Had Vern not been holding on to the bed for dear life, she’d have snapped her fingers. She remembered. Her full name was Barbara “Queen” James, and she was a founder. Spurred by visions—what Vern now understood as the hauntings—she’d helped create Claws.
Around Vern, Gogo’s bedroom lit up with writhing orange flames. Heat engulfed her, hungry, but Vern had been eaten before, picked apart by wolves. Had her guts licked out and stuck between teeth. Her mind would endure this pain.
“Is it getting a little warm in there? You can make this stop. Just say the word,” Ollie said. Vern refused to scream. “Queen, darling, turn it up.”
A cloud of thick smoke submerged Vern. She breathed it in, every hot, angry, stinking gust of it. Unable to hold out anymore, she coughed, and it wasn’t quiet. Desperate for clean air, her chest and throat heaved spasmodically.
She’d given up her position.
Ollie kicked Gogo’s flimsy bed to the side, revealing a coughing Vern on the floor. “You held out well,” Ollie said with an acknowledging nod.
It pleased Vern how little she recognized the woman. She could be anyone. No one. She’d die one day, and with her all her smugness.
Vern swallowed thick swaths of air while Ollie pressed a gun to Vern’s head, finger on the trigger. In the intervening years, she’d learned not to underestimate her opponents.
“Do it,” Vern said. Gasping for air, skin still hot and burnt-feeling from fire, Vern faced her stalker. “Kill me, you motherfucker,” she whimpered, shaking. This was life as Vern had always known it, desperate.
“I would never hurt you,” Ollie said, pain in her voice as she pulled back the gun. She was about to coldcock Vern, but before she began to swing the gun, she stumbled down to the floor with a grunt.
“Awoooooo!” Howling cried, knife in his hands. He jutted it in and out of Ollie’s knee, but he was too small, and she grabbed him by the waist and threw him into the wall, Howling’s head bumping against the edge of the fireplace. His body thudded to the floor, but he rolled and pushed himself into a squat. His years in the woods had made him formidable. He was no match for Ollie, but he’d go down fighting.
Feral stampeded into the room next, but he wasn’t holding a knife. He had Bridget’s hunting rifle. It wasn’t loaded—Bridget kept the bullets locked in a cabinet—but Ollie couldn’t know that. Feral aimed vaguely in Ollie’s direction, little pointer finger on the trigger. “I’ll make your head explode” he said. He was an odd sight in his thick glasses and sweater vest pulled over his collared shirt.
It wasn’t the first time Vern had been faced with the utter foolishness of her children, but their bravery in this moment rallied her. If she’d been ready to give up a few moments before, now she was ready to fight again.
Ollie wanted her, not them. “Hide!” she called to the children before bounding off in a sprint. She needed them to stay put while she drew Ollie and her creature away from the cabin.
Vern ran, feet skidding across smears of Ollie’s blood on the floor before she found her footing and launched herself toward the front door. She jumped off the porch and dashed toward the woods. It was the only advantage she’d have over her chasers. She knew this area by heart.
Behind her, Vern heard the screech of a car as Ollie twisted off the dirt road and onto the grass to chase Vern. She only had to make it to the trees.
Vern wasn’t immune to stumbling. The fungus hadn’t increased her vision, and though her sensory awareness had been heightened, she still lost her footing when running. She didn’t let it slow her down. Whenever she fell, she turned the movement into a roll or a somersault, springing back up onto her feet with ease. She turned it into an advantage.
Vern leapt forward toward the trees, outrunning Ollie’s vehicle, but Queen moved on foot.
Vern descended the mountain. She dashed through the firs and slid across mud and skidded down rockslides. With each pace, the distance grew between her and Queen. Vern had lived in the woods for years. Where had Queen lived? In a cage? A laboratory? Vern understood the land. She knew how branches moved, how far her feet sank into mud, and which dirt was loose and which was packed.
Adrenaline fueled Vern. She didn’t stop, and she wouldn’t. Movement forward was her only goal.
Vern slid down an incline, and Queen let out a heinous cry behind her, a moan as low as rolling thunder. Birds squawked and cawed at the shock of it. The trees, too, seemed to hear it, pine needles spiking outward. White-tailed jackrabbits retreated to their underground hovels.