Frank smirked. “When you deal with bad guys all your life you learn where they shop.”
She looked away again. Despite what a dedicated detective he’d been in the past, Melissa had the disheartening feeling that Frank’s original bout with Kane had left mental wounds that might never heal.
In the distance she saw lights approaching, heard the wavering sound of far-off sirens. Behind them, several fingers of lightning reach over the horizon and gripped the cloudy sky. No thunder rumbled in the air.
Not yet.
CHAPTER 34
BJ dashed through the back lawn of another yard, not sure who the yard belonged to or how far he’d come from his own house. His only certainty came from the driving urgency to get away, even if it meant fleeing into the unknown.
High overhead, thick clouds closed out the heavens, blocking the starlight and limiting visibility to only a few feet. Obstacles exploded out of the night in his path, then faded away in his wake as fast as they’d appeared. He didn’t stop.
The cool grass cushioned the bare soles of his feet, but the roughed patches of dirt still retained a noticeable degree of warmth leftover from the day. Skyward, the wind bent the treetops, each pulsating gust stronger than the last. All around him the looming branches whispered a warning to remain quiet.
When he wasn’t looking for what obstacle would jump out at him next—bush, flowerbed, birdbath—he searched for a lit house where he might be able to find help. So far, all the buildings ahead appeared to be abandoned. Set against the white painted walls, their blackened window glass looked cold and uninviting.
He’d entered another yard—the grass reached slightly higher here, tickling his ankles—when the heart- stopping sound of a snapping twig caused him to skid to a stop and take cover behind a low shrub.
Holding back his burning breath, trying not to let out the wail of fear that squirmed inside his throat like a living animal, BJ hunkered down and forced himself to remain motionless.
At first, all went silent—all except for the wind and the trees. Soon, a stealthily hidden swarm of crickets began to sing, followed by the distant barking of a dog somewhere on the other side of the neighborhood; its heavy woofs seemed muffled by the umbrella of sooty clouds above.
Then the twig-snapping noise again.
The crickets’ song stopped.
Goosebumps marched across his arms.
He lay down on his stomach and eased himself backward, sliding farther under the shrubs. Across the yard stood a row of box-shaped bushes that divided this yard from the one behind it, and it sounded like the source of the noise lay concealed somewhere behind one of those tall plants.
Lying in the grass, with the earthy scents of plant and dirt filling his nostrils, BJ closed his eyes and thought about his dad and Mallory, praying Lori had been telling him the truth about how to ward off monsters.
The Killer navigated the wide sea of the night like an eel cruising through black oil, gliding from point to point, unimpeded by the darkness. Traveling through shadows, it crossed great distances in an instant and passed through solid obstacles like they didn’t exist.
At first, it proceeded with the deliberate grace of a superior hunter, searching for BJ’s trail. It drifted sedately among the yards, stalking the most likely hiding spots, confident the boy hadn’t gotten far. But while the search widened and the boy remained undetected, the entity spanned out from the Wiess property and searched neighboring homes. It flew faster, its rage and frustration building, until it became a frenzied beast running on predatory instinct. It dashed from one area to the next, depending entirely on its ability to sense life energy to seek out the boy.
And still nothing.
Somehow, BJ had escaped.
But how could such an inept quarry have eluded it… unless a greater power protected him.
Its anger boiled at the thought.
If it didn’t find BJ, it wouldn’t be able to coerce Paul Wiess into helping it retrieve Kane. It couldn’t afford another failure; there had been too many already.
No! Tonight, one way or another, it would prevail. The separation from Kane had left it weakened, the long wait having drained its power, but it had grown stronger with each victim and now it was ready for the reunion, ready for revenge.
Then, at last, a glimmer of psychic energy.
It shot toward the back end of the neighborhood, beyond the last line of homes bordering the forest. But when the boy came into view, it discovered that the life energy it detected didn’t belong to BJ but to one of Mallory’s friends.
Tim.
The entity watched, invisible to his human eyes.
He crossed the street and entered the woods, striding deeper into darkness.
And he was alone.
CHAPTER 35
Tim pushed his way through the bulwark of staggered trees and bushes planted along the far side of Terrace Street, those set up in an organized attempt to blend the landscaped embankment into the surrounding wild forest.
Once under windblown treetops, it only took him a few seconds to locate the earth-packed lanes of the bike trails. Even in the darkness he maneuvered his way along the paths with ease, having traveled them enough to be familiar with every twist, turn, and fork. Choosing a route that would take him to the railroad tracks—which he could follow all the way back to Loretto in half the time of traveling normal roads—he started home.
In the woods, he wouldn’t run into Mallory and her friends again, either.
Before he’d made his discreet exit from her house, he’d overheard her suggestion of a trip to the old barn. Walking along the street, they might have spotted him on their way out to the fields, and he didn’t feel like explaining why he’d left the house without telling anyone.
Wind gusted hard into the surrounding trees, and their branches moaned in protest. Off in the forest smaller plants mimicked the noise, sounding like the muffled whispers of unknown creatures.
Tim trod forward without pause, his eyes focused on the dirt.
A three-foot long branch had fallen across the path, and he kicked it out the way, imagining it was Derrick.
Two paces later he scooped up a rock and hurled it after the branch.
“Asshole,” he yelled.
He stormed onward, unzipping the jacket he’d taken from his mother’s car and put on to armor himself against mosquitoes. The night’s breeze was keeping them at bay and the added clothing only made him sweaty.
Someone laughed.
It sounded sharp and squeaky against the tranquilizing shift of nature, and Tim snapped up his head to see a huge black figure emerged into view barely fifty feet away. It glided toward him on the path with frightening fluidity, moving like a sentient glob of darkness out of a Lovecraftian nightmare.
Tim stopped dead in his tracks, rooted in place by fear. His nerves charged with energy, prepping his muscles to run, but then the advancing hulk broke apart, separating into the silhouettes of three teenagers riding bikes along the trail.
