The Hunting Tree

by

Ike Hamill

The Hunting Tree

BOOK ONE

- Stage of Possibilities -

CHAPTER ONE

Crooked Tree - 3141 B.C.

HE STOOD IN BACK between his brother and his father, but he really wanted to be nearer to the edge of the cliff. On the journey he’d caught a glimpse of the spectacular view through the trees. From up here they could probably see all the way to where the big rivers came together—the place they would meet with the other families at the end of summer. On his toes, he could at least spy the fuzzy, purple horizon. At sixteen, Crooked Tree already stood taller than any of his relatives. He was even taller than his brother, Running Deer, who was the strongest and most popular youngster of their whole group.

Crooked Tree flexed his legs. His muscles ached from travel. Their four-dozen family members had walked for days to arrive at this cliff on this warm spring day, but Crooked Tree had run most of it—back and forth between his father and Talking Bird. Talking Bird led the group and his father brought up the rear. The tall boy was their messenger, repeating each string of words verbatim.

Now at the front of the group on a black rock, at the very edge of the cliff, Talking Bird explained their duty: “Our people were once herded by the Snake. He kept us as his pets; he watched over us. When we turned sour he culled with a swift bite and a tight coil.”

They had left in a hurry four days before, collecting meager rations and water along the way. Talking Bird had surprised everyone with this trip and had only conferred with Big Bear, who was the natural leader of the clan. Such a trip wasn’t completely unprecedented. As they began their journey, several people remembered another spring day when Talking Bird had uprooted the group and sent them up the hillside just before a flood washed through and destroyed their home camp. The old man was wise and trusted. When his voice broke the still morning everyone straightened and listened.

Crooked Tree tried hard to focus on the old man’s words. Whenever Talking Bird would begin his low, slow cadence, it was all Crooked Tree could do to pay attention. His mind would wander and he’d always miss a crucial part of the message. He’d wait for his father to explain it later. The rest of the group seemed to sense something important. The extended family stood as still as the rocks that dotted the rough clearing. Even the children and babies knew that it was time to stay perfectly quiet.

“When the Man Who Created Himself opened this valley, he stood before the Snake and said ‘We will decide now,’” said Talking Bird.

Several heads nodded. At Crooked Tree’s right, Running Deer whooped, punctuating the story.

“But he really meant that he would decide who should come together to bring more children,” Talking Bird reminded the group. “It was much later that we bore that burden.”

“Now our mothers and fathers choose the wisest pairings,” said Talking Bird. This was met with more nods from the clan. “And we alone are left to decide when our blood has become poisoned. This is the dream I’ve had.”

Crooked Tree saw fewer nods at this last line, and many heads dropped. Mothers with young children hugged them close. His own mother wasn’t among those standing in the perfect spring sun. She had died just after Running Deer had weaned. Crooked Tree and his brother had been raised by many of the women standing in the group, and that had made it awkward for him to find any of their daughters attractive. They seemed like his sisters. At the next gathering he planned to find a young woman from another clan and follow her home. That would leave Running Deer able to step into his father’s role eventually without being blocked by him, the older son. He closed his eyes, thought of the approaching summer, and inhaled the beautiful wet edge of the air from the forest behind them.

“We have come to this moment,” said Talking Bird, “when Sun Bringer tells us through our dreams that dark spirits are in our blood, and in the blood of our children. We carry the mark, and it will always be.”

Talking Bird had to raise his voice to be heard over the wails of the women. “We may weep, but we have a duty, just as it would be our duty to fill this valley with our children if we ran strong.”

Crooked Tree snuck a glance at his father, Big Bear, to his left. His father’s face was a mask of grim resolve. He wanted to ask his father what was happening, but Talking Bird wasn’t done with his speech.

“So I ask you to follow me. I will lead the way. Step with me now,” ordered Talking Bird. With his eyes moving across the crowd, Talking Bird took a small half-step backward and then leaned way back until he was almost overbalanced over the cliff edge.

The women’s wails drew to a crescendo as the group began to move.

Before Talking Bird could fall backwards over the edge of the cliff, his extended family rushed forward and threw themselves over the edge. Some mothers clutched their children to their chest before jumping over the ledge. Others threw their babies, tossing them in high arcs past the tumbling bodies.

“Help them,” Big Bear said to his sons.

Bringing up the rear, Big Bear, Crooked Tree, and Running Deer herded the group to their death and waited for stragglers or cowards to bolt away from the edge. Their family was strong and proud and took their duty seriously. In the end, the father and two sons reached the cliff and found no stragglers. Their family lay dead in a bloody heap, hundreds of feet below the black rock where Talking Bird had delivered his final address.

“We are strong,” Big Bear told his sons, “this is a proud day.”

Crooked Tree and Running Deer watched their father gather his legs and leap; their father folded his arms back to his sides and smiled.

“Let’s go, brother,” said Running Deer.

He still hadn’t figured the whole thing out, but his heart told him that he belonged with the rest of his family, and he should follow them.

They jumped together, feet first, and fell at the same pace. Just over the edge their eyes locked and Running Deer whooped for the last time in his young life.

CHAPTER TWO

Davey — Two Years Ago…

“JUST A QUICK ONE?” Davey begged. He sat up in his bed while his father, Christopher, waited to tuck him in.

“Not tonight, bud,” said Christopher.

“But I’ve been seven for a month, and you said you couldn’t tell me the old stories until I was seven,” said Davey.

“No fair,” Susan interjected from the doorway. “I was seven three years ago, and I’ve never heard those bedtime stories.”

“I told you,” explained Christopher, “that they’re not to be told to kids one at a time.”

“So tell us now,” said Susan. She came into Davey’s room and climbed over the frame at the end of his bed. She propped a pillow against the wall and made herself comfortable.

“This just isn’t a good night for it,” said Christopher. He was thinking about Melanie. She was still downstairs, muttering at the TV with a full glass of wine. Up until three glasses she was fine, but her anger always came out with the fourth. This wasn’t a night he wanted to be caught telling old ghost stories to the kids.

Susan stretched out her legs and pushed her blond hair behind her ears. Davey stared at Christopher with unwavering intensity.

Christopher wasn’t a pushover, but he knew when he was beat. He reached behind him and pulled Davey’s little chair from under the desk. It was a tiny room, just big enough for the single bed, a bureau, and a cramped desk. Christopher had to maneuver around the chair just to spin it. When his foot caught on the edge of the bed he nearly flipped over backwards.

When he’d finally put his legs to the side and found the seat, he agreed—“Okay, but just a short one.”

The kids nodded.

“Which one do you want to hear? There’s the one where the twins slept too long side-by-side and their hair grew together,” said Christopher.

“Scarier,” said Davey.

“I don’t know,” said Christopher, “that one’s pretty scary. What about the Stages of the Night?”

“Yeah,” said Susan.

“Yeah,” repeated Davey. He flopped back down, pulling his covers up to his big grin.

“Okay,” said Christopher. He snuck one more look over his shoulder to make sure his wife wasn’t within earshot and then started his story—“A long time ago, in the middle of winter, a little family was snowed in for the night. They lived in a little cabin in the woods and they had a good fire going, so it was nice and cozy inside. The dad put his kids to bed early, so they could get up at dawn and help him dig out once the snow quit drifting. The kids, a girl and a boy, had never known their mother—she died at childbirth.”

“What were their names?” asked Susan.

“What do you want to call them?” Christopher asked her.

“Susan and Davey!” his son interjected.

“No, let’s give them make-believe names,” said Christopher.

“Liam and Ava,” said Susan.

“Really?” asked Christopher.

Susan nodded.

Christopher continued—“So the dad, we’ll call him John, he put the twins to bed, but he had to go back out into the night. He had a night job watching over the town granary.”

“What’s a granary?” asked Davey.

His sister tsked and rolled her eyes—“It’s where they kept the grain, retard,” she said.

“Don’t use that word,” said Christopher automatically.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. Susan rearranged her nightgown and tried to seem nonchalant.

“So yes, John watched over the community supplies of food and livestock,” said Christopher. “He felt bad leaving his kids alone all night when he worked. They were only about your age, Davey, but they were good kids and didn’t make any trouble when Dad had to work at night. At least until that night: the snowy night, when Liam found out firsthand about the Stages.”

Christopher saw Susan’s right hand move up to her mouth and then away. She knew she wasn’t supposed to suck her thumb, but it was a deep-rooted habit. Davey still had his big smile. Nothing seemed to scare Davey; he was happiest amongst the spooky and ghoulish.

Christopher continued—“That night, when the whole world was covered with a thick blanket of snow, and the blowing flakes spattered against the side of their cabin like sand, that was the night that Liam decided to see the Stages for himself. He wanted to know if the old stories his uncles told were really true. The uncles always warned the kids to be asleep before the Stages started, or else they’d be sorry.”

“What are the Stages?” asked Davey.

Susan let out an exasperated sigh, but Christopher continued on, incorporating Davey’s interruption—“The Stages are like the chapters the night moves through after everyone is supposed to be asleep. The first stage is the Stage of Possibilities. You see, daylight keeps everything orderly; makes everything obey the laws of nature. Gravity, physics, life, death—these are all concepts of daylight,” he glanced back and forth between their blue eyes. “If you stay up too late all those rules disappear, and the shapes and shadows of the night are free to turn into hungry monsters. The old black rock near the pond will shift and become an angry dog with huge fangs, dripping with blood. Liam thought he would be okay because everything was cold and frozen outside. He just wanted to see what would happen, so he kept one eye open and watched the firelight play against the walls while his sister fell asleep.”

Susan had pulled her legs up close to her body. Davey’s eyelids looked heavy.

“For a long time, Liam didn’t think anything would happen. But then he finally saw,” said Christopher. “Next to the fire, their Dad kept a pail for hauling away the ashes. That pail cast a big shadow on the wall next to the door. Where the handle attached, a hole let a little light through, and it gave the big shadow an eye, to watch over the room. As Liam peeked between his thick fur covers, the head of the shadow turned to look at him, even though the pail never moved. Liam held himself perfectly still as the shadow slinked off to the left and out of sight. He didn’t want to turn his head to follow it. He thought if he turned his head and revealed he was awake, the thing would certainly come after him. You see, Liam had stayed awake until everything was possible. There were no more rules to keep that shadow from turning into a monster.”

Christopher assessed his children. Davey was still grinning, but his eyelids drooped and swayed. Susan was curled up, hugging her knees to her chest. He lowered his tone, hoping to lull the kids the rest of the way to sleep—“When the monster moved, this was the second stage, the Stage of Hunger. This is where everything called to life by haunted imagination roams the earth. Liam was frozen with his fear. He wanted to call out and wake Ava, but he was too afraid. His heart pounded in his ears. It was so loud he thought for sure the shadow-monster would hear. The fire popped and Liam nearly screamed,” said Christopher.

Susan sucked in a startled breath. She forgot herself and took her thumb into her mouth.

“He strained his ears and tried to ignore the sounds of the fire. That’s when he heard it. A scraping noise, barely audible at first, was getting louder and louder. Liam shrunk down under his blankets, hoping to make himself disappear into his bed. Scrape, scrape, scrape. In her sleep, Ava groaned as if she sensed what was coming. Scrape, scrape, scrape. The sound got louder and louder until Liam didn’t think he could stand it any more. He wanted to run from their little cabin, out into the night, to get away from the sinister shadow-monster. And then…” Christopher trailed off. It looked like he would get away with it—both kids were sliding into their own dream-world, the troubling story already forgotten.

Christopher took a breath and prepared to rise from his seat.

“Then what?” asked Davey. Christopher was startled. He looked between Davey and Susan and found them both alert and ready for more.

“Oh,” he said. He lowered his voice again and got back into character—“And then, CRASH! The door banged open and their father, John, burst in from the cold night.”

“Knew it,” said Davey.

Christopher frowned.

“That’s it?” asked Susan. She shook her head. “That’s a crappy ending.”

“Oh really?” asked Christopher, raising his eyebrows. “But that’s not the ending, as far as I know. Oh well, I guess I must have it wrong. Ready for bed then?”

“No!” both kids yelled.

“Shhh!” he glanced back at the hallway. “But I thought this story was too predictable and crappy,” said Christopher.

“Come on—please tell us the rest?” begged Susan.

“Please?” asked Davey.

“Okay, I guess,” said Christopher. “There’s not that much more to tell, honestly.”

He waited a beat, until he captured their full attention.

“John came in to the cozy cabin slapping the snow from his clothes and warming himself by the glowing fire. Liam sat up straight and threw back his covers. He ran to his dad and hugged him around the waist. John lifted him from the ground and said ‘Liam, what are you doing up?’ Liam explained about how he had defied the Stages and stayed up, inadvertently awaking the shadow-monster. John comforted his son—‘It’s okay, Liam. What you saw was just a regular shadow. You thought it walked away, but it was just the fire dying down. Now that I’ve stoked it, the shadow comes right back, see?’”

The kids nodded along with Christopher.

He continued: “So Liam went back to his bed and watched his father get ready for his own rest. His body was warm and safe, but his thoughts were still troubled. This time he thought about the Stage of the Hunt, what his uncle called the ‘Hungry Feast.’ That stage was supposed to be particularly dangerous. All the hungry hunters prowling the dark would make even a peaceful man’s blood boil. Liam realized he hadn’t been paying attention, maybe he’d even drifted off—his father was missing.”

“What happened to him?” asked Davey—his voice a smiling whisper. Christopher shuddered a little at his son’s morbid curiosity.

“That’s the question that drove Liam from his bed. All he could think was that somehow the shadow-monster was somehow real. He imagined his father struggling for his life, and Liam pushed off his covers to go help. He couldn’t bear the thought that his dad would be killed by something that his curiosity had called to life.”

“Because he stayed up too late?” asked Davey.

“Exactly,” said Christopher. He noticed that Susan’s chin was resting on her chest—she had drifted off at last. He lowered his voice to a whisper and continued the story for Davey—“So Liam crept away from his bed, tiptoeing across the room to the passage that led to the summer room. When he was about to round the corner, Liam got his second big scare of the night. Right around the corner, as if waiting for him to approach, came…" Christopher paused, but Davey offered no guess, “his father.”

Christopher waited for Davey to be disappointed again, but Davey just watched. If Davey had been someone else’s son, Christopher would have called him creepy.

He continued—“Liam was glad to see his father alive and well, and was even more comforted at what his father said next—‘Liam, you’re just jumpy tonight. You can sleep in my bed until you settle down.’ Liam nodded and followed his dad to the big bed, farthest away from the fire. His dad hugged him tight under the heavy covers, and Liam knew nothing bad could happen to him in his father’s strong arms. At least that’s what he thought until he felt his father’s hot breath on the back of his head. That’s when Liam remembered why the Stage of the Hunt was so dangerous. It was one of the most feared Stages because it was contagious.”

Davey understood—Christopher could tell from his eyes.

“The next thing Liam did was the last thing he would ever do. He rolled over to look his father in the eyes. He looked his father in his glowing… red… eyes.”

“Cool,” Davey breathed. His eyes fell shut with the word. As if, now satisfied with a gruesome ending, Davey could finally sleep in peace. Christopher shook his head reflexively—dismissing the revulsion he would never admit feeling.

He leaned over—“Ready for bed?” Christopher whispered in Susan’s ear.

“Uhh-kay,” she yawned.

Christopher reached towards her and she put up her arms. He plucked her from Davey’s bed quietly, not moving the bed more than an eighth of an inch. Christopher was clumsy, except when it came to his kids. With his kids he was strong and graceful.

Christopher carried Susan to her room and slid her under thick covers. She had a better room than her brother, but it would still be cramped for a teenage girl, which she would soon become. Their inadequate house pushed at the back of Christopher’s thoughts, like a forgotten errand. Now that the kids were in school most of the day, he was supposed to go back to work. It had been nearly a decade since he’d decided to be a stay-at-home dad; the prospect of a job-search was daunting.

“Cold,” she mumbled.

He pulled up the covers, kissed her forehead, and tucked her in tight.

“Good night, sweetie,” he said.

“Night,” she replied. She turned her head and closed her eyes.

He backed out slowly and closed the door to just a crack.

Back in Davey’s room, his son had already kicked most of the covers off. Christopher rearranged Davey’s limbs and folded back the heaviest blankets. Davey was always radiating heat, but he was even hotter tonight, still getting over the tail of a fever. Christopher leaned in to kiss Davey’s forehead when he saw the mark.

He dug in his pocket for a mildly-used tissue. Pushing Davey’s hair back, Christopher wiped the white smudge from his son’s neck. Christopher left the tissue in Davey’s trashcan and closed the door most of the way.

With the kids safely to bed, he turned his attention to his wife. She would be downstairs, either talking on the phone or watching television, a glass of wine clenched in her right hand. Some nights, maybe even most nights, she didn’t drink at all. They would stay up until the news, talking, making plans, and cleaning up the kitchen. Nights like these, where she would be on her fifth or sixth glass of wine when he tucked in the kids, had become a regular part of Christopher’s life. On those nights he had three children, and it was time for him to see the third to bed.

Christopher flipped on the light at the top of the stairs and put his hand on the railing. Even something he did dozens of times a day, something that any normal man of thirty-six years would completely take for granted, was affected by Christopher’s clumsiness. Ever since he was a little boy, as young as Davey was that night, Christopher had learned to always use a handrail when climbing or descending stairs. He started down.

A noise from the end of the long hall, from the door to the master bedroom, claimed his attention and he turned his head. He wondered if Melanie, his wife, had somehow managed to slip past him while he was tucking in their children.

