Wayward Pines: The Widow Lindley (Kindle Worlds Novella) (2 page)

She felt her throat start to close but forced the words
through. “Do…do you think there’s a chance?”

“Have you seen any blood?”

Now her throat was completely locked. She could only shake
her head.

“Okay. At least we’ve got that.” He was staring at the gun
in her hand. “Where’d you get the revolver?”

She managed a breath. “Jonathan.”

“And he is…?”

Of course. He hadn’t been here long enough to know.

“My husband.”

“Okay. How’d
he
get it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know how to use it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know the first thing about
guns.”

He sighed. “Look, Mrs. Lindley—”

“Please—Karla.”

“Okay. But only if you call me Ethan. I’m still not used to ‘sheriff’
as my first name. But listen, Karla: It’s probably best all around if you go
back and let me handle this.”

“No! No way! That wolf or bear or whatever it is has my
Joanna and I’m not leaving her. I can’t go back to that empty house and just
sit on my hands while somebody else looks for her. I can’t and I won’t!”

“But you said yourself you don’t know a thing about that
weapon you’re carrying. You’re just as likely to shoot me or yourself as
something that needs shooting. Why don’t you just—”

“No
justs
, sheriff! I’m here till we find her!”

He looked frustrated. Finally he shrugged and moved past
her, heading uphill. “Okay. Let’s start looking.”

She had to work to keep up with his long strides.

“Looking for what? What could have taken her? I know it wasn’t
human.”

“You’re completely sure?”

“I saw prints where it must have been hiding in the bushes. Not
shoe prints, not human feet—definitely some sort of animal. But what kind of
bear or wolf waits to attack like that?”

Sheriff Burke’s expression was about as readable as the
rocks poking up through the fallen pine needles. “I know next to nothing about
animals.”

“But do we have wolves and bears in Pines?”

“I can’t imagine not having them, although I haven’t heard
reports of either.”

She stopped walking. “Hey. How did you find me? I could have
gone any direction from the house. I headed north for a while, then turned
east.”

He kept walking. “You have a compass?”

“No.”

“Then how could you tell your direction?”

“The mossy side of the trunk is north. Everyone knows that.”

“No, everyone
should
know that, but hardly everyone
does. How do you? Camping? Hunting?”

Come to think of it, how
did
she know that?

“None of the above. But you’re not answering my question:
How’d you find me so fast?”

“I went to your house, saw the break in the brush, and
followed your tracks.”

“What tracks?”

“You scuffed up a lot of pine needles as you ran. You were a
cinch to track, and I’m hardly Daniel Boone.”

She looked back at her trail. Yeah, it was kind of obvious.

She caught up to him again. “But I don’t know if I chose the
right direction. I mean, every once in a while I’ll see roughed up needles and
so I go that way, but for all I know, a squirrel could have disturbed them.” She
felt another sob building. “Isn’t this hopeless? I mean, there’s just two of
us.”

“It’s a lot of territory, I know—”

“Can’t we get the state police or a helicopter or—?”

“I put a call in but they can’t get here for a while.”

“Couldn’t we cover more ground if we split up and—?”

“No!” He fairly barked the word. His voice was calmer when
he continued. “The last thing I want is for you to find yourself facing some
wild animal alone. We’ll move quickly, keeping a good pace to cover as much
ground as possible.”

Another sob broke free. God, she hated being such a cry
baby—it helped nothing—but she felt so useless.

“We
have
to find her! And soon! She’s got to be
terrified!”

“Tell me about her,” he said.

Why did he want to know? Oh, maybe to distract her from the
hopelessness. She didn’t see how that would help, but…

“Her name’s Joanna and she’s almost four and she’s afraid of
snow.”

“What?” he said through a laugh.

“I know, I know. Pines is not the place to be afraid of
snow.” God, did it ever snow here. “But snowflakes terrify her. She’s fine
playing in the snow once it’s done falling and all on the ground, but the
falling flakes freak her out. She thinks they’ll cover the house and we’ll
never get out.”

“Where’d she get
that
idea?”

“I don’t know. It does get pretty deep at times. She’s got a
little bit of an OCD thing going for her, and I think she watched it drifting
halfway up the windows during that big storm last winter and extrapolated that
it might go on piling up and up until the house was covered.”

“I’m sure she’ll grow out of it.”

“I think she already has. I told her that no two snowflakes
are alike and showed her how to make them from a piece of paper. You know how
you fold and refold a sheet into a wedge and then cut into the edges? I showed
her a couple of times, gave her a pair of blunt-nosed scissors, and let her
have at it. She makes at least one new snowflake a day and tries to make each
one different. She’s fascinated by the process and by how she can’t tell
exactly how each one is going to look until she unfolds it.”

“You must have quite a collection.”

Karla smiled at the image
of their first floor. “They’re everywhere—and I do mean
everywhere
. But
I don’t mind. She feels she’s in control of the flakes now. This winter she’ll…” Karla pressed a hand over her mouth. “If she’s here for winter.”

“She will be,” he said, swinging the pump-action shotgun up
onto his shoulder.

As she stared at the weapon, she experienced those same
flashing pinpoints on the perimeter of her vision.

The words seemed to pop out of her mouth. “How old is that
twelve-gauge anyway?” As he looked at her, she added, “I mean, it’s a
Winchester ninety-seven, right? Must be—”

She stopped. This was weird.

He was staring at her. “I thought you didn’t know anything
about guns.”

“I don’t.”

“Then how—?”

“I have no idea. Oh, that’s scary.”

“Did your father own guns? Was he a hunter?”

