The footsteps continued, maddeningly slow, growing nearer.
Then we sensed a dark form behind the mesh of the screen. Just standing there. Staring ahead. We couldn’t make out anything more than a silhouette of shoulders and a head, shadow against darkness.
Breaths clouded through the screen, quick puffs of mist in the cold night air. A sound carried out to us—shallow pants, as if from someone who had just learned to breathe.
Patrick jacked the pump of the Winchester, the shuck-shuck loud enough to make my scalp crawl.
The breaths continued. The wind blew cold and steady.
It went down so fast we could barely register it.
The screen banged open. A woman in a nightgown flew out, a clawed hand jerking up to shatter the porch light, the front of the house falling into darkness. Bare feet hammered across the boards, and then the form leapt over the railing, moonlit, limbs spread like a cat’s. She landed on all fours, bounded up onto her feet, and scampered toward the grain silo.
A hatch opened on rusty hinges, then banged shut.
Patrick and I stood there in the night for a moment, breathing. My undershirt clung to me, and I realized I’d sweated right through it. Slowly, Patrick lowered his shoulders.
“What … was that thing?” I said.
“A woman, I expect. We better check it out.”
My heart did something weird in my chest. “Shouldn’t we check on JoJo and Rocky instead?”
“And let her escape?” Patrick said. “We got her cornered in the silo. What if she gets out and circles behind us? Or heads back for Jim and Sue-Anne?”
He started walking through the gloom toward the grain silo. He was my brother. I had to follow.
Plus, being alone with that thing out here didn’t sound much better.
The side hatch was loose, swaying in the wind. The latches clicked against the metal wall.
Patrick readied the shotgun with one hand as he reached for the handle. His fingers might have been steady, but my whole body was shaking.
The hatch creaked open, and Patrick stepped back, pointing the shotgun barrel at the black square. We waited for something to fly out at us.
But nothing came.
We blinked, let our eyes acclimate to the darkness.
Uneven mounds of barley rose head-high.
The woman stood at the far side of the silo behind one of the mounds, facing away so we could make out only a shoulder and the back of a head.
She half turned, and we caught a silhouette. Her skin looked pale, and her nightgown was torn and ragged at the shoulder, as if chewed.
Patrick lowered the shotgun. “Mrs. McCafferty?” he said. “Are you all right?”
She twitched a few times, her head jerking to the side. Moonlight from the open hatch cast her in an otherworldly glow.
“Did someone hurt you?” Patrick asked. “Is something in there with you?”
He lifted one leg and started to step into the hatch, ducking down to get the Stetson through. I grabbed his shoulder. “Patrick,” I said. “No.”
“I have to make sure she’s okay,” he said, shaking me off.
He entered, stepping over the arm of the sweep auger. It was like a giant clock hand that rotated around the floor, sweeping the barley toward a center vertical auger that carried the grain up through the roof and into a chute for loading trucks. It wasn’t moving now, shut down for the day.
I armed sweat from my forehead and watched my brother approach Mrs. McCafferty. I could see directly over his shoulder. She remained partly turned toward us, twitching and slightly hunched. Her rhythmic breathing continued, bellows without the wheeze.
“Mrs. McCafferty?” Patrick said. “Whatever happened to you, it’s over now. You’re okay.”
She turned and looked at us.
For a moment I didn’t believe what I was seeing.
In place of eyes, two tunnels ran straight through her skull. The beam of illumination from the flashlight cast twin glowing dots on the silo wall behind her. There was no blood at all on her face.
Those cored-out holes seemed to look right at us.
And then she lunged.
Patrick stumbled back, his ankle catching on the thick metal auger arm, and he went down, his hat tumbling off. She scrambled over the mound, her bare feet fighting for traction, rivulets of grain spilling beneath her heels. Her face was blank, devoid of any emotion, even as she reached the top of the mound and leapt for Patrick, limbs spread as they’d been when she’d sprung over the porch railing.
The sound of the shotgun inside the silo was deafening. The blast hit her in the stomach, knocking her back onto the mound of grain and embedding her in the side like a snow angel, arms thrown wide. The echo kept on, cycling in the metal walls and in my own head, crashing like cymbals.
Patrick pulled himself up, his face bloodless. He staggered over to the open hatch.
My mouth was working but could find no words. Although I couldn’t hear anything yet, I saw his lips moving.
And then the percussive crash lessened and his words came clear. “Chance. Chance. We gotta get help. We gotta get the sheriff.”