The Dead Run by Adam Mansbach Page B

shoulder, expecting to see Eric springing up and heading for her. Instead, the sentry was on top. Sherry froze, horrified, as he swung and swung again, Eric invisible between his legs, no sound except the muffled crack of flesh meeting bone.
    The sentry punched again, then raised his bulk partway to reach behind him for the rifle.
    Sherry raced toward it.
    He was three feet away. She was thirty.
    It was like running in a dream—a nightmare, one of those in which the body is a weak and distant thing. An impediment. An enemy.
    And then Eric worked a leg up, slid it between himself and his assailant, knee to his own chin. His foot shot straight out, caught the guy full in the chest. He toppled over, with a sound that threw Sherry’s life in reverse, pulled her backward through time.
    She was four years old, dropping coconuts onto the driveway with her dad, giggling with delight as they cracked open.
    Oh.
    Eric was up now, running toward her, urging Sherry on with wide sweeps of his hand. The sentry lay motionless, a crown of blood pooling around his skull and the rock on which it had landed.
    The next thing Sherry knew, she was in the passenger seat of Eric’s Jeep, filmed head to toe with sweat, the wind snarling her hair as they tore down the road. Eric gripped the wheel with two sets of skinned knuckles. The metallic scent of blood filled up the car.
    Sherry let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Are you all right?”
    Eric grimaced and spit out the window. “Guy knocked out my tooth.” He opened his mouth and tongued the empty space where his top right incisor had been, like a six-year-old waiting for the tooth fairy.
    â€œWhat about you?” he asked, looking her up and down. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
    Sherry shook her head. “But they would have. I know it.”
    It was all coming back to her. The visits. The endless weekends, spent entirely in that clammy, barebones church. Low-voiced, shaky women with growling stomachs. The palest children Sherry had ever seen, forever clutching at their mothers’ skirts. The addled, snake-slippery theology, disseminated in tiny dribs and drabs as the guests “visited” with the members, each woman’s version different from the next’s.
    Melinda had loved the piety, the fervor, the sisterhood. All Sherry had known of it was fear.
    A sudden jolt of terror tore through her now, and she grabbed Eric’s arm.
    â€œOh my God—my mom! She’s in danger. We’ve got to find her.”
    C ANTWELL’S A UDI JERKED to a stop in front of the compound’s meetinghouse, inches from Seth’s humble Buick. They hadn’t seen a soul on the way in, nor any sign of fortification. Any of the outlying buildings could’ve been the barn of which Melinda Richards was so terrified, but none was accessible by car. Not without risking your muffler, anyway.
    Nichols had revised his investigative approach accordingly.
    Walk up to the front door, ring the bell, grin like an idiot.
    He gave himself a routine pat-down, making sure his gun, badge, balls, and Ray-Bans were properly situated, then heaved his bulk out into the sweltering afternoon and had a look around.
    Cantwell stared at him across the car’s roof, Nichols’s own fish-eyed visage bouncing off her shades.
    â€œAren’t you forgetting something?” she asked, nodding at the shotgun.
    Nichols unfolded his sunglasses and slid them on, the metal frames still cool from the air-conditioned ride.
    â€œHeavy artillery tends to make folks less cooperative. I like to start with a nice friendly chat, build my way up to the armed standoff from there. That work for you, doc, or would you rather wait in the car? ’Cause technically, you know, you really shouldn’t be here at all.”
    And neither should I, Nichols thought.
    Cantwell’s reply was low and even. “These are bad people,