Domino Falls Read Free Page B

balloons and sung along to that song everyyear. The sudden memory was so vivid that her knees went wobbly and the sky seemed to dim.
    After what seemed like forever, Ursalina and Dean came back out, trailed by the portly stranger. Only the stranger was smiling. He proudly held out a cake cutter he might have retrieved from the kitchen.
    â€œClear,” Ursalina said. “No one in the house. Looks like the family’s out back. We saw them through the window.”
    â€œKids?” Sonia said, anxious.
    Ursalina nodded.
    â€œJust like I told you,” the stranger said, and waved them all along the side of the house. “Come on around. They’re waiting.”
    The little man bounced ahead of them to a backyard gate that lay open, walking lightly on the balls of his feet. Happy happy, joy joy. Could it be contagious?
    They followed him. First they passed a play set that looked almost new: swings and a small slide. Next to that, a tree house with both wood-slat ladders nailed into a bare-limbed apricot tree, and a knotted rope that looked an inch and a half thick, now swaying in the breeze. All of it looked like it might have been constructed since Freak Day.
    Past the tree, Kendra finally saw the stranger’s family. Three of them sat at a large red cedar picnic table that had been draped with a gaily-colored tablecloth; two small girls and a woman with frizzy yellow hair. “One . . . two . . . three  . . .” the girls were saying in piping unison, and dissolving into giggles. “One . . . two . . . three  . . .”
    The others didn’t see their approach because their backs were to them, all of them wearing identical birthday hats, oblivious to the world around them. A small evergreen beside the table was strung with tinsel and candy canes, and topped with a silverstar. The table was piled with gaudily wrapped boxes and what looked like mailing tubes.
    How had this family created an oasis when everything else was gone? The girls were laughing and eating cake with their fingers, not waiting for their father to cut it.
    Kendra was close enough to Terry to hear him draw a startled breath. “I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry,” he whispered to her. Kendra wanted to do both. Her hand sought his, their fingers twining together. Everything seemed so . . . normal. As if the devastation that had touched the rest of the world hadn’t quite penetrated here.
    But not quite. What was it? Suddenly, Kendra knew, and felt a chill: Why were they celebrating outside the house? The December air was cold, and only the father was wearing a jacket. The others were barely dressed, practically in rags. What the—
    The sudden sound of Hipshot’s urgent barking made Kendra jump, startled. The dog had followed them after all, standing between them and the picnic table.
    â€œI knew it . . .” Ursalina said, taking a step back. If not for the tremor in her voice, she’d have sounded triumphant.
    Now that she was only twenty feet from the table, Kendra was close enough to see the cords wound around the family’s feet.
    Dean swung his rifle up. “What the hell is going on?”
    â€œJust a party,” the little man said, and when he turned, he seemed too bright, too happy. Why hadn’t they seen it? “Every day, we have a party. Can’t wait for Christmas.”
    Their kids and the mother turned toward them, their private party disturbed. Their eyes were reddish, their faces threaded with tiny vines, like rogue veins, growing where no veins should grow. All three tried to lunge to their feet, but they were held in place by cables fastened to their waists. They hissed andthrashed, but the girls made laughing sounds. “One . . . two . . . three  . . .” they said in unison, twins even now.
    The girls might have been pretty once, but no more. Their round