of Sheriff’s Millers violent hands closing around her forearms, leaving bruises even before the handcuffs appeared.

“I see your attitude hasn’t changed,” he growled. “You always felt small comparing yourself to the good folks around you. That’s why you ran off to the big city.”

His shaking fury surprised Cessy. A jab about gossip in small towns hardly felt like a low blow. She refused to break Sheriff Miller’s gaze. She chose each word carefully. “I apologize. I try not to hold ill will for my hometown. I hope most people I grew up with do the same for me.”

His shoulders relaxed. A small shake of his head, and a smile reappeared. “Of course we do. And I’m sorry I don’t have any answers about your sister. I can put the word out, to ask around if anyone’s seen her.”

“No, don’t.” She didn’t want to give the town an image of Kate that wasn’t deserved. But moreso, she didn’t want Sheriff Miller looking for her baby sister. It didn’t make sense, but after fifteen years wearing a badge, she’d learned to trust her gut. And her gut said Sheriff Miller was a more venomous snake than she’d remembered. “Let me a poke around a bit before we do anything official.”

The old man tensed. “Ain’t no need to go sticking your nose in anyone’s business. That’s how noses get scraped.”

“My sister is my business.”

He folded his large hands together on the desk. “Hamlin was better off the day you left. Would have been even better if you’d left before you graduated. I know the Davies family thinks so.”

Cessy stood up. “It’ll always be about that, huh?”

Sheriff Miller didn’t let her outburst interrupt his insults. “You were vermin then, and you’d be vermin now. As Sheriff of this little piece of paradise, I’m asking you to leave this town. I’ll inform your folks if I hear anything about Kate.”

“Did you forget I’m a cop? I know what’s in your authority, and what’s a blowhard empty order. You’re too used to dealing with an uneducated, ignorant citizenry.”

“Get out.”

“Not before I find my sister.”

“Out of my office!” he snarled. Although the old man’s bones were probably brittle with eighty years of decay, and his skin was spotty with age, he filled the order with power and authority.

Cessy didn’t need the last word. She went back down the hallway.

He’d flipped out the moment she said she’d poke around. There was something he didn’t want her to know.

That could mean terrible things for Kate, if Sheriff Miller was hiding something. But his outrage didn’t mean something awful had happened. Cessy took solace in knowing that the old man’s 1950s views on scandal meant that he’d probably hide adultery with as much vigor as he would hide murder.

Not murder. There’d been no murder.

Cessy squashed that idea.

She walked back through the foyer, giving Betty a brief wave. Betty had turned the radio back up.

“Aiding and abetting an enemy is called treason. Don’t talk to her. Don’t answer her questions.”

Cessy stopped. “Who is this? On the radio?”

Betty glanced down the hallway. “Sounds like Sheriff Miller would like you to leave.”

“What’s his name? Where is he?”

“Lockler,” said Betty. “I don’t know where he’s broadcasting from. The old station offices closed years ago. Now if you don’t leave, I have to put up with Reggie’s grumpiness the rest of the day.”

Cessy thanked her and left.

A rogue radio show? It likely didn’t matter. Whoever had called her from Kate’s phone had the radio on. That’s all. She had other avenues to investigate first.

Sheriff Miller had given her more information than he’d realized. His claim that the State closed the road was easily verified.

Which Cessy intended to do on the way to Gordon Wilder’s house.

13

Cessy pointed her 4Runner west on Main Street, towards Gordon Wilder’s side of town. Her tires rumbled and cracked over the decaying asphalt.

The dirty brick buildings of downtown gave way to boarded-up houses on the edge of town, and then to open, overgrown lots as Main Street turned back into Mud River Road. She passed the junkyard and a closed gas station. A small herd of beef cows watched her from a fenced-off hillside. Above them, Black Gold Peak hid half the sky. The abandoned coal mine within made it a dead sentinel over a dead town.

Cessy called the West Virginia Department of Transportation hotline, navigated a menu until she typed in Hamlin’s zip code, and listened to the robotic voice list out road closures.

Mud River Road was not among them.

It was satisfying, proving to herself that Sheriff Miller lied. But knowing that he was lying about why the town was blocked off didn’t get her any closer to Kate. It only raised more questions.

Before she went any further, she made herself text Landis again. “I’m in Hamlin. My folks won’t believe Kate’s missing. Sheriff claims the state closed the roads, but the State says otherwise.”

Landis responded quickly. “Glad you made it. Want me to call the State about the road? Could just be a paperwork issue.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Will do. Keep checking in.”

Cessy set aside her phone.

Ulton Ridge Road was a right turn ahead. On the corner, a sinkhole had swallowed a small farm house.

Cessy pulled over to look at it. She got out of the car, walked uphill to the white picket fence. The fence was untouched. The sinkhole had swallowed the house but barely any of the surrounding yard.

Cessy leaned over the freshly-painted pickets.

Wind blew, kicking up a scent of sour garbage. The junkyard was far behind her and nestled behind a hill. This smell was from the sinkhole.

Seeding grass surrounded the hole, waved in the wind. A round wall of dirt and roots where the ground had fallen.

The house sat crumpled in the hole like a brass shell in a revolver’s magazine.

Its brick chimney had fallen to lean against the wall of the sinkhole. Dirt and rocks littered the roof’s black asphalt shingles. The roof itself was split across the middle. The front of the house had sunk deeper than the back, ripping the old building down the middle as it collapsed.

Through the split, Cessy saw a bedroom. Water stained walls, a bed half covered in dirt.

A toppled wardrobe, solid wood. Around it, a copper stain on the carpet.

Cessy craned her neck to see deeper into the bedroom. She couldn’t spot the far wall.

The sour scent of garbage grew stronger. Cessy forced back a gag.

Instead of crumbled drywall and bare studs, Cessy saw dirt hidden in shadow. As if a tunnel pierced the bedroom, or the bedroom had fallen into a tunnel.

A truck drove by behind her.

She turned to watch, expecting them to slow and gawk with her. The engine noise increased even as the truck grew farther away. Whoever it was, they were gunning it towards the closed-off road out of town.

Cessy turned back to the house. She climbed over the fence, holding onto it behind her to lean over the sinkhole.

Down in the hole, a pile of car tires, and what she was pretty sure was a transmission.

She pieced things together.

An underground river had diverted to flow under the house, forming a tunnel. The occupants had been working with heavy car parts in the basement. The weight was too much.

That’s what she’d report if there were no experts to hand it off to.

But it didn’t look like anyone had inspected it, expert or otherwise.

There was no yellow tape to mark off the house. No sign that any belonging had been recovered.

Cessy had never known the people who lived here when she was a teenager. An elderly couple who kept sheep, who had to be long dead. Who had lived here when it collapsed? Had they been inside?

She walked the ledge inside the fence, looking in at different angles. All she saw was another destroyed bedroom.

Whoever owned it must have let their insurance lapse, otherwise it would already be on its way to being rebuilt. Unless the road closure was delaying the adjusters.

Even then, why hadn’t the town blocked off the obvious danger?

Cessy took photos with her phone. A habit from her days as a first-on-the-scene officer, but right now, just to document proof that she really was seeing something so uncommon.

Sinkholes didn’t just happen. Cave systems were common in this corner of Appalachia, but usually in mountainsides; not down in the middle of a valley. She wasn’t satisfied with her theory of underground rivers and basement car tinkering.

Cessy climbed back over the fence.

Hamlin was falling apart in more ways than one.

She got back in her car, and headed north on Ulton Ridge Road.

14

In front of her, Goat’s Jaunt was the low, northwestern barrier, keeping the outside world out of Hamlin. Its ridge met with Black Gold Peak.

Cessy peered up at the higher mountain. Thick trees covered it from base to top. Somewhere near the peak, Valerie hid in her shed. The poor librarian’s break with reality disturbed Cessy. But she couldn’t blame her. There was something weird going on in Hamlin. Mom and Dad were refusing to accept that Kate was here, or they were lying about it. Sheriff Miller had lied about why the road was closed. A phantom radio show filled the airwaves with hate.

If Valerie’s mind had been ready to hop off the reality train, Hamlin had plenty of stops.

Cessy obviously couldn’t trust Sheriff Miller enough to tell him about Valerie’s hiding spot. She’d stop by Valerie’s parents later, to feel out the situation before letting them know where their daughter was. But for right now, she needed to prioritize finding Kate.

The road that led to Ulton Ridge branched at the base of Goat’s Jaunt. To the left, the neighborhood. To the right, a quick trip up the valley between the two mountains, to a parking lot for hikers. Trails led up to both peaks. There was even a paved loop trail where moms pushed strollers.

That’s probably where Mom was talking about when she said she’d seen Jackson walking the trails. Assuming she hadn’t completely made that up.

Cessy jerked the wheel to the right at the last minute.

She’d talk to Gordon later. So far, the sheriff and her own parents hadn’t taken her seriously enough. She couldn’t expect Jackson’s father to say “oh sure, my son lured Kate here to try to seduce her; they’re hiding in the basement right now.” No, the better option was to go where Jackson had been seen. Allegedly.

And after all night in the car, followed by a few hours’ sleep in a cramped twin bed, it’d be nice to stretch her legs.

The road entered the forest to turn sharply, cutting her off from the open valley below, and then ended in a gravel lot.

A blue minivan sat in the corner. Its back tire was flat.

Cessy parked and got out of the car. The undergrowth here was thick. It’d take a machete to wander into the greenbrier thorns, young pines, and dark jade rhododendron bushes.

A wooden map stand, devoid of any maps, stood between two trailheads. The paved loop to the right, and the dirt path up the mountains to the left.

Cessy approached the minivan.

A Pennsylvania license plate. Someone visiting from out of town.

Or a rental car.

Cessy’s breath caught. She cupped her hands and looked into the front seat. A stack of papers on the passenger’s seat. Rental contracts.

And there in the center console, an insulated coffee mug with a yellow and red coat of arms, the word “Gryffindor” across the bottom. Kate’s Hogwarts house.

A low moan grew in Cessy’s throat to pour out in a stream of, “Nonononono.”

Cessy had wanted to believe that she’d been mistaken. Kate wouldn’t have really come home to see Jackson.

But now she was staring at proof.

Kate was in Hamlin.

Cessy broke the front window. The shattering glass was a flat sound in this parking lot walled in by tight undergrowth.

She inspected the rental paperwork. Kate had rented the van over a week ago.

Cessy ran through the possibilities. Kate had come straight here, to this trailhead parking lot, where she met Jackson. Then they drove off together.

That didn’t ring true. If they were going to run off together, why meet in a blocked-off town?

So maybe Kate had gone for a hike to clear her mind, come back to a flat tire, and called someone to pick her up. Not Mom or Dad, unless they were lying about having seen her. Not Jackson, unless Dad was lying about him being missing. Which he almost definitely was.

Cessy crumpled the paperwork. She hated dishonest witnesses.

If Jackson had picked up Kate, Jackson’s dad was the closest thing to a lead.

So Gordon was her next stop.

Cessy headed for her truck, then paused, thinking of domestic violence crime scenes she’d never unsee.

What if no one picked up Kate? What if she was up these trails somewhere?

A spark of hope fought for space amidst Cessy’s fear. What if Kate had just got here? What if she was hiking, and hadn’t even realized her tire was flat?

Cessy would have a hell of a time explaining the broken window.

Before she went to question Gordon, Cessy would hike the trails.

Her thoughts ricocheted between the hope of finding her sister hiking, and the horror of finding proof that Jackson was “vermin.”

15

Between the dirt trail up the mountainside, and the paved loop trail, Cessy chose the paved trail first.

Kate loved to escape to nature, but her work kept her at a desk most of the day, and she didn’t unwind through exercise. The shorter trail was more likely.

Cessy walked it at a brisk pace. Birds sang and crickets chirped. Squirrels crunched through the bed of dead leaves that underlaid the entirety of the forest. The black asphalt intruded on the greens and brownish grays of the woods. The trail constantly veered right, a slow loop, always promising something around the corner, only delivering more empty asphalt.

It took twelve minutes to complete the mile loop. No signs of Kate. No broken paths into the consuming undergrowth to indicate anyone had hiked off trail. Or been dragged off trail.

Cessy ignored that train of thought for now.

There was still the chance that Kate had gone up the dirt trail, optimistic about the strenuousness of the hike.

Cessy went to her truck to chug the remnants of a water bottle from last night. It tasted stale like chilly plastic.

She checked her watch. 1:20. Practically the whole day left. Plenty of time to walk the trail, and still have time to visit Gordon. Maybe she’d find Kate strolling back down the mountain. Or maybe she’d find Jackson, if Mom’s claim to have seen him wasn’t an impulsive lie.

The trail wound back and forth for three miles up to Black Gold Peak. Somewhere along the way, it branched into another trail that climbed Goat’s Jaunt, and another that explored farther north, loosely paralleling the fire access road she’d driven last night.

Cessy started her climb, distracting herself from what she might find by mentally reviewing past cases.

She stepped over roots and rocks. Avoided little gullies that formed when rainwater used the trail as a temporary stream. Branches scratched at her arms. This trail wasn’t as well-maintained as the paved loop. The forest fought to regain control.

Her quads burned after ten minutes of brisk uphill walking. She jogged three times a week, but none of her routes were relentless uphill switchbacks.

She tried to estimate how far she’d gone. Felt like a full mile, but with the incline making it tough, she guessed it was more like half or three-quarters.

She hadn’t seen any evidence of someone forging their own trail into the woods.

In fact, Cessy remembered hiking these trails as a teenager. She would bring a bagged a lunch, and find a place off the trail to sit and enjoy being alone in nature. But now, the undergrowth was too thick for even that. It should be thicker in some places, sparser in others. Instead, the bushes and vines held fast, consistent walls on either side of the tight trail.

Maybe the mine had been damaging vegetation growth, and each decade the mine remained dead, the forest grew more wild.

Cessy decided to walk another twenty minutes.

Seventeen minutes later, quads aching and lungs burning, Cessy spotted something neon pink on the ground, ahead in the elbow of a switchback.

She trotted up for a closer look.

It was a pink baseball cap. A single rip through the brim left stiff fabric hanging loose. The rest of the hat--white mesh, pink fabric--was in perfect shape, except for a handful of dead pine needles woven through the mesh.

Cessy tried to remember whether Kate owned a pink hat. She wore a red Nationals hat the last time they’d attended a game, but usually she kept her hair in a messy bun.

This hat more likely belonged to a local fitness enthusiast running the trails, who got her hat caught in a branch.

Cessy looked up into the trees. There wasn’t a stiff branch here that could have caught the hat. Maybe an unlucky thorn.

She could hear Detective Landis scolding her. “Read the evidence. Don’t massage it into saying what you want.”

If Kate’s rental van was in the trailhead lot, it was likely that this hat belonged to her. Cessy hadn’t memorized her sister’s wardrobe.

This was the place to search.

Something caught Cessy’s eye. On the underside of a thick oak branch, thirty feet above, dark specs wriggled. A patch as big as her hand, a shadowy warbling against the brownish gray of the tree bark.

Wind blew, pushed a lower branch in front of her view. It died down, and the leafy branch returned to its place. Cessy expected the wriggling darkness to disappear, but it was still there.

She stepped closer, careful not to step directly underneath in case something fell. She couldn’t see clearly enough to make out what she was seeing, although she was fairly certain it was a swarm of insects. Ants, maybe, although she’d have expected to be able to see legs and pincers and antennae. And although the swarm covered the bark entirely, it appeared to be a single layer of insects--no crawling atop each other.

A fly buzzed by, and Cessy realized the swarm on the tree was silent. She considered climbing for a closer look, but the thought of getting close repulsed her.

A spec looped out from the swarm, glided over a patch of moss, and returned. It moved like a boatman beetle.

They were too far above to see clearly, whether they were insects or holes. Cessy pulled the brake on that train of thought. She couldn’t let Valerie’s delusions confuse her.

Cessy’s ankle and foot still itched where she’d been bit or stung in her old bedroom.

Maybe Mom accidentally carried home some infestation.

Cessy stepped a generous distance away from the swarm to look around. She didn’t need to solve Hamlin’s pest problems. She needed to find Kate.

Cessy picked up the ripped pink hat. On closer inspection, the rip through the brim was clean. Only a few threads hung loose. It looked like someone had taken a pair of scissors to it, except the cut took sharp curves through the white, stiff fabric.

Cessy had to assume it was Kate’s. Maybe she’d left the trail, and hung the hat to be a neon pink trail marker to find her way back.

She looked around, but undergrowth limited her vision. She’d be a one-woman search party--gradually extending loops through the woods, around one central spot.

In thick woods, stepping off the trail was a quick way to get lost. Cessy looked up, found three distinct trees close to the trail, and memorized them.

Then she pushed through a tight copse of young pines, trunks as thick as her thumb. Sticky sap rubbed onto her exposed cheeks and arms. The smell reminded her of Pat’s cologne, which she’d spilled the night she kicked him out.

She climbed up the steep mountain. Her quads burned. Switchbacks had been a blessing; hiking straight up the mountain was killer on her legs.

Through the pines, the woods thinned out. She leaned on a tree to catch her breath.

Behind her, a wall of undergrowth in either direction. Up the mountain, it turned with the next trail switchback, and continued on. But around her, the undergrowth was more what she remembered from her teenage years. Greenbrier thorn bushes here and there, the occasional young tree extending thin branches in every direction, desperate for a meager swallow of sunlight, and various other plants that would tug at the ankles and scratch at the face of the rough hiker. She might have to search for a comfortable way through, but there always was one.

Not like the barrier that lined the trail. You’d need a machete to fight through that without getting scratched up. She snapped a photo with her phone.

Cessy tried to imagine what could cause such bizarre growth. Extra water from the trail serving as a stream during rain. Extra sunlight from the thin sliver of sky created above the trail. An overeager park ranger scattering MiracleGrow as he skipped up the trail.

All those explanations stank of bullshit.

Still, Cessy couldn’t think of a rational reason for why undergrowth surrounded the trails as if the forest was trying to restrict the trails. Or maybe swallow them.

She made a wide loop around the point she’d started from, looking to the three trees she’d memorized to keep her bearings.

The swarming specs came back into view. At least she wasn’t lost.

She climbed over a buried boulder with an exposed face the size of a refrigerator. Only moss grew within five feet.

Cessy scratched at the sap on her cheek, then picked it out from under her fingernails. She tried not to think of discount “woodsy” cologne.

A hawk screeched in the sky, out of sight above the green canopy.

Cessy checked her landmarks to keep track of the trail, then laughed at herself. The eight-foot wall of bushes and vines ensured she’d never lose the trail home.

She hiked through knee-high blueberry bushes, angling back to the trail, planning on extending her circle to the other side of the trial. Ahead, past a twisting sycamore, the ground dropped out of sight. She climbed the small ridge.

Below, in a culvert between the sycamore and a moss-covered boulder, was one of many mouths of the coal mine.

Six-by-six timber held open the entrance, older than Cessy but still solid. Hairline cracks punctuated the grain of the top beam.

Instead of a chainlink fence, or a steel wall, or even a collapsed pile of rock, the only thing blocking access to the mine was sticks leaned against it halfway across, then covered in many-armed branches.

Something crunched leaves behind her. Cessy looked over her shoulder. Nothing but empty woods. She turned her attention back to the anomaly in front of her.

So many things about this didn’t make sense. First off, all entrances to the coal mine should have been sealed. The West Virginia state legislature made very clear that closed mines be sealed with heavy lock and key, or intentional collapse.

Secondly, they had been closed off. As a rebellious teenager, of course Cessy went looking for access to the mine. She knew of three entrances to the belly of Black Gold Peak. Two were collapsed, one was so tightly boarded up you’d need a chainsaw to get through. She’d never heard mention of an entrance this close to the trails.

Thirdly, this was a nonsense location for an entrance. Not accessible by truck, and no evidence that it ever had been--even a 100-years-abandoned road left an indentation in the mountain.

She knew mines needed ventilation shafts, but even if this were one--which it wasn’t--it didn’t explain how she’d never known of it before.

The best explanation was that it had been built in the past twenty years. But the ancient beams--the thick roots growing tight around them--said that wasn’t the case.

With a glance back at the weird wall of undergrowth, Cessy stepped towards the equally discomforting mine entrance.

A drip of water plopped into a puddle. A faint echo down the tunnel.

Cessy walked to it.

The sticks leaning on the crossbeam covered half the entrance. They were fresh, still flexible and with yellow innards. Someone had built this within the past week. Cessy peered past the makeshift barrier, into the tunnel.

Mud and puddles on the ground. Dirt and roots made up the walls. Ten feet inside, another frame of decaying six-by-sixes. Beyond, daylight gave way to shadow black as the coal ripped out of the mountain’s bowels.

Cessy stepped over the puddle in the entrance. “Hello?”

Her voice echoed back, distorted an octave lower.

A cool breeze blew past her, into the tunnel. A warm, humid wind returned, moist and clammy on her cheeks.

Cessy invented another scenario. If Kate had met Jackson in the trailhead lot, and then changed her mind, Jackson would be furious. Kate might flee up the trails, and find a hiding place off the trail.

Cessy stepped deeper inside.

She thought the air in the tunnel would be cooler than the August day outside, but the temperature stayed the same, and the humidity increased. Not to D.C. intensity, but with a more organic scent to it, like freshly fertilized dirt from a garden.

She should have thought to bring a flashlight.

She leaned on the dirt wall to pull out her phone. The dirt was warm. She turned on the phone’s flashlight.

It supplemented the meager daylight with bright white LED. But it didn’t reach any farther than the daylight.

She took a few steps deeper.

The limit of the light stayed the same, its reach shrinking to end at the same point: ten feet in where the second timber support held up the mountain.

Cessy reminded herself that she’d kicked down doors to arrest heavily armed bank robbers. Shadows didn’t scare her. She took another step.

The frame loomed like a closet door in a trembling child’s bedroom. Who could say what horrors waited on the other side?

“Hello?” she called again.

No echo.

She held her phone out, reaching forward with the flashlight’s perfect circle of light.

As the LED bulb drew closer to the hanging sheet of blackness, the light it gave off still died at the barrier.

Cessy pulled the light away.

That couldn’t have been what she’d seen. Light didn’t behave that way. Flashlights on smartphones weren’t meant for distance, that was all.

Thudding in her chest. Cessy had kicked down doors with armed bank robbers on the other side. She wasn’t afraid of the dark.

Except, the way she dealt with fear was acknowledging it, and this impossible wall of darkness was disconcerting.

Cessy reached out with the flashlight. The LED cone died at the curtain of black.

Maybe Kate had hung up a blackout curtain to hide behind. That was nonsense, but it was enough to let Cessy’s frozen feet move forward.

The black curtain swallowed light even as Cessy approached. The light dimmed at her feet and against the walls around her, too.

Before she let herself doubt the decision, Cessy reached through the blackness.

This far away from the sunlight--and without the flashlight’s glow--the shadows blurred any harsh lines. Cessy’s arm disappeared up the wrist.

It was like reaching into a silty river rapid, but her hand stayed dry.

Cessy jerked her hand back to inspect it with the light. Red, inflamed.

“What the...” she whispered.

Some kind of vent blowing thick dust across the tunnel, somehow keeping a flat surface. Cessy reached into the darkness against either wall, but felt only the dirt and timber supports of the walls themselves.

It’d be easier to go down the mountain to start following leads to find Kate, but Cessy had seen Kate’s rental car, and seen her hat. She should search this tunnel. At least behind the obvious hiding place.

As a barrier, the curtain of dust wasn’t effective.

Cessy squeezed her eyes shut, leaned forward, and plunged in.

The curtain sandblasted her cheek and bare arms.

Not three steps in, her knees slammed into something hard. She tripped forward onto a slope of dirt and rocks. Cessy felt around.

The mine was blocked off. Collapsed.

Her arms and face stung from the rushing dust. She kept her eyes tight, felt around the collapse. It was dry.

If it had collapsed recently, there’d be wet earth.

Kate wasn’t in here.

Cessy made certain there wasn’t a way through that she’d missed, then staggered back out from the rushing blackness.

Her phone’s LED lit up the tunnel again. She inspected the rushing curtain. No evidence of where she’d entered or exited.

It was a relief and a worry that Kate wasn’t here. A relief that Cessy hadn’t found a corpse, and that Kate wasn’t trapped somewhere inside the mountain. A worry that her rental car was still parked at the trailhead. She’d been here, and Cessy didn’t know where she’d headed next.

Cessy walked back to the entrance of the mine. Muddy water soaked into her sneakers.

From inside the mine, the puddle under the entrance reflected the treetops outside. If she stood at precisely the right angle, she could see the swarming, formless insects on the underside of the oak branch, even more distorted through the puddle’s reflection.

She pointed her phone’s light once more at the support frame ten feet into the tunnel. The darkness beyond swallowed it.

Natural phenomenon, stupid science experiment, or weird destruction left by coal mining. Cessy didn’t know.

Even still, a locked door hiding an armed bank robber would be less disconcerting.

Cessy headed back downhill. She’d talk to Jackson’s father, and any other leads she could. But if this trailhead was the last evidence she had of Kate, she’d have to organize a search party to comb the mountain, and maybe other entrances to mine.

Leaves crunched under Cessy’s retreat as she left behind one of the mountain’s many mouths.

16

On her way back to the trail, Cessy texted Landis to catch him up.

“I’ve found Kate’s rental car. She’s here. Going to question Jackson’s dad now.”

Before she could decide whether to include the unnatural curtain of dust, her feet caught. She stumbled, caught herself on a toppled tree trunk. The bark scraped her palms.

She turned around for a closer look at what’d tripped her.

It was a wire as thick as her little finger, encased in black rubber and coated in dirt. It was pulled taught above the ground, lifted up by a root of the fallen tree. One end disappeared back under the ground, heading towards the wall of undergrowth that surrounded the hiking trail. The other sank back under the ground in the patch of blueberry bushes.

Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it to follow the wire back uphill to the wild berry bushes. She tugged at it to pull more out of the ground. Another foot of wire emerged from the dirt. It brought along spindly threads of root. Then it went taught.

Judging from the sharp angle at which the wire pierced the earth, it ran two or three feet underground.

If the wire continued straight on its path up the mountain, then it went to the mine entrance. Or passed nearby, at least.

She hiked the forty feet back up.

She avoided looking down the tunnel, instead carving at the dirt around the entrance with the toe of her sneaker. She didn’t find any wire, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t buried deeper.

Cessy had once helped Detective Landis run power to his shed, twenty feet behind his house. Even that short ditch had been a pain to dig. Roots slowed them down every other foot. It had taken all Saturday.

She couldn’t imagine how long it’d take to bury a wire through twenty feet of Appalachian woods, let alone however far this wire ran.

Even with an excavator that’d be a huge operation.

And why?

What was down this tunnel?

On her way back down, Cessy pulled out her phone to snap a photo of the surfaced wire.

Landis had texted back. “I got Kate’s computer. I can’t get into her email, but in Recent Downloads I found two audio files from two weeks ago. Weird radio shows. Could be why Jackson asked if she ‘heard’ the emails.”

That had to be radio programs that her parents and Sheriff Miller were listening to. Why would Jackson send that? The better question, was why would Kate care?

One more question to ask Gordon Wilder.

17

Cessy drove back down the mountain road, momentarily leaving the cover of thick forest into unimpeded sunlight.

She appreciated the warmth through the truck windows after the lurid shade of the forest, and the impossible blackness of the mine. It was frustrating, finding the rental car and then not finding Kate.

Cessy squinted at the sunlight, then turned onto Ulton Ridge Road, off of Black Gold Peak and onto Goat’s Jaunt.

She tried to stay positive. She’d found a rental car. She knew that Kate had come to Hamlin. Was most likely still here. She had a thread to follow--Jackson. And she was confident that when she pulled that thread, he’d lead her to Kate.

Just another day in the office.

The next yank on the thread would be finding out from Gordon Wilder where his son was.

The 4Runner bumped over a pothole. Her toolbox rattled in the back. Ahead, the wealthiest development in Hamlin.

Mailboxes and driveways interrupted the trees every hundred feet. The lots in Ulton Ridge were five acres each, most wooded with a clearing for the house that allowed the few wealthy inhabitants of Hamlin to look down at the town.

Jackson’s father owned four car dealerships. He’d sold the dealership in Hamlin fifteen years after the mine closed. The new owner scraped by another five years before Hamlin’s lack of income starved him out. Now it was an empty lot just east of the High School.

But Gordon’s other dealerships let him continue on fine. Last Cessy had heard, the man worked three days a month, and let his managers handle everything.

She spotted the mailbox with “Wilder” in reflective letters on the side. She turned up the paved driveway, drove through a claustrophobic tunnel of oaks and pines. Greens and grays surrounded her.

The drive opened up to a sloped, well-kept yard. Grass uniform in height, species, and shade of green. In the center of the circular driveway, a spotless white gazebo.

The house itself rose like a Victorian castle out of the mountainside. Black slate roof over red brick walls. Windows with wrought iron trim. Turrets with floor-to-ceiling windows, where residents could stare over the valley. A porthole window out of an attic eave.

A detached garage to the side of the house, three doors, with two open.

Gordon Wilder piddled about inside.

Cessy parked and walked over.

The view up here was spectacular. Whether it was worth the price tag of the home, she couldn’t say. She could see everything from the high school, to Main Street, to her parents’ neighborhood, and the Church of the Morningstar on the far side of the valley.

Viewed from this distance, Hamlin was pleasant. She couldn’t see the decaying siding and boarded-up windows.

Cessy could almost feel comfortable here, if she hadn’t burnt so many bridges as a teenager.

Inside the garage, an old radio with a three-foot antennae sat on a shelf near the open door. The angry radio host--Lockler, according to Betty--had grown raspy from shouting. “Why is the diner getting emptier each night? Are the true citizens of Hamlin getting fewer in number? If you suspect your neighbors are having doubts about our great town, step up and lend a hand. If you wait too long, you’ll miss your chance to-”

A tool motor screamed to life, drowning out the radio. The air smelled of sawdust and burnt cinnamon.

The garage housed a furniture workshop. This had to be where Dad’s coffee table came from.

A table saw, wide as a sheet of plywood, occupied the center of the shop. Along the short wall sat a miter saw atop low cabinets. A drill press sat in the corner. Those were the only tools Cessy knew the names or functions of. Another dozen floor-standing industrial machines filled the nine-car garage. The back wall held shelves stacked with lumber.

Gordon Wilder hunched over a machine that looked like a pizza oven with a conveyor belt going through it. He flipped a switch. A belt slipped, screeched, and then grabbed hold, and the machine roared to life. Gordon slid a wide board into the machine. The roar jerked to a noise that was a mix between a saw and a grinder.

Wood chips shot into a clear plastic tube, towards a vacuum in the corner that looked like a rocket ship. Sawdust burst into the air, illuminated by sunlight through a window.

The board slid out the other side, popped loose once it moved free from the rollers.

Gordon switched off the machine, scuttled around to his board. He wore a facemask and goggles, with big earmuff hearing protection. Thick white hair atop his head, wild from the earmuffs. Sweat gleamed on his round cheeks. The heat was bearable, but the protective gear probably raised body temperature a few degrees.

He wore a John Deere t-shirt, covered in dark sawdust.

Another motor continued, a six-foot vacuum in the corner, and then switched off on its own.

The radio host continued his ranting. “Let’s make lunch tomorrow a meal to remember. Make sure all your neighbors are coming. I hear Sally Carter will be bringing some homemade cinnamon rolls.”

“Hello,” Cessy called over the radio.

Gordon ran his hand along the board’s face. “Hardly don’t even need sanding.” The mask muffled his voice.

Cessy tried again. Waving this time. “Gordon?”

His head popped up and he looked around like a bird until spotting the source of the noise, and confirming that--yes--he had heard something. He removed his earmuffs and mask. Wiped sweat from his brow and turned off the radio. “Yes? What can I do for you?”

He didn’t recognize her yet. “My name’s Cessy Timms.” She resisted the impulse to say Detective Timms. “You know my folks. Do you have a minute?”

Gordon pulled the mask off. “Dadgum, is that you, Cessy?”

Cessy hesitated. She’d only briefly interacted with Jackson, let alone his father. She knew of him through Kate’s sobbed stories of their messy relationship. Yet here Gordon was, acting like Cessy was his favorite niece he hadn’t seen in years. “It’s me. Do you have a minute? I’ve been trying to track down my sister, Kate.”

His shoulders slumped. Sawdust trickled down from a pile that had formed in the creases of his shirt. “Oh lord. Does this have something to do with Jackson? Let me finish up with a few things, and we’ll talk.”

Cessy felt a twang of satisfaction as she pulled the investigative thread. “You know where she is? Is she with Jackson?”

Gordon returned his focus to his board. “I can’t leave my shop dirty, and then I need to set some red oak to drying. Please don’t get angry with me.”

Cessy bit her tongue. He could be making a dig at her teenage reputation, or he could be a small town Baby Boomer who believed all women with careers had attitude problems.

She could work with that. Benevolent chauvinism could be exploited.

“It’s just,” Cessy sniffed, “I’ve been so worried about her. If you know anything, please don’t make me wait.” The faked emotion threatened to become real. She really hadn’t seen her sister for two weeks, and if something had happened to Kate, especially after Cessy had waited until two missed lunches to check on her...

Pity showed in Gordon’s eyes. Not sympathy or empathy. Pity. “Okay then darling, we can talk while I finish up in here. Grab you a dust mask from the wall there. I’ve been planing black walnut. Walnut sawdust is poisonous.”

A row of white dust masks hung next to the door. Cessy stretched one around her face, then pinched the interior wire over the bridge of her nose.

“Shout if your eyes itch. Some folks are more allergic to it than others. I’ve got some extra goggles if you need them.”

Gordon’s phone dinged. It rested on a shelf in the corner. Gordon only spared it a glance before setting the planed walnut board on a workbench. He brushed his fingers across its face once more, like he was admiring a newborn grandson. “Smooth as glass. It’s gonna be the tabletop for a nightstand. Part of a pair I’m making for the Watkins.”

Cessy made a mental note to ask him about the holes on the underside of her parents’ coffee table. She’d ask now, but if it was an unintentional flaw, she didn’t want to attack his ego before she got answers about Jackson’s location. “That’s a lovely board. Where’d you get it?”

“I mill all my lumber myself. From my own property, or natural falls from my neighbors, or sometimes if I love a tree, I’ll offer the homeowners a fair price to cut it down. I bought a wormy maple tree from one of your father’s properties.”

“I never knew my parents were sitting on valuable lots.” Cessy emphasized parents. Mom and Dad owned those rental properties together.

“Coal’s not the only thing of value that’s naturally occurring in Hamlin,” said Gordon.

Again, Cessy bit her tongue. Of course coal was the only thing of value. That’s why the town began. And why it was now only surviving on food stamps and federally funded elder care. But if Gordon was like the rest of her parents’ generation in Hamlin, he loved his hometown as much as he loved his family.

Gordon procured a push broom from a closet to sweep the sawdust across the cement floor and out the door. It stirred up a dust cloud that amplified the burnt cinnamon smell.

“I’m looking for my sister,” Cessy reminded him. “Your son, Jackson, asked her to come to Hamlin.”

Gordon put away the broom. He took a rag to the cast iron top of the table saw. “Bullshit.”

Cessy jolted at his sudden terseness. She felt her investigative thread start to go limp.

Gordon focused intently on wiping down the tabletop.

“I can show you the text messages. He was begging her to come.”

“Don’t need to see them. Jackson didn’t message nobody.”

“How can you be sure?”

Gordon threw the rag down. His cheeks shook with anger. “You drove here from your dad’s place? Down Main Street, then north on Ulton Road?”

“I did.” She wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

“You saw the collapsed house on the corner there, when you turned?”

“Looked like a sinkhole. Is there a cave system below the town?” She thought of the tunnel she’d seen through the collapsed bedroom.

Gordon put his hands on his hips. “Young lady, didn’t you go off and get a college degree? Are you playing stupid with me?”

The pieces fell into place. Cessy spoke without thinking. “Are you saying Jackson was in that house?”

Gordon widened his eyes and nodded. “You’re slow, but you get there.”

He walked past her, outside and around the side of the garage.

Cessy followed, taking off her mask and leaving the burnt cinnamon smell of the shop for the scent of recently-cut grass. Uphill from the garage was a leveled space as large as a basketball court. In the center of the leveled ground was a steel track with a horizontal band saw that rode along it. Two logs waited for their turn through the sawteeth.

Cessy fought to take back control of the conversation, as if she could talk Gordon out of what he was about to say. “That house has been rotting at least a month. Jackson was texting Kate two weeks ago.”

Gordon ignored Cessy to remove a tarp that covered a stack of wood slabs. Wind flapped the tarp and whistled behind her.

Cessy turned to see that against the back of the garage were what looked like two small shipping containers, but with tighter seals on the doors, and motors on top. One was locked tight, a bar and latch across the door. The motor hummed. The second container was open, its motor still.

Gordon went to the log-shaped stack of slabs. He stood at one end. “How about a hand?”

Cessy went to the far side. Together, they lifted the top slab. Her arms and back strained with the effort. The damn thing had to be a hundred fifty pounds.

Gordon walked backwards toward the open shipping container.

Cessy asked the question she didn’t want the answer to. “I’m sorry, Gordon. Did you mean that Jackson was in that house?”

She followed him into the container. The enclosed space deadened the wind. Even with the door opened, the air was dryer in here. They set down the slab on a bed of bone-dry two-by-fours.

“That’s what I said.” Gordon went for the next slab.

Cessy followed. She couldn’t think of a tactful way to ask a man if his son was dead. “Was he hurt?”

Gordon leaned on the mill. “His house done collapsed around him. He and his pretty wife were killed. I thought you stopped by your folks. They didn’t tell you?”

“No. Not even when I brought him up.” Cessy’s investigative thread fell limp, snipped in two.

She leaned on the wood, stabilizing her thoughts. Jackson couldn’t be dead. Cessy had seen his text messages. But she couldn’t deny Gordon’s genuine grief. Dad’s story made more sense, but Gordon’s felt more honest.

Cessy couldn’t accept it. Jackson was her only path too Kate. “In fact, my folks said Jackson was missing. Said you hadn’t seen him for a week.”

“What? You must be confused. They were at the funeral. They sent flowers. Your daddy kept me from drinking myself to death that first week.”

Cessy shrugged, a balancing act of being casual enough that she didn’t sound accusatory, but serious enough for his supposed grief. “It was just this morning.”

Gordon chewed on his lip. “Maybe they were protecting you from feeling sad. Your mother has some weird ideas with all that therapy she used to do. Or they were respecting my privacy. We try not to spread rumors around here.”

That was not the Hamlin Cessy knew, but she was staring the evidence in the face. Mom and Dad had gone past avoiding gossip, to fully covering up the truth.

Gordon was frustrated, but Cessy wasn’t ready to back down yet. Her gut believed him, but she still needed the logic behind it. “I asked Sheriff Miller about Jackson, and he didn’t mention it, either.”

Gordon looked at her suspiciously. He patted his pockets.

“What are you looking for?” asked Cessy.

“Nothing,” said Gordon. “Why were you talking to Sheriff Miller?”

“I’m searching for a missing person. So I went to law enforcement.”

“What’d he tell you?” He reached into his back pocket, came up empty.

“Your phone is on a shelf in the garage,” said Cessy, “if that’s what you’re looking for. I guess if you’ve been using those loud machines for a few hours, you would have missed any calls from my dad or the Sheriff.” It was a guess, that they were all trying to get their story straight to pacify Cessy. Except they hadn’t agreed on one single coverup story, and now Cessy had shown up to Gordon’s unexpected.

“Thank you.” Gordon walked back to the garage.

Maybe he was lying. Wouldn’t be the first convincing witness who turned out dishonest.

Cessy clung to that hope. Gordon was lying about Jackson. Cessy still had a lead to follow to find Kate.

Follow the evidence, Detective. Don’t massage it.

“Shut up, Landis,” Cessy mumbled.

“What’s that?” called Gordon.

Cessy had to be honest with herself. Of her parents, Sheriff Miller, and Gordon Wilder, Gordon spoke the most openly. Cessy was a few ticks short of a human lie detector, but her gut got it right more often than not.

Besides, Gordon was off-balance, more prone to spilling the truth than her parents or Sheriff Miller.

If Jackson died a month ago, why had Mom and Dad lied about it? Who had been texting Kate two weeks ago? What would be Cessy’s next step to finding her?

Gordon retrieved his phone. “You didn’t tell me what Sheriff Miller said about Jackson.”

Cessy needed answers, wherever they led her. Even to a dead end. She’d found Gordon’s wound, so she pressed on it to see what confessions bled out. “He suggested Kate and Jackson were having an affair.”

“That sumbitch.” Gordon walked back to the stack of slabs. “He knows damn well Jackson would have never did that to Olivia.”

Cessy reevaluated her impression of Gordon Wilder. She’d expected him to be in lockstep with Sheriff Miller. She expected that of all the elderly Hamlin residents. Nobody loved a white male authority figure like small town old folks. Especially one like reelected Sheriff Miller, straight from the good old days.

Cessy eased off the wound. Didn’t want to press too hard and let the confession congeal. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t believe that my sister would do that, either.” She helped Gordon lift another slab.

“Bullshit. You came to question me. You thought something fishy was happening between them.”

Cessy responded without thinking. “My sister would never make that mistake again.” So much for playing nice.

They set down the slab atop the first, inside the container. Gordon lifted up one end, slid in a thin piece of lumber. He pointed at a stack of narrow, short lumber next to Cessy. Cessy slid in a piece on her side.

Cessy’s heart pounded. Her head throbbed. First an uphill climb had her panting, now some heavy lifting had her chest feeling like it was going to explode. She needed to spend more time in the gym.

Gordon headed back towards the milled log. He worked his jaw and avoided eye contact. She’d pissed him off.

Cessy abandoned pretense. Forget the evidence. She needed Jackson to be alive so she could find him, and make him take her to Kate. Gordon had to be lying. “So where are they?”

“Who?”

“Jackson. And Kate, if you know anything.”

The old man flinched. He sneered in disbelief. “I told you. I have no idea where Kate is. And Jackson is dead.”

Cessy sucked in air. “You’re sticking with that story? Even after checking your phone?”

“It’s the truth.” Gordon went for another slab. “Goddamn, it’s only been a month. It’s cruel, what you’re doing. What exactly are you accusing me of?”

“I’m looking for my baby sister! I’d accuse you of murdering the Pope if I thought it’d get some answers out of you!”

Gordon gritted his teeth. “The only reason I don’t throw you off my property right now is that your father is a great man.” He exhaled. Relaxed his shoulders.

He lifted his end of another slab. Cessy hurried to help.

“I wish I had something to tell you,” Gordon grunted. “You must be terrified. But it’s been a month since my boy passed, and before that he never said nothing about hearing from Kate.”

She strained with the weight, penguin-waddled toward the container.

Gordon dropped his end of the slab. It yanked free from Cessy’s fingertips. She narrowly pulled her toes free from being crushed.

“I’d offer to let you go through his things, but what with the sinkhole, there’s nothing left.”

Cessy lifted her end of the slab onto the stack. She wanted to feel pity for the old man. A shitty death for a shitty son, leaving behind a grieving father. But she needed Jackson to lead her to Kate. “My dad was crystal clear. He said Jackson was missing.”

“You’re either confused or lying. My boy and his wife are buried on the hill behind Morningstar.”

Cessy swallowed. That was too specific a detail to make up so quickly. Gordon wasn’t lying.

“You can see their headstones three rows over from the old pines. Polished granite. Cost me three thousand dollars.”

Against everything she hoped for, everything she needed to be true so she could find Kate, so she could fix her mistake of not calling sooner, of having the gall to be happy that Kate skipped lunch so she could work on paperwork, against it all, Cessy believed Gordon.

Jackson was dead.

Cessy had lost the thread that could lead her to Kate. Now Kate drifted free, a missing person lost in the aether of missing persons.

18

Cessy drove back down Ulton Ridge Road. With no other leads to follow, she felt numb. She had to verify Gordon’s claims, but she already knew what she’d find. Jackson really had lived in that house, and he and his wife really were buried behind the Church of the Morningstar.

She passed out of the trees, still high up on Goat’s Jaunt. Across the valley, the white chapel was a squat monolith, perched high enough above the town to set itself apart, but not so high that it set itself above. A shepherd watching a flock from his hill, not a guard watching prisoners from a tower.

From up here, Cessy could imagine why her parents loved Hamlin. It was a painting out of the Saturday Evening Post. A colorful main street, surrounded by the green yards of the citizens.

Back on the hilly valley floor, Cessy passed a rolling brown pasture, eaten down to the dirt by cows or goats that had since moved on. The barbed wire fence surrounding it had collapsed in two locations Cessy could see. A manure scent filled the truck--normal for Hamlin--shortly followed by a smell of rotting death.

Cessy’s numbness turned to panic. She braked, jumped out of the car.

