Free The Damned by Andrew Pyper Page B

of wet mulch. Yet the front door and windows in the living room and family room were all closed. Which left only the kitchen. Down the length of the main-floor hall.
    Nothing on the countertops or in the sink, the surfaces cleaned as though in preparation for a Realtor’s open house. I paused in front of the fridge. Was I hungry? Is there food on the other side, or drink, or need for either? Whatever the answer, the idea of chewing or swallowing caused my stomach to flip.
    I pulled the fridge door open. The only thing on its shelves a jug of Five Alive. What I more or less lived on as a kid, chugging liquid glucose for breakfast and keeping a plastic Darth Vader collectible cup on hand to wash down my mother’s burnt dinners. Put there as a joke. But there was something about the glowing orange liquid, the only color in the white fridge, that prevented it from being funny. A treat I couldn’t taste, not anymore.
    Closing the fridge door let me hear it.
    Â . . . Croc-EEL . . . Croc-EEL . . . Croc-EEL . . .
    Outside. A rhythmic repetition I thought might have been the gate smacking shut but it was too regular to be something pushed by the wind.
    I turned to see the sliding glass back door was open. Not open a moment earlier.
    Â . . . Croc-EEL . . . Croc-EEL . . .
    I squeezed out to the side yard. Tried to be quiet even though whatever opened the door knew I was there. Knew I was following the bread crumbs it had dropped for me.
    The sound was coming from the back of the house. Just a few steps and I’d be able to look around the corner and see what was there. And though it didn’t feel like a dream, there was that same unstoppability, the not wanting to do something but doing it nevertheless.
    Â . . . Croc-EEL . . .
    She sat in the tire swing I’d never seen her touch in life, let alone slip her legs through and go for a ride. Pumping it higher than it was meant to go, so that the branch the ropes were tied to bent each timethe tire went back to nearly touch the toolshed, her skirt blown high around her hips.
    â€œWant a turn?”
    The search for words must’ve shown on my face because Ash laughed before I could summon an answer. It struck me that maybe I couldn’t speak there. Maybe there I would be a mute.
    But this was only the sickness of being near her again. Of hearing her voice not in my head but out in the air.
    She kept swinging. Eyes on me. She seemed glad. Not one of her masks but genuinely pleased, her smile the reflex that came with the wash of relief. She swung and smiled, swung and smiled, and before I could feel it coming I was smiling, too.
    â€œDo you know what it is to be lonely, Danny?” she said.
    I was about to attempt an answer but she cut me off.
    â€œI’m sorry! Of course you do.”
    Because of you, I wanted to say, but couldn’t.
    â€œBut we won’t be lonely now. I’ll show you. Brother and sister. That sounds right, doesn’t it?”
    It did. It sounded as right as family or safe or love . A sound I’d fallen for a thousand times only to end up learning the difference, over and over, between the idea of a thing and the thing itself.
    Ash dragged her feet over the lawn, slowing the tire. Pulled herself out and walked to the open gate where two bikes—the ones she and I rode as teenagers, a driveway-sale Raleigh for me and the fancy Schwinn she rode on the last birthday of her life—leaned against the low wooden fence. She pulled hers up and walked it a few feet away, ready to jump on.
    â€œC’mon, D-Boy,” she said, glancing back at me with her old smile now. The mask smile. “Let’s go for a ride.”
    W E HEADED SOUTH DOWN M AIN Street. Past the same businesses that were there when we were in high school, though none appeared to be open despite some of the lights on inside and the sandwich boards advertising lunch specials