Little Wolves - By Thomas Maltman Page 0,81

wanted a child, any child. If she snatched you she would take you off in the woods with her, and you wouldn’t ever be seen again. The ghost stories devolved into gossip about boys and then to giggling, which Clara finally silenced.

The girls slept well, much better, she would discover, than Logan and the boys.

All sounds magnify in the dark, especially the sound of something wounded or afraid, Logan later told Clara. He had given his blankets to the Gunderson child and made a makeshift bed of choir robes in the corner of the room for himself. A few hours before dawn, Logan woke to the sound of whimpering.

He propped himself on his elbows to better hear. Boys mummified in sleeping bags were cast about on the chilly linoleum floor, their lumpy shapes glistening like seals on some unfamiliar shore. The children were all worn out from the games and movies, soundly sleeping, except one.

When the crying rose to a choked sobbing, Logan picked his way among the sleepers. He found him still shuddering, his breathing husky and labored. The boy’s face was a blank, contorted mask, and he cringed when Logan loomed over him.

“Hush,” Logan said, speaking in a low, soothing tone as he touched his shoulder, smelling the blankets he had loaned him a few hours ago were soaked with urine. “You were having a bad dream.”

The boy mumbled something inaudible. A dream language. Logan crouched beside him to give him time to rise from his nightmare. Lee had oily, dark hair and the chubby, shape-shifting features of a teenager whose adult face was not yet formed. Logan could only imagine what he had been dreaming as he slept on a cold floor in a strange room less than a block from where his father had been murdered.

Lee’s nostrils flared. “Do you smell it? Do you smell the gunpowder?”

“No.” This was a lie. When Lee named the odor, Logan smelled it, too. Peppery and sulfuric, the gunpowder burned inside his nostrils. But it was simply not possible, not here.

“I’m all wet.”

“We’ll have to call your mom, have her bring fresh clothing.”

“No. You won’t be able to wake her.”

“Won’t hurt to try,” Logan continued. “You never know. She might be awake and thinking of you right now.”

Lee trembled, urine chilling against his skin. “No. Not when she’s taken her pills.”

The other boys were stirring. They’d wake soon, their senses heightened by hunger, and know this child had wet himself. The girls, sleeping with Clara next door, would be over in a few hours. Time was of the essence.

“Come with me, then,” Logan said. “We’ll find something for you upstairs.” He helped the boy bundle the blankets and carried them to an out-of-the-way corner. Then he led Lee up a rear stairwell in the dark. The neon glow of an exit sign bathed the stairs in red light, and Logan thought of what eerie places even churches seemed at night; something hellish must have touched the boy in his sleep. The gunpowder smell remained on them both.

When they reached the back room, he hit a switch, waited for the fluorescent bulb to flicker on, and then fetched a dark choir robe intended for a petite woman from a mothballed closet. “Here,” he said. “You can wear this until morning. Take it to the men’s room and rinse yourself in the sink. Use the paper towels for drying.”

Lee’s stink saturated the tight quarters. He took the robe reluctantly. He was shivering all over, as if lice boiled under his skin.

“You want to tell me about your dream?” Logan asked.

A shake of his head.

“Sometimes you feel better if you name your fear aloud.”

“He’s hunting me,” Lee said, his gaze to the floor. “Seth is after me, too. I saw him. I saw him all covered in blood.”

The boy’s voice was flat, toneless. Logan said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

“I could feel him in the church. The blood was dripping down his clothes. Then he put his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t scream. He leaned down and he was laughing; he was laughing but it sounded like something breaking inside him. I kicked and struggled and tried to wake up, but I just couldn’t.”

“Lee, do you want to pray with me?”

His head was still lowered. “I’m sorry,” he said. “So, so sorry.” In that moment it sounded like all the sorrows in the world were wrapped in his voice.

“It’s okay. You just go change. Then I want you to