The stench hit her in rapid fire waves. She followed it to the ditch, into a culvert. A swarm of crickets chirped frantically. Water babbled out of a cement pipe which passed under a dirt road into the pasture.

Cessy wanted to go back to her self-pity at having no leads.

She saw Kate’s bloated and split hand, hanging out from the pipe. Fingers cut off before the first knuckle, palm risen in cracked pink boils.

Then Cessy realized it was a dog’s paw. Short toes, the pads on the bottom of its foot cracked and rotting.

It looked like a boxer had crawled into the pipe to die.

Cessy felt relief that Kate was still missing, even if she had no leads.

Holding her breath, she leaned in to check for a collar. She lost her balance, stumbled, and knocked a rock down the embankment. It landed on the dog’s chest.

The boxer’s skin slopped down off its body.

A tidal wave of stench smothered Cessy. She scrambled back out of the ditch, sparing one more glance at the dog.

Blood red and puss yellow. Muscles and tendons and bones. Skin bunched at its side, like a quilt kicked off the foot of a bed.

Someone had skinned a dog, then left it wrapped in its own hide.

Cessy heaved, her throat muscles spasmed. She held down Mom’s tex-mex casserole.

From above, Hamlin could go on a Christmas card. From up close, Hamlin was a wretched-looking corpse, even more wretched underneath.

Cessy drove back to the collapsed house. She’d verify Gordon’s claims that Jackson was dead, and then she’d figure out what to do next.

Black Gold Peak leered over her. Maybe the librarian-in-hiding had more answers. Maybe Cessy’s answer was decaying somewhere in the mine.

Cessy wasn’t entirely out of leads.

She slowed at the sinkhole.

Although the house’s roof barely stretched above the ground, the white picket fence by the street was undisturbed. Reflective numbers tacked to the gate post read off the address. Cessy memorized it.

She drove through town, ignoring her surroundings.

She parked in front of the Church of the Morningstar. The church hadn’t changed since Cessy’s childhood. Wood siding painted white. Steeple over a bell. The same stained glass on either side of the front double doors, decorative colors around a brown cross. Like the rest of Hamlin, the old chapel was prettier from far away. The paint was chipped, and there was a crack through one of the glass crosses.

She used her phone to look up Jackson’s address on the online White Pages.

The address matched.

That was Jackson’s house.

Cessy walked around the chapel towards the cemetery up the hill.

Her yearly holiday visits home didn’t include much walking around the town. She’d forgotten how many hills there were to climb.

Behind the church, a leveled, paved basketball court to the left. The fenced-in cemetery to the right. The cemetery stretched up the hill fifty yards, and was thirty yards wide. The grass was well trimmed, although strangled by crabgrass and clover. The farther up the mountain, the harder the fence worked to keep back the forest. Young trees, vines, and bushes poked through and bowed the wrought iron. Older trees reached their branches above, offering shade to Hamlin’s Christian dead.

Cessy spotted the old pine trees that Gordon had referred to, halfway up the lot. She counted over three rows of graves, then walked up there.

She found them quickly. Two grave stones still shiny with polish. Plots still covered with straw, thin grass growing through.

Jackson Arthur Wilder

Olivia Goodman Wilder

Dates that confirmed Gordon’s timeline.

Cessy sucked in a breath.

She’d wanted Gordon to be lying. It didn’t seem real. She pushed at the gravestones, scooped up a fistful of dirt and grass seed.

Jackson couldn’t be dead.

That house had collapsed a month ago. Jackson’s voicemails to Kate were only two weeks old. The audio files Landis had found were downloaded two weeks ago.

But here was Jackson’s grave. And down in the valley, there was the disaster that killed him.

Someone had texted Kate. Maybe it had been Jackson at first, but then it was someone else.

If she hadn’t run off on an adulterous affair, where was she?

No one lured a pretty young woman to her hometown with benign intentions.

Kate was here in Hamlin. Somewhere. In danger.

Cessy tried to squash the thought that it might already be too late.

But her remaining leads were thin. Her head throbbed from lack of sleep, her shoulders ached from carrying lumber, and her stomach still turned over from the scent of the dead dog.

Kate’s corpse would smell similar. Had someone skinned her, too?

She stumbled downhill through the cemetery, back towards her car.

It wasn’t right. She’d escaped this shithole town, and she’d helped Kate escape. It shouldn’t be able to reach back out and swallow her.

Jackson was dead, and Mom and Dad had lied about it. Pretended that Jackson was missing, was anywhere but Hamlin, when they knew damn well that he and his wife were buried not a mile from their kitchen table.

They’d wanted Cessy to leave.

It was time to go back home and demand answers.

19

As soon as Cessy got back into her truck, her phone rang.

The interruption agitated her agitation. She was after answers, and anything that slowed her down was a threat to Kate.

It was Detective Landis.

Cessy answered. “What do you got for me?”

“Timms, how’s your vacation?”

“Not in the mood.”

“Alright. Did you listen to the audio files I sent you?”

“What files?” Cessy checked her phone. “They never came through.”

“I’ll send them again. It’s what I found on Kate’s laptop. I’m still trying to get into her email, but these were in her recent-downloads file. Really bizarre radio talk shows. A lot of very specific anger.”

“It’s all anyone’s listening to out here.”

“Really? I don’t like the sound of that. Tell you what, I’ve got some PTO banked. I’ll head out there tomorrow, and we’ll see what witnesses we can talk to.”

“Don’t bother. The witnesses are all hostile. Even my parents.”

“What?”

Cessy told him how they’d lied about Jackson’s death.

“Then who was texting Kate?”

“That’s one of the questions I’m gonna go ask them.”

“Bring the local cops.”

“They lied, too. Straightened out their story with my folks before talking to me.”

“Shit. Go to the state police.”

Cessy chewed her lip. That was the right move. But Cessy wasn’t going to wait around for them. She didn’t know how much time Kate had left. “I’ll call them. After I talk to my folks. I gotta make this right.”

“If you don’t call them, I will. You can’t let yourself get like this, Timms. You’re a hundred and ten percent in the right, but it doesn’t matter what’s right if people won’t listen to you. Your parents won’t talk if you go in there loaded for bear.”

“Don’t got time for a lecture.” Cessy hung up, and ignored the phone’s buzz when he called back.

It wasn’t right that she and Kate got yanked back into Hamlin. It wasn’t right that Sheriff Miller lied to her. Or that her own parents had fed him the lie. It wasn’t right that Kate was missing.

Those were problems she aimed to fix.

Starting with her parents. They hadn’t listened to logic earlier. Her old tricks to get what she wanted out of them hadn’t worked.

Cessy took a deep breath. She’d go down there and appeal to their emotion. She was still their little girl. They had to listen. She wasn’t sure what she’d do otherwise.

Cessy started the truck. She looked down over the east side of the valley.

The collapsed house looked bigger from this angle.

Wait, that wasn’t Jackson’s house. She was on the opposite side of town.

Down at the bottom of the hill, a quarter mile from the eastern stretch of Mud River Road, another sink hole had swallowed another house.

From up on the hill, she couldn’t see much detail. But like the first she’d seen, this sinkhole didn’t extend far beyond the walls of the house itself.

Cessy looked out over the valley. She spotted three more collapsed houses. One more north of town, and two in town itself.

What kind of underground disaster was going on?

She pointed her truck downhill, toward the impending confrontation with her parents.

She had the feeling she’d staggered into a small town crisis that had swallowed up her baby sister. But Cessy didn’t care about hickville rumors or feuds, or local angry radio shows, or collapsed houses, or wires running up mountains. She’d get answers out of Mom and Dad, and then she’d get Kate out of this backwoods hellhole.

20

Cessy parked on the street in front of her parent’s house.

The mid-afternoon sun beat down onto her black 4Runner. Heat welled inside the truck as soon as she turned off the engine and the AC.

She got out and headed inside the house.

She knew she should take a moment to decide on a line of questioning, but things had progressed beyond that now.

She opened the unlocked front door and walked inside.

The same radio show filled the house. “Bring your best meals to share tomorrow. Make sure everyone’s there. Anyone who misses out, well, that’s how we can tell who’s vermin and who’s not.”

Cessy navigated Mom’s collection of knick-knacks and the coffee table made by Gordon.

On the kitchen counter sat a grocery bag full of freshly picked cucumbers and tomatoes.

The radio sat atop the microwave, an outdated CD/cassette player boombox, tuned to an A.M. station.

“Don’t forget, someone’s been trying to reopen the roads. They want to let in the gang bangers, rapists, and drug dealers. Small towns like Hamlin are the lifeblood of America. If we don’t take a stand to protect our families from this vermin, who will?”

Cessy switched off the radio. This Lockler asshole wasn’t a normal local talking head. He was more aggressive, more dangerous. Why the hell did people listen to this?

Or maybe it was normal, and Cessy just hadn’t turned on A.M. radio for too long.

Quiet fell over the house.

“Mom? Dad?”

The radio host’s muffled voice drifted in from the backyard.

Cessy went outside. The broadcasted ranting mingled with birdsong. A small radio sat on the deck railing, overlooking the garden. Dad bent over in a row of green beans, dragging along a five-gallon bucket. Mom knelt next to a wheelbarrow, using a hand-trowel to dig weeds out from inside tomato cages.

“...protecting us from that vermin are those two ‘Road Closed’ barriers.”

Cessy pressed the off button.

Birdsong reclaimed the August afternoon. Her parents looked up from their gardening.

“Cessy,” asked Dad, “I got back and you weren’t here. Where’d you get off to?”

His feigned innocence infuriated her. She tried to hold on to her plan of appealing to their emotion, but she couldn’t get past the thought of them telling lies when Kate was missing. “Sheriff Miller didn’t tell you? Gordon Wilder never called you back? I was looking for my sister, which you should both be doing, instead of playing Little House on the Prairie and wishing you were cowboys.”

Mom dug up another weed. “We just don’t think there’s anything to worry about. If Kate had come to Hamlin, she would have told us.”

Cessy stomped down the deck steps. The wooden structure creaked under the violent force. “I’m not having this bullshit debate again. You lied to me earlier.”

Dad pointed at her, green bean in hand. “Don’t call your mother a liar. We raised you, and we deserve more respect.”

“It’s always about respect with you,” Cessy felt herself getting dragged into the same teenage argument. She stopped, took a breath. “You lied to me this morning. Fudged the truth, alternative facts, whatever you want to call it.”

Dad wiped dirt off his glasses, leaving streaks behind. “I told you to stop with those accusations. You may be grown, but we’re still your parents.”

“I talked to Gordon Wilder. I walked up to Jackson and Olivia’s graves. I saw the collapsed house that killed them.”

Dad flinched. He looked to Mom, who stared at her feet and shook her head.

“A month ago,” said Cessy through gritted teeth. “They’ve been dead a month. Why did you lie to me?”

Dad’s face grew a deeper shade of red. “Did Gordon tell you what Jackson and Olivia had been up to?”

“Rusty, don’t,” warned Mom.

“The girl wants to know the truth, let’s tell her the truth.”

“That’s Hamlin business. No one else’s.”

“Cessy’s family. She’s part of Hamlin. That means it’s her business, too.”

Cessy cleared her throat. “If this juicy tidbit of gossip about Jackson explains why you lied, or explains where the hell my little sister is, then spit it out.”

“Jackson was cooking meth,” said Dad.

“Rusty,” hissed Mom.

“Hamlin’s not immune to vermin,” said Dad. “And Jackson was the king rat.”

“So what?” asked Cessy.

“Jackson was cooking the meth that was killing this town,” insisted Dad. “What do you mean ‘so what?’”

“You expect me to be surprised?” asked Cessy. “Jackson’s been a sociopathic moron since Kate first brought him over for Christmas dinner. He’d fit right in with the criminals I hunt down every day.”

“He’s still Gordon’s family,” said Mom. “And we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

“That’s not the point.” Cessy was ready to pull out her hair. “Why did you tell me he was missing? Why’d you want me to think Kate had run off with him somewhere? Like you’re trying to get me to leave town to go looking for them somewhere else.”

Dad grimaced. “Let’s go inside and sit. Your mom can fry up some bacon with these green beans, and I’ll pull a couple steaks out of the freezer.”

Cessy stepped backwards. “Why did you want me to leave town?”

Mom pushed the wheelbarrow out of her way and walked towards Cessy. She held the trowel at her side. Mud dripped from it like congealed blood off a knife. “You’re jumping to conclusions, honey.”

“Neither of you are answering the question. Why are you trying to get rid of me? Where’s Kate?”

“We haven’t seen her. Honest.” Mom walked closer. She held out her hands as if in supplication, except she still held the sharp trowel. “Let’s go inside and talk.”

Cessy stepped back with her right foot. Her left hand went up. “Stop. Don’t get any closer,” she ordered. Her right hand unhooked the strap on her holster.

Mom stopped. Hands raised in supplication turned to hands raised in defense. “Cecelia?”

Dad stormed towards her. “Threaten your own mother?” He was unarmed, and pushing seventy, but still fifty pounds heavier than Cessy. If he was spry enough to fix houses, he was spry enough to be a threat.

Her instincts took over. She drew her pistol, aimed it at Dad’s center mass, but kept her finger off the trigger. “Stop.”

Staring down the black pit of a gun barrel scared all but the most tweaked-out criminals. Dad hesitated, stumbled, fell to his side. He winced and grasped his hip.

Mom dropped the trowel to hurry to her husband.

Cessy dipped the barrel at the ground, but kept the gun raised.

Dad inhaled through clenched teeth. “What the hell’s got into you?”

Cessy holstered her pistol. Dad wasn’t a threat. “My baby sister is missing. She came to Hamlin. You’re lying about it.”

“Get off my property,” Dad growled.

“Where’s my sister?”

“You can’t threaten me on my own property. I didn’t work my ass off thirty years to have my disrespectful daughter threaten me on my own property.”

Cessy resisted the urge to draw her gun again. She’d defended herself; the threat was over. But maybe not for Kate. “Tell me where to find Kate, and I’ll leave.”

“We don’t know! Why do you think we know?” pleaded Mom. “Please go. Let me get your father inside, and I’ll call you later and we can sit down and work out this conflict before it turns into something serious.”

“We’re beyond that,” said Cessy. “You’re hiding something, and I’m going to find it.”

Cessy walked past them towards the shed in the back yard.

“Call Sheriff Miller,” Dad said behind her.

The garden shed was red and white, painted like a barn from a storybook. Cessy opened the door.

“I told you to leave,” Dad growled. “That means you’re trespassing now.”

Inside the shed was a riding mower, a snow blower, and garden tools hanging from a wall. Empty spaces for the wheelbarrow and tools already out in the yard.

Cessy didn’t see any answers to her questions.

She turned around, crashed into Dad, knocked him to the ground. He yowled in pain. Grasped his hip.

Cessy left him behind. Back inside, she passed Mom in the kitchen, who frantically dialed their landline phone.

21

Down into the basement.

Cessy’s footsteps on the wooden staircase echoed in short slaps. Cessy flipped the light switch at the bottom of the stairs. Two bare bulbs lit up the cramped room. The basement ran the full length of the house, but just half the width. The ceiling was open--joists spanned the length of the ceiling. The floor was bare cement. Against either wall were steel shelves, packed tight with canned and jarred food close to the stairs, and then boxes of Mom’s baubles farther down into the basement.

A freezer blocked half the path, cutting off the view of the back corner of the basement.

The door slammed shut at the top of the stairs.

Cessy ignored it. There was no lock. And if she needed to, she could go to the far end of the basement, through a doorway into the crawlspace that occupied the other half of the house’s underbelly, then out through the crawlspace entrance under the front porch.

She listened for Mom upstairs, her call with the sheriff, or even the weight of her footsteps. Nothing. The basement felt cut off from the world, like instead of being six feet beneath the earth’s surface, Cessy was a thousand feet beyond the sun’s reach.

She caught her breath. She should have controlled her temper. Mom and Dad would have listened if she could get across to them how scared she was for Kate. But she didn’t know how to do that.

A fly buzzed at the lightbulb overhead.

Cessy moving forward made a shadow float over the freezer door. She tried to look past the freezer. Although there was ample space to maneuver around it, the second lightbulb was positioned so that the bulky off-white appliance cast a shadow over the rear of the basement.

“Kate?”

Again, a single clap of an echo, returning before she’d finished saying the word.

If their parents were hiding Kate from her, this was where they’d keep her. Or more likely, in the crawlspace.

Cessy walked toward the freezer.

Above, Mom turned the radio back on. The host’s voice drifted downstairs, muffled but distinctly him. He spoke in small bursts, like he was interviewing someone whose voice wasn’t making it through the floor. Cessy couldn’t make out his words, but she heard something else: that same slowed down, nails on a chalkboard sound she’d heard on the phone. A slow warble, like train cars passing by underwater.

A bug skittered across the freezer door.

Cessy gave it a wide berth, brushing against the shelves. A plastic Christmas wreath caught her sleeve. A red holly berry broke free, fell to the cement floor, rolled into the darkness past the freezer.

Cessy switched on her phone’s flashlight. The pale white light contrasted with the yellow bulbs closer to the stairs. Behind the freezer, the steel shelves continued to the far wall, except for a cramped wooden door built from planks now white with powdery mold.

The radio host’s voice grew loud and clear.

Cessy whirled around, expecting to see him standing behind her.

The basement remained empty. The underwater train sound sped up. The host’s rage came down the stairs, as if Mom were holding the radio against the closed door. “...worked hard all our lives, not like these people who game the system, and then they tell us, we’re responsible for keeping food on their tables? We’re the ants in this situation, ladies and gentlemen, and they’re the grasshoppers. It’s feast or famine, and tomorrow, at the diner, we feast, while the vermin’s gravestones will read ‘refused to prepare for famine.’”

Cessy hesitated. Mom--who’d birthed her, breastfed her, played dolls with her on the floor, taken her to softball games, did her hair for prom, encouraged her in her career, cried on the phone with her when Pat left--was standing at the top of the stairs, blasting local talk radio down the stairs. A pang of grief. It wasn’t a stranger on the other side of that door. It wasn’t so simple. Mom hadn’t been replaced, or forgotten who she was, or anything so simple as that. Everything she was doing fit her personality, even if it was the shameful, damaging corners of her personality.

But Cessy couldn’t yet articulate why she grieved, or exactly how Mom was different.

She walked to the crawlspace door.

The radio above screamed, “Prove that you’re not lazy. It’s not an unfair request.”

The mold on the door puffed into a cloud as Cessy’s approach disturbed the air.

She unlatched the door and swung it open.

“Kate?”

A vivid memory of the thick curtain of shadow beyond the support in the mine, and then the LED light swept into the crawlspace.

Thick black plastic covered the ground. Ductwork covered in mold stretched under the floor above. Copper pipes and red wires clung to the joists. The ground rose at a gentle incline from where she stood towards the front of the house. To reach the front wall, she’d have to stoop, then crawl.

The bright circle of her flashlight spread to ineffectiveness after only eight feet. She pointed it towards the corner of the crawlspace that was next to the basement stairs, back the way she came, but could see very little.

A rectangle of sunlight from the front wall--the crawlspace entrance under the front porch, blocked by a plywood barrier.

“Kate?” Cessy stepped into the crawlspace. The plastic ground covering crinkled. Her shoes slipped on loose dust and mold spores. She reached her flashlight towards the dark end of the crawlspace, let it lead her. Her right hand went to her holster. “Are you down here?”

She ducked under a copper pipe.

“I understand it’s a sacrifice, and that’s why I’m so proud of you. You’re not like your neighbors who ran off. You’re the foundation of everything good in this town.”

The radio rants were directly above her now, but the crawlspace extended onward. Joists, ductwork, and wires, continued ahead. The flashlight hadn’t yet found the far wall.

Cessy started counting her steps. She thought she’d already passed the stairs. The end of the house should be another six feet.

With her left hand on the cement wall that bisected the house, Cessy walked forward, LED light banishing the darkness a few feet at a time.

Ductwork turned and cut off her path. The far wall had to be right on the other side, but peering through, she still saw only darkness.

“Kate?”

Cessy belly crawled under the ductwork. The ground covering was slimy on her cheek; screws on the bottom of the ductwork tugged at her hair.

Far behind her, the radio host roared. “Not like the vermin selling drugs to children, or stealing from you and me by living on our tax dollars, or shitting on what we used to have.” His words turned to grating gibberish, a guttural release, rabid argument giving way to animalistic rage. The warbling turned to a loud scraping, overlaid with an irregular, wet thumping.

Cessy looked behind her, expecting the radio host to be standing there, slamming his fist on a mass of wet flesh. But it was just her parents’ crawlspace.

Her parents’ crawlspace stretched twice as long as it should be.

Ahead, it stretched even farther, beyond her phone’s flashlight.

Cessy squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the radio host’s howling and make sense of what was happening.

Had the chaos with her parents snapped something in her mind? Was she hallucinating? Could a moldy basement trigger delusions?

She’d never hallucinated before, but she’d arrested her share of schizophrenics. Rarely did they believe they were somewhere else entirely. Instead, they misinterpreted what they saw, flavored it with hallucinations. An approaching cop might be an evil demon, and another demon might be floating in the sky, but they were still standing on Fifth Street. He might even believe Fifth Street was inside a dragon’s belly, but that was a delusion, not a hallucination. Hallucinations didn’t erase your perception--they warped it.

Maybe Cessy was standing in the crawlspace, staring at the far wall, but interpreting it as an unending crawlspace.

She slapped herself. It hurt.

She looked back beyond the ductwork she’d crawled under. A hundred feet away, yellow light from the basement poured through the open wooden door, and a small breath of sunlight from under the front porch.

This felt real.

But if that were the case, she’d be under the neighbor’s house. As they were on a hill, she’d be forty feet below the neighbor’s house. She reached up to grip a joist.

The only way to explain this was that her parent’s crawlspace connected to their neighbor’s, and their neighbor’s house had a basement with a subbasement below.

But these pipes and wires and ductwork were all connected to her parents’ systems.

None of this made sense.

The radio host’s shrieking cut off. The wet thumping sound continued another few seconds, then also ended.

Cessy heard herself breath.

A spec skittered out from the endless crawlspace, into the white light. It zigzagged over wrinkles in the ground covering, up the cinderblock wall, along a yellow wire. Cessy followed it with her flashlight.

It glided like a boatman beetle.

She could see no legs, only a dark spec.

As it drew closer, she got a clearer look. It rode along the surface of the plastic--no, in the surface of the plastic.

It wasn’t a delusion.It was a hole half the size of the nail on her little finger. Shallow, and bright violet around the interior edges. Like a pencil eraser had been stuck into the ground, then hollowed out.

And it was moving.

Surfaces parted for the hole. It slid through the black plastic, and the particles of plastic moved aside. It moved up the cinderblock wall, and the block and mortar parted like a solid Red Sea, closing up behind the hole’s passing. No dust fell.

Cessy stepped backwards. Confusion about the extended crawlspace melted away, replaced by a panicked need to classify what she was seeing. Insect rodent mental break.

The hole headed for Cessy’s foot.

She lurched backwards. The thing chased her, gliding over bumps in the ground like a wayward raft through river rapids.

Stumbling, Cessy fled, keeping her flashlight and focus on the impossible spec of missing space.

Ductwork jolted into her. Pain blossomed in the back of her head. The aluminum warbled down the extended crawlspace. She fell, caught herself. A pinprick in her palm.

She swept the flashlight across the crawlspace, searching for the hole. Her fall had disturbed the ground covering, turned swells into chaotic seas. Forget it.

Cessy belly crawled back under the ductwork. The loose screw cut her scalp.

On the other side, she lurched to her feet, ducked her head, and sprinted to the brightly lit wooden door. The run was long enough that she gathered her senses to look once more over her shoulder. She expected to see her parents’ normal crawlspace, the missing wall back in its place, mocking Cessy for her broken mind.

But the endless tunnel remained. A trail of joists overhead, holding up moldy ductwork, pipes, and wires that stretched beyond the limits of her vision.

And then she was through the crawlspace door, back into the basement.

She slammed it behind her, drew closed the latch.

The bare bulbs of the basement had seemed so dull before. This corner behind the freezer seemed so dark. Now the basement was a bastion of light, its shelves of Mom’s junk were altars in a temple of relief.

The radio played above, but his intelligible words drifting down through the floor comforted her. She was free from the impossibility of endless crawlspaces populated by a moving hole, and back in the insanity of her parents’ unreasonableness. She could deal with irrationality in people.

Cessy’s gut twisted. Mom and Dad’s irrationality was a different flavor from past years. Now her baby sister’s safety was at stake.

She put her hand on the crawlspace door latch. What if Kate was down that tunnel?

A pinprick on her palm.

Cessy examined her hand.

The hole slid around her thumb, through the flesh of her palm, swirled up her ring finger. A tiny, moving window to pink flesh and sinew, throbbing veins and twitching nerves. It let loose no blood. Cessy felt only a slight tingle where it moved, although every few inches she felt a slight pinprick. The hole reached the tip of her finger to reveal the end of her bone.

Cessy flicked her wrist, trying to shake loose the hole like an insect. Primal revulsion flooded her mind. The shallow pit slid back down her finger, up her arm. She swatted at her elbow, felt the indentation pass under her fingers--leap to them and continue its journey on her left arm, up her shoulder and under her sleeve.

She ripped off her shirt. Blood splattered across the back of the freezer; it had pooled on her scalp after the loose screw cut her. Cessy slapped at the tingling on her back, shoulder, neck. She turned circles but couldn’t find it.

Her missing sister, the impossible crawlspace, her bleeding cut, all fled from her mind, forced out by the overwhelming need to rid herself of this absent intruder.

She staggered into better light. The hole moved up her chest. Cessy jammed her little finger into it. A thousand needles pricked her fingertip. The force of the hole’s movement jerked her hand up towards her collarbone. The resistance she gave the hole hurt. It pushed harder through her flesh, and now she felt more than a tingle. It ripped away from her finger, resuming its previous speed to disappear under her armpit.

Her nail was cracked and bleeding. A grid of red dots appeared on her fingertip, until the blood combined to form one crimson smear.

Determination blossomed amidst her panic. She’d slowed it down; she could affect it. It wasn’t a magical affliction--it was rooted firmly in reality.

She grabbed a box of Mom’s junk, dumped it out. A snowglobe shattered. Christmas decorations tinkled across the floor. Not was she was looking for.

The hole slid up her neck, her check, over her eye--oh god, her eye--and the basement went blurry, dark, and there in the corner, the cinderblock wall popping out like a magic eye painting, into a cord wider than her 4Runner, squirming past, its length unknowable--then the hole was on to her forehead, scalp, and the basement returned to normal.

Cessy stared at the corner, unsure what she’d seen, or whether it had been a trick of the light refracting through the hole.

She regained herself, toppled another box of junk.

Balls of yarn rolled across the cement floor.

Cessy picked up a knitting needle, held it in a shaking fist. She exhaled. Waited.

The hole glided over her navel.

She stabbed.

The needle pierced the hole, stabbed deeper. Cessy jerked her wrist, trying to rip free the hole. A jagged tear in her belly.

Warm blood ran down to her waist, soaked into her jeans. Cessy frantically examined her stomach, chest, arms. She stilled, trying to notice if she felt the hole’s disconcerting tingling anywhere on her skin. She didn’t, and was that a spec of movement under the crawlspace door?

Cessy yanked on her shirt and ran for the stairs.

Sheriff Miller stood at the top.

22

With the boogeyman from her youth, now aged 20 years, scowling down at her from the top of her parent’s basement staircase, Cessy grew instantly self-conscious of how she looked.

Above the waist, her shirt stuck on her belly. Below the waist, her jeans were covered in dirt, white mold, and blood. Her hair was wild and matted with blood. She had a gash next to her navel, obviously inflicted by the knitting needle she still held.

Her chest heaved as she caught her breath, coming down off of her sprint through the crawlspace, then her panic in ridding herself of the empty parasite.

“Gotdamn, Cessy.” Sheriff Miller put his hand on his holster. “What’s gotten into you?”

It started in her belly, shaking that hurt her open wound. She laughed at the absurd relevance of his question.

Mom appeared in the doorway behind the sheriff. She saw Cessy and gasped. Dad limped into view to pull Mom away.

Sheriff Miller took a step down. “How about you set down that needle?”

Cessy looked at the needle. A chunk of flesh stuck to the point. She tossed it away.

“You understand my predicament here, since you’re a fellow officer of the law.” He grinned sardonically at the comparison, brandishing teeth yellowed with age and Marlboros. “I need you to come with me. But we got two problems that just rode into town. Number one, you threatened your parents with violence and are acting unpredictable-like. Number two, you have a gun in a holster. I need that gun to be on the floor. Now, how are we going to get from ‘A’ to ‘Z’ without giving you a chance to shoot me?”

Cessy raised her hands, palms up. The deadliness of the situation killed her laughter. Sheriff Miller was too old to spryly maneuver down the stairs and confidently remove the gun himself. But if she removed it, all it would take was one wrong twitch for the old man to feel threatened, and quickly open fire.

She tried to read his expression. She didn’t arrest too many 70-year-olds, and wrinkles and sagging skin made it harder to spot subtle emotional tics.

He chewed on his cheek. “Here’s what we’ll do.” He drew his pistol, a silver revolver he’d probably bought after a John Wayne marathon, and aimed it loosely at Cessy’s feet. “I want you to grab your gun with just your thumb and forefinger.”

Cessy slowly reached for her side.

“Hold up. Turn around first. Face the wall.”

Tactically, it was a smart choice. If she wanted to shoot him, she’d have to get the draw on him, and aim true after twirling around.

But this was Sheriff Miller, the man she’d tormented as a teenager. And they were standing in her parents’ house. Eight hours ago, that would have been made things safer. Now, she was in the home of two uncooperative suspects who wouldn’t answer questions about a missing person. And the man aiming a gun at her feet had been party to their invented story about Jackson disappearing, rather than dying in a sinkhole.

Still, Cessy was staring at the barrel of a .45, wielded by an old man with absolute authority, questionable motives, and an arthritic trigger finger. She didn’t have much choice but to comply.

She turned around, hands held wide for Sheriff Miller to see.

“Go on,” he said. “Thumb and pointer finger.”

Cessy reached to her waist. She held her fingers at the perfect angle for the old man to see both fingers touch the gun. “I’m pulling it out now.”

“Like I told you. Real easy like.”

It occurred to her that Sheriff Miller’s eyes couldn’t possibly be as good as they once were. She was standing twelve feet away, under lightbulbs that were dim after coming inside from the sunshine. The old man probably couldn’t tell where her fingers ended and the pistol’s grip began.

Cessy tugged the gun loose. She closed her eyes, anticipating a shot in the back.

None came.

She pressed the release on the pistol. The magazine fell free.

“Toss it away.”

“There’s still a round in the chamber.” Tossing the gun onto the cement floor could set it off.

Sheriff Miller barked back, “I said toss it away.”

He’s watched too many Clint Eastwood movies. She flung the gun into the basement, sliding it along the cement floor where it crashed into an orange ball of yarn.

A pair of handcuffs clattered at her feet.

“Put those on,” said Sheriff Miller.

Cessy relaxed. She was past the risk of being shot. They might charge her with misdemeanor assault for brandishing her weapon, but once the Fairfax police department lawyers got on the phone with the Hamlin sheriff’s department lawyer, they’d iron it out.

Cessy complied, handcuffed her wrists in front, slowly marched up the stairs under the watchful, cataract-ridden eyes of Sheriff Miller. He walked her outside. Blinding sunlight filtered through the maple tree in the front yard, and reflected off the grass.

Sheriff Miller shut the front door and left her alone on the porch to have a muffled conversation with her parents.

Cessy looked down at the porch. Below her feet was an entrance to the crawlspace. If she crawled down there now, would she find the same extended tunnel?

She shook her head.

Of course she would. She’d never hallucinated in her life. For some insane reason, Dad had extended the crawlspace into the hill. That didn’t explain why their home’s ductwork, piping, and wiring also needed to extend into the hill, but Cessy didn’t need all the answers to know she wasn’t crazy.

She stepped to the edge of the porch to look up at Black Gold Peak. Valerie Watkins was still up there, waiting for Cessy to stop back by on her way out of town.

Now Cessy would be spending a few days in the jail cell until the Fairfax lawyers came through.

She’d never made it to the Watkins’ house to tell them where Valerie was, or to at least hear their side of the story. Couldn’t depend on the word of a woman clearly suffering from a psychotic break.

Cessy hesitated. If she told her own parents what she’d just experienced in the basement, they’d think she was crazy. What exactly had Valerie said to her last night? Cessy couldn’t remember, only that it sounded detached from reality. Maybe Valerie would have an explanation for the crawlspace.

From across the valley, the trees on top of Black Gold Peak were a blurred mass of green. Cessy needed to get up there and speak to the maybe-not-schizophrenic librarian.

The front door opened. Sheriff Miller stepped outside and shut the door behind him.

“They don’t want to talk to me?” asked Cessy.

“I recommend you get off your daddy’s porch before he throws you off. A man don’t take kindly to anyone pointing a gun at his wife.”

The door opened. Mom’s face appeared. Her eyes were puffy from crying. Mascara clumped in her wrinkles. She looked at Cessy, at her own feet, then at Sheriff Miller. “Like we said. Any other way and it’ll be trouble.” She choked back a sob. Looked at Cessy. “I really thought you would--”

“That’s enough,” ordered Sheriff Miller.

“One more chance to tell me what’s going on, Mom,” said Cessy. “Where’s Kate? Did Sheriff Miller come and march her off, too?”

The old man’s elbow slammed into Cessy’s sternum. She staggered backwards, reached the end of the porch, and fell three steps onto the ground.

“Reggie!” Mom screamed. “What are you doing?”

Cessy’s tailbone screamed in pain. The wound in her stomach spurted blood.

“Million apologies.” Sheriff Miller moseyed down the stairs to help Cessy up. “I turned around too quick and didn’t see you there.”

Cessy bit her lip and evaluated the pain. Nothing felt broken. Although, the impact had jarred her spine.

“Reggie,” Mom hissed, “we asked you to deal with this, not abuse our daughter.”

“Vermin’s vermin.”

Mom drew back, eyes wide. “Don’t you call my Cecilia like that.” She looked over her shoulder, at the house. “Don’t even suggest as much.”

Sheriff Miller puffed out his chest. “I’m always open to advice from friends, but at the end of the day,” he tapped the badge on his chest, “I decide who to arrest around here.”

“You’re right, you’re our friend, Reggie. I’m asking you as a friend. You owe us. There’s a lot more full bellies around here because of me and Rusty.”

Sheriff Miller glared, sighed, then relaxed his shoulders. “Alright.” He pushed Cessy toward his squad car, a fifteen-year-old Ford Explorer.

Cessy dragged her feet. She looked over her shoulder at Mom. “What does he owe you? Is this something to do with Kate?”

Mom went back inside. The door shut, leaving Cessy alone with her teenage boogeyman.

“It’s got nothing to do with Kate, or you, or anyone else who abandoned Hamlin,” growled Sheriff Miller.

“Then what is it?”

“Cecilia Miller, you’re under arrest for brandishing a firearm.” The old man opened the back door of his car, reciting her rights.

Cessy climbed inside, mumbling along.

Sheriff Miller leaned over her to buckle her in. “Still a smartass.” His breath smelled like Lifesavers mints and old dirt. He got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Makes me feel less guilty for spinning the truth to your mother. I’m afraid I can’t honor her wishes for you. The town wouldn’t stand for it.”

The radio cut on. The angry host that her parents had been listening to yelled from the speakers.

Cessy watched Sheriff Miller through the rearview mirror.

Hamlin’s reelected sheriff from better days gone by pulled the car onto the road, eyes devoid of compassion.

She had a feeling she wouldn’t get a chance to call her lawyer.

23

Cessy’s gut pulsed under her hand. She held pressure to the wound she’d given herself. The blood slowly clotted.

It dripped onto the backseat of Sheriff Miller’s Trailblazer.

Sheriff Miller hummed to himself in the driver’s seat. He’d turned on the same talkshow that apparently haunted every radio in Hamlin.

“That’s how we’ll know who’s vermin and who’s not. Bring what you can tomorrow. It’ll be a lunch to remember.”

He sped up through the neighborhood. The Trailblazer’s raspy engine drowned out the radio.

Cessy thought of being under her parents’ house, hearing the ranting morph into howling. She looked out the window, down the river bank to the rippling water. Kate was still out there somewhere. Getting arrested would slow Cessy’s finding her sister. She wanted to scream, to burst out of her handcuffs, to break Sheriff Miller’s brittle bones so she could go to Kate. Interrogate Valerie again.

Search the mine for a corpse, if it came to that.

But Sheriff Miller was happily humming, which sent Cessy’s internal alarm blaring.

Sheriff Miller should be furious right now. Hamlin was a small town, but the job was similar enough to hers that the old man was about to be smothered under a mountain of paperwork. In a town this size, probably more than any other day of the year. Sheriff Miller was a get-your-hands-dirty good ol’ boy--not someone who enjoyed desk work. He should be grumbling about this arrest, and the legal and public relations headache that would follow from arresting a fellow cop.

He shouldn’t be humming happy country songs.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We’ve taken this ride before,” he said. “Don’t you remember?”

“It’s been twenty years. Some of those rides ended at the sheriff’s station, with me in a cell. I remember a couple ended up in an alley, you watching over while I scrubbed off graffiti--one of those times wasn’t me, by the way.” Cessy remembered one more destination, after the incident that nearly had her thrown out of town. She opened her mouth, then shut it.

“Oh ho,” Sheriff Miller laughed. “You remember.”

He pulled out of the Rooster Estates neighborhood, and turned right onto Mud River Road, away from town. On the smoother road, the radio host’s opponentless arguments came through more clearly.

“...can’t trust them. They used to mark themselves by where they lived. Not anymore...”

They passed the turn which would take them up to the Church of the Morningstar. Instead, Sheriff Miller drove another quarter mile, until an orange and white “Road Closed” barrier appeared around a corner.

Before reaching the barrier, he turned onto a road with a missing street sign, paved but neglected so it was more cracks than asphalt. The Trailblazer’s creaky shocks drowned out the radio host.

Ahead, the road curved up into the trees.

In the woods on either side, RVs and campers, long abandoned and grown over. This used to be the dirt poor corner of town, called Rag Hill for the clothes of the occupants, the state of their homes, and the appearance of sagging vines which in autumn caught dead leaves like a net.

A few families had owned Rag Hill since before the mine came, and they watched stubbornly as other folks moved in to work the mine. When the mine brought money to Hamlin, the families here scraped by. Old houses fell apart without funds for repairs. They were replaced with RVs scavenged from junkyards.

An odd effect of the mine collapse: all housing dropped in value. The poorest apartments for rent dropped so low that the families up here could afford to move out of their RVs and into real housing. Except a handful, like Marissa Davies’ parents.

“Why are we here?” Cessy asked. “Rubbing my face in the same old mistake?”

The Trailblazer bumped across a rut in the road. Cessy winced at the jolt to her gut.

Sheriff Miller pointed into the trees. A rusty generator beneath a thick willow oak. “That’s where the Davies’ camper was set up. Chuck and Paulina moved down to the apartments on Third Street, after the business with Marissa.”

“Are they still there?” asked Cessy.

He braked. Looked over his shoulder at Cessy. His compassionless eyes discovered disdain. “That’s what you ask? Are Marissa’s folks still in their apartment? You don’t got any other questions? Anything else you’d like to say?”

“Not to you. Not about Marissa.” She’d written a letter for the Davies, fifteen years ago, and given it to Mom to give to them. She never followed up to see if she had, or if they had any response.

Sheriff Miller continued up the hill. “Your momma sees you through rose colored glasses. Police officer must be an easy job in the big city, because you’re still the same angry brat you ever was.”

“You want me to make a show of how guilty I feel? That’s why we’re coming up here? So I can get out of the car and fall to my knees and beg the Lord for forgiveness?”

“Your personal salvation is your own responsibility. My responsibility is to my friends in this town.”

They turned a corner, and there it was.

Maul Rock.

A twelve-foot-high rock formation made from some unlikely pattern of decay. So named for its resemblance to the primitive weapon, bulk on top, a thinner base holding it up. Cessy had always thought it was shaped more like an over-loaded ice cream cone.

It jutted up from a larger rock formation on the side of the hill, overlooking a twenty-foot drop. It was never an overlook for Hamlin, because the surrounding trees easily cut off the view.

Cessy’s chief memory of Maul Rock wasn’t one she had actually witnessed, but one related to her. Her own mind created the details.

A roped tied around the base of the rock, one end still tied to a strip of rubber tire. It had been a child’s swing, cut down and dragged up here.

On the other end of the rope, tossed over the edge, and hanging halfway down to the ground, a noose.

In that noose, the neck of Marissa Davies, age seventeen. Marissa had plans of attending the beauty school in Charleston, maybe one day starting her own salon. She had a bumpy romance with a twenty-five-year-old neighbor. She devoured romance novels, which worried her parents, but they tolerated it because if Marissa was in the hammock reading, it meant she wasn’t having a manic episode somewhere, liable to hurt herself.

Cessy was Marissa’s age, and didn’t know that her ostracized classmate had a bipolar disorder. She hardly knew what that meant.

But Cessy had since evaluated herself and the situation until exhaustion, and had come to admit and accept that even if she had known, her teenage self probably would have treated Marissa the same.

On the other hand, if she’d known that Marissa’s twenty-five-year-old boyfriend had recently dumped her, maybe she would have acted differently. Or if she’d known that Marissa had just found out that she lost the beauty school scholarship to a cheerleader from Giles.

But Cessy didn’t know those things, and so when Marissa lashed out during the last week of their senior year inside the Hamlin High cafeteria, shoved Cessy and called her a delinquent who’d end up in prison, Cessy let loose a string of personal insults, regarding the mobility of her home, the number and source of the stains on her second-hand clothes, her creepy adult boyfriend, and that she’d likely be stuck in the shittiest part of town in the shittiest town in the country, until she accepted she’d always be trash and put a shotgun in her mouth.

The Davies didn’t own a shotgun, but they did own a rope swing, and they lived half a mile from Maul Rock.

Lectures from Mom and Dad couldn’t make Cessy evaluate her life. Threats from Sheriff Miller couldn’t do it. Nights spent in jail only reinforced her blaming the town for her problems.

But hearing that Marissa Davies had gone home from Cessy’s insults and killed herself adjusted pathways in Cessy’s mind. Not right away--her first reaction was defiance--but over the next year, as Cessy wrestled with why that one cafeteria argument lingered in her thoughts when all the other trouble she’d caused was so easy to forget. It wasn’t her fault Marissa was depressed.

After a year of sideways looks from neighbors, one day Kate came home from kindergarten with a black eye, because one of the Davies’ neighbors heard that Kate’s sister killed someone. Cessy decided it was time to leave.

It was her fault her innocent baby sister got beat up on the playground, shocked how much it hurt, innocent to why someone would cause her that pain.

And if that was Cessy’s fault, then it meant that Marissa’s suicide was her fault.

Four years of her university’s free counselor helped Cessy decide that she was partially responsible, even if she’d been immature and unwitting, and that she needed to accept that that’s who she used to be.

She couldn’t explain that to Sheriff Miller. Not from the backseat, handcuffed, and bouncing over cracked asphalt as they pulled up to Maul Rock.

He stopped the truck. The radio host’s voice grew audible again. “...start from scratch. And who benefits? Not the upstanding men and women of Hamlin...”

He got out and opened her door. “Get out.”

“So you can rant until you’re red in the face about how terrible I am and it’s no wonder I left small towns behind?”

The woods had a smell of dead leaves, overtones of mold.

“That’s not quite it, no.” Sheriff Miller reached over to unbuckle her. His knees popped.

He left her to get out on her own. He went around to the back of the truck, came back. He had a noose hung over his shoulder.

24

Cessy swung her feet around and stood up from the back seat. Defiant, with her wrists handcuffed.

The truck engine was off, but the radio host Lockler still rambled about how the true citizens of Hamlin were noble and good. Although it was interrupted by bursts of static, Cessy wasn’t sure that his voice was coming through the truck speakers.

“The most succulent successes require the bloodiest sacrifices. We’re not talking about lambs and doves, but honest, God-fearing, back-breaking hard work. If you’re not up to it, then you’re not contributing, and how long can you expect your neighbors to carry you?”

Maul Rock waited up the hill, surrounded by dense forest.

She should call for help, but if she went for her phone in her pocket, Sheriff Miller would stop her. State Police could never get here in time, anyways. If she didn’t want that rough rope around her neck, escape was up to her.

Her heart pounded. Regret about not checking on Kate, flavored with resurfaced regret about insulting a suicidal classmate, both drowned out by the familiar need to survive. She was a cop--she had training. The question was whether it was enough against a man with his own training, and who had sixty pounds on her.

Sheriff Miller leered down at her. The noose dangled over his left shoulder, swaying with his jerky, arthritic movement. He drew his revolver from his right hip. “Got anything else snarky to say?”