* * *

MELANIE WOKE ON TOP of the covers, blinking away the light from the nightstand lamp. She rolled over and reached for the slender stem of her glass, but she wanted water, not more burgundy. Melanie glanced at the clock, suddenly confused and waking up quickly. It read two seventeen.

“Dad!” cried Davey, from the next room. “DAD!” he screamed.

She sat up. It felt like her body was two steps ahead of her brain and she settled back down on her elbows. Christopher would see to Davey. There was no need for both of them to get up if Davey was yelling for Chris.

Her eyes were half-closed again before her confusion came back even stronger.

“Dad?” Davey called.

Chris should have been there by now.

This time Melanie sat up and swung her legs off the side of the bed. She pushed to her feet and steadied herself on the bureau. She ran fingers through her hair as she consulted the mirror. She straightened her blouse and smoothed the front of her slacks. Her head began a slow drumbeat in time with her pulse. There would be a headache waiting for her in the morning if she didn’t get that glass of water. Davey’s room was two doors down.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked, as she pushed open Davey’s door. The hall light was on, so she didn’t open it all the way.

“I think I stayed up too long,” he cried.

“What? What do you mean?” she knelt next to his bed and smoothed his hair.

“I wanted to stay up until the Stage of Possibilities, just to see,” he said frantically.

“Shhhh,” she said, “don’t wake up your sister. Just tell me what happened.”

Davey started again, slower, as if explaining something very complicated—“I wanted to stay up to see the Stage of Possibilities, so I could see what it looked like,” he whispered.

“What does that mean, honey?” she asked, while she stroked his face. She reached over clicked on his lamp. The bulb came on slowly, with its slightly cold florescent light.

“Dad told us about how the night has stages. I just wanted to see the first stage, so I tried really hard to stay up. Even when the scary noises started, I just pinched myself on the arm, see?" He pulled his arm from under the covers. A string of welts ran from his wrist up to his elbow. One had a small spot of blood from his sharp nails.

“Oh, honey,” Melanie licked her thumb and wiped the blood from his arm. She cleaned her thumb on a tissue from the nightstand and then used the tissue to wipe a smudge from the side of Davey’s face.

“The scary noises stopped at one, zero, seven,” he pointed to the clock on his bookshelf. “And nothing happened for a long time. I almost went to sleep, but then, at two, zero, zero, I saw it.”

“Did Dad tell you scary stories before bed?” Melanie asked as she tightened her mouth.

“No,” Davey answered.

Melanie stowed her anger for later, and tried to recover a more appropriate, sympathetic look. “What did you see?”

“I saw the sideways-head thing over there,” he pointed at the corner where his dresser met the wall.

“What’s the sideways-head thing?” she asked.

“It looked normal until about here,” he indicated his chest, “but then, where the head should be, it was all sideways. And it made a sound—it sounded like this,” Davey made a low growling sound in the back of his throat. She was nodding sympathetically when he started the noise, but her head stopped moving on its own. That noise coming from her son was creepy. The hair stood up on the back of her neck.

“And it was over here?” she asked, crossing to the dresser.

Davey nodded vigorously.

“Honey, I think that was your imagination,” she said, looking around the dresser. “Or maybe you fell asleep and didn’t know it, and then had a bad dream.”

“But Mom…” he began.

Melanie cut him off, “Honey, there’s nothing over here, and if something had been here, I’m sure I’d see a sign of it.”

“But in the Stage of Possibilities…” he started.

“We’ll talk with your father about the Stage of Whatever in the morning, okay?” she asked.

“Can I just talk with Dad now? I just want to ask him something,” begged Davey.

“We don’t want to wake up Dad,” she said. “He had a long day, I’m sure.”

“Please?” asked Davey.

Melanie sighed—“Okay, I’ll go get him. You stay here,” she said. She left his light on and pulled his door shut.

Exiting Davey’s room, she noticed the light at the top of the stairs. Melanie moved quickly at first, but then slowed as she approached the stairs. She rounded the corner with her breath held, but then released as she relaxed.

What did I expect to see? she thought.

“That’s it!” Davey shrieked from right behind her. Melanie jumped and nearly slipped on the top stair. Her hand shot out and touched the wall, steadying her balance.

“Davey you scared the life out of me!” she said. “I thought I asked you to stay in bed.” She knelt down next to him.

“What’s going on?” Susan asked shuffling from her dark room, rubbing her eye with her knuckle.

“It’s okay, go back to bed, dear,” said Melanie.

“But Mom,” yelled Davey, “that’s it, that’s it. It’s right behind you—look!”

Melanie straightened up and rolled her eyes. “Okay, Davey, what?" She turned around and looked down the stairs where Davey pointed, but still didn’t see anything but stairs that descended down into their dark foyer.

Susan reached to the wall and flipped the switch for the lights at the bottom of the stairs.

That’s when Melanie’s inebriated, thirty-four-year-old eyes saw what Davey pointed at—the sideways-head thing.

Four steps from the bottom, with an outstretched arm clawing a tread, a perfectly normal body lay. But the body was topped with an abomination. The neck skin was split—torn and stretched. The man’s face was pointed down and away, his chin resting on his back. All Davey and his mother could see from the top of the stairs was the back of the Christopher’s head.

Susan crossed the hall and came up next to her brother and mom to see what the light had revealed.

Susan was the first to scream—“Dad! Oh Dad!” she cried as she pounded the stairs to her father.

“Oh, fuck,” said Melanie.

CHAPTER THREE

Mike — Present Day

“BATHROOM?” ASKED MIKE, his body halfway into the cramped gas station. It was a stretch, but he was desperate. He couldn’t imagine finding a public restroom somehow jammed into this small space—packed-in shelves filled with snacks.

“Nuh-uh,” the squat cashier said between clicks and pops of gum. “Try the Tim Hor’uns. They open.”

“Pardon?” he asked.

“Roun’ the cahnuh,” she waved. “Tim Hor’uns.”

“Thanks,” he was halfway back to the van before he mentally inserted the missing “T” and came up with Tim Horton’s, a chain of coffee shops. Sure enough, around the corner from the tiny gas outpost, they found a Tim Horton’s lighting up the darkness.

“You could call this a one-horse town, but I bet they have tons of horses, and cows, and chickens.” Mike chuckled.

“What’s that?” Gary asked. When Gary drove he dropped into a deep trance.

“They should call it a one-bathroom town instead of a one-horse town,” Mike amended, his chuckle now forced.

“Is this it?” Gary asked, pulling into the parking lot.

“Yeah, thanks,” said Mike.

Mike jumped out as Gary was still bringing the huge van to a stop. He rounded the front, walking a stiff-legged shuffle to contain his discomfort.

“Stay with the van,” he said when Gary’s door swung open.

“I want to get something,” said Gary.

“I’ve got thirty-thousand dollars of equipment in there—please stay with the van,” said Mike. His temper was fueled by his urgency to use the restroom.

“Okay,” said Gary. “Get me a doughnut.”

Mike tugged at the restaurant’s door, but his hand snapped back empty. He reached and grabbed the other handle, which pulled easily. He hustled in and found a friendly door on his right. Ten minutes later, after a loud and malodorous session which he attributed to that evening’s Greek salad, Mike exited the men’s room.

A young man and older woman stood behind the counter, staring at Mike.

He approached the counter trying to look casual, but he read unmasked disgust in their eyes.

“Could I get a dozen glazed?” he asked.

“All we got is cherry,” said the young man.

“Pardon?” he asked.

“Cherry.”

“Okay,” Mike considered, “could I get a dozen cherry?”

“All we got is six.”

“Great. Six cherry and a diet then,” said Mike, reaching for his wallet.

* * *

OUTSIDE, MIKE FOUND THE VAN abandoned and the driver’s door open.

“Gary? Gary?”

Gary poked his head around the corner of the building with a cigarette in his mouth.

“Didn’t I just ask you to stay with the van?” Mike asked his approaching assistant.

“You don’t want me to smoke in there. I went over here,” he waved.

“Can’t you close the door and lock it when you leave?”

“I was listening to the radio,” said Gary.

Mike held out the bag of doughnuts in one hand and rubbed his temples with the other. “Whatever,” he said, “let’s get going.”

“I’m on it,” said Gary, jumping back in the driver’s seat with his bag of doughnuts.

* * *

WHEN THEY FINALLY GOT BACK to the gravel lot, they found that their site had changed. Another car waited in the lot, and a group of teenagers were down next to the river.

Gary flipped on the night-vision scope. It emitted a high-pitched tone as it powered-on.

“Looks like kids drinking,” said Gary. “Want me to go run them off?”

“No, no,” said Mike. “That might even be better. Sometimes human activity actually fuels the entities.”

“Cool,” said Gary.

They sat in silence while Gary observed the teens.

A knock on the passenger’s window startled the men. Mike spilled his soda.

“Jesus,” he whispered. He rolled down his window a few inches—“You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry, Dr. Mike,” she said, smiling. “Am I early?”

“Nope, you’re right on time,” he said, recapping his drink. The girl outside the window backed away as he pushed open the van door. “We’re about to get set up. You can help me in back.”

“This is so exciting,” she said.

“Do you have a sweater or something?” Mike asked. “It might get cold out here.”

“I’m fine,” she waved, “I’m from around here; I don’t get cold easily.”

He led the young woman around to the rear of the van and motioned for her to stand aside as he pulled open the back doors.

“Wow, look at all that stuff,” she said.

Mike lowered a built-in stepladder to the ground and smiled at her enthusiasm.

Gary appeared from the left side. “Hey, I’m Gary.”

“Hi,” she said, taking Gary’s hand. “I’m Katie Brown, from Bowdoin. The college, not the town.” She pointed south.

“We’re going to be studying that area of rocks, just past that sign,” said Mike, stepping between them.

“I know that place,” said Katie. “Sometimes kids go down there to get drunk. Mostly high-school kids though.”

“Exactly,” said Mike.

“Have you ever seen anything down there Katie?” asked Gary.

“Nope,” said Katie. “I’ve heard of it, but I don’t drink.”

“Good for you,” said Gary softly, tilting his head.

“Anyway,” said Mike. “We’ll set up the narrow transmitter from here, and then we’ll get multiple angles with the thermals and infrared.”

“Which is the new one?” asked Katie. “The narrow one? Is that it?”

“Yes,” said Mike. “The main thing we’re testing here tonight is my new narrowband amplifying transmitter.”

“You invented it?” asked Katie.

“Yes,” said Mike. He turned to the van and started pulling equipment. “Gary, can you get this on the roof and aim it at the bottom part of the dam?”

“No problem.” Gary made a show of hauling the tripod up the ladder on the side of the van.

Mike handed the end of a cord up to Gary and swiveled a rack of equipment so it faced out the back of the van. He reset knobs and powered up the equipment as Gary mounted and pointed the antenna.

“So what’s it do, exactly?” asked Katie.

Mike ignored her for the moment—“Hey Gary, what’s your compass direction?”

“One ninety-seven.”

“You can think of it like a power supply for paranormal activity,” Mike explained as he began his calibration process. “Gary and I measured specific types and frequencies of energy that were being drawn, or tapped into, by paranormal activity. You ready, Gary?”

“Yup,” Gary called down from the roof.

“First,” Mike said to Katie, “we’re going to calibrate the baseline." He pointed to a display which showed a jagged horizontal line. “Gary’s going to do a slow spin of that antenna to find the natural hotspots." They watched the display closely as noise moved quickly across the line. A giant spike tracked across the line from right to left.

“What’s that?” asked Katie?

“Probably just the sun,” said Mike. “Too big to be anything local. What’s your bearing Gary?”

“I’m in the two-forties,” said Gary.

“Yeah, see, that’s about west,” said Mike. “We always get a big hit roughly west. It’s probably some lingering effects of the sunset." They waited for almost a minute before their next spike. This one rose only a fraction of the previous reading.

“You’re back at south?” Mike asked Gary.

“Yup,” he replied.

“So that’s the thing we’re here to measure tonight. You can see that it’s pretty small right now, but we’ll be able to jack it up when we turn on the emitter,” Mike informed Katie.

Gary jumped down from the ladder and landed beside Mike and Katie. “Ready for cameras?” he asked.

“Yes. You want to show Katie the ropes while I finish the calibration and tuning?” asked Mike.

“I’d be glad to,” said Gary. “If you could grab a reel of those cables, Miss Katie?”

“Just Katie,” she replied.

Mike smiled at his dials.

* * *

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, all the equipment and cables had been properly deployed. The three researchers gathered inside the van to monitor the displays.

“If you could just slide in a little and shut that door, Katie?” asked Mike. “We like to make sure that people driving by don’t get curious when we turn on the video equipment.”

“Oh, sure,” she said.

Their control center showed them the river at the base of the dam, the rocks, and a group of drunk teens passing a bottle around their small circle.

“As you can see from this meter,” Mike said, continuing his tutorial, “there’s some activity down there, but we don’t see any visual, infrared, or thermal evidence. Those kids don’t seem too impressed either. But, if we use our amplifier, we should be able to find a resonant frequency for the entity to tap into.”

“And does that make it visible?” asked Katie.

“Well, we don’t know yet,” said Gary.

“Really?” Katie asked.

“It’s true,” said Mike. “We’ve detected this energy drop several times, and we surmise that the activity is limited by the amount of energy in the area, but this is the first time we’ll attempt to amplify it.”

“That’s cool,” she said, “so this is ground-breaking.”

“We certainly hope so,” said Mike. “Let’s start small. Give it an amp Gary.”

“Roger that,” said Gary. He made an adjustment. “Okay, we’re there.”

“Nothing yet,” said Mike. “No change from the ambient levels at all. We might need to cross a threshold to see results. Try ramping up to five over thirty seconds.”

“Will do,” said Gary.

He held out his watch and slowly turned the large dial. After ten seconds the three looked up to the roof as the humming sound grew in intensity. When the dial read three, a set of headphones hanging from a hook began to rattle. Mike pulled them down and sat the headphones on shelf, but they resumed rattling when he let go.

“Keep going?” asked Gary.

“Yeah,” said Mike, studying his meter. “I think it’s about to start absorbing.”

“So that thing is supposed to go down?” asked Katie.

“No, this display is inverted, but if we see a spike it would represent the energy decreasing. The theory being…” he trailed off. “Wait a second. Hold it there, Gary.”

“Okay, but we’re pulling some serious power. We’ll only have a couple minutes of output,” said Gary.

“I think that might just be enough,” said Mike. He tapped the display and Gary and Katie looked over his shoulder. “See this?”

“Looks like it’s gathering or something,” said Gary.

“Exactly,” said Mike, transfixed by the jagged green line.

“Dr. Mike?” asked Katie. “Dr. Mike?” she said louder.

“What?” asked Mike. He snapped around. Katie pointed at the video display which showed the output of one of the infrared cameras. The picture showed green teens, drinking on green rocks, next to a green river. At the center of the image a green blob slid slowly uphill towards the teens. “What is that?” she whispered.

“Off, Gary, turn it off,” said Mike.

Gary fumbled for the big dial and spun it with both hands until the knob clicked off. Mike turned back to his readout, horrified. “It’s still drawing,” he informed them. “It’s drawing more than ever.”

“I think they see it,” said Katie, drawing their attention back to the video displays.

On the screen, the teens had dropped their bottle and their circle had flattened, with all five members scrambling backwards, away from the water’s edge. One boy, in the direct path of the creeping entity, seemed paralyzed.

“Why doesn’t he run?” cried Katie. “We should go help him.”

“This is amazing,” said Gary. “We’ve never caught anything this good.”

“But what’s going to happen to that kid?” Katie scanned the various displays, distressed.

“They can’t hurt you,” said Gary. “They’re like psychic movies.”

“We’ve never seen anything this powerful, Gary. She might have a point,” said Mike.

Before they had a chance to act on any decisions, the blob leapt towards the drunk teen, gaining definition as it moved closer. Even through the crude night-vision, the researchers could discern a gaunt woman with shoulder-length hair and tattered clothes resolving from the green blob.

“It’s a woman,” said Katie.

“A girl,” corrected Mike.

When the girl from the river reached the closest teen, the spell on the other four seemed to break. She clamped down a thin hand on the boy’s leg as the others ran, fleeing up the rocks. The boy in the white t-shirt remained motionless, until the girl from the river backed up, pulling him by the leg. He made no attempt to escape her grip.

“Go, go, go,” said Mike. “Let’s get down there, now!” he shouted.

Gary fumbled for the door, trying to open it without taking his eyes from the monitor.

“Go!” yelled Mike, pushing Katie into Gary’s shoulder.

Gary looked down and threw open the door. The three researchers spilled into the gravel parking lot. Mike was the first away, running down through the scrub and vaulting the chain-link fence. His eyes had barely adjusted to the night when he arrived at the rocks, and he nearly plunged over a small ledge. Mike turned left at the last instant and ran along the edge of the drop, waving his colleagues to follow.

He arrived at the clearing just as the boy’s legs slipped into the roiling river. Mike threw himself to the ground and grabbed the boy’s shirt.

“Hey, kid, hey!” he yelled, but the boy’s gaze remained on the turbulent water.

Gary arrived as the boy’s shirt tore away and Mike shifted his grip to under the boy’s arm. Gary grabbed his other arm and they both pulled against the single boney arm dragging the boy into the river.

In the starlight, the river’s surface was black. Their tug-of-war was a standoff. Mike strained against the shore, trying to keep his grip while pushing with his legs to drag the boy back. His jaw dropped when he saw another thin arm appear from the water, moving towards his own foot. Just before it reached his shoe, the world lit up from a bright flash behind them.