“No way. My folks are Quakers—farmers back in Pennsylvania.”

“Pennsylvania, huh? Where?”

“Eastern. In Amish country near a place called Bird-in-Hand.
Heard of it?”

He smiled. “Sure. Drove through there once. Can’t forget a
name like that.”

“It’s nice, but there isn’t much ‘there’ there, if you know
what I mean.

“I do. You a Quaker?”

“Not so much. I drifted away.”

He hefted the shotgun. “But about…?”

“Guns? Like I said: no idea. My father owns a lot of acreage
back there but won’t allow hunting anywhere on our land. Won’t allow a gun on
the property, let alone in the house. I have no idea where all that came from…I mean, I was going to ask you if you were loaded with double-ought, and I
don’t even know what that means.”

“It’s heavy shot, and yes, I’m loaded with double-ought.”

“Dear Lord, how did I even know to ask?”

He was giving her a funny look. “Good question.”

She looked down at the revolver she gripped. A heavy thing. She
saw
Smith & Wesson Springfield, MA
engraved near the trigger. She
knew of no reason why it should feel so comfortable in her hand. For some
reason she now knew the wooden grips were walnut, the wheelie thing was the
cylinder, and the slots were chambers.

How
did she know? This was Jonathan’s…the gun
he kept hidden from her.

“Maybe you picked up something from your husband,” Ethan
said.

She shook her head. “No. I knew he had it, but he never
talked about it, never even let me see it.”

“Where is he, by the way? I’d have expected him to—”

“He killed himself two months ago.”

The brief stutter in his step told her she’d taken him by
surprise.

He said, “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know. How…?”

“…did he do it?” Karla finished his sentence and then
explained, “Hung himself.”
The coward.

“Did you find him?”

“He did it out here in the woods. A couple of miles to the
west of here, I’m told. A hiker came upon him.”

“Did he leave a note?”

“Nope. Just walked out one Saturday morning. I thought he
was going out to shoot. He never came back. I couldn’t believe he’d do that to
himself…to us. Still can’t.”

“You’re not thinking foul play, are you?”

“Why not? He never gave a
hint that he was depressed. But Sheriff Pope checked it out and said there was
no sign of anyone else involved. He told me Jonathan fastened a twelve-foot
rope to a thick branch about twenty feet off the ground”—for some reason those
numbers had stuck her head—“stood on the branch, and jumped. He said nobody
could arrange that. Jonathan had to do it himself. Still…to tie a rope
around your neck and choke yourself to death…?”

Ethan sighed. “Do you really want to talk about this?”

“I was in such shock when it happened, I never had a chance…but I’ve had a lot of time to think since, and I just don’t see…”

“He didn’t choke to death.”

“What? How do you know? You weren’t even here.”

“A fall like that snaps the neck like a twig. You can be pretty
sure he died in an instant.”

Karla shuddered. “How awful.” She hefted the pistol. “He had
this. You’d think he’d…”

“Maybe for your sake. Blowing the back of your head off
makes things messy for the survivors.”

“How considerate.” She couldn’t keep the acid from her tone.

“Don’t minimize it. How did he look at the wake? All in one
piece and like he could have been lying there asleep, I’ll bet.”

Yes. She remembered, but barely…all such a blur.

“You think that makes up for deserting your wife and little
girl?”

“I think I don’t want to be discussing this.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Sorry,” Ethan apologized.

God, how did she get off on that? Joanna was all that
mattered now.

Where are you, honey? Please be all right.

And just then a high-pitched scream echoed through the
trees.

She gripped the sheriff’s arm. “Joanna! That’s Joanna!”

He was turning in a slow circle. “I heard. But where—?”

Somewhere an animal screeched, followed by another scream
just like the first. They seemed to come from everywhere—left, right, uphill,
downhill…

“Goddamn these trees!” he said. “They deflect sound all over
the place.”

“Which way do we go?” she cried.

“Uphill!” He started running.

She followed, shouting, “We need to split up!”

“No! We don’t know what we’re dealing with. But the good
thing is that we now know she’s still alive. Hold onto that.”

Karla did—clutching it for dear life, like an overboard
sailor clinging to a tiny bit of flotsam.

The stinky monster still had its stinky hand over Joanna’s
mouth. They hadn’t stopped moving since it pulled her off the swing. Uphill,
always uphill. She saw trees flying by to the side. And now, out of the corner
of her eye, she saw a shelf of rock ahead.

As they got closer, the monster made a squawking noise like a
big ugly bird. Another squawk came from ahead. As the thing carried her toward
the rock shelf, another monster came out from the shadows beneath it. When
Joanna saw it, she screamed into the stinky hand and started fighting to get
free.

The baldheaded thing rushing from under the shelf had
whitish eyes with black centers; its no-lip mouth was crammed with sharp yellow
teeth. Joanna thought she could see a heart beating in the chest between what
looked like two boobies. Mommy had those but these were smaller and ugly and
caked with dirt. The lady monster’s fingers ended in long black claws that were
reaching for her.

The first monster held her out toward the second. Her mouth
finally free, Joanna took a deep breath and screamed as loud as she could.

But she wasn’t free for long. The lady monster grabbed her
and pressed her against her chest, against one of her stinky boobies. Milk
squirted from it, smearing Joanna’s face.

The lady monster pushed her back. Holding her at arms’
length, she hissed in Joanna’s face. Her breath was more than Joanna could
stand—she threw up. The lady monster bared her teeth and shrieked as she shook
Joanna. Joanna screamed again.

With another bared-teeth hiss, the lady monster slashed her
black talons at her.