Chapter 12 - The Man on the Threshold
The brass doorknob slipped beneath the stranger’s trembling, bloodied fingers. It rattled, slipped again, and then dropped as the weight outside slumped forward against the heavy oak.
I didn't lower the Remington. Every nerve in my spine felt like an exposed copper wire humming with lethal voltage. My breath came in sharp, shallow bursts that misted against the cold air leaking through the frame.
"Step back from the door!" I shouted, the vibration of my own voice shaking my teeth. "I'm giving you three seconds!"
"Claire..." The voice through the wood cracked, wet and rattling, like water boiling in a broken kettle. "It’s... Roy. Roy Callow... County EMS. I was... I was first on the bridge..."
The name slammed into my chest like an iron bar.
Roy Callow.
I remembered that name from the official inquest report. It had been typed in faded ink on page four: *Lead Paramedic: R. Callow, Unit 7. Terminated from service thirty-six hours post-incident for gross procedural negligence.* The state trooper had told me at the precinct that Callow had suffered a nervous breakdown after pulling my children from the crushed wreckage of our sedan, had abandoned his ambulance behind an abandoned textile mill, and had vanished into the Georgia swamps.
I slid the deadbolt back. The heavy metal snicked into the jamb. Keeping the shotgun pinned tight against my hip, the stock wedged into my ribs, I hauled the door inward with my left hand.
A body tumbled across the threshold like a sack of wet sand.
He landed face-down on the hardwood floor, right over the Persian rug Ethan had bought for our fifth anniversary. Rain-soaked denim, the foul stench of stagnant creek water, and the metallic tang of fresh blood immediately flooded the warm air of the foyer.
I kicked the door shut behind him with the heel of my boot and slammed the deadbolt home.
"Don't move," I rasped, sweeping the barrel down until the black muzzle was centered squarely between his shoulder blades.
He didn't move. He couldn't. His body was convulsing in long, violent tremors.
With my left hand, I caught him by the collar of his shredded flannel coat and wrenched him over onto his back. The beam of the flashlight pinned him against the floorboards.
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His face was a grotesque collage of scar tissue, sunken hollows, and fresh purple contusions. One of his eyes was swollen entirely shut, crusted with dried matter, while the other—milky, bloodshot, and wide with sheer animal terror—darted wildly until it locked onto mine. A jagged surgical scar ran from his earlobe down into his collar, puckered and angry.
"He... he didn't die on Highway 9," Roy Callow wheezed, spewing pink froth over his cracked lower lip. He clawed at the front of his coat, his fingernails torn down to the quick. "Your father... Arthur... he met the transport at the county line. Claire, they... they traded him."
