Free Deadfall by Robert Liparulo Page B

ran and didn’t slow until he was in the center of the circle of trees. They weren’t much coverage, a dozen arm-width trunks holding up a cloud of thin leaves. Still, he hoped the angles would obscure his human form and make him more difficult to spot. At least until he gathered nerve enough to cut across the rest of the yard. He scowled up at the autumn sun, no friend in a time like this.
    He crouched and ran his hands along the ground. He took some comfort from the reality of the dirt sifting through his fingers, the clumps of earth, the tiny pebbles. He leaned sideways, touching his shoulder, then his head against a tree trunk. Solid objects in a world that had become unreal, nightmarish.
    Movement caught his eye. Trudy was looking out a window at him, one hand holding aside a curtain. She was the town curmudgeon. At community meetings, it was Trudy who would point out the foolishness of using Fiddler Falls’s meager Northern Improvement Plan proration on pothole repairs when it was a new plow the town needed. And if the council agreed, she would ask how they could even consider such an extravagant purchase when the perimeter firebreak so obviously required widening.
    Eighteen years a widow, she was as tough as the caribou jerky she cured and delivered personally to stores as far south as Saskatoon and by mail to consumers “all over the stinkin’world,” as she often reminded listeners. But the visage at the window was not the indomitable scowl of which Tom had grown fond for its sheer longevity and predictability, as you might a particular lump in a favorite chair. Her eyes were wide with fear, her mouth slack, as if to pull in sharp gulps of air or let out a scream.
    Tom held a finger to his lips, making sure she understood to be quiet. The curtain fell back over the window.
    He glanced at her front garden, a living quilt of black currants, dewberry, fireweed, and bog violets as aesthetically pleasing as Trudy was disagreeable. Most mornings she could be found there, pruning and planting, glowering at the schoolkids walking past, admonishing them against picking her flowers, even though not a single townie young or old would dare risk her wrath for a mere bouquet.Tom had always suspected that her gardening at that time had less to do with the morning glow or the crispness of the air than it did with the steady stream of children to accost. He looked over his shoulder, back the way he had come. St. Bartholomew’s blocked his view, but from Trudy’s garden she would be able to see straight up Provincial Street all the way to the park.
    The timing would have been perfect:Trudy had witnessed everything, maybe even the event that had ended Roland Emery’s life.
    So she is already involved, Tom thought. He hoped he wasn’t simply justifying his desire to seek help from her. He didn’t know how she could aid his cause, but he desperately needed fresh ideas. And if she didn’t already realize how awful these visitors were, he should warn her. If she tried to leave town or reach a phone or, knowing Trudy, give them a piece of her mind, they would spare her no mercy. He shot forward, out of the trees, across the yard, and leaped onto a concrete pad that served as Trudy’s porch. He tried the handle. Locked, as he knew it would be. He pressed himself against the door and rapped gently. Then again, harder.
    Come on,Trudy.
    He thought about kicking in the door. Thought about the noise it would make. He jumped off the porch and sprinted toward the rear of the house, staying under the shadow of the eaves. He tripped on a low bush, crashed down, felt his ankle twist under him. Nerve endings jangled up his leg. He rose and hobbled around the corner. He pushed his back against the clapboards. His ankle throbbed. Just what he needed. Raising his foot relieved some of the pain, but he would have to ignore the injury to run. He would have to.

10
    This was insane.
    Maybe it really was a