The Aftermath

The funeral was on Sunday.  It was a quick affair, officiated by Reverend Stryker, Fair River Forest's Baptist minister.  Most of the town came out for it, some out of genuine affections for the deceased, but most from morbid curiosity.  Fair River Forest has had its share of strange events, but none quite like this.

The Howard sisters were holed up at home with Cam and Grace, avoiding the inevitable paparazzi, the interrogations.  Keith Howard would have gone to spit on the grave, but he was still laid up in the hospital.

The wooden casket the reverend presided over was empty.  The sheriff's body had not been located, but there was enough evidence to presume him dead.  When Deputy Smith had searched the woods after receiving Grace's call, he had found the clearing that she had described.  Deep burgundy stains coated the grass near the entrance to the fallout shelter, and connected to that was a long, bloody streak that cut across the clearing, disappearing into the woods.

Deputy Smith concluded that the sheriff had been dragged away by a hungry animal.  Grace had reported hearing his pained shrieks as she and the others were exiting the woods, and that seemed consistent with the deputy's theory.  Most folks are satisfied with that answer, as long as they don't think too hard about it.  But some questions remain, which chip away at the ease of the explanation.  The sheriff was not a slight man.  An animal could drag him, sure, but carry him?  Probably not.  So why did the blood end at the woods?

Five of the seven missing persons have been accounted for.  Willow, Cam, and Hailey Jackson were recovered from the fallout shelter that night, and the trio reported that the sheriff had bragged about shooting two others.  The search for their bodies remains ongoing.  But what of Norma Crawford, or Collin Phillips?

It is possible that the sheriff killed Collin as well.  Willow had left her phone with Collin the night of the photo shoot, and he had placed it in his pocket.  Her phone reappeared in the fallout shelter one day, tucked away in the corner of the room.  However, the sheriff gloated over his kills.  Why would he have stayed quiet about Collin's death if he was responsible for it?

Willow did not tell Deputy Smith the full story of Collin's disappearance.  She learned her lesson at fifteen, that if you said something too out of the ordinary, people would turn it against you.  When asked what had happened, she said that she thought she saw a creature, and turned to run.  Collin had run after her; she could tell by the sound of his footsteps.  Then she was stopped by the sheriff, and when she turned around, Collin was gone.

What she left out was that the creature she saw was the very same being she had seen six years before: The Lady of the Woods.  The Lady of the Woods had risen up behind Collin, her shadowy form looming behind his shoulder.  Collin had turned around, and then he had rushed forward, pushing Willow toward the wooden bridge he had insisted on investigating.

Was he still out there, trapped in the hellscape her childhood mind had concocted?  That thought eats at her late at night, as she is lying in the dark.  It is one of many ideas that haunts her when the lights go down.  She has not slept well since the day the sheriff thrust her into the fallout shelter, and she is not sure if she will again.

Cam has not been sleeping well either.  Nighttime is filled with torturous visions, and they awaken swathed in sweat and shaking.  On the nights when Willow is there with them, she will curl her body around theirs and stroke their hair, whispering that it is over, that they are safe.  She is with more days than not, but these times are not at all like the night they had spent together as teenagers.  There is nothing remotely sexual about any of it; sharing a bed is an act of survival.  Perhaps when the loss of her fiance is no longer fresh in her mind, there will be another sort of future for her and them, but for now, they are friends, and Cam can live with that.

Grace reminds herself again and again that her shot was not fatal.  It was the bullet from his own gun that felled the sheriff, and he was still alive when she left him.  But she cannot stop the guilt that nags at her gut, from the knowledge that she had a hand in whatever had happened to him.  He had been a terrible person, and the world was better off without him, but she wishes his end could have happened without her intervention.

She takes comfort in Jane's easy smile and the way her eyes crinkle as she chuckles, her laughter light and melodic, like the tinkling of a chandelier.  Conversation flows naturally between the two, and in these moments, Grace feels like she belongs here.

In a week's time, Fair River will move on.  Already folks have begun stringing up their holiday lights and decorating Christmas trees.  The first snow will be upon the ground soon.  The first sticking snow, that is.  There have been flurries, but the accumulations have not lasted more than a day.  In a week, the ground will be covered in white, and this snow will linger until April.

Children bundled in their warmest clothes will build snow forts and snow critters, although Hailey Jackson will not be amongst them.  She has hardly interacted with anyone since she was found.  She has no memory of the time before the fallout shelter, aside from an occasional flicker of recognition.  Her mother and siblings feel alien to her, like distant relatives.  Her mother keeps telling her what she likes, her favorite meal, her favorite color, and none of it seems familiar.

She looks forward to the days when Cam stops by, sometimes with Willow, sometimes without.  Cam is her real sibling, not the teenager who watches her with wide eyes, or the little girl who glares at her.  If only she could live with them instead of this alien family.

Cam does not talk a lot when they are together, and she is grateful for the silence.  There is too much chatter now, from the boy with his loud video games and the girl who drones about what her dollies are doing and the woman who is always fussing over whether this is all right or that is all right.  Cam asks Hailey if she is excited for Christmas, and she shrugs.  Christmas is but a distant dream to her, and her letter to Santa she filled with lies.  She does not care about Monster High dolls or coloring books.  All she wants is to be with her family, with Cam.  But she could not ask for that, because she knows the woman she has to call mom might read the letter before shipping it off, and it would make her sad.  The woman is nice enough, and Hailey hates making her cry, although it seems to happen a lot.

Hailey is not the only one feeling indifferent about the holiday season.  It has been ten years since Ned Crawford has felt like celebrating anything.  Even though the days are tending toward highs in the thirties and forties, he bundles up and makes his daily trek out to the porch.  There he passes long hours, siting in Norma's rocking chair, waiting.