Messenger of Fear (Messenger of Fear 1)

We were there at the aftermath, Messenger and me. Samantha’s mother, a woman with thinning red hair and a weary, put-upon expression, found Samantha in the garage. The garage was like so many, a mess of folded lawn furniture, plastic bins of papers and old books, slumping cardboard boxes, a once organized, now haphazard peg board of tools. There was no car; the garage had obviously been turned over to use for storage.

A washer and dryer piled high with laundry.

Against one wall was a metal locker, red, closed with a combination lock.

“What are you doing in here, honey?”

Samantha looked up guiltily from the cardboard box she had been rummaging through. A small pile of objects sat on a table that had obviously once been used for arts and crafts, as it was spattered with paint and globs of dried glue and even scraps of tissue paper stuck in place. The objects included a tiny silver cup inscribed with words I could not see from where I stood. And there was what looked like a grammar school project, a storybook covered in construction paper and decorated with crayon drawings of a girl and a dog.

“Oh, I’m just, you know, looking for some stuff for my room,” Samantha said, pushing the storybook aside self-consciously.

“I heard you’re having some issues at school,” the mother said.

“Issues?”

“Sam, are you being bullied?”

Samantha shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

“One of the mothers called me. Mrs. Jepson. She seemed to think you were being picked on.”

“No, Mom, I would tell you.”

“Would you? Because I can help.”

“I’m fine, I’m just, you know, redecorating my room.” She gestured at the stuff on the table. “I was looking for Miss Pooky.”

“Who?”

“Nothing.”

“Was that your bear? From when you were little?”

Samantha was embarrassed. “Yeah, I think so, wasn’t it? Did you want something else?” Her eyes pleaded for her mother to go away. Her mother’s eyes were worried but vague, and I saw the slight shrug and the surrender that signified the mother’s acceptance of her dismissal.

After the mother was gone, Samantha searched for a while longer, before giving up on finding her bear. She went to the metal cabinet. She spun the combination, mouthing the numbers to herself as she did. The lock snapped open and, with a steadying breath, Samantha opened the metal door.

Inside, resting on their stocks, were a rifle and a shotgun. On a shelf at the top of the cabinet was a soft, deerskin zipper bag and several greasy cardboard boxes of shells.

Samantha glanced anxiously toward the door through which her mother had emerged. She took the deerskin bag to the table, unzipped it, and folded it open, revealing the blued-steel gun within. She fetched a box of ammunition. It was a bit like a large matchbox, with an inner tray that slid open to reveal neatly stacked cartridges, brass and lead and smelling of oil and sulfur.

“Can’t we stop her?” I asked, though I knew the answer. This had already happened. Hearing no response and expecting none to come, I posed a second question, a question tinged with bitterness. “Why do people have guns? Don’t they know?”

“Her father thought he was protecting the family. And he thought it was safe.”

“Then why did he tell her the combination?”

Messenger shook his head. “He didn’t. She guessed it. Her birthday, month, day, year. This is not the first time that Samantha has taken the gun out to look at it, to think about it, to consider . . .”

Samantha counted out three shells. Three cylinders, like miniature fireplugs in shape, each no bigger than a little finger. Samantha stared at the shells and frowned. The number troubled her. The number was not right, not her number.

Her number was seven. She counted out seven shells, lined them up with excruciating care, servant even now to her obsessive-compulsive illness. Seven in a row.

She counted them by tapping each slug with the tip of her finger.

Then she counted them again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again.

Seven times she counted until her demon could be satisfied. Seven times seven.