Gary and Mike jolted back with the flash. They pulled a few inches away from the river and the hand near Mike’s foot had disappeared. Mike looked back to see Katie pointing a camera.

“Do it again, make it flash again,” grunted Mike.

Katie obeyed and they jerked back again, gaining more ground.

“Fast as you can,” said Gary.

Each time Katie took a picture and the flash lit the river, they pulled more of the boy from the water. Within a dozen pictures they had dragged him safely back.

“What are you doing?” The boy snapped from his trance. “Shit, I’m all wet. Get off!” He shook his arm away from Gary.

“Look, kid,” said Mike.

“Get away,” said the boy in the white t-shirt. Before Mike could explain further, the boy was off—running up the rocks to the bridge.

“Did you get anything?” Gary looked over Katie’s shoulder at the camera’s display.

“Not really,” said Katie. “The flash only goes so far.”

“Let’s get back up to the van and check the readings,” said Mike.

They backed slowly up the rocks, not willing to take their eyes off the water’s edge until they had made it back to the chain-link fence. Katie paused to take a picture of the sign mounted on the fence.

“Danger,” she read. “No kidding. What was that thing?”

“I’ll tell you when we get back in the van,” said Mike.

Safely back among his instruments, Mike told her the story: “She’s the reason we came here. Her name was supposedly Marcia Taylor, but we haven’t been able to turn up any records to corroborate. She was seventeen or eighteen; at a graduation party on the Brunswick side of the river, like twenty-five or thirty years ago. She turned down the host’s advances, and he kicked her out. She had to walk home and cross the old railroad bridge alone, but she never made it across.”

“Why didn’t she take the footbridge? It has railings,” said Katie.

“That part we do know. The footbridge was closed for almost six years because neither town would pay for the repairs. Supposedly they both contributed after Marcia’s death.”

“So she fell off and drowned?” asked Katie.

“Yeah, but there’s a little more. The story says that she was an excellent swimmer, and even made it alive over the dam. She managed to get all the way over to that shore, where those kids were. Like tonight, more drunk teens had gathered by those rocks. They saw her crawl out of the water, but instead of helping her, they ran. They didn’t want to tell anyone because then they would have been caught drinking. When the dam operators opened the gates that night, she was still unconscious on the shore and she drowned.”

“Oh, man,” said Katie. “So now she seeks revenge?”

“No. Well yes, I guess so,” said Mike. “Until tonight nothing has really happened, as far as we know. A couple of kids have said they saw something, but dragging people away is unprecedented.”

“Maybe it was your machine,” said Katie, excited.

“Maybe,” said Gary.

Mike turned back to his instruments.

CHAPTER FOUR

Davey

MELANIE REACHED FOR A SUGAR PACKET and then put it back down. The tea had lemon; it didn’t need any sweetener. Something about socializing while sober still made her nervous. She still didn’t know how to act.

“Has it been two years now? Well good for you,” Sherry congratulated Melanie.

“Yeah, thanks. I stopped drinking just after Christopher,” Melanie admitted.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I never made the connection,” said Sherry. She reached across the small table and touched Melanie’s hand.

“It’s okay,” said Melanie. “I mean it’s as okay as it will ever be, I think.”

“You’re so strong,” said Sherry. “And you’re doing such a great job with the kids.”

“Oh,” Melanie laughed and wiped the corner of her eye, “I don’t know about that.”

“Sure you are,” stated Sherry. “Considering everything?”

“Susan is just so difficult,” said Melanie. “Everything is a fight with her. School, friends, how she dresses, when did twelve-year-olds get so mature?”

“It’s just different now,” said Sherry.

“I’m worried about Davey, too,” said Melanie.

“Why, what’s going on with Davey? He seems so healthy and happy.”

“He is. Most of the time,” said Melanie. “He’s really good at sports, he plays soccer, and baseball, and hockey if I can still afford it next year. He’s got a million little girlfriends too. He’s one of the most eligible third-graders,” she said, smiling.

“So what’s wrong?” Sherry prodded.

“You remember how clumsy Christopher could be?” asked Melanie.

“How could I forget? You remember that party at the Peterson’s?”

“Oh, I did forget about that,” laughed Melanie. “I think I was probably half drunk.”

“You were all drunk. I had shrimp in my hair, one in my bra, and…” Sherry paused to catch her breath between laughs, “I shit you not, I found one down the crack of my ass when I got home.”

“Oh my god,” Melanie was breathless from laughing. “Christopher was such a klutz at parties." Melanie dabbed her eyes with her napkin. “I told him one time that that was why I drank so much when we were out.” Her laughter slowed as her memories cascaded. “I miss him so much.”

“It gets easier,” Sherry squeezed Melanie’s forearm. “I promise.”

“Davey reminds me of him,” whispered Melanie. “When he’s concentrating in something, like sports, he’s just so agile and graceful. Then you see him trying to carry his dinner plate to the table and he looks like he has Parkinson’s or something. Dr. Innes says he’s fine, but I worry.”

“Does he have vision problems, or headaches, or anything?” asked Sherry.

“No,” Melanie said, considering, “not that he admits to, at least. The doctor asked him that, I’m sure.”

“Well you remember Julie’s son? Did you know the Kims?” Sherry asked, but didn’t wait for a response. “They took their son in because he had double vision, and he had cancer." She lowered her voice by the end, not wanting to broadcast such a powerful word.

“That’s horrible,” said Melanie. “No, I didn’t know them. How did they find out?”

“The optometrist sent them to a specialist. I can get his name for you. Better safe, you know?”

“Please do,” said Melanie.

* * *

“WELL, MR. HUNTER,” THE DOCTOR SAID, kneeling in front of Davey. “I heard that you did extraordinarily well in our little torture chamber.”

“I guess,” said Davey. He glanced down at the video game clutched in his hands, knowing he was forbidden to play it until he was back in the waiting room.

“Why don’t you go sit with the lovely ladies of reception while Mom and I talk a bit?” prompted the doctor.

“Okay,” said Davey. He slid down from the bench and headed for the door. Melanie stopped him to fix his collar, put his tag back inside his shirt, and smooth his hair. She wiped a gray smudge from the back of his neck and patted him on the back.

“I’ll be right out, okay?” asked Melanie.

“Okay,” Davey said. He pulled the door handle and tripped on his own feet, slamming the door shut before he could squeeze through. Davey took a resigned breath before re-opening the door and exiting the examination room.

When Davey had clicked the door shut behind himself, Dr. Chisholm turned to Melanie and smiled. His face bore the lines of a million smiles, but his grey hair and grey teeth were stained yellow. Melanie found the doctor creepy in a way she couldn’t quite pin down; she pegged him for a closet smoker.

His smile disappeared as he began reviewing Davey’s case. “I wanted to speak with you one-on-one, instead of ganging up on you with the radiologist, Ms. Hunter. Those guys are notorious hedgers.”

“Okay,” she said. She inhaled and waited for bad news.

“Oh, he’s fine,” he flashed another yellowing smile, “you’ve got that near-panic look I was trying to avoid.”

“Oh,” she said without committing.

“CT scans were all perfectly clean. Nothing to indicate the need for an MRI—no tumors or growths,” the doctor explained.

“Good,” she nodded her head.

“Yes, very good. But there are some interesting things about Davey,” he continued.

“Yes?” She tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but her mind wanted to return to his “clean” comment, she wanted to be sure he meant that Davey didn’t have cancer.

“We might want to play around with some genetic testing. These would be diagnostic tests simply used to rule out any genetic or chromosomal conditions.”

“Wait, can I just ask you something?” asked Melanie.

“Yes, of course.”

Melanie summoned her nerve. “So, he doesn’t have cancer, or a brain tumor?”

“No,” he stated decisively. “To the best of our ability to screen such things non-invasively, he doesn’t. Nor does anything about his behavior suggest to me that we should be looking harder.”

“Oh good,” said Melanie. She finally exhaled.

“But he does have some interesting traits that I think warrant further investigation,” said Dr. Chisholm.

“Such as?" Melanie’s inquisitive, analytic nature began to surface.

“Well, there’s the situational clumsiness—as you mentioned,” he ticked off one finger. “He has extraordinary eyesight, hearing, short-term memory, intelligence, and concentration,” said the doctor.

“You got all that from the past half-hour?” asked Melanie.

“Well, some,” said the doctor. “I tested his hearing and eyesight, just to verify the results from the neurologist. I asked Davey to read this page of numbers and words when we began today’s examination, and you were here at the end when he was able to recall ninety percent of this list,” he held up the page.

“Is that unusual?” asked Melanie.

“My key only goes up to the ninety-eighth percentile,” said Dr. Chisholm. “So, yes, that would make Davey about the most unusual boy I’ve examined.”

“Hmmm,” Melanie pursed her lips, not sure what to do with this information. She always knew Davey to be bright, but nothing from his school had ever indicated any superiority.

“The notes from the radiologist were very interesting, too,” said the doctor. He flipped open Davey’s chart to the appropriate page and handed Melanie the document.

He pointed to one passage and then read it aloud for her—“When prompted to ‘sit tight,’ Davey sat ABSOLUTELY motionless. We had never seen anything like it—he looked like a statue. We read from his chart that he has exhibited clumsiness and uncoordinated motor control. This is hard for us to believe based on our experience.”

“I called this operator,” the doctor tapped the page. “These notes are not what I expect to find in a professional communication. I didn’t understand what he meant until I told Davey the same thing earlier. He has the ability to turn his body to stone—you wouldn’t know something was alive in there. That’s what I mean about his extraordinary concentration.”

Melanie squirmed in her seat, she was ready to get home and forget about how extraordinary her son had become. “So, you said something about more tests?” she prompted.

“There’s one more thing,” said Dr. Chisholm. “Davey’s extremely developed for a boy his age.”

“Pardon?”

“We call it ‘precocious puberty,’” explained the doctor. “The absolute earliest we expect to see any signs of puberty in a boy is about nine. Any earlier and we’re looking for the cause. Now, personally, I’ve seen boys growing up in a house without a father can sometimes begin a little earlier. Davey is unusually early.”

“He’s just about to turn nine—he’s just a boy,” argued Melanie.

“Not for long,” said the doctor. “I think we just need to do some more tests to see if we can pin down the cause, but I’d say he started puberty months ago, at least. We’ve ruled out brain tumor, but I’d like to get him one more CT scan to look for any testicular tumors. I’ve already got the blood and urine samples, but I’ll send those out for hormone tests as well.”

“What does this mean? What do I do?” asked Melanie.

“I’d like to try to figure out the cause before we start to suggest a course of action. If there’s an underlying cause, we’ll treat that and hope the puberty slows. If there’s not, then we may decide he needs hormone therapy to counteract the environmental or genetic influences.”

“Genetic?”

“In about five percent of cases in boys it comes from the father or maternal grandfather,” explained Dr. Chisholm. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I’ll get all these tests and you can schedule a follow-up with reception.”

“Okay,” said Melanie, rising tentatively.

“We’ll figure this all out, Ms. Hunter. Please remember, we haven’t found anything really wrong with Davey. If anything, he seems to be a outstanding specimen.”

Dr. Chisholm smiled again; Melanie felt a chill.

CHAPTER FIVE

Mike

THEY SAT IN A BOOTH at a steakhouse. Mike and Gary took up one side and Katie had the other to herself. Gary kept reaching out to touch the dusty oar affixed to the wall. Each time he did, he wiped his fingers clean again on his napkin.

“I’m just saying: I don’t know why we’re not going back to the river again,” said Gary.

“We’ve been trying that for weeks, and we’ve seen nothing since that first night,” said Mike. He gripped his temples and then smoothed his hair back.

“But that was the best evidence we’ve ever collected,” said Gary. “I think we have to keep plugging away at that until we can reproduce those results. Have you ever seen anything like that?”

“You know I haven’t,” admitted Mike. “But how long are we going to beat that dead horse before we allow ourselves to branch out?”

“I know a place,” said Katie. “And if it doesn’t work out,” she continued, “we can always go back to the river. Maybe we’ll learn something by going somewhere new.”

“Good point,” said Gary.

“Where?” asked Mike.

“It’s not exactly a haunting. Well, maybe it is, I’m not sure,” said Katie. “I met these guys who come from New Hampshire. South though, close to you,” she pointed to Gary. “They think they have a line on a Loogaroo.”

“A what?” asked Gary.

Mike smiled and asked—“May I?" Katie nodded her consent, and Mike explained. “It’s a Caribbean word, but you find the same myth in many cultures. It’s a woman who’s in league with the devil. As part of her bargain she gets magical abilities, but she has to give blood to the devil each night. If she can’t get blood from an animal, she’ll have to give her own blood and she’ll eventually die.”

“So like a vampire?” asked Gary.

“Yeah, it would be like a vampire in a lot of ways,” said Katie.

“A lot of similarities. In fact, they’ve got the same compulsive myth,” confirmed Mike. “A common defense is to leave a pile of sand or rice by your door. She’ll have to count the grains before coming in, so you’ll be safe until morning. I’ve got to say, that legend probably hasn’t been prevalent in New Hampshire since the Penacook Indians.”

“These guys are part Abenaki, I think,” said Katie.

“I don’t get it,” said Gary. “Even if they have found something, why would our process help? We’re trying to test the ability to amplify paranormal activity so it can be measured. What’s that have to do with this Loogaroo?”

“Don’t be hasty,” said Mike. “What if there’s a paranormal energy connection? It would certainly support our theory of why paranormal activity has declined in the past century. Maybe this creature does exist, but it has been weakened by the decrease in energy.”

“I guess we can’t rule it out,” said Gary. He touched the pack of cigarettes in his front pocket.

“So what have they seen?” Mike asked Katie.

“They had a dog tied outside, near their house. Every Saturday they’d have their relatives over to the house to hang out, and in the morning, the dog would always be sick. They took the dog to the vet and discovered that he was severely anemic. They looked into all kinds of causes, but the vet kept coming back to severe blood loss.”

“Hardly definitive,” said Mike.

“Well, then, after the dog died, they saw other animals being affected. Always on a Saturday, after the relatives,” said Katie. “They’d go out in the morning and find dead birds, or a raccoon, or squirrels. One of their uncles was like the Shaman or whatever, and he suggested those animals had been drained of blood. Sure enough, they started opening the dead animals and they never had a drop of blood left. Their uncle told them about the idea of the Loogaroo; said their ancestors learned about it from the French, who said it was part wolf.”

“Is this still going on?” asked Mike.

“No,” said Katie. “The uncle died last year, and the family doesn’t convene at the house anymore. So these guys, Roland and Merritt, they said that after their uncle died the activity just trailed off.”

“So it was him,” suggested Gary. “Seems like the most plausible explanation. The uncle had a thing for blood and was killing the animals.”

“Or maybe he was unknowingly helping it,” Mike said, gazing up towards the ceiling. “Maybe the thing was drawing energy from him, and now it doesn’t have enough energy to manifest.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Katie. “He was a sensitive, or catalyst, and his presence was required for the activity.”

“That’s good,” said Mike. “You’ve presented a hypothesis that we can corroborate or disprove. In the worst-case scenario we’ll just record the woods for an evening.”

“I wish the uncle was still around so we could test him,” said Gary.

“Good point,” said Mike. “Katie, can you follow up with Roland and…”

“Merritt,” Katie filled in.

“Right, and ask them if anyone else in their family has experienced anything. Also—who is going to replace the uncle as Shaman, and is he a blood relation as well?” asked Mike.

“You think this type of thing is inherited?” asked Katie.

“Might as well be,” said Mike. “Worth checking out. So, Saturday then?”

“I’ll send you the details,” said Katie.

* * *

“YOU SAID THEY USED TO HAVE the family conferences here? Where did they gather?” Mike whispered, looking around the small trailer.

“They used to put up a meeting tent outside every spring. Now that the family doesn’t meet, they don’t need it,” said Katie.

Katie, Mike, and Gary stood in the living room of the trailer, waiting for Roland to return from his bedroom. None of them wanted to sit. The wooden chairs looked like they might break under any load, and the sofa was criss-crossed with silver tape holding together the upholstery. Gary clasped his hands behind his back and studied a painting of a deer hung over the sofa.

“Here it is,” said Roland. He walked back in holding up a necklace.

“Thank you.” Mike took the object. Decorated with teeth, beads, and feathers, the necklace was strung on a thin strand of woven leather.

“You test that,” said Roland. “You’ll find something.”

“We will,” said Mike. “So far, we’ve only found the right energy from minerals or even some metals, but we’ll be thorough.”

Roland nodded.

“Can we tap into your electricity, or should I set up our generator?” asked Gary.

“Our power is really bad,” said Roland. “But you’re welcome to it. There’s an outside outlet near the steps.”

“Thanks,” said Gary, heading outside.

“Katherine says you will make this thing into flesh, so we can catch it,” stated Roland. He stood close to Mike and towered over him, easily ten inches taller. His features were kind but his face was stolid and Mike found Roland’s gaze unnerving.

“Well,” said Mike, glancing at Katie, “we’ve never actually tried to catch something. We have witnessed physical interaction, so I guess it’s not out of the question.”

“We want this Loogaroo gone,” said Roland.

“I was, um,” Mike stammered, “under the impression that it was already gone. Katie?”

Katie smiled at Roland and he smiled back—“Didn’t you say you hadn’t seen the Loogaroo since Gus died?”

“Uncle Gus helped us see,” Roland explained. “That doesn’t mean it’s gone; just that we can’t see it. She can shed her skin and move around invisible. Uncle made her keep her skin on, but since he’s been gone, she’s had it off.”

“That’s interesting,” said Mike. “Have you ever seen any balls of light?”

