M.I.A.

Chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-Seven:

Sydney

John's phone says, "Arriving at destination," and my stomach leaps into my throat. It's hard to breath behind that bloated metaphoric organ in my esophagus. I clench my hands around my purse and my heart suddenly begins pounding and my blood starts to quicken. I lean forward, scanning the dirt driveway as he turns off of the road.

It's slow going, the potholes jostling us and the overgrown brush scratching at the side of the car as John pushes on at less than a mile an hour. The creeping forward is maddening, I want to scream at him to step on it, but suddenly the greying body of a huge farmhouse looms up out of the trees and I bite my tongue.

It's like a horror movie. The kind you expect. Barren, overgrown farmyard full of dirt and rusted, forgotten equipment. Rotten barn, ready to fall down, ready to unload its secret stalls filled with cages and chains. Squat, lumbering farmhouse that seems to both creep up and recede with various turns of the head. John pulls in beside it, not near the front where the porch looks like it houses booby traps in it's sinking timbers, nor near the side door where a well-worn path through the weeds and long, rutted tire tracks indicate where the murderer prefers to drive, but on the other side of the house, where the lilac bushes are thick and hang on and over the car, sheltering it from sight.

He turns off the ignition and we both sit for a long time. John examines the side of the house, craning his neck as he tries to look through the dirty window. The house was white once, I think, at least the peeling paint seems to say so. It's old...at least from the 20s, possibly older.

John takes a really deep breath and lets it out. "Okay, let's do this."

He gets out, and I follow him.

We both stoop low under the bushes, avoiding branches and bees and spiders. I try not to breathe, but I can smell the area around me anyway.

It smells hot, and dry, and flowery—which I don't like at all. It's like a sick perfume trying to hide the smell of rot. Even though the empty parking space by the screen door indicates that this Cutter guy is not at home, John presses close to the house and inches along, his shoulder scraping off dried paint and green mold as he goes.

Swallowing, I do the same, watching my feet as I go. Twigs, dried leaves, mushrooms. A window to the basement. Something moves inside, making me gasp and jump into John, flat tiring him.

"Fuck, Sydney," he hisses, turning on me. But, upon seeing the terror on my face, he bites his lips together and takes my hand, leading me into the hot summer sun.

We stand at the corner of the house, watching, examining. For what, I don't know.

Everything is still and heavy. It's desolate. I expect a family of inbred cannibals to come crawling out of the hundreds of dark little hidey-holes available in the immediate area. The only place of warmth is a flower garden growing on the sunny side of the barn. A veritable rainbow of bright color and promise. It's probably where the scent is coming from.

For a moment, I want to walk across the dirt yard and slip between the pickets and pipes that enclose it—get lost in the vines and tall stalks and bushes. But then I realize it's probably fertilized with the bodies of the dead and I step closer to John.

"Well?" he asks.

I blink up at him. "Well what?"

He meets my eyes. For once, John looks scared. "You see anything?"