on the backs of her arms.
She didn't hear the deadbolt disengage. The door opened inward and a shadow stepped into view. She caught the glint of moonlight from a long blade in time to throw herself backward.
The knife sliced through the air in front of her.
She hit the porch on her back and tumbled down the stairs, twisting her arm underneath her and hitting her head.
A black silhouette stood above her, knife at its side. The face was a wash of shadows, framed by a riot of tousled hair.
The cicada song died.
In the silence, she heard the man breathing.
He stepped down onto the first step.
And then the next.
Vanessa screamed and tried to scrabble away.
The insects took flight at once and the night filled with the buzzing sound of wings.
One moment, the man stood three steps above her, and the next he was swallowed by a dark cloud of cicadas. The blade flashed through the swarm. She heard him scream as he swung the knife. His exertions only served to topple him off-balance. He missed the next stair down and fell toward her.
She rolled out of the way just in time.
There was a loud crack and the screaming stopped.
The insects swarmed around her for several moments before finally lifting, leaving behind a crumpled heap of humanity. The man's legs trailed him up the staircase. His arms were pinned under his body. The tip of the knife stood from the center of his back in an expanding amoeba of blood. His head was cocked to the side at a severe angle. Fluid trickled from the corners of his mouth and his eyes stared blankly through her. She recognized him immediately.
Carlton Matthews.
Her daughter's dentist.
She struggled to her feet, swayed until she found her balance, and mounted the staircase.
The front door was wide open.
There was only darkness beyond.
Cradling her injured arm to her chest, she crossed the threshold and stepped into the silent house.
The cicadas were already ahead of her, clinging to the walls, the furniture, the ceiling...as though giving life to the house itself.
The Cherokee slewed from side to side on the gravel road, trailing an angry fist of dust. Trey watched the mailboxes hurtle past until he saw the one he was looking for and slammed the brakes. The car skidded sideways and he used the momentum to turn a one-eighty without stopping. He hit the driveway at thirty miles an hour, but didn't dare push it any faster. Miring the vehicle in the swamp wouldn't help anyone. The road wound fairly tightly, and he didn't want to prematurely betray his approach either.
The trees fell away to either side as he drove into the clearing. The first thing he noticed was the open front door. The second was the body collapsed at the foot of the stairs.
He drove right up onto the lawn and braked hard. Turf flew from the rear tires. He was out of the car before it hit the ground.
Trey ran around the hood and crouched beside the body. He didn't need to check for a pulse to know that Matthews was dead. The knife had been driven straight through his chest and the vertebrae of his cervical spine formed lumpy, bruised knots where they had broken and separated from the column.
Drawing his service pistol, a Beretta 92FS, he crept up the stairs toward the front door. The only sound was the soft scuff of his shoes. He sighted the darkness down the barrel and cautiously entered the house.
Vanessa didn't waste any time searching the main level. She needed to reach the basement. It pulled her onward like an iron filing to a magnet.
The formal living and dining room off the foyer to her right was empty; the hallway leading toward the bedrooms to the left deserted. She found the staircase between a comfortably furnished family room and a kitchen ripped straight from the pages of
Sweat.
Ammonia.
Fear.
She heard something shuffle ahead of her. A swishing sound, like soft-soled shoes or slippers across carpet. Then the quiet click of a closing door.
Tiny legs scurried across the back of her hand. She brushed the wall when she jerked it away, grazing slick insect exoskeletons.
At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped to gather her bearings and allow her eyes adjust to the darkness. She was standing in a small recreation room. The faint seepage of light around the sealed window showed the vague outlines of furniture, maybe a rocking horse and a toy box on the floor. A hallway led away from her to either side, shadowed and indistinct.
Clicking sounds from her right. She turned and ran her palm along the plaster, knocking off dozens of cicadas. Their wings caught them before they hit the floor. They buzzed around her head before alighting on the wall once more.
Vanessa held her arms out in front of her as she walked. She listened for the shuffling sound to repeat, but heard only the clicking all around her.
Her hands met with resistance and she managed to stop herself before she collided with what felt like a door. She traced the surface until she found a knob and turned it with both hands. The door was heavy, crafted from solid, metal-reinforced wood that dragged on the carpet. She had to lean her shoulder into it to open it wide enough to squeeze through.
The room reeked of Lysol, which didn't quite mask the lingering stench of body odor and waste matter. Wan squares of light framed the aluminum sheets bolted over the windows. She could barely discern the shape of the canopy over a small bed, the top edges of a dresser and a rocking chair. A small table in the center.
She heard shallow, whispered breathing. The sound of a peacefully sleeping child.
Her heart fluttered and whatever control she had maintained over her emotions fled her. She started to cry and pawed at the wall in search of a light switch.
'Emma? Emma! Mommy's here!'
She flicked the switch and the overhead bulb bloomed. The sudden influx of light was blinding, forcing her to bat her eyelids. She saw snippets of the room, like a slideshow of the same image flipping past too quickly. The walls and the ceiling were covered with cicadas. A rocking chair in the right corner, situated across the low table from its much smaller twin. Books on the table: arithmetic and phonics. A television with a DVD player on a stand, stacks of movies underneath. Piles of teddy bears and dolls. A steel eyebolt was set into the middle of the floor. The thick chain attached to it led up under the covers on a four-poster bed with a lace canopy. A sleeping form under a mound of linens. A spill of short blonde hair on the pillow.
Short...blonde...hair.
Vanessa's heart shattered. She grabbed at the pain in her chest. The room started to spin. This wasn't her daughter. Emma had always had the most beautiful ebon hair.
Vanessa fell to her knees and crawled toward the bed.
She had been so sure, so convinced that Emma was here.
The cicadas...why else would they have led her to this house? To this very bedroom?
She hauled herself up onto the edge of the bed and pulled the covers off of the child. Her size was incongruous with Vanessa's memory. This child had to be at least four or five inches taller than the Emma that lived in her memory, the chubbiness in the arms and legs completely absent.
