They listened. Whatever Joan had heard—if anything—was silent. Then a low growl reached them.
'Yeah,' Larry said. 'A dog, I think.'
A twig snapped behind them, spinning them around, hearts beating heavily in their chests. They could see nothing. But the smell—it was awful.
'Smells like someone who hasn't bathed in a long time,' she said. 'Or maybe never.'
Larry forced a laugh. 'Aw, come on, Joan. You've been seeing too many monster movies. Maybe it's The Thing?'
'You jumped, too,' she reminded him. Her breath was ragged.
Her heart was beating too fast. 'Don't talk about monsters, Larry. Not out here. Okay?'
'Okay, I'm sorry. But I just jumped 'cause you did, that's all.'
'How far back to the truck?'
''Bout a mile and a half, I guess.' Shit! she wants to go home. I'll never get any. I'll be a virgin all my life.
'I want to go home, Larry. Right now!' Edges of panic in her voice.
A snarl from the timber, just a few yards in front of them. A snap of heavy jaws.
She grabbed his hand. 'Come on, Larry—Run!'
A scream touched them, a howling. A shriek of such hideousness it forced all thoughts of sex from Larry's mind. Together, the young couple ran blindly through the night.
A snarl in front of them, a thing looming up from the night. It roared at them, reaching for them, its breath fouling the air. They changed directions, running toward the timber. Branches whipped at them, cutting flesh as they ran, panic driving them deeper into the dark timber.
Larry screamed, jerking the girl to a stop. 'Oh, my God!' he pointed.
Grotesque figures surrounded them, encircling them, eyes red and wild. Fanged jaws dripped stinking drool. The creatures reached for the young people. Larry peed his shorts.
Joan wailed her terror as the creatures pawed at her, touching her private places. She was too numb to run. This one, they knew was a breeder. They ripped the clothing from her, leaving her naked. The creatures moved about the teenagers, touching them, prodding them with sharp-clawed fingers. Breeding could wait for a time; they were hungry.
One of the creatures moved, swiftly sinking its teeth into Larry's neck, severing the jugular, loving the taste of blood.
Joan whirled around, running out of the timber, two snarling, snapping Beasts after her. She ran naked past the small lake, terror making her strong. She ran faster than she ever imagined she could.
She stumbled, falling over a root, bruising her knees. The Beasts were on her, trying to drag her back. She screamed, rolled to her feet, and raced into the night.
The Beasts were large, longer-legged, but they were clumsy, and Joan was driven by blind fear, the adrenalin pumping through her. She gained on them as she raced up the hill, out-distancing them as she ran down the other side. She scrambled over the fence, cutting her legs, then dropped to the other side, running for her life, never looking back.
The Beasts had stopped at the fence, watching the female run into the night. There was disappointment in their low growls. They could not venture past this fence—not yet. To pursue her, they knew, meant the chance of meeting man on the dirt road less than two miles away, and they had been forbidden to leave this area.
The Beasts loped back to the timber, hoping the others had left them some meat. They had not been awake long, only a few weeks, and they had been asleep for a long, long time. Years. He had awakened them, and the Beasts were tired of eating fish and berries. They wanted raw meat, and the sweet, hot, salty taste of blood.
In the timber, they found only scraps of meat, and they were angry. The pair snarled over the scraps and bones, fighting for a moment before realizing the Master would not like them to quarrel. They quieted, then shared what was left, snapping the bones, sucking the marrow.
When they had finished, they dragged the bloody clothing of the boy and the girl to a hole in the ground, deep in the timber. The Beasts slipped into the opening of the deep cave, traveling far into the earth. They did not fear the darkness—they knew it well. They had lived here for a long time. Thousands of years. They had walked this earth long before what is now called man came to this place. But when man came, both before and after the flood, he had hunted them. The Beasts had been hunted with everything from stone axes to guns. But they had— thousands of years before—joined forces with the Master, and He protected them, awakening them from time to time. Now, He had awakened them again.
The Beasts passed one of the ever-awake sentries, growling a greeting, then slipped deeper into the bowels of the earth.
Joan managed to start the truck, killing the engine several times in her hysteria. She was cold, and there was not even a jacket in the truck to cover her nakedness. Her hysteria moved into shock as she bounced down the rough dirt road, driving too fast. She cried with relief when she spotted the sheriff's patrol.
The deputy licked his lips as his eyes traveled over her naked body. He patted her on the shoulder, covered her trembling body with his jacket, and led her to his car. She slid in next to his partner, very conscious of the short jacket and her body. The seat was cold on her bare rump.
'I'll drive the truck,' his partner said. 'Follow you.'
A mile down the road, the deputy turned to the right.
'Aren't we going the wrong way?' Joan asked.
'Short cut,' the deputy said.
He drove to an old fishing camp in the back country, near a lake in the Bad Lands. There, ignoring her screaming, the men took turns raping her.
Just before dawn, while Joan lay sobbing on the dirty floor, a car pulled up outside the shack. 'Walter,' a deputy said, looking out the boarded-up window.
'Sink the truck in the lake,' the acting-sheriff told them, his eyes taking in the lushness of the teenager's body. He knelt down and squeezed a soft breast.
'No!' Joan screamed. 'Please help me!'
Walter beat her into submission, then raped her. When he had finished, he tied her securely, put her in the back seat of his car, and drove to Tyson's Lake, dumping her over the fence. He backed off, up the hill, watching the Beasts lope toward the girl. They dragged her into the timber. Her screaming lasted a long time as the Beasts took turns mounting her.
Then the timber was silent.
Walter knew the girl had become one of Them, a rapid metamorphosis taking place after she had been bitten on the neck, the infection spreading through her. Walter knew this because the Master's agent had told him how it was done. Then he had taken the acting-sheriff to meet the Beasts.
That encounter had been one of the less pleasant experiences of Walter Addison's life.
Addison drove back to Whitfield, to his apartment. He showered, shaved, put on a clean uniform, and went to his office, waiting for the call from anxious parents. He was very solicitous as he talked with the parents of Joan and Larry, promising them he would do everything he could to find the missing kids.
After hanging up the phone, he looked at a couple of his deputies. They all wore medallions under their uniform shirts. 'Some kids disappeared last night,' he said. 'Parents are all worked up about it.'
And they all laughed.
The corruption that almost completely destroyed the town of Whitfield did not occur swiftly. Rather, like a slow-moving cancer, it worked with stealth, insidiously spreading, until the knife could but momentarily halt the propagation, not cure it. Only death would check the dispersion of evil.
The purulence-filled cavity of disgust leaked over into the light one day, dribbling just enough filth to alarm one man and one young woman who loved that man. To jog their sense of outrage. To move them into action.
The minister, Sam Balon, and the woman, Jane Ann Burke.
The forces of evil must have screamed their hatred when Sam began to gather facts, spreading them out in
