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

(Don’t let him grab you)

I know, she wanted to shout. I know now what I’m supposed to do. I don’t need a bossy little girl like you to tell me.

(Then do it)

William was closer. She was just about in his arm’s reach. His right eye was horrible, oozing black blood. She remembered her own swollen eye, the one he’d given her, and how she hadn’t been able to see anything on that side of her face, not even the edge of her nose.

William swung one of his big paws—for that’s what they were, they were paws, huge and dangerous, just like the creature’s—but Mattie was already moving, darting to his right side where he couldn’t see her.

Even a mouse has power, she thought. They can scurry so fast that you almost don’t see them, nothing but a flash out of the corner of your eye. And William can see nothing, nothing at all.

Mattie darted to the right and then forward, and then turned again before William realized what happened. She put both hands on his back and pushed as hard as she could.

William stumbled, dropped the rifle to the ground, cried out, “You damned little bitch!” but he didn’t fall.

She almost panicked then, almost ran before he turned and grabbed her, but William had taught her—over and over—that if she started a job then she should do it right, that to give half-effort was a sin.

William started to turn toward her, his left eye blazing, no ice remaining to freeze her heart.

She ran at him, her arms out, and he hadn’t gotten his balance yet, and this time he did fall, his hands grasping for purchase, opening and closing on nothing but empty air.

He fell forward, his upper body pouring over the edge of the cliff, his legs still on the ground in front of her, and for a moment he was balanced there like a seesaw—half of him suspended in air, and the other half clinging to cliff.

“MARTHA!” he roared.

“I’m not Martha. I’m Samantha,” she said, and she kicked him forward.

It was only an inch or two, just enough force to upset the balance, and then it was like the air reached out and pulled him away, and he was screaming, screaming, screaming.

Mattie stood there, swaying, her whole body trembling. Then she fell to her knees, to her stomach, and crawled forward on her belly to peer over the edge.

It was a long way to the bottom, a very long way, and even William couldn’t survive that. But if he did then his body was broken, and he couldn’t move, and nobody would be there to help him and he would die there, lonely and afraid.

Mattie’s heart swelled with a fierce gladness, a happiness she had never known.

“He’s gone,” she said. “He’s gone.”

And then she was weeping, and her body was shaking, and she didn’t know what to do because the boogeyman was killed, she killed him and he would never haunt her steps or her sleep ever again and she was free.

She inched backward, pushed herself up on her hands and knees, and then managed to get to her feet though every part of her was trembling. Her eyes went black for a minute, like she was about to faint, but she breathed deep and managed to stay upright.

C.P. was still lying in the snow, but he wasn’t facedown anymore. He’d turned to his side, and his eyes were open.

“C.P.!” she said, and hurried to him.

There was blood in the snow but not as much as she expected, just a little blot of red against white. “I thought you were dead,” she said, and then she was crying again.

“Hey,” he said, flapping his arm at her in a gesture that was probably meant to comfort. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. I saw what you did. You were so brave. The bravest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“You don’t think I’m a coward anymore?” she said, sobbing.

“Ah, well. I never should have said that. I can be an absolute jerk sometimes.”

“Okay,” Mattie said, crying harder.

“I mean, you don’t have to agree with me,” he said. “Listen, do you think you can help me get this pack off for a minute? I feel like a turtle stuck on its shell.”

Mattie wiped her face with her mittens and then helped him ease the strap off his right arm. He pushed off his side then, leaving the pack behind in the snow as his left arm came free. Mattie saw the place where the bullet had entered his left shoulder then, the blood staining his coat and the stuffing leaking out of the hole in the jacket.

He followed her gaze and said, “It’s actually not that bad, I think. I don’t want to be stupid manly about it but I’m pretty sure that guy didn’t hit anything vital. He was aiming for my heart, I’m sure, and with that giant elephant gun he would have made my heart explode without a doubt. But I don’t think he could see too well, with that fucked-up eye. And I think this puffy coat probably saved me, too—it makes me look a lot bigger than I really am. It seems like the bullet just skimmed through the top of my shoulder, but I’m not going to take my jacket off and check it out right now.”

“We should bandage it,” Mattie said.

“No, we should get the hell out of here before something else happens,” he said. “That guy might be gone, but the monster is still in the woods. And if you’re right and it’s picking us off when we’re injured . . . well, as the injured person I vote we get out of its territory as soon as possible. The bad news is that I don’t think I can carry that pack now with my shoulder the way it is, and it’s way too heavy for you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mattie said. “We won’t need the tent. We’re not going to sleep. We’re going to keep moving until