Eerie blue moonlight illuminated the front hall. Rose could hear from upstairs the hiccupping sound of a child catching its breath as it prepared to let loose with a shriek. Gussie was speaking, trying to console someone, over and over telling them “Shh, shh. It’s all right, it’s over.”
Behind Rose in the parlor Daniel was panting, wedged behind the arm of the sofa. Next to her Rose could hear a moaning and wheezing noise from a lump that, in a few moments, she recognized as Sylvester, hunched in the corner between the front door and the parlor.
She lifted herself to her knees and crawled to Sylvester as he slid across the floor and reached out to the front door. He grunted as he pushed at the door and it swung shut. When it closed, the combined force of all the earlier pounding and Sylvester’s push overcame the power of the frame to resist, and the frosted glass pane came crashing down, showering glass over the hallway floor.
It was a moment before Rose recognized the chuffing noise coming from Sylvester as laughter. He rolled over on to his side, his laughter turning into coughing. Gasping, he looked over and saw Rose and smiled.
“Hey, Honey,” he said. “You all right? Everybody all right? Where’s Minnie Lee?”
Daniel kneeled down next to Sylvester and started to unbutton his bloody shirt but Sylvester grabbed his hand to stop him.
“Don't. Hurts. Listen,” he whispered.
Queen crawled next to Rose, crying. Sylvester looked at her and tried to smile.
“Listen to me, all of you,” he whispered.
Sylvester curled his knees up to his chest, grimacing. He was so still that Rose was sure he must be unconscious, but his eyes fluttered and then opened. He looked at them, and then he rolled over on his back.
At the sound of a wailing child from upstairs he lifted his head and looked towards the stairway, but dropped back and closed his eyes again.
“Need to leave,” he said. “Out the back. Now, those people. Come back.”
Sylvester opened his eyes, turned over and looked at his mother’s body, lying near him on the hallway floor.
“Mama,” he sighed.
He rolled back, looked at Daniel, then Rose.
“Leave now. Split up,” he suddenly spoke clearly. “Too big a group, too much noise! Mr. Wright. Folks in Wylly. Shack in the swamp, you remember?” he asked Daniel, who nodded.
“Yeah, I know,” he assured his uncle.
Roy hurried down the stairs, crying out when he saw his grandmother. He dropped on his knees next to Daniel.
“You boys,” Sylvester whispered, “Go on. Take them. Meet you there later,” he said, then he fainted.
Daniel and Roy lifted Sylvester and carried him to the bed in Sarah’s room. Rose hurried upstairs, opening doors as she passed down the hall.
“Come on, come on, we have to go,” she whispered as she went from room to room.
Gussie came from the front room with a group of children and led them, wide eyed and sobbing, down the stairs. Emma and Scrappy brought another group from the boy’s bedroom. Marlene led Mary, the two smallest girls and A.T., clutching his rabbit killer, out of the back bedroom and down the hall.
Rose hurried after them. “Go on, go on out the back,” she told them.
A.T. moved towards the sewing room door.
“Go on!” Rose hissed.
”I want my Christmas suit,” he muttered, looking dazed. It was hanging on the back of the sewing room door. A.T. stepped forward towards the door and stumbled on his grandmother’s body, half hidden in the shadowy light. He stopped and turned, wild eyed, towards Rose.
“Who’s that?” he asked, his voice high and trembling.
Rose put her arm around him and guided him down the hall.
The door under the stairs, open just a crack, reminded her, and she pulled it open. Minnie Lee, wide-eyed and silent, was crouched in the back of the wood box. Rose bent over, lifted her out, and handed her to A.T., who took her hand and pulled her close to him, leading her down the hall.
As they passed Sarah’s bedroom, Daniel told A.T. to take Minnie Lee out to the edge of the woods and wait. A.T. nodded and led Minnie Lee through to the kitchen. Rose paused as Daniel took her arm, and they turned in the doorway to Sarah’s room.
The lamp in the bedroom cast a warm yellow light over Sarah’s quilt where Sylvester lay. He was curled on his side, his face ashen. He opened his eyes and said, “They’re coming.”
Rose and Daniel could hear, faintly, the sound of engines in the distance. Roy moved past them out into the hall, but turned back to his uncle, tears in his eyes.
“Come on,” he begged, “Come on, Daniel and I can carry you.”
“Go on,” Sylvester told them. He pushed himself upright and sat, eyes closed, on the edge of the mattress. A dark stain marked the bright quilt where he had lain.
“Gertrude,” he said clearly, and muttered something else Rose couldn’t understand.
Opening his eyes, Sylvester yelled, “Go on now!” He pushed himself up, groaning, and shouted, “They’re coming back! Go on and I’ll meet you!”
Standing, he picked up the rifle the boys had placed next to him on the bed and used it to steady himself as he stood, trembling.
“I’ll meet you, go on!” he told them one last time.
Rose moved back into the hall. Daniel followed her, pushing Roy ahead. The three fled down the hall to the kitchen and through the swinging door. Before it swung shut Rose turned and saw Sylvester, rifle up, step into the hallway and move towards the front door.
Daniel was dragging her and shoving Roy, moving them through the kitchen and out the back porch towards the woods. Rose, sobbing, turned back towards the dark house, but Daniel pulled her on. They stumbled across the yard, past the barn and out into the empty fields. Headlights coming down the road from the east flashed across them. A shout went up from the men in the cars and the three of them broke into a run, fleeing from the murderers, fleeing into the darkness under the trees as more shouts rang out and the sound of shooting resumed.