Still dressed. Different sizes, because some were adults.
Some were—
Children.
He was close enough that he could touch the nearest, a woman. His hand felt the frozen, crinkly material of the skirt. The body twisted a bit, the head hanging down, gaping right at Jack because the hook had to be embedded in the back.
Sharon Blair’s eyes wide open.
Her dead, dull face for once registering something.
Horror.
His mind repeating dully:
Things that had to be done. He had seen enough. He knew enough.
He limped out of the freezer. As carefully as he had opened it, he shut it.
He went over to his hiding place, near the fallen knife. His journey from there seeming to have started a lifetime earlier.
Before he knew—really knew—
Crouching down. Listening. So quiet.
34
2:28 A.M.
He heard the laughter.
Dunphy the cook, his helpers—shit, they were coming back. The laughter louder. No way now to get out before they returned.
He stayed crouched.
The only guide to what was happening now were the sounds. The steps outside. The cook’s loud drunken voice. The others, the human hyenas at his side, laughing at anything, everything.
The voices passed close by, and the cook’s tone shifted.
“Chuck, go give the damn oven a look. Got to be cooked down soon. And Willy, let’s finish breaking this fucker down. I wanna get some goddamn sleep tonight.”
Everyone getting back to their assigned tasks.
The human butchery getting back in operation.
But Jack hadn’t heard them shut the doors.
He edged as close as he could to the way out. There was an open space of six or seven feet before he could slip away.
If anyone looked, they’d see him. They’d be all over him.
Like a simple—what did his wife call it?—a mantra.
He gave them a few minutes to get to their places, two men hacking at what was left of Tom Blair, the other at the stove. Possibly all of them looking away when Jack started to move.
Which he did.
Staying low, nearly crawling to the open doors. The blessed outside air hitting his nostrils. Step after awkward step. Not so fast that the footfalls made any sound, not with all the bubbling, and now the hacking, the chopping, the sawing.
He finally got outside and moved like some insect, a hunted bug, a wounded cockroach hurrying as fast as he could to the safety of the dark woods, miles away, an eternity away as he sucked in each breath with every step.
Then deeper into the woods, still refusing to stop, though clearly sheltered by the darkness now.
Until, so deep, he felt he
His face catching a thorny bush, the prickers tearing at his face. He felt so happy, so goddamned happy that he had escaped, that he nearly cried with joy.
He had escaped.
He could get his family out of here.
He gave himself a few minutes to recover.
Such a small rest before he started moving again.
* * *
Christie sat on the couch, the throw blanket tight on her lap, when she heard the sound from the back.
She had seen the open bathroom window and realized how Jack had left. She looked in that direction and waited.
She heard a grunt. Then the sound of the window being shut, sluggish from humidity.
Jack’s steps told her he was limping.
He walked into the room. He might have passed right by her.
“Jack,” she said quietly, not wanting to startle him in the darkness.
He stopped.
“You’re awake,” he said.
“I woke up. You were gone.” A pause. Then: “Where were you?”
He tossed the keys onto the coffee table.
Even in the dark room, the keys caught some light.
“I had to know,” he said. “About those keys.”
“I figured that, when I woke up and you were gone. Guess I know you.”
She looked up at him standing there like her young son would if caught doing something he shouldn’t.
“Sit down.”
Jack maneuvered around the coffee table and sat down beside her, falling into the couch. His right arm brushed hers, and she felt the cooling sweat on it. Close now, she saw his face covered with sweat, and then the scratches.
“What happened?”
He looked away.
“Jack?”
When those eyes turned back to her, she knew he’d tell her everything.
The room felt frigid. Christie had her hands locked together.
She looked at Jack as he told her about the car, how the Blairs never left, then described what he saw inside the building with the smoking chimney.
He hesitated then. He couldn’t go on. But then without any prompting, he finally finished his tale.
And when he described going into the freezer and touching Sharon Blair’s body, Christie’s hands untwisted and went to her face.
Did she sob? Or was it merely a gasp that she needed to muffle? Was her heaving all from the fear?
