THE MANNEQUIN GRAVEYARD,
by Gregory L. NorrisThe house where they sent Marc to hide existed at the very end of a winding dirt road. Single-lane, something not on any maps, Marc traveled over the ruts, the car barely motoring above idle, until the road ran out and he found himself facing a wall of trees. The rangy sap pines towered above him, their trunks conjuring images of prison bars.
He wondered if he’d driven far enough north to have crossed into Canada through the porous New England border. Or to somewhere at the end of the world. He hadn’t cried since that ice hockey game when he was eleven, when the old man beat the tears out of him for showing emotion over the loss. A decade ago? Tears threatened for the first time since that terrible afternoon. Marc almost gave in. Then he choke
