The Empty Chair

jerkingmovements, malice in his eyes. He was tall and skinny, like most sixteen-year-olds in small Carolina towns, and very strong. His skin was red and welty—from a run-in with poison oak, it looked like—and he had a sloppy crew cut that looked like he’d done it himself.
    “I just brought flowers . . . that’s all! I didn’t—”
    “Shhhh,” he muttered.
    But his long, dirty nails dug into her skin painfully and Lydia gave another scream. Angrily he clamped a hand over her mouth. She felt him press against her body, smelled his sour, unwashed odor.
    She twisted her head away. “You’re hurting me!” she said in a wail.
    “Just shut up!” His voice snapped like ice-coated branches tapping and flecks of spit dotted her face. He shook her furiously as if she were a disobedient dog. One of his sneakers slipped off in the struggle but he paid no attention to the loss and pressed his hand over her mouth again until she stopped fighting.
    From the top of the hill Jesse Corn called, “Lydia? Where are you?”
    “Shhhhh,” the boy warned again, eyes wide and crazy. “You scream and you’ll get hurt bad. You understand? Do you understand? ” He reached into his pocket and showed her a knife.
    She nodded.
    He pulled her toward the river.
    Oh, not there. Please, no, she thought to her guardian angel. Don’t let him take me there.
    North of the Paquo . . .
    Lydia glanced back and saw Jesse Corn standing by the roadside 100 yards away, hand shading his eyes from the low sun, surveying the landscape. “Lydia?” he called.
    The boy pulled her faster. “Jesus Christ, come on!”
    “Hey!” Jesse cried, seeing them at last. He started down the hill.
    But they were already at the riverbank, where the boy’d hidden a small skiff under some reeds and grass. He shoved Lydia into the boat and pushed off, rowing hard to the far side of the river. He beached the boat and yanked her out. Then dragged her into the woods.
    “Where’re we going?” she whispered.
    “To see Mary Beth. You’re going to be with her.”
    “Why?” Lydia whispered, sobbing now. “Why me ?”
    But he said nothing more, just clicked his nails together absently and pulled her after him.

    “Ed,” came Jesse Corn’s urgent transmission. “Oh, it’s a mess. He’s got Lydia. I lost him.”
    “He’s what ?” Gasping from exertion, Ed Schaeffer stopped. He’d started jogging toward the river when he’d heard the scream.
    “Lydia Johansson. He’s got her too.”
    “Shit,” muttered the heavy deputy, who cursed about as frequently as he drew his sidearm. “Why’d he do that?”
    “He’s crazy,” Jesse said. “That’s why. He’s over the river and’ll be headed your way.”
    “Okay.” Ed thought for a moment. “He’ll probably be coming back here to get the stuff in the blind. I’ll hide inside, get him when he comes in. He have a gun?”
    “I couldn’t see.”
    Ed sighed. “Okay, well. . . . Get over here as soon as you can. Call Jim too.”
    “Already did.”
    Ed released the red transmit button and looked through the brush toward the river. There was no sign of the boy and his new victim. Panting, Ed ran back to the blind and found the door. He kicked it open. It swung inward with a crash and Ed stepped inside fast, crouching in front of the gun slot.
    He was so high on fear and excitement, concentrating so hard on what he was going to do when the boy got here, that he didn’t at first pay any attention to the two or three little black-and-yellow dots that zipped in front of his face. Or to the tickle that began at his neck and worked down his spine.
    But then the tickling became detonations of fiery pain on his shoulders then along his arms and under them. “Oh, God,” he cried, gasping, leaping up and staring in shock at the dozens of hornets—vicious yellow jackets—clustering on his skin. He brushed at them in a panic and the gesture infuriated the insects even more. They stung his wrist, his palm, his fingertips. He screamed. The pain was worse than any he’d felt—worse than the broken leg, worse than the time he’d picked up the cast-iron skillet not knowing Jean had left the burner on.
    Then the inside of the blind grew dim as the cloud of hornets streamed out of the huge gray nest in the corner—which had been crushed by the swinging door when he kicked it in. Easily hundreds of the creatures were attacking him. They zipped into his hair, seated themselves on his arms, in his