Fear.
It was fear. Not the full-blown emotion generated by a life-threatening situation, more the mild sense of unease experienced by children when they heard strange noises in the dark, but it was fear nevertheless, and Aaron was both surprised at himself and ashamed.
He continued forward, toward the enormous black mass of the Store building, looking out the window at the individual animals. Another dog. A squirrel. A tabby cat.
A tabby cat.
He stopped the car.
Annabelle?
He opened the door of the vehicle and stepped out to examine the animal.
It was Annabelle, all right. But how in the world had she gotten here? Their house was at least three miles away. Had she walked that far, or had somebody catnapped her and killed her and dumped her body? Neither explanation made sense, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, he bent down and touched the cat's body.
Cold.
Virginia would be devastated. Hell, so would the boys. Annabelle had been a part of their family for the past seven years. She was almost like a little sister to them.
He didn't feel that hot himself, and there was a lump in his throat as he looked into the cat's face. She appeared calm, peaceful, eyes and mouth shut.
His fingers closed around her cold front paw.
And the lights in The Store flipped on.
Aaron jumped, nearly fell over backwards. He quickly scrambled to his feet, drawing his revolver. There were no windows in The Store, only sliding glass doors at the entrance, but in the gloom of night, the light was piercing.
It shone through the building's entrance and into the parking lot like a white searchlight, illuminating a swath of asphalt all the way out to the highway, causing long shadows to spring up from the bodies of the dead animals, the previously bright moonlight fading into insignificance before its fluorescent power. Aaron bolstered his weapon, already embarrassed by his panicked first reaction, and hurried back to the cruiser, hopping in and slamming shut the door. He put the vehicle into gear and drove through the lot toward the entrance of the building. His heart was pounding, his nerves alive with an adrenaline rush. There was probably nothing out of the ordinary here. A nighttime cleaning crew or some other workers were no doubt performing the legitimate duties for which they'd been hired. But at this hour, in the middle of the night, after the animals -- _Annabelle_ -- the sudden appearance of the lights was surprising.
No, not surprising.
Eerie.
Yes. As embarrassing as it was to admit, he was a little spooked by the lights, even here in his patrol car, with his two-way radio and his shotgun and his revolver. Not for any rational reason. Not even for any irrational reason he could point to or pin down. It was simply an instinctual reaction, one over which he had absolutely no control.
He forced himself to push that reaction aside, however, as he pulled the cruiser in front of the store entrance, slamming the transmission into Park. He took the oversize flashlight from underneath the dashboard and, leaving the engine running, stepped out of the vehicle. There was no need for the flashlight, really. Every inch of The Store appeared to be clearly illuminated.
But the parking lot was still dark, and after midnight there was no such thing as too much light. Besides, the flashlight doubled as a club, and he was more than prepared to use it in that capacity if necessary.
He stepped up to the glass doors, looked inside. He saw nothing at first, only aisle after aisle of products and a bank of unmanned cash registers. Then he caught the blur of movement out of the corner of his eye, and he focused his attention on the right rear corner of The Store.
And saw figures.
Black-clad figures.
Aaron's grip on the flashlight tightened. They were fanning outward from the corner, walking up aisles, moving around racks. They couldn't be employees, he thought. There was no way these strangely garbed individuals were here to perform any sort of legitimate work. They wore hoods and hats and looked like a variation on the cinematic conception of a cat burglar. Which meant they were probably here to rob or vandalize the place, to commit some sort of crime. Which meant that he was going to have to confront them and prevent the crime from being committed.
There were a lot of them, though, and he would be perfectly justified in calling for backup. The problem was that, aside from himself, only Dirkson was on duty tonight, and it would take at least ten or fifteen minutes for him to rouse the other officers and dispatch them to The Store.
Ten or fifteen minutes was a long time.
In the night.
In the dark.
It was then that he saw the words THE STORE stenciled on the back of a shiny black -- jacket? shirt? -- it was hard to tell what it was, but one of the figures had turned around, and the words -- black on black -- were visible in the fluorescent light.
They _were_ employees.
Aaron breathed gratefully, unaware until now that he'd been holding his breath. He watched through the closed doors as the figures separated, heading over to the various Store departments.
Figures.
Why did he keep thinking of them as 'figures' instead of 'people'?
Because they didn't look human.
It was true. There was something about the figures, their build, their appearance, their movements, that struck him as odd, that looked, to his eye, unnatural.
He stepped back, away from the entrance, trying to blend into the darkness, not wanting any of the figures to see him. From this vantage point, he watched them as they moved through the store. Beneath the black hoods and hats, their faces were white, skin the color of alabaster and possessed of an abnormal quality, an unidentifiable property that ordinary skin -- _human skin_ -- did not have.
That wasn't possible, though. He was just being crazy. The animals had thrown him for a loop, and he'd been spooked ever since. There was nothing unusual here, nothing out of the ordinary. These were just people, people working the graveyard shift like himself, people who were trying to do their job. Graveyard shift.
He was being stupid again.
But was he? What work were these figures performing? They were wandering through the store, but they didn't seem to be doing anything. They certainly weren't cleaning the floors or replacing lightbulbs. They weren't even taking inventory. They were just . . . walking through the building. That wasn't work. A figure stepped in front of the door.
Aaron jumped, instantly retreating further back into the darkness of the night. The figure stood inside The Store, behind the glass, facing out. Its head moved from left to right, as if scanning the parking lot. Seen this closely, from this angle, its movements seemed even stranger even more unusual and unnatural, and the skin of its face seemed whiter than any skin could be.
Aaron's heart was thumping wildly in his chest, and his mouth was completely dry.
The figure's head suddenly snapped to the left. Its eyes locked onto his.
The surrounding night suddenly seemed much blacker.
The figure stared at him.
Grinned.
Beckoned.
Aaron ran around the patrol car to the driver's side and its welcome open door. He slammed the door shut, put the vehicle into gear, and took off. There was no crime being committed here, no reason for him to hang around.
Technically, he was trespassing. He had no cause, no suspicions, nothing that would stand up in court if he attempted to explain why he was lurking outside The Store in the middle of the night.
