Part 5 (1/2)

”Get in!” I yell.

He cries harder, shaking his head. His eyes are wide.

Gun shots crackle behind me. My panic chokes out all thought. I gotta get back. I pick Ethan up and carry him down the ladder. He cries and struggles, but somehow I get him down without dropping him. I dump him on the bench and run back to the ladder. His sobs fill the dark hole. I'll calm him down when this is over. I gotta get back.

I scramble up the ladder. Two rungs from the top, a shadow blots out the light. I peer up. With the headlights streaming behind him, it's hard to make out a face. For a moment I think it's Arn. Then the shadow turns his head and I recognize the square chin and short, dark hair.

Clay?

I stop climbing for a moment, confused. He's one of the men sent to kill my family?

I scan his face, looking for answers. He opens his mouth to speak, but shots rattle in the distance. He steps back and he's gone. As I'm reaching for the next rung, I hear a loud squawk. Too late.

The heavy wooden door falls over the entrance, plunging us into darkness. Then I hear him slide the board through the handles.

He's locked us in.

Chapter Six.

I slam into the cellar doors over and over. My shoulder blazes with pain, and splinters pierce my skin, but I pay no heed. Barking sobs like a tortured dog's escape my throat.

More gunshots clatter above, then shouting. My mind runs as I pry chunks from the doors until my fingernails break and warm blood spills down my hands. With only two rifles, a handgun and a box of cartridges, my family stands against a dozen well-armed men.

They don't stand a chance.

I scramble down the ladder, falling off the last rung. I bang into a shelf, knock over something that smashes, but I don't stop. Ethan, sobbing, reaches out for me as I run past. I shake him off. My hands scramble over the shelves, tossing out canned goods, changes of clothing, a jug of water. Dry goods tumble off the shelf as I fling them out of my way. I need something to wrench the door open, a shovel, an ax, anything. In the dark, my hands come up empty.

Overhead something explodes.

My sobs turn into keening that fills the cellar. I fumble for the ladder and pull myself up. Bas.h.i.+ng my shoulder against the locked doors won't help, but I can't stop. I smash into the wood until I see stars.

Above, everything quiets. I stop bas.h.i.+ng and press my ear to the crack in the door. The truck engines flare to life and rumble away.

Quiet. The only sound is my brother's m.u.f.fled sobbing and the throbbing of my heart. It's over. Images of my family riddled with bullet holes dance in the darkness before me. I pound my fists into the boards and scream.

Eventually Ethan pulls me off the ladder. He leads me to the bench. I curl onto the wooden surface. In the dark, I can pretend I don't exist. That I've died, too. The thought gives me a little comfort. When you're dead, you don't feel pain.

Little streamers of light trickle through the boards above. I open my eyes and watch the dust motes slide lazily through the triangles of light. Then I remember my family. The hurt hits my chest like both barrels of a twelve-gauge.

As my mind wakes, pain lights up my body. My shoulders feel like they've been run through a meat grinder. I lift my hands-shredded knuckles, splinters dug deep under my b.l.o.o.d.y fingernails. Ethan s.h.i.+fts next to me. We lie on the hard-packed earth, his back to my chest, my body curled around his. I brush his bangs off his face and swallow back the sobs. I can't wake him. Maybe in his dream everything we love isn't destroyed.

In the dim daylight, the storm cellar looks like a tornado hit. I've torn everything off the shelves. There's the broken gla.s.s from a jar of peaches. Clothing litters the dirt floor where I flung them.

I stare up at the locked cellar doors, as fresh tears dampen the corners of my eyes. What's up there? Part of me wants to crawl into a ball and never face it. A sob escapes my throat and Ethan stirs. Stop it, I tell myself. Even though my whole world's been blown to pieces, I have to pull it together. For him.

I stand up and pain rockets down my spine. I walk to the ransacked shelves. I slip cans back up into their dust rings on the shelves, pick up gla.s.s shards, fold the clothes. Beneath a pair of coveralls I find a rusty ax. I ignore the pain from my busted hands as I grip it and climb the ladder.

Ethan sits up suddenly. ”What're you doing?”

