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  “Yes.”

  “Shitty job, you done doc.”

  I remain as silent and as innocent as I can.

  “So where’s this place you’re talking about?” the man asks.

  I point to the east, to a vicinity in the woods between his house and mine. My heart continues to beat its anxious fury against my ribs as I wait for his command to commence.

  With the ritual.

  The man of the house tells his son to step back, then adds, “Go into the garage and get a couple shovels. Then come back out here. I’m gonna need your help in getting this animal up into the woods."

  Oh my God! I cannot believe this is going to happen! My job is almost done. Almost. I still have to get them to put the deer on the center stone…have to get them to kill it as it rests on its pitted, bloodstained surface. But once they do that, then I can get my daughter back, maybe even Christine.

  Breaking a moment of tense silence, Shea asks, “Pops, you really gonna bring it up there, like the doctor says?”

  “No…I’m not. You and your brother are gonna help the doctor finish what he started.”

  Even better, Michael, the little man in my head says.

  For once, I agree with you.

  “Like hell I am,” the boy says, eyes wide and fearful. Suddenly he doesn’t look like the schoolyard bully I’d made him out to be, as he does the picked-on nerd. “I ain’t going up in them woods with some crazy man.”

  Looking at Shea, I see her flinch a split moment before her father makes his move. It happened so fast: the father raising the rifle up, lashing out and jabbing it into his son’s ribs as if it were a bayonet. The kid lets out a painful oomph and crumples to his knees into the snow, hands gripping his side.

  Shea says, “Danny, just do what he says, okay?” As Danny climbs to his feet and races back around the rear of the house, Shea comes over to me and grabs my hand, helps me to stand. Shivering, I nod my thanks, but also arch my eyebrows in question, concerned as to what’s going on here with her father. She gazes at me through narrowed eyes, as if to say, Just tell me what’s really going on when we go into those woods.

  I nod my promise, but soon realize I’m not going to get a chance.

  Without warning, Shea’s father puts the gun against the deer’s head.

  "No! What are you doing?" I scream, the adrenaline in my body instantly finding its way back into my bloodstream.

  “No sense in making the animal suffer any longer,” the man says.

  He then pulls the trigger and blows the deer’s brains out.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Icy-cold tears fill my eyes. I begin to shudder uncontrollably and fall back against the side of the house. Wet snow rains down on me from the gutter. Danny returns wearing a down jacket and holding a pair of dirty shovels—most likely from Phillip’s houseful of things left behind. He’s got a clear look of disappointment on his face, bottom lip pouting, eyes drawn with bitter tears.

  He looks at his father as if nothing just occurred between them. “Damn pops, you could’ve at least waited for me to come back.”

  Pops just stands there, grinning at the steam rising from the glistening blood in the snow.

  Dejected and wholly unconcerned over what happens next, I let the sobs come. My shoulders hitch up and down, and an uncomfortable silence dominates the scene. After a few moments, I turn my gaze back up, just as the mother of the house makes an appearance. She’s got frizzy brown hair, damaged from too many sessions with the blow dryer, and seems to be wearing too much makeup for someone who should be busy about the house. Yet another one who’ll stick out like a sore thumb here in Ashborough. She’s bundled up in a dark green parka, a telephone glued to her ear as she continues a previous conversation, now looking at me.

  “…well he’s got dark hair and a bandage across his forehead. Some other cuts on his face too. He looks out of it, like he’s drunk, or on drugs. Maybe both.”

  Only one who’s got it right.

  Indeed. But I wonder: who the hell is she talking to?

  The she says, “Five minutes? Okay, we’ll keep him here.”

  “Who the hell are you talking to?” the man of the house says, echoing my own reservations. He paces toward his wife and angrily snatches the phone from her hand, puts it to his ear. “Hello? Hello?” He pulls the phone down. “Who was that?”

  The woman, clearly tentative, says, “Sheriff’s office. They’re sending a car over now.”

  What the hell are you gonna do now, Michael?

  “Jesus H. Christ, Lisa. What the hell did you go and do that for?”

