Cured by Bethany Wiggins

to roll back the cover. The smell of the ocean overwhelms me, and not in a good way. The oysters are glossy, slick-looking brown lumps about the size of my thumb. Bowen watches, amused, as I stick my fingers into the oysters and pull one out, and then shove it into my mouth before I decide to chicken out.
    It tastes … way better than I thought it would, like smoky, salty, tender fish. A little on the strong side—okay, a lot on the strong side—but a lot better than calorie tablets. I reach in for another oyster and Bowen laughs.
    â€œIf you can eat it, I think the beast will eat it,” he says.
    I devour the oysters in a matter of seconds, sucking the fishy residue from my fingertips and savoring the feeling of something filling the concave space beneath my ribs.
    I go back to the window and watch the smoky horizon change from red to dark purple. “So, do you want me to take first watch again?” I ask Bowen. He’s sitting on the sofa beside Fo, eating something fishy-smelling from a can.
    â€œWe need two people to keep watch at a time. I’ll take the front yard, you take the back.”
    I nod, pat the gun at my belt, zip my tackle vest, and walk out the double doors that lead to a huge wooden back deck. The night is just dark enough that I can’t quite see anything except the fading outline of the mountains. Holding the handrail, I walk down the deck steps, into the formerly landscaped backyard of the mansion and look around for a place to keep watch. At the edge of the yard is a hedge of dead bushes beside a vinyl picket fence. I head for the bushes and crawl into them so that I am hidden. Wrapping my arms around my shins, I rest my chin on my knees and watch the dark golf course.
    The sky turns black and only the brightest stars shine through the haze. My butt seems to mold to the ground, sinking into it, and my eyelids grow deceptively soft. I imagine the buzz of mosquitoes and the chirp of crickets filling the quiet night, the sound of wind in aspen leaves, of an airplane droning across the sky. Car engines. Dogs barking. A stick cracks.
    I lift my head and hold my breath. I was
not
imagining the snap of wood beneath a foot, yet I heard it. I think.
    Slowly, I move my head from side to side. The golf course is dark. The house is dark. Everything is silent. Careful not to make a noise, I lower my chin back down onto my knees and listen. My heart goes from speeding to normal, and my breathing slows. I begin to wonder if I dozed off and dreamed the sound.
    And then someone sighs, the gentle exhale of breath that can only be heard from close range. It came from the direction of the golf course.

Chapter 12
    My blood curdles in my veins and I start to sweat. Sitting perfectly still, I start moving my eyes around, searching for the source of the sigh.
    I glimpse something from the corner of my eye—a human-shaped shadow standing in the darkness on
my
side of the fence—and grapple for my gun. In one practiced move I slide it from my belt and put my finger on the trigger. My sweaty hand starts trembling so badly, the gun falls and bounces off my shoe. The ground rustles when the gun hits it, and the shadow drops out of sight.
    Completely panicked, I fall to my hands and knees and run my hands over the ground, searching for my gun, but don’t find it. I stand and pull the knife from my belt and unzip the bottom pocket of my tackle vest, removing a small flashlight. My fingersfeel for the spot on the knife that releases the blade and it swings open. With the flashlight in one hand and the knife in the other, I spring to my feet and turn the light on, pointing it at the prowler. The shadow—a lone person—turns toward my light and starts running straight at me.
    Full frontal attack. I have trained for this, trained to fight, fight, fight, and I am ready for his body to crash into mine, to use his own momentum to throw him off balance, to use both knife and flashlight as