CHAPTER 78 SHERIFF ELLIE

78

Sheriff Ellie

THE TOWN LOOKED LIKE a war zone. Ellie could think of no other way to describe it. With the sun setting, the sky was a mix of reds and yellows and deep black from the rising smoke. She could taste it in the air, acidic and dry. They needed rain, but the few clouds dotting the darkening sky didn't look like they intended to provide much of anything, and the forecast had no rain listed for two days. Main Street, possibly the entire town, would be cinder by then.

The girl who looked entirely too much like Emily Pridham sat silently in Ellie's passenger seat, her head turned to the side, staring out the window. Her hands rested in her lap and she barely moved. Ellie couldn't tell if she was so horribly traumatized she was unable to speak, or if the sight of all this hadn't fazed her at all, like it was commonplace. Ellie was leaning toward the latter because the girl looked calm, and that frightened Ellie, because all the crazy bullshit should scare the bejesus out of her.

"What do you make of all this?" Ellie finally asked.

The girl didn't respond.

"I'm not buying the silent treatment, young lady. You best find your tongue. Vee got wayz of making you talk ," she added in her worst East European accent as a joke, hoping to draw out some kind of reaction, but got nothing. The girl's eyes never left the window.

Ellie shook her head and turned back to the street.

The few people who were out were a mixed breed. Some walked the sidewalks in a daze, staring off at the darkening sky with mouths agape and few words passing between them. Others were running, although Ellie couldn't figure out exactly where they were running; there was no place to go. She didn't need to visit the town lines to know the fencing she spotted out on Route 112 encircled them.

They were rats in a cage.

She'd driven about a half mile before she realized nearly everyone was heading in the same direction. That's when she noticed most seemed to be holding some kind of paper in their hands. Several read whatever it was as they walked.

Ellie spotted the local pharmacist shuffling along with the others. No longer wearing his pharmacist's jacket, the sleeve of his white shirt was torn, revealing pasty skin. He had a black eye; looked like he'd been on the wrong end of a fight. Slamming the brakes, Ellie rolled down her window and leaned out. "Henry!"

He turned toward her, the same worn look on his face as so many others. Then he squinted and recognized her. "Ellie?"

"What is that?" she pointed at the crumpled paper in his hand. "What does it say?"

This seemed to confuse him. "You mean the meeting? I was told you called it."

When he walked up to her truck, she snatched the paper from his hand and read it, her frown growing with each word. "This wasn't me."

The last thing she needed was townfolk getting together and getting riled up beyond the current state of fucked-upness.

"If not you, then who?" Henry Wilburt touched a crusty cut on the corner of his mouth and winced. "Figured you were rolling out some kind of martial law, and with phones down this was the easiest way to tell everyone."

"Curfew isn't a bad idea, but if I wanted to do that wouldn't it make more sense just to put out flyers with that stamped across the top? Safest place for everyone right now is in their own home with the door locked."

Maybe this was Stu Peterson, Ellie thought. If not him, then maybe it was the same people behind the fence. Whoever the hell that was. No good could come out of corralling everyone in some confined space.

Ellie crumpled the flyer and tossed it into the Rutledges' hedges. "Henry, I need you to tell whoever shows up at this thing to just go home. It's not safe." She glanced at the clock on her dashboard. It was quarter past seven. "I need to run up to Buck's place. I'll be there right after. Clear as many people out as you can."

For the first time, he looked past Ellie at the girl in the passenger seat, and his face hardened. "I don't know who organized the meeting, but I'm glad somebody did. I want to hear what they have to say. I'm not going to tell people to leave. They have a right to be there, same as me. You want to help, show up with some answers. Show up with her ." He nodded roughly at the girl. "A lot of people want to talk to her."

Henry Wilburt took several steps back from the truck and raised his voice. "I bet you just about everyone wants to talk to the girl from the diner this morning, Ellie! This shit show started with her!"

When he pointed at Ellie's truck, half the people on the sidewalk stopped and faced her.

He raised his voice even louder. "Why are you protecting her, Ellie? You're supposed to be protecting us!" He rolled his chubby fingers around the air above his head. "Or maybe you're in on all this? That would explain the bang-up job you've done today! Someone paying you to look the other way?"

There were several angry shouts, and at least a dozen people had started coming toward her, from the surrounding houses and sidewalks, stepping out into the street. They'd surround her if she let them. No telling what else they would do, to her, to the girl.

"All of you need to go home! Get someplace safe!" Ellie shouted from her window before stomping her foot down on the gas.

Her pickup might be old, but it had pep. The rear tires let out a chirp, and they shot forward with enough force to throw both her and the girl back against the seat. She quickly weaved around the people in the street and made a quick turn on Marston, heading up toward the mountain.

Frazzled, she said, "You don't give me something, I might just hand you off to those people. They're not exactly wrong."

When Ellie glanced at her, she realized the girl was no longer looking out the window, she was staring back at Ellie. Before Ellie could say another word, the girl grabbed her wrist and the world vanished in a sea of black.