Page 62 of Mazywood

“We’ll both go get it,” Sharise said. “We stay together. No matter what.”

As they went toward the door, Sharise saw a guest book on a small table. She grabbed the pen attached to a rubber band and started writing. “I’m leaving Dad a note,” Sharise said. “So when he wakes up, he’ll know where we went. Maybe he can go get help.”

Imani looked over Sharise’s shoulder to make sure she wouldn’t make the note too long and waste precious seconds. Sharise wrote: We’re following the trail to find Mom. Get help!!! Then she laid the page on the floor beside Dad’s unmoving figure. Dad looked so dead that Imani stared at his chest to make sure he was breathing. She couldn’t tell with his jacket on, so she hovered her hand above his nose until she felt his breath from his nostrils. Relief made Imani feel so weak that she wanted to collapse on the blanket beside him.

Instead, she and her big sister went outside to retrieve the rifle.

Hunting on their own.

Grabbing the rifle was quick and easy. Afterward, all their gear was waiting in the garage where they’d left it. Wordlessly, they put on their snowboard boots and helmets and grabbed their boards. Imani shoved her gloves in her pocket.

They had passed through the kitchen to get to the garage, but neither of them thought about water or rations—even Imani, who knew from hours of untold survival television that food and water were hard to come by in the wild. But this was not the planned expedition Imani had imagined when she had carefully packed her backpack. An instinct told her to strap her GoPro to her forehead, so she’d grabbed that from the living room and arranged it around her helmet. Otherwise, her only thoughts were on Mom and the deer’s head and wondering if the Monster’s trail would only lead them to body parts and streaks of their mother’s blood. It was almost a terrible enough thought to keep her from wanting to look. Almost.

They nodded to each other that they were ready to go outside, their eyes locked with the awful possibilities they both knew might be waiting for them. The rifle was leaning against the door, so Imani reached for it first and started to pull the strap over her shoulder.

“I’ll take the gun,” Sharise said. “You don’t know how to use it.”

“Neither do you!” Imani said.

Sharise reached over and firmly grabbed the rifle the way she had held tight to Imani’s arm in the road to keep her from chasing Mom by herself. “No,” she said. “No way. I’m older—so I’ll take the gun.”

This time, Imani pulled away so hard that Sharise almost fell off balance, but she didn’t release the rifle. It bounced between them, the butt hitting Imani’s hip. Sharise met her strength, or surpassed it, pulling Imani off her feet. They both landed hard on the concrete floor. Between them, the rifle hit Sharise’s temple.

When Sharise cried out, Imani imagined she’d heard a gunshot. Believing she might have shot her sister, Imani pulled herself out of the strap and turned to look at Sharise, who was holding the side of her head. They were both sobbing, as if their struggle had released the shock and horror they had been reeling from since what happened on the road.

“Are you shot?” Imani said.

Sharise shook her head, and Imani fell into her. They hugged and sobbed and wished with all their might that they were only dreaming.

I’m still alive, Mom’s voice said in Imani’s head.

“I have better balance on the board,” Imani said, finally reclaiming her voice over her sobs. “I’ve seen more hunters use guns. I should have it. I won’t shoot Mom—I promise.”

Sharise checked the side of her head for blood, and there was none. Her helmet had protected her. She nodded. “All right,” she said. “Just be careful, Imani. Please. I can’t… If something…” She sobbed again.

“Nothing bad will happen,” Imani said.

But everything bad had happened—more bad than they had known existed, or was possible in a single lifetime, much less a single morning.

“Are you sure you heard her?” Sharise said.

Imani nodded. A panel in her head slid open to whisper the idea that she might have imagined Mom’s screams the way she knew she was imagining Mom’s voice, but the doubt only made her nod more fervently, driving the doubts away.

“She’s alive,” Imani said. “I know she is.”

The look on Sharise’s face told Imani that she still didn’t believe her—but she knew Imani believed it. Sharise Sadie Washington had decided that it was her job as Imani’s big sister to do anything she could to help her accept the reality that Mom was inexplicably gone, even if knowledge meant facing the beast that took her. And what if Imani was right?

The sisters carried their snowboards outside to face the hostile day.

Imani pointed out the tracks. As she’d thought, they led straight toward the ski hill. When they stood at the top of the hill, they clearly saw the same zigzagging swaths of snow disturbed by the Monster’s passage. But they couldn’t see blood. Not yet.

The Steps of Death waited beside them, but neither of them wanted to walk down those endless steps carrying their snowboards. The boards would be much faster. But this time, they would be venturing far beyond the boulder that was the only shrine to the dead deer. The tracks went beyond the ski trail to the stands of pines. The bluff forked steadily right, heading downward, even as the terrain gradually ascended to the left, higher toward the mountain peak. The gaps between the trees were wide at first after the trail’s descent, but Imani could already see trees growing more densely in the shadows of the woods beyond. She glanced at Sharise. Her sister looked terrified.

“Go where I go,” Imani said. “Look between the trees.”

Sharise nodded, mouthing the instructions, committing them to memory.

They didn’t say Ready, set, go. They didn’t count to three.