All the Things We Do in the Dark by Saundra Mitchell

Author:Saundra Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-08-25T16:00:00+00:00

I KEEP DIGGING, SLOWER NOW, AND LOOK OVER MY shoulder.

It’s the bag boy, the cart guy, whatever, who’s been coming and going all night. He stands by the Customer Service counter, his arms folded on top of it.

Between his hands, a phone—he texts someone with swift thumbs. Only, when he hits Send, that digital voice speaks again. “There’s one across the street again. I’m gonna leave it there.”

The automatic door opens; cold sweeps in. Sweeps over me, steals my breath.

All this time, I’ve been waiting for this guy to skulk in and ask for his phone. Someone from the outside, with shifty eyes and a dark aura or something. Black clothes and menace incarnate.

And that’s stupid. That’s so stupid.

Monsters and murderers and rapists and fiends aren’t slavering, bug-eyed creatures from central casting. I know that better than anybody. Nobody willingly goes off with a snaggle-toothed, unwashed demon of a man.

Monsters are charming. They’re pleasant. They ask if you want to see—

“Girlie?” the cashier says expectantly.

Down into my bag again, I find and drop, drop and find my wallet. It takes me a moment to remember my PIN. Hands trembling, hips aching to run, I manage to type in 1066

(the Battle of Hastings; William the Conqueror slaughters Harold Godwinson; au revoir, Anglo-Saxons; bonjour, Normans)

on the second try. Beepity, approved, thanks for shopping at Red Stripe, thanks, have a nice night.

Even as I take a step, I stare. He’s there. He’s right there; been there all night, in and out, before my eyes. The red smock had made him invisible—I didn’t see; how lucky am I that he didn’t, either?

He slides his other phone into his back pocket and heads outside again.

I follow. The cold engulfs me, instantly piercing me in every direction. It’s colder at the far, dark corner of the building, but it’s a better view. When he trudges into the side lot and stalks back to the front—he’s right there, never out of sight. With frigid fingers, I fumble with my phone, trying to wake it.

It’s my turn to stalk, to take photos without permission.

Unlike him, however, I remember to turn off the flash. From every possible angle, I steal his image.

Battering one cart into another, he builds a stainless-steel snake. That takes strength. The line of carts grows, but he controls them. They don’t veer or stick in the slush and packed-down ice in the parking lot. His face is concentration: brows furrowed, lips pursed.

Right there are the hands that beat Jane Doe. There is the last face she ever saw in this life. There’s the man—the boy—who took everything from her and still wants more.

“Bet you want to hit him,” Jane says, murmuring right in my ear. Her voice shocks me. I feel her breath on my neck. Feel the anger in her skin.

When I glance back, Jane’s an ice-white phantom. Bloodless. Gouged. Face swollen; eye disappearing behind a bloody clot of red and purple. She puts her hand on my shoulder—no fingertips. Her fingers are nubs that brand my skin, right through my coat.

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