Husk

and undamaged, and what had just happened only existed in the head of a boy who’d gone crazy.

Instead, he found his attacker stopped in its tracks only yards away. The creature stood in the middle of the street, cloaked in shadow, with only its eyes visible in the darkness. It hadn’t crossed even half the distance to where Tim stood, and it didn’t appear geared to move any closer. It simply stood statue-still, its glowing eyes oozing malevolence.

“You can’t escape me,” it declared.

Though the thing had made no sound of its own, its hate-filled voice—the voice of the deer—rasped inside Tim’s ears.

“W-what are you?” Tim stammered.

“The first of many that will begin the destruction of your world.”

Tim choked on the statement. “B-but why? What do you want?”

“Everything,” it hissed. “You don’t deserve this. None of you do. We once had form and feeling. Before you, this was our world, the First World. In the day of the Nephilim and Altse hastiin, when the son of Lamech deserted us, before the Other washed us from the plains and condemned us to the nothingness, we ruled. As we shall again. You and your people are just as subject to judgment. Soon, with the help of Kale Kane and what I’ve done to him, that time will be upon you. The two of us will put in motion this world’s apocalypse. You wish to know what I am? Then, know it.”

Before Tim could contemplate what the creature meant by those words, the world became a liquid image swirling down a drain. He slumped against the church doors for support, clinging to the handles while the view before him washed away and new sights poured into existence.

Sights, smells, sounds, textures, and emotions surged at him in a torrent of psychic information, mounting greater and greater until the deluge consumed him.

He watched thousands of men, women, and children appear impossibly before him, witnessed joyous celebrations of dancing and feasting, marveled at the sight of great palaces from a long-forgotten past. He tasted salty meats, heard jaunty drunken laughter, felt the fleshy press of soft kisses on his lips. The indistinguishable reality of it left him paralyzed.

Memories! This thing is pumping memories into my head.

And then the people changed to corpses.

The great palaces became crumbled tombs.

Death. Stench. Rot. Hopelessness. It hit him like an apocalyptic avalanche.

Tim’s stomach twisted and his legs buckled. His sight blurred. He pressed his hands to his head in a fruitless attempt to block out the assault.

Wars broke out. Cities fell. Crops withered. People died. He cringed at the sight of bloody fights between filthy-smelling men, trembled while he witnessed women being raped with animal savagery. Every wicked deed imaginable flashed into his mind. He saw cloaked figures raise children onto altars set before enormous solid gold idols—sculptures of alien beasts he couldn’t identify—then recoiled when the creatures’ worshippers rammed long knives through the children’s ribcages.

He shrieked against the inescapable torment—the only thing left he could do— screaming his throat raw while he watched the anarchistic society slake whatever transient primal lust demanded fulfillment.

In the next blink of his eyes, the images of death and destruction vanished.

Tim found himself staring at the empty church cul-de-sac, collapsed on his side at the top of the staircase. His whole body quivered in the aftermath of what he’d beheld, and his mind appraised the reality of everything he saw before allowing himself to believe the experience had ended.

His eyes flicked to the street.

The grass creature—or whatever force molded it—had departed and now only a pile of clippings littered the spot where it had stood.

Tim reached up for the staircase railing, missed it, and went down on his chin.

Groaning, he made another grab for the wood and pulled himself to a shaky stand.

No sooner had he gotten on his feet when he noticed that a single light had come on in the Parish Office to his left, transforming a second floor window from a block of coal to radiant gold. A downstairs light came on.

The rectory door opened and a silhouette filled the entry. “Who’s out there?” a voice asked.

Tim climbed over the staircase railing, jumped to the ground, and ran behind the building. He staggered at first, but the disorientation of his psychic experience dissipated with each new step. A dirt parking lot opened up behind the church, lit by two halogen security lamps that gave the far end of the building a sharper, bluish glare. Out of the parking lot, he ran between houses and across Hillview Lane, then between two more homes, not slowing his pace when he encountered the shadows this time. He ran at full speed, the wind at his back, certain if the nightmare tormentor had wanted him dead tonight, it easily could have done it.

The deer had been dead, its rotten body controlled by the same force that animated the bag of grass. Same with his jacket. He had no idea what manner of being lurked behind that hideous voice, or from what detestable realm it had come, but he wouldn’t question its existence again.

It was real. It was dangerous.

And it was still out there.

By the time Tim got home, his run had turned into a skip-like limp.

He rounded the corner of his house and mounted the front steps, door keys already in hand. Inside, he made straight for the kitchen wall phone, steadfast in his decision that he’d tell his tale to the police. He realized getting them to believe what he’d witnessed over the course of the evening would be a task bordering on impossible, but he had to do something to stop the supernatural horror that ran loose in his town.

Tim found the number for the State Patrol, intent on trying to reach his neighbor, Sam Hale, who was out on duty right now. If anyone would listen to him, Sam would.

The line was dead.

It couldn’t be a coincidence; the thing had gotten to the phones. But how? And was it just his house, or was the entire neighborhood without service?

With no time to dwell on the subject, no time to even tend to his own injuries, he hung up the receiver. He crossed the kitchen and exited into the garage, tapping the automatic door opener on the way to his bike. The segmented door growled open, and he took only a few seconds to scrutinize the cuts on his hands and arms in its overhead light. Crusted blood ran in rough tracks up and down each of his limbs, but nothing seemed to be bleeding freely. Confident he hadn’t suffered any serious damage, he got on the bike and rode into the night once more.

He had to get to the old barn.

The horrific psychic history lesson had been terrifying enough, but during their mental exchange, Tim had seen something that brought it all home: an image of Mallory, bloody and cold.

For some reason, the creature wanted her dead.

He now knew what had pushed her brother into the pool. He recalled the pile of wood chips near the Wiesses’ back gate when he’d jumped over the fence. The mulch had been heaped on the lawn in much the same way the pile of grass had been discarded in the street before the church.

Maybe it didn’t know where Mallory was yet. Maybe it did.

Either way, he had to get to her. He needed to warn her. He’d already been scraped, bruised, and run to exhaustion, but he vowed to reach her before that thing could.

No matter what.

CHAPTER 38

The entity soared through the night, crossing the distance between Loretto and Mallory’s neighborhood almost instantaneously. Seen from above, the lit windows of the clustered homes below looked like glowing eyes peering up from the darkness of oblivion.

It needed to act fast.

With Tim aware of its presence, the boy would seek help. Though his story might cause the average