  Lisa looks frazzled, clearly more scared now of her husband than she is of the situation—I’m guessing this is the norm here with the Cleavers. Lisa widens her eyes and with slurred speech, says, “Because I heard a friggin gunshot, that’s why! Shit Eddie…you came out here, with the kids no less, because you said there was someone snooping around out here, and then you don’t come back in, and I’m in the house scared shitless because this here’s the woods, and you know how they just creep me out.”

  You ain’t seen nothing yet.

  The little man in my head is getting in the way of the fact that all I’ve worked for since coming up out of the basement, every last painful attempt I’ve made to save my wife and daughter, has just been flushed down the shitter, courtesy of "Pops-Eddie," my new neighbor.

  Yep, I’m fucked. Once again.

  “And then I heard the gunshot.” Tears fill Lisa’s eyes as she sobs. Her mascara runs down her face in two muddy lines. “Eddie, what did you expect me to do? I…I w-was scared!”

  Pops-Eddie raises his hand, the one without the rifle in it, and slaps her across the face. “You stupid bitch.”

  Shea utters tentatively, “Pops…” but adds no more. Her brother stays still, eyeing the situation carefully as he continues to grip his ribs with his free hand. I keep to myself, hands in my pockets now, trembling as my destiny seeps out onto the snow from the bullet hole in the deer’s head. Out front, I hear tires crunching on snow. The Sheriff’s car is here. Wonder how Eddie plans on handling this one. Cops here in Ashborough won’t take to well to his manhandling ways. Neither will the Isolates.

  With tempered breath, Eddie says, “Get in the house, Lisa.” She complies without a question, and I watch her puny little footsteps kick up snow around the rear of the house as she makes her pathetic retreat. Just as the sound of her snow-packed footsteps dwindles, those of the trooper’s grow in volume. He appears from out of the darkness of the front yard like a shrouded ghost, swaggering bulk marked as he steps into the splay of light lancing down from the outdoor floods.

  The cop looks as Irish as they come, ruddy complexion that might’ve been an aversion to the cold weather, coupled with a propensity for drink. He gazes about the scene patiently, one hand securely fastened to the pistol, which remains furtively tucked into its holster. He’s got on the standard Ashborough tan cop’s uniform that perhaps twelve men in total had the right to wear, and he’s gone for the pants-tucked-into-the-knee-high-snow-boots look.

  When he’s finished surveying the damage, he looks at each of us—myself, Shea, Danny-boy, and Pops-Eddie—with an unimpressed eye that droops a bit because of the pink scar that’s replaced most of his right eyebrow. He also seems not to give a rat’s ass that Pops-Eddie, the new kid in town, is holding a warm hunting rifle.

  He sees that none of us are willing to say more than Evening officer, so he offers up the most fundamental of all cop questions: “What seems to be the trouble here?”

  I want to shout out, I’m two miles up Shit’s Creek with no paddle, that seems to be the trouble. No, actually this town seems to be the trouble. There’s a race of evil little motherfuckers in the woods, and they’ve taken my wife and kid and the rest of this God-forsaken town hostage, and there’s nothing I can do about it. But you know all that already, don’t you?

  The cop shoots me a glance, dark eyes boring holes deep into my dying soul. It’s a
lmost as if he can hear my thoughts…or that he knows now who I am, what I’ve done, and now has a chance to bend my ear for a while and plant some of Ashborough’s dark wisdom into my head so I don’t fuck up again.

  His glance turns into a stare, confirming my suspicion.

  I can only guess: Will he help me or hurt me?

  He pulls his eyes from me and looks at Shea and her brother, standing side by side below the only window here at the side of the house. I look up at it, and for a moment think I see a pair of golden eyes peering out at me, but it’s only the pale face of Shea’s mother—Lisa—taking a front row seat to the events, curtain pulled aside, clutched in a trembling hand.

  “Trouble is,” Eddie says, mouth open to reveal a missing tooth right in the front, “that this here doctor, he’s been trespassing on my property, and I came out and tried to give him a good scare, but he had this here deer with him, and it was still alive, so…so I shot it.”

