Beyond her husband and son, the pale thing slithered from the furrow in the ground. What she’d seen before had been its back or hip. Roots cracked and broke away. Clods of dirt cascaded from its body as it dragged its lower half out from beneath the broken oak tree. As it rose to its full height, tall and bone thin, a breeze blew the stink of the thing toward her. Ruth inhaled the odor only once before she bent and vomited into the field with such force that it felt as if her insides were torn.
In the midst of his struggle with their son, Bill finally noticed the thing. He shouted. Though bleeding and probably concussed, and though Benjy had been the one to injure him, Bill pleaded with the boy to run.
“Get back to the house!” Bill shouted over the sound of the rain. “Damn it, Benjy, let me go!”
Ruth barely noticed them now, focused entirely on the thing that had emerged. It quivered as if sickly, and then it began a rhythmic, moaning lament, like a wounded animal or a grieving mother.
Her cheek pulsed with pain from where Benjy had struck her. She wanted to run, but the creature seemed weak and anguished, and she knew she had to get Bill and Benjy away from here. The moment she took her first step toward them, Bill shouted at her. Frantic, he tried to wrestle away from Benjy.
“No, Ruthie! Go and get help!”
Yes, she thought. That made sense. Go and get help for this insanity. The Bergting farm was only a mile away. She’d run for the truck. The keys were in the glove box. She’d drive there and bring someone back—someone who would tell her she hadn’t lost her mind, that her little boy had turned on them with the strength to hold his father down, that the thing from the ground really existed, skin sickly pale and glistening in the rain. It felt as if her mind had tilted too far and capsized, with any rational thoughts struggling to stay afloat.
Ruth backed up, glancing at Benjy, his eyes and expression dull as death.
The thing from the ground turned to look at her, showing its face for the first time. Fish-belly white, crinkled in pain, it drooped its head and took a step toward Benjy and Bill. The eyes were alight with fascination, as if both this pain and this world were fantastic and new in its experience.
She began to scream. Everything in her wanted to run, but how could she leave her boy and her husband here, with this thing whose slender, dirt-crusted fingers had nails that had grown and curved like a corpse in the grave? For the first time, she made that connection, that it had come from the ground like a corpse, but whatever this thing was, it had never been human. She would never believe that.
Weak as if newborn, it stumbled to its knees just a foot from Bill and Benjy.
“Ruth, run!” Bill shouted, just before the thing grabbed his hair, yanked his head back, and sank savage teeth into his throat. Lifeblood jetted across the thing’s face while Benjy held Bill down. Bill tried to claw at its chest, tried to push it away. Thething shoved Benjy off him, drove its fingers through Bill’s chest with a hideous tearing noise, and cracked him open.
It drove its face into the cavity of his chest, broken ribs gouging its cheeks, and began to root inside, painting its nose and chin with dripping red. Benjy sat to one side where he’d been placed, and watched the rain fall.
Ruth found herself shaking. Unable to move, yet unable to stop herself from moving. Screams came from inside her and settled into a wail, rising and falling, somehow in harmony with the thing.
This time, when it snapped its gaze toward her, she found she could run.
She managed half a dozen steps before it took her down. The stink of it choked her. Vomit surged up her throat again. The thing barely seemed to notice. Fear turned even her voice limp, and she stared up at the thing. Her husband’s blood dripped from the monster’s face into her own. It tilted its head, studying her, and she saw that it was still in devastating pain, trembling as it held her down. Bits of viscera dotted its face and dangled from its black needle teeth.
Could she fight it? In such pain, shaking, could the thing be killed?
It turned toward Benjy, spoke to him in guttural nonsense, a harsh, clipped language like nothing she’d ever heard. Benjy only stared at it curiously, a white film covering his eyes. He did not understand. That same keening song of pain issued from the thing’s mouth again, wet and thick with her husband’s murder.
Now, Ruth thought. If she wanted to try to fight, and to run, it had to be now.
The thing tried to speak with Benjy again, but the boy didn’t move.
Ruth reached her hands out to either side, fingers searching for a sharp stone, anything that might be a weapon.
Sneering in frustration, the thing raised its right hand and drove a fist into her skull, which cracked easily. She uttereda grunt, and that was all. The thing pried long, grave fingers through the skin of her temple and pulled apart the shattered skull fragments. It dug those fingers into the spongy, jellied matter of her brain, scooped it out, and began greedily to eat.
Minutes passed. The thing drew strength from its meal, but much more than that. It drew knowledge. All that Ruth had known of her little patch of the world, including her language.
“Come, boy,” the thing said. “We have far to go and much to do before the sun rises again.”
13
The baggage car had been cold to begin with, but with the window broken, a constant blast of autumn chill blew around inside the car. Rain soaked the floor beneath the broken window, and they had moved vulnerable baggage away from the worst of it.
Violet wore a thick wool sweater she had appropriated from a steamer trunk. As a little girl, she had pocketed the occasional chocolate while the druggist wasn’t looking, but beyond that, she despised thievery, and intended to return the sweater before the train pulled into Boston. For now, this bit of unauthorized borrowing had been necessary.
The train began to slow.
Through the broken window, they could hear bells from up ahead.
Alfie poked his head out the broken window, blinking away the rain. “Approaching the station now. This’ll be Buffalo.”
