“whaT?! iF yoU leT heR iN thE kitcheN, i’lL breaK youR fuckinG necK, lynN!”
Mrs. Keizer didn’t listen to her husband. He could beat her all day this time. She didn’t care anymore. Her daughter was freezing in the backyard. Her daughter would never be cold again.
“iF yoU leT heR iN thE kitcheN, yoU arE ouT oF thiS housE. yoU caN gO bacK tO beinG thaT dumB littlE worthlesS bitcH, lynN—”
“Wilkinson,” she said aloud. “My name was Lynn Wilkinson.”
She opened the door and brought her freezing little girl back into the warm kitchen.
“Kathy,” she said. “You are free now.”
Mrs. Collins looked back at her mother. She suddenly felt like a little girl again. She remembered the feeling of her mother wrapping her up in a towel after a bath. The steam from the shower covering the mirror like a fog. Mrs. Collins wasn’t cold anymore. But someone else was. Someone in her own backyard.
She turned and saw her son Brady in the doghouse, shivering in the cold. She opened the door and brought her freezing son into the warm kitchen. Her husband joined her. They were a family again.
“Brady, I’m sorry,” she said. “You are free now.”
The word spread through the clearing. Mrs. Henderson dropped the knife and held her husband. Ms. Lasko put down her drink. Jerry stopped swinging his arms and hitting himself.
Jenny Hertzog heard her mother’s sweet voice. “Stop, Jenny! Stop drowning him!” Jenny stopped pushing her stepbrother and used her hands to rip the thread from her mouth instead. In an instant, the truth poured from her mouth to her father in floods. Her father took the threads from his eyes. The silence was over. The healing began.
The words traveled through the clearing from Special Ed to Matt to Mike, their parents, and their town. Freeing their minds. Their bodies followed. The fevers broke. The itching stopped. The fear melted away with the madness. The frogs stood safely away from the boiling pot of water that each carried under the skin. The flu was no more.
“You are free now.”
Chapter 131
Christopher’s mother and the nice man fell to the street. Her hands ripped at his eyes. His fingers tore through her flesh. She fought back, but she was running out of strength. Christopher’s warning echoed in her mind.
The power comes at a price.
She staggered back and the nice man wrapped himself around her like a snake. His skin stretching over her mouth as he prepared the needle and thread for her eternity. He whispered in her ear. She felt the world’s madness. The evil that made God cry at night. With every word, she grew weaker and weaker.
“Kate, your son is about to be eaten alive. There iS only one way to save him now.”
She saw the hissing lady. The deer swarmed her like sharks in a feeding frenzy. The damned jumped on her back. One after the other. Biting. Scratching. Clawing.
“Christopher gave you his poweR. If you kill hEr with it, I will let you go.”
Christopher’s mother could feel the backs of her eyelids licking her eyes moist. Her eyes boiling with fever. With vision. She was omnipotent, but this was his world. She could see him. He was terrified. And terrifying. Burning with cold fury.
“I’ve known too many men like you,” she said.
“No, you haven’t, katE.”
Then, he sewed her mouth shut.
“You’ve never met anyone like mE.”
Then, the nice man bit a chunk out of Christopher’s mother’s neck. He was everywhere and nowhere. Everyman and no man.
“So, if you won’t kill her, you will become heR.”
She fought back with everything she had. Broken and bleeding. Until he choked the blood out of her like water from a sponge and threw her on the street like trash. Her skin scraped off on the pavement, and she landed in a heap right next to the hissing lady on the lawn. The deer and the damned began to circle the two women. They couldn’t battle all of Hell by themselves. They would need an army. But at least her son got away. That’s all that mattered.
“Mom.”
Christopher’s mother turned and saw her son.
Walking out of the woods.
Alone.
“NO!” she screamed, ripping the threads from her mouth. “LEAVE ME! RUN! RUN!”
The deer ran at him.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Christopher said.
“OFF THE STREET!” the hissing lady screamed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m here.”
Christopher’s mother struggled to move as the man in the Girl Scout uniform climbed out of the tunnel with the rest of the damned and charged at her son.