Someone is crying. It’s not the brokenhearted wail of someone who’s just lost a family member. I’ve heard plenty of those in the last few weeks to know what they sound like. There is no shock or denial in the sound, just pure grief and the pain of accepting it as a lifelong companion.

Raffe and I exchange glances. Which is safer? Go up to the road to avoid the griever? Or stay in the forest and risk an encounter with him? Probably the latter. Raffe must think so too, because he turns and continues in the forest.

It’s not long before we see the little girls.

They hang from a tree. Not by their necks, but by ropes tied under their arms and around their chests.

One girl looks to be about Paige’s age and the other a couple of years older. That would make them seven and nine. The older girl’s hand still grips the younger girl’s dress like she had tried to hold the little girl up out of harm’s way.

They wear what look like matching striped dresses. It’s hard to tell now that the print is stained in blood. Most of the material has been ripped and shredded. Whatever gnawed on their legs and torso got full before it reached their chests. Or it was too low to the ground to reach them.

The worst by far are their tortured expressions. They were alive when they were eaten.

I double over and throw up kibble bits until I dry-heave.

All the while, a middle-aged man wearing thick glasses cries beneath the girls. He’s a scrawny guy, with the kind of look and presence that must have had him sitting alone in the cafeteria through his high school years. His entire body trembles with his sobs. A woman with red-rimmed eyes wraps her arms around him.

“It was an accident,” says the woman, soothing her hand over the man’s back.

“This was no accident,” says the man.

“We didn’t mean to.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“Of course it’s not okay,” she says. “But we’ll get through this. All of us.”

“Who’s worse? Him or us?”

“It’s not his fault,” she says. “He can’t help it. He’s the victim, not the monster.”

“We need to put him down,” he says. Another sob escapes him.

“You’d give up on him just like that?” Her expression turns fierce. She steps back from him.

He looks even more forlorn now that he’s unable to lean on her. But anger stiffens his spine. He flings his arm toward the hanging girls. “We fed him little girls!”

“He’s just sick, that’s all,” she says. “We just need to make him better.”

“How?” He hunches to look intensely into her face. “What are we going to do, take him to the hospital?”

She puts her hands on his face. “When we get him back, we’ll know what to do. Trust me.”

He turns from her. “We’ve gone too far. He’s not our boy anymore. He’s a monster. We’ve all become monsters.”