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

“No,” she said. “Let . . . her . . . rest. Check . . . on . . . her . . . later.”

He stood there, a darker shadow against a dark room. Mattie didn’t need to see his face to know that he was looking at his friend and worrying.

“OK,” he said. “She’ll kill me if I cut those pants off anyway—those are her favorite hiking pants.”

Mattie didn’t point out that the pants were already ruined by the trap. He was clearly miserable and trying to make the best of it.

They filed out of the bedroom and Mattie pulled the door shut so Jen would be warmer. Even without the fire, the smaller room could feel quite snug, and cold air was still gusting through the broken front window.

“Anyway,” C.P. said, and it was clear that he was trying to push away his worry about Jen and focus on something else. “I don’t think we should try to go outside again until morning, so let’s cover up the window and at least get the fire going. I wish there was some kind of cell reception up here. I’d call the nearest rescue copter to come and get us ASAP.”

“Cell?” Mattie asked.

“Yeah, you know, for cell phones? There’s no signal here.”

Mattie remembered a phone in her mother’s house, a black wireless handset standing in a big black charger, but she didn’t think this was what C.P. meant.

She had a flash of someone in the grocery store—a man. He took something out of his pocket that was making noise, something silver with an antenna sticking off it, and flipped it open and put it up to his ear.

Cellular phone. Right. Mom never had one. She couldn’t afford it, and she said she didn’t need it anyway. She wasn’t some important business person. She was just a waitress at an all-night diner, although she tried not to take those late shifts because she had to find someone to watch me and Heather.

Mattie stilled. Her mother was—had been—a waitress at an all-night diner. This was the first time she remembered something concrete about her mom. Her mother felt less vague suddenly, more like she was coming into focus.

I don’t want her murder to be the only thing I remember about her.

C.P. seemed to be waiting for Mattie to respond, to commiserate with him over the lack of a signal, whatever that meant.

“You . . . have . . . one? A . . . cellular . . . phone?”

“Yeah, everyone has one.” He paused. “Well, I’m guessing you don’t.”

“No . . . phone. No . . . electricity.”

“Well, let’s get some light in here. You have candles or whatever? Torches for the wall? We’ve got to get that window covered up and then figure out our next move.”

Mattie could find the candles and matches in the dark. She didn’t want C.P. crowding her into the corner so she said, “Stay . . . here.”

The candles were in a basket near the window that the creature had broken. As she approached it she felt the rush of winter air through the shattered panes, felt the glass grinding into the floor under her boots. She had a sudden, irrational fear that the creature was outside waiting for one of them to approach the window. As soon as she was within reach, its giant paw would emerge again, grab her like it had Griffin, pull her through the window and out into the night.

She hesitated, listening. Could she hear its breath outside, the rustle of its fur, the scrape of its claws against the snow?

Stop being a fool, Mattie. It’s not waiting for you.

But Mattie wasn’t so sure about that. This creature, it didn’t act like an ordinary animal. It had shown terrifying cunning more than once already. And it was angry with them—with her and William and Griffin and C.P. and Jen. The creature had left the warning in the snow, told them to stay away. Then the three strangers had gone into its cave even after Mattie told them not to do so. It might be waiting, there by the window, just out of sight.

“What’s the matter?” C.P. said. “Do you need the flashlight?”

“No,” Mattie said.

She was acting foolish, the way William always said she did. They needed candles and they needed to block the cold air from coming in and they needed to light the fire. The monsters were out in the night—William and the creature—and Mattie and C.P. and Jen were inside the cabin, tucked away where it was safe. She stepped in front of the window, feeling her way around the table for the candle basket.

Her hand touched something wet and sticky.

Mattie let out a startled cry. C.P. clicked on the flashlight again and pointed it toward her.

“What is it?” he said.

The flashlight beam bobbed around her head and shoulders. She pointed at the table. “Something. There.”

C.P. approached the table, angling the light down. Mattie screamed again and stumbled backward, banging into one of the dining table chairs.

The creature had left something for them when it crashed through the window.

“That’s a heart,” C.P. said. He sounded sick. “A human heart?”

Neither of them said what they both were thinking. There were only two people the heart could belong to—Griffin or William.

And Griffin had been screaming, screaming in agony, until he’d suddenly stopped.

But I won’t stop hoping that it was William, Mattie thought. It could be him. It might be. He’s not standing outside the window demanding that I open up the door so maybe the creature cut his heart out with those razor claws and oh I hope it’s him I really do.

“Why would it do that?” C.P. said. “Why? It doesn’t make any damned sense.”

“It’s . . . a . . . warning,” Mattie said. “Another . . . one.”

“Animals don’t act like this,” C.P. said. “They eat what they kill. They don’t take their kills apart and sort them into component pieces.”

The flashlight beam was steady on the heart, like C.P. couldn’t stop looking at it.

“I thought it was weird when we were in the cave. Weird, but fascinating. I guess it’s only fascinating when you’re not the one being sorted into those component pieces.”

His voice sounded strange and