"All these folks are victims of the Prowlers. You got vengeance for me and some others in Boston. They're hoping you'll do the same here, Artie explained."
Jack glanced quickly over his shoulder. The ghosts had moved out into the street now, standing in the rain as a few errant rays of sun broke through and speared the pavement around them. Most of them hung their heads as though ashamed.
"I don't get it, though," Jack whispered. "One of them tried to get me to turn around. Now this bunch won't even look at me."
Artie did not respond at first. Jack had to look in the rearview mirror to make sure he was still there. Then those black, bottomless-pit eyes met his gaze, and he shuddered and returned his attention to the road.
"Artie?" Jack prodded.
"They're feeling a little guilty," Artie finally revealed.
Jack furrowed his brow. "Why?"
"They think you're gonna die."
Prowlers Series
by Christopher Golden
Prowlers
Laws of Nature
Predator and Prey ( coming soon)
Available from Pocket Books
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
POCKET PULSE published by
Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Copyright © 2001 by Christopher Golden
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue
of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-7434-2814-5
First Pocket Pulse printing August 2001
POCKET PULSE and colophon are trademarks of
Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For my amigo,
Steve Bissette
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, my love and gratitude to Connie and my boys, Nicholas and Daniel. Thanks, as always, to my agent, Lori Perkins, and to Lisa Clancy and Micol Ostow at Pocket Books. Extra special thanks to Tom Sniegoski and Rick Hautala.
PROLOGUE
Alarmed by the rumble of an approaching engine, a murder of crows took flight from the heavy trees that hung on either side of the Post Road. Against the early morning sky, the flurry of black wings that momentarily blotted out the sunlight seemed particularly ominous. Then they were gone, resettling in the sprawl of maples and elms on the far side of Henry Lemoine's property, and the sky was bright and blue again.
Phil Garraty shivered as the shadow of the birds passed above him, but barely noticed his own reaction. Truth be told, he liked seeing the birds. Crows, the odd hawk or three, even sparrows and such, were a welcome sight. Though Buckton, Vermont was about as rural as a town could get and stil have cable television, they didn't have much by way of wildlife. He saw the occasional deer or rabbit, even a fox now and then, but no more than that, and with nowhere the frequency he'd been told was normal for towns in the area.
Some of the families in Buckton stil hunted, and most of the tourists they got were hunters who'd found their way into town by mistake. Phil figured that was the explanation. Somehow, the animals must have developed a kind of sixth sense about areas where there was a lot of hunting.
In the ancient postal van he'd been driving for seventeen years as Buckton's only mail carrier, he bumped along Route 31 with early U2 blaring out of the speakers from the CD player he'd rigged under the dash. The narrow two-lane road led south out of town toward Rutland. Nobody in town cal ed it anything but the Post Road, and Phil Garraty liked that; made it feel like it was his road.
It was just after nine in the morning and he was beginning the last leg of his rounds. He had started north of town at six A.M., made a circuit of the farm and dairy roads up that way, then delivered the bulk of each day's mail in the square mile that made up the downtown area of Buckton before heading south. Only a hundred-and-twenty-seven homes to deliver to, al told, with a dozen on the southern end of the Post Road and the last few on Route 219, which intersected with it a mile south of town and ran east to west. Lot of traffic passed on 219, but al of it headed somewhere else.
That was the way people in Buckton liked it.
Dave Lanphear and his boys at Public Works hadn't been out to trim the trees on the sides of the road, and as Phil drove the van toward the junction with 219, the foliage grew thicker on both sides, spread out in a canopy above the pavement. From ful sunlight, the road ahead plunged into profound shadow, branches swaying with the breeze. He took off his sunglasses and tossed them on the seat beside him. Suddenly, out of the warmth, he found the wind that blew through the van to be surprisingly chil y.
The plaintive wail of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" surged from the speakers and Phil sang along. The van trundled along at about thirty-five miles per hour as he approached the junction.
Though locals used the Post Road more frequently than 219, the east-west road had more traffic and a higher speed limit, so Phil was forced to brake for the stop sign. Just two stops on the other side of the junction, then he would double back for the four homes he delivered to on 219.
Sunlight flickered through the branches above, and Phil squinted against the brightness as the van rattled to a ful stop. A car flew by on Route 219, doing at least sixty, and he sighed as it disappeared around a curve. He accelerated, and the van's engine grumbled as it picked up speed again, crossing 219 and continuing along down the Post Road.
He'd barely gotten it up to twenty-five before something dropped out of the trees above him. The windshield splintered