I look down at him and try to smile. My face is unresponsive, so I give up and begin hacking at the crack between the doors. ”Getting us out.”

Ethan watches me. ”What do you think happened, you know, to Mama and Dad?”

”I'm sure they're fi ...” My throat squeezes. I look down at my little brother. ”I don't know.” I swing the ax over and over until my hands are screaming.

It takes a half an hour to bust the doors open. When I can barely grip the ax and my head throbs enough to blur my vision, the last of the wood gives way. I push open the mangled doors. Sunlight floods my face. Squinting, I climb out of the cellar and look around.

The stillness sends goose b.u.mps over my arms. The yard is empty. Our farmhouse is silent, the back door open. Across the yard, the barn door thwacks in the breeze. A crow perches on the roof. When it sees me, it caws and flings itself into the air. Arn says crows are a bad omen. I watch the bird slash upward and feel like throwing up.

I peer down the hole at Ethan. ”Stay here.” I don't wait for him to protest. I steel my will and stalk toward the house with the ax.

The first porch step creaks as I walk up. I freeze. Someone might lurk inside the darken doorway, waiting to ambush me. I grip the ax handle, take a deep breath and slip through the doorway into the dark hall.

I stand in the hallway and listen with the ax clutched to my chest. There's no sounds, no sign that anyone's inside, but I can't shake the feeling that lurking behind a door someone waits to kill me. My hands tremble as I step into our living room.

Small beams of light sift in through bullet holes in the front wall. A vase is shattered and lying on the floor, yet the couch and Auntie's Victrola look undisturbed. I tiptoe forward and something crunches beneath my heel. I pick it up. It's a shotgun sh.e.l.l. I set it on my mother's sideboard table, clutch the ax to my chest and creep toward the kitchen.

When I see what's become of the kitchen, I can't help gasping.

The place is unrecognizable. The table is flipped on its side; the table top, a splintered mess of bullet holes. Gla.s.s shards from the exploded front windows litter the ground like jagged snow. The cupboards are open and their contents in pieces on the floor. I pick up a shard from the green ceramic mug that my mama drank tea out of every morning. I set the pieces on the counter with trembling fingers. Then my eyes trail toward the front window. What waits outside?

More gla.s.s on the porch. Auntie's rocker rests on its side in the empty flowerbed. But no bodies. Then my eyes find a trail of blood that streaks the porch boards and continues down the steps.

The sick panic cripples me. Whose blood paints our porch? I lean my head against the window frame and close my eyes. I can't do this. I can't search for the bodies of my family. My trembling hand smears tears across my cheeks. But, I can't leave them out there for the coyotes to pick apart. I wipe my face with my sleeve. My stomach's lined with lead as I pull open the front door.

The screen door dangles crookedly by one hinge. There's the streak of blood and one b.l.o.o.d.y footprint. I lean down and examine the smeared red stain. My mama's? I look up through the yard, expecting a body. Big tire tracks cut through the dirt where the trucks peeled out last night. Here and there, the dust is tinted deep brown. I've killed enough rabbits to know a bloodstain. A stray boot lies about fifteen yards from the porch. It doesn't look like Arn's. Hopefully one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds took a bullet. Hopefully more than one.

With no bodies and no sign of what happened to my family, I turn back in. What if they're wounded and hiding upstairs? As I stalk toward my bedroom, the fear of being watched settles on me again. I know that if they wanted me, they would've come down in the cellar and taken me. Unless Clay didn't tell them we were down there. But why wouldn't he?

I pull up to my bedroom and listen. Nothing but my breath, hot and fast. I push the door open with my toe, the ax held high. The door gives a loud screech as it opens.

”Riley?” A voice behind me.

”Ahhh!” I brandish the ax.

Ethan's face twists in fear.

”Jesus, Ethan!” I drop the ax and put my other hand to my beating heart. ”Thought I told you to stay in the cellar.”

He steps beside me until his hip's touching mine. He's carrying a rusty kitchen knife. He peers down the hall with frightened eyes. ”Where's Mama and Dad?”

”I don't know, but let me handle this.” I push him towards the back door.

He digs in his heels. ”I can't stay down there no more. What I'm thinking about can't be worse than what's up here.”