And through it all Erica had remained dry-eyed and calm, recounting the details of a double murder as if it were the plot of a Saturday morning cartoon.
Dr. Emory said that was a symptom of shock.
Lying on the couch an hour later, Rebecca wasn’t so sure.
No one other than Erica got any sleep in the predawn hours of Sunday, August 24. Grandma Janice offered Rebecca food. Grandpa Frank offered her coffee. But eventually, when Rebecca refused to move from the couch or respond to their questions, they retreated to their bedroom where they spoke in hushed, teary voices, trying to figure out what they’d done to turn their only daughter into a murderer.
Around the time the sun came up, Rebecca reached over the arm of the couch to grab the remote control and turned on the television. Instead of Erica’s favorite cartoons, she found the local weekend morning news.
“...and as of right now, we’re hearing that more than four hundred families in the state of Tennessee have fallen victim to what I can only describe as the most devastating, unimaginable acts of violence I have ever heard mentioned in my thirty-two years in journalism,” the middle-aged anchor said, reading from a sheet of paper he held in a white-knuckled grip. “More than one thousandchildrenacross the state, murdered in their sleep. Their friends and families are devastated. The authorities are overwhelmed.”
Rebecca sat up slowly, and the crocheted blanket fell to her hips as she stared in shock at the television.
“And that’s just the local toll,” the anchor continued. “According to a statement released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation just minutes ago, across the country overnight, more than ten thousand households have suffered strikingly similar tragedies. In every case reported so far, human children were viciously murdered while their parents were home, but if these reports are accurate, not one of the parents is able to tell authorities what happened. Theyallclaim to remember nothing.”
“Rebecca, turn that off! Your sister shouldn’t hear any of this!” Grandma Janice came in from the kitchen and grasped for the remote control, but Rebecca stood, still clutching it, and crossed the room until she stood two feet from the television.
On the grainy, full-color screen, the anchor set down his printed report and looked straight at the camera. “But what’s even more bizarre is what’s not in the official statement. This morning, rumors leaking from law enforcement agencies around the country seem to bear a striking similarity. If those rumors are to be believed, in each of these tragic cases, a single child has survived, completely unharmed, and claims to have witnessed the murder of his or her siblings. And folks, as strange as this is going to sound, so farallof the surviving witnesses of these thousands of murders are six years old.”
The remote control slipped from Rebecca’s hand and thumped onto the carpet, button-side down. The television set flashed off.
“Oh my God.” Grandma Janice sank onto the couch, her jaw slack. Rebecca sat next to her, and for nearly three minutes, neither of them moved or said a word.
Down the hall, a door opened, but lost in the maelstrom of their own confusion, neither of them heard Erica pad down the hall, barefoot.
“I’m hungry,” the six-year-old said, and her sister and grandmother jumped. As far as Rebecca could tell, Erica had just appeared there in the doorway out of nowhere.
For years to come, Rebecca would look back on that moment—on that one thought—and marvel at how close to the truth she’d really been.
Delilah
Gallagher wet a rag in warm water at the bathroom sink and pointed at the closed toilet seat.
I sat. The tiny room felt even smaller with both of us in it, but for once, I didn’t mind the invasion of my personal space. Surely the only thing worse than waking up covered in blood would have been waking up alone, covered in blood.
“Are you in any pain? Sore muscles or joints? Bruises?” Gallagher asked. When I gave him a puzzled look, he elaborated. “If you were in a fight, you might be injured.”
“My feet feel sore. And...crusty.” I curled my toes, and something caked between them cracked against my skin, but I couldn’t look. It was probably more dried blood.
Gallagher sank onto the edge of the tub and lifted my right foot onto his lap. “Mud,” he declared with a satisfied huff. “Though you seem to have walked most of it off, and the soles of your feet are scratched up from going barefoot in the woods. It hasn’t rained in days, so you must have been near a stream.” He lowered my foot again, then he took my left hand and began to clean my fingers with steady strokes of the warm, wet rag. The repetitive motion should have been soothing, but the grisly nature of the task kept me on edge.
“I don’t remember leaving the cabin. I don’t even remember waking up.”
With my left hand clean, he rinsed the rag, then began to work on my right hand with those same steady strokes. “But no pain or bruises other than your feet?”
“No pain other than the normal pregnancy stuff. And I haven’t seen any bruises, but I’ll check everywhere when I shower.”
“And the baby’s still moving? Everything seems well with her?”
“From what I can tell.” But again, my lack of access to prenatal care left a terrifying question mark hovering at the edge of my thoughts. “Gallagher, I don’t think I was in a fight. I think I...killed someone. Is it possible that the baby killed someonethroughme? Like you do?”
Thefear deargare a particularly violent and brutal species offaethat must keep their traditional hats wet with the blood of their victims.
They must kill, in order to survive.
He actually chuckled. “That seems highly unlikely.”
I pulled my hand from his grip with a scowl.