Cessy’s training ingrained in her to deescalate the situation. Wrists still bound, she lifted her palms to show she had no violent intentions. Drooped her shoulders to look smaller and unthreatening. She leaned back against the truck. “I’m not running off. No need for that.”

The old man pulled back the hammer. He grimaced. “You wouldn’t understand what there is and isn’t a need for.”

“We’re stronger together. It’s like our American heroes believed, Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President Ronald Reagan: united we stand, divided we disappear. The diner is where we’ll be united.” His voice crackled with static. Cessy looked for radios hidden in the woods, where the voice came from, but she saw none.

Sheriff Miller leered down at her.

She took another swing at deescalation. “What did you promise my mom?”

He motioned with the pistol for Cessy to walk towards Maul Rock. “That’s a promise I’m not gonna be able to keep. I feel right sorry about it. Man’s word should be gold. But sometimes you choose between two good paths.” He rubbed at his back with his free hand. “Get on now.”

Cessy stood straight and walked up the hill. The radio host’s voice grew quieter the farther she got from the truck, but rather than getting farther away from the sound, it was like speakers were hidden in the woods along the trail, and someone was decreasing the volume as they walked away from the truck.

Maul Rock loomed over her. Afternoon sunlight pierced the treetops to light up the dark stone.

If de-escalation wouldn’t work, next step was distraction.

“When did Hamlin get a local radio station?”

Behind her, Sheriff Miller grunted with the effort of walking uphill. “Just keep walking.”

“Is it government run? Who’s the host? I don’t recognize his voice. The morning show people, too. Who are they?”

It was quiet now, almost inaudible against the wind blowing through the undergrowth, but Cessy thought the radio host said, “No answers for idle questions.”

Cessy stopped. Sheriff Miller bumped into her. The pistol poked her shoulder blade.

She dropped. Rolled over, reared back her legs to kick out the old man’s knees.

“Easy,” he barked. His lanky arms held the pistol not three feet from her face.

The barrel was like the restless hole she’d ripped from her gut.

“You jabbed me in the back, I thought you were about to shoot me. Can’t blame a girl for flinching.” She carefully crawled back to her feet.

They continued their climb.

“You were telling me about these radio shows everyone’s listening to.”

“I’ve got no answers for idle questions.”

Cessy’s legs ached. “Nothing about this is idle. We’re climbing a hill so you can execute me for bullying a girl twenty years ago. I’m going to die because the citizens of Hamlin elected a senile old man who thinks time stopped when he was fifty.”

And if distraction wouldn’t work, aggravate. Emotional judgement created opportunities. Of course, the risk here was that the perp’s hasty decision could be to put a bullet in your head.

“Your mother swore you were different, but you’re not. You’re as disrespectful as the rest of them.”

“I should respect a man who wants to hang me for how I acted as a teenager?”

“You’re getting stuck on the method. I brought this noose along because it feels right. Like a puzzle piece snapping into place.”

They reached the top of the hill. Maul Rock overlooked the short cliff.

“You’re saying this isn’t about Marissa Davies? That’s just a bonus?” Puzzle pieces clicked together in Cessy’s mind. Not enough to show the full picture, but more jigsaw connections were becoming obvious.

“Chuck and Paulina mourned for their daughter. They’re my friends, my responsibility, and I owe them-”

Cessy turned around. “But even if I’d never met Marissa, right now you’d still be trying to kill me. Your brain is falling apart, but there’s still enough reason in there that you’ve got a purpose.”

Sheriff Miller sneered.

She’d found his hot button: suggesting dementia.

“Hell yes, I got purpose. That’s what makes me different from people like you.” He tossed the noose at her feet. It thumped heavy on the ground to kick up a puff of dirt. “You float through life, not worried about the people around you. I saw your fancy car you can probably barely afford. And I bet you log onto Facebook and complain about bills like it’s someone else’s fault.”

Cessy almost took the bait. Ridiculous, saying she only thought about herself. She’d spent fifteen years keeping Fairfax safe. He should try living in northern Virginia on a cop’s salary. She cleared her throat. “I’ve got a purpose today. I’m here to find my sister.” She kicked away the rope. It uncoiled, one end remained at her feet, the other landed atop Sheriff Miller’s boot. “But when I asked my parents, they lied and said she probably ran off with Jackson Wilder. And then that’s what you said, too. It’s probably what Jackson’s father would have said, but his woodworking machines were too loud for him to hear your phone call and get the story straight. He went and told me the truth--Jackson died when his house collapsed in a sinkhole.”

Sheriff Miller spat. “That boy wasn’t fit to be crushed under my boot. He was spreading disease, cooking meth. Your folks tell you that?”

“No need to get defensive. I’m not accusing you of causing a sinkhole.”

“Accuse me all you want.” He pointed the pistol at her chest. “Put that noose around your neck.”

“Why? Because I asked the wrong questions. You’re covering up where Kate is, or what happened to her. God help this town if it’s the latter.”

The old man laughed. He wheezed. “Big threats from a little lady.”

“Tell your radio host friend that my questions aren’t idle. Kate came here after Jackson sent her those radio shows. They’re connected to her disappearance. And seeing how I can’t rely on the local law enforcement to investigate honestly, I guess it becomes my responsibility. My purpose if you like calling it that. Nothing idle about it.”

Sheriff Miller furrowed his white brow. “You shouldn’t say things like that. Lockler and the Maple Table are particular about respect.”

“You have that in common.” He’d jumped from defensive to worried. She had his emotions off balance.

Sheriff Miller jabbed the air between them with his gun. “Put the noose around your neck.”

The problem with distracting or aggravating the perp, was that it was only half of the necessary action. It created an opportunity that still had to be taken advantage of.

Cessy leaned down and picked up the rope with both hands, dragging the noose off of his boot. The cuffs clinked together.

Sheriff Miller exhaled. “About time you saw reason.” He let the gun droop, and his trigger discipline took over. He wasn’t about to fire, so his finger came off the trigger.

Cessy threw the noose at his gun hand. She leapt from her crouch, fists aimed for his sternum, left elbow aimed for his wrist.

The old man brought his left hand forward, open palm into Cessy’s nose.

Cartilage cracked. Her momentum compacted her neck. Sheriff Miller swung the pistol’s butt at her head, but her already-outstretched elbow knocked into his wrist bone. The rope tangled around the pistol and his arm.

He closed his massive hand around her face to shove her down. She caught herself on her knees, launched forward to headbutt him in the gut. He wheezed, then shoved her face into the dirt.

Cessy pushed herself back up, this time to find the pistol’s barrel pressed against her forehead.

“Not the useless old fart you think I am,” Sheriff Miller said.

“I should have gone for your life alert bracelet.”

“All you are is a smartass. Shame you missed you chance to do anything productive with your life.”

Cessy’s mind raced, looking for a way out. She’d been in life-or-death situations before, shot at by bank robbers, once by a man she’d pulled over. Never in anything this dire. But she was proud to learn her instincts were the same. Clawing panic clawed more frantically, but she kept control, looking for opportunities to turn the situation to her advantage.

“Rusty and Susie should be ashamed of you.” Sheriff Miller took the noose to the base of Maul Rock. He kept the pistol trained on Cessy. Awkwardly, with one hand, he wrapped one end of the rope around the stone handle and tied it off. He waved her closer with the pistol. “Come on now, put the noose around your neck.”

Cessy climbed to her feet.

“If you try to jump me again, I’ll put a .45 round through those pretty breasts of yours.”

She walked towards him.

“Pick up the noose.”

Cessy complied.

Sheriff Miller still held the slack rope. He stood between Maul Rock and the short cliff. The rope drooped between Maul Rock and his hand, and between his hand and the noose in Cessy’s hand.

She took a step closer. Wind picked up, shaking the undergrowth to her left, and the treetops level with the cliff to her right.

“That’s far enough.” Sheriff Miller aimed at her chest, finger on the trigger. He wouldn’t miss from eight feet away.

Cessy jerked the rope taught. She jumped to the right. Her bound wrists threw off her balance and she slipped on loose pebbles.

The rope pulled taught, ripped out of Sheriff Miller’s left hand, knocked into his right hand. The gun went off.

The clap was louder than Cessy’s service pistol. The round went up into the trees. The kick knocked the gun from Sheriff Miller’s unprepared hand. A finger bent crooked.

Cessy slipped on loose rocks. Her foot slipped over the edge. She looked down. Her head spun with vertigo. Rough gray rock straight down, ending at an old jagged stump. If she missed the stump, the drop might only snap her legs, but that would be enough to let Sheriff Miller finish the job.

She threw her belly on the rock for maximum friction. Air rushed out of her lungs. Her knees dangled off the edge. She wriggled forward. Pulled herself with her forearms.

Sheriff Miller looked around for his gun, but it’d bounced behind Maul Rock.

He looked over at her, only 10 feet away. He bared his teeth like a rabid dog. His aging wrinkled cheeks pulled tight. He rushed Cessy.

She scrambled onto the ledge.

With her teenage boogeyman bearing down on her, Cessy nearly gave into panic, devolved into one last animalistic fight for survival. Instead, Cessy forced herself to see Sheriff Miller as a tweaked out perp. “Stop or I’ll shoot,” she said out of impulse.

The old man lunged at her. She looped the noose around his neck--a clumsy attempt that also caught his arm. She’d intended to pin him down, but the large man came crashing down atop her. She responded by leaping up, straining to lift him with her shoulder.

His momentum combined with her lift sent him sailing over the cliff.

Cessy scrambled backwards.

The lanky, decrepit man in the sheriff’s uniform silhouetted against the sunny green treetops. The rope snapped taught. The noose hooked around the old man’s neck and armpit. Bones snapped.

Sheriff Miller shrieked. He pendulumed down out of sight.

His shriek cut off, echoed down the hill.

The rope stilled, remained taught. No swinging, no creaking. It bent sharply over the edge of the cliff.

He must have got caught on something. Cessy crawled forward to peek down.

She rubbed her eyes, unsure what she was looking at. The rope, stretched tight, ended five feet from the ground.

It ended in the cliff face. It was lodged into a crack where there was no crack.

The rock had swallowed Sheriff Miller.

25

Cessy climbed down the hill around the rock for a closer look.

The insects and birds had gone silent. Dead leaves crackled under her feet.

She kept expecting Sheriff Miller to leap out of the trees, but there hadn’t been time for him to free himself from the noose. She was confident he’d ridden that rope down to the rock face.

Cessy slipped but caught herself on a tree limb.

The skin on her wrists was irritated from the scraping cuffs. Her nose bled, although she didn’t think it was broken. Her neck ached from the scuffle.

Wind rustled the undergrowth down at the base of the short cliff. She stood on the ancient stump she’d been afraid of landing on.

From this lower angle, the rope made even less sense.

It hung taught from above like a rock climber’s line. Except instead of a harness at the bottom, the rope went into the rock face.

Cessy tugged at it. It held fast.

She examined where it entered the smooth stone. There was no hole it had been sucked into. No space between the edges of the rope and the rock.

It was like a candle’s wick, as if the rock had formed around the rope.

Cessy briefly considered convincing herself that Sheriff Miller must have pulled free of the rope and jammed it into a hole into which it fit perfectly.

But if she wanted to find Kate, she couldn’t accept comfortable lies.

The facts were that Sheriff Miller had swung down, out of sight, and then the rope had been swallowed by the rock. Probably along with Sheriff Miller.

His shriek as he fell had sounded terrified. Like he knew what was coming. And then it had been sharply cut off.

There was some bizarre phenomenon going on with this rock, and Sheriff Miller had been planning on using it to execute Cessy.

Was he inside it now, molecules mixed with igneous formations?

Cessy sat on the stump.

The rock, an arm’s reach away, might still be dangerous. But the insanity of it paralyzed her. First Mom and Dad’s crawlspace stretched deep into the hillside, and now Sheriff Miller had been sucked up by a rock.

It was difficult not to picture Kate suffering the same fate. Swallowed by a sinkhole, lost in an endless basement, absorbed by a solid stone.

Cessy let her head fall into her hands. The day had started as a routine police task, a wellness check. Locate a runaway, make sure she’s okay. Then it was undeniably a missing persons case when Cessy found the minivan. But Cessy had held onto hope and determination. Then she found out Jackson was dead. No more perfect lead. But still, Cessy could question Valerie again, or search the mine, or canvas the whole town like any normal investigation.

Except, the past hour had shown her that nothing about this was normal.

An unfamiliar weight of helplessness settled upon her.

Cessy hated it.

She stood and walked briskly away from the rock.

She didn’t need to understand what was happening here to find her sister. She hadn’t exhausted her options yet, even if she was plowing into insanity.

Mom and Dad had lied to her. It all came back to that. If they lied about Jackson, they likely knew something about Kate.

She embraced alternative theories. Begged for one to make sense. She only saw them twice a year, but these were her parents and she loved them. They’d raised her. Sure, they’d screamed like banshees at each other when she was a teenager, but she’d long since accepted that was mostly her own fault. She’d called Mom when things went south with Pat, and Dad had called her once he’d heard that the divorce was finalized. He promised her that life hurts sometimes but happy times always return.

This morning, when he’d seen her waiting in the driveway, his surprise had been genuinely thrilled. So had Mom’s. That’s why none of this made sense. Mom and Dad weren’t brainwashed. They hadn’t changed who they were. They were being unreasonable, true to who they were, even if their aging stubbornness and paranoia was a little amplified. But they still loved her.

So why had they lied?

She wanted to drive straight back and demand answers.

But she’d already tried that.

And Mom had come at her with a gardening trowel. The look on her face had been one of painful disappointment, like Cessy used to see when Mom picked her up from the Sheriff’s office.

Had Cessy’s refusal to believe their lie about Jackson disappointed Mom?

A bird sang on a branch above Cessy. Speckles of blue behind a sky of green leaves.

Cessy’s gut stung, where she’d ripped out a living hole with a knitting needle.

Her heart hammered, and she imagined Kate lost among the insanity that Cessy had seen today.

Cessy took a breath. She walked back towards the rock and reviewed the facts.

Mom and Dad said Jackson had disappeared, and suggested that Kate had run off with him. But they knew that Jackson was dead. Mom had said that Sheriff Miller “owed her.” And when he took Cessy away, Mom demanded reassurance about his intentions, which had turned out murderous.

It suggested that Mom and Dad knew Sheriff Miller was capable of murder, as if he’d done it before.

Cessy said it out loud. “Did Sheriff Miller kill Kate? Do Mom and Dad know about it?”

The answer to the second question was almost certainly “yes.” If that was the answer to the first question as well, Cessy would drag justice out of this shit hole town.

But what did that even mean? Sheriff Miller wasn’t climbing out of that rock.

Cessy again imagined Kate swallowed by the wall of stone.

No. That didn’t feel true. Her parents and their friends were afraid of Cessy finding something out. There was no risk of her ever finding Kate if she’d been sucked into stone. So what did they want to keep hidden from Cessy?

She wanted to question Sheriff Miller, but he was gone. She hadn’t seen a deputy, or much evidence of a deputy in the office.

She should call the State Police.

Give them all her info. Cessy’s testimony that the local Sheriff had tried to kill her would be enough to spark an investigation. She could tell them that she knocked him off the cliff and he ran off.

And what would she tell them about the other bizarre events? The dense undergrowth walling off the trail up Black Gold Peak, and its new mine entrance. The endless crawlspace under her parents’ house. The living hole she’d ripped out of her skin. The local radio shows that spoke directly to Hamlin’s residents.

She didn’t need to say anything. They wouldn’t believe her, anyways. They could investigate without those details.

Except, they were relevant. Jackson had asked for help and sent the radio shows as proof he needed it. Kate came back to Hamlin because of Lockler and the Maple Table.

Sheriff Miller may have killed her over it.

Cessy closed her eyes and drooped her head. No. She wouldn’t accept that Kate was dead. There was no evidence of it yet.

Except that everyone was hiding something from Cessy. It was likely Kate’s murder.

“No,” Cessy said aloud. Her denial echoed off the rock.

She couldn’t call the state troopers yet. They’d tell her she was looking for a corpse, and Cessy didn’t need that holding her back.

She looked up, through the trees. She could see pieces of Black Gold Peak.

Valerie knew more than she’d let on. More than Cessy had been willing to listen to last night. That should be her next stop. As much as she wanted to go back and demand answers from Mom and Dad, she needed to talk to Valerie again.

Sheriff Miller’s Trailblazer should get her up the fire access road. Except his truck keys and handcuff keys were buried in solid rock.

So she’d walk back to get her 4Runner. Those keys were still in her pocket. If she walked straight down the hill, and skipped the roads, it’d be less than two miles. She could do that in half an hour.

She went to the top of the cliff to collect Sheriff Miller’s .45. There were five rounds left. She stopped by his Trailblazer.

Lockler had gone silent, but radio static still hung in the air. Undergrowth shuddered in the window. Static popped. Cessy couldn’t tell which direction it came from.

She rifled through the truck until she found an extra handcuff key. She freed herself. She took a heavy flashlight from the truck, but couldn’t find anymore .45 rounds. In the back of the truck she found a shotgun and a box of shells. That’d work.

Cessy headed down the hill with the revolver tucked into one side of her belt, the flashlight in the other, and the shotgun in the crook of her arm.

Her phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket.

Landis. She answered.

“Cessy. I got into Kate’s email.”

26

Cessy walked through the woods, in someone’s property in Rag Hill. Leaves crunched underfoot. An old RV peeked around a blanket of vines and dead leaves.

She held her phone to her ear.

Landis repeated himself. “I got Kate’s emails.”

“I can’t read them right now. What do they say?”

“Batshit crazy stuff. Was Jackson schizophrenic?”

“What do the emails say?” Cessy passed a raggedy tent. A blue tarp was tied to the trees above it. Camp chairs left out in the rain. It looked abandoned, but a tent and hanging tarp wouldn’t stay put, abandoned too long.

“Jackson wrote rambling emails. These things are novels. And the stuff he talked about, insane. Radio shows making everyone hateful. Tunnels underground. He says ‘worm’ a lot. Like, he’ll be typing out a sentence and the word ‘worm’ will just be stuck in the middle where it makes no sense.”

“Anything about where Kate might be?”

“Yeah, actually. But you’ve already looked there.”

Cessy’s stomach went light. “Spit it out.”

“Your parents’ house.”

She slumped, then hurried down the hill. “I’ve been there. They haven’t seen her. I searched the house, too.” Was Kate deeper in the crawlspace?

“Maybe she just swung by. I’m looking at it right now. After Jackson’s eighth email, she finally responded. ‘I’ll meet you at my parent’s house on Seventh Street.’”

“That’s my parents’ rental property.”

“Have you checked there?”

“I’ll head there now.” The hill sloped steeper. A single-wide trailer beneath a pine tree. Brown pine needles layered the sagging roof. A rusty Ford truck beside it, one flat tire.

Cessy stopped to examine the scene. If it’d been abandoned long, all four tires would be flat. Again, it looked like people had still been living here until recently. She walked up to the trailer, peered into a window. Trash on the floor. Dishes in the sink. TV atop a bookshelf.

“This is getting dangerous. I’m heading out there and calling the state troopers.”

Cessy jumped at Landis voice. “That’s probably a good idea.”

Cessy went to the truck. She found keys behind the sun visor. The starter screeched, and then the engine turned over. She considered borrowing the truck, but there wasn’t a spare tire, and driving on a rim through town was a quick way to draw attention to herself.

But the truck had started. Proof that Rag Hill hadn’t been abandoned for long. She looked up and down the hill. The road fifty feet through the trees. RVs, tents, and shacks blended into the forest. Their man-made straight edges sagged under nature’s uneven weight.

Last she’d heard, several families still lived up here. Too poor to afford even the cheapest apartments in town. Or too committed to their family’s land. Or too in need of privacy. She was sure stills and meth labs hid up here.

“Hello?” she called.

“Can you hear me?” came Landis’ voice.

“Be quiet a second.”

Cessy repeated her call.

Birdsong answered. Wind through the leaves.

“Everyone left Rag Hill,” she said to herself.

“Jackson said something about that,” said Landis. “Hold on.”

Cessy continued down through the woods.

“Here it is. I swear, this young man typed out ‘worm’ every other word. ‘Worm, vermin on Rag Hill can’t worm be the last. I worm stopped selling but worm they’re still coming after worm me. I found a crack in my foundation worm, Olivia says it’s old, worm but-”

The call cut off.

Cessy adjusted the shotgun to look at the phone screen. Call dropped.

She hit redial.

The text ‘No service’ blinked on the screen.

In the upper left corner, the lack of bars confirmed the text. Maybe she’d walked into a dead zone, although she’d had service the rest of the time in town.

She reached the bottom of the hill. Through the trees, on a squat mountain on the east side of the valley stood the cell phone tower that’d been built ten years back. Never had a problem with service since.

Cessy held up her phone. Waved it toward the tower.

No service.

Black Gold Peak in front of her, Maul Rock behind her, the Church of the Morningstar to her left, and which angel was called Son of the Morning?

The mountains contained Hamlin like the earth itself reached up with cupped hands. And now Cessy was cut off inside.

27

An hour later, Cessy reached the back yards of Rooster Estates. She’d walked through woods, orienting herself with glimpses of Black Gold Peak through the forest canopy.

Her sneakers were wet from crossing a creek that fed into the Mud River.

Cell phone signal remained dead.

The sun lulled toward the mountaintops west of town.

Lights in back windows said that Rooster Estates wasn’t as abandoned as Rag Hill, but were there fewer than there should be? Or had people just not made it home from work yet? Were there any nine-to-five jobs left in Hamlin? What about people who commuted out of town? With Mud River Road closed, what did they do?

She tried to think of how many people she’d seen at all since she’d returned. A few passing cars. Her parents, Gordon, Sheriff Miller, the dispatcher. There’d been a dozen or so people inside Tapjacks Diner.

Over two thousand people lived in Hamlin. But it felt empty.

She walked between two houses, to the road behind her parents’. She kept the shotgun in the crook of her arm. No point trying to hide it.

A car passed. Headlights blinded Cessy from seeing the driver.

Mom’s car was still in their driveway. Dad’s truck was gone. Cessy’s 4Runner was still parked out front.

She walked up, opened the driver’s side door.

She stopped to take in the house where she’d spent her teenage years. Yellow siding, blue shutters.

It would be so nice to go inside, sit down with her parents for dinner. Listen to them laugh about their neighbors, complain about being bored of retirement. See their eyes light up as Kate babbled about her plans for life.

Cessy got into her truck, shut the door, started the engine. As she drove away, the front door of the house opened. She didn’t slow down.

Evening cast a dull yellow tone over Hamlin.

Cessy drove down Main Street.

Street lamps blinked on. Empty storefronts with signs that read “For Sale or Lease – Cheap.” The sidewalks were well tended, but with amateur repairs. Patched cracks rather than replaced segments. Strips of grass were the same--trimmed evenly, but dying in patches.

Ahead, the bar that’d been Hamlin’s only place to get a meal after 9 p.m., or a drink at any time. The Evening Whistle was a low building, flat roofed, and--for the first time in Cessy’s life--closed. Plywood covered the windows. Around the side, scorch marks on the bricks. A kitchen fire, maybe.

Main Street felt as empty as the rest of Hamlin today. Normally, even with the empty stores, old folks would be walking around, or bored teenagers would be gathered in someone’s dad’s truck on a corner. It helped that there was usually a snowcone cart set up. None of that tonight.

One business was open, a glow in the darkening evening. Tapjacks Diner.

The building was annoyingly quaint. Mostly windows, polished metal walls, a neon sign on top. Trucks packed the meager parking lot, and lined the street in front.

Cessy slowed as she passed. The scent of fried cooking oil penetrated the car. Inside Tapjacks, people filled every booth and counter seat. Two waitresses in yellow dresses hurried about. Dad stood next to a booth, laughing with Gordon Wilder.

Small towns did have that going for them. As long as you weren’t one of the ostracized, you could go to the local bar or restaurant and see the same people each week. But Cessy had ostracized herself before her brain had even fully developed.

How would the Hamlin citizens in there react when they found out their sheriff was gone? She almost felt sorry for those who saw Sheriff Miller as an anchor of authority in a scary world.

How many of them had seen Kate? How many knew something about her disappearance?

She could march into Tapjacks and demand answers. But Mom and Dad swore ignorance, and a willfully ignorant crowd could be dangerous.

Better to stick to the current plan. Check the Seventh Street house for any clues to Kate’s location, then get back up Black Gold Peak to talk to Valerie. Avoid any sinkholes, swarms of perforations, or hungry rock formations.

Cessy left the glow of the diner behind to drive deeper into the darkening town.

28

After a career of accounting, Dad decided he loved nothing more than repairing houses. The Seventh Street house took the most work. Complete gutting inside, and replacing the siding outside. So really, the only original parts of the house were the foundation and the guts inside the walls.

Cessy parked on the road in front.

The neighbors’ porch lights were on, offering pale illumination to the white rancher. The front windows were like curtains of black.

This was their third renovated house, and Dad had finally considered himself a competent craftsman. They went over budget on repairs--a fact Dad lamented over Christmas dinner two years ago--and so he overpriced the rent and rarely kept it occupied--a fact Mom lamented over Christmas dinner last year.

The empty gravel driveway and dark windows suggested it was still vacant.

Cessy left the shotgun in the car, but took the pistol and Sheriff Miller’s flashlight. It was heavier than hers. A better cudgel, should she need it.

She tried the front door. Locked.

She made sure no neighbors were watching--no one in sight--then walked around back. The small, fenced-in yard was surrounded by five other back yards. No privacy in a small town.

The neighbors directly behind were the only ones with lights on. The shifting glow of a TV emanated from the back windows. They were distracted.

At the back door, Cessy jiggled the handle. Locked.

She knew Dad, though. A potted fern sat on the otherwise empty patio. Underneath the terracotta pot, an indention for a key.

But no key.

Hope sparked in Cessy. Kate had been here.

Cessy could almost smell Kate’s off-brand cucumber melon lotion.

Cessy used the butt of the flashlight to break the backdoor’s window. Glass fell to the brick pavers outside and the linoleum inside.

She reached in, opened the door, slipped inside, then watched outside to see if any neighbors had noticed the sound.

The shifting lights of the TV continued strong. The dark yards remained dark. Hamlin remained eerily empty.

Satisfied, Cessy turned around.

The fridge hummed. A smell of fried bacon lingered in the air, and Cessy’s stomach growled to remind her she hadn’t eaten since this morning.

She switched on the flashlight, kept it aimed low.

The kitchen was clean and empty. Fridge, stove, and empty countertops stood ready for a tenant.

She used the sink to splash water over the wound on her stomach. No soap, no antiseptic, so she’d probably end up needing antibiotics.

Cessy opened cabinets until she found one that wasn’t empty. A pan, utensils, and stack of canned food. Inside the fridge, Cessy found butcher wrapped meat, including bacon.

Kate had never been a big meat eater. She claimed it was because of the cost, but Cessy could tell she had moral qualms about killing animals. Kate wouldn’t have bought that meat.

Someone else was here.

Cessy moved to the living room. Clean, thick carpet. Three beige walls and one red accent wall.

A beetle crawled across the carpet.

Cessy inhaled, drew the pistol.

The beetle clicked its wings and buzzed into the air.

Cessy exhaled. Jumping at shadows.

The humor died as she actually remembered the moving hole, how it swam through her skin, up her cheek, over her eye.

The deep repulsion towards that violation was only half of her lingering unease. She’d seen something in the corner of her parents’ basement. The same cinderblock foundation and wood studs as before, but moving somehow, like a sewer pipe flowing through, and the solidity of the wall wavering while it was shouldered aside.

As she explored the rental house, she couldn’t get that image out of her head. Even “image” was the wrong word for it. It was an idea overlaid upon an image. If she were seeing it now in this narrow hallway, master bedroom door at the end, she would see the white trim shudder as if an airliner buzzed the house, except the fuselage was moving through the walls in the same way it moved through the air, distorting space but leaving it untouched.

The doorknob of the master bedroom turned.

Cessy clicked off the flashlight.

In the dark, the hallway’s airflow shifted. The door had opened.

Cessy’s heart raced.

She caught herself. Who was she hiding from?

She smelled cucumber melon lotion. “Kate?”

Cessy turned the flashlight back on.

A frail young man stood in the bedroom doorway. He winced at the light. He wore jeans and a sleeveless undershirt. Bruises on his wrists, a split lip, a black eye.

But sallow as it had become, Cessy could never forget that face, and even now, the older anger came back as she flung his name at him like flicking dogshit off her boots. “Jackson.”

29

Cessy pointed the revolver at the fresh carpet, but kept it ready to raise.

The young man at the end of the hallway limped forward. He squinted at her flashlight. Sunken cheeks said he’d been malnourished longer than he’d been hiding here. “Who’s that? Let me see your face.”

Cessy pictured Kate’s cheeks, puffy from crying after Jackson had told her she was too ugly for anyone but him to ever love her. And her withdrawn posture, months later, when he’d convinced her of it.

It’d been over five years, and people changed, but a big sister’s ire didn’t.

“What’d you do with my sister? Is she here?” Cessy’s head spun. Jackson was alive. Mom and Dad had said he’d run off. Sheriff Miller joined their lie. Gordon confessed the truth. Then Mom and Dad confessed they were trying to keep his meth dealing a secret. Cessy had drawn her gun before she got a clearer explanation for their lie.

Except, had they been lying? Here was Jackson, standing in front of her.

“Cessy?” Jackson squinted into her flashlight. He raised his empty hands. Bruises around his wrists were an irritated crimson.

“I saw your grave.” Cessy tried to reorient the conflicting accounts. “Your father said you died in a sinkhole.”

Jackson coughed, a raspy, splitting sound. “He thinks I did.”

“And my parents?”

“Everyone thinks I’m dead.”

Mom and Dad had still meant to deceive her. They were still covering something. “Where’s Kate?”

“Let me see it’s really you.”

Cessy lowered the flashlight from his face. The hollow valleys of Jackson’s sunken eyes and cheeks filled with shadow. “You still look like her.”

“Where is she?”

“She gave up on you. Went herself.”

“Went where? Kate was here?” Cessy knew she’d smelled her lotion.

Jackson fell against the wall. His cheek pressed against sheetrock. “Worm.”

“Forget your worm.” Cessy met him halfway down the hallway, propped him up. He was sickeningly light. “Tell me about Kate. Where is she? Is she okay?”

He blinked, looked her in the eyes. “Cessy? What are you doing here?”

She shook him. “Where’s my sister?”

“Did you ride with Kate? Have you been here this whole time?” His eyes narrowed. “Was that you under my house?”

Cessy had seen meth addicts before. And she’d seen plenty of addicts who were half-assing getting clean. Jackson was caught in physical withdrawal crossed with a failing desperation to be free. “Let’s go sit down.” She guided him towards the master bedroom.

He complied.

In the bedroom, a radio buzzed static. A sleeping bag lay in one corner. In arms’ reach, a handgun sat on a cardboard ammo box. A sheet was taped over the window. Marble notebooks in a stack.

Jackson looked around like he was seeing it for the first time. “Not in here.”

He went back to the kitchen. Cessy followed.

He opened the door to the basement. “Down here.”

Cessy watched the frail man descend the stairs. Carpeted stairs, drywall, a finished basement. She took a breath and followed. “You need to start talking.”

Downstairs, an oversized windowless room, waiting for a tenant to turn it into a home theater or pool hall.

Jackson sat down in the middle of the floor, cross legged, facing the stairs. “We’ll have more time if we talk down here. Can’t be for too long, though. I can’t risk losing this hideout. Then where would Kate find me?”

“Kate’s alive?” Cessy immediately regretted asking. She wasn’t ready to hear it if she wasn’t. Wasn’t ready to begin a lifetime of guilt over not checking in earlier. Over not having a strong enough relationship with her baby sister for Kate to have called her when there was trouble.

“Last I saw her, she was alive.”

“When was that? Where?”

Jackson winced. He looked at the blank white walls. “Here.”

“She met you here?”

“Ask me something else. Come back to that.”

“Answer the damn question.”

He sighed. Sharp awareness had returned to his gaze. “This is the best way. Trust me.”

“Trust? It took my baby sister years to recover from you.”

“And then I bought my house by selling the drugs that killed at least four of my neighbors. I get it. I’m vermin.”

“Don’t come to me for forgiveness. When did Kate meet you here?”

Jackson flinched. “You gotta dance around. Hit the topics real soft, then come back to them.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to get noticed, that’s why.”

“By who? Lockler? The Maple Table?” Cessy wanted to brush off his absurd reasoning, but she’d done that to Valerie last night, and missed the chance to learn valuable information.

Jackson scratched at his belly under his shirt. “You’ve heard about them?”

“I’ve heard them. Who are they?”

“Dangerous people with black magic, or voodoo, or alien technology. I don’t know what, but they’re convincing.”

Cessy reached for her phone, her impulse when she was taking notes from a witness. But Jackson’s babbling was nonsense. “You’ve met them? Are they from Hamlin?”

“I think it’s like a Waco cult crossed with car salesmen.”

Cessy started recording. If Hamlin had become the next Jonestown, she needed evidence. “Did they work for your father?”

“Don’t know. Never seen them.”

“Did Kate find them?”

Jackson tapped his finger on the carpet. He’d been counting. “Different topic. She was afraid if you came, they’d label you vermin right away. Folks around here remember Angry Cessy, and poor Marissa. But Kate made everyone smile, so she’d have more leeway to poke around.”

“I didn’t ask-”

“You probably would have. You’re like her mean guardian angel. Now we can circle back. She met me here about ten days ago.”

“They tried to convince me that Kate had ran off with you, like long lost lovers.”

Jackson snorted. “Who said that?”

“My parents. Sheriff Miller.”

Jackson frantically looked at the stairs, the ceiling. “Did he follow you here?”

“No.”

“He can be sneaky. Show up when you least expect it.” Jackson continued tapping the carpet.

“I can guarantee he didn’t follow me.”

“You really can’t.” He tapped, looked down at his finger like it surprised him. “Lockler and the Maple Table are just the tip of the iceberg. Kate wanted to triangleify the signal.”

“Triangulate? Did you have the equipment for that?” What equipment had been in Valerie’s shack? Computers connected to a radio. Cessy didn’t know what equipment you needed to track down the source of a radio signal, or what that equipment would look like.

“No, so she started asking people if they knew Lockler, or the people from the Maple Table. Asking when they started broadcasting. If anyone had ever seen them.”

“Had they?” She couldn’t imagine that Charles Manson could have brainwashed people over the radio waves. Someone had to know where these radio hosts were.

Jackson jerked around to look over his shoulder. Cessy shined the flashlight beam on the blank wall. He relaxed. “Had they what?”

“Had anyone seen Lockler and the Maple Table?”

“Sure. People claim to. Can’t trust them.” He tapped the carpet. “Ten days ago. Kate met me here. She only believed what I’d been telling her because she’d called your parents. I don’t know what she asked, or what they said, but it made her believe me.”

“How long was she here before you lost her?”

He shook his head. “Hard to say. Ever since my house collapsed, things happen out of order.”

Cessy wanted to strangle him. “Where did Kate go?”

“I told you. She talked to our parents. Their friends. The ones who listen to Lockler. And the ones who think they’re not so bad, just listening to the Maple Table.”

“What did she find out? Who are they? Did Kate go after them?”

Jackson tapped his finger. “Olivia said there were cracks in the basement. I didn’t listen. I should have put two and two together.” His gaze drooped to the floor.

Cessy snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. “Did Kate hunt down the broadcasters? Where are they?”

“We heard it, first. Cinderblock crumbling all at once. Sounded like Paul Bunyan swung a sledge hammer into the statue of liberty. Then everything outside the window started racing up, and we realized we were falling.”

“Answer my question,” she ordered.

Jackson looked over his shoulder again. He seemed satisfied with the blank drywall. “I’ll circle back. Trust me.”

Cessy took a deep breath. If he was content to answer, even in his own roundabout way, she should let him. “Fine. Your house collapsed. Is Olivia secretly alive, too?”

The frail man opened his mouth, choked back a phlegmy sob. “No. My dad built us this big oak wardrobe. It fell on her. I don’t want to describe it.” He rubbed at his hands like he was trying to get something off his palms.

Cessy was taken aback. Before tonight, she’d never seen anything but overcompensating vanity in Jackson’s expressions. She didn’t know why she’d assumed his marriage to Olivia was somehow tainted, too. “No, I wouldn’t ask you to.”

It’d been over five years since she’d last seen Jackson. A person could change a lot. Hell, five years ago, Cessy hadn’t even met Pat yet, and now they were divorced. Five years ago, she was a new detective, still not assigned to bank robberies. Now she lived and breathed banks and dye packs and GPS trackers and marked bills.

She should try to trust that Jackson could have changed, too.

But. Five years ago, Cessy hadn’t destroyed Kate’s self-esteem to keep her in sick relationship. Jackson had.

It didn’t matter. She’d get what she needed out of him, and be done with it.

“Does the town really think you’re dead? Does your Dad?”

He nodded. Shadows shifted behind him. “When the house fell, the wardrobe fell at a weird angle. It made me a little nook that took the weight of the house. Daddy makes solid furniture. I was stuck there a while.”

The falling wardrobe that had killed Olivia. Cessy didn’t ask how close he was to her corpse.

Jackson rubbed at his hands again, then continued tapping.

“How long until someone called 911?”

“No one did.”

“Your house is on a busy road. No one noticed that a sinkhole had swallowed your house?”

“Who would they call? Sheriff Miller? They knew I was vermin; they knew what had happened.”

“What do you mean?”

Tap tap tap. “Too long. Lockler’s the angry one. He points the fingers. Declares who’s causing the problems. Says your most hateful thoughts out loud. The Maple Table makes it sound happy. Like it’s what good folks know is right.” He looked over his shoulder, spoke more quickly. “Lockler showed up first. He hated me and my competitors.”

“Meth dealers,” said Cessy.

“Bingo. Lockler talked to Sheriff Miller. Broadcasted to everyone, but you could tell he was mainly talking to the man in charge. ‘You don’t ignore a rat in your pantry,’ things like that.” He tapped faster. “Something’s not right.”

“What do you mean? Lockler told the Sheriff to target you? Did he come after you before the sinkhole?”

Jackson turned around. “Does that wall look different to you?”

Cessy inspected the blank drywall. “No.”

“We’ll change topics to be safe. I was stuck in my bedroom which had fallen into my basement, which had sunk halfway into an underground stream. Then worm, and next thing I knew I was splashing around in the Mud River, downstream from the high school.” He tapped faster, lost his rhythm.

“‘Then worm?’ Is that what you meant to say?”

“Different topic. No one would be honest with Kate. And they got suspicious when she kept asking. Even everyone loving her couldn’t keep them friendly for long. She should have brought you to start with. She started seeing the weird things Lockler and the Maple Table could do. It spooked her bad, since it was all at once, instead of a little at a time like if she’d been living here.” Jackson pointed. “There, did you see that?”

Cessy aimed the flashlight. “It’s just a wall.” She was done dealing with this abusive meth head. “When did you last see Kate?” she demanded.

“Different topic.”

“No.”

“Sheriff Miller listened close. But they didn’t want him to act, they just wanted his permission. Like a pact.”

“Tell me about Kate.”

He moaned, “I’ll circle back.”

“When did you last see my sister?”

“Three days! She left to go ask my dad some more questions. Something that spooked her made her think of him. There! Look!”

“What scared her?”

Jackson grabbed her wrist to point her flashlight. His grip was surprisingly strong. The flashlight pointed to the same spot on the wall as before.

The white drywall was gone.

Blackness replaced it, a long mass larger than the wall, pressed against the room and rushing past. Cessy thought of standing in an underground Metro station when the lights went out, walking toward a passing train.

The darkness moved perpendicular to them.

Even as it did so, it advanced.

30

Cessy backed up towards the stairs. “Like in the basement,” she whispered.

The black mass squeezed into the room even as it moved past it. The yellow bloom of her flashlight wouldn’t touch the invader.

It swallowed beige carpet and white walls. Fabric and paint was jerked across the room and disappeared.

“Get up,” said Cessy.

Jackson scrambled to his feet.

The sound of glass being crushed. Beer bottles fell from the impossible space. Splintered wood popped out, stuck in the walls.

“What is it?” Cessy asked.

Jackson limped past her, up the stairs. “I told you not to stay on one topic. We caught their attention.”

Cessy followed him, quickly catching up. She resisted the urge to pick up the malnourished man and throw him up the stairs.

One glance back into the basement. The flowing black curtain lurched towards her.

She jumped up the last steps and slammed the basement door shut.

On the other side of the flimsy hollow door, steps strained and creaked. First one, then another, then a wailing chorus of wood and nails.

Jackson staggered through the living room, down the hallway. Cessy considered the back door, but she needed more answers. She hurried after him. “What’s in the basement?”

He waved her into the bedroom, shut the door.

The house settled and popped, like the air conditioner had turned on and the outtake vent was blocked. Jackson crouched in the corner to rifle through a backpack.

Cessy grabbed his chin to make him look at her. “Should we run?”

He jerked away. “To where?”

“What do we do? What happens when it reaches us?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you knew it might come. What do you know about it?”

The door pressed in on its hinges.

“That’s what collapsed my house. And the others, is my guess.” He yanked tissues and granola bars from his backpack. “Where is it?”

Cessy yanked the sheet down from over the window. She pulled up the blinds. The side yard was narrow; the neighbor’s house less than twenty feet away. Their windows were dark. “Come on, let’s go out this way.”

Jackson pulled a film canister from the backpack. “Run if you want. Where would you go?” He popped the lid off, stuck the opening to his nose, and sniffed.

She’d known Jackson was weak, but this surprised her. Faced with danger, he drowned out his own survival instincts with a high. He was right to call himself “vermin.”

Cessy unlocked and opened the window.

Jackson continued searching through his backpack.

The door strained, groaned. The frame cracked.

Dad wasn’t quite the carpenter he fancied himself to be. The latch held the door shut, but it just barely caught the fastener. It left a sliver of space along one side and the top of the door.

A thin sheet of blackness pushed through the crack. It extended like a printer turned on its side, slowly, stiffly. It curled as it came into the bedroom, like wood shavings under a whittling knife. It reached the far wall, a spiral fence of thin dark. The sound of flesh tearing. The sheet of blackness fell towards them, its top landing at the foot of Jackson’s sleeping bag. It made a muddy splash on the carpet, lingered.

More darkness pushed past the unlevelled door.

Panic welled inside Cessy. She imagined falling into the black swampy carpet, feeling it absorb her, and then another stiff sheet crashing down on her from above.

She pushed at the window screen. It wouldn’t budge. She dug at the hooks with her fingernails.

Jackson ignored the intruder. He found what he was looking for. A printed photograph of a laughing blonde woman, holding a recurve bow and a target with a hole through the bullseye. Olivia Goodman, died Olivia Wilder.

Her grieving husband gripped the photograph with both thumbs and forefingers. He leaned against the wall and blocked out the world with the printed memory. “There you are.”

His weakness disgusted her, but his coping mechanism felt familiar. She’d loved Pat once, used the thought of him to get through tough moments. If she’d lost him in the throes of love, before she’d learned to hate him, she’d have been weaker for it.

The bedroom was filling with upright curls of blackness.

Cessy shoved at the screen.

If meth had infected Hamlin when Cessy was still young and stupid, would she have tried it, too, before she understood the consequences? Was the only difference between her and Jackson that the rebellious teens of her generation were smoking pot or getting drunk instead of experimenting with something far heavier and getting instantly hooked?

Of course not, she told herself. If it was comparable, she’d be a drunk and pothead today. But she saw Jackson as a sad sap who’d made stupid choices and kept making them. He belonged in prison for selling--and if it was true that people had died because of him, he belonged there for a long time. But she didn’t want to hate him. Not this grieving, malnourished young man who, when scared, turned to the woman he loved, and now made due with a photograph.

He didn’t look too heavy.

She tucked the pistol and flashlight into her belt, then crouched to pick him up.

Between the drugs and the photograph, Jackson was gone to the world. “I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over to Olivia, wringing his hands. “I tried to get it all back inside.”

Cessy shushed him comfortingly, hooked her arms under his knees and shoulders. She stood. Her thighs ached from the day’s hikes, but Jackson was as light as he looked.

The screwed-down latches on the screen might not budge, but the screen itself would tear free with enough force. Cessy faced the room, ready to throw herself backwards against it and out the window.

Before her, in the bedroom lit with the residual light from her tucked away flashlight, the solid blackness was gone.

The bedroom was back to its empty state. The door to the hallway no longer strained, although the frame retained the crack. The carpet was perfectly clean.

Cessy’s heartbeat thrummed in her ears. Jackson wriggled free. She set his legs down first. He kept his focus on the photograph.

Cessy crept to the door. She waited, listening. Nothing.

She opened the door. The hallway was empty. Walls and trim in fine shape.

Cessy’s heart pounded in her ears. Cessy explored the house. Around every corner, she expected a Metro train of shadow to speed by, and drag her underneath. But it was gone.

It had left behind cracked drywall, and the yeasty smell of beer.

