Afraid

stepfather.”

Streng frowned. One more reason to hold a grudge against Wiley.

“You’re safe now. Josh will take you to the hospital. I’m … sorry this happened to you.”

Fran hugged Duncan closer.

“We’re survivors,” she said.

Streng had no doubt of it.

“When you get out of town the cell reception should improve. I’ll call you from a land line. I need to take your statement, Fran. Yours, too, Duncan.”

“And Woof’s?” Duncan asked.

At hearing his name, the dog cocked his head to the side.

Streng bent down to pat the dog on the head, and the motion brought blinding pain. He still managed to say, “And Woof’s.”

Josh herded them toward the car, but Fran stopped and turned back.

“Sheriff, do you know what happened to the mayor?”

Streng shook his head.

“I saw him in the fire truck. He was naked and tied up.”

“Alive?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see who was driving?”

“No. I thought it was Josh at first, but obviously …” Her voice trailed off.

“Get to the ER,” Streng said. “I’ll call later.”

They have the mayor, too? Streng said to himself. What’s his link to Wiley?

Streng had no idea, but he sure as hell was going to find out. Right after he took care of Bernie, he was going to have a long-overdue talk with brother Warren.

But first, he needed a gun.

It wouldn’t be wise to visit Wiley unarmed.

When Jessie Lee Sloan was six years old, there was a boy in her first-grade class named Lester Paks. Lester was a textbook full of emotional and mental problems. He laughed and cried for no reason at all. He poked himself with tacks and bit at his fingernails until they bled. He ate markers, and crayons, and glue, and even whole schoolbooks, tearing out a page at a time and wadding it into his mouth while their teacher wasn’t looking.

Jessie Lee sat next to him in class. She used to watch him, equally fascinated and repulsed, as he did these odd things. And she always left him alone, until the day Lester reached into his desk and took out Mr. Smiley, the classroom hamster. He put half of Mr. Smiley in his mouth and had already begun to chew when Jessie Lee screamed for the teacher.

Lester got in trouble. Big trouble. They took him out of school, and rumors were he went to a hospital for crazy people. But he came back after a few weeks, and when he sat down at his desk and stared at Jessie Lee he looked meaner than anyone she’d ever seen.

It happened at recess. Jessie Lee was playing four-square with her friends and Lester ran over, dropped to his knees, and bit her on the leg. Bit her and wouldn’t let go.

She kicked. She yelled. Her friends, two teachers, and the principal all tried to pull Lester off. But he clamped down like a pit bull, grinding her calf between his teeth, his cheeks puffing out with her blood.

They finally got him off by holding his nose until he passed out.

He never came back to school.

Jessie Lee needed one surgery to stop the bleeding, and two more to fix the scarring. She still retained the mark, a dimpled patch that never tanned.

She didn’t have any deep psychological problems after the attack, other than not being able to watch vampire movies. There were occasional nightmares, and a heightened sense of caution around strange dogs, but overall she recovered well. After that experience, Jessie Lee felt like she could handle anything. After all, what could be worse?

Now, hanging upside down by her knees over a stack of corpses in the boys’ locker room, she realized that there were things worse. That point hit home when she felt Taylor’s teeth on her knee.

Jessie Lee hadn’t been able to scream because of hyperventilating. Now she couldn’t get in any air at all. The psycho’s hands kneaded her bare thighs, and she felt his lips and tongue suck hard on her flesh, making hickies. Jessie Lee struggled to shake free, but her foot remained caught by her gold Omega anklet.

Hot breath, on her calf.

Then a nip; something a lover might do.

Every synapse in her brain seemed to fire at once, and Jessie Lee felt as if she would actually go insane with panic.

It got worse. The mouth moved higher, teeth and stubble brushing against her skin. Settling on the knee, opening wide to engulf the entire kneecap.

She knew what being bitten was like. How the skin broke and tore. How veins got pinched and severed. How muscle fiber felt while being gnawed.

And that’s when Jessie Lee Sloan began to thrash. Violently. Her body clenched and folded like a switchblade, her head and shoulders twisted back and forth, and a massive surge of adrenaline allowed her to flex her legs. The wire broke, and her foot finally came loose.

There was a millisecond of relief—Taylor’s mouth off her knee, her legs stretching out above her—and then she fell.

Jessie Lee landed, face-first, in a pile of her dead friends and neighbors. But she didn’t stay on top, nor did she roll off the side. The corpses shifted to accommodate her weight, parted, and she began to sink into the middle.

She flailed out her arms, trying to climb up, but struggling slicked her in blood and slippery fluids, making her slide down farther. Gory, lukewarm limbs poked her. Pale faces with rictus grins kissed her. More shifting, and a cadaver fell on top of Jessie Lee, sealing her in a decomposing human tomb. This fueled her hysteria, prompting more wiggling, advancing her descent. By the time she exerted enough self-control to stop squirming, Jessie Lee had burrowed halfway into the pile.

It was dark, but unfortunately not dark enough that she couldn’t see. The dead were stacked all around, smooshing Jessie Lee on all sides. Her face pressed against someone’s lacerated chest. Her right hand became stuck deep in a fatal neck wound. And the stench … death smelled like rotten carnations, an odor so powerful she tasted it on her tongue.

Jessie Lee tried to twist around and force her head into open air. She shoved the body above her—a man she recognized from church. His midsection bent upward and his head tilted down. Blood dripped from his mouth onto Jessie Lee’s face. She craned her neck, turning away, and it trickled into her ear.

The weight on her chest made it hard to breathe. Being bitten was horrible. Suffocating to death in a pile of corpses was even worse. Jessie Lee kicked out and the pile shifted again, pushing her face into someone’s urine- soaked crotch. Then, abruptly, bodies began to topple, and Jessie Lee rolled toward the back wall of the showers, smacking her head against the porcelain tile.

A moment passed, the dead settling into new positions. Jessie Lee’s legs burned now that the circulation had returned, and the bump on her head brought fresh tears. She moved her hand up to rub it but stopped when she heard footsteps.

Someone was in the shower.

She stayed still, eyes peering through bent elbows and twisted legs, straining to see the entrance. No good; her view was blocked.

Do I call for help? she thought. It might be someone from the gym, someone who could save her.

Or it might be Taylor.