Roland shook his head and stared at Mike.

“Okay,” said Mike, “I’ll go help Gary get set up.”

Outside, Gary paced out a rough semi-circle around a rusted steel pole protruding from the ground at a low angle. Mike walked forward to inspect the pipe and found the top mushroomed from when it had been hammered into the rocky soil.

Attached to a ring in the pole, a short length of rope led to a dirty pony halter.

As Mike watched, Merritt appeared from the back of the trailer pulling a large buck by the antlers. As he passed Mike, the buck tried to resist moving towards the center of the circle. Merritt pulled the animal with one hand as he bent to retrieve the halter. He brought the two together and quickly tied the snorting buck.

“Watch out for those horns,” Merritt told Mike. “Those fuckers are sharp.”

Mike put up his hands and took another step backwards.

“We’re gonna kill him in the morning anyway,” explained Merritt.

Mike watched the tethered buck puff a few breaths. He crossed back to the van to talk to Gary.

“How’s it looking?” asked Mike.

“I’ve got all the angles covered,” said Gary. “Ready to calibrate?”

“Sure,” said Mike.

The two men took their positions at the controls and adjusted dials. They called numbers back and forth to each other as they set their baselines and prepared the equipment for the experiment. Halfway through the procedure, Katie exited the trailer and arrived at Mike’s side.

“Looks different,” she said. Katie pointed to a radial display which showed the ambient noise with respect to the compass direction. “How come?”

“The angle?” asked Mike. “Who knows. Probably the time of day, or maybe even the season.”

“Seems like it should still be west if it’s the sun causing the baseline,” said Katie.

“No worries,” said Mike. “We’ll account for the offset either way. Can you get rid of Roland and Merritt?”

“You worried they’ll contaminate the results?” Katie asked.

“I think if we do see something, they’ll try to shoot it,” said Mike.

Mike and Gary wrapped up their preparations. When Katie returned from talking to the brothers she shook her head—“They’re staying.”

“Shit,” said Mike.

“What’s the big deal?” asked Gary. “If we do see something, let them shoot. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Packed inside the van, Roland and Merritt insisted on joining the researchers once they found out that no visible lights would be trained on the deer. Without the aide of the night-vision cameras, the deer was invisible against the tree line.

Eventually, the buck curled his legs under his body and sat at the edge of his tether, exhausted from pulling against the rope. In the green-tinted monitor, the buck’s eyes reflected the infrared light and glowed bright. The thermal displays added very little information, showing only the signature of the buck and the occasional passing rodent.

Mike shifted in his chair. Roland was pressed against his left arm and Gary his right. He was being assaulted by unwelcome noises and odors from sharing close quarters inside the van.

“I’ve got to get a cigarette,” said Gary.

“I’ll go with you,” said Merritt.

The van rocked and groaned as the two men squeezed past the equipment and people to get out the back door. Mike took a deep gulp of fresh air and relaxed with the additional space. The buck’s head whipped around and Mike heard it snort through his headphones.

Mike pressed his hands over his ears to focus on the sounds relayed by the various microphones. He checked the energy levels, both transmitted and received, looking for paranormal activity. He saw nothing out of the ordinary at first, but then noticed a slight bump in a different frequency range. Mike considered fetching Gary so he could run a diagnostic while he adjusted the transmitter, but didn’t want to risk missing the phenomenon.

He adjusted a small dial clockwise until his transmitted frequency matched the small bump on the sensor. The spike was immediate. The bump doubled and tripled in magnitude within a few seconds. Mike dialed down the power to the transmitter, but the spike increased further. When the power dial would decrease no further, Mike held his breath. He turned the frequency dial, moving back to the normal position and then panicked. His left hand shot out and killed the power to the amplifier. Mike exhaled and focused on the receiver where the spike had finally leveled out.

“Gary?” Mike called. He heard his own voice faintly in the headphones.

“Mike?” whispered Katie from the far end of the van. She had her hands raised to her ears, and pointed at her headphones when Mike looked over. It took Mike a second to realize what she was referring to, but then he heard it too—footsteps from woods.

“Gary, we need you,” Mike called again.

The footsteps paused.

Mike looked up at the deer and studied the image for any change. The buck stiffened and turned its head to the side, stretching the rope hanging from the halter. Suddenly the buck tried to stand, but as it straightened its front legs, its head was pulled by the rope and it nearly toppled. With its legs spread wide for stability, the buck thrashed and huffed, trying to shake loose from the halter.

“It’s here,” said Roland.

Mike glanced back to the meter and noted that the energy spike was holding.

“I don’t see anything,” said Mike. “Maybe it doesn’t show up on IR and thermal." He spun away from the instruments and shuffled to the door of the van. Before opening the door, he turned to Katie. “Keep an eye on that deer. If you see anything, yell to me.”

Mike threw open the door and slipped out of his chair. Light spilled from the back of the van, and when Mike’s eyes registered what was going on outside, the left side of his body instantly went numb from shock. He crashed to the floor of the van. Roland looked down at Mike, but Mike’s gaze was locked on what he saw just outside the van. He opened his mouth to yell, but instead he choked on a gulp of vomit cast up from his shocked stomach.

Gary lay on his side, ten feet from the van, with blood smeared over his shirt and face. Upright but sagging, next to Gary, Merritt stood with his arms wrapped around a tiny shriveled naked thing. It looked vaguely amphibian, with a giant head and thin exposed ribs covered by translucent skin. Its back was to the van and its tiny feet hung a foot over the ground. It was suspended from Merritt’s big frame. The thing’s head rose to the level of Merritt’s neck, and the tall man appeared to be holding it up with his tight embrace.

Roland exited the van. He stepped over Mike.

“Oh, fuck no,” he said. With two large strides, Roland approached his brother and reached out with a thick, strong hand to grab the creature by the neck. He pulled at the little creature and Mike saw the bones of the thing in sharp relief. Mike heard a soft tearing sound as Roland pulled.

Merritt moaned and stumbled forward; the creature remained firmly attached to him.

“Wait—fire,” said Mike, regaining some control of his body and trying to stand. Roland glanced back at Mike, but continued to pull the thing from his brother. Mike didn’t wait for him to understand, but stumbled over to Gary and fished the lighter out of Gary’s shirt pocket. He registered that Gary was still breathing as he stood and struck the lighter.

Once he had a flame, he shoved it under the creature’s right ear. The effect was immediate—Mike heard a pop and the creature pushed away from Merritt. It turned to Mike, showing him huge eyes with sideways slits of pupils and a mouth full of neddle-sharp teeth. Repulsed, Roland let go of its neck. With a wide swipe, the creature knocked the lighter from Mike’s hand and tore a deep gash in his forearm.

“Hey,” they heard from the van. Katie’s camera flash lit the scene, but the pale creature didn’t seem to react.

Free from the thing’s bite, Merritt released his grip and the creature dropped to the ground, falling into a low crouch. Roland mastered his revulsion and tried to fall on the nimble parasite, but it scurried after Mike as he retreated. It followed Mike as he backed up against the van. Roland scrambled after the bloodsucker and stretched out to grab it, but it was too quick. Instead of attacking Mike, the creature fled off to the right and disappeared out of the circle of light at the back of the van and into the woods.

“Holy Fuck,” said Roland.

“Call nine-one-one,” Mike yelled to Katie as he pushed away from the van and stumbled towards Gary.

“Hold on,” said Roland. “Don’t call anyone until we check this out a little.”

Mike stopped and turned towards Roland, ready to counter his order until he saw the resolution written on Roland’s face. He carefully crouched next to Gary and lifted his limp arm to check his pulse. When he found a strong beat, he leaned in to listen for Gary’s breathing. Mike looked up to see Roland performing roughly the same diagnostics on Merritt.

“Get off me,” said Merritt, “I’m fine." Merritt sat up with one hand clutched to the side of his neck.

“You’re not fine,” said Roland. “You’ve got a giant fucking bite on your neck.”

“It’s totally cool,” said Merritt. “Hey, splash some water on his face,” he said to Mike.

Mike was busy probing Gary’s neck for possible trauma and ignored Merritt’s suggestion. He turned back to Roland to plead his case again: “Look, I’m not sure what’s wrong with Gary, but I’ve got to get him to a hospital. He might have a concussion or a spinal injury or something.”

“Who does?” asked Gary.

Mike whipped around to see Gary rising to a sitting position. “Take it easy, Gary,” said Mike. “We don’t know what’s wrong with you.”

“She put a spell on me,” said Gary.

“That’s right,” agreed Merritt.

“She snuck up and put a spell on me so she could go after Merritt,” continued Gary.

“How do you know?” asked Mike.

“She told me,” said Gary, tapping his forehead. He turned to his side so he could climb to his feet. “I’m fine now that she’s gone. It was a weird state—I could hear everything and I could see the whole thing, but like from ten feet up, looking down.”

“We’ve got to get Merritt some medical attention for that bite though,” said Mike.

“Nah, I’m fine,” said Merritt. “Don’t worry about me. She won’t be back until next week and I’m going to be ready for her then.”

“This is crazy,” said Mike. “You’ve got to treat that thing like a dangerous animal. We should be looking for some way to defend ourselves and laying in heavy ammunition for the next time.”

“I tell you what,” said Merritt. “You guys get the fuck out of here, and Roland and I will do whatever the fuck we want. We found her, and maybe she’ll be strong enough to come back without your little machine next time.”

“Perhaps we should just get out of here,” said Gary.

Katie moved to start tearing down the equipment.

“I’m not giving up that easy,” said Mike. “This is a major discovery.”

Roland grabbed the rifle that had been leaning against the side of the van. He walked up to Mike and put his arm casually around his shoulders. “You’re just not welcome here anymore, buddy,” he said to Mike. The barrel of the rifle was pointing loosely at Mike’s chin.

“Fine,” said Mike, ducking from under Roland’s arm.

The three researchers tore down and had their equipment packed within thirty minutes. They were on the road moments after. Mike drove so Gary could rest.

“He’s not going to try to capture it,” said Gary. “I think he’s addicted to her already.”

“How do you know that?” asked Mike.

“I could sense it when I was out. It was really weird, like being aware or something. I could tell what she was thinking and what Merritt was thinking too. It was like watching a movie with a constant stream of narration.”

“So what do you mean, addicted?” asked Katie.

“You ever read one of those vampire stories where the victim becomes entranced or whatever?” asked Gary.

Katie nodded.

“It’s almost like that. I even felt that way about the coma she put me in. It must be the magic she gets from the devil or something. Merritt just wanted to be drained. I could feel it. And I wanted to stay out. Don’t vampire bats have some kind of anesthetic in their saliva or something? I think it’s like that, but mental.”

“That’s a myth,” said Mike. “They have anticoagulants in their saliva, but not anesthetic.

“Well anyway,” said Gary. “I wouldn’t have minded if she had bitten me next. I wanted her to do it.”

“You’re not going to try to sneak back there, are you?” asked Mike.

“No way,” said Gary. “I think that Merritt would have killed us if we stuck around. He became a junkie with that first bite.”

“What did we get on video?” asked Mike.

Katie sat in back with the footage. “Nothing,” she said. “It moved around the perimeter and never crossed any of the camera angles. I’ve got one still photo though.”

“Any good?” asked Mike.

“Not really,” Katie answered. “You and Roland were mostly in the way while it was on Merritt. You can see a pale arm and the back of her head. That’s about it.”

“Next time we work one of these cases we’re going to make sure to chase away the civilians first,” said Mike.

CHAPTER SIX

Crooked Tree

AS RUNNING DEER WHOOPED, he surprised Crooked Tree by reaching out for him. Falling at such a close proximity, Running Deer was able to throw out both hands and push Crooked Tree’s chest. Crooked Tree’s mouth fell open in shock as he and his brother were flung apart.

Crooked Tree flipped backwards in his descent and flailed his limbs, trying to control his fall. His shoulder hit first, bouncing back against the cliff wall. His backward rotation was immediately countered when he hit. His head spun down as his legs tucked under and scraped against a different rock. He caught a brief glimpse of Running Deer and saw that his brother was gaining speed faster, and had somehow managed to point himself headfirst towards the ground.

For a fraction of a second, Crooked Tree thought he had arrested his spin, but his head continued rolling forward until he faced the cliff wall, watching it streak past him upside-down. He wrapped his long arms around his head as he spun towards another set of rocks. His brother was brave and welcomed death. Crooked Tree couldn’t suppress his survival instinct.

His feet hit first, but not on the jagged rocks where all his relatives lay dead or rapidly dying. Crooked Tree’s right leg touched down on a sloping rock and snapped backwards, rotating him even faster. Next, the back of his shoulder struck the soft belly of his pregnant aunt. He crashed through bloody limbs and torsos, flipping across the piled corpses; his eyes remained shut tight.

Crooked Tree finally came to rest on his back. One of his hands still cradled his head, the other was pinned, useless, under his back. The trapped hand was stuck to the end of a ruined arm. A twisting break in his humerus jutted through the skin of his biceps, and breaks in both bones of that same forearm allowed the limb to double back on itself.

His opposite leg, the right leg, pointed straight up bent the wrong way at the knee. As Crooked Tree opened his eyes for the first time on the ground, his first image was his right leg flopping to the side, so badly reversed that he could see the upside-down sole of his right foot.

He shut his eyes and took inventory. He could hear his own heartbeat, sense his own breathing, and even feel his fingertips of his right hand brush across his stomach, but he felt no pain. His eyes flew open as he realized what he had become.

Crooked Tree moaned and understood that he must have died and instantly become a roaming spirit. Glancing around, noticing that his family all lay perfectly still, he understood that he was the lone roaming spirit of his extinct family. The weight of the responsibility settled on his laboring heart. A new feeling began to awaken in his broken body; it was hunger. He felt hollow. He squinted up at the sun and knew he had to find shelter from the light. Roaming spirits stalked the night, and now that he had become one, he had to seek a place to wait.

Even divorced from pain, his ability to move was severely hampered by his injuries. He pushed back with his right arm and managed to elevate his head a few inches. His breath hitched and his body convulsed until he managed to cough out a mouthful of thick blood. He spit to the side and a glob of phlegmy blood splattered on the forehead of his dead cousin.

Crooked Tree didn’t worry about the cough or the dozens of lacerations he saw in his flesh, he simply scanned the cliff until he found what he needed. Up the slope a dozen paces, a jagged rock created a dark shadow. He reached back with his good arm and grabbed at the sharp, blood-soaked rocks. Pulling with his arm and pushing with his left leg, Crooked Tree carved slow progress to the shallow cave, leaving blood and bits of flesh in his wake.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Davey

“HAVE YOU BEEN FEELING OKAY LATELY?” Melanie asked her son. She gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, compulsively checking her mirrors every ten seconds, and staying alert to the traffic around her.

“What do you mean?” asked Davey without looking up from his video game.

She glanced over her shoulder to look at Davey in the back seat. “I wish you wouldn’t play that in the car. You know it makes you sick,” she said.

“Mom, that was forever ago. I don’t get sick anymore.”

“Well still, it’s pretty rude when I’m trying to have a conversation with you,” she said.

Davey paused his game and looked out the window. Attuned to his mother’s moods, Davey knew that such talk led to direct orders. He had learned that by turning his attention to his mother in these situations, he could often avoid the impending decree.

“Thank you,” said Melanie, glancing back again. “So you feel normal?”

“Sure,” he replied. “I guess.”

“Everything okay at school?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Have you decided if you want to play baseball this summer?” she prodded. Switching randomly between topics sometimes startled Davey into revealing something.

“Yeah.” He maintained his complacency.

“Are you sleeping okay?”

“Sure,” he said, hesitating.

Melanie waited to see if he would make the connection to something else.

“Hey Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“You know right before you’re going to fall asleep?”

“Sure,” she replied.

“What happens if you open your eyes and you see something? Does that make it real?” he asked.

“No honey,” she replied. “You can’t just make something real by dreaming about it.”

“I’m not talking about dreaming,” he protested. “You know that time when things are possible? Like that time with the sideways-head thing?”

“Oh Davey, that wasn’t real. That was Dad’s accident, remember?” she asked.

“That wasn’t Dad,” he objected.

“I know it’s hard to think about,” she said. “But sometimes people have accidents and they get hurt, but you can’t just make that happen because you thought about it,” she thought back to that night two years ago, when her husband died. Since that night, she had convinced herself that when Davey had seen his dad, contorted and deceased, he’d made up his story about the sideways-head thing. “Have you been thinking about Dad?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I know Dad is gone. I’ve been thinking about the underground guy. I think he’s asleep, but he’s trying to wake up.”

Melanie wanted to pull over, but forced herself to keep the car on the road. Considering her own fragile emotions, she wanted to project an air of normalcy, and thought that pulling over to interrogate Davey would just scare him. “What’s that?”

“When I’m about to go to sleep, I see the underground guy. He’s been asleep for a long time, but he’s waking up now. He thinks that I’m dangerous,” said Davey.

“Davey, where are you getting this? Who’s been telling you this stuff?” she asked.

“I told you—right before I go to sleep,” he replied.

“Why don’t you tell me about school. How was your day yesterday?” she asked.

“It was okay,” he said.

“What happened?”

“We had a substitute,” he said. “I didn’t like her.”

“Why not?” she asked, slowing for a stop sign. She adjusted her rearview mirror so she could see his face as he looked out his window.

“Remember how I took my soccer ball, so I could play with it at recess?” he asked.

“Yes, I told you it would be too cold,” she said.

“I wasn’t cold,” he said, “but when we went out, that kid Ted said I had to give him my soccer ball.”