After she gathered her courage, she checked the basement. The far wall was drywall again. A dartboard hung in the center, with the words “Evening Whistle” stamped on the bullseye. Hamlin’s shuttered bar.

Cessy went back up to the kitchen. She dragged the fridge in front of the basement door.

Back in the bedroom, she swiped a couple of Jackson’s granola bars. The calories slowed her shaking. Reality was crumbling.

Or more likely, her perception of it. Some Jonestown psychopaths had moved in on Hamlin. Had they targeted the drug dealers first to eliminate their own competition? Was Cessy on some kind of hallucinogen right now?

Jackson was already asleep, curled up on his sleeping bag, photograph cradled against his chest.

Cessy tugged at his shoulder. “Let’s go somewhere else. We shouldn’t stay here.”

Jackson grunted. Drool dripped down his slack chin.

Cessy sat down next to him. She could at least make sure he wasn’t going to choke on his tongue before she left. She still needed to get back up to Valerie. The librarian knew something about the broadcasts. But Cessy had a better lead now: Jackson said Kate had gone to Gordon Wilder’s house.

Gordon was probably at Tapjacks still, which gave Cessy time to rest for a few minutes.

Moments after she leaned her head against the wall, sleep overtook her.

31

Cessy groggily opened her eyes to blinding sunlight and an ache in her neck.

It was 7:14 a.m.

She jolted fully awake. She’d slept the whole night sitting against the wall. Kate was still missing.

The bedroom in her parents’ rental house looked emptier in the daylight. Jackson curled up on his sleeping bag looked even sadder.

Cessy scolded herself for sleeping so long. She knew that Kate had gone up to Gordon Wilder.

And from there, had she gone to the Black Gold Peak trails? It stood to reason; the rented minivan was in the parking lot. Kate had gone up Goat’s Jaunt to talk to Gordon, and then from there cut over to the trailhead parking lot.

But why? And who had picked her up when her tire went flat? Or was she still up that mountain somewhere? Or in the mine?

Cessy intended to find out.

Gordon had lied earlier about seeing Kate--no surprise there.

Cessy could imagine Detective Landis’ lecturing drone, telling her to work with people, not through them. But she’d failed to get answers from Mom and Dad because she’d gone in optimistic.

Cessy jostled Jackson. He mumbled in his sleep. A second film canister lay next to his limp hand. He’d woken up before Cessy and sniffed himself deeper into oblivion. No help from him, then.

She’d go by herself. She wouldn’t assume anything but resistance.

Landis had a disarming smile and a careful reasoning tone.

Cessy didn’t have his patience.

But she did have a shotgun and a box of shells in the truck.

32

Cessy drove out of town, turned north at Jackson and Olivia’s collapsed house.

Ahead, she craned her neck to see the top of Black Gold Peak. Again, she’d postponed checking on Valerie. The librarian probably had answers that Kate was searching for. But Cessy was searching for Kate. Explanations as to where Lockler and the Maple Table were broadcasting from, or to the impossible things she’d seen in the last day, were only relevant inasmuch as they helped Cessy find her baby sister.

She could ponder how the hell Sheriff Miller had tarzaned inside of a rock after she got Kate out of here. Or what the rushing shadow chasing her and Jackson had been, or how it had squeezed through a crack in the door like sheets of curly rock candy made from coal.

It was how she dealt with the occasional horrors of police work--learn to think about it later. When a perp was shooting at you from over the hood of his stolen Mercedes, you couldn’t take the time to remember your first partner’s chest spurting blood, or his look of terror as he begged you to tell his wife he was sorry from whatever shit argument they’d had that morning. You thought about those things after you’d survived the shootout.

She patted the shotgun that rested against the passenger’s seat.

Cessy would think about those things once she could question Valerie again.

She drove up Ulton Ridge, turned up Gordon’s driveway.

The gaudy castle stood quiet. The windows were dark against the Victorian brick walls. Gordon’s truck was parked outside the closed garage. The old man was probably still asleep.

Cessy parked, loaded the shotgun, and walked up to the front porch.

Morning songbirds whistled over the cool wind that blew up here on the mountain. The front door was a dark wood, engraved with the Wilder name, probably done inside Gordon’s shop. She didn’t see any fake wormholes.

Cessy chambered a shell.

She aimed and pulled the trigger. The deep boom of the shotgun struck her eardrums. The impact jolted her shoulder.

The doorknob punched inward, the wood next to the latch peppered with buckshot. She chambered another shell and fired again.

The door swung free.

She stepped into Gordon’s foyer, ears ringing.

Deer antlers on the walls, tigerwood floors, finely worked console tables against the walls. A staircase up, but in a house this big, Gordon would be in a first floor master.

Her ears still rang as she swept the house.

Formal dining room rarely used. Kitchen with marble countertops and glass doored cabinets. Den with a TV as big as her truck.

An open doorway into a sitting room, bookshelves on the wall, an armchair next to an end table, and a closed door.

She turned the doorknob and kicked it open. Straight ahead, a bed with an ornate headboard. To the left, Gordon Wilder holding a rifle.

The barrel flashed and gunpowder bellowed. A hole big as her thumb appeared in the door, next to where her foot had been a moment before. Gordon worked the lever action.

Cessy jumped back into the sitting room.

The rifle roared again. The round thumped the bookshelf she was leaning against.

Gordon’s furniture was too sturdy, the round too small a caliber.

Cessy aimed the shotgun at the damaged door. She was safe for now.

Stupid to think she could burst into a Hamlin home and intimidate someone by wielding a gun. This wasn’t Fairfax. People here fancied themselves cowboy kings of their mortgaged castles.

“Goddammit, Cessy, is that you?” Gordon sounded muffled.

“You lied to me yesterday.” Her own voice was muffled. She should have found some hearing protection.

No answer, and then, “Was that you shooting that woke me up, or were you fighting off home invaders?”

“You get a lot of home invaders up here?”

“Hamlin’s had a big meth problem for years.”

“I thought Sheriff Miller killed all the dealers.” Cessy stepped away from the wall, for a wider view through the doorway.

“Who you been talking to, that’s what you thought?”

Gordon didn’t know Jackson was still alive. Sharing that news might distract him from the matter at hand. Better to lie. “Kate found plenty of details. All about our mom and dad, you, Sheriff Miller. Those radio broadcasts you guys love. Sounds like you guys found a fun club to join.”

Cessy peeked around the edge of the doorframe. Gordon squatted behind his bed, rifle aimed overtop of it. She jumped back behind the bookshelf.

Gordon didn’t fire. “You found Kate, did you?”

“Is that so hard to believe? I’m a detective.”

He didn’t answer.

Cessy scratched at her stomach. If Kate was dead, and Gordon knew it, how would he respond right now?

“I’m confused why you’d come shooting up my house, if you already found who you were looking for.”

“Let’s just say, I’ve been getting answers from Kate. And one of them was that she came up here to see you a few days ago. Why’d you lie about that?”

Hesitation, then, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cessy sighed. “Here’s where we stand. I know Kate came up here three, maybe four days ago. I don’t know if that was to talk to you, or to search your property for something. Maybe radio broadcast equipment? I don’t know, and I don’t really care.”

“You talk a lot for someone who doesn’t care.”

“If she came to see you, then you’re lying to me, and I need to search your house. You better pray to God we don’t find a body.” Cessy swallowed. It was tough to keep angry nonchalance in her voice while accepting the possibility that Kate might be dead. “But if she came up here looking for something, then I need to know where it led her next. Either way, I need to search your house, and I need real answers from you.”

“Well, that’s a problem,” said Gordon. “You gave me time to shoot back, and now we got ourselves a standoff. I’ve got plenty of time to call the sheriff.”

“He didn’t show up to Tapjacks last night, dids he? I wonder where he could have got to?”

Cessy heard Gordon fumbling in a nightstand drawer. He cursed.

“No cell phone service, huh?”

“You’re still stuck out there.”

“And you’re stuck in there. Why don’t you be honest with me?”

“My word is solid.”

“You’re a car salesman.”

“Trying to rile me up?”

That wasn’t a bad plan. Rile him up, maybe he’d do something stupid, and then Cessy could get the upper hand. “You let Sheriff Miller kill your son.”

Furniture rattled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve pieced together a few things. Seen some weird shit since I got into town yesterday. At least a few of you old folks are obsessed with these local radio shows. My folks, Sheriff Miller, you. I heard Sheriff Miller talking to the radio like Lockler could hear him. The weird part was, Lockler responded. And then someone tells me that both Lockler and the Maple Table have been giving orders to Sheriff Miller. No, what was the word? Oh I remember now: pact.”

“You talk too much, girl.”

“Did you all join a cult? A couple radio personalities set up shop somewhere in Hamlin and convert you all by talking about the end of the world? What do you get out of it? The space aliens going to carry you off to heaven?” She said it to anger him, but realized it was a legitimate question. What had Lockler and the Maple Table offered Hamlin?

“Ain’t no cult,” said Gordon. “You hire a man for a job, you’re not swearing nothing to him but payment.”

“Well that raises all sorts of questions,” said Cessy. “Did you all join a cult, or just hire one?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Gordon growled. “We was tired of seeing our home fall apart.”

She was getting to him. Time to twist the knife. “When Sheriff Miller hired Lockler to get rid of the meth dealers, did you know that meant Jackson?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, but I’m figuring it out. Hamlin’s falling apart because there’s no money, meth heads are a hugely obvious problem, let’s blame the meth dealers.”

“They sold to high schoolers,” spat Gordon.

“Doesn’t mean killing them will fix the town. The coal mine’s still closed. The unemployed miners still refuse to learn new skills. Anyone young and ambitious still cuts town.”

“Like you? You got a mighty high opinion of yourself.”

Cessy laughed. Her gut protested the movement. “No, I ran away to escape how shitty of a person I was. I’m not one of the ambitious ones. But all that mixed together has put Hamlin in the dumps. And meth heads are easy to blame. So you old folks decide that’s what’ll you do. Did Sheriff Miller run for reelection saying he’d lock up the meth dealers?”

“You remember same as me.”

“I haven’t kept up with Hamlin politics. That was a lucky guess. And then what happened next? He locked up a few junkies, but couldn’t find the cooks?”

The muffled effect in Cessy’s ears leveled out, although the ringing continued. She heard Gordon rustling around.

“What I don’t get, is who these cult leaders are, and why anyone listened to them in the first place. Just because they yelled about the things you wanted to yell about? Damn that’s stupid. You murdered your own son because an angry man on the radio said to do it.”

Gordon screamed, a jagged, mourning sound. “I didn’t know he dealt!” His voice came from just the other side of the doorway.

Cessy jumped back, raised the shotgun.

After he didn’t come charging through, Cessy asked, “Tell me what happened. Did Kate come up here looking for answers?”

When Gordon spoke again, it came from lower down the wall. He’d slumped to the floor. He sounded defeated. “Answer my question first. Did you kill Sheriff Miller?”

Cessy kept her gaze down the sights of the barrel. “I stuffed his body under a rock.”

“Your sister got all the brains, didn’t she? You know about Lockler and the Maple Table, but you still went and killed the one man they listened to?”

She didn’t want to admit she’d been bluffing about how much she knew. “How about you start from the beginning?”

“Only if you tell me how you got into the valley. I need a way out.”

Cessy couldn’t send Gordon to Valerie’s door. But she could tell him anything, and he’d have no way to verify it. “Fine. I’ll help you out of this mess if you tell me how you got into it.”

The Hamlin accent was usually cheery, even if what they were saying was vicious. Gordon’s drawl went monotone, dead inside. “Hamlin used to be a good place. People used to care for one another.”

“Must have been before my time.”

“I didn’t say there weren’t bad seeds. There’s just more of them more recently. Got to be, with all the addicts, you had to lock your doors at night. We talked about it at the diner most nights. What we could do. One night we got angry. There were seven of us sitting there. The old guard of Hamlin, led by Sheriff Miller. We cried. Said we’d do anything to save our town. Well, somebody heard us. That night, all our radios cut on, and there was Lockler, raging about what terribleness had come upon Hamlin. A couple of us--me, your mom, John Watkins--we liked the idea, but something about Lockler was too rabid. Not much good can come from pitching a fit, but you’ve learned that.”

“I’ve tried.”

“So the next morning, our radios all turn on again. This time it’s the neighborly voices from the Maple Table. That smart sounding guy, the one who sounds like a jolly grandpa, and the lady who sounds like my second wife. They talked about the same things as Lockler, how sad it was that Hamlin was going downhill. They said things like how even though anger never solved anything, you had to sympathize with the folks getting angry at the vermin hurting our town. And it was going to take passion to fix things, so maybe we shouldn’t fault those who get a little too passionate.”

“Did you tell anyone your reaction to Lockler’s first broadcast? How did the Maple Table know you needed convincing?” Cessy looked around the sitting room. It was probably bugged by this cult.

“They just knew. I live up here alone. I hadn’t talked to no one. You could ask your mom or John, but I reckon they’ll say the same. We didn’t talk about our first reactions until later.”

“Did it work? Did the Maple Table convince you Lockler’s anger was appropriate?”

“We had kids smoking meth in the high school bathrooms,” Gordon said. “I’m ashamed to say it, but yes. Hamlin needed to get back to what it was.”

“Then they killed Jackson, and your opinion changed.”

“It wasn’t right away they killed my boy. I got spooked even before that. This mountain used to be my Fort Knox. But it got to feeling like Hell itself had crept in. Some nights, the stars looked closer, like Hamlin was so important we’d dragged down outer space to get a better look. One night, I went to the bathroom, and there was a coal vein in my shower tile. Jutting out like I was my daddy, a mile underground with a pickaxe.”

“Walls of shadow, and swarming tiny holes,” said Cessy without thinking.

“Don’t get near either of those,” warned Gordon.

“Yeah, I figured.” Cessy patted her aching gut. “Where are they coming from?”

“I don’t know. Maybe from inside the old mine. It’d explain why I’ve been getting the worst of it, my house being the closest in town to the mine. But I’ll tell you what, when I raised concerns at Tapjacks, told them it was getting creepy, and maybe we needed to talk to the pastor, everyone stopped talking to me. I mean, we’d still talk, I was still part of the town. But if I tried to say, ‘hey, did any of y’all’s shower tile turn into coal,’ they’d grumble and change the subject. Usually to how much they hated the vermin in Hamlin, and how great it was that we were finally getting rid of them.”

Cessy jostled the shotgun. Floorboards creaked. In the corner of the bedroom visible from Cessy tight angle, Gordon’s shadow appeared, standing.

What he was saying was insane, but not any more than sheets of darkness and parasitic perforations. Right now, she had to stick to her purpose. “Were you this open when Kate came calling?”

“I told your sister to go home. Back to D.C., or wherever she calls home now.”

“So you were lying to me.”

“I’ll tell you the same. Go home. However you got into Hamlin, take that same route right outta here. Just show me the way first.”

“Kate didn’t go home. We live close to each other. She hasn’t been in her apartment in two weeks. When did you see her?”

“A week or so ago. She came asking about Lockler. I lied and said it was just someone bored in town.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter?”

“Who did you tell her it was?”

“I told her to go home!”

“But she was looking for answers. So whoever you sent her to, that’s where she went.”

“I said the first name that came to mind. I’d had breakfast with John Watkins that morning. That’s who I said.”

It turned out, Cessy would find her way to Valerie’s parents. “What did you tell Kate when she came back four days ago?”

“She only came by once.”

“Stop lying.”

“You said it yourself. Maybe she came back to break in.”

Cessy considered it. Jackson had been sure that Kate came up here four days ago. He was a junkie, but he wasn’t completely lost to the world. “Let’s say she did. Why would she?”

“Damned if I know. I told you, the moment I expressed doubt about Lockler and the unnatural things going on up here, Sheriff Miller started treating me like an outsider. Everyone else followed suit.”

“What would the Watkins have told her that would send her back up here?”

“I don’t know!”

“I’d like to search your house.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Kate. Or whatever she was after.”

The butt of a rifle appeared on the floor in the doorway. Gordon kicked it through. “Okay.” He stepped through the door.

Cessy aimed the shotgun at his chest.

Gordon raised his hands. He wore the sweatpants and t-shirt he’d been sleeping in. Red eyes, drooping expression--the man looked exhausted. “Where do you want to look first?”

33

Five minutes into their search, the radios turned on.

They’d started in the master bedroom.

With the shotgun still trained on Jackson’s father, Cessy searched through a closet full of blue jeans and t-shirts, and a bathroom that hadn’t been cleaned in months.

The rest of the downstairs proved fruitless.

Gordon offered no suggestions to what Kate might have been looking for, or where she might have looked.

They went upstairs. The stairs themselves were hardwood. Halfway up, a black smear on the polished wood. Cessy took note of it, and kept moving.

The second floor had a more homey feel than downstairs. Plush carpet, paintings of landscapes on the walls.

A radio played from down the hallway, from a vague source. The cheery woman from the Maple Table. “She hates us because she’s lazy. She doesn’t appreciate a day’s hard work. People like her move to the big city and think they’ve got it all figured out. Which one comes first, I wonder? Do they get all high and mighty, and so they move to the city? Or does living in such an uppity place make them all high and mighty?”

The wise grandpa responded. “It’s not our place to judge. Of course, we must be reasonable. If someone’s threatening our families, we can’t sit around and wait for them to act.”

Cessy stood at the top of the stairs. She couldn’t pinpoint which room the radio was coming from. Maybe all of them. She aimed the shotgun at Gordon, who scratched his beard while he looked one direction up the hallway, then the other.

“I didn’t turn that on. I haven’t been up here since last week.” He reached for his waist, where he might be carrying a pistol if he’d had time to strap it on this morning. “We should go back downstairs.”

Cessy wasn’t interested in his fear. “Was she talking about me?”

“All that big city crap? Either you or Kate. Everyone already hates you, no need to convince anyone, so I’d venture she’s talking about Kate.”

“Does that mean Kate’s still alive?”

Gordon craned his neck to look through a bedroom doorway. “Why are you looking for her if you didn’t believe that already?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I don’t know. There’s your answer. I’ve told you everything I know. Tell me which road’s open. I gotta get out of here. Sheriff Miller can’t protect anyone no more.” Gordon backed up, into the barrel of the shotgun. He glanced back, confirming her finger was off the trigger. “We should go downstairs. Maybe outside.”

The Maple Table cheerily discussed the proper level of hatred for someone who didn’t understand small town values.

Their staticky voices came from everywhere and nowhere.

“I’ll tell you the way out once we search the house.” Cessy poked Gordon with the gun. “Let’s go. Closest bedroom first.”

“You go on. I’ll wait here.”

“Ten minutes ago, you tried to shoot me. You’re staying on that side of this gun.”

They walked to the first bedroom.

In front of it, a spot of the beige carpet was discolored. A stain that had been scrubbed at until only a slight gray discoloring remained.

“What’s the stain?” Cessy asked.

Gordon shrugged. “This house has decades of spills and stains.”

He pushed the bedroom door open. The Maple Table grew louder. Inside, a teenager’s bedroom. Rock and country music posters on the wall. TV and an old video game console.

“This was Jackson’s room. Never had a reason to change it. Plenty of extra space up here.”

A boombox on the dresser. Cessy switched it off. Although the Maple Table’s discussions hadn’t been coming from the speakers, their volume lowered.

“It’s about love for your fellow man,” the grandpa said, without irony. “If you expect too little of people they’ll never grow.”

“Open the closet,” Cessy ordered.

Gordon complied.

It was mostly empty, except for graduation robes, and a Sunday suit that Jackson would have grown out of before high school ended. As gaunt as the kid was now, maybe he’d fit back into it.

“That’s why I’m so happy we true citizens of Hamlin have each other,” said the professor.

“Can we leave?” asked Gordon. “I haven’t been in here since... you know.”

Cessy again decided not to share that Jackson was still alive. She didn’t need Gordon distracted.

Satisfied that Kate wasn’t hiding anywhere in Jackson’s childhood bedroom, and there was nothing that could be a clue to the mysteries Kate was investigating, Cessy motioned for Gordon to lead the way out.

The Maple Table sounded louder in the hallway than they had before. “I’m looking forward to today’s lunch at the diner, aren’t you?” said the cheery female.

Gordon combed his beard with his fingers. He tugged at a knot. “We’re pissing them off.”

“They’re talking about a town picnic.”

“They’ve got a dark motive for everything they do. I don’t trust them wanting everyone together in one place.”

“It’s about sharing a meal, that’s all,” said the grandpa.

“Are they responding to us?” Cessy looked around for bugs or cameras. “Are they watching us? These cult leaders come into your town, and you let them set up cameras everywhere?”

Gordon looked down the hallway. “You know they’re more than that. This isn’t Jonestown. They’re doing more than preaching. You’ve seen the embracing shadow, and the loosening holes.”

“Then who are we listening to? Nobody in Hamlin knows these voices?”

“Everybody knows them now. But no, it’s nobody we knew before. That’s why we need to leave. We’ve made them angry, talking too much about them.”

Gordon Wilder was Hamlin’s wealthiest man. When he spoke, people listened. Half of Jackson’s youthful hubris had been inherited from this powerful man.

But here Gordon was, begging like a lost little boy.

It hit home with Cessy. She related to having a cold blooded reputation, but feeling defenseless inside. And she was relieved to finally have an ally in Hamlin. “I’ve got a seat for you in my truck, but I’m not leaving until I find Kate.”

“There’s no time for that. They know we’re talking about them. They’ll be watching us. We need to leave before they take us.”

“Take us?” Cessy opened another bedroom door.

It had been converted to a small armory. Gun safes lined each wall. A reloading bench in front of the window that overlooked the front yard and the valley.

“Where are they going to take us? Is that where I’ll find Kate?”

“I don’t know where Kate is. But if they took her, that’s it. There’s no getting back from that.”

“Open the safes.”

Gordon turned the clicking combination locks, one by one, until all seven safes were open. Rifles, carbines, and AR-15s filled the first six. In the last safe was a gun that belonged mounted to a tank. Boxes of ammo took up the rest of the space in the safe.

“I’d appreciate you not mentioning this last one to Sheriff Miller.”

“Not a problem,” Cessy said. “Who’ve they taken already?”

“What?”

“Lockler, the Maple Table. They must have taken people, if you’re afraid of it.”

A small radio sat on the reloading bench. Gordon unplugged it. Inside the room, the voices of the Maple Table grew quieter.

“They take the vermin.”

“Like Jackson?”

Gordon nodded.

“Jackson died when a sinkhole swallowed the house,” said Cessy. “Is that what you mean by ‘taken?’ That they’ll kill us?”

“Nobody found Jackson’s body.” Gordon walked back out to the hallway.

Cessy followed. The radio broadcast was even louder than before. “It’s the only reasonable choice. Work together with your fellow citizens. Don’t abandon them.”

“Who else?” Cessy had to raise her voice over the Maple Table. “Who else did they kill?”

“Jackson’s dealers. Another cook.” Gordon opened the remaining three doors, one after the other. All spare bedrooms.

“The cook up on Rag Hill?”

Gordon nodded.

“I didn’t see any sinkholes up there. Just a lot of empty campers and tents.”

Gordon raised an eyebrow. “Nobody was up there? Not even Clyde Peterson? Skinny guy with a white beard? Lives in a camper and drives a red F-150?”

“I saw his truck. It’d been sitting long enough that a tire was flat. The camper was empty.”

Gordon managed to look even more dejected. He rubbed his eyes. “Clyde washed cars at my dealerships before his back gave out. Clyde wasn’t vermin.”

“There weren’t any sinkholes. Are you sure Lockler and the Maple Table-”

“Of course it was. Sinkholes was just the first way. So there’d be a natural reason for the folks who’d be too freaked out at first. After they got their foothold in, they didn’t have to play games like that anymore.”

“They kept taking people after the meth dealers?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know.”

“A handful? Dozens? Hundreds?” Cessy thought of the empty roads she’d driven, the dark houses, the shuttered businesses. Hamlin was a ghost town.

“I don’t know,” Gordon repeated.

Once Cessy got Kate to safety, she’d have to send the state troopers. Maybe the national guard. How many people were dead? She could wonder about that after she found Kate. “Does this house have an attic?”

“You’re not listening. We need to go. I answered your questions and put my own life at risk. Now you get me out of here.”

Cessy inspected the ceiling for an attic door, stuck her head back in each of the rooms. “Desperate people will offer you anything. Maybe you’re desperate because you’re afraid of these radio hosts, and whatever hypnotizing, hallucinating bullshit they’ve thrown at this town. Or maybe you’re desperate because my sister’s corpse is in your attic.”

Gordon’s face turned red as he stumbled over his words. “I’d never... I didn’t... the fact that you... fine! Look in the attic.”

He led her to the bathroom. Outside the door, another gray stain in the carpet, this one darker, almost black.

“Did you drop a cigarette?” asked Cessy.

“I don’t smoke. Could be old, Nora’s mascara before she left me.”

“I thought you divorced when Jackson was in middle school.”

Gordon tugged at his beard. “I mean the most recent time. We took another shot at it a few times.”

That didn’t explain why there’d still be a stain in carpet that looked new. Although it was possible the upstairs was so rarely used that the new-looking carpet was actually old.

Cessy trusted her gut. Gordon was holding something back.

The attic pulldown ladder was in the bathroom ceiling. An odd location, but in this huge house, the bathroom was big enough to accommodate it.

Cessy made Gordon pull open the door and set up the ladder. It creaked and dust fell. The hosts of the Maple Table grew louder, as if their voices had been coming down through the ceiling this whole time. “Jesus says he wants us hot or cold, never lukewarm. Small town living is the same way. You gotta embrace it 100%, or things will go badly for you.”

Gordon cursed under his breath, looking up at the dark rectangle in the bathroom ceiling.

“Go on up,” Cessy ordered.

Gordon climbed. The steel ladder creaked under his weight. He mumbled curses. He looked down the ladder at her. “We should go.”

Cessy felt like a mother ordering a timid child upstairs to bed. “After I finish searching the house. Get up there.”

Gordon climbed another few steps. His head and shoulders disappeared into the attic’s darkness. “There’s a light up here somewhere.” He coughed. “It’s dusty. Haven’t been up here for years.”

He coughed harder. His gut and legs shook.

Cessy fumbled with her freehand to turn on the flashlight on her phone.

“It’s in my eyes,” Gordon groaned. “I’m coming down.”

He stepped down, missed a rung, fell the eight feet to the bathroom floor. His feet hit first, followed by his behind.

Tile cracked under the impact. “Shit. My back.” Gordon rolled to his side.

His face was coated in black and brown dust. It clung to his hair and beard. He reared back, focusing away the pain, revealing dust caked inside his nostrils.

Cessy pinched some dust off his shoulder. It was grainy coal dust, mixed with soft sawdust. Nothing that belonged in a middle aged man’s attic.

Any dust cloud thick enough to cover Gordon so quickly should have been heavy enough to sink down through the open attic door. But it stayed up there. It formed a barrier over the attic door.

Cessy didn’t know if she was hallucinating, or seeing something that she had no explanation for. This was harder to explain away than the things she’d seen on her own. Group hallucinations were rare.

But the black dust hung in the attic, refusing to drift down.

Gordon was right. She hadn’t stumbled into a Jonestown or Manson situation where people had been brainwashed by a charismatic, psychopathic conman. She hadn’t been slipped a hallucinogen. Lockler and the Maple Table were something harder to explain.

This dust that ignored physics was further evidence.

And now it clung to Gordon’s skin.

Cessy yanked him to his feet.

He shouted. “I did something to my back!”

“Get in the shower.” Cessy shoved him under the showerhead and turned on the water.

If tiny holes could sting, and rocks could swallow you, Cessy didn’t want to know what this dust could do.

She sighed relief as it washed off him, caught in muddy slurs on his t-shirt, then rinsed down to the shower floor and down the drain.

Gordon watched the slurry disappear into his plumbing. He turned off the water. “That’s coal dust, isn’t it?”

“Mixed with sawdust, looks like,” said Cessy. “Was this the bathroom where you saw the coal vein?”

He shook his head, winced at the movement. “That was downstairs.” He looked up at the attic door. “Let’s close that.”

“No,” said Cessy.

Panic appeared in Gordon’s eyes. “Why not?”

“What are you hiding up there?” It was a wild shot. Cessy was leaning towards Gordon being honestly ignorant.

He was a terrible liar. “I haven’t been up there in months. I told you.”

He wiped coal dust from his t-shirt, then onto a beige towel. It left a dark gray smear.

“Those stains in the carpet and on the stairs,” realized Cessy. “You’ve been up there recently.”

“It’s my attic,” breathed Gordon, but his wide eyes and slack jaw admitted his guilt. “Sometimes I go up there. Good place to get rid of stuff.”

“Getting rid of what?” Cessy took a step back. She aimed the shotgun at his leg. “You just jumped up the suspect list. You so much as flinch in my direction, and I’ll fill your knee with buckshot and bone shards. Then we’ll go out to your woodshop to see if any of your fancy saws can jog your memory about what happened to my sister.”

Gordon tried to cover his face with his hands. He twitched at a pain in his back. “I didn’t do nothing to Kate. That’s Rusty’s baby girl. I just lost my Jackson--how could I possibly make my best friend feel that same hurt? What kind of man would I be?”

Cessy didn’t buy it. “I’ve been a cop for fifteen years. I’m not moved by grown men crying. Get up that ladder. I’ll be right behind you. Step out of line, and you lose a knee.”

“We need to run. Get out of Hamlin!”

“You’re showing me what you were trying to ‘get rid of’ up there. And if it’s my sister’s body, I’ll hurt you in every way possible that will leave you capable of standing trial.”

Gordon cried. Fear, frustration, pain. He hunched over to keep his back from hurting. But he climbed the ladder. He held his shirt over his mouth as he disappeared into the coal dust.

Cessy kept the shotgun trained upward. She followed him up.

34

The attic was a black fog.

The coal grit and sawdust felt gritty on her exposed skin. She blinked it away as it assaulted her eyes. Exhaled forcefully to clear her nostrils.

The Maple Table’s voices were drawn out in the shadows. Sharp static--electrical interference--interrupted them. “Love your neighbor, even those who hate. Be patient with those who handle the vermin you’re not willing to handle.” The slathered-on compassion in their tones devolved into baby talk, a mockery of itself, then a burst of static and they were speaking normally again.

Her phone’s flashlight did little more than illuminate a patch of floating particles. Like high beams in a black blizzard.

With the phone in one hand and the shotgun in the other, she couldn’t hold her shirt over her mouth. She didn’t think you could get black lung from a few minutes of breathing coal dust, but this wasn’t a coal mine.

“Gordon?”

Stupid to let the man out of her sight, but what else could she have done with a climb into darkness?

“We’ll talk this afternoon at the diner about how we can make our town great again. And there’s no space for Negative Nancies.”

“Over here,” Gordon said loudly, to be heard over the Maple Table. “There’s a light with a cord somewhere.”

Cessy followed his voice.

“Found it.”

Cessy had a brief vision of the lightbulb exploding, the coal dust catching fire and incinerating them both in a flash.

She heard a metallic click, and a string of bare lightbulbs turned on, across the center of the attic.

The dust was so thick that the lights only revealed five feet in any direction. She saw the underside of the roof, but the floor of the attic was still in gritty shadow.

Gordon hunched to the side, hand on his back. His other hand kept his shirt over his mouth. “I thought I would’ve stumbled over them on the way over here.” He walked back towards the door, scraping his feet on the plywood floor. “When I left them up here, I didn’t walk two steps before I dropped them and got the hell out.”

“What are we looking for?” asked Cessy.

“Wires,” said Gordon.

“Are you joking?” she motioned to the fog enveloping them.

“Short lengths of cable.”

“Why would you have that? Why are you looking for it now?”

“Because if you’re right about your sister breaking in here, and she’d actually figured out what’s what, then that’s what she was looking for.”

Cessy crouched into the darkness. She ran her hands along the plywood floor. Near the ladder, the floor was an empty walkway. Off to either side, disorganized boxes. “Where’d you leave them?”

Gordon’s voice came from a different location now. Somewhere to the left of the closest glow in the fog. “I was a little beside myself, I don’t remember the details. But I can tell you it was dark, and Lockler was screaming, so I didn’t take more than a step or two before dropping the wires, heading back downstairs, and then staying on the ground floor until you showed up.”

Cessy searched the floor around the door. “Did they roll away?”

“I’m telling you, if Kate broke in, she probably took them.”

Cessy’s throat started to itch. She didn’t fully buy his story, but it was too bizarre to have invented. Still, she needed to search the whole attic. “Stay by the door.”

“What? Where are you going?”

She walked from one lightbulb’s glow to the next. Coal dust swallowed her only to be banished by the next light. The boxes to either side ran up against the underside of the sloped roof. Cessy just wanted to check the ends of the attic, to make sure that Kate wasn’t hidden away up here.

Although, it’d been several days since when she came up here, according to Jackson. If her body was up here, even this fog couldn’t keep down the smell of decay.

Ahead, a lightbulb flickered. How many had she passed? Four? Five? This was a big house, but not that big.

The voices of the Maple Table slowed, stretched.

Cessy wiped dust from her jeans and spider webs from her hair. She felt like she was back in her parents’ crawlspace. If she walked another twenty feet forward, she’d know for sure that she’d gone farther in this attic than the size of the house should allow.

The crawlspace extended into the hill, though. Down there, she could tell herself it was a nonsensical excavation. If this attic kept going, there was no rational explanation.

Cessy stopped. She reached her flashlight forward.

A steel machine blocked her path. A crooked saw blade pierced the center of an elongated tabletop. A hose dipped in and out of the tabletop like a snake frozen in ice. The machine looked five hundred pounds. How had Gordon hauled it up here?

Behind her, Gordon shouted something, but the Maple Table drowned him out with their distorted cheery voices. The fog dulled all sound.

Cessy squeezed past the stretched out table saw.

Ahead, slabs of lumber were stacked next to the cardboard boxes. Cessy shined her light on them. A sliver of black coal ran the length of the top slab, disappearing past the reach of her flashlight. She walked further, searching for the other end of the slab. Ten seconds of walking. Twenty seconds, passing twisted hand tools strewn over the plywood floor, and still the slabs continued. Forty, fifty feet, and no end in sight.

Gordon’s mill wasn’t that long. His attic shouldn’t be this long.

Cessy pointed the flashlight beam deeper.

Ahead, more of the same. Her light barely piercing the coal dust. The next lightbulb hanging from the center beam nothing but a faint glow. To either side, the detritus of an attic mixed with the stretched contents of a wood shop.

If she kept walking, and the attic didn’t stop, what happened when she turned around? Would she find the door back down, or would the attic stretch on forever in both directions?

“Gordon?” Cessy called.

He answered.

Cessy hurried towards his voice. She passed four lights, five, six. Slipped back past the twisted tablesaw.

“Where are you?” She heard the burgeoning panic in her voice.

“Right here.” He was farther than made any sense, like he’d gone to the opposite end of the attic.

Cessy quickened her pace. Her shoes slapped on the plywood. The shotgun grew heavier.

To her right, the attic opened up, branched out into a window nook.

No possible way she’d missed that before.

Cessy stepped over cardboard boxes and a misshapen drillpress to reach the window.

It revealed the backyard: an uphill lawn ending in a stark wall of trees. A rutted mud path for four-wheelers into the tangled mess of low branches.

The window glass was four-inch-tall panes that rotated perpendicular to the wall when a crank was turned. The crank was missing.

Cessy felt a desperate need to get outside into the morning sunlight.

She turned around.

The coal fog formed a wall in front of her. She’d been so focused on the color of the tree-covered mountainside through the window that she hadn’t noticed she’d stepped out of the dust.

Now, she inspected this fog from the outside. It wasn’t a stark wall, where the dust began, but the air went from empty to thick within a foot. It was thinner at the ceiling and floor, as if the thickest coal dust bored a tunnel through the center of the attic.

Round, flowing, like what she’d seen in the corner of the basement when the hole had slid over her eye.

Normally, Cessy dealt with fear by setting it aside and plowing forward. A flash of realization that if she let it simmer another moment, this time fear would be paralyzing.

Cessy ran back into the coal fog.

She followed the chain of lights. The attic flashed light to dark as she passed another three, four, five.

The Maple Table’s voices snapped back to intelligible. “The compassion you feel for welfare queens isn’t the same compassion you feel for your own family.”

Finally, after the eighth lightbulb she’d passed since stopping at the window, the bright white rectangle of the attic door appeared in the floor ahead.

Gordon stood halfway down the ladder, only his head still in the attic. He twisted sideways, a crooked posture to avoid back spasms. “Where the hell’d you go? I can’t find the cables. Your sister must have took them. Stupid girl.”

“Down,” ordered Cessy. The coal dust flowed past her. She was in a tube, a pipe, a snake’s gut, a worm.

Gordon hobbled down the ladder.

Cessy rushed down, slipping twice but catching herself before anything catastrophic.

She folded the ladder and shoved the door closed. Springs creaked and popped. Dust sprinkled down.

Cessy stuck her head in the shower. Black slurry filled the drain. She gargled and spit out gritty water.

Gordon stood in the bathroom doorway. “Did you see something up there?”

Cessy shook her head. “Tell me about these cables. What are they, why would Kate want them?”

“Well, I-”

“Not in here. Outside.” She needed sunlight. Air that wasn’t tainted by dust, or moving with purpose.

35

The morning sunlight cast a shrinking shadow over the grassy clearing around Gordon’s house. It warmed Cessy’s damp clothes.

Cessy sat on the grass, uphill from the sawmill and kilns. She was enjoying the sun-warmed grass beneath her hands, and the soft noises of the wind and distant birdsong, grateful that the disconcerting discussions of the Maple Table hadn’t followed them outside.

In front of her, the two kilns were closed tight. They looked like steel shipping containers, with motors humming on top.

Gordon lay on his back, avoiding his back pain.

Cessy had already circled the house. The attic windows mirrored the blue sky.

Gordon tried to sit up, groaned, laid back down.

The cloudless morning brightened the town below. Now that Cessy knew to look for them, she could spot several of the houses destroyed by sinkholes.

Cessy scratched at her side. Kate was somewhere in this valley. She couldn’t sit and stew over the impossible attic she’d just escaped. “Tell me why Kate would have broke into your house.”

Gordon propped himself up on his elbows. He exhaled, rattling his beard and bouncing his belly. “I’ll give you ten thousand dollars to drive me out of this town right now. However you got in, drive me right that way out.”

“Why would Kate steal some old cable?”

“At least tell me the way out. I’ll drive myself. How much will it take? Twenty-thousand?”

She didn’t know if Gordon would be a risk to Valerie, so she couldn’t risk sending him past her.

“The sooner we find Kate, the sooner I’ll help you leave.”

“Let’s go to the diner. I could use some breakfast.”

“No.” But Cessy’s stomach grumbled, too.

“I’m trying to protect you. The more you know, the less likely they’ll let you leave.”

Cessy found herself talking to the millionaire like a kid she’d picked up for shoplifting. “You got something stuck in your ears? I’ve told you: I’m not trying to leave.”

“I don’t know what I can do for my friend’s baby daughter. But I can at least try to convince his firstborn that she needs to leave.”

“Don’t be a coward.”

Gordon faced her, sneered, then winced and fell back flat to the ground.

“No shame in being afraid of what’s going on here. But you’re begging me to help you abandon this mess you helped cause. Whatever deal you’ve made with Lockler and the Maple Table, now you want out. And you know what? That’s fine with me. That’s exactly what I’m offering you, but not before you help me.”

“What use am I? I can barely walk.”

“Start talking,” Cessy repeated. “Why was Kate looking for cables? Where do you think she went next?” Assuming she’d ever found her way out of the impossible attic.

Gordon sighed. “She was looking for cables, but she didn’t know for sure that’s what I had.”

“The next words out of your mouth better make sense.”

Gordon shook his head. “I told you Sheriff Miller, your folks, and the Watkins--they cut me off. At least, they wouldn’t talk to me about Lockler and the Maple Table no more. Even though those nut jobs killed my boy.” Anger mixed in with the terror in his voice.

“Once I found the collapsed house, and saw the blood, my own blood boiled. I told you your daddy stopped me from killing myself. I don’t mean he sat with me while I cried; I mean he held me at gunpoint so I wouldn’t go after Lockler.”

“You know where they are?”

Gordon continued on, staring at the empty sky. “What he really did, was stop me from going after them a second time. I tried once right away. I didn’t know where to look. All I knew was that my house had more dark happenings, so maybe they were broadcasting from close to my house.”

“Did you find them?”

He shook his head. “I hiked up Goat’s Jaunt first. Nothing but a mountain. Then I crossed the ridge towards Black Gold Peak. Lockler screamed at me the whole way. Like he was sitting in the trees, except his voice was still full of static, and I never did spot him.”

Cessy thought of her own hike up to Maul Rock, with the cult radio host preaching anger from the forest.

“I found something, though. Right at the low point in the ridge between the two mountains. A junction box for ethernet cables, right at the bottom of a buckthorn tree. You know those things are invasive?”

“Where did the cables go?”

“I dug around it, with just my hands. Thats where I got this.” Gordon held up his hand to display a split fingernail. “I found two wires. One headed up Black Gold Peak. The other down into Hamlin.”

Cessy looked down at the town. “Did they install speakers? Why is there wire?”

Gordon shrugged. “Whatever black magic Lockler uses, he don’t need speakers for us to hear him. Maybe the wire’s just part of magic spell. Maybe it’s a byproduct, like he does a spell that makes us hear him like a radio broadcast, and a side effect is that wires get spit out.”

Cessy had now seen impossible things, but that didn’t mean everything had a supernatural explanation. “How are you sure it’s not just a hardwired broadcast station?”

Cessy looked up at Black Gold Peak. It had to be the same wire she’d tripped over. Did it go all the way up to the peak? Was Valerie tapping into it? Was Valerie involved? Or did the cable have a lower destination? Inside the mountain, perhaps.

“I yanked it free, and Lockler didn’t stop yelling. He got louder. He told me that I would have been grandpa, but I didn’t raise my boy right and even baby rats was still vermin. Then something jumped out at me.” Gordon squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered. “I don’t know what it was. Big mouth. Bigger inside. Some kinda black magic monster, I guess.”

“How’d you get away?”

“I don’t remember. One second, there was flat teeth closing down on me from all around, I was thinking about how terrible I was for condemning my own son, and the next I was running and falling down the hill. I still had that bunch of wire tight in my fist. I meant to toss it in the river, but I got scared that might insult Lockler, so I tossed it in my attic, and didn’t think about it since.”

“You told Kate you had that wire?”

“No. By the time she came around, I was done. Every time I close my eyes, I see those teeth, and the space behind them. I want out of here. This isn’t a Hatfield and McCoy situation where I can shoot the man who killed my boy. I’ve been hunkering down, or staying close to folks who I know are still in Lockler’s good graces. I didn’t tell Kate nothing.”

“But you think she’s the one who went into your attic and stole the cable?”

“You said someone told you Kate came up a few days ago. Who was that?”

“Nobody who wants their name known. That’s the only reason? You didn’t tell anybody else you had that cable?”

“I called John Watkins the night I took the cable. I didn’t tell him specifics--I was still panicking and barely could get two words together. I told him I took something from the mountain and shut it up in my attic. When he asked me about it the next day, I kept my mouth shut. One night of seeing the those teeth was enough.”

“You sent Kate to John Watkins.”

“That’s right, I did.”

“John could have told Kate that you had something of Lockler’s. She would have thought it was a clue to finding him and the Maple Table.”

“John wouldn’t have said nothing.”

“You said he was one of the ones who needed the Maple Table to convince him.”

“Still.” Gordon looked doubtful.

“And that cable was gone. Kate took it.”

“Could be.”

“Where to?”

“If she was smart, she went right over the mountain and out of town.”

“If she wasn’t?”

“Then she’d probably try to find where I ripped it from, and follow it that way. But I was in the middle of the woods. She’d have never found it.”

Unless the buried cable had passed under a hiking trail, and been torn above ground by a falling tree’s roots.

Cessy pieced together what had likely happened. In Kate’s investigation, or maybe as a break from them, she’d hiked the trails and come across the cable. A curiosity.

Then she heard from John Watkins that Gordon Wilder had stolen something from Lockler and the Maple Table, and was storing it in his attic. Kate broke in, found the wires, and remembered the buried wire up the side of Black Gold Peak. She returned to follow the wire, and then...

Cessy didn’t know.

But it was the best lead since she’d thought Jackson was dead.

“I know where to look next,” she said.

“I told you everything I know. You have to get me out of here.”

“As soon as I find Kate.”

They would have gone through the same argument again, but they were interrupted by a thump from inside Gordon’s kiln.

36

Cessy and Gordon sat in the morning sunlight, staring at the two kilns.

The thump had come from the kiln to the left, the one that had been closed yesterday.

“What’s in there?” Cessy asked.

“Black walnut slabs.” Gordon climbed to his feet. He winced at the pain in his back. “One of them must have fallen.”

