Page 5

So that’s why I call out to her through the door, why I tell her to leave the money on the counter, even though I can feel the way her trepidation spikes up into fear. She can sense something’s wrong.

A smart one, then. Just like the first Mary.

I press my cheek against the cool wall of my back room, listening to the victim as she scurries back out through the shop: her soft footsteps and the faint, distant rhythm of her racing heart. I don’t even check the screens to see if she left any money. It doesn’t matter. What matters is ensnaring her so I can slake the need rising hot and violent in my belly.

It’s been so fucking long.

The bell over the door rings, and my victim goes silent. I’ve got much, much stronger senses than a human, but even I have a hard time hearing her through two thick walls. I can smell her though, very faintly. The sweet syrup of her fear.

I look over at the CCTV screens, watching her get situated in her car. My fingers crawl up the wall until they find the activation switch for the road spikes. I installed the mechanism myself, running the wires through the narrow crawlspace beneath the building. Tore up the parking lot and the road itself with a jackhammer. It took a week, but no one questioned what I was doing, not out here. Not enough traffic. We’re too high in the mountains for the state to really give a shit.

I hold the activation switch, watching her car pull out onto the road. She’s going west, not that it matters. She’s not going to get there.

Her car engine roars, loud enough that I hear it through the walls. Just as she moves to the edge of the camera’s line of sight, I flip the switch.

There’s a sound like a gunshot as the road spikes shred her two front tires. Excitement soars up in my chest, and I lower the switch to hide the spikes before she gets out and sees them. Then I grab my gas mask and slide it over my head, my hands shaking.

It’s been so long, and this woman is so perfect, so like the first Mary, with her lovely dark hair. I want everything to go exactly right, which means I can’t be hasty. I’ve been doing this for a very long time, much longer than my latest Mary has even been alive, and I know the slow, cautious approach always pays off in the end.

Not too slow, though. Not too cautious. I don’t, after all, want her getting away.

I can see the tail of her car on one of the screens, and it’s hell to step away from the back room, to go out and circle through my courtyard, past my chopping block and the door that leads into the building where I live and the dim, faded path that leads to the cabin that I built above the grave of the first Mary and where I will keep her, the latest Mary, and do my duty with her. The gas mask blocks my sense of smell somewhat but not my hearing, and out here, I can hear her: not just the idling rumble of her car but also her quickened, pounding heartbeats, almost as loud as the twin explosions when her tires ruptured.

She’s really afraid now. She knows something’s wrong, and that means I need eyes on her.

I duck into the trees and move across the thickly fallen leaves and carpet of pine needles as quietly as I can. Which, given my nature, is very quiet. The wind is up, too, which helps; it makes the empty tree branches rattle around, an ambient noise that blocks the quiet patter of my footsteps.

The Mary isn’t speaking to anyone, although that doesn’t mean much. Everything is on apps now. You can call for help without speaking a word. I remember when Marys would have to come back into the Gas and Go to use the landline phone. It was easier then, in many ways.

Light glints up ahead—the sun on the Mary’s car. I crouch down and peer through the underbrush until I get my first glimpse of her without the distortion of a camera.

She’s even more perfect than I realized.

The cameras distort everything, turn figures fuzzy and ill-defined at the edges. My gas mask distorts things, too, but that’s why I don’t take it off until I’m finished. The final reveal.

But even with the gas mask’s distortion, I can see this Mary is special. She has the same strong arms as the first one, a detail that was lost on the screens. I can just make out the faint curve of a bicep beneath her shirt sleeves. Her face is different, though. I can see that now, in the bright light of the autumn sun. Her cheeks a little fuller, her eyes a little bigger. Just as beautiful, though.

She’s also texting on her cell phone, something I could never imagine the first Mary doing. She frowns down at it, thumbs flying across her screen, brow furrowed. Then she sighs, looks up, shoves the phone in the back pocket of her jeans.

I can hardly breathe. My fingers twitch at my side. I didn’t bring a weapon. I am not going to desecrate her death by killing her on the side of the road.

“Fuck,” she says softly, the word riding along the wind. I know I can’t take as long to watch her as I would like, even as isolated as we are up here. A tow truck or AAA usually takes at least an hour, although they can be speedy if I’m unlucky. But she may have texted someone else—another traveler, perhaps—who will be here sooner.

Still, I don’t make my move yet. For a moment, it’s enough to watch her as she peels herself away from the car, sighing a little, rubbing her arms in the chilly alpine wind. She pushes her hair back and walks around to the front of the car. “Fuck,” she says again, louder, as she kicks at the driver’s side tire. “How did both of them get fucked up?”

I hold my breath, my blood pounding in my ears. The road spikes are safely folded into the asphalt, of course, but she wouldn’t be able to see them anyway; they’re just behind her tires, hidden by the shadow of her car. She squats down, running her fingers over the road. Looking for the cause, I realize.

My chest tightens. They usually don’t do that. They usually don’t think to do that because they’re in such a panic about being stranded.

But this one kneels down, dropping her head to look under the car. I shift forward, blood racing. With fear? With excitement? It’s almost as if she knows what to look for⁠—

Her phone rings.

She rocks back on her heels, sighing, and pulls it out. The chime is cloying and lilting, shattering the natural peace of my mountainside. Even though it shouldn’t be, it’s a relief when she answers. Even if it makes things more complicated for me.

“Hey, I’ve got a problem,” she says.

There’s that raspy, dangerous voice again. My belly tightens, and I lean forward, forcing myself to focus on what she’s actually saying.