  The cop looks at the deer…and then he nods, but just slightly, as if to confirm that he understands perfectly well what the "trouble" is here—why I brought a near-dead deer here to the new neighbor’s home. Any more of a nod and it would’ve been interpreted as a placating I hear ya for Pops-Eddie’s account of what went down. The cop’s hand moves from the holstered gun to his chin. He turns his head slowly toward me and narrows his eyes slightly, as if trying to read me. As if trying to be sure.

  As slightly as he nodded while looking at the deer, I nod back, hoping he interprets this as some sort of validation to his gut feeling.

  Yep, he knows quite well what’s going on, what I’ve been up to. He’s seen it all before, and has more than likely pledged his way up the totem pole in Ashborough’s maligned hierarchy at some point in the past.

  The cop, looking at no one in particular, says, “Folks…I know you’re all new in town, and I’m sorry this is how we’ve gone and welcomed you all here…but I’ve got an inkling that the good doctor here had a very good reason for his odd actions tonight. Ain’t that right, Dr. Cayle?”

  How to respond?

  Tell him what you told the Cleavers, doc.

  I nod, and for a moment almost fall down; the drugs and drink are partying hard in my system now. Thank goodness for the frigid weather and the solid house behind me, holding me up. “That’s right…I told the folks about the cemetery in the woods behind their home, and that I figured I could just take a short cut up there. There ain’t no harm, no foul. I just didn’t want to leave the deer on the side of the road.” Despite my words being slurred, I look right at Shea and say, “Sorry if I disturbed you folks.”

  She narrows her eyes at me—her beautiful blue eyes that seemed to ignite in the pale yellow light reflecting off the snow—as if to say, you’re off the hook for now, doc, but I’ll be by later to find out what’s really going on.

  The cop walks over to me, grabs me by the arm. “I’ll make sure Dr. Cayle gets back home. You folks go back inside and keep yourselves warm.”

  Pops-Eddie spreads his arms in question, the hunting rifle gripped tightly in his right hand. He looks like a baseball player questioning a bad call. “That’s it? What about the deer?”

  As the cop leads me away from the house, he replies, “Who shot it?”

  A pause. Then, “I did.”

  “Indeed you did, Mr…I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

  “Eddie…Eddie Washburn.”

  “Well, Mr. Washburn, I suggest you find a safe hiding place for that gun, because we don’t allow no hunting around here in these woods.”

  Eddie mutters under his breath, adding as he motions toward me, “What about him? He went and trespassed on my property.”

  “Pops…” Shea says quietly, only to be silenced by her father’s outstretched palm.

  The cop grins. I could feel him gripping my arm tightly as he says, “Looks to me you both broke the law here…

  (And Mr Pops-Eddie Washburn, the laws here in Ashborough are quite different than anywhere else in the world, guarantee you that)

  …so why don’t we make this easy for all of us and call this a wash. Fair enough?”

  The cop begins to lead me away. I twist my neck and look at Shea. Her eyes, wide and intense, are still fixed on mine. I know this won’t be the last time I see her, and somehow I’m glad about that. It still gives me a chance to make good on what I’ve been trying all along to do. Save my family.

  “Hey…what about the deer?” Eddie yells.

  The cop, still walking away, shouts back, “You made the mess. You clean it up.”

  Something tells me he won’t have to, for as we make our retreat into the front yard, I glimpse just beyond the perimeter of the woods in Pops-Eddie Washburn’s back yard, a single pair of dimly glowing golden eyes, staring at us.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A minute later I’m seated in the back seat of the Sheriff’s car, peering at the now brightly lit windows of the Washburn house. On the outside it looks no different than it had all those times I’d come to visit Phillip Deighton, either for relaxing out front with a sip of brandy or to attend to Rosy Deighton’s faltering health. But on the inside, it couldn’t be any more different now, and I wonder how Eddie Washburn (and his family) might end up fitting into Ashborough’s grand scheme.