“Did you tell the teacher?” asked Melanie.

“I couldn’t, because Ted tried to take it from me as soon as we were outside,” he said.

“But you could go tell your teacher and she would make Ted give it back,” argued Melanie.

“I told you, I couldn’t. We had a substitute, so Mrs. Roberts wasn’t there.”

Melanie took a deep breath, balancing her need for logic with wanting to hear the rest of the story.

“So Ted just grabbed it as soon as we were outside and I told him to give it back, but he said no,” said Davey. “I hate that kid.”

“Davey,” she warned, “don’t say you hate him.”

“I do though,” said Davey. “I tried to grab the ball back, but he held on to it really tight and I couldn’t get it away. He said he was going to beat me up, but I grabbed him. He got me on the ground and I couldn’t get up, but his leg was right there, so I bit him. That made him let go. Then the substitute made me go inside and asked if I knew how to tell time. She told me to sit right there until quarter-of, and I missed all of recess.”

A honk from the car behind snapped Melanie from her concentration. She snapped back around, checked both ways, and pulled through the intersection. She glanced in the rearview and saw that Davey had retrieved his video game.

“You shouldn’t fight because someone takes your ball, Davey,” she said.

“I know,” he replied.

“Next time, go tell the substitute,” she said.

“He won’t bother me anymore,” mumbled Davey.

“Pardon?” she asked, looking at the top of his head again.

“I said ‘I will,’” he said.

“Davey,” she said, “what are you going to to do the next time someone takes your ball?”

“I’ll go tell the substitute,” he replied without looking up.

“Thank you,” she said.

Melanie pulled into her driveway a little past four and pressed the button to open the garage door. Davey waited for his mom to pull into the garage.

“Have you decided about this summer?” she asked, slowing to get an answer before parking the car.

“About what?” he asked.

“If you’re going to do that baseball camp, I need to sign you up now,” she said. “Your coach won’t save your place forever if I don’t put up the money.”

“Can’t I just hang out at Paul’s house this summer?” he pleaded.

“We talked about that,” she reminded her son. “Paul’s family is going away for all of July and I’d rather have you at baseball camp than at daycare all day for a month.”

“It’s not baseball camp,” he corrected. “It’s catcher’s camp. They’ll probably do boring drills all day. That’s what Chuck Detmer says.”

“Chuck never even went to the camp,” said Melanie. “You know better than to listen to what he says. Besides, it’s only half the day. You can hang out with Chuck at daycare in the afternoons.” She stopped the car just outside the garage and wanted to extract a commitment from Davey before letting him out.

“Can’t I just go to camp in July then and hang out with Paul until he goes?” he asked.

“No, Davey,” said Melanie. “You have to be there for the whole camp. That’s what your coach said.”

“I won’t even get to see Paul this summer at all,” Davey whined.

Sensing resolution, Melanie pulled into the garage. “If it’s okay with Paul’s mom you can always go over to his house Friday at noon and spend the weekend together, either there or here.”

“Okay,” conceded Davey.

“I’ll sign you up in the morning then,” said Melanie.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Mike

“I WANT A REAL EXPERIMENT this time,” Mike said to Gary and Katie. “So far we have no hard evidence, no proof, two uncontrolled encounters, and countless failures.”

The three sat in the van at the mall parking lot. Before letting Gary drive them to their destination, Mike had requested that they establish some ground rules for the evening.

“We’ve got some killer personal experiences,” argued Gary.

“That means nothing,” said Mike. “You know that.”

“How do you propose we control things?” asked Katie.

“How well do you know these people?” Mike asked Gary.

“Friends of friends,” said Gary. “I’ve been to their house for parties and stuff. Not terribly well.”

“Would they trust you alone in the house?” asked Mike.

“Sure, I guess so. I didn’t really ask them,” said Gary.

Mike spun in his seat and answered Katie. “I think we ask them to leave. That will help us avoid the situation we had last time, and keep everything more scientific. Then, I think we should run a full set of tests before we turn on the amplifier. We’ll get an accurate baseline of any activity and figure out exactly what we’re dealing with.”

“Sounds good,” said Katie. “But how do we prevent things from getting out of control like the last time?”

“Yeah,” said Gary.

“I noticed something both times we had a response,” explained Mike. “There seems to be a threshold, below which we see nothing. As soon as we crossed that threshold, we triggered some kind of feedback loop, where the entity was self-sustaining. Even removing the power source didn’t help. The entity still had enough energy to affect physical objects.”

“We need a negative source,” said Gary. “Like a control rod in a nuclear reactor.”

“Perhaps,” said Mike. “But we don’t have anything like that. I was thinking that we should at least try to establish the threshold and then creep up to that level, but not cross it.”

“Maybe my camera was working as the negative source,” offered Katie. “That thing in the water seemed to lose its grip when I took pictures, and the Loogaroo took off right after the picture of it.”

“You’re right about the river thing, but I’m not so sure about Loogaroo. She still fought us after the camera. She didn’t like fire,” Mike said. He trailed off, lost in thought for a second. “I wonder if we could create a wave that would cancel out the natural energy of a location. You know those headphones that you wear on an airplane?”

“Yes,” said Gary. “They sample the ambient noise and then cancel it by inverting the wave and broadcasting it back out. That only works if you have a single point where you’re trying to measure. You can cancel the noise for a point, like your ear, but anywhere outside that point is likely to just have twice as much noise.”

“That’s true,” said Mike. “We’d have to know exactly where the thing was going to be and then we might be able to focus negative energy right there.”

“Back to the camera,” Katie broke in. “Didn’t you guys say that the river creature let go right when it flashed? Maybe I just didn’t flash the Loogaroo enough.”

“It’s definitely something we can try,” said Mike. “We’re going to want pictures anyway. But we shouldn’t count on it just because of one observation.”

Katie crossed her arms.

“So we’re going to try to flirt with the threshold?” asked Gary.

“Yeah, I think so. And Katie will take pictures to see if that decreases the activity,” answered Mike.

“Let’s get going then, I told them we’d be there by eight,” said Gary.

* * *

“SO YOU BOTH FEEL like we have a full baseline?” asked Mike. They sat in the van outside a sprawling, nineteenth-century farmhouse with attached barn. The row of monitors and instruments measured various rooms of the house.

“I don’t get it,” said Katie.

“What do you mean?” asked Mike.

“We got a lot of video and audio of this place, but so what?”

“This is the normal activity without adding any energy,” said Mike. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“We don’t know if we have anything or not,” said Katie. “You say these readings are just noise,” she said, waving at the equipment. “But how do we know that’s true? Any one of these spikes could be from something really interesting and unexplained, right?”

“It could be,” said Mike. “But you can see those same spikes anywhere. We’ve got readings like that from all over the place. These fields could be caused by faulty wiring or an appliance. This noise here,” he said, pointing at a line graph, “is likely a mouse moving in the walls.”

“So what are you trying to prove?” she asked.

“When we add an energy source we’re going to document any unnatural reaction,” said Mike. “If you’ve got a closed room and you add a space heater, you expect that room to get warmer, right?”

Katie nodded.

“Gary’s going to broadcast a certain energy at that basement, and we expect that we’ll just read that same energy here,” he pointed to a green dot moving across a scope. “But what we’ve seen is that we’ll actually get a decrease in that energy if there’s an entity there to absorb it.”

“Hardly seems scientific,” said Katie.

“Start with a phenomenon, try to explain it through other experiences,” Mike ticked off his fingers, “if that doesn’t work you form a conjecture, create a prediction, and then test.”

“I understand how science works. But how do you know it’s not just random, or happening for another reason?” she asked.

“We’ll run the same experiment somewhere else, where nobody has reported any phenomena, and see if it happens there,” said Mike.

“Can we just get on with it, Dr. Science?” asked Gary.

“Yes, let’s,” said Mike. “Why don’t you bring the amp online at fifty-five and a half, with zero power.”

“Got it,” said Gary.

“Okay,” said Mike. “Let’s ramp up really slowly. Katie? Can you monitor this display?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Look for any response that’s not commensurate with Gary’s increase here. Your display should drop one gridline for every tick Gary moves,” explained Mike.

“I’ll call it out,” said Gary. “I’m passing point one right now.”

Mike studied the video feeds from the house. He focused mostly on the unfinished basement, but also scanned the other rooms. His monitors automatically switched between views every three seconds, but he held a keyboard which directed the feed on the monitor in front of him.

A green view showed Mike the infrared information, and a multi-colored picture indicated the thermal characteristics. Finally, a dim, grainy, picture let him see the room from the moonlight coming through the windows of the old house. As he watched, the most exciting development was a swirl of dust lit up by the infrared emitters.

“Point two,” said Gary.

“Equal change,” said Katie.

“You can move just a tiny bit faster,” said Mike. “We didn’t see the river thing or the Loogaroo until we passed six point five.”

“Point three,” said Gary.

“Katie, you’ll have to decrease your scale there,” said Mike, pointing to a knob. “Counter clockwise.”

“Point four,” said Gary.

“Now you’ll be at one gridline for every five ticks from Gary,” Mike instructed.

“Yeah,” said Katie. “I get it.”

Mike returned to his video displays. He concentrated on the floor at the center of the cellar. They had pointed the cameras at the area indicated by the homeowners, but Mike always figured that the action would take place just outside the range of the cameras. A wave of dust passed in front of the lens of the infrared and Mike picked up his headphones. As he suspected, the furnace had ignited, upsetting the dust.

As he watched, the thermal cameras also registered a change from the furnace. New details in the stone foundation emerged with the added heat. Mike imagined himself sitting on the dirt floor, smelling the musty cellar. A bright spot of color moved across the thermal image, but within a few seconds Mike recognized it as a scurrying mouse, darting in and out of the rock wall.

He removed his headphones just as Gary called out another number: “One point one.”

The three researchers sat frozen, the silence only broken as Gary called out each number. When he had reached ten point zero, he pulled away from his instrument.

“Should I keep going?” asked Gary. “I don’t think all the components are rated past ten.”

“We have a margin of safety, but if we haven’t seen anything yet, I doubt we will,” said Mike. “This is like all those failed attempts at the river. There must be some variable we’re missing. No discrepancy with the power levels?” he asked Katie.

“Nope,” she said. “This display matched Gary’s numbers exactly.”

“Huh,” said Mike.

“What’s with thermal two?” asked Gary.

“What do you mean?” asked Mike. “Oh that? The furnace has washed it out. We should remember that next time. The glare from the furnace when it’s on pretty much knocks out all the signal.”

“Should I go repoint it?” asked Gary.

“No, that’s okay,” said Mike. “I’ll do it.” He untangled himself from the wires and pushed back from his console. Before climbing out of the van he grabbed a radio from the rack and turned back to Gary—“Do me a favor: turn that thing down before I go in there.” He pointed to the amplifier. “Just in case I decide to have kids someday.”

Gary laughed but turned down the dial anyway.

As he strode across the yard, Mike checked in with his radio: “Hey, Gary?”

“Yeah,” Gary’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie.

“When I get down there tell me where to point that camera.”

“Sure thing,” said Gary. “But you might want to turn off the thermostat on your way by.”

“Got it,” Mike opened the door to the kitchen of the dark house. He admired the homey simplicity of the country farmhouse and reflected on the thought of one day having kids. When he considered marrying and raising a family, this was the kind of house he saw in his mind’s eye.

“Do you know where it is?” he asked the radio, looking around the room with his flashlight.

“Try the living room, near the wood stove,” said Gary.

“Got it,” Mike said again. He pressed the button several times until he heard a click. Mike crossed back into the kitchen and found the door to the basement with his light. When he opened the door a low grumble from the bottom of the stairs made him jump.

The radio clicked. “I think it’s back on,” said Gary. “It might take a minute to turn off.”

“Thanks,” said Mike. “I can hear it.” He descended the narrow steps carefully, each tread sagging under his weight. Based on the age of the house and the condition of the stairs, he figured that the bowing treads predated him by more than a century.

Their equipment, set up amongst the cobwebs, made Mike feel comfortable despite the deep shadows and black corners.

Mike pressed the send button on his radio—“I’ll move the tripod a couple feet to the right?”

“Sounds good,” said Gary. “Yes, right there. Can you point it a little back to the left?”

Mike tucked his radio under his arm and guided the lens until Gary called out again—“Stop. Right there.”

“Hey Mike?” beckoned Katie over the radio.

“Yeah?”

“Can you move back towards the stairs for a second?” she asked.

“Sure thing,” said Mike. He backed up exactly three steps and paused, his light dancing around the old cellar, pausing on ancient shelves, pipes, cables, and the dirt floor as he waited to find out what Katie was interested in.

“Move back towards the camera?” she asked.

He complied and gave Katie the signal. “I’m here.”

Mike heard a click from his radio and then a muffled conversation before she communicated further—“Maybe you should come back out here.”

Mike backed away towards the stairs again and thought about the basement. Before experimenting with sending amplified energy towards the paranormal, he and Gary had spent countless hours in identical cellars and attics. Eventually, Mike had become completely inured to the experience; the fears of his childhood were driven away by equipment, measurements, and familiarity. Now, having had a couple of extraordinary encounters, he found his skittish nature had returned stronger than ever. He wanted to flee up the stairs to the safety of the van and his compatriots, but also wanted to re-conquer this shadowy terrain.

“Are you seeing activity?” he asked into his radio.

“Just a little,” said Katie, clicking off her radio between sentences. “Seems to increase when you get near the center of the room.”

“Maybe you’re just picking up me,” suggested Mike.

“Nope,” said Gary, after a pause. “This is definitely not you.”

“Is it constant? Are you amplifying at all?” asked Mike.

“No to both,” said Gary. “It doesn’t seem to sustain at all without you there, and we’re not adding any energy.”

“Hit it with the signal we gave before, and call it out over the radio,” suggested Mike.

He was answered with a long pause, but Gary’s voice came back before he could issue the order again. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Mike. “Just go slow and look for the threshold. I’ll stay near the stairs.”

“Wouldn’t it be … ” said Gary.

Mike waited through another long pause before interrupting—“You guys having a secret conference out there? Just give it some juice, but go slow.”

“Okay,” said Gary. “You ready?”

“Any time,” Mike said, impatient.

He heard the click of the radio and then Gary’s voice filled the silence—“Zero point one.”

Mike leaned back against the railing of the stairs; this process would take a while.

“Zero point two,” said Gary.

After a few more readings, Katie checked in too. “Still tracking linear,” she said. “Any activity?”

“Nope,” said Mike, but he wasn’t being completely honest with Katie or himself. When he scanned the flashlight around the dusty cellar, he felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He was only really comfortable when his light pointed at the center of the cellar’s dirt floor. Not having that area lit up made him feel like he was snorkeling amongst sharks.

“One point zero,” Gary announced eventually.

“Wait a second,” Mike broke in between Gary’s readings. “When you said the energy was tracking linearly, what about the delta from me being down here.”

“Yeah, um,” said Katie, “I meant it was linear including the delta from you.”

“Do you remember the maximum reading when I would get close to the center of the room?” Mike asked.

“Sure, I’ve got it written down,” answered Katie.

“Great,” said Mike. “Tell me if this delta is the same,” He took a deep breath and then strode to the center of the room. Gravity seemed to be working extra hard here. He felt pulled into the dirt.

“The delta is significantly higher,” said Katie.

“So you have a non-linear response?”

“Yes,” said Katie.

“Good,” said Mike. “I’m going back to the stairwell. Please resume when I get there.” He felt better—predicting and then observing a result made him feel in control of the situation.

“One point one,” said Gary.

Mike smiled. It suddenly dawned on him that his anxious feelings were perfectly normal. He was standing in a room with elevated electro-magnetic fields. Plenty of studies showed that those fields could make a person feel paranoid, fearful, or anxious. He was having a perfectly normal reaction to his environment.

His new hypothesis was bolstered by the heightened sense of fear he had felt in the center of the room: that was the nexus of the fields his van projected.

“Three point four,” said Gary.

“What happened to the twos?” asked Mike.

“Pardon?” asked Gary.

“Didn’t you just skip a bunch of numbers?”

“Nope,” said Gary. “I read each one. Problem with the walkie?”

“I don’t think so,” answered MIke. “I didn’t hear an extra long delay or anything.”

“Maybe you should come back,” suggested Gary.

“I’m fine,” said Mike.

Am I really? Mike asked himself.

“Keep going,” Mike ordered.

“Three point five,” said Gary. Then, after a short pause—“three point six.”

“Non-linear,” Katie interjected, nearly frantic. “Non-linear. Dial it back Gary. Mike, I think we’ve hit a threshold.”

“How much did it decrease?”

“Almost twice as much,” said Katie. “We can’t see the stairs, Mike. Did you move at all?”

“No,” said Mike. A wave of shivers rolled over him.

“I backed it off,” said Gary. “But the response is holding steady Mike. Can you see anything?”

“Nope,” said Mike, but he kept his thumb down on the send button because before he could finish the short word, he did see something. “Wait,” he whispered.

In the van, Gary and Katie heard only the quiet static of the open transmission, but Mike heard something different. Mike heard the slow avalanche of a sandy hole collapsing in on itself. He imagined he would hear nearly the same sound if were trapped in an abandoned coffin while the grave walls eroded and caved in.

In the center of his beam of light, which was still trained on the middle of the cellar floor, Mike saw a small cone-shaped hole begin to form, as if a whirlpool were sucking it down and away.

“I think there’s something down there,” he whispered into the radio. He let go of the button.

“Mike? Mike?” yelled Gary.

At the sound of Gary’s voice, the three-inch hole stopped growing.

“Mike?” Gary asked again.

