The Skinner watches them from down on his hands and knees through the dying stalks of corn. The big black man, as big and sturdy as the farmhouse he lives in. And the woman. Mike Jr.’s mother. Rebecca. The woman who, along with her sister, was so beloved by him and Joseph. So much so, that they considered the girls their biological children. Didn’t matter to Skinner that he’d never met the girls in the flesh. What mattered was that their spirits collided from afar like angels of the ages.
Holy spirits . . .
Like an animal, he maneuvers himself on all fours, his body hairless and n***d, the skin stretched over flesh and bone so tightly the purple-blue veins pop through the surface. The only item he wears is a leather belt around his waist, a leather sheave for his flaying knife.
Gripp
