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She nods That would be a right thing

The sun goes down, and she turns on the headlights and one of them still works so she can see the road ahead of her but in a lopsided way There are solow on the horizon that low

But on the road at night, you start thinking ugly alone thoughts She reh Alaba then, sheto push the seat all the way forward--and even then she had to sit up on the edge of it to reach the pedals And Malcol tium that was too sweet for her, and he liked to put two pieces in hisnext to her--then it was silent, and he was just looking out theat the big black nothing

What happened to Uncle Jackson? Malcol to see hionna teach me how to shoot

I’ll teach you He wasn’t your real uncle anyway

To get the memory out of her head, she rolls down theand lets the wind play in her hair When that doesn’t work, she decides to sing a ditty she once knew by heart and it takes her a while to remember all the parts of it

Oh, mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey,

Yes, mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey,

A kiddley divey doo, wouldn’t you?

A kiddley divey doo, wouldn’t you?

It’s on a long stretch of country road that the car dies, and she pulls over and pops the hood to look It’s probably the fuel pu under the car and poking around, and the engine’s too hot to do anything for a while And she doesn’t have any tools to poke around with anyway, but she can see a house set back away froht be tools there

She looks into the dark horizon toward the city lights Distance is difficult to deter

Still, that house It a bold--and anyway she wants soht h and jaency use only--and takes the flashlight and walks up the packed dirt driveway to the house, where she’s ready to kick the door in except she doesn’t have to because it’s standing open

There’s a stink in the house, and she recognizes it FleshEither way, she tells herself to breathe through her mouth and make it quick

She finds her way to the kitchen, where there’s an overturned and rusting for wallpaper with a strawberry vine pattern Because of the hu everywhere She opens the drawers one by one looking for tool drawers but there’s nothing She looks out the backNo garage

There’s a door in the kitchen, and she opens it and finds wooden steps leading down beneath the ground

She waits at the top of the steps for afor any sounds in the house, and then descends slowly

In the basement there’s a different sht around to a table in the middle of the roo, and one of those old-fashioned scales with a long arm on one side Some of the bottles are half filled with a yellow liquid She’s seen this kind of setup before Meth lab They were big a few years before when so distraction

She finds a workbench against the wall and roots around for a phillips-head and a wrench, but what she’s really looking for is a pair of pliers

She sets the flashlight down on the tabletop but it rolls off and falls to the floor where it flickers once but stays lit Good thing--she wouldn’t want to have to feel her way back to the car

But when she turns, she sees so she missed before By the stairs, there’s a utility closet--and while she watches, the door of the closet, illuht, shudders once and flies opens as if soainst it

Then she can ser now--it was masked before by the ammoniac smell of the lab

They stumble out of the utility closet, three of the hair and a woman dressed only in a satin slip, which has been ripped open to expose one desiccated breast

Teotten how bad they smell--that muddy mixture of must and putrefaction, oil and rancid shit She sees a fecal ooze falling wetly down the back of the wos TheyAnd they are between her and the stairs