nning to scab a little, were plowed right across his stomach.
He touched the wound gingerly. But it didn’t hurt. In fact he couldn’t feel it at all.
“You’re a tough dude, Hunter,” Roscoe said. “Anyway, looks like you have a good haul today.”
“I do, Roscoe,” Hunter said. He spoke as carefully as he could. But still the words didn’t sound like how he made words back before. He sounded as if his tongue was covered with glue.
Hunter carefully lifted the rope off his shoulder. He was careful not to scrape the thing on his shoulder. He set the animals in the wheelbarrow. Then he upended the squirrel bag and dumped the squirrels on top. They all looked the same. Gray and bushy-tailed. Each cooked inside a little. Enough. Sometimes he cooked their heads and sometimes their body. It wasn’t that easy to aim the invisible stuff that radiated out of his hands.
He forgot what it was called. Astrid had some name for it. But it was a long word.
“You doing okay, Hunter?” Roscoe asked again.
“Yes. I have food. And my sleeping bag is dry after I cleaned it in a stream.”
“You got fresh water to wash in, huh?” Roscoe asked. “I’m jealous. Feel this shirt.” He invited Hunter to feel the stiff saltwater-washed cotton.
“It feels okay,” Hunter said warily.
Roscoe made a rude noise. “Yeah, right. Salt water. Feel your shirt.” And Roscoe reached out to touch Hunter’s shirt. He touched the shoulder of Hunter’s shirt.
The wrong shoulder.
“Aaahh!” Roscoe cried in shock and pain. “What the—”
“I didn’t mean to!” Hunter yelled.
“Something bit me!” He held out his finger for Hunter to examine. There were teeth marks. Blood.
Roscoe stared hard at him. And at his shoulder. “What’s on your shoulder, man? What is that? What’s under there? Is that some kind of animal?”
Hunter swallowed. No one had seen his shoulder. He didn’t know what would happen if anyone did.
“Yes, Roscoe, it’s an animal,” Hunter said, seizing gratefully on the explanation.
“Well, it bit me!”
“Sorry,” Hunter said.
Roscoe grabbed the wheelbarrow handles and hefted it. “I’m not doing this job anymore. Marcie can do it every day, I’m not dealing with this.”
“Okay,” Hunter said. “Bye.”
Jennifer B set out sometime around dawn.
If she stayed in the house she was sure she would die. She’d slept for an unknown period of time—hours? days?—on the floor, with her blankets gathered around her.
The chills came in waves. She would be too hot and would kick off her blankets. Then the fever would start to spike again and she would feel cold, cold all the way down to her bones.
Jennifer H was dead. Jennifer L didn’t answer when Jennifer B moaned to her to join her.
“Jen . . . I’m going to . . . hospital.”
No answer.
“Are you alive?”
Jennifer L coughed, she wasn’t dead, and she coughed normally, not the crazy spasms that had killed Jennifer H. But she didn’t answer.