  As the Sheriff’s deputy slides into the front seat, my thoughts stagger back to the odd scene I witnessed taking place in the basement of the Washburn home. Shea and her brother, packing up a contraption of some sort: a block and tackle pulley system, a powerful rope, and two pair of deep-sea fishing hooks. Given the aggressive nature of the family, I couldn’t see the apparatus being used for anything other than some immoral nature. If Shea’s father were a hunting enthusiast as one can fairly presume, then perhaps what I saw was a meat hanger, used for gutting his kill. Perhaps.

  But that doesn’t matter now. I’m in the back of a Sheriff’s car, just about passed out now. And the deputy is looking at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Dr. Cayle…you don’t look so well.”

  The warm interior of the car exacerbates my lethargy, and I can literally feel the painkillers numbing every inch of my body, and most of my soul. It is here that I remember having taken the Benzedrine, and for a fleeting moment celebrate its prior effect upon my body: the surge of strength I’d needed to perform my dark deed. It’d kept me sane and lucid for the hour or so gone by, despite me failing in my endeavor.

  I open my lips to speak…but nothing comes out. The featureless interior of the back seat swirls and eddies as the car crunches over the snow-packed driveway.

  The deputy’s eyes are on the road now…and although I struggle desperately to keep mine open, there’s no stopping the slackening muscles in my head from pulling my eyeballs upward. A shock of pain rips through my skull, and suddenly I’m in my driveway as the deputy shoulders my body to the front steps.

  “One step,” I hear him say, and I make every effort to urge myself upwards. Within seconds, I am inside my house, laying down on the couch with the deputy kneeling down alongside me, the journey cut short due to the fact that I’ve blacked out along the way.

  “Dr. Cayle, can you hear me?”

  I struggle to open my eyes, and see only a motionless silhouette in the gloom. I nod slightly. I can hear him now, but not for long.

  “I know what you were doing…it was a valiant effort. But it wasn’t good enough.”

  There’s a pause and through my blurred vision I can see the deputy standing. I try to speak, and again nothing comes out.

  The deputy adds, “Keep trying, Dr. Cayle. For the love of God, please. Try again.”

  His footsteps retreat into the darkness, along with my consciousness.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I hear a bell ringing, and suddenly I’m standing in my office behind the never-used reception area, staring at the phone. The ringing sounds muted, faint, as if it were coming to me from some other plane of consciousness. Much clearer is the sound of the wind
outside as it whips through the bare trees and whistles about the eaves. That, and the sound of my beating heart as it tosses and turns in its bed of bones.

  I’m dreaming all this, and yet I’m awake enough to know it, because the phone is ringing from its place in the netherworld. And I’m here to answer it, despite my knowing that I’m still lying on the sofa in my living room, engaged in a heavy state of delirium.

  There’s a shadow-shape in the room. I turn and see its gangly form, golden eyes dimming into existence and illuminating its horrid face as it contemplates me. I rise up from my slumber into the muted ringing of the telephone, clutching a bundled ripple of the coat I’m still wearing. I beg of the Isolate, “Don’t hurt me…don’t hurt my family…bring them back to me…”

  The Isolate raises its emaciated arms, and in Eddie Washburn’s voice says, “What about the deer? What about the deer?”

  Like a child afraid of a ghost, I pull my hands from the clutches of my coat and cover my face…and find myself standing in Jessica’s room, staring at her untouched collection of dolls, their plastic and porcelain faces staring back at me, pink and lifeless. I look at my body and find that I’m wearing nothing at all now, as naked as Jessica the day she was born, save for the bandages covering the wound in my gut.

  “What about the deer?” I hear, only now it is Shea’s voice. I look back up at the collection of dolls, all of them still staring back at me with their frozen eyes, their slightly cocked heads and soft, muted lips. The large one in the center, the one with the loose head, its nose is no longer tricking blood.

  “Which one of you said that?” I ask.

  “I did,” comes the reply, not from the group of dolls, but from Shea herself. I turn and see her lying naked in Jessica’s bed. I can see her milky white skin, mottled with yellow and purple bruises, many more of which are hidden behind the colorful range of tattoos on her legs, arms, and body.