Deadfall by Robert Liparulo

a nine-year-old boy put all that together to become absolutely convinced of his father’s death?
    Despite Laura’s attempts to console him, he had cried and wailed ceaselessly.
    She had been reminded of too many funerals for children she had seen on the news. A parent—either the mother or the father, but for some reason never both—hysterical in grief, lamenting to God, pleading to the child, tearing at his hair and clothes. Without question, she would have acted similarly had she lost Dillon, and probably had she witnessed Tom’s death. But not having witnessed it, she held on to a thread of hope as thin and fragile as a spider’s silk.
    Dillon’s instant and certain grief made her believe that a bond between father and son had been violently broken, and that unlike the mere emotional bonds of psychiatric journals or the metaphoric bonds of poets, this one had been somehow as tangible as the umbilical cord that had once connected mother and child. The boy had cried and moaned until she was sure no more tears could possibly come, but they did. He had fallen into fits of ragged, desperate breathing. She had thought he would hyperventilate and pass out.
    The room’s darkness seemed to have added to his panic, but Laura had thought it was appropriate, a representation of the evil that had invaded the town and the bleakness of losing Tom.
    Laura would have liked to check her watch by the light slipping under the door. But with Dillon finally in the slumber of exhaustion, she dared not move. When she last checked, it had been 4:12 p.m., six hours since they had last seen Tom. Six hours in the storage room. She guessed it was now somewhere around seven o’clock, but it could be much earlier or much later.Time flowed differently in moments of terror and grief.Watching her son sleep, the rise and fall of his chest, the barely discernible movements of his eyes under his lids, she tried to imagine his life without Tom. She couldn’t. He had always been as much a friend as a father.Teaching Dillon how to fish, camp, work on the car, build a birdhouse,Tom had been as entertained as Dillon had been. She touched her son’s chin and ran her finger along his jaw. She brushed the hair back from his temple.
    â€œI’ll try to fill his shoes,” she whispered. “I’ll try to be what he would have been for you.”
    A tear landed on his forehead. His eyes fluttered; then he was back in his dreams.
    She pulled in a deep breath and raised her head. She wiped the unfallen tears from her eyes. She had not realized she was so close to giving in to the grief. She looked into the gloom and thought about being strong. Her fingers again pushed into Dillon’s hair and lifted. She felt the fine strands brushing her palm.
    â€œI’ll still be me . . . and I’ll be him too. But right now I have to get you out of here. I have to make you safe.That’s what he would have—” Shadows moved under the door. The lock rattled, and blinding light burst in. She blinked against it as hazy silhouettes filled the doorway.
    Someone walked around her and stood at the back wall, in the dark. Two others entered. They remained in the light. One was the older teenaged boy. The other was Declan. He looked down at her. Half his face was awash in bright light, the other in shadow. His cool indifference did not so much radiate from him as it clung to him like a cowled robe. He squatted to be level with her, casually draping his arms across his legs.
    â€œDo we have a problem?” he asked.
    She glared. A dozen responses, from the shrill to the sarcastic, flashed through her mind.
    Dillon stirred, groaning quietly. He adjusted his head on her lap.
    Finally she said, “Where’s my husband?”
    He closed his eyes, appearing exasperated. “So we do have a problem.”
    â€œOnly if I can’t see my husband. Where is Tom?”
    â€œSweetheart, I’m afraid you’re