lighted by a streetlamp. The big wooden sign above it spelled beast house in dripping letters meant to resemble blood.
He shoved the turnstile. It held fast, so he vaulted it.
More screams came from the house, screams of pain torn from a child.
Sprinting up the walkway, Jenson took the porch steps two at a time. He tried the door. Locked. He pumped a cartridge into the shotgun chamber, aimed at the lock face, and pulled the trigger. The 00 shot slammed a hole through the door. He kicked. The door whipped back. He stepped into the foyer.
From above came tearing sounds and breathless animal grunts.
Enough moonlight poured through the front windows to show him the foot of the staircase. Grabbing the bannister post, he swung himself onto the stairs. Blackness swallowed him. With one hand on the railing to guide him, he climbed. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and listened. Grunting, snarling sounds came from the left.
Cocking the shotgun, he jumped into the hallway and whirled to the right, ready to fire.
All was dark except for a puddle of brightness spilling across the hall floor. It came from the end of a flashlight.
Jenson wanted that flashlight. Needed it. But it lay far down the hall, close to the black center of the quick loud gasping sounds.
Shotgun pointed up the hallway, he dashed toward the flashlight, his shoes pounding echoes, his own sharp breaths masking the rasp of the other breathing. Then his foot came down on something round like a club, but soft. Maybe an arm. His other foot kicked a hard object, and he heard its teeth clash shut as he stumbled headlong into the darkness. The shotgun mashed his fingers against the floor.
Stretching his right arm, he reached the flashlight. He swung its beam in the direction of the grunts.
The creature loosed its teeth from the nape of the boy’s neck. It turned its head. The skin of its face was white and puffy like the belly of a dead fish. It seemed to smile. It writhed, freeing itself from the boy.
Jenson dropped the flashlight and tried to raise the shotgun.
He heard soft, dry laughter, and the beast took him.
CHAPTER ONE 1.
Donna Hayes put down the telephone. She rubbed her trembling, wet hands on the covers, and sat up.
She had known it would happen. She had expected it, planned for it, dreaded it. Now it was upon her. “I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour,” he’d said, “but I knew you’d want to be informed immediately. Your husband was released. Yesterday morning. I just found out, myself…”
For a long time, she stared into the darkness of her bedroom, unwilling to swing her feet down to the floor. Darkness began to fade from the room. She could wait no longer.
The Sunday morning air was like cold water drenching her skin as she stood up. Shivering, she bundled herself in a robe. She stepped across the hallway. From the slow breathing inside the room, she knew that her twelve-year-old daughter still slept.
She went to the edge of the bed. A small shoulder, covered with yellow flannel, protruded from the top of the covers. Donna cupped it in her hand and gently shook it. Rolling onto her back, the girl opened her eyes. Donna kissed her forehead. “Good morning,” she said.
The girl smiled. She brushed pale hair away from her eyes and stretched. “I was having a dream.”
“Was it a good one?”
The girl nodded seriously. “I had a horse that was white all over, and so big I had to stand on a kitchen chair to get on him.”
“That sounds awfully big.”
“It was a giant,” she said. “How come you’re up so early?”
“I thought you and I might just pack our bags, get in the Maverick, and take ourselves a vacation.”
“A vacation?”
“Yep.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
“Wow!”
It took nearly an hour to wash up, dress, and pack enough clothes for a week away from the apartment. As they carried their luggage down to the carport, Donna fought a strong urge to confide in Sandy, to let the girl know that she would never return, never spend another night in her room or another lazy afternoon at Sorrento Beach, never see her school friends again. With a sense of guilt, Donna kept quiet about it.
Santa Monica was gray with its usual June morning overcast as Donna backed onto the road. She looked up and down the block. No sign of him. The prison authorities had left him at the San Rafael bus depot yesterday morning at eight. Plenty of time for him to arrive, look up her address, and come for her. But she saw no sign of him.
“Which way do you want to go?” she asked.
“I don’t care.”
“How about north?”
“What’s north?” Sandy asked.
“It’s a direction—like south, east, west…”
“Mom!”
“Well, there’s San Francisco. We can see if they’ve painted the bridge right. There’s also Portland, Seattle, Juneau, Anchorage, the North Pole.”
“Can we get there in a week?”
“We can take longer, if we want.”
“What about your job?”
“Somebody else can do it while we’re gone.”
“Okay. Let’s go north.”
The Santa Monica Freeway was nearly deserted. So was the San Diego. The old Maverick did fine, cruising just over sixty. “Keep an eye out for Smokey,” Donna said.
Sandy nodded. “Ten-four, Big Mama.”
“Watch that ‘Big’ stuff.”
Far below them, the San Fernando Valley was sunny. The smog’s yellow vapor, at this hour, was still a barely noticeable smudge hanging low over the land.
“What can your handle be?” asked Sandy.
“How about ‘Mom’?”
“That’s no fun.”
They nosed down toward the valley, and Donna steered onto the Ventura Freeway. After a while, Sandy asked permission to change the radio station. She turned it to 93 KHJ and listened for an hour before Donna asked for an intermission, and turned the radio off.
The highway generally followed the coast to Santa Barbara, then cut inland through a wooded pass with a tunnel.
“I’m sure starving,” Sandy said.
“Okay, we’ll stop pretty soon.”
They stopped at Denny’s near Santa Maria. They both ordered sausage and eggs. Donna sighed with pleasure as she took her day’s first drink of coffee. Sandy, with a glass of orange juice, mimicked her.
“That bad?” Donna asked.
“How about ‘Coffee Mama’?” Sandy suggested.
“Make it ‘Java Mama,’ and we’ve got a deal.”
“Okay, you’re ‘Java Mama.’ ”
