Page 37

“Is this a paw print?” I angle the light on it.

He crouches. “Looks like it to me.”

“It’s huge. A wolf?”

He shakes his head. “They don’t get that big. It’s a dog.” He straightens and peers toward the forest. “A big stray dog. Like a mastiff or something. That must be what—”

A scream cuts him short. A long, piercing, familiar scream.

Coming from the forest.

When Henry steps that way, I grab his arm. “It’s a trick. He can’t still be alive. We already know that. He stopped screaming.”

Henry shakes his head. “He could have passed out.”

“And not woken up when his leg ripped off?”

The scream comes again, and there are words now, a jumble of pleas and cries. “Help, please, please, please, someone, help!”

We look at each other, both of us bowing under the weight of those pleas, and for a moment, I really wish Henry didn’t give a shit. That he was someone who could turn a literal deaf ear to those screams.

But is that what I really want?

No, because that person would let me run into the forest alone. Instead, Henry says, “We’ll just … get closer. See how far in he is.”

I nod, and we walk to the edge of the forest as the cries come louder, and Henry mutters, “Fuck.”

Fuck, because we were both hoping those screams sounded a mile away. Deep enough in the forest that we had to refuse to follow.

And yet, again, is that what I really want? How far would be enough that we could say no, we won’t do this?

I take a deep breath. “He’s close.”

Henry nods.

I continue, “We should run to the bar.”

He nods again.

“We’re not running to the bar, are we,” I say.

He throws his shoulders back. “I’ll take you there. You can—”

“Didn’t you just say we shouldn’t split up?” I square my own shoulders. “Let’s set a limit. How far is too far?”

“More than fifty paces.”

“Okay. We stop at fifty paces.”

Fifty paces is bullshit, and we both know it. An arbitrary number, because those screams, those pleas, they aren’t letting us stop at fifty paces.

But the point isn’t that we’ll abide by the limit. It’s that we’ve set one, and that seems the rational thing to do.

We lock hands again, me armed with the flashlight and him with the metal rod. We walk quickly. The screams come from directly in front of us, and when I move the light, there’s flattened undergrowth and a snail’s trail of blood that makes my gorge rise.

The screams have died away to whimpers and mumbled cries for help, as if the man no longer expects anyone to come but he can’t stop trying.

Then my flashlight beam lands on something, and my first impulse is to back up fast, certain it’s lighted on some monstrous creature.