The small indentation shifted a foot towards Mike, leaving a trough of missing sand in its place. Without taking his eyes off the floor, Mike reached up with his flashlight-hand and turned off the radio to silence Gary’s voice. The hole began to grow again; its diameter widening to five inches and then six, while Mike stood paralyzed and entranced. The sand filtering down reminded Mike of a giant ant trap dug by a crafty spider.

Mike leaned forward, trying to see the center of the hole without moving any closer. He stood on his toes and reached out with his light. The center of the hole was two long strides away, but the edge crept closer every second as the hole grew and sandy dirt disappeared into the center.

A brown lump appeared at the bottom of the hole. The dirt stopped swirling. Mike watched as it formed a short column, and then another emerged adjacent to the first. Mike didn’t recognize the form until the second knuckle uncovered itself, and then it was difficult deny: he was watching the bones of a human hand materializing from the cellar floor of the old farmhouse.

Mike’s legs ached; he had no choice but to settle back on his heels before they gave out. The dirt shifted again as the rest of the fingers emerged. Once the bones of the wrist were free from the dirt, the hand bent and pawed lightly at the walls of the hole. Mike sucked in a shallow, trembling breath. The hand snapped up, with the fingers cupped in Mike’s direction.

The hand returned to pawing at the dirt, but moved faster with each swipe. When the elbow emerged, Mike realized that another small lump was poking through the side of the hole a few inches away from the arm. That lump lead to another set of fingers and soon Mike watched two skeletal arms struggling to break free from the dirt floor.

An egg shape, dirty brown like the arms, emerged next. The large shape resolved into a dome. Mike recognized the skull before the eye-sockets became visible. A few seconds later, when the head of the skeleton had shaken itself free from the dirt, the head swiveled, its empty eye sockets staring directly into Mike’s flashlight beam.

Mike leaned heavily on the bannister, trying to catch his breath. The naked jawbone of the entity began to clap, slamming its fossilized teeth into the upper jaw of the skull. The chattering accelerated to an impossible pace as the skull tilted left and right, as if regarding Mike.

The collar bones appeared quickly, now that the creature could reach the edges of the hold and press itself upwards. Mike heard a low moan and wondered why it sounded so close before he realized that it came from his own mouth.

The skeleton tapped its boney fingers in the dirt while gazing at him with empty eye-sockets.

“Mike?” called Gary from the top of the stairs. Gary pounded down the old stairs, nearly bending the treads to their breaking point. Mike turned to see him descending at fully speed with a red fire extinguisher clutched to his chest.

Just behind Gary, Katie picked her way down at a more controlled pace. She paused to flip on the light switch at the top of the stairs.

Mike squinted at the lights and looked around to see his skeletal friend now pulling its torso from the loose dirt. Mike counted four ribs as Gary landed at the foot of the stairs to Mike’s right.

“What the hell?” he asked.

Mike pointed towards the creature, but couldn’t get his mouth to form any words. Katie paused and crouched, halfway down the stairs, and pointed her camera in the direction of the moving corpse. Her flash lit the corners of the room just as Mike found his first words—“It wants skin,” he said.

“What?” asked Gary. “Maybe it wants this.” He pointed the fire extinguisher at the brown bones, still pulling to extract the rest of its spine.

Gary pulled the trigger before Mike could object and sprayed the creature with a thick white fog.

“Why?” asked Mike.

“I thought it might not like cold,” said Gary as they waited for the fog to disperse. When it had, they saw that the skeleton’s progress had not been impeded. In fact, the bones had picked up a fast tremble, as if they coursed with energy.

Katie’s camera continued to flash, freezing the skeleton’s chattering jaw with each strobe.

“We have to steal its energy,” said Mike. “Or at least slow it down. It’s picking up speed.”

“Wait. Wait,” said Katie from the stairs. “It’s us. We didn’t see any non-linear energy drain until you came down here. It’s taking our energy now.”

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Mike pushed Gary back towards the stairs.

They climbed quickly, pulling the railings and scaling the steps three at a time. Just before shutting the cellar door, Mike thought he detected the chattering teeth slowing down. He locked the door and then ran for the kitchen door, following his sprinting cohorts back to the van.

Once in the van, they pulled shut the doors, locked them, and turned to the monitors. The skeleton was attempting to pull its thigh bones free from the cellar. Its head spun and turned randomly.

“Looks like a top winding down,” said Gary.

“Yeah, doesn’t it?” whispered Katie.

“What’s the readout?” asked Mike.

“Oh, sorry,” said Katie. “Yup, definitely leveled off. It was up here when we left,” she said, pointing. “Still dropping, almost back to ambient.”

Mike looked back at the video and could see the change in the skeleton’s behavior. The twitching, chattering, and other movement had curtailed. As they watched the various displays and readouts, the creature became completely still and Katie’s readout had returned to the baseline.

“Do you think it’s dormant again?” asked Katie.

“Sure looks like it,” said Mike.

“Oh shit,” said Gary. He pressed his ear against the side of the van. “Homeowners.”

“Quick,” said Mike. “Grab them. Don’t let them go back in, that thing may wake up again.”

Gary tugged on the handle and then spilled out of the van to the driveway. Mike plowed out after him. The two jogged across the yard, waving their arms at the returning couple. When they had explained the situation, Mike invited the couple, Bob and Linda, to see the video displays.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Bob. “Is that my cellar? Did you guys plant that thing there?”

“No, seriously,” said Mike. “That came up from your cellar floor. Back up one of the streams please Gary,” As Gary made his way to the panel, Mike explained the technology. “These monitors are hooked up to our digital video recorders. We can watch the live stream or back it up while it’s still recording.”

“This is when I first saw the hole appearing,” Mike pointed at the screen when Gary had found the right spot. “This is a low-light infrared system, so it’s a bit grainy, but here you can see the hand coming out,” They all watched in silence until the picture changed substantially. “That’s where Katie turned on the cellar lights,” Mike explained.

“Lin,” Bob turned on his wife. “I thought you said these guys were just going to shoot some video, not dig up the entire fucking cellar.”

“You’re not listening, Bob,” said Linda. “I kept telling you there was something down there.”

“Jesus, babe,” said Bob. “Let me guess, you found this terrible thing in the cellar, right where Linda said you should look, and now it’s only going to cost ten thousand dollars to cleanse the evil, right?”

“Sir, we are researchers,” said Mike. “We have no intention…”

“I’m calling the cops,” said Bob. He pulled a cell phone from his back pocket and turned to walk back to the house.

“We don’t want your money,” said Mike.

“I bet you don’t,” said Bob. “You just brought all these crazy cameras out of the kindness of your heart.” He held the phone to his ear and waited for a response. “Well I hope you also brought some money for bail because I’m calling the goddamn cops. Hey, Joey,” he said into the phone.

“Who’s Joey?” Gary asked Linda.

“That’s his sister’s husband. He’s a deputy sheriff,” Linda answered. “They fish together a lot.”

Bob disappeared through the kitchen door and lights spilled from the kitchen windows. A few seconds later, he appeared on the video monitors.

“Nothing,” said Gary.

Katie bent over her display—“No energy drain here.”

“Want me to turn on the amplifier?” asked Gary. “That would probably change his mind.”

“No, no, we can’t do that,” said Mike. “Who knows what would happen. We can’t be responsible for that.”

On the infrared screen, Bob crouched next to the skeleton as he talked into the phone.

“Do we have audio on that?” asked Mike.

Gary turned up a dial and they heard Bob’s voice over the speakers—“Looks like an actual goddamn skeleton, Joey,” He paused. “Yeah, bring ’em,” he continued.

* * *

“WELL IT CERTAINLY DOES LOOK like it came from there,” said Sheriff Murphy.

Mike, Gary, and Katie had been repeating their story for several hours as more and more officials arrived at the site to examine the corpse poking halfway out of the cellar floor.

“When you find a skeleton in a basement, it would be really helpful if you give me a call instead of making music videos with the thing all night.” The sheriff waved dismissively at the van.

“Sir, I know it’s hard to understand, and we certainly don’t have all the answers about what happened here tonight,” said Mike.

The sheriff interrupted him—“Look, chief, just keep your tall tales to yourself and tell me how you happened to find the deceased.”

“The only information we had was that Mrs. Hubert described a funny feeling and voices coming from the floor of the cellar. That’s it, I swear,” said Mike. “This is what I research. I’ve got dozens of documented cases.”

“Bob told me that you wanted several thousand dollars to clean the evil spirits from the house.”

“No, sir!” said Mike. “That’s something he made up and ascribed to us. We never had any intention of trying to charge anyone. That’s not what we do. We’re purely researchers.”

“My deputy has been friends with Bob a long time. I’ve got no reason to doubt him. You get your equipment out of here and don’t darken the Huberts’ doorstep again and we’ll just forget that this happened. I won’t even arrest you for tampering with evidence or grave robbing.”

“But the video,” started Mike.

The sheriff held up his hand and walked away from the researchers. He sent over a different deputy who directed them to pack their things and leave.

Back in the van, Mike was furious. “Next time we’re getting the press at the site before we do anything.”

CHAPTER NINE

Crooked Tree

HE WOKE SEVERAL TIMES after sunset, but didn’t leave his cave until the moon rose above the tree line. Between naps he imagined himself absorbing the power of his father and brother. Then, he extended his aspirations and tapped the strength of all his dead relatives.

Pulling with his intact arm, he crested the lip of the cave and paused to survey the bodies of his family. At first, he thought they had all been carried away by scavengers: he only saw jagged rocks. By the time his one good eye came completely into focus, he had already guessed his mistake. What he took for jagged rocks were the pale remains and split bones of his kin.

Crooked Tree bent his head to respect the dead. When his eye closed, his perception narrowed to a pinpoint, until he was able to sense only one thing: a deep hunger. His eye flew open and he realized that his disobedient body had already started to pull towards the corpses smashed apart on the rocks.

The first sticky-wet body he reached belonged to a child. Crooked Tree tried to not recognize the young flesh, but couldn’t help but picture this child’s last few moments as he was flung from the cliff by his loving mother.

He reached for the boy’s pulpy brain, but drew his hand away. He knew he must reject thinking and become an animal once again.

An animal uses its paw to run or to kill, he thought. Not to feed.

Crooked Tree slid himself over the boy’s sprawled corpse and buried his mouth into the split in the boy’s lifeless skull. He pulled chunks of brain and swallowed them along with several of his own teeth, half-fractured in his mouth. The hunger intensified and rang through his body, stronger than ever.

Pulling back from his feeding, he paused and regarded the dead boy’s placid face. Only the mouth showed any emotion. The corner twisted. Crooked Tree remembered another time when this boy, Red Feather, generally called Little Feather, had held his mouth that same way.

Crooked Tree had taken Little Feather and several of his friends down to the river to show them how to catch fish from the small pool beyond the falls. With his long, fast arms, Crooked Tree was considered an expert at grabbing the fat autumn fish from the cool stream. He began by instructing the boys how to coat their hands and forearms in sandy mud and letting them dry in the sun. When everyone had a thin layer of sand baked on his hand, ideal for gripping slippery fish, Crooked Tree amazed the youngsters by darting his hand into the water and pulling out a shiny fish. None of the boys could master the skill, but this boy, Little Feather, had tried until the red sun had set. Crooked Tree remembered this boy’s little face turned up to him, his giant cousin, with that same twisted-corner mouth.

The boy’s eyes, half open, were barely visible in the moonlight. Crooked Tree leaned in to get his face as close as possible to Little Feather’s features and turned his head so he could bite at the boy’s juicy eyes. He sucked the fluid from the sockets until he felt his own dead eye begin to itch. The world began to sparkle for Crooked Tree as his once-punctured eye flickered back into operation.

Before he had finished with the boy, Crooked Tree’s good eye and new eye wandered across the rocks to spot his next nourishment. He sniffed the wind and slid himself over Little Feather until he could reach the boy’s sister, Snow Rabbit. Her arm had twisted and split when she crashed to the ground. Crooked Tree sniffed at her wrist and then bit into her biceps, gnawing through the raw muscle.

Even with the blood, gore, and feces in the air, Crooked Tree could identify his cousin’s familiar scent. She always had a funny story to tell, she would offer entertainment to lighten the mood as the family went without food or warmth during a long winter.

One time she had told a story about the foolish squirrels: “One crisp fall the acorns were scarce, so the squirrels got together and convinced the bravest black squirrel to talk to the bees. The squirrel climbed the tall maple to the bees nest and asked ‘Pardon me, but is it going to be a cold winter?’ The bees swirled around the black squirrel and buzzed an answer ‘Yes, it will be cold.’

“The black squirrel returned to the others and told them the bad news. They redoubled their efforts, but after a few days became discouraged. They begged the black squirrel to confirm. Returning to the hive, he asked ‘Are you sure it’s going to be cold?’ The bees responded immediately—‘Yes, we’re sure it’s going to be cold.’

“Finally, when the first frost came, the squirrels were exhausted, but still desperately hunting nuts. They convinced the black squirrel to check one more time so they could know how hard to keep hoarding. ‘I’m sorry to bother you again,’ said the black squirrel, ‘but are you positive it will be a cold winter?’ he asked. ‘Are you joking?’ asked the bees. ‘Of course it’s going to be a cold winter. Have you seen how hard those squirrels are collecting nuts?’”

Crooked Tree smiled at the memory of the joke, and wiped the blood from his mouth with his good arm. His injured arm tingled as the bones straightened and the muscles reconnected to his healing tendons.

He pulled in the power and substance of his tribe, collecting their memories and skills from their brains and muscles. Each time he consumed the flesh of an individual, he was visited with a memory or thought of them and he said his final goodbye. At the far side of the rocks, near the edge of the trees, Crooked Tree found his muscular brother—Running Deer. He stood over Running Deer’s broken form, Crooked Tree’s own body nearly complete; healed through his cannibalism.

Crooked Tree knelt before his brother, examining his injuries. Running Deer had always been the swifter, stronger, and more brave, but Crooked Tree didn’t know how to take that power from him. Running Deer’s arms and legs bulged with firm muscle, but Crooked Tree had bolstered his own strength and eclipsed his brother’s abilities. Thinking of courage, Crooked Tree sniffed his brother’s chest to find his heart, but the organ had been destroyed on impact. A long, jagged branch jutted from Running Deer’s chest.

He stepped past his brother’s body, finding nothing to absorb and saw one final body. He found Talking Bird just beyond his brother, lying on his side. Crooked Tree rolled Talking Bird onto his back and jerked back. Talking Bird opened his eyes.

“You have become all of us,” breathed Talking Bird, his eyes widening.

“I can’t find my father,” said Crooked Tree.

“You won’t,” said Talking Bird. “You’re not meant to.”

“Maybe he’s alive,” said Crooked Tree. “I lived, and you’re alive.”

“No,” said Talking Bird. “Neither of us should be considered alive. You’re a roaming spirit, and I am long dead.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Crooked Tree. “When I found myself down here I thought I was a roaming spirit. But I have eaten and grown whole again. How can a spirit grow and eat?”

“That’s all spirits do,” said Talking Bird. “You’re not just any spirit, you’re the spirit that infected our family, and now that you’ve been released, you’ve chosen Crooked Tree’s form and memories.”

“Am I to infect another family now?” asked Crooked Tree. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“No,” said Talking Bird. “Once released, the spirit becomes the agent, not just an infection. You know what to do, you just haven’t remembered it yet.”

“Tell me,” said Crooked Tree.

“It’s not for me to know,” said Talking Bird, “but I’ll tell you what my uncle told me. He said that a roaming spirit must find and destroy others of its kind. If I understand correctly, you must now hunt.”

“Hunt,” Crooked Tree repeated. He straddled Talking Bird and lowered himself, squatting just above the old man’s chest.

“You have the strength of our disease,” said Talking Bird. “You’ve eaten our knowledge and wisdom.”

“Yes,” said Crooked Tree, beginning to understand. “I’m no longer the Crooked Tree. I’m the Hunting Tree.”

“You will become our vengeance and cleanse the world,” said Talking Bird.

“Beginning with you,” whispered Crooked Tree. He cupped Talking Bird’s skull in his massive hands and crushed the dying man’s head.

Crooked Tree stood tall and looked up to the moon. To the south he could see across the fertile valley on either side of the river. He flexed his repaired and strengthened arms, and locked his powerful legs as he took a deep breath. He felt that he could smell the whole world. Something off to his right caught his attention. He turned and discovered that it wasn’t something that he could hear or see, but something he could sense—it was prey.

Crooked Tree crept off into the night.

CHAPTER TEN

Davey

“MOM!” HE SCREAMED.

“Davey, what is it?” Melanie sat on the edge of his bed and shook his shoulders gently.

“Mom,” he whimpered as his eyes opened.

She pulled him to her shoulder and patted his back—“What is it, honey?”

“It was the man again, the hunter,” he said. “He’s coming.”

“Nobody is coming Davey. It was just a bad dream,” she said. “You’re nine years old. You’re getting a little old for these nightmares.”

“This wasn’t a nightmare. I saw him,” he objected.

“Saw him where?” she glanced around. “This is your bed, and you’re safe and sound. If you saw a man in here then it had to be nightmare.” She pulled a tissue from the sleeve of her robe and cupped his chin while scrubbing his cheek. “I swear, you are the dirtiest boy in the world,” she commented.

He pulled away and buried his head under his blankets.

Melanie stood slowly and pulled her bathrobe tight. She waited until Davey peeked out from under the covers. “Do you want me to leave the door open?” she asked.

“And the hall light on?” he asked back.

“Okay, but just this once,” she said.

