red hill - jamie mcguire

Chapter Fourteen
Scarlet
THE FRIDGE HAD AN ENTIRE case of bottled water inside. I took the first bottle, unscrewed the lid, and
chugged it. Just two days before it would have taken an entire morning at work for me to finish that
amount, but I felt like I hadn’t had anything to drink in weeks. I opened another, and sucked the water
down until only a quarter was left in the bottle.
It had taken me most of the morning to dig one hole, I still had one more to dig, and a dozen other
things to do before I could rest. It had been more than twenty-four hours since I’d slept. I was
physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.
I trudged back to the backyard, staring at the bodies of Dr. Hayes and his girlfriend, Leah, lying
side by side. Dragging him up the stairs was almost the hardest thing I’d ever done, second only to
giving birth. At the halfway point on the stairs, I paused to rest and nearly let him go. The only thing
that kept me going was weighing the alternative: to dismember him and carry the smaller bits upstairs.
Easier, yes, but a whole hell of a lot messier.
I leaned against the tree, feeling lightheaded. My body was screaming for rest. Before I was
passed out and vulnerable outside, my sense of self-preservation told me to retreat inside the house.
With only one objective in mind, I stumbled into the laundry room, descended the stairs, and shut
myself in the basement, pulling the old loveseat against the door with the last bit of my energy. My
body collapsed onto the scratchy cushions, and before I could have another thought, I lost
consciousness.
• • •
WHEN I FIRST PEELED MY eyes open, I saw tan, soiled carpet and the adjacent wall going in and out of
focus. Everything was devoid of sound, even the air. My line of sight followed the carpet until the
chunky remnants from the tussle with the doctor and Leah came into view.
It was then that my heart broke into a million pieces. I wasn’t sure what time it was, or what day it
was, but I knew I was in hell. My children were somewhere else where I couldn’t protect them, and I
was alone. It took longer that time to recover from mourning my situation, but I gave myself adequate
time to cry, and then I went to the doctor’s gun safe. It was one of many, but it was the only one open.
A rifle stood out to me, and fit well in my hands, so it accompanied me upstairs.
The position of the sun confused me at first. It was higher in the eastern sky than it was when I
decided to rest. It’s not possible, I thought. But that I had slept the rest of my first day at the ranch and
through the entire night was the only explanation.
The doctor’s bloody shirt was damp with dew. The thought of being out for so long was