Demon Hunt by A. W. Hart

head and swirled it around.
    Rhi swallowed a smile.
    Thanking Rhi for the hospitality and admonishing both women to stay out of the woods until he checked out what had left the blood in the snow, Bobby Wayne took his leave of them, marching out through the snow in true ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ style.
    “ Yes, he’s as nutty as my Aunt Roxy’s Alabama rum fruitcake,” Pam told her in a low voice as soon as he got out of range.
    Rhi raised an eyebrow in the direction of their latest visitor. “I’m beginning to believe I’m living in a train station with all the company I’ve had this morning. How close does that guy live to me?”
    “ Over the hill. He’s harmless and if the revolution comes tomorrow we’ll have a place to hide and food to eat. But I don’t want to think about what he’ll want in exchange.”
    The women began a long morning of unpacking various boxes of belongings that seemed, to Rhi, to belong to another woman. She held up a black evening gown covered in bugle beads. “Where would I wear this thing up here?” she asked and tossed the garment in the pile for Goodwill.
    Gasping, Pam snatched the dress back up. “Honey, if I looked like you do wearing this thing, I would find a place to wear it.” She dug through the pile of discards to see what other treasures had been tossed. “This stuff is beautiful! What could make you want to throw clothes like these away?”
    “ These aren’t me, not anymore,” Rhi replied. She held up a dress, noting the shimmer of light on the beads and the slight scent of Mike’s cigarette smoke that still clung to the fabric. She shook her head and dropped the dress into the pile, where it slithered, snakelike, into the mound.
    “ You’ll need the lost part of yourself someday, Rhi.” Pam had wormed Rhi’s entire life story out of her by judicious applications of sympathy and beer the night Rhi moved into the neighborhood.
    Grabbing another beaded gown, Rhi dispassionately examined the slick lines of the dress. “I’m not sure what part of me ever wore this.”
    Pam dove into the pile of boxes. “At least you’re at the point you’ll consider a man in your life. When I met you, your only ambition was to be the old lady down the street with cats.”
    “ I remembered I didn’t like cats,” Rhi replied pointedly. Pam tried to foist one of her charges off on her at least once a day. The other woman ignored her, digging through the box.
    Rhi gazed out the window at the azure sky. Air was a knife-like cold that fought to crawl between the windowpane and sash.
    Pam straightened and her back popped loudly in the sudden silence. “Can I ask a favor?”
    “ After unpacking and hogging every bit of pork sausage in my house? Shoot.”
    “ I think we’re gonna get more snow, I can smell it.” Pam twisted a silk scarf in her hands and for a second her mask fell, revealing a haunted expression. “They’ll need an icebreaker to plant Marie up in the cemetery. I think we need to go to the funeral. I know she was a pain but I hate the idea of her family alone in the cemetery, wondering where all of her friends are. I’m gonna go and I’m gonna fake it. Will you go with me?”
    Rhi put a comforting arm around her friend’s bony shoulders. “I think that can be arranged and I think we both need hot cocoa with fresh whipped cream and nutmeg.”
    “ Fresh whipped cream and nutmeg? Have you been watching Emeril again?”
    * * * *
    Outside, the wind whipped up glimmering clouds of powder and the swaying pines moaned. Several sets of eyes watching the house turned from the view of the window and vanished into the brush of the mountain.
    In the living room, Ellie Mae hauled her large golden form off of the pile of pillows she shared with the little girl and nosed the cold glass of a nearby window. Wind blew hunks of snow off the roof into the glass, rattling the pane. The dog waited.
    * * * *
    A few miles away, Chief Boyd barreled down an ice-covered back road