Near the Bone by Christina Henry (ebook reader color screen txt) 📗

listened. She didn’t hear anything, not the thunk-drag of William’s walk, not Griffin’s screams, not the flurry of breaking branches that meant the creature was moving through the trees.

But Mattie knew the creature could be silent when it wanted to be.

A second later, the front window shattered.

There was another huge roar, loud and close. Mattie covered her ears, curled up on the chair with her legs tight against her chest, trying to make herself as small as possible. The cold night air rushed in behind the open window.

C.P. turned the flashlight toward the window, and for a moment Mattie saw claws shining in the beam of light, thought she smelled the sticky metallic sweetness of blood, and then it was gone.

Neither of them moved. Mattie realized she was holding her breath and it was making her lightheaded. She exhaled but her whole body trembled.

“Was that its paw?” C.P. said. He sounded scared but fascinated at the same time.

Mattie hadn’t seen anything like a paw. She’d only noticed the claws—long, almost impossibly long things the color of night and sharper than any falcon’s, not the claws of a bear at all. Those were claws to rend and tear, claws to peel open flesh.

Her teeth were chattering again. The freezing air poured through the broken glass and the fire wasn’t lit.

And I’m scared. I’m more scared than I’ve ever been before. If the creature grabbed me with those claws there’s nothing I could do. It would tear me open like all those little animals it hung up in the forest and I would scream and scream but I couldn’t stop it.

“Do you think it’s still out there?” C.P. said.

“Yes,” Mattie said. She felt it, felt its malevolence, felt its eyes watching her even through the door of the cabin.

“Do you think it got that guy?”

For a moment she didn’t know who C.P. was talking about.

“William.”

“Yeah, do you think it got him or that he just dropped the gun or ran away or what?”

Any of those options were plausible. The creature could have injured William—injured him for a second time, if Mattie’s assumptions about why William was limping were true. He also could have dropped the gun, or had it swiped out of his hands by an animal furious at being shot. Or he may have just decided to cut his losses, to run into the woods.

That last seemed unlikely. The cabin was William’s and he would have run toward it if he could, not away from it. He would have banged on the door and demanded they let him in.

If he could. But if he’s been injured again, he might not have been able to do that. Or the creature might have blocked his way.

“We gotta cover this window,” C.P. said. “You don’t have any wood or anything? Tools?”

There were tools, but those tools were in the storehouse along with the food. William never left anything lying about that might tempt Mattie.

He never left anything I could use as a weapon. No matter how he crushed me, he was always afraid that I might show some spirit, so he never left a hammer within reach of my hand.

And there wasn’t any wood to cover the window. It was the same problem she’d encountered earlier when she thought about covering them up.

“No,” she said. “Tools . . . are . . . outside.”

“Well, we’ve got to put a quilt over it or something,” he said. “Jen’s going to freeze to death if we don’t, and so will we.”

Jen hadn’t moved an inch, not while all the screaming and shooting had happened outside, not even when the creature broke the window. Mattie didn’t think that was a good sign.

“We . . . should . . . put . . . her . . . in . . . the . . . bed,” Mattie said. “Get . . . warm.”

“Right. If she was awake she would say I was a dummy, wouldn’t she?” He choked on the last couple of words and Mattie realized he was crying. “Griffin’s probably dead and Jen’s probably dying and there isn’t a damned thing I can do about it. I’m not even smart enough to cover up a sick woman with a blanket. I’m useless.”

He was crumpling up before Mattie’s eyes, the terror of it all finally punching through his shell.

“Not . . . useless,” she said, pushing away from the chair and standing on unsteady legs. “You . . . and . . . me. We’ll . . . take . . . care . . . of . . . her.”

C.P. wiped his eyes. “Right. We’ll take care of her. We’ll take care of her and we’ll get out of this. You were right. It was stupid of me to want to charge outside. What good will it do if all of us are injured? You take her feet and I’ll take her shoulders.”

Mattie quickly untied Jen’s heavy leather boots and pushed them aside. Then she grabbed Jen’s ankles as C.P. lifted her shoulders and the two of them carefully walked into the bedroom, C.P. bumping into the doorway and then the dresser, cursing both times.

“We need some light in here. This is ridiculous. How do you live without electricity?”

They heaved Jen onto the bed. C.P. unzipped her puffy jacket and then maneuvered her under the blankets. Mattie collected some extra quilts from the closet, finding them in the dark by feel. They piled the extra layers on top of Jen.

“Her breath is so quiet,” C.P. said. “Should it be so quiet like that?”

Mattie didn’t know. She didn’t know anything except basic first aid, things that William had taught her when he’d been hurt or sick and needed help.

“I . . . don’t . . . know,” she said. “Sorry.”

“She needs a doctor. I don’t think this should happen—her being asleep like this—just because she got her leg caught in a trap. She didn’t bleed that much. And it’s clotted by now, or it should be. Do you think we should check? Try to cut off the bottom of her pant leg and clean the wound and wrap it?”

Mattie considered. There was always a risk of infection, and the metal teeth had bitten deep into Jen’s leg. However, the other woman was plainly unconscious and Mattie worried that it was