through his sneakers and cooled his feet.
He reached the top of the hill and paused to catch his breath. Then he hopped back on the bike. To his left, the dilapidated utility shed loomed in the distance. Just the sight of it filled Doug with dread and sadness. That morning' s memories were still fresh. He imagined that he could still hear Clark Smeltzer ' s cruel, mocking laughter and slurred speech, as if he were nearby. It seemed very real, as if Mr. Smeltzer was still there. And then, with a jolt of panic, Doug realized that he was. Clark Smeltzer leaned against a tall, granite monument near the utility shed, in the newer portion of the cemetery. Despite the solid support, the drunken caretaker swayed back and forth. One arm hugged the stone. The other waved around in agitation. He clutched a bottle in his hand, and the liquid sloshed in time with his jerky movements.
His voice was animated loud and angry. He was talking to someone, but from his vantage point, Doug couldn' t see who it was. He strained to hear. The wind shifted toward him and he picked up a snatch of conversation. The breeze carried something else, too a foul odor, similar to the one they' d smelled wafting from the hole beneath the shed floor. Doug assumed that was where the stench was coming from.
'You leave them out of this,' Mr. Smeltzer threatened whomever he was talking to.
'That wasn't part of the deal.'
He lurched to the side, still holding onto the grave marker, and Doug caught a glimpse of the stranger. Whoever it was, they appeared to be naked and almost hairless, except between their legs. His eyes widened. Yes, the person, whoever it was, really was naked, and definitely a man. Their skin was very pale, and seemed to be… glowing?
That couldn't be right.
He squinted, trying to see clearly. His pulse raced. A lump rose in his throat. If Mr. Smeltzer turned around now or if the stranger spotted him over the caretaker' s shoulder, he 'd be caught. He'd already seen just what Barry's father was capable of in broad daylight. There was no telling what he' d do under the cover of night, especially as angry as he sounded right now.
Slowly, carefully, Doug turned the bike to the right and began heading for the church. He held his breath, hoping the chain wouldn' t rattle. The spokes clicked softly. He prayed they wouldn 't notice the bike' s reflectors. His plan was to cut around it, letting the structure block him from their view, and then take the lower cemetery road the one that bordered Luke Jones's pastureto the Dugout. If he needed to, he could even go the long way around and cut through the pasture itself. Once inside the fort, he should be safe. There was no way they could stumble across it in the dark. Swallowing hard, he tried to calm his fears, tried to make a game out of it. He was Han Solo, sneaking around onboard the Death Star and hiding from the Imperial storm troopers. His BMX was really the Millennium Falcon, the fastest bucket of bolts in the entire galaxy. He tried to think of the film ' s line about the Kessel Run, but he was too scared to remember it.
Inching farther away, he climbed onto the bike, breathed a silent prayer, and coasted away. His feet slipped onto the pedals and he gently pumped them. The pedals went round in a circle and clanged against the faulty kickstand.
Kachunk.
Doug whimpered.
Behind him, something squealed like a monstrous, enraged pig.
'Oh, shit.' Doug pedaled as fast as he could.
The bike picked up speed, rocketing toward the church. The tires crunched through the gravel, and the bike' s chain rattled. Clark Smeltzer shouted in confusion, but Doug didn
' t bother to turn around. He heard feet slapping the ground in pursuit, coming hard and fast. The horrible stench seemed to be following him as well, getting stronger. He bent over the handlebars, gritted his teeth, and pedaled with all his might. Another terrible cry sounded from behind him, and then the sounds of pursuit faded. He rolled into the parking lot, and out onto the road, passing between Barry ' s house and the church. The windows were dark inside each, reinforcing in his mind just how late it was. I'm all alone out here, he thought. If something happens now, nobody will ever know. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw no sign of either Barry's father or the mysterious, howling stranger. He took a deep breath, held it, and listened. Silence.
Who sounds like that, anyway? Not even the guy who does all those sound effects in the Police Academy movies could make a noise like that. It was more like an animal than a person.
