Mrs. McCafferty reached for me, both hands tensed to yank me through the hatch.

But just as her fingers brushed my chest, she was ripped backward, her arms flying up over her head, her legs snared on the thick drive hooks of the sweep auger. The sturdy arm whipped her around the circumference of the silo, sucking her in toward the vertical auger in the middle.

Her lower half met the junction first. The drive belt squealed as the powerful teeth ground flesh and bone. She was still alive, clawing haplessly at the floor, her fingernails snapping.

Finally able to see, Patrick whisked his cowboy hat off the floor and jumped over the arm again as it flew at him. He sprinted for me and dove through the hatch.

We heard Mrs. McCafferty shriek as she was siphoned up into the vertical auger, too narrow for a human form. A crimson spray painted the swarming barley hulls and metal walls, and then Patrick’s muscular arm reached past me and slammed the hatch door shut.

He banged the big red button with the heel of his hand, and all of a sudden there was quiet in the world again. We both leaned against the closed hatch door, breathing hard.

We stayed like that for a long time.

Then Patrick bent over, picked up his shotgun, and headed for the house. “The kids,” he said.

Entry 5

ENTRY 5

Patrick and I stood side by side outside the kids’ bedroom upstairs. The door was locked. At the edge by the knob, fingernail marks marred the wood. The bottom panels were splintered from where Mrs. McCafferty had tried to kick them in.

“Hey, JoJo? Rocky?” my brother called. “It’s Patrick and Chance. Everything’s clear out here now. You’re safe.”

Silence.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “It’s me.”

Rocky finally answered, “Chance?”

I was closer with the McCafferty kids than Patrick was. They came over to play with the dogs. I even let them watch the litters being born if it wasn’t a school night. Rocky was ten years old, JoJo only eight, so they couldn’t afford being up late if they had school the next day.

“Yep,” I said. “Come on out now and let us help you.”

“Our stepmom,” Rocky said through the door. “She tried to kill us. Except…” His voice quavered.

I said, “Except it wasn’t your stepmom.”

A moment later we heard the click of the door unlocking. It swung in to reveal two tearstained faces. Rocky held a baseball bat, and JoJo clutched Bunny, her worn yellow stuffed animal, to her chest.

At the sight of me, JoJo held up her arms like a little kid wanting to be picked up. I let the baling hooks drop so they dangled from my forearms on their nylon loops, freeing my hands. When I lifted her, she clung to me and started crying again, her long brown hair brushing against my face.