Chapter 26
Canada, Twenty-Eight Years Ago
The boy opened his eyes a crack and saw that it was not his mother who held him, but a monster. A skinny monster, way taller than a man, in dirty, torn buckskins. Strips of rotting flesh hung in thin tatters from its arms and neck. Face bones jutted from sunken cheeks. Cracked grey lips drawn back taut exposed brown, jagged teeth and a section of yellowed jawbone. Patches of bare skull appeared through its black, coarse long hair. Too horrified to move or call out, the boy laid in the monster’s arms still as a rock. “Please, Jesus, please, please, make the monster go away.” The little boy squeezed his eyes shut and prayed as hard as he could…
Northern California, Present Time
Yellow had always been Cathy’s favorite color. When she needed dining