She pulled his door halfway shut, so the light wasn’t directly on his face, and waved goodnight. Davey flipped the covers back over his head and felt his own breath close. He didn’t want to poke his head out from under the blankets, but he was afraid fall asleep with his head covered.

When he was four, his sister had told him that if you slept under the covers you would “suffocate to death.” He took that advice very seriously, but that wasn’t the only reason he didn’t like being under the covers. Davey also didn’t like the new smell his body had begun to make. His new smell reminded him of his gym teacher—a very hairy and perpetually sweaty, overweight man.

He closed his eyes tight and inched his head from under the blankets until his nose was greeted with fresh air. Careful not to glimpse the dark, he arranged his arms and drifted back to sleep.

* * *

DAVEY WAITED AT THE CORNER for the bus. His mom had packed his backpack while he took a shower before getting dressed. Without being told, he had started taking a shower every morning. No matter how much soap he used, or how many times he bathed, he couldn’t erase his musky smell. At school, some of the other kids had begun to tease him, and he didn’t blame them. He thought he smelled gross too.

Davey kicked the backpack at his feet and wondered why it was so plump. A realization dawned on him and he unzipped the top compartment. He found a towel and bathing suit in a plastic bag, stuffed in with his lunch and folded homework.

He looked around in a panic until he spotted the neighbor’s trash can, left at the curb. The bus turned onto Wakefield Street as he darted to the can with his open pack. He removed the towel and bathing suit and stuffed it in the can. He was back at his spot by the time the bus got close enough for him to see the driver.

* * *

“OKAY CHILDREN,” SAID MRS. ROBERTS. “Everyone who’s taking swimming please line up by the cubbies.”

Davey kept his chair and hunched over his workbook. This was his first line of defense—he would play dumb.

“Davey,” she asked from just behind his desk. “You’re signed up for swimming, aren’t you?”

“I’m not supposed to,” said Davey. “I don’t have a suit.”

“It’s okay,” said Mrs. Roberts. “I’m sure Mr. Mulgrove will find you one.”

“I can’t,” said Davey. “My mom said so.”

“I talked to your mom just last week. She didn’t mention anything.”

Davey looked up to Mrs. Roberts’s wrinkled face and tried to decide if he could insist she was wrong.

“Come on.” She touched his shoulder.

Davey flinched away from her touch. He lowered his head and shuffled towards the line of kids waiting against the far wall. The three boys in back were the ones who regularly teased him—Ted, Matthew, and Nicholas. He lined up behind Ted and glanced back to Paul, happily filling out his worksheet. Paul looked up and nodded.

“That your boyfriend, Stinky?” Ted leaned in and whispered.

Davey looked at his shoes.

“Davey?” called Mrs. Roberts from the front of the line.

He looked up to see that all the other kids had their hands raised. He raised his own and held it high.

“Yuck—you stink,” hissed Ted, turning his head slightly.

As the line began to move, the children put their hands down and followed their teacher around the corner and down the stairs. They marched down the hall and out the front door to the waiting school bus for the short ride to the high school pool. Davey’s heart beat faster as he passed Mr. Mulgrove who stood with his clipboard at the front of the bus, checking off names. He wanted to declare himself ineligible for swimming, but couldn’t muster the courage to bring up the subject in front of a busload of his classmates. He took a seat near the front and waited for the short ride to end.

When they reached the parking lot of the pool, Mr. Mulgrove stood and addressed the kids as the bus slowed to a stop.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I want you at poolside in five minutes. No loitering. You know what that means?” he asked, turning to Hannah. She began to turn red. “That means no hanging around. I want you out the other side before I come looking.”

He backed into the Davey’s seat to let all the other kids passed, giving Davey a good excuse to talk to him after his classmates left, but an unwelcome view of the wide seat of his pants. When Nicholas had exited down the stairs, shooting a hateful look back at Davey, Mr. Mulgrove sat down on the edge of the bench seat and addressed Davey.

“You forgot your suit?” he asked.

Davey looked down at his empty hands and nodded.

“That’s okay,” said Mr. Mulgrove. “I’ll borrow one from the swim team. They have plenty.”

Davey shook his head but didn’t look up at the giant head of his teacher. “I don’t want it. I can’t swim today,” he said as he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Why not? I thought you liked swimming?”

“No,” said Davey, clipping the word to keep control of his voice.

“Didn’t I just talk to you last fall about getting ready for swim team next year?”

Davey nodded slowly.

“What changed?”

“I just,” began Davey, “I just don’t want to. I’m not even suh-supposed to,” his voiced hitched as he blurted the sentence.

“Whoa Davey,” said Mr. Mulgrove. “Why are you getting emotional? It’s just swimming.”

“I don’t know,” Davey said through his tear-strangled throat.

Mr. Mulgrove reached for Davey’s shoulder and then stopped his hand and put it on the seat back behind the boy. “Did I ever tell you about my son, Davey?”

Davey shook his head.

“Tyler got taller than all the rest of the kids when he was in fourth grade. They used to call him Stretch, and Bigfoot, and then Twin Towers, which really didn’t make that much sense. Some kids just lash out at anyone that’s different. They feel insecure themselves, and the only way they can cope with it is to make fun of other kids. Does that make sense?”

Davey nodded.

“Well it shouldn’t,” laughed Mr. Mulgrove. “It’s rotten, and they shouldn’t do it. But Davey, everyone’s the same and everyone’s different. That might sound weird, but it’s true. You just keep your head up and don’t let anything they say get to you. And if it does get to you, you come see me. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Davey, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He still dreaded getting out of the bus, but sensed that the conversation was over.

“Come on, I’ll get you a suit and towel." Mr. Mulgrove rose and let Davey lead the way.

Behind the counter in the lobby of the pool, Mr. Mulgrove pulled out a box filled with tiny suits. He dug through the box and handed a boy’s size to Davey. Next, he pulled a towel from the shelf and handed that over as well. Davey stared at the suit, but Mr. Mulgrove didn’t address his knitted brow.

“See you at the pool,” said Mr. Mulgrove. He smiled. “Get moving, don’t be late.”

“Thanks,” said Davey and turned to push through the door to the locker room. When he entered the warm, humid locker room, almost all of the boys had exited. He saw the door on the other side swinging shut as the door behind him thumped closed.

The only boys still at the benches were Matthew and Nicholas. They didn’t notice Davey. They were attempting to snap their thick towels at each other and dancing around the wooden bench. Both boys wore normal bathing suits that hung to their knees and would make swimming slow, but private. Davey turned towards the corner and opened a locker, sitting on the corner of the bench.

“Let’s go, Ted,” called Matthew.

“I’m coming,” said a voice from the bathroom section. Davey heard the voice of his tormentor enter the changing area. “Hey, it’s Stinky.”

Davey ignored him and placed his shoes and socks in the bottom locker.

“I’m going out,” said Matthew, and Davey breathed a little easier. “Last time Mr. Mulgrove made me do extra laps because I was late.”

“Hey look what’s Stinky’s got,” said Ted from directly behind Davey. He turned his head to glance at Ted and saw him holding his borrowed suit.

“Give it back,” said Davey.

Ted held up the skimpy suit and regarded it closely. “Are you going to wear this? Are you sure you’ll fit? My dad calls guys who wear these walnut smugglers. Is that what you are? A walnut smuggler?”

“Give it back,” repeated Davey.

Nicholas laughed and drew up behind Ted.

“Nicholas, help me stretch this, will ya?” asked Ted. He kept hold of the bottom of the suit and Nicholas grabbed the waistband.

Davey rose, and stood in just his shirt and underwear, and balled his fists. “Quit it,” he said.

The two bullies pulled the suit, stretching it further.

“I said QUIT IT,” yelled Davey. Nicholas looked up first and dropped his end of the suit. Davey stood a few feet from Ted’s back with a wide stance and shoulders back. All three boys stood approximately the same height, but Davey suddenly seemed larger and more imposing than both of the other boys put together.

“Relax, you baby,” said Ted, turning around with the suit. His confidence ebbed when his eyes hit Davey, but he tossed the bathing suit in Davey’s face.

Davey let the suit hit him and fall to the ground. He didn’t break eye contact with Ted. All of his muscles were clenched and he felt strength course through his body as his anger flared. Nicholas tapped Ted on the shoulder and the two bullies left the locker room to go to the pool area.

“See you out there, Walnuts,” Ted called back over his shoulder.

Davey bent over to pick up his stretched suit and returned to the bench to finish dressing. As he pulled on the garment it occurred to him that Ted and Nicholas might have done him a favor. The misshapen fabric helped him conceal himself more than he expected. As his adrenaline waned and he began to breathe more naturally, he slipped easily back into self-loathing.

With his clothes tucked away in the locker, Davey picked up his towel and folded it around his hands so he could carry it in front of his crotch as he exited the locker room. Lost in thought, and regretting his hasty decision to throw away his bathing suit, Davey didn’t notice the puddle on the floor of the locker room. His feet came out from under him and he looped forward, coming down hard on his elbows. Eyes darting around the room, Davey first made sure that nobody had seem him fall. All alone except for the occasional faucet drip, he exhaled and regained his feet. Shoulders back, Davey pushed through the door to the pool area.

On the other side of the pool, Mr. Mulgrove addressed the assembled students. Davey rounded the aromatic pool, feet slapping on the cold tiles.

“Hey kid,” Davey heard from his right. He looked over to see high-school girls, assembled on the risers, calling to him. He pointed over to his class and kept walking. The girl closest to him called out to him as he walked—“Nice buns.”

Davey blushed and kept walking, but felt an uncomfortable heat growing in his stomach. He was confused by the attention from the older girls, and his ears began to burn. When he approached his class, Mr. Mulgrove was just completing his opening instructions. “Everyone grab a kick-board and jump in the water.”

Davey put his towel down on the stands behind the diving board and grabbed a kick-board from the rack. He quickly crossed to the edge of the pool, anxious to get in the water.

“Hey,” said Ted, pointing. “Stinky’s got a chubby.”

Davey paused and looked down. After a few heart-stopping seconds, he regained his wits and jumped in the water. Before his head ducked under, he heard the echoing laughter of his classmates.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mike

“OKAY, WE SEE IT. Back it off. BACK IT OFF!” yelled Mike into his radio. He looked to his left to check on his ashen companion. “You okay?”

The man clicked his mouth open and shut it slowly.

Mike watched for seven anxious seconds while the apparition drifted towards them, becoming more and more transparent. The figure had opened the far door and strode through, carrying a stack of folded laundry, before closing the door behind itself. Mike recognized it as a residual haunting—a psychic movie of a dead person, trapped in a loop.

He saw no recognition of their presence in what he could still see of the thing’s eyes. By the time the ghost came within touching distance it had all but disappeared, they could only detect a faint fog where the thing should be.

“Was that?” Mike’s companion croaked.

“You tell me, was it?”

“I think it was,” he said. “I think I would have run out of here if it hadn’t been her. I loved her so much.” He shivered. Mike sensed that the man used his words defensively, trying to convince himself of their veracity as he spoke.

“I think you have your story,” said Mike, putting his arm around the scared man. “Let’s go check the footage.”

Mike had chosen one of the most respected local newspaper editors to come along on their latest hunt. Their guest, Bruce, wrote a popular column, had a good relationship with the police, and had made it known in certain circles that he was a fan of the paranormal. Once they had opened a discussion, finding out that Bruce also had a lead on haunted house further sealed the decision.

When they reached the van, Gary and Katie burst out of the back doors.

“What did you think, Bruce?” asked Gary, smiling.

“I want to see the tape,” said Bruce.

“Yeah, but wasn’t it great? Did you get really close?” asked Gary.

“It was…” Bruce said, trailing off. “Astounding. It was astounding. I want to see the video.”

“Sure thing,” said Gary. He ushered Bruce to the van.

Mike stayed back from the others and watched Gary demonstrate the capabilities of their research van. He covered all the instrumentation and ended with video from several angles and various spectra. The video included their encounter with the spirit.

They had taped a photo of Bruce’s grandmother, Jane, below the monitor. As Gary stopped and reversed the images of the walking entity, Mike leaned forward slightly. The photo showed a middle-aged woman dressed in clothes that must have been purchased in the seventies. She stood by a birdbath with a cigarette hanging from her hand.

“Do you recognize the clothes she’s wearing?” Mike asked Bruce, as the editor ran his finger over a monitor.

“Not really,” said Bruce, “but she looks younger than I remember.”

In the early part of the video, when the ghost maneuvered past the door, she was most solid. She wore a floor-length dress, mostly white, with a bib and shoulder straps that covered a light-blue blouse.

“How old was she when she moved here?” Mike asked, interrupting Bruce’s concentration again.

“Uh, fifty-five, maybe sixty,” he said.

Katie approached Mike from behind and whispered in his ear—“Leave him alone if he wants to think that’s his grandmother,” she said. “How can you be so sure it’s not?”

Mike backed away and stepped out onto the lawn with Katie.

“That residual is at least a hundred years old,” said Mike. “Look at how she’s dressed. Besides, she’s headed from a door that’s not there anymore. He told us his grandparents remodeled the place before they moved in, and not since. That spirit remembers a floor plan that predates them moving in.”

“I thought you were doing this for press and for credibility?” she asked.

“I am, I guess,” said Mike. “But I’m also doing it for truth.”

“The truth is that you’re collecting proof of paranormal activity. Nobody has ever done that convincingly. Nobody. Who cares if one reporter erroneously thinks he saw the ghost of his grandmother?”

“It doesn’t seem right,” said Mike.

Bruce stepped carefully out of the van. “That is really something. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I never told you guys where we were going, so you couldn’t have planned this ahead. You’ve got every camera angle, and I saw it. I can’t see how anyone would dispute this evidence.”

“That’s great,” said Mike. “We’ve certainly had our share of disbelievers.”

“I’m a straight shooter,” said Bruce, “and people know it. They’ll believe this when I tell them about it. I just hope you’re ready for what that means.”

“How do you mean?” asked Mike.

“Shit,” said Bruce, waving his hand, “if I print a story about a stray dog we have fifty people ready to give it a home before lunch. You better know that they’re going to latch onto this story and come looking for you. People will be all over you to talk to their dead relatives, contact Jesus, find Elvis, you name it.

* * *

AFTER DROPPING KATIE BACK at her car, Gary and Mike went for coffee.

“So why is it so important you get people to believe in what we’re doing?” asked Gary.

“What, the press?”

“Yeah, and that guy Bob,” said Gary. “You were really pissed.”

“I need credibility,” said Mike. “I’ve got my whole life wrapped up in this stuff. I used all my savings putting together that van and all the equipment.”

“Really?” asked Gary. “What about your day job? I thought you were a doctor.”

“I’ve got a Ph.D. but I’m basically just a lab guy,” said Mike, taking another sip from his paper cup. “Glorified technician. I’d be doing this full time if I could land some funding. I can’t get anyone to really believe in what I want to do. I’m just lucky that you and Katie are volunteering your time. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.”

“It’s the most interesting shit I’ve ever seen,” said Gary. “I love doing this stuff.”

They sat in silence for a while and regarded the customers coming and going from the counter.

“So have you thought of any ways to make money doing this?” asked Gary.

“Well, I don’t have a formal plan or anything,” said Mike. “I guess I always figured I would put together some solid evidence and publish my research. Once I got over the credibility hurdle, I’d probably be able to make some good money with a lecture tour or maybe even book.”

“Huh,” said Gary. “What about like selling the footage to a TV show or something? We could all be famous—maybe get endorsements or whatever.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to commercialize the science,” said Mike. Gary looked down at his coffee and frowned. Mike continued—“I’m just going to keep everything modest. I don’t need much. Just some money and maybe a little fame.”

“Ready to go?” Gary asked, clipping the end of Mike’s sentence.

“Oh, sure,” said Mike. “I thought you wanted to finish your doughnut, but yeah, that’s fine.”

* * *

“SO WHAT DID YOU THINK? Was it accurate?” Bruce asked over the phone.

“You did a great job, Bruce,” answered Mike. “You got all the terminology correct; the sequence of events was perfect. Really great job.”

“Excellent,” said Bruce. “That’s what I do.”

“Your prediction didn’t come true though,” said Mike.

“Which one?”

“You seemed to think we’d be inundated with work,” said Mike. “It’s been two weeks, and I’ve only gotten a couple of phone calls.”

“Anything good? Should I come along?” asked Bruce.

“No, nothing even remotely good,” said Mike. “We got one email from a woman who said that her dead dog kept scratching at the door to come in a night. We went over there and figured out that she had mice.”

Bruce laughed. “Haunted mice?”

“Yeah, probably,” said Mike. “We had another guy who claims he’s getting abducted by aliens. Strangely enough, he only gets abducted after he’s been out all night drinking, and then he wakes up safe and sound back at home but his car is still at the bar.”

“Those sound like helpful aliens,” said Bruce.

“Yeah, turns out the bartender takes him home,” said Mike. “The guy won’t believe him though.”

“You know, I could call in Leslie Buckmann,” offered Bruce.

“Who’s that?”

“Channel Nine’s Leslie Buckmann? Watch TV much?”

“Not really,” Mike admitted.

“She’s the weekend news anchor over there. On Thursdays he does a piece for the six o’clock. You’d have to film it the night before, but she might go for that,” explained Bruce. “Why don’t I give her a call. I think people might be even more engaged if they saw some ordinary person with a ghost in their house.”

“That means I have to get a lead on a real person,” said Mike.

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to my subscriber services. They’ve probably gotten at least one misplaced phone call I can send your way.”

“That’s great, Bruce. Thank you,” said Mike.

