She went past her own bedroom and into Robert’s. She no longer slept there, but she cleaned for him, and she knew where he kept his things. She clicked on the bedside lamp and went into his closet, the light spilling after her in a bright sliver through the cracked door. In the rear of his closet was a smaller door that opened into a storage area. She found the key on the shelf above, where she knew he kept it, fitted the key in place, and released the lock.
Inside was the twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun he had once used for hunting and now kept mostly out of habit. She removed it from its leather slipcase and brought it into the light. The polished wooden stock and smooth metal barrel gleamed softly. She knew he cleaned it regularly, that it would fire if needed. There were boxes of shells in a cardboard box at the back of the storage area. She brought the box into the closet and opened it, bypassing the birdshot for the heavier double-ought shells that could blow a hole through you the size of a fist if the range was close and your aim true. Her hands were steady as she slid six shells through the loading slot into the magazine and dumped another six in a pocket of her housedress.
She stood motionless then, looking down at the shotgun, thinking that it had been almost ten years since she had fired it. She had been a good shot once, had hunted alongside Robert in the crisp fall days when duck season opened and the air smelled musky and the wind had a raw edge. It was a long time ago. She wondered if she could still fire this weapon. It felt familiar and comfortable in her hands, but she was old and not so steady. What if her strength failed her?
She chambered a shell with a quick, practiced movement of her hands, checked to make certain the safety was on, and smiled wryly. That would be the day.
Shotgun in hand, she exited the closet and moved back through the house. She stopped off in Nest’s room long enough to scribble a few words on a piece of notebook paper, which she then tucked under her granddaughter’s favorite down pillow. Satisfied that she had done what she could, she advanced down the hallway on mouse paws, listening to the silence, feeling the tension within her beginning to mount. It would happen quickly now. She was glad Robert was not there, that she did not have to worry about him. By the time he returned with Nest, it would be over. She wasn’t really worried about the girl, despite the urgency of her admonition to Robert to find her. Nest was better protected than any of them; she had seen to that. The monster that had appeared to threaten her didn’t know the half of it.
She emerged from the house with the shotgun pressed against her side where it could not be clearly seen, and she stopped just beyond the screen door to survey the darkness beyond, her senses alert. Nothing had changed. He was not there yet. Only the feeders had gathered. She moved down the porch to where her rocker was situated, leaned the gun up against the wall in the deep shadows, and settled herself comfortably in place.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…
The demon would come for her. It would come for her because it hated her for what she had done to it all those years ago and because she was the one human it feared. Odd, that it should still feel this way, now that she was old and frail and virtually powerless. She wondered at the symmetry of life, at the ways the good and the bad of what you did came back to repay you, to reveal you. She had made so many mistakes, but she had made good choices, too. Robert, for openers. He had loved her through everything, even when Caitlin’s death had shattered her and her drinking and smoking had left her dissipated and hollowed out and bereft of peace. And Nest, linked to her by blood and magic, the image of herself as a girl, but stronger and more controlled. She closed her eyes momentarily, thinking of her granddaughter. Nest, sweet child, who stood unseeing at the center of the maelstrom that was about to commence.