“What kind of stuff is there to do around here?”
“Well, it’s not a really big place…” He sniffed again. “But there’s still stuff to do.”
“Like?”
He sniffed a third time, realizing he must seem like a slobbering idiot. He started to ask for a tissue when the run of liquid came too fast for him to stop it. Two droplets of blood raced down the curve of his upper lip and dripped onto the tabletop before he could cover his nose.
Mallory straightened up. “Are you okay?”
He pinched his nose and felt another blush of embarrassment. “I juss neeb sum tisoos.”
She got him some paper towels.
He nodded. “Thankths.”
“Tilt your head forward. Isn’t that supposed to help?”
He shrugged, only certain of the fact that his chances at getting a date with Mallory had washed down the drain and into the sewer.
“What happened?” she asked.
He stared at the blood, mentally scrambling to find an explanation. Then he remembered how the gate had slammed into his face. “Something hit the fence gate on the side of your house and it plowed into me when I tried to get through to help your brother.”
“That’s weird,” she said, bending to look at him. “Oh, you’re right. There’s scrapes over your temple and ear. I think you got some splinters, too. God, it must have really whacked you.”
“I thought you might own a big dog.”
She shook her head. “Not us. Let me get a tweezers and some first-aid cream.”
In less than a minute she returned from the downstairs bathroom. Tim accepted the tweezers and felt around for the slivers of wood.
After several failed attempts, Mallory knelt beside him. “Here, let me try.”
Working slowly, she extracted the five splinters lodged in his forehead and face. She kept his head steady with one hand, resting it gently against his right cheek. Her touch landed on his skin like sunlight, warm and inviting, and he had to concentrate to keep his cool. His gaze flicked to where gravity pulled the neckline of her tank top into a V, but he quickly looked away. Their contact, coupled with the fact that no one else shared the empty house with them, gave the experience a secret quality he didn’t want to end.
“There you go,” she said, giving the side of his head one last look. “I think I got them all.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
They sat in silence for a moment, passing enough time for Tim to work up the courage to ask Mallory the one question that had been floating around in his mind since before he’d even met her.
“So, do you have… a boyfriend?”
A strange look flashed across her face, a sort of hopeful look. “No,” she said in a bashful tone. “Not right now.”
Without wasting another second, he told her about the Valleyfair tickets and asked if she’d like to go with him.
“Sure. When?”
“How about tomorrow night?”
Mallory smiled. “Okay, if my dad says it’s cool. I don’t have anything planned.”
“Now you do,” he replied. “Hey, do you want to go for a bike ride? I could give you a tour of the area.”
“Lead the way.”
The Killer watched Mallory ride away with Tim, the interfering whelp, and the desire to attack seethed with an even greater ferocity.
But the Killer didn’t move.
BJ couldn’t be destroyed yet, not without consequence, so Tim’s interference didn’t change anything.
“Slay the sheep and face the Shepherd,” the Killer growled.
Besides, Tim’s arrival could yet prove useful. The boy had power—nothing like Mallory’s, but useful, nonetheless. Best they died together, at the proper time. The Killer still needed to move the Andersons’ van to the lot behind the neighborhood, and later, after dusk, assemble the final components at the cemetery.
Then the carnage could begin.
The Killer returned to the Andersons’ house imagining the cries Mallory and Tim would emit during the removal of their skins.
Kern’s body waited in the foyer. The Killer grabbed the priest’s ankle and dragged him down the hallway, leaving his heart for later. There was no need to dispose of the evidence. The Andersons’ disappearance had already begun to draw attention, so the priest and his car would stay here to await the police.
Even so, that didn’t mean his discovery couldn’t be a memorable one.
CHAPTER 15
Mallory settled into bed that night with a smile. It was only the second night in her new room, but already she felt cozy and at home.
True, she still missed being close to all her friends, but for now she set that concern aside and focused on the more cheerful thoughts of her day with Tim.
She shook her head as she recalled the insanity of their introduction, grinning at the memory of meeting him while wearing only a bath towel—then snickered at the fact he’d been the one embarrassed by the moment. She smiled into the dark, recalling how he’d tensed when she’d laid her hands on him to get the splinters out of his skin. Maybe that’s what made him stand out in her mind, his strong yet humble nature. She felt like she could actually be herself around him, and not have to posture for his attention or fear embarrassment if she did something silly.
She was about to close her eyes when a dim light and the sound of muffled voices drew her attention to the hallway. Listening, she made out her father’s voice speaking to BJ.
Getting out of bed, she walked down the hall to her brother’s room and stopped at the doorway, squinting from the light.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Her dad knelt beside the bed, talking softly to BJ. The boy had scrunched himself under the covers the way kids do when they turn their beds into havens from monsters. He’d been acting mousy ever since his experience in the pool, but she figured that was understandable enough.
“BJ just had a bad dream, that’s all.”
“Voodooman was here,” BJ whispered.
Mallory raised an eyebrow. “Voodoodude?”
“It was just a dream,” her dad repeated.
“No,” BJ insisted. “It
“It’s okay,” her dad assured him. “I’ll stay right here until you fall back to sleep. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Mallory yawned. “Well, I’m going back to bed. G’night, Dad. Night, Munchkinboy.”
She shuffled down the hall to her room.
She paused at the door, her eyesight still adjusting from BJ’s lamp. Lost in darkness, the far wall of her bedroom had become a solid black mass, interrupted only by the rectangular shape of the bedside window. Then she spotted something else, something that made her drowsiness vanish in an instant and caused a tingle of fright to prickle along her spine: the unmistakable silhouette of someone crouching in front of the window, kneeling before her bed, head down, sniffing her sheets.
Outside, a car drove past. Its headlights swept across the window, and in the split-second moment when the
