Husk

quantity. The hair at the back of his head stuck up like a crown of red spikes.

Worst of all, he wore an ear-to-ear smile of perverse anticipation.

Mallory shivered, shaking her head, thinking, I take it back—Hurry up and throw something else at him.

The stranger continued to stare at her in that unnerving manner while he moved toward the loft’s ladder, not taking his eyes off her for a second.

“He’s still coming,” she said.

Like they’d planned, Troy and Chris dashed out of the shadows. They charged the man from behind, boards raised over their heads in preparation to strike. Troy reached him first, swinging his timber at the back of the man’s head with enough force to crack a skull.

Whack!

“Yeah,” Derrick bellowed, adding, “Take that, fucker!” when Chris landed a hit to the man’s midsection.

The combined damage inflicted by the boys’ attacks should’ve killed a normal person, or at least brought him down, but the stranger withstood their assaults without making a sound.

Mallory gaped. He didn’t even flinch.

Below, Troy readied another swing.

And the man’s head turned around to meet him.

With the stomach-wrenching sound of snapping bone and torn tendons, the stranger’s head swiveled one hundred-eighty degrees to face Troy.

Mallory shrieked with surprise—then cried out again when she saw the huge empty hole in the back of the man’s head.

The leaping flames of the fire illuminated the petrified look in Troy’s eyes when the stranger pivoted and lunged. The madman struck out with one hand as if grabbing a fistful of the boy’s shirt, but his clawed fingers stabbed into Troy’s chest—stabbed—plunging between the ribs all the way to the last knuckles.

Gasps and screams resounded off the barn’s walls, while a concussion of thunder hailed it from outside. On the floor below, Chris dropped his two-by-four and backed away, slumping to the ground. He clenched his teeth, caging a scream.

Gripping him the same way an eagle would hold its prey, the stranger lifted Troy off his feet and hefted him over his head. He threw the boy away with such force his body crashed through one of the partitions dividing the horse stalls, blasting the boards asunder.

Mallory’s knees weakened.

“Hell with this,” Derrick screeched, his voice cracking. He dashed from the loft’s edge and went straight for the rubbish-cobbled coffee table. Heaving away the blotched particleboard, he hoisted one of the four cinderblock- supports.

He rushed back to the loft’s open ledge and slung the concrete at the stranger.

Below, the man stood gazing in the direction where Troy’s body had flown, oblivious of their movements in the loft. He opened his arms in a peculiar gesture, looking ready to receive a hug—then crashed forward as Derrick’s shot hit him square in the back.

The man flew off his feet, knocked to the ground.

Derrick hollered a cheer of victory, but choked it off when the killer turned on his side and got up.

Mallory gasped. The impact of the cinderblock had ripped through the man’s clothing and gouged into his skin, having stripped away the meat to expose his spine. Bone gleamed in the wound. Yet he climbed to his feet once more. He stabilized himself and resumed his march toward the ladder.

“This ain’t real,” Derrick screamed.

“Just get more things to throw,” Mallory yelled.

Together, they hurried to the remaining furniture and grabbed hold of the couch, tugging it away from the wall.

“Malloryeee,” a hateful voice called from below.

Before she could recall where she’d heard that growling tone before, they pushed the reeking couch forward—the old frame of its hideaway bed scraping the loft’s floorboards like claws—until it plunged over the edge. It slammed down atop the stranger, hammering him to the floor, pushing him into the fire.

Mallory froze, breathless.

The man crumpled beneath the furniture’s weight, forced into the flames. Pinned under its bulk, he lay motionless while the fire closed in around him like the fingers of a giant hand.

Nothing moved this time.

Tears slipped from Mallory’s eyes, and she sagged to her knees. The couch became a hazy orange mass through her tears as the fire engulfed it. By the time she’d wiped her vision clear, the flames had spread to the nearby armchair. The rising air from the blaze soon became strong enough to dry the sweat on her forehead and flutter her bangs.

“Hey,” Chris called from below. “Are you all right up there?”

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Derrick called back.

“Troy’s not,” Mallory mumbled.

Derrick looked at her with the dazed expression of an amnesia patient. Then he gazed at the shattered section of the barn.

Chris rounded the far side of the fire. “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Derrick nodded. He fished his car keys from his pocket and tossed them to Chris. “Go find my sister and bring my car up to the doors,” he said. “I’ll be down in a second.” After voicing those instructions, he softly added. “Man, that fire’s spreading pretty quick.”

Mallory leaned over the loft’s edge and saw that ranks of flames had radiated from the central bonfire, doubling its mass. Several fiery tendrils now stretched across the litter-cluttered floor, while others climbed the beam of the nearest stable divider.

“Which one’s the damn car key?” Chris called up to Derrick, shuffling through his key chain.

Mallory was still watching the gathering flames below, only half-hearing his words, when the garbage scattered across the barn’s main floor—rotten boards, paper scraps, aluminum cans, broken glass, plastic bottles, leaves, twigs, hay—suddenly rushed together all at once. Running like water, everything flowed toward a focal point just behind Chris while Derrick described which key belonged to the Mercedes.

Mallory gasped.

Derrick fell silent.

She shook her head in denial while the pile rose from the ground in the shape of a ten-foot-tall giant, its body a craggy mass of splintered lumber and trash. A face sculpted itself out of the collected rubble atop the heap—a vile, cadaver-like face—and two candle flame eyes sizzled to life within its sockets.

“Look out,” Mallory screamed, but her cry succeeded only in causing the teen to turn and face his demise.

The monster clamped a massive hand down over the boy’s head after he wheeled around. Mallory clenched her eyes shut before seeing it squeeze, but her ears caught the loud, unmistakable pop that declared Chris’s death.

She slapped a hand over her mouth, holding back a cry of revulsion and terror.

When she reopened her eyes, she caught a final glimpse of Chris’s body being flung aside. Derrick stared in horror, face pale. His frozen expression of fear resembled an ancient Greek soldier who’d locked eyes with Medusa.

The monster roared and lumbered toward them.

“This way,” Mallory urged. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll be trapped!”

She seized Derrick’s arm and they dodged an enormous hand of steel and dirt that reached up and clamped down on the decking.

“Look out!”

Splintering planks popped up in their wake, missing them by inches. A three-foot section of the ledge tore away. Mallory shivered at the realization that the loft had to be at least fifteen feet off the floor, which meant the creature had grown even larger.