Cessy gripped the shotgun. “Let’s take a look.”

Gordon shook his head. “The wood will check. Crack, I mean. Can’t adjust the temperature that quickly.”

Inside the kiln, something strained and creaked.

“You got someone locked in there?”

Gordon scoffed. “That’d be like death by toaster oven. I ain’t the sort of man who could do that.”

“You prefer death by sinkhole.” Cessy stood up and aimed the shotgun and Gordon’s chest. “Open it.”

“Sure, whatever you say. It’s two-thousand dollars’ worth of lumber, but if fifty-thousand isn’t enough for you drive me out of here, I don’t guess you care about a few boards.”

He hobbled over to the kiln. Cessy followed.

A bar and latch held the door shut. Atop the container, the motor chugged along.

Gordon unlatched the door. “This is some beautiful lumber you’re destroying.”

“You’ll get over it.” Cessy circled around behind him to get a view over his shoulder.

The hinges on the steel door let out a baritone squeal as the door swung open. Even six feet back, Cessy felt a wave of dry heat escape from the kiln.

Gordon sucked in a breath, stepped back. “What in the gotdamn hell.”

Cessy stepped wide to see past him.

Morning sunlight poured into the green steel container. Slabs of dark brown wood were stacked down the center of the structure.

Something pale was piled in the corner, like rubbery laundry.

“What did you put in here?” Cessy switched on the flashlight.

Gordon stepped back. “Nothing but this walnut.”

It looked like a dead animal, folded over on itself a dozen times.

For an irrational moment, Cessy thought it was Kate’s body. But the mass was too small for that.

“Did something crawl in here and get all the moisture sucked out of it?”

“Must have,” said Gordon, “except that’s impossible. This thing’d be beeping up a storm if there was a hole big enough for something to crawl through.”

“Go in and get it,” Cessy ordered. She didn’t trust Gordon enough to go in herself and risk him locking her in.

He looked at the shotgun, then limped inside. He squeezed between the lumber and the edge of the kiln. As he blocked her flashlight’s path to the mass in the corner, shadow burst back to life. A million tiny bits of it swarmed together.

Cessy blinked. Waved her flashlight. The shadows danced, following the expected laws of physics. “Come on back out.”

Gordon leaned down. “I’m only in here so you don’t shoot me.”

“And now I’m telling you to come back out.”

He picked up the folded mass. “It’s wet. Nothing in here should be wet.” It flopped and stretched out like a heavy blanket, extending from his hand to the floor. “Stinks.”

He stepped from the light of Cessy’s flashlight into the sunlight that reached inside the kiln.

It was a pinkish cream color. It caught on the lumber and stretched until Gordon pulled it free.

A splotch of orange.

“Hold on,” said Cessy. “Let me see that spot.”

Gordon adjusted his grip to hold up what she’d seen.

An inked portrait of a book with an orange cover.

A tattoo. Cessy had seen it recently.

“Gotdamn,” realized Gordon. “This is somebody’s skin.” He dropped it on the stack of lumber.

“Valerie,” Cessy whispered. In the shed atop Black Gold Peak, Valerie had leaned over to offer Cessy a water bottle, revealing a wrist tattoo of a book with an orange cover.

Cessy’s gut went queasy.

She dropped the flashlight, held the shotgun with two hands to aim it at Gordon. She pumped it once, ejecting a live shell to chamber a new one. A waste of ammunition, but sometimes the intimidation factor was worth it. “Hands where I can see them.”

Gordon showed his palms. His head still tilted to the side, avoiding back pain. His beard drooped halfway between the angle of his chin and the ground at his feet. “You don’t think I did this?”

Sometime in the last 36 hours, Gordon had killed and skinned Valerie. He must have seen Cessy drive down the mountain, and found Valerie when he went up to check on the path.

Cessy couldn’t stop staring at the pale pink skin laid over the walnut lumber. She worked Major Crimes, but bank robberies; not the psychopath shit like this. Her gut twisted in revulsion at the gore in front of her, but also at the man who’d done it.

And such a precise job. Smooth edges, no rips, as if Valerie had been sliced once, and then from there, peeled.

Gordon leaned over, getting a closer look at Valerie’s empty skin. “This is what Brenda said happened to John. I thought she was exaggerating.” Finally, the revulsion hit him. He lurched away. “Oh god, Brenda. First her husband, now her daughter.”

It was a show. Act surprised, like somebody else stuck the remnants of Valerie’s body in Gordon’s kiln.

It’d been stupid to even think of trusting him. He’d been willing to murder his own son to get back an idealized Hamlin that never existed. Cessy no longer believed Gordon was unaware that Jackson would be before the firing squad.

“Walk out here,” Cessy ordered. “Nice and slow.” She didn’t know her next play here. She had no authority to arrest him, and even if she did, what then? Drop him off in a jail cell at the sheriff’s office? Drive him back over the mountain until she found cell service, and call the state police? If Gordon and his group had found Valerie, then they’d probably blocked off the fire access road out of town.

Gordon blubbered through his lies. “They’re threatening me. That’s what this is. It’s because I talked to you. I tried to leave. If I’d have just stayed put like I was doing, they’d have left me alone.”

“Out here. Now,” Cessy barked.

The old man limped toward the door. “I’ll give you everything I own. Drive me out of this town, right now. I’ll sign it all away. I’ve already lost my boy. Now they took Brenda and John’s little girl.”

Cessy remembered the scared, abandoned woman she’d met atop Black Gold Peak yesterday morning. Her parents had thrown her out. And now Cessy had learned that Brenda and John Watkins had been part of the group who’d first accepted the help of Lockler and the Maple Table. “Somehow I doubt Brenda is grieving like you are.”

Gordon gave her something between a sneer and a confused gape. “You shouldn’t doubt our love for our children. Everything we did was for-” He hissed, jerked his foot, then yelped at the pain of sudden movement. “Something’s biting me.”

Tiny blurs of movement across the steel floor.

Gliding, like boatman beetles.

The line between sun and shadow was stark. In the sun, four specs slid around Gordon’s bare feet. One jumped up between his toes, over the top of his foot.

“Ow! What is that?” Gordon tried to bend over to see, but his back wouldn’t let him.

Cessy lowered the shotgun, picked up the flashlight and shined it at the back of the kiln.

Holes swarmed in the corner, a massive wasp’s nest of absence. Spreading out from the corner, halfway up the walls to the roof, hundreds of perforations swam through the steel’s surface. In the bottom corner itself, the holes swarmed so tightly that they formed a larger, shifting gap. Bits of flowing matter appeared like glimpses of a mud nest beneath swarming wasps.

Cessy swallowed. The wound on her stomach ached.

Gordon saw her expression. “What?” He turned around.

Perforations spread out from the corner. They ran along the walls, the floors, the ceilings. They slid up the lumber.

Gordon screamed. He jumped toward the door. He stumbled, grabbed for his back, fell.

Cessy stepped forward to help, but stopped herself.

In the back, the gaping hole, the sum of its perforations, grew more stable. Cessy couldn’t tell its depth, but it was at least deeper than the wall was thick.

Light shimmered on its surface. The shimmer bulged outward, while rushing along behind what Cessy could see. Something big tried to force its way through.

Gordon screamed again. Holes glided over his cheeks, around his neck. The skin on his face drooped. “Help me!” His drawn out scream warbled as holes slid through his tongue.

Cessy reared back.

The hole in the back of the kiln swelled.

Gordon rolled over on his back, faced the corner. He sobbed, begged, screamed in pain.

Perforations swarmed past Gordon, towards Cessy.

Cessy slammed the kiln door. Latched it tight.

Outside, birdsong.

The steel structure muffled the old man’s cries for mercy. They turned to unintelligible howls of betrayal.

Cessy gasped for breath. She didn’t stick around to see whether the kiln could contain the holes. She sprinted to her truck. Hesitated, ran to the garage to snag Gordon’s face mask, and then dashed back to the truck.

Tires kicked up gravel.

Only once she was past Gordon’s driveway, barreling down Ulton Ridge Road did she stop checking her mirrors for perforations.

37

At the bottom of the mountain, a mile north of Jackson’s collapsed home, Cessy pulled over.

She threw the truck back into gear, did a three-point turn to face the direction she’d come from, and parked again.

The road disappeared up the hill into the trees. The Appalachian canopy shielded the road from the sun.

Cessy dug out a bottle of water from her back seat and chugged it.

She could still hear Gordon’s screams. She checked her own wound to distract herself. Gooey scabs covered the jagged cut.

If she hadn’t removed the perforation from his skin, what would have happened? The same thing that had happened to Gordon. Which was what, exactly?

Maybe the same fate as Valerie.

Cessy drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She checked her phone--still no service. She could drive back over Black Gold Peak until she found cell service, then call the state troopers.

But how long would that take?

And could she even make it over the mountain? If Gordon had found Valerie, they’d likely blocked off the road.

Cessy finally had a recent lead on Kate. Just three days ago, she’d broken in to find Gordon’s stolen cables, and most likely gone to follow the cable up the mountain.

She hadn’t come back down, or she would have gone back to Jackson.

If she was stuck somewhere on or in the mountain, three days was all you could survive without water. Cessy had a tight time limit.

To save Hamlin from Lockler and the Maple Table’s cultish slaughter, the smart move was to get out of town to make contact with the authorities.

But that would delay finding Kate.

Cessy valued Kate’s life over this dying town any day.

Cessy put the truck into gear, then hesitated. Mom and Dad were still in the valley. According to Gordon, they’d helped bring this disaster on Hamlin. But they’d raised her, and they loved her, and if she’d never come to investigate, they’d still talk on the phone and Mom would encourage Cessy to start dating again, and Dad would ask about work and she’d hear the pride in his voice that his troublemaker of a little girl had grown up to have such a respectable career.

But Cessy had come to investigate. Mom and Dad had started believing in something awful. At the most generous, they’d looked the other way in the murder of drug addicts. At the least generous, they’d been complicit in widespread slaughter.

Once Cessy made sure Kate was safe, she’d have the luxury of considering what level of hatred within her parents outweighed their love for her.

For now, she had to accept that Mom and Dad were dangerous. She couldn’t go talk them into getting out of Hamlin any more than she could approach a holed-up, armed bank robber and ask him to go home.

Wind blew through the trees. Leaves skittered across the pavement. Cessy leaned forward, squinting to make sure nothing else moved across the ground. Or within its surface.

It made her sick, but Cessy had to let Mom and Dad face their own sentencing. She couldn’t risk them stopping her from finding Kate.

Her next step was to drive back up to the Black Gold Peak trailhead parking lot, find the buried cable she’d tripped over, and follow it as far as Kate had followed it.

Still, Cessy hesitated. She had a shotgun with a box of shells. A revolver with five rounds. If the cable led her into the mine, she had Gordon’s mask, and she had her flashlight and plenty of batteries. She didn’t have a shovel for the collapse, but she could find a sturdy branch. She had water bottles and energy bars for if she found Kate.

For when she found Kate.

A shotgun wouldn’t work against a swarm of holes in the ground. A .45 round couldn’t stop a rushing wall of darkness.

Cessy was in over her head. She knew jack shit about phantom radio shows, or supernatural threats.

But these cultists had real voices, broadcasted from a real location.

Cessy patted the shotgun in the passenger’s seat.

Real voices tended to be attached to flesh-and-blood people. A .12 gauge slug had a hell of an effect on flesh and blood.

If Cessy could outmaneuver the unnatural threats--if she could navigate waves of darkness and fogs of coal dust, and avoid parasitic perforations--then she could deal with the psycho cult leaders the same as she would with anyone who was a threat to society.

Fear welled in her gut. The mountain waited for her.

But inside, Kate might still be alive.

Cessy put the truck into gear, checked her mirrors, and saw someone walking up the road towards her. Jackson.

38

Cessy stepped out of the truck.

Jackson walked hunched over, a frail figure on the pavement between hilly pastures. His arms were folded across his chest. His sunken cheeks looked even more sickly in the daylight.

What little compassion she’d found for him in the rental house slipped away. Yes, he’d lost his wife. And yes, his own father had brought down hell on him. But Jackson had been selling meth to high school kids. He was the same shitstain who’d destroyed Kate’s self esteem all those years ago, and the one who’d roped her into this today.

Now he came to slow Cessy down.

He drew closer. “I woke up and saw you were gone. I remembered I told you that Kate went to see my dad. I guessed that’s where you went.” He scratched at his neck. “Want me to go with you?”

Cessy chewed her lip. Jackson’s willingness to help didn’t negate the danger he’d put Kate in. “I just came from there. Those hole things killed your dad.”

Jackson jerked like she’d punched him. “Why?”

“Because he pissed them off? You know more about this shit than me.”

He started shaking his head and didn’t stop. “He sold me out for them. Killed my Olivia. And he didn’t even get anything out of it?”

Cessy let Jackson rant.

“You stupid old shit,” he screamed at the mountain. “Work hard and make money, huh? What’d you make this time?”

Jackson’s chest heaved. He looked at Cessy like she’d interrupted a personal conversation. “Before he died, did he say anything about me?”

“He thought you were dead. You were hiding, so I didn’t tell him otherwise. He had a lot of regret about what he did to you and Olivia.”

Jackson spat through rotten teeth. “Good. I hope he died disgusted with himself.”

Jackson’s own disgust invited an awkward silence.

He kicked a rock across the asphalt.

Cessy turned to look up the mountain. “Valerie Watkins is dead, too. Was she helping you and Kate?”

“Damn, really? I hope my old man saw.”

“He did.”

Cessy thought Jackson was about to go into another tirade, but instead he squeezed his arms around his chest. “No, she wasn’t helping us. I knew she was upset with the old folks, but she disappeared before I could ask her anything. When I realized she was gone is when I called Kate.”

It was Cessy’s turn to ask: “Why? Why not the state police? Or anybody else in the world besides my baby sister?”

“I don’t know that many people outside Hamlin. The smart kids who went to college and never came back, they never talked to me.”

“Because you bullied them.”

He shrugged. “I tried calling the FBI. They listened until they made me give them my name. Then they’d see my arrest record. And what was I supposed to say? This radio station is brainwashing my dad? If I talk about it too much, a wall of shadow starts chasing me? I tried.”

“You thought Kate would believe you.”

“I knew she’d help. But it took her a month to actually believe me. Whatever your parents finally said to her on the phone, that got her to trust me enough that she knew something was wrong. As soon as she did, of course she came.”

“Because of your past relationship.”

He scoffed. “She’d have done it for anybody. I thought you two were close; you should know that.”

He was right. If someone was in need, Kate stepped up. And if there was some injustice that put that person in need, Kate lost her timidity and found a lion’s courage.

“She should have told me right away.”

“I asked her not to. The town hates you. You saw for yourself, it took less than a day for Sheriff Miller to try to hang you. Kate was at least able to help me for a few days before... well.”

“Before she marched up Black Gold Peak, and followed a buried cable, probably into the old town mine.”

“Not Hamlin’s mine. That entrance you’re talking about wasn’t there three months ago.” Jackson scratched at his ribs. Excitement punctuated his shaky voice. “You sure she went in there?”

“If that’s where the cable goes.”

“We thought maybe they were broadcasting from in there, but those old mines are dangerous. Wasn’t worth going inside unless we knew for sure.”

“Kate must have felt confident,” Cessy said.

Jackson nodded like he was answering a question. “Alright. I’ll join you.”

“Whoa. No. I don’t need your help.”

“I didn’t offer it. My daddy put the hit out on me, but it was Lockler and the Maple Table who pulled the trigger. I gotta answer that. They killed my Olivia.”

Cessy wasn’t here for revenge. Just to find Kate. “A strong breeze could blow you over. You’ll get in my way.”

“We’re going into a coal mine, right? I’ll be your canary. Whatever’s in there, it’s had its eye on me longer than on you. More likely it comes after me first. And I’ve had longer to recognize the thoughts that jump in my head before it shows up.”

Cessy considered.

“Chirp chirp,” Jackson said.

“You can have a flashlight, but I’m not giving you a gun.”

Jackson grinned, revealing yellow and missing teeth. “I told you, I’m gonna introduce Lockler to a few nine millimeter bullets. I brought my own.” In his baggy clothes and shrinking frame, he could be hiding a pistol anywhere.

“Then you’ll be walking in front of me. I don’t have any kind of mask for you.”

Jackson shrugged. “Sucks, but coal won’t be the worst thing I’ve put in my lungs.”

Cessy didn’t trust him to make rational decisions, or to be especially helpful, but she decided that he’d been telling the truth. An extra set of eyes couldn’t hurt.

She was ashamed of the thought, but the word “expendable” jumped to mind. If she didn’t find Kate, it meant that Cessy’s ignoring their skipped lunch dates for two weeks had contributed to her death. It meant that she hadn’t built a strong enough relationship with her little sister, so when trouble came calling, Kate didn’t trust Cessy enough to call for help. Anything that had happened to Kate was Cessy’s fault.

So yes, she’d bring along Jackson, knowing she could do almost nothing to protect him. She’d let him sacrifice himself in a heartbeat, if it meant giving Cessy an extra heartbeat to save Kate.

Besides, she told herself, he was the one who’d brought Kate here in the first place. He’d sold meth to high schoolers.

If she could convince herself to hate him again, then she wouldn’t feel guilt about what she was willing to do.

“Okay,” said Cessy. “Get in the car.”

39

Before Jackson could even get in the truck, another car appeared on the road, coming from town.

Cessy turned from the driver’s seat for a better look. She held the shotgun.

The car slipped behind a hill, then back up into view.

It was Mom’s Chevy.

“Who is it?” Jackson asked. “Sheriff Miller?”

“My mom,” Cessy said.

“We should go before she sees us.”

“Stay in the truck.” Cessy shut the door.

The sun was high in the sky now. It sapped the morning dew from the grassy hills surrounding the road.

A belt screeched in the Chevy’s engine as it pulled up behind the 4Runner and parked.

Mom opened the door. “Cessy. I saw your car in front of the rental house last night, but didn’t want to storm in. I had to follow Jackson to find you.” She stepped out, squinting in the sunlight. Wrinkled fingers tightened a bandanna around her gray curls. “Can you believe it? Jackson! Gordon’s going to be so happy when he hears.”

Cessy turned so the shotgun barrel aimed at the asphalt between them. “I thought Jackson was vermin. Now you’re happy he’s alive?”

“Some people deserve a second chance.” She walked towards Cessy.

Cessy raised the shotgun. “Stay over there.”

Mom shrank from the gun. “That’s not necessary.”

“You let Sheriff Miller try to kill me.”

“I told him you’re not vermin.” Mom looked genuinely shocked. “I’ll give him a piece of my mind. Where is he now?”

“I told you. He tried to kill me.”

Mom pursed her lips into a little “o” of pink lipstick. “Well when I see him again, I’ll clear everything up.”

Cessy shook her head. “Mom, how about you clear something up for me. Why did you lie about Kate?”

“That was God’s honest truth--we haven’t seen or heard from her.”

“She called you last week.”

“Which she does twice a month.”

Cessy swallowed her annoyance. When Mom was embarrassed about something, she acted like a creative lie wasn’t a lie. “I asked if you’d heard from her.”

“It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.”

“Kate’s in town.”

“No.” Mom waved her finger. “My baby girl would have visited me. And now’s not a good time for Hamlin to have visitors.”

“Jackson talked to her. Gordon talked to her. Her rental car is parked not a mile away. She’s here somewhere. And she called you before deciding to come. Maybe I could have found her more quickly if you hadn’t lied to me yesterday. Did Kate tell you she was coming?”

Mom paced in little shuffling steps. “It was a normal call. How are you and Dad? I love my new job. Anything good on the TV lately?”

“You mean on the radio?” Cessy prompted.

“Maybe.”

“She asked you about Lockler and the Maple Table.”

“No. I might have mentioned them, though. The good they’re doing for Hamlin.”

This woman in front of Cessy, who’d raised her, now felt a dangerous stranger. “How many of your neighbors will be alive to enjoy it?”

“I deserve respect, too. You wouldn’t speak to your father like that.”

“You know I would.”

Mom tugged at her blouse and chewed her lips. “You don’t understand how badly this town needed Lockler.”

“He’s hurt people. How could you possibly tolerate that? Yesterday you were handing out lunches to old folks. You’re not a violent person.”

“Protecting your town isn’t violence.”

“Tell that to Olivia Wilder.” Cessy shook her head, felt something akin to grief. “Why did you come find me?”

“To help you leave. Go home. I’m sure you’ll find that Kate already did.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“She’s smart, and she’s good. She wouldn’t keep poking around where she doesn’t belong.” Mom sighed. “Cecelia, you didn’t see how full of vermin Hamlin became. Let me help you leave. There’s a walking trail that follows Mud River west of town.”

“And if I refuse?”

The look on Mom’s face was like when Mom had seen her wear baggy jeans for the first time. “Why would you? This is all for you. One day, you and Kate, your future husbands, and our future grandchildren, God willing, will move back here. You can’t grow old in the big city. But the vermin were ruining our town. I love you. This is for you.”

“What is? Tell me what you’ve done.”

“I’m not having this conversation with you, young lady. It’s time to leave. I’ll show you the way out.”

Cessy sighed.

The truck door opened. Jackson leaned out. “Mrs. Timms, you coming, too?”

Mom narrowed her eyes at Cessy. “Where are you going?”

“I told you. I’m finding Kate. Then we’re leaving.”

Mom squeezed arthritic fingers into a bony fist. “You’re as stubborn as your father.”

Cessy shrugged.

She got back in the truck.

Jackson rocked in his seat. “She coming?”

“Nope.”

Cessy waited, watching through the mirror. It took Mom thirty seconds to decide to get back into her car. Another thirty seconds to turn around and drive away.

Once Mom’s Chevy was out of sight over the closest hill, Cessy put the truck into gear.

40

They parked next to Kate’s rental minivan.

The mountain stretched up before them, visible only partially through the forest.

Cessy replayed in her head her conversation with Mom. Should she have asked for more help? Wanting to help Cessy leave town was one thing; helping her disrupt Lockler and the Maple Table was another. Mom was a stranger.

Cessy got out of the car. A single bird sang, perched atop the minivan. Her tires had kicked up gravel dust, painting her view of the surrounding woods in a gray haze.

Mom wasn’t a stranger, though. This was the same woman she knew. It wasn’t surprising that Mom would act irrational. You couldn’t expect anybody to act rational all the time. But how Mom was acting was something else. It was like the worst parts of her personality were amplified.

Jackson slammed his door. He shot the door a distrusting sneer.

Cessy opened the back door. “Do you know what’s waiting for us up there?”

Jackson cupped his hands to peer into the minivan. “No, I’ve been keeping my head low. I know what comes after me. I don’t know what happens when we go after it.”

Cessy put the dust mask and flashlight into a backpack, slung it over her shoulder. She used a knife to widen her holster to fit Sheriff Miller’s revolver. Only five rounds for it, but better than no sidearm. She stuffed her pockets with shotgun shells, tucked the gun over her elbow.

She handed Jackson her extra flashlight. He clicked it on and off, then patted his waist.

“What are you carrying?” Cessy adjusted her backpack.

“H and K VP9.”

“Fancy.” Cessy motioned to the trailhead with the barrel of the shotgun. “Lead the way.”

The walk up the mountainside was uneventful. The heat of summer crept up on them as the morning progressed. The forest’s thick undergrowth blocked the wind to keep the air stale.

Their feet crunched dead leaves.

Gradually, the bushes, young trees, and vines grew thicker on either side of the trail. As Cessy’s thighs started aching from the climb, the depth of the forest around her contracted, until she was walled in by crowded pine needles from finger-thin trunks, tangles of thorny vines, and broad-leaved bushes.

Above, the thick canopy of oaks, pines, and maples. And in between the overgrown undergrowth and the high leaves which hid the sky: relative emptiness.

Cessy searched the forest floor for the fallen tree that had ripped up the buried cable. She’d known these woods perfectly as a teenager, but now every switchback in the trail brought on more of the same. The unnatural tunnel of undergrowth adulterated the familiar.

Jackson spoke, startling Cessy. “Olivia used to love hiking. She’d go jogging up this mountain, can you believe that?” He faced forward, walking up the trail without even breathing heavy.

Cessy didn’t know how to respond. She’d never been close to someone with this level of grief before. One of Detective Landis’s old friends from the department was killed a few years back, but it’d been a decade since Landis knew him well. That was a grief of distance, of processing the fact that something horrible had happened to someone far away. That was easier to compartmentalize.

Jackson now dealt with a grief far more immediate than anything Cessy had faced.

Although, depending on what they found in the mine, that might soon change.

They curved around a switchback. Jackson stopped. Birdsong behind them faded away.

Up the hill, in the empty space between canopy and undergrowth, tiny perforations swarmed tree trunks and branches.

Cessy froze. Her wound itched. She thought of Gordon’s final scream, muffled by the walls of his kiln.

The holes moved like schools of fish, independently yet together, along branches, up tree trunks. Despite sun rays piercing the forest canopy, and the myriad angles at which the holes faced the light, they all allowed only a whisper of light inside. Gray emptiness.

Jackson’s hand went to his waist. Cessy leaned forward to hold it still.

“I saw this, once,” Jackson whispered. “When the ground swallowed my house. The ground rumbled, the house fell. I crawled away, and these things showed up. But I was trying to get away already by that point, what with Olivia...” He trailed off.

Cessy quietly told him how she’d seen a small patch of similar perforations when she’d found the mine yesterday. “But I almost missed spotting it. Nothing like this.”

“They know we’re coming,” Jackson said.

“They can’t.” But she couldn’t shake the truth of what he said. If Lockler and the Maple Table could respond over their broadcast to what people said in the moment, and if the walls of darkness appeared in response to discussing them, then of course Cessy and Jackson couldn’t sneak up on them.

“It’s different from how you saw it before. It’s only different because something’s changed. Lockler’s almost finished. That’s what’s changed.”

“Finished what?” Cessy searched for the break in undergrowth that she’d found before.

“Everything they’ve been doing. Driving Hamlin crazy. Taking people. My dad and Sheriff Miller were two of the people most excited about Lockler. They told everyone how great he was for helping clean up their town. If they took those two, they must not need that support anymore. Must be they’re almost finished.”

That list of people most excited also included Cessy’s parents. If she went home right now, would she find that they’d been taken, too?

She couldn’t process that right now. Mom and Dad were complicit in what had happened here, maybe complicit in whatever had happened to Kate. But they were still her parents.

Cessy gently spread apart a copse of young pines. She crept through it, nervous to draw the attention of the hundreds of holes above.

Jackson stumbled through behind her. Thin trunks swung down, needles whooshing behind them.

The forest went quiet. Cessy stared at the perforations, willing them to ignore her.

After a few moments, Cessy forged her way uphill. Every step farther away from those things lifted her spirits.

She resumed her search for the fallen tree and lifted cable. It didn’t take long.

An oak tree as big around as her waist, toppled from the dirt, roots jutted up like crooked tentacles. A black, dirt-encrusted cable stretched up from the ground, hung atop a root, and went back under the ground.

“You think this is what Kate followed?” Jackson asked.

Cessy nodded. “It probably goes up into the mine.”

She navigated the thick undergrowth, straight to the mine. Wind whispered from within. Cessy clicked on her flashlight and shined it inside.

Twenty feet in, the dirt and rocks of the collapsed ceiling blocked the way.

The flat curtain of darkness was gone.

Jackson came up behind Cessy. “What are you looking for?”

“Yesterday, I saw a rushing wall of shadow, like we saw in the rental house. It’s gone now.”

“It moves.” Jackson kicked at the dirt at his feet. “You think the cable’s under here?”

They found a pair of thick branches, and used them to carve a narrow ditch in the mine entrance.

A foot down, Jackson said, “I don’t think it’s down here.”

Cessy ignored him until they’d dug another eighteen inches. He was right. She’d assumed the cable would lead here, but it didn’t.

“If Kate followed the cable, wouldn’t she have had to dig it up herself?”

Cessy leaned on her digging stick. “She didn’t have a metal detector, did she?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Then yeah.” Cessy led the way back to the toppled tree. She climbed up onto the trunk and searched the woods around her.

She spotted three patches of exposed dirt, about twenty feet away from where the roots lifted the cable. One of them revealed the buried wires.

Kate had guessed the wire’s path, then dug until she found it.

Farther up the hill, Cessy saw evidence of the same careful searching.

She followed her sister’s trail. Every ten or twenty feet, a series of freshly dug holes, until Kate had found the cable, judged its direction, and repeated the process.

Jackson hummed to himself as he followed Cessy, a tuneless drone.

The trail led them past the mine entrance, farther up the hill.

Cessy thought it was leading them to the peak, straight to Valerie’s shed, when she found the pit.

A shallow ravine ran down the mountainside, ending in a pit that hugged the edge of a boulder. It was twice as thick around as Cessy’s shoulders. Rainwater runoff must have gathered here, until it broke through.

A knotted rope was tied to a pine tree, and dangled down the hole.

A foot down the hole, gray cable stretched out of the dirt, bent ninety degrees, and disappeared down the hole.

“They’re really down the mine,” Jackson said. “Kate was right.”

Cessy’s heart thumped up in her throat. This was where Kate had gone. She’d find her sister down this pit. Or her sister’s corpse.

Cessy jammed the shotgun through her belt along her back, tested the strength of the knotted rope, and descended.

41

The pit was tighter than Cessy estimated. She shoulders knocked down chunks of earth that fell into her sneakers. The shotgun cut grooves through the wall.

Finally, her feet kicked free of the tight hole. She swung wildly until finding the ground.

She turned on her flashlight. The click echoed down a tunnel. She was in the mine, thirty feet past the collapse.

Around her, packed dirt floor, roots sticking out of a soft ceiling and walls, timber supports every twenty feet. They didn’t seem enough to hold up the mountain.

Dirt splattered the ground, and then Jackson dropped into sight. “The coal mine’s asshole, that’s what that was.”

A trickle of sunlight came down through the pit.

Jackson turned on his flashlight.

Cessy inspected their surrounding.

At the farthest stretches of her light, something moved.

“Did you see that?” Jackson whispered.

Cessy crept forward. She rested the barrel of the shotgun on the wrist of the arm holding the flashlight. “What is it?”

“I can’t see their face.”

Cessy stopped. All she’d seen was a shifting of shadows. It was possible Jackson’s younger eyes were better suited for the dark. “What do you see?”

“Someone was standing in the middle of the tunnel. Now they’re crouched in the corner.”

Cessy aimed the light into the corner. All she saw was a lump of shadow. It was too far away. “Keep your flashlight trained on it. And keep your pistol handy.”

“That means I’m in front?” Jackson aimed his flashlight, and drew a semiautomatic pistol from his waistband.

Cessy squinted, trying to see in the lump of shadow what Jackson saw. “Sorry. I can’t let an amateur with a gun behind me.”

Jackson aimed his flashlight at the same point, although his was dimmer. “Seriously, you don’t see that? I swear it’s looking at us.”

“Do you recognize them?”

Jackson shook his head. They walked into the mountain, Cessy behind and to one side, so she had a clear line of sight to the lump of shadow. Jackson pointed his flashlight ahead, but kept his pistol at his side.

Twenty feet deeper into the mine, Cessy saw the shadow slide up the tunnel wall, then get yanked out of sight.

Jackson sucked in air. “Did you see that? Someone got swallowed.”

“Did you recognize them?” Cessy’s heart pounded. “Was it Kate?”

“No, I think they were already dead.” He raised the pistol.

Cessy lightly kicked the back of his knee. “Are you crazy? Don’t fire that.”

He was crazy, and she shouldn’t trust what he saw. She’d seen shadows move. That was all.

Rumbling beneath Cessy’s feet, up her shins, thighs, torso. Cessy’s teeth chattered. Dust and pebbles fell from the ceiling.

Jackson grabbed Cessy under the armpits, shoved her against a wooden support, hunched over her.

The rumbling stopped. The patter of dirt on the packed-down floor diminished to silence. Wind whistled past the mine entrance, forty feet behind them.

“Did the mountain shake?” Cessy asked. The damage Lockler and the Maple Table had done to this town was disturbing enough. To think they had the power to disturb Black Gold Peak itself--Cessy shuddered.

But it raised a simpler possibility. This cult leaders were doing some excavating of their own.

Jackson stepped back. The smell of unwashed clothes and flesh lingered. “You yelled too loud. It shook down some dirt. That’s all.”

He was lying, giving them an excuse to keep searching. Maybe she could consider that a noble move, but moreso, it was an excuse to use Jackson as a canary in a coal mine. By insisting they continue, he was volunteering for whatever happened next.

More confident in her disdain for her sister’s teenage tormentor, Cessy walked deeper into the mine. She got out Gordon’s dust mask from her backpack to fit it over her face. The trapped humidity of her breath quickly made her face feel sticky. A relief valve hissed and popped with each breath.

Cessy motioned for Jackson to lead the way. “After you.” The mask muffled her voice.

They continued deeper into the mountain.

42

First, came the echoing voices of the Maple Table.

Then, more softly, overshadowed by the radio hosts, a low chorus of weeping.

Cessy touched Jackson’s elbow to signal him to stop.

The daylight from the pit entrance had disappeared from view as the tunnel sloped downward. Their flashlights lit up the dirt and wooden supports directly in front of them, and cast two shifting beams that danced around deeper into the mountain.

They’d been walking for five minutes when they first heard the staticky broadcast of the Maple Table from somewhere beyond their flashlights’ reach.

“Can you understand what they’re saying?” Cessy asked.

Jackson shook his head. “That’s the Maple Table, though. I’d bet on it.”

“Do you hear the crying? Or am I imagining that?”

“No, it’s there.”

They kept walking. Cessy squinted to see the edges of her flashlight’s reach. “Do you think the weeping is the people taken?”

Jackson shook his head. “Probably a trick.”

A blurry vertical line ahead gradually gained definition. A support post in the center of the tunnel. As they approached, Cessy saw that the tunnel split.

To the left, the tunnel sloped uphill and curved left, like the start of a spiral ramp to the surface.

To the right, the tunnel took a jagged path downhill, steeper than the tunnel they stood in now. It turned sharply out of sight. The dirt floor wasn’t packed down, and looked prone to rockslides. The support beams were splintered.

The Maple Table’s discussion drifted down from the left; the soft weeping up from the right.

Cessy motioned to the haphazard path down. “Kate’s probably this way.”

Jackson walked a few feet up to the left. He craned his slender neck, looking up around the curve. “I want to see their faces.”

“We’re here to find my sister. Not revenge.” Plus, she needed him with her. She didn’t know what she would find, but she had no plan against it except a shotgun, and--failing that--using Jackson as a distraction.

“You don’t know where Kate is,” Jackson said. “Could be she’s one of the people crying down there. But I told you, I think it’s a trick. I don’t think anybody’s crying anywhere.”

“Your dad said a third of the population is missing. That’s nearly a thousand people. They’ve got to be somewhere.”

Jackson shone his light down the right hand path. “Nowhere we can reach. They’re gone.”

“Watch your mouth.” Fury filled Cessy. This meth head didn’t know what he was talking about.

“It’s the truth. There ain’t no secret jail down here. Those people got taken somewhere we can’t get to, unless they take us, too.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You just got here yesterday. There’s a lot you ain’t seen yet.”

Cessy looked down the tunnel. “If you think it’s impossible to save Kate, then why are you helping me?”

“Kate didn’t get taken. She walked down here on her own.”

Cessy took a breath. “That makes a difference?”

“It could.” Jackson shrugged. “Think about it. Kate wanted to stop Lockler and the Maple Table. She walked in here four days ago. Which direction do you think she chose?”

Cessy adjusted the shotgun. It was getting heavy. “She’d want to confront the radio hosts. It’d scare her shitless, even if this were a regular situation. But she’d do it anyways.”

“And she knew as well as I do that all those tears down there probably aren’t real.”

“How?” Cessy asked. “Have they tricked you before?”

Jackson smirked. “You being serious? This whole thing had been a trick. ‘We’ll exterminate the vermin for you, no charge.’”

Cessy nodded. “Valid point.” She felt their relationship start to shift. Jackson was more than a druggie flailing through an attempt to do good like his late wife. He’d been investigating this alongside Kate--and before Kate arrived. If years ago he’d avoided that first contact with meth, maybe today he’d have made a decent detective.

She cut off the thought. She needed Jackson as fodder for the cannons that might come.

Jackson started up the winding path. “What do you say we go ask those assholes if they’ve seen Kate?”

“Lead the way.”

They began the climb.

43

After five minutes of climbing, the wailing below them started to get to Cessy.

The spiral tunnel had floors and walls of smooth dirt. Even the ceiling had been smooth at one point, before chunks of dirt fell here and there. The view ahead was always limited to fifteen feet, as the rising tunnel curved off to the left.

The Maple Table’s cheery discussion was almost intelligible, despite bursts of static that made Jackson flinch and hurt Cessy’s ears. They were getting closer, and any moment now, Cessy would confront the people who’d attacked this town with unnatural force.

But the wailing below demanded Cessy’s attention. From within her dust mask, the poorly lit visual world felt distant, like she was intruding on foreign space. But her ears were exposed. No filter between the sound waves and her perception of them.

A chorus wept. Hundreds of voices. Wordless, but the emotion was clear: beyond anger, beyond fear, beyond asking for help, they mourned for their present state. The elderly were the loudest, with wavering voices, vocal chords worn down by the passage of time. They nearly drowned out the younger voices, the discomforting sobs of adulthood, the familiar but tragic cries of children.

A shrill, colicky cry demanded to be heard.

Cessy stumbled. “Was that a baby?”

Jackson turned around. He brought his flashlight to face Cessy, leaving the path ahead dark. Shadows returned to his own gaunt face. “I told you, it’s fake.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

Jackson swallowed. Blinked slowly. “Calm down a second and listen.”

The Maple Table continued their discussion, but Cessy heard only the weeping below. Now she heard mainly the single baby cry, the sound of an infant that’s been left to cry too long, months on end, and had ripped her vocal chords.

“It sounds real.”

Jackson shook his head. “Use your head. Down where the mine split, the Maple Table was practically yelling overtop of those fake crybabies. Now the crying’s louder.”

“What are you saying?”

“It’s fake!” Jackson threw his hands up. His light flashed down the mine behind them.

Cessy stepped away from the business end of Jackson’s pistol. “Be careful with that.”

Jackson pointed the pistol at the floor. “I’m telling you, they sensed the crying was working, so they cranked it up.”

Cessy aimed her flashlight back down the way they’d came. “If it were aimed at me, wouldn’t they make me hear Kate’s voice?”

“It’s not aimed at you.” Jackson stared at the floor.

The infant’s sandpapery scream hit a crescendo over the chorus.

“Olivia was eight months pregnant. Both me and her were colicky babies. Our baby girl probably would have been, too.”

“I’m so sorry,” Cessy whispered.

“I was ready. I bought Olivia a pair of them noise canceling headphones. We had the gripe water for our baby girl’s belly. Vitamin E drops to keep her throat from scarring.”

Cessy’d never have kids. She’d met Pat so late in life that kids were a longshot anyways, and then their relationship had only lasted a few years. So she didn’t know how it felt to lose the hope of a child. But she did know how it felt to find new hope for life, then have it all ripped away.

Jackson had lost everything.

The academic Maple Table host spoke low and fast through the static. Cessy caught the words “karma” and “bring it on yourself.”

Her feelings towards Jackson shifted. The kid’s own decision to sell drugs led directly to their parents thinking the town needed saving. And the emotionally abusive way he’d treated Kate as a teenager, well, life had a way of bringing about justice.

Jackson wiped his mouth. The flashlight caught yellow and missing teeth. He was probably high right now.

The nerve, using the deaths of his wife and unborn child--which he’d helped cause--to make everything about him.

Maybe he had a point about the weeping being fake, but being right didn’t change the type of person he was.

“Okay, I believe you,” Cessy said. “The crying is fake. Let’s go see what the Maple Table has to say about your family.”

Jackson tilted his head in confusion at her angry tone, like a stray dog.

“You first,” she ordered.

They continued upward. Part of her mind recognized that she wasn’t even that harsh on bank robbers. But the situation had her rattled, and this was Jackson, who’d made her baby sister’s life hell. She was content with her anger.

The Maple Table host’s word dripped through the static, “It’s a shame, but he made his own decisions.”

She glanced once more behind her, towards the crying, and put aside the thought that the simplest explanation for why a sound was getting louder, was that its source was getting closer.

44

They walked another half hour.

Cessy’s legs ached. Sweat lined the inside of her mask and made the air humid to breathe.

The radio hosts’ voices mixed with the weeping masses, both interspersed with infant shrieks and static pops. Condensation dripped from rocks that bulged out of the dirt walls.

“We should have reached the top of the mountain by now,” Cessy said.

Jackson grunted a response.

They rounded another bend.

Pitch darkness gave way to dusky gray. Light stretched down from up the tunnel.

Cessy and Jackson exchanged looks.

Cessy adjusted herself so she held the flashlight with her left hand, and rested the barrel of the shotgun on her left wrist.

The light grew brighter as they ascended. Reason said the light must be coming from ahead, but it seemed to glow in place, independent of any source.

The dirt floor leveled out, rounded another bend.

The tunnel opened into a cavern.

A living room scene from a sitcom. A couch and a love seat atop a rug. But under and around that rug was dirt instead of wood floors. Beyond the furniture, instead of a background of windows and a staircase, blackness.

There was no lamp to give reason for the light.

Three people sat in the living room.

On the couch sat a round older man with reading glasses perched on his nose. He leaned back, just enough to be relaxed without being too casual.

Next to him, a slender man around Cessy’s age. He wore a blue dress shirt and yellow patterned bowtie. He lifted his chin like he’d had a thought he was sure would impress everyone around.

On the loveseat, a respectable distance from the men, sat a blonde woman in her thirties. Her stiff eyes and lips had seen the beautifying needle of an aesthetician. She wore a magenta dress that stopped at her knees.

The hosts of the Maple Table faced the tunnel like they’d been expecting Cessy and Jackson, but they didn’t stop their friendly chatter.

The friendly grandpa was midsentence. “...and the mountains. I love my neighbors, I love seeing their grandkids come visit, and I’d hate to see anything happen to them.”

The professor took the thought and ran with it. “With crime rates on the rise, and urban sprawl bringing rap music into the heartland of America, you’re right to be worried. The facts don’t lie.”

The blonde woman added smiling cheer. “I know I’m grateful for the men and women who defend my home.”

Grandpa opened his mouth to respond. A burst of static erupted.

Cessy clutched at one ear with the hand holding the flashlight, and jammed her other ear against her shoulder. Sharp pain from her eardrums.

The static reverberated through the cavern, outside the modest light of the Maple Table’s living room.

Jackson clenched his jaw at the noise. Aimed his pistol at Grandpa’s chest.

“No!” cried Cessy.

The static stopped, and Grandpa kept right on declaring his love for Hamlin.

“These fuckers killed my family!” Jackson growled.

The hosts didn’t react to the pistol. They stared at the entrance to the tunnel, continued their masturbatory discussion.

Cessy lunged for Jackson. “We need them.”

Jackson pulled the trigger.

45

The pistol’s flash lit up the cavern surrounding the living room furniture, but in the brief moment before it blinded Cessy, she caught a glimpse of roiling walls, like a mass of prehistoric anacondas.

Then her vision flashed white, the gunpowder flare an order of magnitude brighter than their flashlights, or the sourceless glow of the Maple Table.

Jackson cursed. “No way.”

Cessy’s hearing was muffled from the static and then the gunshot. Her vision blurred back to clarity.

She shined her light into the darkness, but it didn’t reach the cavern walls to confirm what she’d seen.

The Maple Table kept talking.

A bullet hole through Grandpa’s shirt, a puncture into his chest. Flesh ripped open, but no blood. The spent round was barely visible, two inches deep in his chest. No effect on his speech. No sign he’d noticed at all.

Jackson’s eyes were wide and wild. He paced in front of the radio hosts, who continued to ignore him. “They’re not real people.”

Cessy looked behind her. Shined her light down the tunnel, then up above it. The tunnel opened wide like a funnel--how had she not noticed that before? Her light didn’t reach the cavern walls anywhere.

She stepped closer to the Maple Table. Their unnatural light was better than darkness.

Jackson walked up and shoved Grandpa. He only succeeded in pushing himself backwards. He tried again with the Professor, and the token female. They neither budged nor reacted to him.

“Did you see the walls?” Cessy asked.

Jackson was too distracted. He slapped the woman. Her vapid endorsement of small town values didn’t falter.

Jackson looked back at Cessy, fear in his expression. “They’re not real people. What is this?”

“If Kate’s not here, and they won’t respond to us, then we need to keep searching.” Cessy made sure she had a shell chambered. Kate might be somewhere in this cavern.

