Free Wayward Pines: The Widow Lindley (Kindle Worlds Novella) by F. Paul Wilson Page B

on
tiptoe to reach the metal lockbox. She dragged it down and—of course—it was
locked, and—also of course—she didn’t know where he’d kept the key.
    She ran back downstairs to the rear closet. Jonathan’s
toolbox sat on the floor, tucked in a rear corner. With shaking hands she
pulled out a screwdriver and a hammer. She placed the flat head against the
lock. A couple of sharp blows drove it back into the box and the lid popped
open, revealing Jonathan’s silvery gun.
    Tiny scintillating lights lit the rim of her vision as she
stared at it. She’d known he had it, but she had never seen it before. He’d
take it into the woods to practice but always kept it out of sight in his
backpack, even in the house. The words .357 MAG – 8 TIMES ran along the
barrel, engraved in the steel. She grabbed the wooden handle and felt a strange
tingle run through her. Jonathan had never shown her how to shoot, but how
difficult could it be? Point and pull the trigger. But first she needed to find
something that deserved shooting.
    A sob burst free. She prayed Joanna was still alive.
    She leaped to her feet and then stopped. The gun—was it
loaded? She turned it around and looked at the front of the wheelie thing that
held the bullets and saw metallic domes in the exposed slots. She would assume
that meant the answer was yes.
    She ran for the back door.

    Joanna couldn’t fight the monster anymore. She’d kicked and
punched and screamed into the dirty stinky hand clamped over her mouth. Sometimes
it slipped over her nose and she couldn’t breathe at all. She felt weak and
sick, and kicking, slapping, and scratching didn’t help anyway. She was so
scared she’d wet herself. She hoped Mommy wouldn’t be mad.
    She’d been swinging on her swing, waiting for Mommy to come
back, when all of a sudden the stinky hand went over her mouth and she was
pulled into the air. She’d screamed but she could barely hear herself, so Mommy
probably hadn’t heard a thing. Next thing she knew she was pressed against
dirty stinky skin as the monster carried her away from her home, straight
through the bushes and into the woods.
    Even though she hadn’t got a look at it, she knew this was a
monster. Not like the monsters in Where the Wild Things Are . Mommy and Daddy
had read it to her many times, though Mommy hadn’t read it since Daddy went
away. Those monsters were ugly but they were clean and furry and soft looking. This
monster was hard and smooth, and what she could see of its skin through the
caked dirt looked like smudgy glass. And so stinky she almost threw up her
breakfast.
    The monster wasn’t running but still it moved so fast with
its feet barely touching the ground, or at least that’s the way it seemed.
    Where was it taking her? Somehow she didn’t think it was
going to crown her king of the Wild Things.

    “Where’s the search party?” Karla said as she reached
Sheriff Burke.
    She’d been leaning against a tree trunk, sobbing with fear
and frustration when she’d spotted his black Stetson cowboy hat a hundred yards
downhill. He wore brown pants and a darker brown jacket with a Wayward Pines
Sheriff patch on the sleeve. A brass star was pinned to his red and blue
flannel shirt. She’d run to meet him.
    He’d been on the job only a week or so by now. No one knew
what had happened to his predecessor, Sheriff Pope. He’d gone off somewhere and
not come back. Burke didn’t radiate aggressive authority like Pope. More like
cool competence.
    He shrugged the shotgun off his shoulder and pointed it at
the ground as she stopped before him.
    “You’re looking at it.”
    “Wh-what?” She couldn’t believe it. “But we need to canvas
the whole area!”
    “Probably not the best way. More people mean more noise, and
more noise means the more warning it gets.”
    She felt her throat start to close but forced the words
through. “Do…do you think there’s a chance?”
    “Have you seen any blood?”
    Now her throat was