tumbling down the stairs.
Stunned by what had just happened — barely able to believe it — Angel remained motionless on the bed until Houdini squirmed free of her grasp and bounded through the open door. Then Angel got up and quickly followed.
Looking down, she saw her father lying at the foot of the stairs, sprawled out on his back, his eyes closed. The neck of the beer bottle lay next to his right hand, and he was bleeding from a deep cut in his cheek where the broken glass must have slashed him as he tumbled down the stairs.
Houdini sniffed at the wound, then licked at the blood that was running down Marty’s cheek.
Was he dead?
Angel started down the stairs, but then her father stirred, tried to sit up, and dropped back down again. “I’m gonna kill you,” he mumbled, trying to push the cat away. “I’m gonna…” His voice faded away and he passed out again, and Angel suddenly knew what she had to do.
Hurrying downstairs, she skirted around her father, found the dustpan and broom in the closet under the stairs, and hurried back up to her room. A moment later she was back downstairs, where she dumped the broken glass from the dustpan onto the kitchen floor and put the dustpan and broom back where she’d found them. Then, picking up Houdini, she went back up to her room, closed the door, and sat down to wait, silently praying that her mother would come home before her father woke up again.
After he left Angel’s — or, to be completely honest with himself about it, after he’d run in the face of her father’s fury — Seth didn’t slow down until he was certain he was around the bend and out of sight. When he finally paused to catch his breath, he started feeling guilty, and wondered if he shouldn’t go back and make sure Angel was all right. The sun had finally set, though, and as he realized how late it was getting — and how late he’d be for dinner — the thought of his own father’s rage made him continue toward town.
Night had almost completely fallen by the time he came to the village, but that hadn’t bothered him — he’d learned years ago that the darkness of night was his best protection from Chad Jackson and his friends; if they couldn’t see him, they couldn’t start after him. He walked past the cemetery, as he’d done hundreds of times, and as always, was not the least bit scared. Of course, this was the first time he’d walked past it since he and Angel came upon the story of Forbearance Wynton and her mother in the library, and then found the graves of their family — but not their own — the next day.
Still, he hadn’t done more than glance into the graveyard, and there was nothing there that frightened him. No shadowy figures lurking among the gravestones, no rustling sounds, no oddly cold drafts, nor anything else that might have suggested the presence of anything out of the ordinary.
He peered into the drugstore as he passed it, but it had closed half an hour ago, and the only lights still on were way at the back, where the pharmacy and the office were. If Chad and Jared had even been there earlier, they were long gone.
In fact, everyone seemed to be gone.
The streets were empty, and no cars passed him as he walked past the square, turned the corner onto Court Street, and started up toward Elm.
As he was passing the small park next to the courthouse, the first sense that something wasn’t quite right came over him, but as some instinct deep inside him sounded the first warning, he tried to dismiss it.
Still, he quickened his pace.
The feeling persisted, but as he continued up Court Street, he told himself it didn’t mean anything. And besides, it would be weirder if he didn’t feel anything strange after what had happened out at the cabin. Even now, he wasn’t sure how much of it had actually been real. Certainly, he had a clear memory of going out and gathering the stuff he and Angel needed to follow the recipe in the book, but he still couldn’t quite believe there wasn’t some more reasonable explanation for how Houdini had come back to life and gotten out of the grave where they’d buried him than some kind of magic.
But Houdini had been dead — he was sure of it.
And he was just as sure that no one else had been out there messing with the grave either.
A chill passed over him — the same kind of chill that occurred in horror stories when there was a ghost in the room. But he wasn’t in a room, and wasn’t even anywhere near the graveyard anymore.
He walked even faster, then forced himself to slow down, sure that if he began running he’d get even more scared than he was right now.
Hiding in the darkness.
He gave in to the impulse to move faster past the park, yet his presentiment of danger only grew stronger. At the next corner, he paused in the bright pool of light flooding from the fixture hanging in the middle of the intersection. But instead of feeling safer, the bright light left him feeling exposed. Whatever the danger was, it was creeping through the darkness, surrounding him, using the shelter of night to trap him in a noose that would slowly tighten until—
A strangled sound welling up from his throat, Seth darted off the curbing, dashed across the street, and hurried along the sidewalk until he was out of the pool of light and the shadows of the trees swallowed him up.
Then, just as the terrible feeling of danger lurking close by began to ease, a figure stepped out from behind a tree to stand in the middle of the sidewalk ten yards ahead, blocking his way.
Seth stopped dead in his tracks, his heart pounding as the sense of danger came flooding back. But this time it was no presentiment. This time he could see the danger, and even before he heard the voice, he knew who it was.
“Hi, Beth,” Zack Fletcher said softly. “Thought you might be coming this way.”
Seth stood perfectly still, wondering what to do. He was still three blocks from home, and there was no way he could outrun Zack, even if Zack were by himself.
Which, Seth was certain, he wasn’t.
Chad Jackson and Jared Woods would be hidden somewhere in the darkness nearby, guarding Zack’s flanks.
And making certain he had no way to escape.
“Tell me how you did it,” Zack said with a cold quietness in his voice that frightened Seth far more than any furious yell would have.
“D-Did what?” Seth countered, knowing what Zack was talking about and stalling for time. He glanced around, searching for some sign of Chad and Jared, but saw no flicker of movement in the darkness and heard no crackling of the unraked leaves that lay thick on the lawn beside him.
“Don’t mess with me, Baker,” Zack snarled, moving closer, his right hand squeezed into a fist. “You couldn’t beat me at anything on the best day of your life. So you cheated.”
“Like you and your friends cheat off my homework whenever you can?” Seth heard himself say, the words having risen unbidden into his throat and emerging from his mouth before he realized he was going to speak. And yet, even as he saw Zack’s whole body tense with anger, the fear that had filled him a second ago began to drain away. He glanced around again, and once more neither heard nor saw any sign of Chad Jackson or Jared Woods.
And then he heard himself speak again, and once more had no memory of formulating the thought before he uttered it: “By yourself, aren’t you, Zack? Big mistake.”
Zack, who was slowly but steadily closing the distance between them, stopped, and for just an instant appeared taken aback.
And now, Seth knew what he was going to say before he spoke: “Why don’t you just go away?”
Zack Fletcher’s eyes widened. “You gone nuts, Beth?” he asked, but the dangerous, quiet tone in his voice was gone, and Seth thought he heard a quaver, at least of uncertainty if not quite of fear.
“Don’t ever call me that again,” Seth said. “I don’t think I like it.”
At that, Zack seemed to regain his self-confidence. “Yeah? Why should I care what you like?” He moved closer again, his fist cocked, and Seth could almost feel the pain of the blow that was about to strike him. “You’re