“You don’t understand. I’ve been wrong about Lockler and the Maple Table. I thought they were occultists, playing with dark shit. Your sister thought they were like Jonestone, but with hallucinogens. We were wrong. Look at them.” Jackson smacked the professor on the head. “They’re not in charge. They’re not causing all this. Something else killed Olivia. They’re an instrument, like a flute or a pipe. Playing the music that Hamlin wants to hear.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cessy looked at the three adults on the couches. They ignored the bloodless bullet hole in Grandpa’s chest to discuss the downfall of society, which was broadcast across Hamlin without the benefit of broadcast equipment, except for buried wires.

“I don’t know,” Jackson said. “I thought they were the ones causing everything. The darkness and the holes and the people going crazy all started after the radio broadcasts. But one conversation we had, Kate said maybe we had it backwards.”

Cessy touched the Professor’s forehead. Cool to the touch, but still flesh. “She called them instruments?”

Jackson nodded.

“Who’s doing the playing?” Cessy stepped past the couches, to the edge of the darkness.

“I don’t know. I thought these people were witches or something. Driving us crazy and sending shadows and living holes to kill us or take us.”

“Cult leaders who’d actually tapped into a source of power.”

“But it’s obviously not that.”

“We still haven’t found Lockler.”

Jackson checked his watch. “Lockler doesn’t broadcast for another twenty minutes. I bet if we stand here long enough, the Maple Table will disappear, and Lockler will show up.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“What about this makes sense? Do you see any radio equipment? Any microphones?”

Cessy kicked at the dirt, looking for the wires that she’d seen running into the mine. It was too packed down.

“I thought Kate was coming here to reason with them, or break their equipment, or something. When you were going to follow her, I figured I’d tag along and end them for good. But they’re not in charge.” Jackson yelled louder, losing his grip on control. “Who’s in charge? Who killed my Olivia?”

“I don’t know, but Kate’s still--”

“Kate’s dead too! Do you see her anywhere?”

Cessy drove the butt of the shotgun into Jackson’s gut. He crumpled. Gasping for breath calmed him down.

“I don’t know what’s going on.” Cessy spoke over the Maple Table. “I don’t have any ideas about fixing Hamlin. I guess you did, but now that you’re as confused as I am, maybe it’s time to get on board with me. We’re finding Kate, and then we’re getting the hell out of this shithole town.”

“What about everyone else?” Jackson wheezed.

“They chose to stay here.” She thought of Dad, genuinely happy to find her in the driveway yesterday morning. “Some of them were even complicit in... whatever this is.”

Jackson inhaled. Exhaled. “You’ll drive me out of here?”

“Help me find Kate.”

He nodded.

“We’ll go back down the other tunnel,” Cessy said, “after we search this cavern.”

“You know we might find a corpse, right?”

Cessy thought of finding Jackson’s messages in Kate’s voicemail. If Kate was dead, it was Jackson’s fault.

Another burst of static. They covered their ears and waited for it to pass.

Cessy stretched her jaw to try and ease the pain in her ears. The mask restricted her movement. “Come on. Don’t get too close to the walls.”

She led the way into the darkness.

46

Cessy’s flashlight beam reached forty feet into the darkness of the caverns. Close to her, it revealed full colors, which in the cavern, were only the browns and grays of the dirt. At the far end of its reach, everything dulled to dusky colors and blurred together.

In a room this large, Cessy expected an echo. But her footsteps were a dull staccato.

The Maple Table talked behind them, in the opposite direction. Their voices were softer than before. Intermittent static didn’t claw at their eardrums from over here.

Jackson walked to Cessy’s left. His flashlight beam jerked around the cavern. His breathing was heavy. “You’re right.”

“About what?”

“We should get out of Hamlin. I’d kept thinking these voices on the radio, I could show up, pull the trigger a couple times, and put an end to everything. That ain’t gonna work. So we should go.”

“Good,” Cessy said. “As soon as we find Kate.”

Jackson scratched furiously at his neck. “There’s probably nothing to find. We should go now. Before whoever’s playing that instrument,” he jabbed his thumb back toward the Maple Table, “notices we’re here.”

Cessy swept the shotgun and flashlight across the cavern. “You think there’s a chance they haven’t noticed us already?”

“We’re still alive, ain’t we?” He pointed his light the opposite direction of Cessy’s. “Not sure how we’re gonna keep it that way.”

Cessy’s plan was to find Kate, then book it back down the tunnel to the mine entrance. Gamble that Jackson would be slowest, and thus an adequate distraction to let Cessy and Kate escape. She didn’t expect Kate to be happy with the plan.

“This cave shouldn’t fit in this mountain,” Jackson said. “We were halfway to top at the mine entrance, and then we walked another thirty minutes uphill inside. Not enough space.”

Cessy’s flashlight revealed a junkpile on the cavern floor. They approached cautiously.

Corrugated steel panels, ripped blue tarp, splintered two-by-fours. Canned food, a broken cot, a shattered laptop.

Cessy remembered where she’d seen this before.

“That’s my old truck,” Jackson gasped.

Beyond the remnants of Valerie’s shed, the green camo painted F-150 sat half-crushed. Windows busted, and frame bent into a “V,” as if something monstrously heavy had fallen into the bed.

“The truck you sold to Valerie Watkins,” Cessy said.

Jackson swallowed a scream. He pointed his flashlight above them. “Shit. I told you, we gotta go.”

Cessy looked up.

The cavern ceiling was lower. Lowering.

Descending towards her, a mass of tubes, slithering over each other. It made up the ceiling in every direction, far as her light revealed. Each was as big around as a semi truck. They were translucent, distorting the rocky cavern ceiling that they covered, or moved through. Cessy couldn’t tell which.

Her fight or flight reflex short circuited and she froze. Her mind shut down, forgot her problems, ignored the cavern, to focus on the impossible movement above her.

It was a sea monster. It was a sidewalk on a rainy day, if earthworms were fifteen feet across and of incalculable length. It was a mudslide, forced into a tube and wrapped in winding loops.

The impulse to flee woke up. Cessy shoved it down. Kate was in here somewhere, but Cessy couldn’t take her eyes off the horror above her, all around her.

Jackson kept his eyes glued upward. He stepped towards the ever present conversation of the Maple Table. “Oh god, it’s one thing.”

He was right. Cessy saw no ends or tails or heads. But she saw sharp bends where the tube turned to continue in another direction.

And it did continue. If she traced it with her eye, the chaotic swarming had a pattern. It was all one body, moving in a single direction. With purpose.

She couldn’t focus on any single point on the thing’s body. Her eyes jerked away like she’d looked into the sun. But she’d come this far. She couldn’t run now. “Follow it,” she said.

“What?” Jackson was shocked. “We gotta run.”

Cessy watched the worm’s movement, tracking it in the periphery of her vision. She followed where it came from.

They hurried through the cavern.

Another twenty feet ahead, a scattering of beer mugs and barstools.

Then, a pile of broken furniture, carpet, and drywall.

Hundreds of childrens books, pages waterlogged and torn.

Black tarp and silver ductwork.

Cessy’s breath caught. This thing wasn’t just in the mountain.

Everywhere the worm had been in Hamlin, it dragged and stretched reality behind it.

The rushing darkness she’d seen in the mine and in the rental house, it was the worm’s slithering profile. The stretched crawlspace and attic, remnants of where it had been.

This thing was a tapeworm, and Hamlin was an infected intestine.

The swarming mass lowered, inched down, not thirty feet above her head. Fear bulged in her mind, sharper, more surrounding than anything she’d faced before. She tried to zone out, to push the fear aside to deal with later, like she did with a bank robber shooting at her, or like she had with yesterday’s unnatural assaults. But she had no immediate goal to focus on. No escape route--because it wasn’t time to escape yet; she hadn’t found Kate. No target--she harbored no illusions that shotgun pellets would hurt this thing.

Fear threatened to swallow her.

She found a focal point. In the roiling movement above, Cessy searched for a goal, a destination, a direction. It was all one body, moving together. Where was it going? Where had it come from?

Cessy locked onto the latter. That’s where she’d find Kate.

Jackson tugged at her arm. “It’s coming for us!”

Cessy shrugged him off. She traced the body above with her flashlight, backwards against its slithering. She looped back through tangles. It took her deeper into the cavern, towards the exit tunnel, spun in circles. She found a wall fully covered in this thing’s endless form. Back up the ceiling, which descended even lower now, twenty feet, fifteen.

She’d be turned around and lost, if not for the constant noise of the Maple Table.

Finally, in the deep corner of the cavern, thirty feet short of the back wall, the tube hung down from the ceiling, reached the floor where it sank into the dirt without disturbing so much as a pebble, despite its steady movement out.

A figure sat on the dirt next to the emerging worm.

Hope exploded in Cessy’s chest. “Kate!”

47

Cessy ran to her sister, collapsed on the ground next to her and threw her arms around her shoulders.

Kate carefully returned the gesture. Her arms shook against Cessy’s back. She opened her mouth, coughed, and then said, “I could go for some bacon mac n’ cheese.”

At the diner where they shared lunch on Wednesdays, Kate always ordered the bacon mac n’ cheese.

“You don’t want to say how shocked you are to see me? Nothing like that?” Cessy pulled back to look at her sister.

Kate had always been a little overweight, with round cheeks that turned rosy with exertion or embarrassment. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, now streaked with dirt and grease.

“I’m just surprised it took you so long. I thought you were an ace detective. Sherlock Holmes of the suburbs.”

Kate’s playful sarcasm stunned Cessy. It didn’t fit in this cavern, not with the human-shaped instruments at the front of it, or the wriggling worm above them, or the section of worm as big as a semi-truck slithering out of the ground next to them.

“I’m sorry,” Cessy said. “I should have called you sooner. I’m sorry you didn’t trust me.”

Kate’s lips were dry and cracked. Her face was pale, blurring together with her light blond hair to make her look like a washed out ghost.

Cessy touched her sister’s cheek.

“Some big sister you are. Did you at least bring me some water?”

It annoyed Cessy that Kate wouldn’t shift out of sarcasm long enough to let Cessy apologize. And it annoyed her that Kate could speak so sarcastically, and still come across as charming. Her innocent grin and tone conveyed respect and compassion that was the opposite of her words.

“Water’s in my backpack.” She dug through it. It wasn’t there. Neither were the energy bars. She’d left both in the truck. Stupid. “Nevermind, it’s in the truck. Which is where we’re going to get you. Can you walk?”

“With some help. But we can’t leave yet.” Kate’s playful sarcasm had masked her exhaustion, but when that sarcasm was replaced with determination, the mask fell away.

Kate looked broken down. Her rasping voice and long blinks betrayed her nausea and thirst.

Jackson caught up. “Hell in high waters. You found her.”

“Help me get her up,” Cessy ordered.

“We can’t leave yet,” Kate insisted.

Jackson crouched down to help Kate, ignoring her protests. “How long have you been sitting in the dark?”

Kate patted the dirt floor blindly. She found a plastic LED flashlight. “Batteries died maybe ten hours ago. I’ve been hacking away like a bat without sonar since then. It hasn’t worked.” She motioned to the ground.

An angle grinder, reciprocating saw, hammer, chisels, hatchet. Dad’s missing tools.

Not six feet away, the impossible worm body continued its emergence from the dirt. Cessy didn’t see any evidence of Kate’s attempts to destroy it, but it was moving at least as fast as Cessy could run--any damage to it would be somewhere in the tangles above.

Now that she knew Kate was safe, Cessy mind allowed her surroundings to penetrate. “What is this thing?” She followed the vertical worm with her flashlight up to the ceiling. The worm folded back on itself a thousand times.

“I don’t know. It’s hungry. It’s almost full.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s a long story. I thought I was coming here to sabotage some radio equipment. Or at least get some photos of the cultists to take to the FBI. I found this instead.” She tilted her head back. Her mouth fell open, revealing a white, dry tongue.

Cessy needed to get some water in her sister as soon as possible.

Kate looked back down, her head swinging wildly like an infant learning to look around. “None of Dad’s tools would do anything to it. It’s like it’s there but not really.”

Cessy could feel terror and madness creeping in from the edges of the cavern, the edges of her mind. This was impossible. “We can’t fix this. We need to leave.”

“It’s eating Hamlin,” Kate said.

Jackson looked up. “This is what killed Olivia?”

“This is what’s got everyone so angry.”

“No,” Cessy said. “That’s where I draw the line. I can buy that there are giant animals I’ve never heard of. But there’s no magical spells it’s using to turn people crazy.”

“Nothing magical about hate.” Kate crawled to her feet, using Cessy for balance. “It made Lockler and the Maple Table say the right words, and our scared parents gobbled it up.”

“Our gullible and hateful parents,” Jackson said.

“Either way,” Cessy said, “we can’t stop this thing. We should leave.”

Kate looked into the swarm above. She quickly diverted her eyes.

Cessy tried to track what she’d seen. It all looked the same to her.

“We can’t leave yet. Not until you try.” Kate could make an order sound like a polite request.

“Try what?”

Kate pointed to Cessy’s shotgun.

“That’d be like poking a tiger with a needle.”

“I’m not leaving until we try.”

Cessy looked around. The worm had covered the walls and ceiling, which closed in ever further.

Jackson jerked his head around, aiming the pistol wherever the worm drew closest. “If that’ll get her to move, do it and let’s get.”

Cessy took a breath. She couldn’t drag Kate all the way through the mine. “One shell. We book it whether it works or not.”

“Do it,” Kate said.

Cessy shouldered the shotgun. “Cover your ears.” She squeezed the trigger.

The roar deafened her. The barrel’s flash overwhelmed her vision.

She grabbed Kate’s elbow and lunged toward the exit, even as the brightness died down.

The worm’s body emerged faster.

The ceiling dropped.

Jackson looked up and screamed.

Kate looked intensely at Cessy. Her voice was muffled. “Keep walking to the exit. You’ll think you aren’t getting anywhere, but you are. Don’t look in its mouths.”

The swarming worm collapsed atop them.

48

Four years ago, before he proposed, Pat had taken Cessy whitewater rafting. He’d insisted she sit in the very front, “to get the full experience.”

A troop of Boy Scouts made up most of the group, young teenagers. They lacked the physical strength to paddle the raft where the guide ordered.

On the first class five rapid, the guide shouted for the left side to paddle harder. The river spun the raft counter-clockwise to drop over a partially submerged rock. The front end slammed onto the water below, and Cessy popped off the raft like it was an inflatable trampoline.

She landed in roaring waters which bashed her against the riverbed, rocks, and the underside of the raft. She survived only because of a quality helmet, and dumb luck that the rapids spit her out the bottom, instead of trapping her in an inversion.

Now, six years later, when the roiling worm collapsed atop her, she was back in the New River, a ragdoll at the whims of an indifferent torrent.

It lifted her off her feet. Sections of the worm’s body knocked her through the darkness, crushed her between them while pressing through her as if she weren’t there. It felt like gritty gelatin against her exposed skin, then under her clothes, then beneath her skin.

Through the scraping and rushing of the worm’s movement, Cessy heard the Maple Table say goodbye to their listeners.

Cessy squeezed her fingers tight around the shotgun and flashlight. She kicked, like she had underwater. The first kick pushed through undecidedly ethereal wormflesh. The second caught nothing. Cessy’s leg hyperextended. Pain exploded in her knee.

She shouted for Kate. Her mouth filled with sweet grit that passed through her cheeks.

She shook her flashlight but it offered no light.

An earthy green glow slid through the darkness, curved and slithered along with the section of worm it lit up. It came closer.

Cessy kicked her good leg, searching for traction.

The green glow enveloped her.

She felt purpose, but with a distraction. She was searching for something--no, somewhere. It’d been all she’d done for centuries, millennia, epochs before this patch of dirt had formed in this space.

Darkness returned. Cessy gasped for breath.

She couldn’t fathom what she’d just felt. Memories, more ancient than she could articulate, and through senses she didn’t possess.

Cessy kicked, swung her arms.

A coil of worm knocked her backwards.

She closed her eyes, tried to regain her cool.

Kate had yelled to Cessy as the worm fell on them. She’d been through this already. You won’t think you’re moving but you are.

Cessy put one foot forward, then another. She couldn’t feel the ground beneath her feet, but she pantomimed walking. Her knee protested.

Shifting wormflesh flipped Cessy upside down. Her hair hung over her face.

One foot. Then the other.

She saw three other earthy green lights dragged along with the slithering worm. She turned away from the closest and mimicked a faster pace.

Her pantomime didn’t influence her position relative to the worm. The glow rushed towards her.

Hunger. Boredom. A need to be satiated, or a whim to be humored, or something similar which Cessy wouldn’t interpret. Prey spotted. That was an instinct that Cessy understood. The course every-so-slightly diverted.

The change in course rattled Cessy’s mind. Her brain tried to interpret these foreign memories, match them to her own body. It wasn’t like walking to the living room, then deciding to swing by the kitchen for a snack. It was like walking through a tight doorway, and swinging her hip to brush the doorway. Except even that didn’t feel right. It was like she’d tapped a single molecule of her hip on the doorway.

Cessy snapped back to the cavern.

Her body felt tight, diminutive.

She squeezed the flashlight and shotgun, anchoring herself in the real, fighting off claustrophobia.

This thing around her, its invasion into Hamlin was a thoughtless whim. It was a diversion infinitesimally small.

The section of worm that squeezed past and through Cessy, that filled this cavern, that’d tunneled under Hamlin to collapse houses, that must be miles and miles long, was only a molecule of its full structure.

Inside its memories, she’d felt no beginning, no end.

Only a foreign impulse that was something between feeding and fun.

Gritty muck passed over the wound in her gut, loosening the scabs.

Cessy moved one foot, then the other.

She was desperate for Kate to be right.

It won’t feel like you’re moving, but you are.

But if she was right about that, then her other warning was equally valid.

Don’t look in its mouths.

She hadn’t realized she was moving until she jerked to a stop. Something held her from her hipbone to her breast. It squeezed.

Impulsively, she dropped the shotgun to feel what restrained her.

The worm’s flesh was more solid here. She felt it under her palm. Warm, pulsing, covered in thick drips of gritty gelatin. She patted her way down to where it had grabbed her.

The worm’s surface rose in an oblong bump, then gave way to a gash. Her side was six inches into that gash.

Cessy pushed against the worm, but it squeezed tighter. Her knitting needle wound reopened. Blood ran into the gash.

Cessy reached inside to pry herself free.

Damp, spongey flesh filled with hundreds of teeth.

Flat and small like human molars, they slowly crushed Cessy’s side.

She forced her arm deep for more leverage. Teeth lined the top and bottom of the gash as far as she could reach. She squeezed her fist between the teeth. The flesh beneath gave enough for her to force her fist deeper, but not enough to pry open the mouth.

Cavern air whipped against her cheeks as the worm dragged her along its tangles.

Cessy brought the flashlight over, moving her free arm through the coils of worm like through a dream. She jammed the cold metal in until it wedged between top and bottom. She levered it open, enough to pull loose.

As she yanked her flashlight free, she caught the button. The light turned on.

Don’t look in its mouths.

Vast fields of teeth, thin violet tongues flailing, stretching for Cessy, the vanguard of something in the distance that filled the horizon.

Cessy squeezed her eyes shut and jerked her head away.

The worm’s impossible mouth rushed away as the body moved on without her.

The worm’s body absorbed the flashlight’s light, returning Cessy to darkness.

She panicked, sprinted without her feet finding purchase. Her knee sparked pain with each step, her abdomen seeped blood. The worm slid over her face, through her eyes.

Cessy screamed wordless terror.

Mouths.

Multiple.

And now that she was aware, she noticed them.

Gashes in the worm’s body. Dull teeth sweeping over her legs.

Cessy ran, begging that Kate was right, that she was really moving.

She was disoriented, flipped around, but she ran.

Teeth closed on her foot but she kicked free. It took her shoe.

Noise in the dark. An angry voice welcoming his listeners, warning that what they had to discuss tonight would be infuriating. But not to worry, because the true citizens of Hamlin would make it right.

Lockler’s show had begun.

Cessy gambled that he’d be broadcasting from the same place as the Maple Table, near the entrance to the cavern. She pointed herself toward his voice as best she could, and pumped her arms and legs.

The worm’s indifferent movement shoved her over, turned her around, lifted and dropped her. But with each diversion she righted herself, faced Lockler’s voice, and made the motions of running.

She spilled free from the tangle, and for the first time, saw Lockler face to face.

49

Furious eyes stared through Cessy.

Lockler sat behind a news desk. He wore a sharp navy suit, white shirt, and red tie. His salt-and-pepper hair was perfectly parted. Beneath his raging eyes, thin lips in a smirk.

A partition behind his desk, a shield with stars and the word “Lockler” blazoned across it.

Outside the sourceless light of Locker’s set, the worm’s coils slithered. It formed a barrier around the set, and stretched along the ceiling and walls of the tunnel.

Cessy expected the worm to speak to her through Lockler, now that she’d shared its consciousness.

Lockler ranted about the good work in Hamlin being so close to complete, despite the vermin fighting so hard to ruin a good town.

The worm hadn’t even noticed Cessy.

Why should it? She was barely a cockroach compared to it. Not a threat. Any attention it paid her would be due to novelty. Cessy thought of the urges she’d sensed. It might also notice her from something like hunger.

She looked down the tunnel, which was wider at its entrance than she remembered, but tighter inside with the worm clinging to the ceiling and walls.

She looked back into the roiling cavern.

“Kate!” Cessy had followed Lockler’s voice to escape. She’d give her sister a clearer target. “I’m out. This way!”

Lockler ranted. Cessy shouted for Kate.

Minutes passed.

Cessy’s voice turned rough. Her throat hurt.

Jackson stumbled into the light. He held up Kate next to him, his hand hooked under her arm.

The last time Cessy had seen them side-by-side was at Kate’s senior prom. Before Kate had gained her extra twenty pounds, and before Jackson had lost his not-extra thirty pounds.

Now, a deathly underweight Jackson heaved Kate alongside him. His pant leg was in tatters. Molar-sized bruises from his thigh to his shin. Kate lifted her head, dropped it again. She spotted Cessy and somehow relaxed more.

“Found you,” Kate mumbled cheerily.

Cessy ran to help. She grabbed Kate under the opposite arm.

They hurried to the tunnel.

She looked at Jackson. The kid’s wild eyes said adrenaline was the only thing keeping him on his feet. He mumbled rapidly. It rose to audible. “Did you see?”

“I saw.” Cessy tried to sound reassuring. “What happened to Kate?”

They reached the tunnel.

Lockler yelled about vermin still hiding among us. He didn’t react to their leaving.

“She grabbed me,” Jackson panted. “I was stuck and she grabbed me and we ran. Then one of those green lights hit her. She screamed, and got real confused afterwards. I heard your voice and dragged her the rest of the way. It bit me.”

The tunnel condensed. The worm stretched over and around them. She could reach up and touch it.

Cessy thought she should thank Jackson for grabbing Kate, but it sounded like Kate would have already made her way out if she hadn’t stopped to help him. And she’d have never been back in Hamlin at all if it weren’t for him.

She’d lost any delusion that Jackson could be a useful distraction, but he could at least help her carry Kate to safety.

She joined him in keeping Kate on her feet. They pointed themselves in the direction Lockler faced, towards the tunnel they’d came from. It was only a few feet of space to cross, but the worm’s body slithered in their way.

“Straight through,” Cessy said. “Keep running even if it feels like you’re not.”

They ducked their heads and ran. Cessy’s gait was lopsided with her missing shoe. Jackson wobbled under Kate’s weight, giving Cessy jolting bursts of weight to carry. They smashed into the worm, felt its current shove them.

“Keep forward,” Cessy shouted.

They stumbled out of the worm’s coils. Their feet found purchase.

They raced away from the cavern.

The tunnel curved downward in its slow spiral.

Coils of worm grew less dense. Then a single section of its body looped another twenty feet along the tunnel wall. Then they were free.

Cessy’d never been so glad to be closed in by dirt.

Jackson stumbled, and Kate slipped. Cessy crouched to catch her. Her knee protested, but she managed to keep all three of them standing.

From around the bend came hundreds of voices, wailing and weeping. The same colicky infant cry from before was now joined by a woman’s mournful sobbing.

Jackson breathed shock. “Olivia.”

50

They hesitated in the tunnel.

Cessy shone her flashlight back up the way they’d came. The worm’s probing loop peeked around the bend, closer than it was before.

Lockler screamed from the up the tunnel. “Crush them under your boot. Pepper them with ratshot. Poison. Traps. And not any of these humane catch-and-release. I’m talking glue. Draw it out so they can see how badly they’ve hurt our town.”

From downhill, between them and the exit into daylight, the cries of the damned, punctuated by Jackson’s wife and unborn daughter.

“Easy.” Cessy lifted Kate, adjusting her grip. “You said it was fake, right?”

Jackson’s cheeks twitched. Wide eyes looked to Cessy in confusion. “That’s her, though.”

Cessy didn’t know how he could tell, over the chorus of cries, and over Lockler’s furious monologue. But Jackson’s escape from the worm’s clutches had been too traumatic. The stubborn man who’d ignored the infant’s cries half an hour ago was gone.

“It’s not her,” Cessy insisted.

Kate rolled her head up, opened her eyes. Looked around, saw Cessy for the first time again. Surprise and relief filled her expression. Maybe it was her cheekbones that made her so easy to trust. A little Mary Poppins in there.

Jackson moaned. “I can tell her I’m sorry.”

“Listen to me,” Cessy said. “I need your help to carry Kate out of here. Whatever you see down this tunnel, you can’t let go of Kate.”

Kate planted her feet, tried to stand. She fell back into their arms. “Olivia’s dead,” she said through cracked lips.

Jackson moaned. “But I can hear her.”

“It doesn’t have Olivia,” Kate’s voice was firmer than her stance. “It killed her.”

Jackson sagged. He sobbed, “I know.”

In response to Jackson’s acceptance, a new voice joined the wailing. Deep, male. Gordon Wilder.

Cessy looked behind them. The protruding loop of worm inched closer.

Lockler howled, “Drown them in the river!”

Cessy tugged them all downhill. “Let’s keep moving.”

Jackson looked at Kate. “And my dad?”

Kate scrunched her eyes shut. “I don’t know. Did it take him?”

“You were there,” Jackson said to Cessy.

Cessy remembered Gordon’s screams as the holes swarmed him. She didn’t know what it meant for the worm to take someone versus kill them, but she needed Jackson to get moving. “He was dead when I left. Let’s go.”

Jackson nodded.

Together, they stumbled down the tunnel, toward the wails.

51

The sobs grew louder as they neared the branch in the tunnel.

Cessy recognized voices. Gordon Wilder. Olivia Goodman Wilder. Sheriff Miller.

Their misery clawed at her, but it was an impersonal tragedy. She didn’t know them.

Valerie Watkins howled wordlessly.

That was Cessy’s fault. She had chance after chance to go back up and check on Valerie, to question her then tell her to cut town. But Cessy kept letting other things be more important.

She’d needed to find Kate, but hearing Valerie’s pained wails in these dark tunnels, she wondered if she could have saved Valerie and still found her sister.

Lockler’s voice grew louder, more furious. The dirt floor thrummed with the cadence of his accusations. “If we refuse to protect our home, then we’re not patriots. We’d be like the cowards who dodged the draft in the sixties.”

The wailing below competed for volume.

Cessy’s eardrums ached.

Jackson cried and sobbed, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Kate walked stronger with each step, but she kept her eyes squeezed shut. She loved Hamlin and her neighbors here more than Cessy ever had. How many of the hundreds of voices did Kate recognize? Her natural compassion for everyone around her, her conviction to protect against injustice, both shattered by failure proven by the hundreds of voices she’d failed to save?

They reached the fork.

To their left, the tunnel dropped in a dangerous descent. Cessy kept the flashlight pointed ahead, up the tunnel that led outside.

She dragged them forward.

Jackson cried Olivia’s name, but Kate yanked him forward, away from the voices. Cessy felt relief that Kate had regained enough strength to help her.

Gordon Wilder’s cries gained coherence. “Jackson! My boy. You can still save me. There’s still time.”

Jackson dropped Kate. She collapsed to her knees. Cessy knelt to catch her. She’d overestimated her recovery.

“It’s not real,” Cessy barked. “Get back here.”

Kate met Cessy’s gaze. She grimaced.

“Is that really him?” Cessy mouthed.

Kate hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

Jackson shined his flashlight into the descending tunnel.

“Don’t look,” Kate hissed.

“Dad?”

“It’s not him,” Kate yelled.

A second voice joined Gordon’s. Sheriff Miller. “Do something! You swore an oath! Help me.”

Cessy knew then that Gordon really was appealing to his son for help. He hadn’t been killed in that kiln, he’d been taken. If this was all a trick to get them to turn around, it wouldn’t be Sheriff Miller appealing to Cessy. She hated that man.

Her flashlight dimmed.

Cessy ignored her hurt knee to stand up and lift Kate to her feet.

She’d been willing to use Jackson as a distraction if it meant helping Kate escape. What she was about to do felt even more cruel than that, but she couldn’t get Kate out of here without him.

“Your dad bargained with the worm,” Cessy said.

Kate gasped. “Don’t.”

“He told it to kill vermin like you.”

Jackson moaned. “He didn’t know-”

“He knew you were cooking meth. He knew the worm would come for your whole household.”

Kate elbowed Cessy, but she didn’t stop.

“Your dad knew Olivia would die,” Cessy lied. “He knew she was pregnant. He did it anyways.”

Jackson’s groan turned into a raging scream. “Rot down there, old man!”

The flashlight dimmed to nothing. Darkness hung heavy on Cessy’s shoulders.

Kate’s weight lifted in Cessy’s grasp. She looked up at Cessy with her mouth open in wounded betrayal. Any disdain visible on Kate’s kind face was a fraction of what she felt inside.

Jackson helped lift Kate. “Let’s go.”

They stumbled and ran through the pitch dark mine.

The wails faded behind them.

Olivia was dead, and her voice a trick. But those who’d been taken, Gordon, Sheriff Miller, screamed pleas for help. Cessy listened for Valerie’s voice to return, prayed not to hear it again.

A narrow column of sunlight appeared ahead.

They ran. Kate pumped her legs, kicking along like Cessy had done when drowning in the worm.

“Can you climb?” Cessy asked.

“I can try.”

She couldn’t, but after Cessy and Jackson climbed out onto the forested mountainside, they pulled Kate up.

Cessy’s body ached from the exertion. She rested her forehead against dry leaves, then picked herself up.

She shined her light back down into the mine.

A rushing curtain of blackness swallowed the light, not three feet down the pit.

52

They stumbled down the mountain, away from the pit and the mine and the worm.

Except, Cessy reminded herself, the worm had penetrated so many corners of Hamlin, it could be under them right now.

They reached the trail. Birdsong and rustling leaves were a gentle comfort after the wailing and raging within the mine. Cessy squinted against the daylight. After an hour--several hours?--in the mine, the bright colors of the forest seemed garish.

Cessy caught her breath. Jackson plopped down on dead leaves. He cried into his hands.

Kate leaned on a tree, chest heaving. “Why did you tell him that?” she hissed.

Cessy wanted to break down. “Do you know how many corpses I’ve seen in the past year? For the past two days, I’ve seen your face on every one of then. I would have chopped Jackson up into stir fry if it meant getting you out of that mine alive.”

“You did something worse. What if he could have helped his dad?”

Cessy wanted to hug Kate and celebrate that she was still alive. If she didn’t know her better than probably any other person in the world, she might convince herself that Kate was offering constructive feedback. But Cessy did know her sister, and Kate was livid. “It was a trick.”

“Probably. But you lied, and took away Jackson’s own decision.” Kate looked over at Jackson, who rubbed at his eyes and talked to himself

“You don’t know what Gordon told me” Cessy said. “Maybe I wasn’t lying.”

Kate cleared her throat and winced. “You tense your neck when you lie. Whenever you’d tell Mom and Dad you hadn’t been drinking, the veins in your neck looked like a bodybuilder’s.”

Cessy laughed, but despite the funny image of Kate’s insult, Kate was still dryly serious. “I’m not going to apologize for getting you out alive. And getting Jackson out, too. If he’d have gone to help his dad, he’d probably still be in there.”

Kate exhaled. “You just said you’d have fed him to Lockler.”

“But it didn’t come to that, did it? I got all three of us out.”

The rigidity in Kate’s expression broke. “It took you long enough.” Now she smirked with her sarcasm.

Cessy felt her own flood gates break. “Are you okay? How long were you in there? Why didn’t you leave? Have you talked to Mom and Dad?”

Kate reached over and held Cessy’s hand. “Every time I tried to leave, the worm came down and I got dragged around again. I tried walking toward Lockler and the Maple Table, but they were too quiet at first. They’ve been getting louder.”

“Are you okay?” Cessy asked again. She’d spent only a few minutes in the worm’s tangles, and sharing it’s urges had left a distaste in her that she feared she’d never get rid of.

“I don’t know. I felt more than I thought possible.”

The words didn’t make sense, but Cessy understood them.

“My head still feels... stretched. But maybe that’s the thirst.”

“We have to get you some water. We can ask the first house we come to.”

“You said you had some in your car.”

“We’re halfway out of the valley already. If we hike over the ridge, we can find a road and hitchhike to help.”

Kate pulled her hand away. “No.”

Her sharpness caught Jackson’s attention.

Already Cessy knew what Kate was going to say, was going to insist. Her heart sank. She hadn’t saved her sister just yet.

“There’s still people down there. We have to get everyone out of Hamlin.”

“Not our responsibility.”

“You felt its urges, don’t you realize what’s about to happen?”

“Yeah, I felt it,” Cessy said. “It barely acknowledges us. It was almost satisfied. What is it?”

“I’ve been forced into its mind a dozen times the past three days, and I’m still not sure. It’s big. The section of its body in Hamlin felt as small as the tip of a hair on my head. It’s hungry, or-”

“Not quite hunger. I felt that, too. Something like a whim.”

“It’s fed on Hamlin.”

Jackson said, “It must like its food angry. That’s why it made Lockler and the Maple Table.”

“So it could communicate with us,” said Cessy.

“They’re not mouthpieces,” Kate said. “It’s done this before, other places and times. They’re a lure. If an anglerfish could personalize its little bobbing light.”

The idea was somehow more sickening, that her parents and their friends were most easily manipulated by that sort of hate and blame. “It felt like it was leaving, though. Did you feel you that? Maybe this is all almost over.”

Kate shook her head. “It’s leaving, but when it does, it’ll be worse than anything that’s happened yet.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Cessy said. “If it got what it wanted, it wouldn’t care enough to destroy anything.”

Kate cleared her throat, winced at the pain. “I felt it before Jackson dragged me out. I got stuck in its mind again. It’s reached into our world, and when it snaps back out, it’ll cause destructive chaos.”

“Why wouldn’t it just leave?” Jackson asked. “It got what it wanted. Tricked everyone into loving it, killed anyone who got in the way, and then snatched away the tasty ones.”

“It is just leaving,” Kate said. “Look.” She loosened the laces in her tennis shoe, pulled one loop wide so the lace flopped down onto the forest floor before circling back to the eyelet. “The worm didn’t stick its head or tail into Hamlin, just a section of its body.”

“Does it have a head or tail?” Cessy remembered her glimpse into its mind, how she’d felt infinite.

“If it does,” Kate said, “they’re farther away than we could ever comprehend.” She pushed the shoelace into the dead leaves, dirt, and twigs on the ground. “And the length of its body that you saw in the cavern, it’s a tiny fraction of what’s come through into Hamlin. It’s dug through town all over. Looped under roads and through houses. I saw it in five or six places when I was looking into it.”

“I saw it in a couple,” Cessy said. “Gordon’s kiln. Mom and Dad’s basement.”

Kate looked like she wanted to talk about their parents, but she held off. “So it’s mixed in with the town like my shoelace is with these leaves. It’s got a single point where it entered--the cavern--and a single point where it’s leaving. When it’s done and leaves Hamlin behind, it’ll snap tight between the two.”

She tugged her shoelace tight. The loop snapped back to the shoe, kicking up dirt and leaves. A tiny dust cloud blossomed.

“That’ll be Hamlin,” Kate said. “Ripped apart.”

“Like an earthquake?” Jackson asked.

“An earthquake that kicks up a storm of all the otherworldly chaos that we’ve seen around here. Space not making sense, darkness you can touch, those little perforations sliding through everything.”

“How do you know all this?” Cessy asked. “So much detail?”

Kate coughed. “How much did you learn from one time getting too close to the worm? That it’s massive, maybe endless? That it’s indifferent, but it was drawing close to Hamlin and figured, what the hell, let’s stop for a snack. That it’s done this before?”

“Not that last part,” Cessy said.

“Still,” Kate said. “All that from one time. I’ve been in there three days.”

Jackson, who’d been sitting with his face buried in his hands, looked up. “Did you see how to kill it?”

“I don’t even know if it feels pain. Let alone whether it can die. We can’t kill it.” Kate looked at Cessy. “That’s why we’ve got to get everyone out of Hamlin.”

Her cracked voice and shaking lip shattered Cessy’s heart. This was her baby sister. She’d almost lost her, because she was too selfish to check in after Kate missed lunch. And because Kate hadn’t trusted her with the problem. But now, dirty, bruised, and traumatized, Kate had survived. Nothing mattered but getting Kate out of Hamlin, and out of harm’s way. Everyone else in the town had either sat back and let it happen, or actively participated. Even Mom and Dad. Cessy couldn’t waste time trying to save them without lowering her chance of saving Kate. She could feel guilty about it after Kate was safe.

“You have a car, right?” Kate said. “We’ll warn as many people as we can.”

“No,” said Cessy.

The ground shook beneath their feet.

53

The minor earthquake was enough to trigger a rapid-fire snapping of branches. A tree fell across the trail uphill from them. Pebbles bounced the down the mountain. Dirt smacked Cessy’s face.

“What do you mean, no?” Kate stood, wobbled.

Cessy jumped up to steady her little sister. She stumbled herself, then caught her.

The earth stopped shaking.

“Let’s talk about the earthquake,” Cessy suggested.

“No. I said let’s go get Mom and Dad. You told me no.”

Jackson came over to help support Kate. She shrugged him off, almost toppling the frail, broken young man. He backed off. “Pick a direction. We can’t stay up here.”

“Do you know what I’ve been through to find you? I’m not helping you limp right back into danger.” Cessy pointed up along the mountain’s ridge. “Home is that way.”

Kate pulled away from Cessy. She held out her arms for balance, and walked downhill. “I’m getting Mom and Dad. And anyone else who’ll come.”

Cessy hurried to stay at Kate’s side. “We all just felt the ground shake. This is West Virginia. There’s no earthquakes.” She stamped her foot. “That thing below us is on the move.”

“That’s what I’m telling you. It’s going to destroy Hamlin.”

“Then we should leave.”

Cessy looked back to Jackson for support. He followed, but whichever direction he supported going, he was too tapped out to argue. He jogged down the hill to be on Kate’s other side.

Kate whirled on Cessy. Downhill momentum nearly toppled her, until Cessy and Jackson caught her. “You think you’ve been through so much? What about me? I’ve been in Hamlin over a week! And unlike you, I have friends here. I did, anyways. You came here to help me, and I’m grateful for it. I never doubted you would. But I came here to help Hamlin. And our parents.”

“Mom and Dad are in on it! They’re gobbling up Locker’s hateful rhetoric. They don’t even need the Maple Table to tone it down for them anymore.”

“You don’t think I know that? That’s why I avoided them when I got here. I went in that mine, hoping to shut down the broadcast long enough to get Mom and Dad out. But I’ll get them out either way. I’m not abandoning them now.”

Kate hiked down the trail. Cessy exhaled and then pursued. Pine needles whipped at her cheeks. Her one sock foot stepped on a tiny pinecone.

Another earthquake, this one deep and slow. Tree trunks vibrated. Jackson flinched away from a shaking rhododendron bush.

Kate ignored it to keep walking. Cessy rushed to keep up.

“We’re marching through insanity. Do you not feel that? It’s moving.”

Her sister tightened her lips. Her cheeks were pale. The fast pace was taking its tole.

“I already tried talking to Mom,” Cessy said. “Before I understood what was going on, and after I realized you’d gone into the mine. They won’t listen to reason.”

Kate’s chest heaved. She spoke through gasping breaths. “You probably got angry. You know how they get when they think you’re angry. Like you’re to blame for everything wrong with the world. I can talk to them.”

“That’s what I’m saying! These broadcasts tapped into those worst parts of them. And they embraced it. You’re not going to talk them out of it in one conversation.”

“I have to try! Those are my parents.”

Cessy felt her sister’s inner battle. She wanted to solve this conundrum for her baby sister, to free her from this stress. Then Kate would only have the nightmare she’d endured the last three days.

Kate tripped over a root. She fell forward, caught herself with open palms on a buried boulder. Blood smeared. She hissed in pain.

Cessy was at her side in an instant. “Are you alright? Is it just your hands? Did you twist an ankle or anything?”

“Ah, that stings.” Kate squeezed her eyes shut.

Cessy exhaled. “I’m sorry.”

“I tripped, not your fault.”

“I mean I’m sorry I didn’t call when you skipped lunch last week.” Cessy offered her hand. “If I’d realized you were gone earlier, maybe I’d have found you sooner.”

Kate reached up and Cessy pulled her up.

“I wouldn’t have answered. I wanted to come back to Hamlin and sweet talk everyone into telling me what was going on. They remember who I was before I moved to the big city and went all social justice warrior.” She laughed at her mockery of herself.

Jackson said, “No one would ever think Kate Timms was vermin. That’s why I called you. And because I knew you’d help.”

“Cessy Timms, on the other hand,” said Kate. “I’m surprised they didn’t try to feed you to the worm the day you arrived.”

Kate resumed her downhill march.

“Sheriff Miller did,” Cessy said. “He tried to hang me where Marissa Davies hung herself.”

“Crazy asshole,” Kate said. “That wasn’t your fault.”

“My college shrink agreed with you. Either way, I’ve dealt with it. I’m the girl who bullied a future suicide victim. Can’t change that. But I’m also the woman who’s put away dozens of criminals.”

Kate nodded. “Good. Now be the woman who saves her parents.”

Back to this. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Cessy asked. “You could have told me that Jackson needed help, and that’s where you were going, but you wanted me to stay home because Hamlin hates me.”

“You would have flipped out the second you heard Jackson’s name,” Kate said. “How did you know I’d gone to Hamlin?”

“I heard your voicemails from Jackson.”

“Those were pretty vague. Why did you think I’d come?”

Cessy bit her lip. “To help him. But I thought he was lying, and he’d try to win you back,” she admitted. “And maybe hurt you if you turned him down.”

“What?” laughed Jackson.

“See?” Kate said. “You would have tried to stop me.”

“I’m trying to apologize,” Cessy said. “You didn’t come to me for help. I’m your big sister. Shit, Kate, I’m a cop. If there was a weird mystery in Hamlin, I was the obvious person to bring along. But you didn’t trust me. Whatever your reason, I’m saying sorry. When we get back to D.C., I’ll try to do better at whatever it is. For right now, I just want to get you out of Hamlin.”

Kate looked hurt. “I didn’t leave you out of this because I don’t trust you.”

“So you do trust me?”

Kate lowered her voice so Jackson wouldn’t hear. “I thought I did. What you did in that mine surprised me.”

It hit Cessy like a knife to the gut. She’d been Kate’s protector. She felt betrayed. Or maybe like a betrayer. “Jackson was letting himself be brainwashed. I snapped him out of it.”

“You did it in a terrible way.”

“Please, let’s discuss this back in D.C. Let’s turn around, and hike out of here.”

“Have some compassion.”

Compassion was a luxury Cessy had sacrificed when she determined to rescue Kate. But at the same, it was what she craved from Kate, and what she wanted Kate to see in her.

Cessy patted the revolver at her side. Five rounds. “This time, you’ll do the talking.”

54

Cessy and Jackson had to support Kate for the last half-mile of the hike to the parking lot. Blisters were developing on her heel without her shoe, and the imbalanced step reignited the pain in her knee.

The sun was high in the sky, piercing straight down through the treetops. The morning cool was gone. Summer afternoon heat was building.

Cessy grabbed two water bottles from the 4Runner. Kate chugged the first one, vomited, then sipped on the next. Cessy helped her into the front seat.

Jackson stood at the edge of the gravel lot, head tilted as he stared up the mountain in to the woods. “Something’s happening.”

A low pattering buzz filled the hillside. Cessy shut Kate’s door and ran to her own. “Come on!” she yelled to Jackson.

Jackson slowly stepped backwards toward the truck, his attention stuck uphill.

The pattering buzz erupted into a tormentuous downpour. Above the trees, dark specs bounced into the air.

Jackson sprinted to the truck.

Tree trunks cracked.

A landslide roared down the mountain. Cessy threw the truck into gear, let Jackson hop in the back, then tore off out of the parking lot. Gravel rattled her wheel wells.

In the rearview mirror, a dusty storm of rocks and toppled trees slid over the parking lot. Cessy floored the accelerator. The truck’s engine scraped and complained. She drove them perpendicular to the landslide. Metallic tings assaulted the side of the truck.

They died off, and the roar behind them died down.

Cessy stopped the truck, rolled down her window, and listened.

