Free The Summer of Winters by Mark Allan Gunnells

that of a rag doll with half its stuffing pulled out of it, blood thick as syrup oozing down her mottled thighs.
    I woke up with moisture on my face, and it took several seconds for my muddled brain to realize I’d been crying in my sleep.
     
    ***
     
    Paige came to the house on Thursday.
    I was in the bedroom playing with Ray. We had divided up his little green plastic army men and were having them wage war against one another. I heard the knock at the door and wondered who it might be. The police had told the media Sarah’s body had been discovered by two local youths but hadn’t divulged my or Paige’s name due to our being minors. I knew my mother was afraid that the information would be leaked and reporters would start hounding the house.
    When I heard Julie call my name, I initially tensed, but then I told myself if it was a reporter, Julie would have told him to go do something nasty to himself, which is what I’d heard my mother tell her to say. I left Ray running over some of the army men with a tank and headed into the living room.
    Paige was standing on the front stoop, dressed in a checkered dress that reminded me a little of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz . Her hair was pulled up to the top of her head with a rubber band, creating a spray that looked a bit like the leafy part of a pineapple.
    She smiled shyly as I came to the door. “My mom’s out in our yard keeping an eye on me, but she said I could come invite you over to our house for lunch and to play some games.”
    “Is Brody there?” I asked before I could stop myself.
    “Um, no. He took Mom’s car and has gone to apply for some part-time jobs around town. Why?”
    “No reason.”
    “So you wanna come over? We have some pretty cool games.”
    “Sure, let me just ask Julie if it’s okay.”
     
    ***
     
    At first Julie didn’t want to let me go, even though Mrs. Moore was going to be there the whole time. She finally called Mom at work and got her permission. Lunch was sandwiches made from the meatloaf they’d had for supper the night before. It was pretty tasty. The three of us sat in the living room, on the floor around the coffee table.
    After we ate, we played a round of Operation, which Mrs. Moore won, then Paige insisted we play her favorite board game, Clue. I had never actually played before, and listening to Mrs. Moore explain the instructions, it seemed awfully complicated to me. I’d much rather play something like Sorry where the rules were simple to follow, but I was a guest so I went along.
    The game involved systematically eliminating suspects in a fake murder case, until you could guess which of a list of characters committed the crime, as well as how and where. Honestly, the whole scenario hit a little too close to home, and I found myself feeling a bit sick to my stomach, afraid my lunch was going to come back up on me. And I was sure it wouldn’t taste as good the second time around.
    I had trouble keeping my mind on the game, and more than once I made guesses that had already been made, sometimes by me. Paige ended up winning, correctly deducing Miss Scarlet was the murderess, having offed her victim with a lead pipe in the library.
    Mrs. Moore checked the clock. “If Brody doesn’t get back soon, I’m going to be late for work. I wonder where that boy could be.”
    I wondered the same thing, and a hundred unpleasant possibilities flashed through my mind.
    A timer buzzed from the kitchen, causing me to jump, but it was just the washing machine. Mrs. Moore had started a load of laundry partway through the game, depositing the clothes in the beat-up old washer. They had no dryer, just a clothesline out back stretched between two T shaped poles.
    As Mrs. Moore got up from the floor, she looked down at us with a rather stern expression on her face. “I’m going out back to hang the clothes on the line. I want you two to stay inside. You hear me?”
    Paige nodded, and I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Keep the front door