Crystal fumbled to lock the door, hit the wrong button, and unlocked it instead.
Greta yanked the passenger door open and grabbed Crystal by the hair, dragging her from the car.
Bette nearly crashed into the old caretaker’s house when she spotted Weston’s car.
Instead of hitting the brake, she slammed on the gas and her car lurched forward. She shifted to the left pedal and the bumper stopped inches from the peeled white paint on the front corner of the dilapidated farmhouse.
Bette turned off the car and stepped out. Nothing stirred, no breeze, no sounds from within the house.
The day was overbright, the sun blinding her.
“Maribelle, come here!” The voice came from nowhere, loud and commanding. A man’s voice.
Bette spun around, expecting to see a man standing on the porch, but it remained empty. Paint peeling, windows boarded or covered in plastic. The house had been abandoned for a long time.
As she turned back to the desolate yard and the forest beyond, she glimpsed the back of a young girl running away, heading towards a barely visible trail in the weeds. As she watched, the girl faded and then vanished. She didn’t disappear into the woods. She actually vanished, her entire being dissolving in the air around her.
Bette almost followed the trail of the vanishing child, but goose bumps rose on her arms and neck, and she remembered Crystal.
Terrified, Bette turned and walked to the house.
Adrenaline cast the world into hyperfocus. She saw every board of the rotting porch. A bulky, gray wasps’ nest clung to the overhang in the roof's corner. She wrenched the door open and inhaled the musty scent of mold and the acrid scent of bleach.
Crystal walked and then fell, shaking and grabbing at her head to lessen the pain of Greta’s hand clutching and dragging her through the forest. Crystal crawled, managed to find her feet, and stumbled behind Greta.
“You ruined everything,” Greta spat. “Ruined fucking everything.”
“Did—?” Crystal cried out, trying to prise Greta’s hands from her hair. “Did you kill him?” Uttering the words felt nearly impossible. But she couldn’t take her eyes off the streaks of red on Greta’s white blouse.
Greta turned, teeth bared, and attacked her. She slapped and clawed at Crystal’s face, screaming.
Crystal fell and curled into a ball. Weak, so weak, her head pounding, she tried to shield the baby who was probably already dead inside of her.
“It should have been you,” Greta screamed, pounding on Crystal’s back with both her fists.
When she finally stopped, Crystal peered up at the deranged woman.
Greta’s eyes were no longer gray. They’d gone black.
“Walk,” she hissed, pulling out a bloody knife. “Walk or I’ll open you right here.”
Crystal struggled onto her hands and knees and back to her feet. She limped through the woods, legs screaming, lungs burning.
When they emerged in the hilltop graveyard, Crystal knew the end had come. Death waited in this field, and it would not go home alone.
“Go,” Greta spat, waving the knife at Crystal and forcing her forward.
Crystal saw the hole when they were several feet away. It was a black chasm cut into the green grass.
The still, hot day, the vegetation green and bursting. Thorns and brambles pricked Bette’s bare legs as she ran down the trail, eyes darting from the dampened grass to the crowded forest before her.
She wanted to call out, to scream Crystal’s name, but feared she’d seal her sister’s fate if Hillary knew someone was after her.
Bette’s hands were sticky from Weston’s blood.
The adrenaline, the fear-strength, had subsided, and her legs grew wobbly beneath her. Bits of black, like flies, dotted the edge of her vision. She knew those spots. They were not insects of the forest, but the parasites of her own nervous system, the noxious little invaders trying to steal in and seize control of her body. They wanted to force her face into the lush grass where she would fight for breath until she passed out.
Bette lost the trail of trampled grass and realized they’d turned somewhere. She backtracked, panting, shaking.
“There,” she whispered, spotting a fern crushed to the forest floor.
When she broke through the trees into a clearing, the sight before Bette weaved and threatened to disappear into the black hole of panic.
It was a grassy field, devoid of trees. Several small grassy hills poked from the earth.
At the far end, Hillary Meeks stood, sweat glistening on her pale, determined face.
She held a shovel in her hand.
A mound of fresh dirt lay piled beside her. She sank the shovel down, scooped and released a cascade of dirt into a dark hole.
Bette’s mouth fell open and a scream of terror and grief erupted from her throat.
Hillary swiveled around. Her face twisted into an angry scowl that made her look like a demon who’d clawed its way up from Hell and was filling in the portal it had used to escape.
“Crystal…” Bette breathed.
Hillary clutched the shovel like a baseball bat as she strode across the clearing toward Bette.
“I’ve called the police,” Bette shouted. “If you kill me…” she stammered, her throat suddenly dry, “they’ll…” But she didn’t finish the sentence because the mention of the police had not caused so much as a flicker in Hillary’s face.
The woman was insane.
Bette turned and ran back into the trees. She ducked behind a thick beech tree and held her breath.
The adrenaline was back. A hot surge burst in her legs and tried to propel her away from the tree and into the forest.
Run, it shrieked, but she held her ground.
Quietly, she lifted the canister of wasp repellant she’d taken from the house.
She placed her index finger on the little plastic spray nozzle, and her hand shook as she held it in front of her.
A twig, only feet away, cracked beneath a shoe.
Then another, closer.
Bette didn’t wait; she lunged out and pressed the nozzle, sending an acrid stream in Hillary’s direction. The burst hit her in the chest, and Bette lifted the can directing it at her face.
Hillary screamed and swung the shovel, but the repellant blinded her. The blade hit the beech tree and sank into the wood. Hillary tried to pull it free, but her eyes were screwed shut, and she wrenched her hand from the shovel to swipe at her face.
Bette dropped the canister.
She ran past Hillary, who had dropped to her knees and was shoving leaves and dirt into her face to scrub away the toxic spray.
Bette nearly plunged over the side when she reached the hole. It was deep, four feet at least.
She climbed in and started scooping handfuls of dirt. As she threw the dirt behind her, she imagined Crystal curled up, her body ice cold.
When her fingers finally brushed fabric, Bette released the sob that had been trapped in her chest. She grabbed hold of the fabric and pulled.
Crystal’s shoulders and head rose from the dirt. Her eyes were closed, but her skin was warm. Dirt filled her nostrils.
“Please, please be alive,” Bette cried, as she struggled up out of the grave, pulling Crystal with her.
Trying to remember the CPR training they’d both received at the YMCA as teenagers, Bette turned Crystal over and brushed at her face and nose. She flipped her onto her back and started chest compressions.
“One-two–three-four…” she muttered as she thumped Crystal’s breastbone.
When she reached fifteen, she paused, tilted Crystal’s head back, and blew two gusts of breath into her sister’s mouth.