“Don’t stop here,” Jackson said.

She shushed him.

Whispering wind and whistling birds filled the air. The creaking of trees.

“The worm’s leaving,” Kate said. “It’ll whip through the whole town on its way out.”

“Shh,” Cessy reiterated.

Softer, beneath those sounds of nature, sirens.

“Do you hear that?” asked Jackson.

Kate leaned out her own open window.

They looked downhill, through the trees. The forest cut off their view.

“Is EMS still running?” Kate asked. “Or the fire department?”

“Those are police sirens,” Cessy said.

Jackson scratched nervously at his wounded leg. “I told you Sheriff Miller had a way of showing back up.”

“That’s not him.” Cessy shook her head. “There’s at least three sirens.”

“The deputies are taken or dead,” Kate said.

“Then it’s the state troopers.” Cessy pressed on the accelerator. “Let’s go say hi.”

55

The pedals were cool through Cessy’s sock. She rode the brake down the mountainside.

The upside of going to Mom and Dad’s house was that she had spare shoes in the overnight bag she’d left there.

Kate leaned back in the front seat, sipping on water and eating trail mix. “Did you call the state police?”

In the backseat, Jackson used water and tissues to clean the dirt off his bruised leg. “Not since before I called you. They wouldn’t listen.”

“I called my partner yesterday,” Cessy said. “Told him everything I knew at that point--which wasn’t much. He told me not to go back to Mom and Dad’s. Then Hamlin lost cell service. Landis must have got worried.”

They drove out of the forest, into the fields between the town and the mountains.

The sirens grew louder. Cessy looked over her shoulder up Black Gold Peak. The tip of the mountain was still green with trees, but a swath around halfway up was the brownish red of fallen trees and dirt. A bulge in the center reminded Cessy of when her yard had been invaded by moles.

Below the empty patch, in the still-standing forest, trees and boulders had carved thin paths downhill.

“We should avoid the cops,” Jackson said. “Lockler brainwashed Sheriff Miller. Probably did the same to the state troopers.”

“According to your dad,” Cessy said, “Sheriff Miller and our parents practically invited Lockler here. We can trust these cops.”

“Still a risk,” Jackson said. “Let’s get your parents, and get out of here.”

Kate sat up. “Not just our parents. Anyone who’ll listen.”

“Either way,” Jackson said, “you break the tie. Do we avoid the state troopers or go talk to them?”

“It’s not a vote,” Cessy said. “It’s my car. I’m the one with fifteen years’ experience handling emergency situations.”

“Let’s talk to the troopers,” Kate said. “We’ve got to help as many people as we can.”

“The ayes have it,” Cessy said. It’d be a huge boon to have some real cops helping. She’d show Kate that they had things under control, and then they’d get out of Hamlin.

Jackson grumbled.

They were silent as they drove past Jackson’s collapsed house.

Into town, where Mud River Road turned into Main Street. Past Tapjacks Diner, which had a bustling lunch crowd, the only sign of life in Hamlin. Despite the earthquake and landslide, the patrons ate their lunch, undisturbed by the outside world.

The sirens echoed from the downtown cross streets, over by the grocery store, and up towards either Rag Hill or the Church of the Morningstar.

A West Virginia State Police cruiser was parked in front of the police station, next to a Chevy truck with Virginia plates. Landis.

Cessy parked.

“I’ll keep an eye on the car,” Jackson said.

Cessy and Kate got out.

The sun warmed Cessy’s grimy skin. The cement sidewalk was hot under her shoeless foot. Maybe they should have gone to Mom and Dad’s first.

Kate held her hands out for balance, but stayed up on her own. She pointed to the revolver on Cessy’s hip. “You wearing that inside?”

“Oh, good point.” Cessy took her badge from her back pocket and clipped it onto her belt.

Kate rolled her eyes.

Except for the sirens a mile distant, Hamlin was quiet. Black Gold Peak stayed still.

They walked up the wooden porch steps that had once belonged to the Company Store.

From inside, male voices argued, while Lockler’s staticky broadcast formed the auditory backdrop.

Cessy and Kate walked inside.

56

Inside the office, the AC pumped hard. The air chilled Cessy after being outside.

A radio sat on a windowsill. It filled the room with Lockler’s ranting.

Behind the desk, Betty the receptionist and dispatcher stared intently at her computer. Mascara smeared down her young cheeks. She put extreme effort into ignoring the two men arguing near her.

The first, a state trooper Cessy didn’t recognize. His insignia named him a sergeant. His weathered face put him a few years older than Cessy.

He noticed Cessy and Kate come in, and stopped his argument midsentence.

The second man--in jeans and a tucked-in polo shirt--turned around. He was twelve year’s Cessy’s senior. His wiry frame hid how quickly and with how much force he could take down a fleeing suspect. Detective Landis’ expression filled with relief when he saw Cessy. “Oh, thank God.”

He strode across the creaky wood floors, but stopped short of hugging her. They shared an awkward handshake. “Timms. I feared the worst. Your parents claimed you never came by.”

Landis turned to Kate. “And you found your sister. Fantastic news.”

The trooper approached, chest thrust out like a weekend gym rat. “This is Cecilia Timms?”

“Timms,” Landis said through gritted teeth, “Meet Sergeant Quill. He agreed to meet me here. It only took three calls, emailing over all the evidence you sent me, and calling in favors with my FBI contacts to lean on them. Guess they were too busy handing out speeding tickets.”

Cessy knew cops like Quill. They believed “might makes right,” and so to keep their jurisdiction safe, they took it upon themselves to be the mightiest man around, both in stature and attitude.

Kate interrupted. “You have to help.” She leaned on Cessy. “We have to evacuate the town.”

Quill ignored Kate. “Cecilia Timms, you’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Sheriff Reginald Miller.”

“What?” Kate stepped in front of Cessy. Cessy caught her from falling backwards.

Landis stepped in front of them both. He managed to look imposing, despite Quill’s height advantage. “Whoa! Back up, son.”

Betty craned her neck to see down the hall behind her, then looked to the front door, as if judging how quickly she could bolt.

“You heard what he said.” Quill unhooked his handcuffs from his belt.

“And we both saw his skin.” Landis pushed Quill, walking with him away from Cessy. “We need to call the CDC.”

“My lieutenant can make that decision once he gets here.” Quill allowed himself to be pushed a few feet back, then held his ground. “She tried to kill an officer of the law.”

“She’s a better officer of the law than anybody in this backwoods shithole,” spat Landis. “I’ll hear her version of events of before you go arresting anybody.”

Landis’ anger surprised Cessy. She must have stressed him out disappearing from cell service like she did. Her view of him as a supplementary father figure must have extended both ways.

From down the hall, boots tapped on the wood floors. “Everybody calm down.” A smoker’s raspy drawl.

Sheriff Miller stood in the hallway. “Detective. Sergeant. What’s this about calling Hamlin a shithole?”

Cessy stepped back. The old man filled the doorway. His uniform was pristine, his skin unblemished, except by age. No sign of their fight, or his fall and disappearance into the base of Maul Rock. No sign that he’d been trapped inside the mine, calling for Cessy’s help, less than an hour ago.

Betty pushed her chin to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut.

Sheriff Miller noticed Cessy and Kate. “Why are these two wanted criminals standing here uncuffed in my foyer?”

A swarm of perforations slid across his face.

57

Cessy pulled Kate behind her. “Landis, this man tried to hang me yesterday.”

Sheriff Miller’s tall frame was imposing. Perforations slid around his skin. His cheeks drooped more than yesterday, unnaturally so. He was as stiff and straight as the antique wood paneling walls.

Detective Landis kept himself positioned between Sergeant Quill and Cessy, apparently seeing more danger in the state trooper who had one hand on his cuffs, and the other on his pistol. “Like with a rope?”

Kate tried to push Cessy aside, but lacked the strength. “What else would he use? Everyone needs to leave Hamlin. Don’t listen to this old man.”

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” Sheriff Miller said. “I expected better of you, Kate. But the big city can make any good-hearted, small-town girl stuck up and disrespectful.”

Sergeant Quill spoke into his radio on his shoulder. “All units in and near Hamlin, backup requested at the Sheriff’s Office. Armed suspect resisting arrest.”

Landis said, “Count to ten, there, son. You’ve got two conflicting stories, both from law enforcement. Let’s all go sit down and talk this out.”

Quill’s radio buzzed a reply. “I’m on fourth street. There’s a murder scene in an open house. Three victims.”

Another reply. “Two more dead on Rag Hill. Sarge, you seen anybody alive in this town? Everyone’s hiding like they’re afraid of us.”

Sergeant Quill paused. He removed his hand from his cuffs, then turned to face Sheriff Miller. “You didn’t finish explaining what’s been going on here. Five murders? That’s more than in the last five years.”

Sheriff Miller smiled. Holes slid across his teeth. “I told you we have it under control. Our primary suspects just walked themselves in our front door.”

“Bullshit,” Landis said. “I’ve been in contact with Detective Timms. She was searching for a missing person.”

“Was she?” Sheriff Miller asked. “If she were searching for her sister, wouldn’t she have gone to see their parents?”

“I did,” Cessy said.

“Didn’t her parents tell you she never came by?” asked Sheriff Miller.

Cessy caught Kate’s eye. She nodded toward the front door. If Sheriff Miller could turn Landis against them, they needed to be gone.

“They did tell me that,” Landis said. “Which was weird, because her Washington Nationals t-shirt was sitting in their front room.”

The Sheriff’s smile turned wicked, like a mischievous child excited to have his rule-breaking found out.

“What’s even more weird, is I came straight from there. Not thirty minutes ago. Did they call you to say I’d be coming? Why would they do that?”

Quill took another step away from Sheriff Miller. “What are you saying?” he asked Landis.

Landis shrugged. “Maybe Detective Timms can tell us more. But I can tell you,” he pointed at Sheriff Miller’s face, “I’ve never seen anything like those moving holes in his skin. You got some kind of disease making you crazy? Is he contagious?”

“That’s one word for it,” Kate said.

At the receptionist desk, at Sheriff Miller’s side, Betty gathered the courage to lift her chin from her chest. Her smeared mascara made her young face look older. “Can I leave?”

Sheriff Miller touched her shoulder. “Your shift’s not over yet, honey.”

Quill unstrapped his holster. “She’d better head out. Too many itchy trigger fingers in here, don’t you think?”

Sheriff Miller closed his hand around Betty’s shoulder. “Is your trigger finger itchy, Sergeant?”

“Let the girl go,” Landis said.

Quill spoke into his radio again. “Situation has changed. Hamlin Sheriff has taken a hostage.”

Betty’s eyes went wide. She flinched away, but Sheriff Miller’s powerful hand squeezed tight.

Quill’s radio buzzed. “Come again?”

“Let’s not let things get out of hand,” Sheriff Miller said. “Maybe you had the right idea, Detective. We should all sit down and talk this through.”

Kate swore under her breath. “He’s stalling.”

Cessy exhaled. She was right. The longer they stayed, the less time they had to get out of Hamlin before the thing in the mine destroyed everything. “Why? I thought it was indifferent.”

Kate shook her head. “It is. But he isn’t. Oh god, look.”

Perforations slipped down Sheriff Miller’s shoulder, down the sleeve of his tan uniform, towards Betty.

Cessy drew the revolver.

Quill saw, reached to stop her. Landis saw Quill’s reaction, turned to see what was happening.

Cessy fired twice. The first round took Sheriff Miller in the chest. The impact knocked him backwards, but he held fast to Betty’s shoulder. Perforations swarmed toward her. The second round shot higher--Cessy wasn’t expecting the kickback from the high-caliber rounds. A dime-sized bloody hole appeared next to Sheriff Miller’s nose. His head jerked back. Blood and brain splattered down the hallway behind him.

The man stayed on his feet.

Betty screamed--the sound muffled after the gunshot. She shrugged free of Sheriff Miller’s loosened grip to run for the door.

Kate grabbed her.

Quill pulled his pistol on Cessy. Landis grabbed the state trooper’s arm. A shot went into the ceiling.

Cessy stepped toward Sheriff Miller.

Behind her, Kate yelled to Betty something about getting her family and cutting town.

Cessy aimed the revolver at Sheriff Miller’s standing corpse. His head lolled backwards. The perforations swarmed wildly, accelerated, carved a winding path through the old man’s skin.

Kate ushered Betty out the front door. The hinges creaked, sunlight poured in, and then the antique wooden door slammed behind them.

Quill turned to see the sheriff’s body, rigid, standing. “What the fuck?”

“Landis.” Cessy backed toward the door, pistol aimed at Sheriff Miller’s body. “Let’s go. Don’t let those holes get near you.” She lifted her shirt to show the scabbed and muddy wound in her gut. “They’re tough to get out.”

“Good god,” Landis backed away from Sheriff Miller.

Quill followed.

Perforations multiplied on the sheriff’s body. They swarmed faster, over his chest, down his legs, back up to the sagging skin on his face. The faster they moved, the more his skin sagged.

“What the fuck?” Quill repeated.

Sheriff Miller’s left cheek fell loose, exposing muscle and sinew from his eye to his chin. Blood pooled in a pocket of skin and then poured over his uniform. Perforations glided down his arm. Skin flopped out of his sleeve like a thick latex glove.

Cessy decided against putting another round in his chest. She only had three left. “Come on.” She ran outside, Landis and Quill close behind.

58

Outside, the afternoon light had taken on a shadowy tint.

Cessy limped to the 4Runner, where Kate hugged Betty and whispered to her. “Go get your family, then drive out of town.”

“The roads are closed,” Betty sobbed.

Landis and Quill ran down the Sheriff’s Offices steps. They kept their guns trained on the doors.

“How did you get into Hamlin?” Cessy asked. “Which roads are open?”

“I cleared a bunch of fallen trees off Mud River Road,” Landis said. “There’s one bridge over a creek that’s been collapsed, but you can get a car across if you go upstream twenty feet.”

Kate squeezed Betty. “Did you hear that? Your truck can clear that, easily. Grab anyone who’ll go with you.”

Betty nodded and headed for her truck, eyes glued to the pavement.

“Only people you trust,” Cessy said. “If anyone hesitates to come with you, leave them behind. They might be like Sheriff Miller.”

Kate glared at Cessy. “Take as many people as will fit in your truck.”

Betty climbed into an old Silverado and drove off.

Cessy reared on her sister. “And if she invites Valerie’s parents? Or someone else who’s been in on this whole thing from the start?”

Kate folded her arms. “Betty’s been near Sheriff Miller from the start. She knows what she’s risking. It’s up to her if it’s worth it to help someone.”

“They don’t deserve help,” Cessy said. “Not from the problem they caused themselves.”

“They were tricked.”

“Willingly.”

Landis touched Cessy’s shoulder. “Argue about this later. Let’s put some distance between us and... whatever that was.” He kept one eye on the office doors.

Quill was already getting into his cruiser.

Landis called, “Hey, where are you going?”

He peeled out, tires squealing as he fled down Main Street.

“Coward,” Kate said. “We needed his help.”

Cessy exhaled. “You still want to try to save everyone? What if that means we can’t save Mom and Dad?” It was mean to challenge Kate like this, but Cessy’d tell her anything if it meant helping her escape.

Landis looked nervously at the Sheriff’s Office front door. “Seriously. You want to explain what’s going on?”

Cessy trusted Landis implicitly. They relied on each to stay alive. But she needed him to act without hesitation, and there’d be a lot of hesitation if she told the whole story. “Some kind of parasite from the mountain. It has an effect like rabies.”

Kate looked at Cessy like she was an idiot. “Don’t make up some dumb story. If they think it’s a disease, they’ll quarantine the town. We need everyone to leave, not stay.”

Landis tightened his lips. “You lying to me?”

“Fine,” Cessy said. “You hear that radio broadcast?”

Lockler’s ranting still came from inside the building.

“There’s an infinite worm in the mountain using that broadcast to lure in the citizens of Hamlin. Makes them hate each other.”

“Except for the infinite worm part,” Landis said, “that just sounds like talk radio.”

“She’s not getting it entirely right,” Kate said. “It fed on the people it could make hate. Killed the people it couldn’t, or the people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now it got what it wanted, and it’s leaving.”

“So that’s a good thing, right?” Landis half-smiled, waiting for the punchline.

“Imagine you had an extension cord unraveled through a messy garage. Grab it at two points, and pull as hard as you can. You’ll trash the place.”

Landis shook his head. He sighed. “Don’t repeat this when the rest of the State Trooper show up. The rabies thing was better.”

“Help us get everyone out,” Kate pleaded.

“At least, anyone who’ll listen,” Cessy said. “Too many have embraced it. We help who we can, then we leave.”

Landis leaned on his truck. He wiped his forehead. “Obviously something bad went down here. Your Sheriff had some kind of infection, and then a mental break.”

“He’s dead, standing up straight,” Cessy said. “You know I’m not crazy.”

“Of course you’re not. But something’s got you believing crazy things. Infinite worms inside mountains?” Landis turned to point up to Black Gold Peak. “If you were anyone else, I’d already be calling in the... calling in...”

He stared up at the mountainside.

Cessy and Kate followed his gaze.

“What am I looking at?”

The bare dirt patch was two-thirds of the way up the Appalachian peak. Around it, the trees were far enough away that they were just barely distinguishable from each other. To the east of the bare patch, the green treetops were hard to focus on.

Cessy blinked. The mountainside folded in on itself, leaving a second vacant spot without trees, without the ground beneath it, without a hole to mark anything missing. It wasn’t another landslide. Her eyes simply glided over a section of the mountain, like it wasn’t there. She squeezed her eyes shut, then looked again.

It was like trying to spot something in her peripheral vision, except it was right in front of her.

Roiling movement coming down the mountainside.

Then, calm treetops.

“Did you see that?” Landis asked.

Behind the Sheriff’s Office, wood creaked, and then a monstrous crash roared. A dust cloud plumed over the buildings. A spurt of thick shadow drifted upwards, hung low over the town, then dropped a brief but unnatural rain. Library books fell from the sky, accompanied by chunks of coal. The worm was dragging reality behind it.

“We’re out of time,” Cessy said.

59

A few blocks away, another house collapsed.

Lockler’s ranting came from everywhere and nowhere. “...rioting like this is some urban ghetto. I’ve warned you there will come a time when we have to defend our families...”

Cessy snapped her fingers to grab Landis’ and Kate’s attention. “Landis, you follow us to our parents’ house. We’ll try to convince them to leave. If they don’t come, we leave without them.”

Kate started to protest.

Cessy cut her off. “That’s the best I’m offering. I’ll drag you out of this town if I have to.”

The state troopers’ sirens howled.

“Can you get them on the radio?” Kate asked.

“That’ll slow us down,” Cessy said.

Landis nodded. “I know their channel. Why?”

“Me and Cessy will go find our parents. You get those cops to broadcast an evacuation order. Do you have a megaphone in your truck?”

“I still don’t know what’s going on.”

“How about a massive sinkhole?” Cessy asked. “Would you believe that? They mined for coal under the town, and now the whole valley’s going to collapse.”

“That’s what’s happening?”

“Sure,” Cessy said. “The important part is that we need to get out of here fast.”

“Drive through the neighborhoods and tell everyone to evacuate,” Kate pleaded. “Get the state cops to help you.”

Two blocks away, the ground beneath the old bar opened up. The boarded-up building fell in on itself. It kicked up red brick dust and children’s toys. Cessy briefly wondered whose childhood bedroom the worm had just torn through.

Lockler’s voice grew louder. “...band together but don’t expect your neighbors to stick with you. There are vermin under every doormat...”

“Where is that coming from?” Landis asked.

“We told you already,” Kate said. “Will you help?”

“Yeah, okay.” He turned to Cessy. “Is your radio in your truck? I didn’t drive all the way out here just to leave you behind.”

“I’ve got it.” Cessy agreed. “Make a quick pass and then get out of here. These people brought this on themselves.”

Kate scowled and got in the car.

“I’ll drive through and then meet back up with you.”

“We won’t be a minute,” Cessy said.

She got in the car. “Again. We invite them to leave. If they don’t come, we’ve done all we can.”

“Cessy?” Horror on Kate’s face. “Something’s wrong with Jackson.”

Jackson lay unconscious across the backseat. His tattered pant leg revealed the crescent pattern of bruises from the worm’s bite, now turning black.

Cessy started the engine. Maybe Jackson would prove useful after all. “Wake him up, make sure he’s breathing. He needs a hospital right away.”

“After we get Mom and Dad,” Kate said.

Cessy exhaled. Even a dying man wasn’t enough to get Kate out of harm’s way. “We’re risking Jackson’s life if we don’t go now.”

“We’re killing Mom and Dad if we do.” Cessy backed the car into the road. “They get one chance to get into the car with us. And then we’re gone.”

60

“That’s their car at the diner,” Kate said.

Cessy looked down Main Street, past the pile of bricks, beams, and stuffed animals that used to be the bar. The parking lot at Tapjacks was full. A few people hurried to their cars and drove off, but even from this far away, Cessy could see the small crowd that still filled the diner.

Cessy took a breath. “That’s where this all started, according to Gordon. The good ol’ boys and girls of Hamlin blaming their woes on drug dealers. The people in there won’t be on our side.”

“It’s Mom and Dad,” Kate said. “I’m not leaving them.”

They drove towards the diner. Cessy considered turning around and driving out of town. But she wouldn’t have put it past Kate to jump out of the car.

“This isn’t going to be as simple as walking into Mom and Dad’s house and asking them to leave. The people in there will be Lockler devotees.”

“Mom and Dad will listen to reason,” Kate said. “Well, Dad will, and Mom will listen to Dad.”

“I’d have said the other way around. Mom’s more likely to listen to reason.” Cessy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. If I’d thought to switch on the child locks on your door, I’d drive straight out of here right now.”

“They’re your parents, too.”

“I talked to them yesterday. I saw Mom today. They’re not like you remember. I mean, they’re still Mom and Dad, but Mom and Dad paranoid and hateful.”

“You don’t stop loving somebody just because they’ve made mistakes.”

“Mistakes? How many people are dead because of those mistakes? They might not have pulled the trigger, but they were part of the mob egging the murderers on.” Cessy stumbled over her words. “You know what? Believe what you want. I’m taking you to them, because I won’t let you die here. You’re not going to convince me that we actually have a duty to them.”

Kate turned to check on Jackson and mumbled to herself, “Who said anything about duty?”

Cessy drove toward Tapjacks. “You’re doing the talking. We walk in the front--stay at the front; don’t let anybody between us and the door--you give your speech to Mom and Dad. The second I say it’s too dangerous, we leave. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not kidding around. I’ll drag you out of there.” Cessy was confident her aching back, throbbing knee, and oozing gut would win against Kate’s three-day malnourishment.

Trucks filled the Tapjacks lot and lined the road a half-block in either direction.

Cessy double parked.

An old woman she didn’t recognize hurried out of the diner, got in her car, and drove off.

The rats were fleeing the ship.

Cessy looked back at Jackson. “Is he still breathing?”

Jackson’s eyelids twitched like he was dreaming. He mumbled and moaned like it was a nightmare. If he’d been infected somehow by the bite from the worm, maybe they should be worrying about quarantine. Cessy might need to dump him before they fled the valley. She’d have to cuff Kate for that to ever be an option.

“Leave him for now.” Cessy got out of the car.

Kate followed. “There they are, back corner.”

Through the windows, Cessy saw the citizens of Hamlin.

In the booth closest to the door, Chuck and Paulina Davies, the model citizens who’d lifted themselves by their bootstraps to move down from Rag Hill, and who’d survived the grief of losing a teenage daughter to suicide.

Sharing a booth with them, Paulina’s sister, Brenda Watkins. She’d also lost family, but more recently, and she was more to blame.

Others who Cessy recognized but couldn’t name, and more who Cessy’d never seen before.

Mom sat at the counter in the back corner. Dad stood next to her, addressing the diner patrons.

Cessy grabbed the door handle. “Ready?” she asked Kate.

Kate bit her lip. She leaned on Cessy for support. “If I get lightheaded, you might need to take over for me.”

“I’ll do what I can.” She had three rounds left in the revolver.

“Then let’s bring Mom and Dad home.”

Cessy opened the door and followed Kate inside.

61

Cessy had to grab Kate’s arm to keep her from going straight to Mom and Dad. “Nobody between us and the door.”

Forty faces turned to the newcomers. Confusion, recognition, then anger. Their hate was an odd contrast to the bright colors and shiny tabletops of the diner.

Lockler’s broadcast formed a baseline of noise over which the patrons had been arguing. They grew silent at seeing Cessy and Kate, leaving only static-laden anger.

“...stay true to your convictions, and that’ll set you apart from the vermin...”

“There’s a side door, too,” Kate whispered.

“Stick to the plan.” Cessy squeezed Kate’s arm, reminding her little sister that she’d spent fifteen years in the gym, training her body specifically for situations like this.

Brenda Watkins pointed a crooked finger. She had Valerie’s soft jawline, but her leering eyes were devoid of Valerie’s compassion. “They’re probably the vermin what’s trying to destroy Hamlin.”

Mumbles of agreement.

“No!” Mom’s shrill cry silenced her neighbors. “Kate, why are you in Hamlin? Cessy, we told you she wasn’t here, so you went and brought her here?”

“I’ve been here over a week,” Kate said. “I’m here to help you.”

“Look outside,” Brenda Watkins said. “Look at what they’re doing to our town.”

Dad’s concerned voice rose over the angry murmurs. “Kate, why don’t you come over here with me and your mother. You too, Cessy.”

Cessy squeezed Kate’s arm harder. That was the woman who just yesterday came at her with a garden trowel. The man who’d refused to even step outside as Sheriff Miller carted his daughter off. Mom and Dad had known what was happening to people, and they still let themselves believe Sheriff Miller wouldn’t do it to their daughter.

Cessy accepted the weight in her gut; there was no shelter at her parents’ side.

Kate leaned on Cessy. “Please. Mom. Dad. Let’s talk about this somewhere private. Come with us.”

Chuck Davies, who’d been staring at Cessy, finally said, “I know you. You’re the one who killed my Marissa. Not happy hurting my family, had to come back and rip apart Hamlin, too?”

“The hell are you talking about?” Cessy was done biting her tongue. “I came here to find my sister. That chaos out there, you brought it on yourselves.”

A gray-haired overweight man she didn’t recognize yelled, “You can tell they’re vermin because they won’t take responsibility for themselves.”

Mom shrieked. “My daughter is not vermin!” Her second outburst didn’t do as much to quiet the patrons.

Cessy felt strength drain away. “Oh.” My daughter. Not daughters. Mom may have come at her in a moment of passion, but deep down, she was still supposed to be Mom. Cessy had prioritized Kate’s life over her parents’, but she’d done so accepting that the guilt would gnaw at her the rest of her life. Mom had become paranoid and hateful and willfully ignorant, but she was still supposed to be Mom. She wasn’t supposed to scream an emotional defense of only one of her daughters. “Time to go,” she whispered.

“Not yet,” Kate hissed.

“I’m calling it.”

“You said if it got dangerous, not if Mom said something that hurt your feelings.”

Cessy recoiled. “These people are one rope away from becoming a lynch mob.”

“Daddy,” Kate pleaded. “Please come outside with us.”

“Don’t trust them,” Brenda Watkins said. “Look down the street. They knocked down the bar. They’re the ones who’ve been destroying our homes.”

“That’s absurd.” Cessy said. “Can’t you hear the houses collapsing right now? We’re standing right here.”

But the Tapjack’s patrons weren’t having it.

A tall man in his fifties stood up from his booth. He was younger than most in the diner, and had the strong body of someone who worked his small farm, a rarity in this town. “Hamlin won’t be great again until we get rid of this vermin.”

Cessy pushed open the door and pulled Kate with her.

Mom ran towards them. The tall man blocked her path. “You’re being biased,” he told her.

Kate jerked on Cessy’s grip. “Let me go!” Her strength surprised Cessy, but she held tight.

Dad came at the tall man. “That’s my wife you’re pushing around.”

The tall man shoved Dad, who fell backwards, caught himself. A bone snapped in his wrist. Dad’s clenched jaw shook.

Kate grabbed the door frame. “We have to help them.”

Mom helped Dad up. “You’re crazy!” she yelled at the tall man. “No one loves Hamlin more than us. We grew up here. We’re not biased.”

“Your kids are vermin.”

Cessy pulled on Kate.

“I know my own daughters,” Dad said.

Cessy hesitated.

Chuck Davies stood up, slowly, stiffly. Marissa’s father was shorter than his daughter, but he had the same tight mouth that filtered his anger at the world. “You’re telling me, a person can bully my depressed daughter until my little girl hangs herself, and that person’s a saint?”

Mom tried to get past the tall man, but Chuck Davies joined him to block her path.

“They’re leaving,” she said. “We’ll make sure they leave town.”

“Kate’s never hurt any of you,” Dad said. “No one here possibly thinks she’s vermin.”

Cessy’s shoulders slumped. She hadn’t expected her parents to leap to her defense, but it stung more than she’d anticipated.

“She’s helping the other one destroy Hamlin,” Chuck said.

Murmurs of agreement.

Another crash from outside. The floor shook, vibrating Cessy’s shoeless foot. Somewhere behind the diner, a house collapsed. Dust went up. Thick shadow hung like smoke in the air. Silty river water dripped from the low cloud.

Brenda Watkins craned her neck to see out the window. “That was my street.” She turned on Cessy and Kate. “Was that my house?”

“If it was, you’d deserve it,” Cessy said.

Brenda gasped, probably mimicking a scandalized southern belle on TV. And just like the southern matrons in the murder mysteries, this woman was a murderer. This whole diner was full of murderers.

“It’s not us,” Kate screamed. “Look around. We just got here this week. How long have people been disappearing?”

“People that you all wanted disappeared,” Cessy spat.

Kate elbowed her. “You’ve all made a terrible mistake. Lockler doesn’t care about Hamlin. The Maple Table hates just as much as Lockler, only they do it with a smile. They’re a lure so something else can feed on you.”

Chuck Davies started towards Kate, flexing his meaty fingers. “Our town is under attack. It’s been that way for years. Lockler understands that.”

Cessy drew the pistol. She reached past Kate to aim it at Chuck’s chest.

He stopped. “Go ahead. Kill someone else in my family.”

“Please,” Kate said. “Get out of town. This thing that sent you Lockler, the thing that’s been taking people, it’s got what it wanted, and it’s leaving. On its way out, it’s destroying the town. Look around!”

The patrons looked out the windows. On Main Street, the only collapsed building was the bar. But in the air above and behind the shops, at least six dispersed dust clouds had left behind thick drifts of shadow, which dripped detritus that fell out of sight.

“You can see something’s not right,” Kate pleaded. “Get out of town before it takes you all. Mud River Road is clear, east of town. You’ll have to cross a creek, but if you’ve got a truck, you can do it.”

Chuck Davies looked at the tall man. The younger man nodded, and went out the side door.

“Time to go,” Cessy said. “Before he blocks the road back up.”

“You have to get out,” Kate begged.

One elderly couple--Cessy thought the woman might have been her tenth-grade biology teacher--slipped out the side door. The rest of Tapjack’s patrons refused eye contact with Kate.

“Mom? Dad?”

“You two go on and get out town.” Dad sat on the tile floor, rubbing his wrist. “We’ll give you a call later.”

“It’ll kill you,” Kate wailed.

“You can’t just throw a rat out of your house,” Chuck said. “It’ll come right back in.”

“We’ll make sure they leave.” Mom hurried past Chuck before he could stop her.

Cessy lowered the pistol.

“Honey, no,” Dad said. “Hamlin is our home.”

Cessy let go of Kate, so her little sister could throw her arms around their mother.

“Please come with us, Daddy,” Kate said.

“I’m not leaving the town I helped build.”

Cessy rolled her eyes. The town had been a hundred years old by the time Dad was born. The vanity that had permeated Hamlin was startling.

“Just to the edge of town,” Mom said. “We’ll make sure the girls leave, then we’ll come right back here and work things out with Chuck.”

Dad shook his head, but he climbed to his feet and sauntered to the door.

“Are we going to let vermin walk away like this?” Chuck asked his fellow patrons. “The very vermin responsible for our town’s decline?”

The patrons growled disgust.

Another house collapsed, loud enough to rattle the windows. The ground shook, and this time it didn’t stop. Plates and silverware rattled.

Cessy shepherded Mom and Dad out the door. Kate stayed in the doorway. “You all need to leave. Everything Lockler has told you has been to rile you up. You’re being manipulated.”

She was met with vulgar jeers.

“Please! The thing under the mountain will kill you.”

Brenda Watkins cackled. “Next she’ll tell us the aliens are gonna get us.”

Kate wailed frustration, but she followed Cessy outside.

“Stop them!” Chuck cried. But with the tall man gone, the believers were a geriatric crew. They’d condemned “vermin” to death, never thinking about the executioner. And now the executioner was slithering its satiated girth out of Hamlin, ignoring its ignorant devotees’ condemnations.

The door swung shut. Its bell jingled.

The cool air of the diner was replaced by the afternoon August heat. The sun instantly warmed Cessy’s neck.

She kept the gun trained on the door. Tapjack’s patrons stayed in their seats. Brenda Watkins and Paulina Davies stared daggers at Cessy through the glass.

Cessy turned to find Mom helping Kate into the empty backseat of the 4Runner. Dad stood stiff, staring down the street.

“Where’s Jackson?” Cessy asked.

Kate looked up, her expression full of fear. She pointed back towards the Sheriff’s office.

A block away, Sheriff Miller staggered toward them. The sidewalk beneath him and the grass and asphalt to either side were black with swarming perforations. He stumbled and caught himself like a man walking through the surf. His ankles sank through the sidewalk, then were lifted above. He walked on the worm.

Limping out to meet him, was Jackson.

62

Liquid shadow dripped down Jackson’s leg. He limped past shuttered shops on Main Street, under the sweltering sun and the damaged Black Gold Peak. He pointed his VP9 at Sheriff Miller, but hadn’t fired yet.

Sheriff Miller walked to meet Jackson. He waded ankle-deep through the sidewalk, then was lifted three feet off the ground. He walked on deep gray wormflesh that pushed away Cessy’s gaze like a resisting magnet.

The ground rumbled. The worm’s burrowing cracked and lifted the sidewalks and streets. Brick walls crumbled.

The worm made a noise like nails on a chalkboard played at quarter speed.

Perforations swarmed over Sheriff Miller’s uniform and skin. They were concentrated around the bullet holes in his chest and by his nose. They slid over the huge serpentine body upon which he walked, and Cessy considered that maybe they were parasites, but she’d shared the worm’s mind momentarily, which was long enough to know that nothing about it could be categorized using Cessy’s understanding.

Black spurts marked the sidewalk behind Jackson. “You killed Olivia,” he screamed. He fired. The round smacked into the worm’s side. The pistol’s clap echoed twice off the mountains before being drowned by the low scraping of the worm.

“Go help him!” Kate yelled.

Mom shut the back door on her. “Cessy, get in the car.”

Dad reached for Cessy’s arm. “He’s vermin. Let Sheriff Miller deal with him.”

This was Jackson buying them time, just like Cessy had planned on. But as Kate screamed in the backseat, Cessy didn’t like the feeling in her gut. She’d lied to him in the mine, told him that his father had purposely murdered Olivia. She’d poisoned Jackson’s memory of his father. That felt worse than abandoning her parents. She had to prioritize rescuing Kate, and accept that some decisions might leave her feeling guilty until the day she died, but it was piling on and getting heavy.

She couldn’t let Jackson die like this.

Cessy raised the revolver with both hands. She walked forward, holding her body steady, adjusting for her aching knee and missing shoe. She looked down the barrel, over the iron sights, down an invisible line that passed dangerously close to Jackson before terminating in Sheriff Miller’s chest.

She exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

Jackson jerked away from the round whizzing past.

The boogeyman of Cessy’s youth snapped backwards. His feet stayed locked in the sidewalk, and he bent at the knees. His arms sprawled to either side. The worm dragged him forward, beneath the rough sidewalk. He surfaced again, closer to Jackson, body still limp.

Cessy called for Jackson. It felt selfish. She didn’t want Kate to hate her. She didn’t want to hate herself. “You can’t hurt it!”

Jackson turned around. Black bruises covered his sallow face. They’d crawled up from his leg, and splattered across his bare arms and neck.

Cessy recoiled, thinking of quarantine.

Jackson laughed at her reaction. “Watch this.” He jumped onto the worm, ran atop it like a treadmill.

The worm surfaced on the sidewalk, down the street, out from the wall of the post office. Sheriff Miller’s corpse was dragged along, whipped about. It swung upwards at Jackson.

Sheriff Miller’s eyes snapped open. He lunged for the junkie.

Jackson sidestepped the old man. He stepped back atop the worm to let himself fall forward.

A mouth opened, parallel with the length of the worm, unnatural in the daylight. Cessy looked at it and a migraine burst into her head. Countless molars lined the gray repulsive flesh inside the mouth. Jackson landed in the narrow maw, shoulders catching on its edges. He wriggled deeper.

Kate’s muffled scream from inside the truck. Mom shouted for Cessy.

Cessy ran to Jackson as Dad shouted for her to come back.

Pistol claps from inside the worm. Cessy lost count after eight. Jackson emptied the magazine. Only his back was visible, and the edges of the mouth were closing.

An orange glow snuck out of the mouth, past Jackson. It was dim, like it had traveled far and long to reach Cessy’s sight.

Jackson struggled. He growled pain and frustration.

Cessy reached him, ran alongside the slithering worm, tried to grab Jackson. She couldn’t squeeze her hand between Jackson and the spongy, tooth-filled flesh.

The pistol fired again. Repeatedly, another full magazine. He hadn’t been struggling to free himself, but to reload.

Cessy locked her fingers under his arm. He sank deeper. Molars crushed down on her hand.

“Leave me alone. I’ve got two more clips. Oh. What is that? You can see-”

Cessy jerked her hand free as the mouth closed.

A puff of an acrid smell.

Muffled gunshots. The worm slithered on.

Cessy crawled backwards. She inhaled. “No.” She shouldn’t have let him out of her sight. He was already hurt. She shouldn’t have lied about his dad. She wanted to run alongside the worm, scream that she’d lied, that Gordon’s regret had broken him and he’d died hating himself, that Jackson shouldn’t die hating his father.

But it was too late. That weight settled on Cessy’s shoulders, finding lasting purchase.

Cessy ran back to the truck. Mom climbed into the passenger seat. Cessy jumped in the driver’s seat. In the back, Kate wept on Dad’s shoulder.

Cessy whipped the truck around and floored it back down Main Street.

She glanced in the rearview mirror. The worm circled Tapjacks, tossing cars in its wake. Countless perforations swarmed up the diner’s glass windows, almost enough to block Cessy’s final view of Lockler’s devotees’ panic as they realized they’d been had.

63

Kate cried. ““He didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”

The historical homes lining Main Street crumbled as the worm passed beneath them. Debris flew into the road. Cessy swerved around it. The high-sitting off-roader swayed heavy with the sharp turns.

She felt sick, and not from the swerving. She’d told a terrible lie to Jackson, and at the time it’d rescued him from being brainwashed and taken. But then he’d died thinking his father had purposely murdered his wife and daughter.

Dad let his broken wrist rest on his lap. With his good hand, he patted Kate’s back. He ignored the pain through stubborn grit, possibly the same emotion for which he’d traded his compassion. “That boy knew exactly what he was doing. Hamlin is better off without him.”

“You didn’t know Jackson after you left,” Mom said, more kindly. “He was vermin to this town. He sold drugs to kids.”

They bumped over a section of worm. The front wheels left the ground, smashed back down. They fishtailed, until Cessy regained control.

“What was that?” breathed Mom.

Cessy couldn’t believe her. “The same thing that just killed Jackson. The thing that sent you Lockler and the Maple Table. What did you think that was back there?”

Mom pursed her wrinkled lips. “Something the vermin brought, no doubt.”

Cessy navigated around a crevice in the road that grew bigger with the vibrating ground. “Stop saying that word.”

“You two young ladies need to remember who you’re talking to,” Dad barked. “You don’t give orders to us.”

Kate smacked the back of Cessy’s seat. “Don’t you feel anything for him?” she pleaded. “He made mistakes, but he’s a person.”

Even with the deadly track ahead, the question hurt. Had Kate realized Cessy’s purpose for bringing Jackson as a distraction? Did she understand Cessy’s immediate regret when it worked? “Of course I do. He helped me find you.”

“Mom,” sobbed Kate. “Dad, don’t you guys feel anything?”

She wasn’t accusing Cessy, but Mom. Cessy exhaled.

Kate had thrown up a barrier, a refusal to believe that Mom and Dad could really be so poisoned by Lockler and the Maple Table. And now, after seeing their dull reaction to Jackson’s death, that barrier was crumbling.

Cessy had hid from her own pain in the realization by strengthening her Machiavellian search for Kate. She’d had fifteen years’ experience as a police officer to learn to postpone emotional trauma. Kate had no such luxury.

“It’s sad what he let himself become,” Mom said.

Dad folded his arms. “Vermin don’t deserve sympathy.”

Cessy drove around a box truck on its side. “Stop using that word. Jackson was a piece of shit, but he was a person, not a rat.”

“He just died protecting us.” Kate’s voice dripped with venom.

Cessy caught up to a Toyota sedan, heading in the same direction, and drifting between the two narrow lanes.

“That’s hardly what I would call it,” Mom said.

Cessy agreed with Mom, but now wasn’t the time. She tried to pass the Toyota, but only got a glimpse of the teenager behind the wheel. Too young to drive, but old enough to realize it was time to get the hell out of town.

Maybe one of the people Landis and the state troopers had warned.

She switched on her two-way radio. “Landis, you out there?”

“Why weren’t you more shocked by that, Mom?” Kate asked. “Dad, did you know about the worm already?”

“We’re as surprised as anybody,” Mom said.

Landis’ voice crackled over the radio. “I’ve been sending folks out. Maybe twenty carloads. The two state troopers have done about the same. One old geezer shot at me. I’m hitting one more street and then I’ll head out, too. Did you find your parents?”

The crash of another collapsing house sounded outside and through the radio.

“They’re with us.”

“We’re escorting you to the town line,” Dad said.

“Making sure you get out safely,” Mom said. “You really made our neighbors angry. Once Hamlin gets rid of its vermin problem, you can try visiting again in a few years.”

“After at least a few years,” Dad clarified.

A telephone pole fell through a house, one more destroyed building in a localized apocalypse.

“You’re right,” Kate said. “They’ve lost their minds.”

“Show some gratitude, young lady,” Dad lectured. “We saved your lives back there. You haven’t seen Chuck Davies lose his temper.”

“He broke your wrist,” Cessy said. “That doesn’t make him vermin?”

Mom looked out the window. Dad bit his tongue.

Cessy managed to pull up alongside the Toyota. The boy driving had a death grip on the wheel. He sat on the edge of the seat to see over the dash. Cessy honked. The boy looked over in fear. Cessy waved for him to follow, then pulled ahead.

“Once you two have some time to cool down, and get informed of the facts, you’ll understand why Chuck and your father are so upset about the vermin here in Hamlin.”

“Mom,” Cessy said, “you just saw a worm as thick as a school bus eat your daughter’s ex-boyfriend. It’s killing your friends as we speak. Your town is literally crumbling around you.”

“My friends are fine. It’s the vermin who are attacking the town,” Mom insisted. “They killed Sheriff Miller. You saw his body.”

“I killed him. In self-defense. Three times.”

Mom was finally stunned.

Dad spoke slowly. “Cecilia, what exactly are you admitting to?”

“Sheriff Miller defends our town,” Mom’s voice trembled. “He puts his life on the line for us. You wouldn’t do that.”

“You let him haul me off. You knew he was making people disappear.”

“Not people,” Dad spat. “Vermin. I didn’t think you were vermin, so I thought you were safe. Was I wrong?”

The shops of Main Street gave way to the rolling forest that lined Mud River Road on one side, and the namesake river on the other. Cessy checked her rearview mirror to see that the boy was still following. Behind him, Landis’ truck pulled into line in the caravan, followed by three other vehicles.

Past Main Street, Cessy’s view of the low sky above Hamlin was less obstructed. Hundreds of low dust plumes dripped shadow and rubble down onto the town.

For the first time since she’d been back in Hamlin, Cessy heard regret in her father’s voice.“I never would have thought my own daughter was capable of murder.”

“He tried to kill me.”

“He’s the Sheriff. He must have believed his life was in danger. And obviously, it was.”

“Dad,” Kate said. “Shut up.”

Mom gasped. “You can let us out here. We should give each other some space before somebody says something they can’t take back.”

A pang of grief in Cessy’s gut. She didn’t expect Dad to ever forgive her for what she was about to do. “Kate, don’t let Mom unbuckle.”

Kate leaned forward to grab tight to Mom’s wrist.

“Ow, you can’t do this.”

Dad grabbed Kate’s arm. Cessy shoved her seat backwards. The impact jolted Dad’s wrist and hip. He cursed and let go.

