brushing the crinkled pages. “After that we’ll go to Maine. It’ll be safer up north in the winter,” she says without looking up. “They don’t move as much in the cold.”
Margie presses her lips together tight. She remembers planning vacations that didn’t revolve around monsters. When snow meant sledding and snowmobiles and fun. The aching part inside her wells deep, spreading fast and hard through her—pounding in her blood.
“Right,” she finally says. “That’s right.”
She leaves Sally sitting at the table and steps out onto the porch, where the rain beats against the ground as if to punish it. In two steps Margie’s deluged, letting the heavy drops sting her skin and mix with her tears. She feels helpless under this weight of water. The world’s too big for her to survive in, much less for her to keep another being safe.
She knows a day will come when it’s too much. When she’ll trip up and miss a sign or signal, and that will be the end of that. She feels like a windup clock—and now she’s winding down and doesn’t know what to do next, how to twist herself back up again to keep on going.
The storm shifts and the wind howls like the dead. They’re out there, she knows, climbing the mountain, pushing at the circle of laurel, tripping over strings of tins cans that beat and rattle in the storm.
Eventually this tiny fortress will no longer keep them safe. She’ll have to tell Sally to plan the next trip, and they’ll move on, and the clock will keep ticking until the gears wind down to nothing.
Margie climbs back onto the porch, every bit of her body soaked and cold with rain. Just as she reaches for the door, the glint of light off water makes her pause.
There’s a puddle at the end of the porch with two ovals of mud dissolving in the middle, the edges blurring and washing away. A strip of damp leads up the wall, as if someone in dirty shoes recently stood there, leaning against the cabin.
Margie’s throat closes. Her body jerks rigid. Behind her the storm menaces—howling and beating and breaking. It’s as if the entire world’s turning inside out, the cacophony of the mountain splitting apart.
She turns around. The sky’s dark, everything that color of deep dusk, when shapes bleed into each other and your eyes play tricks. Movement hums around her but always out of sight. Her teeth chatter as she forces air into her lungs, willing everything to just shut up a moment so she can figure out what’s going on.
She waits for someone to burst out of the rain. To throw her against the wall and attack her in the way of men or monsters or both. A thin thread of light from inside cuts across the porch, dissolving into the storm. Through it she watches individual drops of rain plummet and splatter, running together over and around the cabin.
Every muscle in her body tight and trembling, she slips into the cabin and wraps her hands around the shotgun, its weight a comfort. She carries the lantern from room to room, listening for a sound out of place under the beating of the storm. Everywhere’s empty just the way it should be, but she leaves the lantern burning on the table because she can’t bear the dark.
Tucking the gun under her arm, she climbs up to the loft and pulls the rope ladder after her. Sally’s gone to bed long enough before that she already sleeps deep and even, her breathing a syncopated hiss mixing with the storm. Margie spends the night pressed against the wall, staring out the windows to the clearing around the cabin. Tiny squares of light spill from downstairs, flickering like fire against the darkness.
The storm clears before dawn and, exhausted, Margie sneaks back onto the porch. She’s almost convinced herself she dreamed the puddles—of course no one had been there, of course it was just the rain collecting under the eaves. The cabin’s old, the gutters unrepaired.
There are a million explanations for what she saw the night before. Margie’s just about convinced herself of all of them as birds wake up around her and start calling to the day.
But then she sees the book. It lies on its spine, flipped open to the middle, pages fluttering in the remnant wind. When she picks it up, the cover curls a bit and wet fingerprints smudge some of the corners.
It’s the Visitor’s Guide to West Virginia.
“Found your book.” Margie tosses it onto the table, causing one of the chipped plates to rattle. “You should be more careful with it—if it hadn’t been tucked behind one of the planters on the porch, it would have gotten soaked,” Margie adds.
Sally looks up at her, lips stained dark with juice. “I didn’t take it outside, duh.”
Margie stands at the sink and looks out the window. She loves her sister, knows she’s probably right. But she has to believe Sally’s lying because otherwise someone came into the cabin and took the book. Someone stood leaning against the wall, flipping through pages while Sally and Margie sat inside, oblivious.
Her fingernails scratch against the old dingy grout of the tiled kitchen counter. This cabin’s the safest they’ve found since the change time. They’ve built a quasi-life here perched on the tip of a steep mountain. Margie’s garden is coming in, she has supplies enough to can and pickle, and the well has a hand pump so they don’t have to worry about water.
Though she lets Sally plan road trips in the evenings, Margie’s indulged herself with the idea of staying for a while. Settling in further. Spending the winter beside the fire quilting. Simple things you don’t dare dream about while the dead rumble around you.
Margie’s shoulders sag. Whoever’s out there hasn’t hurt them. Not yet. But if there’s anything Margie’s learned about the world since it changed, it’s that it’s only a matter of time.
She’s learned that lesson well.
“I’m going to check on the laurel walls.” Margie shoves a water bottle into a ragged backpack with extra shells and a plastic yellow flashlight. “It might take me a while. You going to be okay without me here?”
Sally lies on her back on the leather couch, an old paperback romance held above her head.
“I’m not a baby anymore, you know.” She says it slow and even. “I can tell there’s something going on. You’re not as good at hiding it from me as you think.”
Margie looks at the baby fat still visible under the smooth planes of her sister’s face. “It’s nothing,” she says.
Sally rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”
Margie isn’t lying about checking the perimeter, but that only takes an hour and then she finds a thick copse of weeds where she has a clear view of the cabin. Bugs swirl around her, creeping along her neck and tangling in her lashes, but she sits calm and still through dusk and into the late evening.
Through the window she watches her sister fix something to eat and flip through the atlas listlessly before selecting another novel and carrying it up to the loft. The lantern burns inside, beckoning to Margie, but she keeps to the weeds, waiting while stars begin to catch fire overhead.
He comes a few hours after nightfall, just as the moon burns a bright halo on the horizon. He creeps up the steps and eases into the swing, gripping the rusted chain to keep it from creaking. The ax he’d been carrying lies forgotten against the railing as if he’s not afraid of anyone or anything out here.
None of her traps signaled his approach, and Margie wonders