He waited a few seconds longer, his muscles tensed, ready to flee if there was any sign of pursuit. No one came. Apparently, they' d given up. Relieved, Doug reached down and patted the bike 's crossbar.
'Good girl,' he whispered. 'Got us out of that one, for sure. Need to get that kickstand fixed, though.'
He rode on into the night. He'd decided that maybe death and oblivion weren't really what he wanted after all.
Smeltzer had become a problem. Angered, the caretaker was suddenly making demands, and refusing to follow the ghoul' s commands. He was inebriated almost to the point of incoherency, and threatening to expose the ghoul 's underground warrenbreeding pit and all. There was dried blood on the caretaker' s fists, and it had belonged to the man ' s whelp, judging by the scent. In this drunken, unreasonable state, Smeltzer was no longer useful. The ghoul had been about to kill him when the child interrupted them.
The creature had commanded Smeltzer to bring it more females, and warned him that if he didn't, it would have no choice but to take Smeltzer' s own woman, as well as the women living in the homes nearby. Despite this, the gravedigger had refused. Finding courage from his bottle, he 'd grown belligerent. He' d complained about the police presence, and how the law was asking questions. The ghoul had known nothing of this, having spent the daylight hours asleep deep beneath the graveyard. It was displeased to learn that its first victim the youth whose mate he'd stolenhad been found, and even angrier to learn that Smeltzer had not properly disposed of the youth 's body. Once again, the ghoul gnashed its teeth in annoyance at the Creator's commandment not to taste living blood, nor to eat living flesh.
It grinned, remembering the child whose foot had fallen through the tunnel roof. The ghoul had only clawed him, but it had heard the child on the surface above, telling his companions that he 'd been bitten. The ghoul wasn't positive, but he thought that it might have been the same child who' d interrupted them tonight. The scent was similar. It should have bitten him. It hadn 't broken the commandment until the three young men had invaded its underground home. Even then, it hadn' t consumed their bodies immediately. It had enjoyed merely a small taste. But that was in the process of defending its lair, and the ghoul felt justified.
In hindsight, it should have done the same when this drunken fool, Smeltzer, first freed it from its prison. It should have ignored the Creator' s law when it came across the young couple rutting in the cemetery. When it slaughtered the male and took the female as its first mate, it should have devoured the youth ' s carcass. It hadn't, and because of that, because it had left the matter of disposing of the body in the hands of a human accomplice, its home and security were now threatened. Its family the ghoul's new family was now endangered.
Or maybe this was all happening as a result of the ghoul's breaking of the commandment in the first place. Maybe the Creator was displaying His displeasure. It had intended to kill its human accomplice, to rip Smeltzer' s head from his body and bathe in the warm, red fountain, but the child had interrupted those plans. And now the child had escaped, and could tell others. Soon men would come, armed not with torches and magic. Not this time. But armed nevertheless. It did not fear their guns and ammunition. It feared discovery before it had the chance to become a parent. Relocation would delay those plans.
The ghoul stopped in its musings, pausing in front of a black marble gravestone, the ornate lettering gilded in gold. A cross symbol dominated the stone' s center. It had been carved with obvious craftsmanship and care. Beneath the engraving were the words, He is Risen.
Snarling, the creature lifted one leg and urinated on the symbol. The pungent stream splattered over the tombstone and ran down onto the grass, steaming in the darkness.
'There is what I think of your commandment. He is risen?
Bah. He would not have risen, had one of my kind been in the tomb with him. He would have been another meal. Nothing more. Then where would your great plan be?' The ghoul gnashed its teeth in frustration. The child was gone, vanished into the night. But his scent was familiar. The ghoul was positive now. It had smelled this scent several times before: the day the boy 's foot had fallen through the tunnel, and most strongly from a separate warren on the graveyard's edgea den manufactured by children 's hands. Smeltzer' s son, the child from this