“I hope someday you two come to your senses, and you thank Kate,” Cessy said. “She loves you more than you deserve.”

“What an awful thing to say.”

“Not as awful as what Kate stopped me from doing,” Cessy said. She was grateful to Kate for insisting on coming for Mom and Dad. Jackson’s loneliness at his death was enough of a burden. “We’re taking you out of here.”

64

Cessy led the caravan up Mud River Road. The shallow river formed a barrier between Cessy and the landmarks from her youth. She passed the bridge to Rooster Ridge, then the bridge to the Church of the Morningstar, then to Rag Hill.

The road curved uphill, where it left the valley over the lowest point in the eastern ridge.

Cessy peered ahead, and into the thick forest. The tall man Chuck had sent ahead would try to block the road again. Cessy wasn’t sure where to expect him.

Two rounds left in the revolver.

“We’ve brought you to the edge of town,” Dad said. “Pull over and let us out.”

Cessy responded by pressing harder on the accelerator. The truck’s engine grumbled.

The two-way radio crackled. Cessy reached for it, ready to warn Landis about the tall man.

“Rats flee ships they think are sinking,” came Lockler’s angry voice. “That’s how you know they’re rats. But here’s the truth you can’t deny: rats aren’t any good at knowing when a ship is actually sinking. They see the littlest bit of trouble and think, forget this ship, forget my friends on this ship, forget my duty to this ship. And they turn tail and run. That’s how you know they’re vermin.”

Kate scoffed. “He’s really mixing his metaphors, isn’t he?”

Mom yanked her wrist away from Kate’s grasp. She unbuckled herself. “I’m not vermin!”

“Grab her!” said Cessy. She slammed her seat backwards into Dad again. The impact jarred his wrist. He grabbed it with his good hand and winced.

Kate reached around the front seat to wrap her arms around Mom’s chest.

“But if they turn around--if it turns out there was some sort of misunderstanding, and they’re really the type of person who loves this town--then of course we wouldn’t judge them. There’d be nothing to judge them for.”

In the rearview mirror, Cessy saw a truck behind Landis’s turn around, and speed back towards Hamlin.

Landis’s voice came over the radio, preempting Lockler’s. “Where the hell is that guy going? Whoever’s playing this stupid radio show over the channel, cut it out.”

Mom struggled, but Kate held her tight. “I love you, Mom,” she repeated over and over.

“You can’t do this to us.” Dad was doubled over in the backseat. “We’re free Americans. You can’t just arrest us.”

“You can call your lawyer once we get to D.C.” Cessy toggled on the radio to answer Landis. “These folks trust Lockler. God knows why. Let the escapee go. It’s enough trouble keeping two with you who’re already in the car.”

She took her finger off the button, and Lockler’s voice reinvaded the car. Cessy turned the volume to zero, but the broadcast kept on uninterrupted.

The nasally roar of a chainsaw from up the road drowned out Lockler’s unhinged rambling. A tree cracked, three short bursts.

The came around a bend to see a pine tree crash down across the road. Two more trees from the thick forest uphill already lay haphazardly across the asphalt, and a third had fallen too far, down the bare hill toward the river.

A truck was parked off the to the side of the road. A minivan was stopped in front of the closest downed tree, driver’s door open.

The tall man stood up hill from the road. His chainsaw rumbled and vibrated. He took careful steps along the steep hill to another tree.

Cessy said over the radio, “Landis, you find a way to move these trees, or find a way around. I’ll deal with Paul Bunyan.”

She parked. Sunlight reflected off the river, making the road uncomfortably bright and exposed.

Mom lunged for the door handle, but Kate held her tight. Cessy grabbed a pair of cuffs from her glove box and cuffed Mom and Dad’s wrists together. They held hands over the center console.

Dad spoke in a tone that’d always filled Cessy with guilt. “I thought you’d turned yourself around. But you’re still the selfish girl you used to be.”

“Fuck you,” Cessy said, but the harsh response couldn’t dull the abandonment she felt.

“You’re not doing yourself any favors with that language,” Mom said.

“Watch them,” Cessy ordered Kate, as if either of their parents were still nimble enough to climb over the console to escape together. “If they try anything, smack Dad in the wrist.”

“Aye, aye.” Kate saluted. Retreated to jokes to avoid confronting the people their parents had devolved into.

Cessy left her door open. Up the hill, the tall man’s chainsaw gnawed at another tree. Wind carried pale sawdust over the dark muddy river embankment.

The caravan pulled up behind them, with Landis’ truck in the lead. He parked, but the asphalt under Cessy’s feet continued to rumble. A crack appeared across the faded yellow double lines.

They weren’t free of danger yet.

Landis hopped out. A state trooper jogged up to him, along with a thirty-something Hamlin resident. Cessy heard discussion about a winch, but she was already headed up the hill.

The tall man had his back to her. He finished a wedge cut on the downhill side of the tree, and swung the chainsaw around the back for the felling cut.

Cessy stopped out of reach of the chainsaw’s teeth, in case the man whipped around. “Drop it!” she yelled.

Back still to Cessy, he pushed the chainsaw harder in to the tree. The chain screeched and stuttered.

A hand fell on her shoulder. She jumped.

Landis yelled to be heard. “One of the escapees has a winch on his jeep.” He pointed at the tall man. “What’s his deal?”

Cessy shook her head. “Dangerous.”

She pointed at Landis’s pistol, which he drew.

“Stay here.”

Cessy climbed up the hill, circling the man until she knew he saw her. Dirt tumbled down under her feet. He noticed her, then went back to cutting. A series of rapid-fire cracks, and the tree swung down slowly, crashed overtop of the existing roadblock.

The state trooper and the local jumped back. The state trooper held out his arms in question to Landis, who held up a single finger in response.

Cessy aimed the revolver at the tall man. He stepped carefully to another tree.

“Drop the chainsaw!” she shouted.

Landis shouted the same order. The tall man startled; he hadn’t noticed Landis. But he gunned the chainsaw and attacked the next tree.

Frustrated, Landis yelled. “Hey buddy. I gave you an order.” He approached.

“No!” Cessy yelled.

The tall man tugged the chainsaw loose from the tree to swing it wildly at Landis.

Cessy fired.

Blood splattered.

Landis dropped, but Cessy couldn’t tell if he’d been hurt or was dodging the attack. He lost his footing and slid downhill.

The round struck the tall man in the small of the back, missing his spine by inches. The impact of the heavy caliber was enough to send him tumbling to his knees, then down the hill. The chainsaw chewed through his shoulder. He yelled in pain.

Cessy scrambled wide around the downed lumberjack. The chainsaw spit and rattled. Landis crawled to his feet, brushed dirt off his shirt. He was uninjured.

Cessy exhaled. She didn’t need anymore guilt to lug around.

The state trooper and the local had the winch tight around the bottom log of the roadblock. A lifted Jeep drove down the embankment to pull the cable tight. Mud sprayed under tires. Branches bounced and the tree inched forward, dragging the whole roadblock with it. The muddy bank provided no friction to hold the trees.

River water splashed onto the jeep’s grill. The driver backed up, his tires spinning and then catching. The winch slowly reeled in the slack, and then he yanked the roadblock another five feet. Once more, and there’d be enough space to squeeze the cars past.

Asphalt cracked and the ground shook. The dull noise of slowed-down fingernails on a chalkboard, but now blended with sharp snaps that echoed out through the valley. It grew louder, coming from up the mountain ridge away from town.

Cessy thought of Kate loosening her shoelace, then snapping it tight through the little pile of dirt and twigs, sending them flying. She thought of an extension cord looped through a messy garage, yanked taught.

“Everyone, move!” She ran to her truck.

“What is it?” called Landis.

“A bomb, a swarm of parasites, whatever you’ll believe. We’re out of time!” She hopped into the driver’s seat.

Mom’s face was red with anger. “What are they doing to my home?”

“You’re part of this, aren’t you?” Dad demanded. He watched the approaching tidal wave, more anger than fear on his face.

Kate held Mom tight against the seat. “It’s happening. The worm has almost got its whole body out of Hamlin.”

Through the two-way radio, Lockler howled. “True patriots of Hamlin, defend your home!”

Cessy gunned the engine. The truck lurched towards the opening in the roadblock.

The jeep tugged the roadblock another five feet, opening a path. Across the river, a line of trees cracked and fell.

The Maple Table joined Locker’s rant, interrupted, overlapped. “If there was another way, that’d be the moral choice. But when you’re left with only one way to save your family...”

Dad’s forearm looped in front of Cessy’s throat. He squeezed tight, trying to crush, not just strangle. He growled through the pain of assaulting his daughter with his broken wrist.

Both Mom and Kate screamed.

Cessy jammed one hand under Dad’s arm, and the other back towards his face. The seat back blocked her reach.

Fire in Cessy’s empty lungs.

The truck swerved up the hill. Cessy righted the steering wheel to keep them from tipping over.

Mom jerked at Dad through the handcuffs. Kate unbuckled to lunge at their father. She threw a weak punch at his broken bones. Bone broke through skin.

Mom and Kate screamed at Dad as oxygen refilled Cessy’s lungs. She ignored her family to aim the truck back at the opening in the roadblock.

A wave of destruction crested over the treeline across the river. Trees snapped as they lurched upwards.

The wave broke through. The worm’s endless body writhed down the riverbank, pulled sideways as it slithered in the direction of its elongated body. It churned up mud as it yanked itself down the bank.

With one eye on the road, Cessy couldn’t focus at all on the worm’s body. She saw where it was by the destruction it caused.

The riverbank vomited up mud high enough that it splattered the high branches behind it, even reaching the opposite riverbank to smack on the jeep’s windshield.

Cessy steered her truck between the downed trees and the steep hill. A rock scraped her door. Surprise joined Dad’s moans of pain. Mom screamed. Kate yelled apologies to Dad.

The shaking earth triggered a rockslide. Rocks pelted the doors and windows. Ahead, the road grew steeper as it headed over the mountain ridge. More cracks opened in the asphalt.

They drove past the barrier.

Mom screamed over Lockler and the Maple Table’s unintelligible ranting. Kate pinned her against the front seat. Kate squeezed her eyes shut.

The worm splashed across the shallow river, an indiscriminate tidal wave kicking up water and silt.

Cessy pulled out of the way to look in her mirror for Landis. He’d come to help her; she wasn’t going to drive off and leave him.

Cars scraped through the opening in the roadblock, then gunned it up the road.

Landis waited off to the side. He’d make himself the last one through.

Cessy yelled at him over the radio. “Come on! We’re not leaving you behind!”

The state trooper and the local who’d moved the barrier struggled to get the jeep back up to the road. Landis yelled at them to abandon it. The two men scrambled up the muddy hill.

A muddy wave pursued them. The wriggling wall kicking up water and silt.

Landis waved them into his truck.

Cars and trucks inched past the roadblock and then accelerated up the mountain. The shaking earth amplified the rockslide to turn the path through the roadblock into a barrier itself. The last car before Landis bottomed out, blocking the path. Wheels spun.

It was the young teenager Cessy had seen earlier. Somehow he’d ended up in the back of the caravan.

He locked terrified eyes with Cessy.

Landis acted quickly, coming up behind him to shove the low car with his truck.

But the worm was up the riverbank, shaking loose the foundations of the mountain. Rocks thundered downhill through the trees. Dirt slid down to pile up against the teenager’s Toyota. The pine tree that the tall man had started cutting lost its roots’ grip in the mountainside. The bottom of the trunk slid downhill and the topmost branches smacked into the mountainside. Other trees followed suit, until a deluge of trees sledded towards the three remaining cars, each massive enough to crush a vehicle. The worm snapped at them from the opposite direction.

Cessy floored the accelerator. The truck lurched forward, slamming their family back in their seats.

The worm’s gray body, still resisting inspection, filled Cessy’s field of vision to the right. An irregular barrage of sliding trees and tumbling rocks from the left, racing to meet them first.

Ahead, the worm whipped across the road, like a gargantuan firehose gone wild. It tore into the sinking mountain. It cut through the earth with ease.

Cessy stomped the brake. The truck fishtailed.

A wall of impossible gray flesh swept over them. Toothy maws gaped wide.

65

Cessy wasn’t sure if her eyes were open.

She felt numb. A whim satisfied. But her hunger was unsatiated.

Pressure on her cheeks like she’d stuck her head out the car window going sixty miles per hour through a fogbank. A layer of fine sand beneath her shoeless foot, and under that, warm ground.

A soft whimpering to her left.

Cessy tried to open her eyes.

A silent torrent of disfigured tree branches and silty water swarmed around her. A black leather snake looped around her wrist, and Cessy realized she was looking at her 4Runner’s steering wheel, distorted by the worm’s passage.

Dizziness assaulted her, followed by prickling pain behind her eyes.

She squeezed her eyes shut and covered them with her hands.

The pain subsided.

“Kate?” Cessy called. She heard her own voice, flat and dull.

“I can’t tell which way is out,” Kate whispered.

It startled Cessy how close her sister was.

“Don’t open your eyes. I was here before. You can’t open your eyes.”

“Yeah, I figured.” She reached blindly for Kate, found a rubbery mass. It jerked away.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t touch yourself. Keep your eyes shut. Trust me, you want to perceive as little as possible.”

Cessy withdrew her hand. The weight of her arm was all wrong. “Where are we? Did it swallow us?”

“No,” Kate said. “I think we got dragged along. Something similar happened to me already. Do you feel everything moving around us?”

“It’s all stretched out. Are we the same way?”

“Don’t think about that. If we walk in the right direction, we should be able to get out. But I feel so turned around.”

“You feel that against your skin, right?” The feeling of driving through a thick fog bank picked up. “Is that the current from the worm’s wake? We should just walk against it.”

“Maybe. But the worm doesn’t move in a straight line. We could follow that for miles, twisting in circles before finding our way out.”

“You have a better suggestion?”

“We figure it out after we find Mom and Dad. Where are they?”

Cessy didn’t ask, Will they even come with us? Instead, she asked, “Where’s Landis? And the two men in the truck with him, and the kid in the Toyota? Did they get dragged along, too?”

“They were, what, twenty, thirty feet away from us? If they got dragged, who knows how far away they are now. They’ll have to find their own way back.”

“I can’t leave Landis. He came here to help me.”

“We’ll be lucky if we can find Mom and Dad,” Kate said. She called for them again.

Cessy’s stomach ached for food. The feeling was distant. “Do you feel that hunger?”

“It’s the worm’s. Focus on something else. Something you’re sure is yours. Your impatience with me.”

That wasn’t hard.

“Mom,” Kate called. “Dad.”

The hum of nails on a chalkboard. In the distance, tree trunks cracking.

“Mom!” Kate called loudly. “She’s close. Can you hear her?”

Cessy listened. Low breathing. A woman’s angry voice in the distance, not her mother’s, but one she thought she recognized. “No, but there’s someone else.”

A sound like marbles falling onto glass and then rolling away. Kate gasped. “I tripped on something.”

“What was it?” The sandy ground was flat under Cessy’s feet. In the brief moment her eyes had been opened, she’d been too distracted by her immediate swirling surroundings to look for any landmarks.

“Don’t open your eyes!”

“I’m not. Where’s Mom?”

“You don’t hear her?”

Cessy listened closely. The woman’s voice was louder now, but she couldn’t tell from which direction it came. She caught only snippets. “...pay for their own vests...prosecutors not taking into account the full circumstances...”

“I hear someone else,” Cessy said. “Nobody who was with us.”

“No, it’s Mom,” Kate said. “Mom, come towards my voice.”

Soft vibrations in the ground beneath Cessy’s feet.

The woman grew louder until she was perfectly audible. She spoke with reasonable passion, like Cessy’s early mentor in the police department. “If we’re going to maintain the thin blue line, we need proper equipment. Some of you from wealthier counties, you’re well taken care of. But remember your brothers in blue from places like Jacobsville, Connecticut, where officers are buying their own Kevlar vests, because the standard issues vests are outdated and don’t offer real protection.”

Cessy reached toward where she’d last heard her sister. “That’s not Mom.”

Kate was in the middle of her own crisis. “I love you, too, but stop a second and listen to me.”

The police pundit drew closer. “Have some compassion for your fellow officers, and stop tolerating prosecutors, legislators, and voters who refuse to acknowledge that you’re out there every day, putting your life on the line. Remember, the thin blue line is a human shield. Anyone who won’t hold that line is a criminal.”

She let the word “criminal” slither out, like Lockler did with “vermin.” Cessy realized what was happening.

“Kate, you’re not talking to Mom.”

“I’m trying, but she won’t answer.”

“It’s not her. I’m hearing a talking head telling me cops should be better funded. They’re personalized lures.”

Cessy listened through the ranting. Finally, Kate spoke. “I want my mom back.”

She must have heard Mom speaking reasonably, like she had before the Hamlin radio waves were invaded by Lockler and the Maple Table. Cessy’s lack of a relationship with her parents made this easier for her than for Kate, who’d been their pride and joy, before they’d replaced pride and joy with vanity and paranoia.

Cessy found her baby sister. She tried to hug her, but Kate felt loose and unstable.

“Don’t touch me!”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel like this. But that’s not Mom you’re listening to.”

In another time, another situation where she hadn’t spent two days learning to fear the worm, she might have been tricked by her personalized lure. She thought of Mom and Dad, at home in the town where they grew up, where they met, where they raised their children. They came of age as the mine closed. Their adulthood started with an optimistic determination to keep their home alive, despite the economic rug being pulled out from under them. As the decades passed, that optimism morphed into stubbornness. Dad’s accounting clients went out of business, or relocated to Charleston, and then to a larger city. Mom’s therapy clients lost faith in themselves as they failed to support their families. Stubbornness surrendered to desperation as their own children had to leave home to start careers, and they realized that those few youth who stayed behind were robbed of potential by an empty town.

“Kate,” Cessy said, “stay close.”

When Lockler first came on the radio, Mom must have felt the empathetic pain of a hundred therapy clients. Dad felt the personal shame of seeing his own ledger dip further into the red each year.

Laced in with this compassion, a hunger pang like she’d smelled a cookout after she’d skipped breakfast and lunch. The worm sensed desperate grief and sensed an opportunity for a crumb of satiation.

Cessy tried to push that aside to instead embrace the compassion she’d been pushing away since she arrived.

It was tainted.

Mom and Dad were afraid for the future, wounded by the world, torn between home and safety, but so were millions of people. Mom and Dad had embraced Lockler’s hate for “vermin.” If Cessy allowed herself to be overcome with compassion for those who lacked it, she’d get promoted to desk duty and spend all day with the department shrink. Her duty was to protect her fellow man--compassion without terms was an unaffordable luxury.

Kate sniffed. “They’ve gotta be close, right?”

Kate still had that luxury. Cessy couldn’t let her baby sister abandon their parents. Cessy lacked compassion for their choice to be duped by Lockler, but she decided to believe that was a perversion of her own emotions by the worm. She’d believe the proper reaction was mercy, even if it wasn’t what she was feeling right now.

“We’ll find her,” Cessy said.

In turning a desired emotion into action, Cessy’s anger at her parents softened enough to make room for what had to come next.

“They’re still hearing their own lures, right?” Cessy suggested.

“They must be,” Kate said. “If they’re nearby--which they must be--then they can hear us. They’re ignoring us because of whatever Lockler and the Maple Table are telling them.”

“We’ll talk them out of it.” Cessy said. “Or find them and drag them home. What if I look around for just a second?”

“No,” Kate hissed.

“Then we need to guess what they’re hearing, and convince them to listen to us.” Cessy stumbled as she kicked something hard. It broke, made a sound like marbles hitting glass and rolling away. “What was that? What is this place?”

She felt around with her foot. Her toes hooked in a hole in the ground. She caught herself on Kate’s warped shoulder. “I almost fell,” she breathed. She felt around inside the hole. There was no bottom, no sides. She stretched and felt the underside of the thin shell upon which they walked.

She went stiff. “The ground could give way any second.”

Kate gently pulled Cessy along. “That means we can’t stay here. Help me find them.”

“Where are we?” Cessy stepped carefully, now paying close attention to how the ground felt under her shoeless foot. Loose sand that gave too much under her weight. “Is this the worm’s home?”

“If it has a home, I don’t think we’d survive it,” Kate said. “We’re somewhere between. Breathing oxygen the worm dragged with us.”

“And if we fall through?”

“We wouldn’t be between anymore.”

Cessy kicked something again, this time with her shoeless foot. It felt like undercooked meat stuffed full of marbles. The meat puffed into dust at the impact of her foot. Marbles scattered, the staccato bouncing incongruent with the fine sand under her feet. The steady wind whistled over the hole she’d created.

“How many times did you get dragged somewhere like this?” Cessy asked.

“Four,” Kate said.

“How did you get out.”

“I walked back the way I came. I wasn’t in a car then. I felt what direction I’d come from more.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier.”

“Now’s not the time,” Kate said.

A horrible thought occurred to Cessy. “What if Mom and Dad already fell through?”

“No. We’d have heard them yell. They’re probably nearby, listening to Lockler.”

Cessy didn’t share her sister’s faith, but she was done fighting against her. If she wanted to allow herself to feel compassion like Kate still did, she needed to act as if she already felt it. “How do we convince them to come with us?”

“I’m thinking.”

“We can offer to bring them back to Hamlin.”

“Lie to them like you did to Jackson?”

That stung. “If it works.”

“It wouldn’t. Lockler and the Maple Table already have them all mixed up on truth versus fiction.”

“Then they should believe anything we tell them.”

“No, they’ll believe whatever they want to. It’s true if they like it, false if they doesn’t.” Kate sighed. “This is why I didn’t contact them when I got here. The one phone call was enough to know they’d abandoned rationality.”

“We’ll tell them what they want to hear.” Cessy had negotiated her share of hostage situations, before the specialists arrived.

“They want to hear that Hamlin can return to the way they remember it, before they grew up and noticed problems. But if we tell them that, then they won’t leave with us.”

“What do we do?”

“I don’t know.” Kate swallowed. “But we can’t leave them.”

Cessy thought of her most recent conversations with Mom. When Cessy first arrived, she wouldn’t believe that Kate had come to Hamlin. After they called Sheriff Miller on Cessy, Mom chose to believe that the old man wouldn’t hurt Cessy, despite knowing that he’d helped the worm take plenty of “vermin.” And half an hour ago, when the town was literally collapsing around them, with shadowy evidence of something unnatural hanging in the air, Mom still chose to believe that it was people who didn’t love Hamlin enough who were destroying her home.

Kate was right. Mom would believe whatever matched what she already believed. And Dad would do the same, but get more angry about it.

“I know you’re just helping me. I get it. Even if she’s in denial about it, Mom hurt a lot of people. But she’s still my mom, you know? It’s like, every bad thing she’s done is up on the surface, but the solid foundation is still there. The surface doesn’t change what’s underneath.”

“It’ll be the same for Mom,” Cessy realized. “These lies she chooses to believe, they’re all surface. She doesn’t deny that Hamlin is dying--only whose fault it is. She didn’t deny that you were missing--only that you could be in Hamlin, because she didn’t want you to be. She didn’t deny that Sheriff Miller was capable of violence--only that he would betray their friendship to hurt me.”

“She said it was your fault he tried to kill you.”

That took the wind out of her sails a little. “You’re right. She’s more poisoned than I’m making it sound. But there’s solid truths she still believes in. Start there, and we can convince her.”

“Like what?”

“How much she loves you, for one.”

“She loves both of us.”

“I know that. But any bad thing happening to me, she’s going to blame me. I brought bad things on myself as a teenager, so she’ll default to that. But you’re the friendliest girl in Hamlin. The only reason you left home was to work for a nonprofit.”

“It was more than that.”

“You get my point. She loves you. She’ll help you.”

“With what?”

“Getting out of here. Getting to safety.”

“I don’t know. I’ll try it.” She dropped her voice to a barely audible whisper. “Once she gets close, you grab her and don’t let go. Hopefully they’re still handcuffed. I don’t think I’m strong enough to force either of them to do anything.”

“What happened to don’t touch anything?”

“It might drive you crazy. Try not to let it.”

Cessy didn’t want to drag her kicking and screaming mother overtop an eggshell-thin floor. Especially not if doing so might break her mind. But it might be the only way. “Okay. Can you get us out of here?”

“We’ll see.” Kate turned around to yell. “Mom. Dad! Help!”

66

It wasn’t until honest fear and desperation lined Kate’s voice that Mom responded.

“You all go on. Your father and I are going home.” She was closer than Cessy realized. Less than ten feet away.

Dad said, “What are you doing with your eyes shut like that? You can’t see where you’re going.”

“Keep them closed,” Kate whispered. “Dad, are your eyes open?”

“Of course.” He paused, listening to something Cessy couldn’t hear. “It’s just our girls. Won’t take but a minute.”

“What do you see?” Cessy asked, unable to help herself. She needed to stay silent to let Mom and Dad forget the animosity between them to focus on their love for Kate.

“What sort of question is that?” Mom asked. “We see you two standing there like you’re both ‘it’ in hide-and-seek.”

Kate spoke up. “I need you guys’ help. Help us get out of here. Out of wherever this is, and out of Hamlin.”

The humid wind left moisture on Cessy’s skin.

Finally, Mom answered. “Your father and I raised you to be more responsible than that.”

Cessy’s heart dropped. Did Hamlin’s worship of “personal responsibility” outweigh the fundamental truth of Mom’s love for her daughter?

“Please,” Kate begged. “Daddy?”

Kate’s occasional regression to acting like a little girl around their father normally annoyed Cessy, but now she silently willed it to work.

“You know you’ll always be my princess,” Dad said, “but you gotta learn to be your own queen. Your mother’s right. We need to go home. You two girls don’t need our help to make it back to D.C.”

Dad paused again, listening to something they couldn’t hear.

Cessy’s mind raced, searching for a way to dispute Lockler’s most likely arguments. But she didn’t understand the logic of his rants, so she couldn’t guess what he’d say now.

“Please,” Kate begged, “just help me this one last time. I promise I won’t ask again.” But her tone already sounded defeated.

Disapproval dripped from Mom’s tone. “You can’t depend on me the rest of your life. It’s my duty as a mother to push you out of the nest when you’re ready to fly.”

Cessy bit her tongue. Mom was clinging to platitudes about duty and responsibility to avoid compassion, even for her own daughter in need. But if Cessy accused her of that now, it’d all be over. One sign of attack, and Mom would retreat behind barriers of irrationality, with Dad leaping to her defense.

When Kate spoke again, she was farther away from Cessy, closer to where their parents’ voices was coming from. “Dad, you promised I could come to you for anything. I’m lost. Help me leave.”

Cessy reached for her, grasped empty air. Kate couldn’t try to grapple with Mom herself. Even malnourished, Kate might be able to overpower Mom. But Mom was still handcuffed to Dad. Kate couldn’t force them both to leave. Kate would too likely lose the scuffle and they’d lose their parents.

Or they’d all four fall through the thin ground.

Mom responded, angrier. “You’re a responsible young woman. You can’t rely on me and your father all the time. I thought we raised you right. Don’t make me doubt that.”

“You’ve always helped me when I needed it,” insisted Kate.

Cessy realized that Kate didn’t know how to react to Mom not being proud of her. She didn’t recognize Mom’s exasperated tone, an inch from throwing up her hands and giving up.

Cessy cut in. “She’s asking for me. I need your help.”

“What do you mean?”

Kate whispered, “What are you doing?”

“I’ve screwed up again. I thought I could come back to Hamlin and feel at home. But I burned too many bridges before.” None of that made sense. It contradicted the facts that Mom knew. Cessy was in town to look for Kate. But Mom wanted to hear Cessy confess to being a problem child, to wanting to make amends, to realizing she never could. “I just want to leave now.”

“I’m so glad you realize that,” Mom said. “We still want you to visit on holidays, but you’re right that you’ll probably never feel at home in Hamlin. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“That shows a lot of maturity,” Dad said, as if Cessy weren’t a grown woman. “I’m happy to see that. You two go on home now, and we’ll talk soon.”

“We need your help to leave.”

“You too?” Dad asked. “You girls need to step up and be adults.”

“Why do you think you need our help?” Mom asked. “Just open your eyes and walk back to your car.”

Cessy didn’t need an answer that made sense, just one that appealed to their parental duty. It didn’t work for Kate, because they already saw Kate as responsible. The parental duty was to help Kate finish becoming an adult. For Cessy, who’d been a problem child that the whole town knew about, who’d fled to the city and never even got married until she was almost, and then was divorced three years later, she’d already become an adult, but not one they was proud of.

Mom felt like she’d failed in her duty to turn Cessy into a respectable woman. Dad had failed to teach her hard work and responsibility. So giving her a shot at redeeming herself was a deeper appeal to their sense of responsibility than Kate’s appeal had been.

“Because I want to go home. Maybe work it out with Pat. Plant a flower garden.”

“Oh honey, I want those things for you, too.” Mom paused, again listening to the lure they couldn’t hear. “No, of course she means it. She loved him. They reminded me of when me and Rusty were young.”

Cessy couldn’t let Mom hear more of Lockler’s appeal. “Can you help me?” She took a gentle step towards Mom. The ground sank beneath her feet. Her heart leapt and she gently stepped away.

“I don’t understand what you need from me. I want to see you on the right path, I really do, but your father and I need to get home.”

Cessy decided to follow the thread that had worked. “Can we talk about Pat? He always respected you. What should I say to him so we can try again?”

“Let’s talk later, dear. You know I’m willing to talk to you, day or night. I’m never more than a phone call away.”

“That’s technology getting between us.” Cessy had heard Dad say those exact words. “Walk with me for a few minutes so I can ask your advice about Pat, and then we’ll drop you off at home.”

Cessy heard Kate suck in a breath. She’d gone too far.

“Hold on now,” Dad said.

“You wouldn’t let me out of the car before,” Mom said.

Cessy doubled down. “I’ve been so lonely without Pat. Should I call him and tell him I want him back?”

It worked.

“Oh no, honey. No man wants a desperate woman. Invite him out for coffee first. To catch up. Tell him how you’ve been working on yourself. Share responsibility for what happened.”

Cessy lunged forward. Her right hand found empty air. Her left struck Mom in the chest. Her hand sank too deep into unnatural flesh.

Mom gasped. Cessy’d misjudged where Mom was standing. Before Mom could fall onto the thin ground, Cessy hooked her arm around her back. She felt wispy in Cessy’s arms.

Cessy blindly reached down Mom’s arm to find the handcuffs. The links of the chain were stretched, but solid. Dad’s wrist was on the other end.

Mom tried to jerk away, but Cessy held her tight. Mom fought, realized that Cessy wasn’t letting go, and then realized what Cessy had intended from the start. “You lied to me.”

Cessy tried not to think of the inhuman form in her arms. “We’ll be back to normal when we get out of here?”

Kate said, “That’s how it worked in the mine.”

Something slammed into Cessy’s chest.

Dad yelled. “That’s my wife you’re assaulting.”

Cessy held tighter to Mom. She swung her fist like a hammer, caught Dad’s shoulder, then his bad arm. He groaned.

“Pat cheated on me. How could you tell me to share responsibility?”

Lockler screamed at them. “Vermin! Thieving rats! You should all drown in the river.”

Kate grabbed Cessy’s wrist and tugged her family upwind. They stumbled forward, Kate directing Cessy, Cessy dragging Mom, Dad groaning as he was tugged along.

Lockler’s voice was unimpeded by static. If Cessy opened her eyes, she’d expect to see him not ten feet behind her. “Unpatriotic, ungrateful, unrepentant, uneducated.”

Mom wailed. “I’m not! It’s not my fault.”

“He understands that,” Dad said.

“Where are we going?” Cessy asked.

“Back the way we came,” Kate said.

“You said it was a winding path the worm had taken. You said you were turned around.”

“You have any other ideas?”

The hosts of the Maple Table spoke from in front of them. “Any reasonable individual would understand you can’t let rats run wild in your home.”

“And you can’t set them free outside, either.”

“No sir. They run right back in.”

“But it’s important to be humane. No poison. No glue. Use a quick kill trap.”

“Don’t try anything,” Cessy warned.

The breeze died. It left behind thick, humid atmosphere that sat heavy on Cessy’s skin.

“No,” Kate whispered.

“Which way now?” Cessy asked. “How do we tell where we came from?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said. “We were on the road by the river, but the worm wasn’t moving in one direction when we got hooked. It was moving towards where its body left Hamlin, but also snapping back to a taught line between where it entered and exited. So what part of Hamlin was it dragging with it when we got caught?”

Mom had given up fighting, and now was weeping quietly. Lockler and the Maple Table harassed them with rabid insults explained with careful reasoning.

“I don’t know,” Cessy said. “The mountains? The church? Rag Hill?”

“Do you smell anything? Hear anything?”

Only the radio hosts’ attacks. Only the earthy scent of the ground beneath them. “I’m going to open my eyes.”

“No!” Kate said. “Mom, Dad do you see the way out?”

“I see my daughter betraying me,” Mom said.

“What’s around us?”

“We’re not helping you ruin our reputations,” Dad said.

“If it’s not hurting them, why can’t we look around?” Cessy asked.

“Do they sound unhurt to you?”

“I don’t know!”

“I’ve already spent days down near it,” Kate said. “Another extra second won’t do much more damage.”

Cessy didn’t bother to argue. She opened her eyes before Kate could finish her decision.

The world repelled her gaze. Uneven, dusty ground, a color she couldn’t describe but that felt like when Pat said he wasn’t attracted to her body anymore. She couldn’t look at the sky. She tried, and in the upper periphery of her vision, something like a flickering forest fire infected with wriggling tapeworms. But her muscles refused to point her eyes upwards, choice overpowered by a persisting, primal panic.

Ahead, reality swirled. Sawdust and lumber mixed with the joists and pipes of a crawlspace, and the red plastic booths of the diner. Everywhere the worm had been, stretched out and dragged along, now tugged out of reality and towards the worm’s home.

If they headed for that blended mess, Cessy feared they’d be split apart, pieces of them crossing back over and spread across Hamlin.

She looked to her left, looking past Kate.

Kate was being pulled apart. Her hair blew in the wind, but instead of whipping around her head, it blew straight through the back of her head and out her face. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and the distance between them wavered from an inch, to a foot, to a mile.

Cessy grew nauseous. She refused to look down at herself or at her parents.

The harassment of the Maple Table continued, but they had no visible physical form.

Cessy didn’t look behind her to see if Lockler was standing there. She didn’t want to see behind her. She suspected the only reason she hadn’t lost her mind from opening her eyes was that she was looking at pieces of Hamlin dragged outside. She didn’t want to see what “outside” was on its own.

She spotted something. She couldn’t judge distance--everything felt both impossibly far and claustrophobically close at once--but direction still existed. To her left, the only clear landmark in sight. A rock formation the size of Everest, narrow on the bottom, wide on top. Maul Rock.

Cessy closed her eyes before she could see if there was a noose hanging from it.

“Don’t open your eyes,” she ordered.

“One of us has to,” Kate said.

“I already did. This way.” She guided Kate and dragged Mom in the direction of Maul Rock. Mom must have found her footing and lost her will, because she followed much easier.

They trudged forward. River water misted over them. Coal dust puffed up from the ground, sticking to their wet clothes. Cessy had to push aside forest undergrowth and empty grocery store shelves.

The air was suddenly less humid. The ground solid under Cessy’s feet. The sound of a river gurgling by.

“Timms?” Landis’ voice.

Cessy opened her eyes. They were back on the road, fifty yards past the felled trees.

The pavement was cracked into rubble. The steep river bank was turned-up loose mud. The forest up the mountainside had more trees fallen than still standing.

Landis walked towards them up the road. His clothes were drenched and his nose was bleeding.

Down in the town, houses collapsed, and great crashes echoed up to them.

Across the valley, Black Gold Peak was missing from the ridge.

Kate cried in relief.

Cessy loosened her grip on Mom’s waist. She turned to look at her. Mom looked confused. A broken chain dangled from the cuff around her wrist.

“Where’s Dad?” Cessy asked.

Mom pursed her lips. “He went to get help. Lockler helped him loose.”

“You let him go?” Cessy lost control.

Kate looked up. “Dad didn’t get out?”

“He’s getting help,” Mom said. “You were kidnapping us.”

Cessy screamed in her mother’s face. “Where do you think we just were?”

Kate grabbed her. Landis ran to help.

Cessy crumpled. She thought she’d been prepared to sacrifice whatever it took to save her little sister. She’d accepted that she’d carry the guilt of abandoning their parents. But Kate had forced her to make the right choice, and save anybody who’d listen. She felt hope to save their family, just long enough to mourn its loss.

She cried into Kate’s shoulder. “I couldn’t make him listen.”

67

Cessy didn’t know what to do next.

The ruined town below them, the torn apart hillside beside them, the asphalt rubble beneath them.

The 4Runner was crushed between a fallen tree and a fallen boulder.

From this height, it was difficult to be sure, but Cessy counted fewer than twenty buildings still standing in the valley below. She suspected the only survivors were those who Landis and the state troopers had helped escape.

Mom leaned on Kate. She peered up the mountain and down to the river. “Where’s your father?”

A dry, fresh breeze drifted down the road. The young teenager sat on the yellow lines up the road. The forest created a tunnel of green over him.

Kate cried silently, hiding it from Mom.

Cessy agreed with her approach. Let Mom stay in denial for now. Her home was rubble. One trauma at a time.

Kate touched Mom’s arm. “Let’s go make sure that kid’s okay.”

Mom looked away from her tattered home. “I think that’s Wanda’s grandson.”

Kate led her to the boy.

The local man who’d helped clear the roadblock sat off the side of the road, running his fingers through the grass.

Landis came up to Cessy. He staggered like he was drunk. “My head is killing me.”

“Where’s the state trooper who was with you?” she asked.

He shook his head. “The local and I ran towards what we recognized, but the trooper got stuck listening to those voices. He didn’t know what they were. I at least had your warnings, and Mark had apparently been ignoring them the past month.”

A police officer trying to help people, caught up in indifferent forces. Maybe if she’d checked on Kate sooner, got involved before things got out of hand, her brother in blue would be going home tonight.

“What are we going to tell people?” Cessy asked.

Landis shrugged. “There’s over a hundred survivors. No way we could get a story straight. Tell the truth, tell them it doesn’t make sense but it’s what you saw. Suggest maybe someone slipped you hallucinogens. They’ll call it mass hysteria and come up with an explanation.”

Cessy shook her head. “A hundred survivors. Hamlin had two thousand people.”

“I’m sorry. Your dad didn’t make it out?”

She shook her head.

“Ah geez, I’m sorry, Timms.” Landis put an awkward hand on her shoulder. “How’s your mom doing?”

“She hasn’t accepted reality yet. It’ll be bad when she does.” Cessy tried to take in everything around her. The childhood home that’d carved her into an adult while it slowly died, was finally dead. Her father. “I could have done more. If I hadn’t waited so long to check on Kate. If I’d kept in better touch with my parents. I should have noticed what was happening.”

“Don’t do that to yourself. People make decisions, and they have to live with those decisions. Your parents decided to listen to those broadcasts, if that’s what you say happened. Your sister decided to go investigate without asking for help. They own those choices. We’re a shield against bad choices, but not a perfect one.”

“That speech worked when a hostage died,” Cessy said. “This is different.”

“That’s the only speech I’ve got,” Landis said. “You came here to help your sister, and she’s alive, isn’t she?”

Kate sat with Mom next to the boy. The boy cried onto Mom’s shoulder.

“There’s a hundred people who wouldn’t be alive if you didn’t come back when you did.”

Cessy nodded. She tried not think about the hundreds more who might also still be alive if she’d come back earlier. Or if she’d kept a stronger relationship with Dad.

“You did what you could,” Landis said. “That’s all anybody can do.”

Sirens came from over the hill. Within seconds, a fleet of state troopers appeared.

“Let’s go talk to them,” Landis said.

Cessy looked back again at Hamlin, and the devastation the worm had caused after it got what it came for. She tried to believe what Landis had told her. She’d done what she could.

68

Cessy stomped through the snow to Mom’s apartment.

It was hopefully D.C.’s last snow of the year, before spring arrived.

She toted a wrapped bundle of fabric under her arm, along with a gift card to the quilting store. She’d made a guess on what Mom wanted, and then decided a gift card would make up for it if she guessed wrong.

She took a breath, reminded herself to stop second guessing all her decisions.

Seven months had passed since Cessy came to this apartment complex and discovered Kate to be missing. Six months since they’d moved Mom in next door.

Cessy kicked snow off her boots, knocked on the door, and walked inside.

Classic country music played on the stereo. Thrift shop furniture made up a cozy living room. A photo of Dad on the wall, next to a family photo from a few Christmases ago. The only photos of Dad that had survived--Kate had them on her phone.

Kate walked in from the kitchen, saw Cessy, and called behind her, “Cessy’s here!”

She helped Cessy with her coat.

“How’s she doing today?” Cessy whispered.

“Not great. I guess a birthday is like any other holiday. She’s thinking about what it’d be like with Dad here.”

“It’s weird without him.”

Kate set Cessy’s gift atop a small pile. “I had that dream again.”

“Back in the mine?”

“This time, I was in my apartment, but it was dark and dusty like the mine. The walls were bulging with the worm behind them.”

“Dreams can be stressful.” Cessy gently prodded, inviting Kate to dispute that it was a meaningless dream.

“My shrink says I’m learning to stop reliving trauma.”

The police psychologist had told Cessy something similar. “Do you agree?”

“Some days. Others, I go to work and there’s a client who reminds me of Dad, so I bring hell down on his scummy landlord. It’s not proportionate, but it feels good.”

Mom walked in from the kitchen. She gave Cessy a genuine smile, overlapping moist eyes. “I told you not to worry about a gift.”

“It’s your birthday, Mom.”

“I wish you’d tell that to your friends at the FBI. They called not two hours ago, wanting to ask more questions.”

“Just tell them the truth.”

“They’ll think I’m crazy.”

They thought it was a sinkhole that released hallucinogenic gasses, but that didn’t explain why they’d only found bodies for half the missing persons.

A timer beeped. Kate hurried into the kitchen.

“I invited some girls from the quilting circle,” Mom straightened a shelf of porcelain angels that were already straight. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.” They’d set Mom up with every social group they could think of, trying to avoid her turning back on talk radio. Mom didn’t like the D.C. and Fairfax culture, didn’t feel like she fit in. The quilting group was the only one that’d stuck. “A bunch of small town girls who moved in with their kids,” Mom had called them.

“Here, let me turn this off.” Mom went to the radio to switch off the music. As she flipped the knob from CD to OFF, it passed over FM, and then AM. A quick burst of modern country, followed by a quick burst of talk radio ranting.

Cessy’s heart leapt to her throat. Kate appeared in the doorway, hands in oven mitts. “What was that?”

Mom laughed and waved them off. “I wanted some peace and quiet now that my daughters are here.”

It hadn’t been Lockler. The voice was too young, too nasally.

Cessy and Kate held each other’s gaze, silently asking if everything was okay.

Cessy forced a laugh. “I got spooked there. No worries.”

Kate blinked slowly, and then disappeared back into the kitchen.

Cessy looked at her mother and saw a partially rehabilitated woman, who’d let anger drain her of compassion. She and Kate had done everything they could to separate her from preached hate.

As Mom babbled about quilting circle gossip, and the burst of staticky hate lingered in the living room, Cessy hoped they’d done enough.

<<<<>>>>

From the Author:

I’m glad you survived The Piper’s Graveyard.

If you enjoyed the ride, I’d be eternally grateful if you could leave an Amazon review. Even just a star rating is beyond helpful.

If you’d like to find out what happened to Jackson after he was swallowed by the worm, download my free short story, “Esophagus.”

>>>Tap here to claim your free copy of “Esophagus”

When you click that link, you can also sign up for my newsletter where I’ll keep you updated on upcoming books, and try to convince you to watch the weird indie horror movies my wife won’t watch with me.

Speaking of other books, keep reading to see what else is on the menu…

If you want more regular folks confronting cosmic horrors, check out my book It Waits on the Top Floor.

It starts with a skyscraper springing up overnight, an over-eager 9-year-old breaking in to search for treasure, and a terrified dad chasing after him.

By the end… well, I won’t give anything away, but let’s just say that it gets as cosmic and Weird-with-a-capital-W as The Piper’s Graveyard. Probably moreso.

>>>Tap here to start reading It Waits on the Top Floor

One last note:

If you’ve already read my book BOOM, then you may have noticed some overlap with the supernatural threats in The Piper’s Graveyard. That’s intentional. My horror novels have so far been regular people confronting horrors that slip out of the infinite dimensions of the Periphery.

If you haven’t yet read BOOM, I hope you do. It’s a dark urban fantasy thriller, where people use reality-bending magic to protect themselves against horrors like you just experienced in The Piper’s Graveyard. If you’ve ever read Dresden Files or Neverwhere, and wished that the world and monsters were more like something from Jeff VanderMeer or Clive Barker, then BOOM is for you.

>>>Tap here to start reading BOOM

Once again, thanks for reading.