crest of the hill, the front yard overlooked the tops of all the other houses, allowing a broad view of the lush country landscape beyond.
Her gaze traveled from the scenery to the house opposite her father’s, where a dark figure stood behind a large window, looking back.
Staring at her.
Mallory turned away. “Take a picture while you’re at it,” she mumbled to herself, wondering if the dude had been eyeballing her butt when she opened the trailer door.
She unloaded several boxes while her dad went to get BJ out of his booster seat, rolling her eyes when she heard the twerp say, “Look, dad, I tied my shoelaces to the door handle.”
Mallory shook her head and made another casual glance toward the house across the street.
The figure hadn’t moved.
She couldn’t make out any details other than a jet-black silhouette, but the size told her the watcher had to be an adult and not some boy checking her out. She knew the person was probably a nosy neighbor simply wanting to get a glimpse of the newcomers, but the idea of being spied on by some guy hiding in the shadows made her shiver. She rejoined her father alongside the car, putting the trailer between her and the stranger.
“Greetings,” a voice called. “This must be the family?”
Mallory turned to see an elderly, white-haired man come out of the garage next door, waving as he approached.
“Morning, Harry,” her dad replied. “Kids, this is Harold Fish, the best neighbor anyone could hope for.”
“I pay him to say that,” the man said with a wink.
Her dad made a round of introductions, mentioning Harry owned the company he worked for, and that’s how he’d found the house.
“You see,” Harry said, “I really do pay him to say that.”
Mallory smiled and shook the man’s eager hand. She listened with interest while he pitched the high-points of the area—the bike trails, the lakes, the surrounding woodland—but chanced glancing over her shoulder once the focus shifted to her brother.
The silhouette remained in the window.
“I won’t be keeping you,” Harry said to her father. “I just wanted to see if you and the kids would join me at church tomorrow? You were busy moving in all your furniture last weekend, so I didn’t ask, but I think you’d enjoy it. I could introduce you to some of the locals. Interested?”
Her dad nodded. “That sounds great.”
“Terrific!”
“Holy shit,” BJ cheered.
Mallory and Harry both broke out in chuckles, while her dad tried to explain the concept of first impressions to her brother.
“Excuse me, Mr. Fish?” Mallory asked, still grinning. “Whose house is that over there?” She gestured across the road, where the sentinel figure remained statuesque behind the glass. “That guy in the window has been watching us ever since we showed up.”
Harry craned his head to look over the Ford, and his face became sober. “That’s Judge Anderson’s place,” he replied. “I don’t believe you’ve met Jerry or his wife yet,” he added, once again speaking to her father. “Nice people, believe me, but they’ve both been acting a little odd lately.”
“How so?” Paul asked.
Harry shrugged. “They just haven’t been very sociable these last few days, that kind of thing. They’re usually pretty outgoing people. I spotted Jerry getting the paper last Wednesday while I was out for my morning walk, and the man looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. We said our hellos and what have you, but it was like I was talking to a stranger.” Harry sighed and shook his head. “I suppose I should’ve pressed him for details right then, but it’s hard to know when to prod into another man’s life. Beatrice, God rest her soul, was always better at that sort of thing than I am. She knew how to talk to people when they needed help working things out. I thought about going over there last night to see how they were, but that thunderstorm rolled in so fast I didn’t have the chance. Tried calling instead, but they wouldn’t pick up.”
As if cued by their conversation, the figure in the window moved out of view. Mallory rubbed her arms, still feeling like she was being spied on despite the man’s absence. She started to follow the others to the house but stopped short when the Andersons’ garage door growled open behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see a large conversion van back out into the street.
Mallory tried to catch a glimpse of the driver, but the van’s tinted windows obscured her view.
The van’s tires screeched on the pavement as it accelerated away.
CHAPTER 3
The Killer drove into a dirt parking lot at the middle of a forest clearing, braking to a stop before an abandoned church. The silence that followed after shutting off the engine became a mute testament to the remoteness of the location.
Despite the solitude, the Killer slid out of the van and cast a wary gaze toward the church. In the past, the humble one-room sanctuary accommodated some sixty people under its wood-shingled roof and steeple. Now, deserted by its parishioners and weathered by neglect, the edifice once built for divine purpose appeared like any other earthly object subject to degeneration. Even the day’s bright sunshine did little to alleviate its dreary look of decay. On the contrary, the light intensified the darkness peeking between the cracks of each boarded-over window and deepened the shadows dwelling within the empty loft of the crumbling bell tower.
Noisy cicadas singing in the nearby brush silenced their buzzing when the Killer rounded the van and opened the back doors. There, sprawled in the cargo space behind the rear seats, lay the Andersons’ bloody bodies.
The Killer seized them by the hair and heaved them out of the van, slamming their corpses to the dirt.
Their untimely deaths only made things more difficult.
Now the Killer needed to find another to aid in the tasks ahead.
Like the girl from this morning.
Mallory they had called her.
“Maa-lll-oo-reee.”
The Killer knew her arrival at this pivotal moment couldn’t be by chance. Not at all. She was a gift, a boon delivered by the unseen forces of the cosmos in favor of the nearing holocaust. Properly slain, her death would be the catalyst for the start of a new age.
The mere thought of her demise sent a tremor of excitement throughout the Killer’s being, lessening the disappointment of the Andersons’ rejection. But before Mallory could die, preparations needed to be made, strength gathered, and for that the Killer needed others. Tonight, the Killer must hunt.
A crow cawed.
The Killer peered around the van’s open door, at the plot of land to the left of the church.
The cemetery.
Bordered by a four-foot-high wrought iron fence, the graveyard held several dozen former residents of the surrounding area, most long forgotten.
The Killer strolled to the fence and stared at the maze of slabs. Dry grass surrounded every tombstone, accompanied by brittle skeletons of parsnip and thistle.
Another crow shrieked from a canted cross not far away.
Dozens more perched amongst the headstones and along the church’s roof and steeple, hundreds of them. They stared at the Killer with dark, seditious eyes.
Below the birds the grass fluttered with the movement of numerous other animals that had congregated in the churchyard: mice, squirrels, woodchuck, garter snakes. A mother raccoon and her two cubs hurried out of sight as the Killer moved along the fence, and a stray cat hissed from its perch atop a tombstone. The killer faced it, causing the beast to retreat into the grass. It fled to the far end of the graveyard, where a trio of deer paced back and forth, flashing the whites of their tails.
