Where He Can't Find You

by Darcy Coates

“The legend says that the Stitcher came from the mines. That the men dug further than they were supposed to and unlocked something ancient and evil.

Everything else—bones, organs, hair, and teeth—had been piled inside the cloth made of their skin, and then sewn up into a bulging, wet parcel. It was suspended about fifteen feet above the ground. Yards of red thread looped around it and held it in place, tying it to the surrounding trees.

“There are no other suspects. If we’re wrong, it can only mean the Stitcher isn’t human at all. That the legend is true. That the Stitcher is some monster. And if that’s true… I don’t think that’s a world I know how to live in.”

Clocks wind back Windows crack Signals fall Motors stall Long red thread Someone’s dead

She’d already seen three body bags carried out, and they still weren’t done.

“Who was that in there with you?” her mother asked. Riya, who was pulling her seatbelt down toward the buckle, went still. “What?” “There was someone behind you.” Her mother turned toward her, and her pupils seemed tiny in her wide eyes. “It’s why I put my lights on. Because someone was behind you, and they were walking closer, and I couldn’t see who it was.” They both stared into Bobby’s Pizzeria. The dining room was empty.

Her mother was crouched on top of her wardrobe. The space between its dusty top and the ceiling was barely two feet high; her mother had hunched, her knees beside her head and her long, bony fingers grasping the edge of the wood as she stared down at Abby. Her face was a mask of pure, ferocious terror.

Rot lurked beneath a pretty veneer.

Portraits had been hung on the wall; she was so focused on the path ahead that she was halfway up the stairs before she realized the portraits were missing person posters, taken from around town and lovingly framed, each one suspended by a length of red thread.

A game of hide-and-seek in a monster’s house.

The head came up to stare at her. Only, there were no eyes. Empty sockets had been sewn closed with loops of red thread.

Something crunched under Jen’s shoe. She pulled back and felt her stomach turn. She’d stepped on a bird. It lay chest-down, head twisted at an angle, wings limp on the asphalt.

Its eyes had been eaten out by ants, leaving just ragged hollows.

She’s going to be sliced up and sewn back together wrong.

Sometimes the worst things that happen to you come from the smallest decisions. You lean on the accelerator instead of the break. Or you shift your weight on the ladder. Or you leap into the pool headfirst without checking how deep the water is. Tiny, tiny mistakes that would have been inconsequential any other day. But for some reason, the universe’s gears get jammed at that exact second, and your tiny mistake permanently changes the remainder of your life.

“If you don’t hear from us again, I want you to do what Bridgette said. I want you to forget about us. Live as though we never existed. Stick to your plans; get out of Doubtful. And don’t ever, ever regret anything that happened today. Because I won’t.”

“For now, I’m going to pass by Mrs. Ward’s house and make sure she has something to eat. And then… And then I’m going to go home to my parents. They haven’t seen me in days. So I’ll go home and eat dinner with them, and pretend it’s a normal night, and try to be grateful for what I have, and I’m going to try very hard not to cry.”

“I think these are the things people had with them when they were taken.” It was as though they’d been put on display. A museum to death.

“At least I know, now,” she managed. “Oh,” Rhys said, realizing what they were looking at.

Body parts had been hung behind the limestone curtain. Like a butchery display, they trailed at the end of looping red threads, suspended there for when they might be needed.

It turned out a person could make the correct choice, and still feel strangled by regret.

You never know how you’ll act under pressure until you’re forced to find out.