The Last Child

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Johnny watched the sun rise from the loft door. His legs dangled over a dark drop that smelled of mud and bruised grass. He was thirsty and his body hurt all over. Nobody else was awake, the fire long dead. The sun appeared first as a line of pink, then as an edge of yellow that lifted above the trees. Johnny leaned far out and stared down.

“Don’t jump.” It was Jack, behind him.

Johnny turned. “Ha-ha.”

Jack crossed the loft, sat down next to his friend. Hay hung in his hair. His heels drummed wood, then he leaned out, too. “I saved your life. You owe me.”

“Owe you that.” Johnny punched him on the shoulder.

“Dick.” Jack looked across the field of weeds beaten flat. The forest was still black beneath the leaves. Swamp sounds rose on a sudden breeze. “I’m hungry.”

“Starving.”

“We should go home.”

Johnny glanced at the ladder, the trapdoor that led down. “Still think he’s talking to God?”

“I think he’s dying.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

Johnny rose, dusted his hands on his jeans. “I should talk to him.”

Jack stood, too. “It stinks down there.”

He was right. Freemantle was lying on his side, knees drawn up. He smelled like death. His bad arm was stretched out in the dirt, and when Johnny touched his skin, it felt like hot, dry paper. Johnny looked from the wound in his side to the swollen hand. The skin on the finger had split from the pressure. “All I did was bite him.”

“The human mouth is a gross place.”

“You kissed what’s-her-face.”

“That’s different. Besides, you bit him to the bone, and it’s been days. He’s been carrying a body, in the woods. And he put animal medicine on it. That was just stupid.”

“I don’t think he’s stupid.”

“No?”

“It’s not the right word.”

Jack pushed out a breath. “We need to get out of here, like now, before this guy wakes up and kills us.”

And it was as if Freemantle heard him.

His eyes snapped open, wide, dark, and wild. One hand stabbed out and caught Jack by the neck. His voice was a croak and he pulled Jack close. “God knows.” Johnny felt the force of the words and grabbed his arm, but Freemantle’s skin burned fever hot, his fingers driving into the soft parts of Jack’s neck. “God knows,” he said again as his fingers fell open and Jack scrambled back.

“Keep him away,” Jack yelled. “Jesus Christ. Keep that crazy motherfucker off me.”

Johnny was frozen. He stared until the madness left Freemantle’s face. “What happened?” Freemantle looked confused, eyes now shocked and scared, chest pumping. He raised his ruined hand and stared at it as if he’d never seen it before. He lowered it into his lap, and rolled back onto his side. He ignored the boys, pulled his knees to his chest. “Where am I?”

When Johnny turned, he found Jack all the way across the barn, back jammed against the wall, small hand at his throat, good one making the sign of the cross. His lips were bled of color, eyes bright.

“We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go now.”

“Are you okay, Jack?”

But Jack was washed out and blinking, the words dead in his throat. He opened his mouth, closed it and both boys stared at Freemantle, whose eyes were squeezed to tears as he shook on the cold stone. His lips moved without sense, and a spare, dry sound passed between them.

Jack crossed himself again.

Red finger marks showed on his throat.