“Will you read me a story? No one has ever read me a story,” she said.
The sheriff picked up a worn copy of Little Red Riding Hood that had been left in the hospital room. As he began to read, the little girl looked up at the television on mute. She asked him why the picture was so clear. She had never been outside of her apartment. She had never gone to school. She had never learned to write her name.
He heard the morphine going into her arm.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
He reached the last page of the story. What big teeth you have.
“Daddy, can you get me some milk?”
“No, honey. I can’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because that’s when you died,” the sheriff said.
“I won’t this time. I promise.”
“But you have to hear the end of the story. You have to know that the wolf doesn’t win.”
“Please, get me some milk, Daddy.”
The sheriff looked down into those big beautiful eyes. He heard the morphine fall like raindrops.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sheriff handed her the book and walked into the hallway. He quickly found a nurse and asked for a carton of milk. While he waited, he decided what he was going to do. The sheriff was the first grown man the little girl had ever met who didn’t hurt her, so she thought he was her daddy. So, why couldn’t he be? He wasn’t a praying man, but this one time, he could make the world right. He could bring her home in time for Christmas. He could get her presents. He could adopt her. After everything she’d been through, she was still innocent. She was the best little kid he had ever seen.
“Here is the milk, sIr,” the nurse said.
The sheriff looked at the little carton of milk. Emily Bertovich was there, smiling in her second-grade picture.
The sheriff walked back into the room.
“Okay. Let’s finish that story now, honey,” he said. “Honey?”
The little girl was lifeless on the bed.
“NO!” he yelled.
He ran over and held her in his arms. He screamed for the nurse, but no nurse came.
“PLEASE!”
He began to sob. Suddenly, the sheriff remembered everything. He had already been here. He had done this. He had already seen her die fifty times tonight.
“MAKE IT STOP!”
The sheriff ran to the door. He knew what came next. He would run out into the hallway to get the doctor to save the little girl. But instead, he would open the door to the tenement building. He had done this fifty times already. But this time, he promised himself he would remember. Christopher was in terrible danger. So was his mother. So was Ambrose. He had to help them. He had to get to her faster. He had to save her this time. To get out of here. He couldn’t watch her die again.
but god iS a murderer
Daddy.
The sheriff opened the door.
He looked down the hallway of an old tenement building. For a moment, he wondered why he wasn’t in the tree house. He was sure he opened the door to the tree house, but this was definitely an old tenement building. The door closed with a heavy click behind him.
The sheriff turned back to leave the building, but the door was locked.
Ding.
Chapter 123
Ambrose turned on the light. He looked around, expecting to see the tree house. But he wasn’t in the tree house anymore.
He was in his old house.
The basement.
Something was terribly wrong. Ambrose knew it instinctively. He was behind enemy lines. He looked around the basement. Something was in here. He couldn’t see it, not even through the halos in his eyes, but he could feel it. There was something too familiar about it all. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up like antennas.
Ambrose moved to the stairs.
He climbed, the wooden stairs creaking with each step. He could feel something in the basement behind him. He quickly looked back, but he saw nothing. Just the wood paneling that he’d put up with his father one summer. His little brother begged the two men to help them. His father said no. Ambrose said yes.
Ambrose opened the basement door.
He walked into his mother’s kitchen. He saw the doorframe where his mother measured his height with pencil marks. Ambrose was 6 foot even. David was frozen at 3 foot 5. There was something boiling in a pot on the stove. Something that smelled like…like…venison.
Ding dong.
Someone was at the front door. Ambrose’s blood went instantly cold. He slowly