“No problem,” said Bruce. “You guys satisfied one of my deepest curiosities, and I got to see my Grandma again. I owe you one. Plus, I’ve got my reputation to think of. The day one of my articles doesn’t generate unwanted attention is the day I need to start thinking about hanging up my keyboard. We’ll get you overrun with haunted mice before you know it.”

“Thanks again,” said Mike.

“I’ll be in touch,” said Bruce.

Mike heard the phone click as Bruce hung up.

* * *

BRUCE’S PREDICTION FINALLY CAME TRUE. Mike and his team received a list of phone numbers of readers who had hastily dialed the first number they had seen in the paper: subscriber services. Mike, Gary, and Katie divided the list and interviewed the potential witnesses over the phone. When they met again, they had culled the list to the top ten.

“I still put the Butler case in front of Meyers,” said Mike.

“That’s only because you didn’t talk to Meyers,” Katie defended. “He’s got a really compelling tone. He sounded much more credible than anyone else I talked to.”

“Yeah, but it’s a baby,” said Gary taking Mike’s side. “I think the next logical step we need to take is to make contact. How are we supposed to make contact with a baby? I’d rather do an adult apparition. There’s at least some chance of successful contact that way.”

“You’re jumping to a conclusion though,” said Katie. She took another sip of her soda and shook her head. “This thing is intelligent. It locked him out of the house after moving the phone out of the house and somehow getting it to ring. It may be manifesting as a baby, but it’s more mature than that.”

“That’s the other thing though,” said Mike, lowering his voice. “That’s pretty freaking creepy, don’t you think? Didn’t you say it laughed at the guy?”

“Yeah,” Katie admitted. “When he got outside and picked up the phone it was the baby laughing and then the line went dead. He has caller ID and it just said thirty-four on it.”

“No, wait,” said Gary, shaking his head. “It didn’t say thirty-four. It said, ‘Three, four.’ I bet it’s from that movie, Nightmare on Elm Street. They have a rhyme at the beginning that says ‘One, Two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door.’”

They sat silent for a second before Mike spoke—“Come on, that’s a stretch.”

“I know,” Gary said, smiling, “but you had chills for just a second, admit it.”

Mike laughed. “Yeah.”

“Fine,” Katie said, disgusted. “So you guys are afraid of babies and joking about it. That spirit could be tortured, just trying to find some help in getting out of limbo, and you’re going to pick the less believable case because the baby is ‘pretty freaking creepy.’”

“Okay, you’ve got a point,” said Mike. “I admit, I’m a little jumpy. We’ve had some difficult cases lately.”

“The grandma was okay,” injected Gary.

“She wasn’t his grandma,” said Mike. “But still, I am a little gun shy and perhaps I was leaning towards the case that had a less active entity.”

“We can go talk to him,” said Katie. “He’s just over in Saco. Probably less than twenty minutes from here.”

“You know what? That’s a great idea,” said Mike. “We’ll go over with no equipment or anything and just get a feel for him and the case.”

Gary leaned out into the aisle and flagged the waiter. “Check?”

Katie picked up her phone and consulted her list to arrange the meeting.

As they climbed into Mike’s car, Katie relayed the rest of the information she had collected about the case. “He moved in about ten years ago, but nothing happened for the first eight years,” she announced as she closed her door. Katie sat in the back, but leaned forward to read from her notebook as Mike drove.

“Hey, can I smoke in here?” asked Gary.

“No,” said Mike, turning on to the highway.

“He said that the activity began when he started to remodel the second floor. There used to be just a couple of bedrooms up there at the top of the stairs. Bill decided to add a bathroom and another bedroom by putting a big dormer across the back of the house,” said Katie.

“You got a ton of information,” said Mike, taking his eyes off the road for a second and raising his eyebrows.

“He’s very thorough and he talks fast,” she said. “Anyway, he said that as soon as they pulled out the old walls and opened up the back of the attic, the activity started. Started that same night, he said. At first they just heard laughing and stuff being knocked over. After a few weeks stuff started moving around. The workers would ask Bill to stop moving their tools and he kept saying that they must be mistaken, but then the tool would show up in some strange place.”

“Like what?” asked Mike.

“He said the worst one was a guy’s framing gun,” she pronounced slowly. “I’m pretty sure that’s what he called it.”

“That makes sense,” said Gary. “If it was a good one, those things are expensive. It’s a nail gun that you use for framing.” Mike and Katie glanced at Gary, not understanding. “Big nails? For framing walls? Never mind.”

“So the framing gun was missing and Bill said that the guys were ready to quit because they were pissed that Bill was stealing their stuff,” Katie said. “But just before the foreman stopped the work, the guy who was pulling down the old ceiling yelled that he had found it.”

“In the ceiling?” asked Mike.

“Yeah,” she said. “They were totally freaked out. They said it couldn’t have possibly have gotten up there. The ceiling was at least fifty years old and nothing was disturbed. Plus, Bill said that the thing fell out of the ceiling with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs all over it.”

“Probably just one of the guys playing a joke that got out of hand,” offered Gary. “Those guys are always pulling pranks.”

“Well then it got really out of hand,” said Katie. “They didn’t finish the job. Bill could barely get them to finish putting the new roof on.”

“What happened?” asked Mike.

“One of the guys cut his hand off,” said Katie.

“What?” Mike whipped around and nearly swerved out of his lane.

“That’s all I know,” said Katie.

“Did he talk about anything else?” asked Mike.

“Nope,” said Katie.

“It was probably the remodeling,” said Gary. “I’ve heard of lots of people who only start seeing activity in their house after they start a major renovation project.”

“That’s generally true for intelligent hauntings or earthbounds,” said Mike. “They don’t like changes to the physical space. But the rest sounds more like poltergeist or even demon.”

“Or something else,” said Gary.

“Yeah, true. Let’s not jump to conclusions. This could just as easily be another crackpot,” said Mike.

Katie leaned back and crossed her arms.

“We just have to be evidence-based,” said Mike, looking in the rearview mirror.

“He said pull up to the garage,” said Katie. “He’ll meet us there.”

* * *

MIKE SHUT OFF HIS VEHICLE and they looked at the rectangles the headlights cast on the garage door. After half-a-minute the headlights shut off and they sat in the darkness for a few seconds before the porch light came on. A man lifted the garage door from the inside and waved them into the garage.

“Bill?” asked Mike.

“Yeah, come in,” Bill said as he waved them in.

“I’m Mike, this is Gary, and you’ve already talked to Katie.”

Bill closed the door before talking. “It doesn’t seem to hear me in here, so I always come out here if I want to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry? Talk about what?” asked Mike.

“Don’t waste my time,” said Bill, as he produced a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

“May I?” Gary already had a cigarette in his mouth and was ready to light it.

“Of course,” said Bill between pursed lips.

Bill took a long drag and then resumed—“I already told Katie all the details.” He pointed to the young woman. She nodded.

“Yes,” said Mike, “but if you don’t mind starting at the beginning. We have to get all the facts so we know where to start investigating.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Bill. “I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but I’m at the end, you know? No, you probably don’t. Anyway, I really need your help getting rid of this thing.”

“We should probably start there then, Bill,” said Mike. “We’re just researchers. We’re not in the business of trying to get rid of paranormal activity. If that’s indeed what you’ve got.”

“That article in the paper said you guys could amplify these things, right?” asked Bill.

“Yes, that’s true,” said Mike.

“If you can amplify it then there must be a way to attenuate it,” said Bill. “I’m an electronics guy. Anything you can boost, I can pot.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not our field of study,” said Mike.

“I’ll worry about that. You show me what you got and I’ll figure out the rest,” said Bill.

“Our technology is still private,” said Mike. “We haven’t published anything yet.”

“Look,” said Bill. “I’ll make this simple for you—I reverse engineer stuff all the time. You give me an iron-clad non-disclosure agreement and I’ll turn over all my findings at the end. But we are getting way ahead of ourselves here. You need to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Please,” said Mike. He pulled up a stool from the workbench and pushed it towards Katie before grabbing one for himself.

The two smokers stood while Bill explained. “This started almost two years ago, when I had the upstairs re-done. The contractor was a good guy until his tools and stuff started going missing. He asked me one time where my kid was, but I didn’t think anything of it. His guys had been hearing stuff, but eventually figured it was just the radio or something.”

Mike nodded, trying to keep pace with the story.

“Anyway, one day his good carpenter was cutting some boards for a header. I talked to him later in the hospital. You know, bring him flowers and shit? He was using a chop saw, like that.” He pointed to a compound mitre saw mounted to his bench. “He said he had a good grip on the two by ten when something yanked it. So he’s holding the board like this,” Bill said, demonstrating, “and cutting with the saw with his right hand. Halfway down with the blade, the board was jerked to the right and he just cut his own hand off." Bill nearly hit Gary with his cigarette as he demonstrated.

“The contractor grabbed the hand and put it in a plastic bag and put the whole thing in my ice bucket,” Bill explained. “They couldn’t put it back on. Said there was too much tissue damage.”

“And you think this was connected to the activity?” asked Mike.

“I know it was,” said Bill, taking another deep drag on his cigarette.

“How’s that?” asked Mike.

Bill stubbed out his cigarette on his heel and tossed the butt to the trash as he crossed to the back of the garage. “Next day,” started Bill. He opened a chest freezer positioned along the back wall. “I found this in my bed.” He pulled a plastic bag from the freezer and tossed it to Mike.

While the bag was still in the air, Mike began to pull back. Fear of the object grew overwhelming as it approached, but he couldn’t stop himself from catching the bag as it hit his chest. He immediately tossed it on the workbench.

Mike and Katie just looked at the bag while Bill continued.

“I tried to bury the thing,” said Bill, “but it was right back in my bed the next day. I took it to the hospital and threw it in the dumpster. I dropped it in the river. I even pitched it into a bonfire. It’s indestructible and it comes back to my bed every night.”

Mike couldn’t tear his eyes away from the bag. The inside was filled with ice crystals, so he couldn’t see much, but he thought he could make out a dark black splotch near one corner of the bag. Gary leaned between Mike and Katie and picked up the bag, unrolling it to get a better look at the contents.

Mike opened his mouth and spoke—“How do you know it’s…” he began.

“It’s got the guy’s wedding ring. On the fourth time it showed up, I pulled the ring to check it. It’s not incontrovertible, but it’s beyond a reasonable doubt—it has his name inscribed.”

“There’s the ring,” Gary held up the bag and pointed to the ring with his cigarette.

“It looks like it’s been in that bag for a while,” said Katie. “I thought you said it always comes back to your bed.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s another reason I think the garage is a special place. It can’t seem to find the hand when it’s here,” said Bill as he lit another cigarette. “The first night I put the hand here, the thing was really pissed. Kept me up all night knocking over lamps and shit.”

“Why do you stay here at this house?” Katie asked.

“Where am I going to go?” asked Bill. “I can’t afford to take a huge loss on this place, and the market is shit. Trudy took off last year when this really heavy shit started. So I’ve got alimony, too. It’s either here or I’m homeless.”

“Was it damaged at all when you burned it?” asked Gary. He handed the hand back to Bill, who placed it back in the freezer.

“Not that I can tell,” said Bill. “But it was always black, from the first day. I think it was probably black by the time they got it to the hospital.”

Mike tried to regain his composure. “Any other activity?”

“Sure,” said Bill. “Tons.”

“Such as?” asked Mike.

Bill stubbed out his half-finished butt on his shoe and tossed it away—“Come find out. You have any cameras or recorders or anything?”

“I probably have some in the trunk,” said Mike, patting his pockets for his keys.

“No, don’t,” said Bill. “In fact, if you’ve got cell phones with cameras or anything, you should probably leave them here.”

Mike sighed and glanced to Gary.

“When people say that, it usually means that they’ve got their house rigged for special effects and stuff, Bill,” Gary explained.

Bill laughed. “Yeah, okay. Go ahead then, take your cameras. You won’t get any good pictures, but I guarantee that you’re camera’s going to get fucked up. This thing does not want to be documented. You’ll see some shit either way, but it might be expensive for you if you take equipment.”

Gary shrugged and Mike nodded.

“Lead the way then,” said Mike.

“Okay,” said Bill. “Let me just say: aside from the carpenter, nobody has been physically hurt. Plenty of people have had the shit scared out of them. Literally, in one case. Just keep your cool and don’t let it know you’re afraid.”

“Got it,” said Mike.

Katie brought up the rear and paused when she caught up to Mike. “Should I come too?” she asked.

“Of course,” said Mike. “It’s your case.”

Bill grabbed the handle of the door to the house and turned to address his company again—“This is the last time we talk openly about it,” he warned. “Once we’re in that house, nobody is to acknowledge anything they hear or see. It only makes it more feisty, and I have to sleep here tonight.”

Gary and Katie nodded.

“Got it,” repeated Mike.

“Okay,” said Bill. “Keep your wits. When you’re ready to go, you ask me to see something out in the garage.”

“Got it,” Mike said a third time.

Bill narrowed his eyes at Mike and nodded slowly. He pulled open the door and showed them into the house. Once through the door, they found themselves in a small mud room with two steps up to a modest kitchen.

Mike scanned the room and found it clean and well-appointed. He glanced at the light fixtures and the ceiling corners, but found no sign of dust or cobwebs. His eyes darted down to the floors. The old wide-pine boards showed wear from the years, but were well-finished and as clean as the counters.

“So you live alone?” he asked.

“Yup,” said Bill.

“How old is the house?”

“This part is eighteen-seventies,” said Bill. “The living room is older, maybe eighteen-ten, but that sunroom and the garage were added about twenty years ago.”

“And the second floor is being remodeled?” asked Mike. He was attempting to extract further information without violating Bill’s request to not mention the entity.

“Yeah, you want to see?” asked Bill, playing along.

“Sure,” said Mike.

“Right this way,” said Bill. He led them past a warm dining room to the front stairs. He gestured for them to head up. Mike went first, looking up and around as he scaled the stairs. He gripped the handrail tight.

Halfway up the stairs, Mike was stopped by a noise from above. He heard a child’s giggle, reverberating in a large, open room. He slowed but didn’t completely stop and looked down the steps to Bill, who kept his expression neutral at the bottom of the stairs. Mike shrugged and continued up the steps, followed closely by Gary and Katie.

As he continued his climb, Mike noticed a significant drop in the air temperature. He couldn’t feel any wind, but he felt a pressing cold and exhaled through his mouth, but failed to see his breath.

“Chilly up here,” he said to Bill.

“No insulation,” Bill said from the foot of the stairs.

“You coming up?” asked Mike.

“Right behind you.”

When Mike’s foot hit the top step he heard a quick patter of a child’s footsteps, running away through one of the gutted rooms. The second floor looked nearly as he had expected—hollow walls made of two-by-fours, bare of any drywall. The space was lit by several work lights, clamped to studs and rafters. He stopped at the top of the stairs.

“This doesn’t even look halfway done,” said Mike.

“Yeah,” said Bill. “Contractor quit.”

“You found another one?” asked Mike.

“Not yet,” Bill replied.

“What’s that?” Katie asked, pointing through an unfinished wall to the adjacent room.

When Mike looked in the direction she pointed, he wondered how he could have missed the swinging orange cable. He stepped between the studs and approached. From the rafters, a hangman’s noose, made from a thick extension cable, swung at neck level. He circled the noose and leaned in to look at the dark stains on the lower part of the loop.

“WHAA!” Katie shrieked from the stairs. She twisted to her right and clawed at her back pocket with both hands, spinning until she dug her cell phone from her pocket and cast it to the floor. Gary leaned down to look at the phone, placing his hands on his knees and peering intently.

“I think it’s melting,” said Gary.

“It was hot!” exclaimed Katie. “It burned my ass.” She clutched at her buttocks.

“You need ice?” asked Bill.

“No,” said Katie, “it’s not that bad. I guess I was more surprised than anything else."

Katie and Mike joined Gary around the phone. Bill stayed at the top of the stairs and leaned against the wall. Gary reached forward and touched the corner of the phone.

“Yup,” he said. “That’s really hot.”

“What would make it do that?” asked Katie.

“Bad battery?” suggested Mike. “Or maybe some kind of electro-magnetic radiation." He looked up at Bill.

“Don’t look at me,” said Bill. “I don’t even have power run up here. I’ve got extension cords for the lights.”

“I don’t think you could melt the case with EMF,” said Gary. “Must be the battery. Look—it’s getting hotter every second.”

Bill rummaged around at the back of the house for a second and then approached. He held out a fire extinguisher for Gary, who took it with a question in his eyes.

“Go ahead,” said Katie. “I don’t think it’s ever going to work again anyways.”

Gary pulsed the fire extinguisher at the phone-puddle a couple of times until it looked mostly solid. They watched it for another few seconds before they were convinced that it wasn’t going to erupt in flames. Gary wiped his shoes on the back of his jeans to clean off the white dust.

“Why don’t you give us the tour?” Mike asked Bill.

“Sure thing,” said Bill.

A burst of child laughter from the far corner of the house caught Mike’s attention. He moved decisively and ducked through a couple of walls to try to see the source, but when he reached the corner he found nothing but plywood and unfinished walls.

Mike returned to the group still gathered near the phone.

“Did you see anything?” asked Gary.

Bill held up a cautionary hand.

“Hey,” Mike said to Bill, “do you think we could see that thing out in the garage.”

“Sure,” said Bill. “After you,” he said, pointing the trio towards the steps.

They marched back through the house without comment until Bill had pulled shut the garage door behind them.

“You shouldn’t have asked if he saw anything,” Bill said, pointing to Gary. “You just acknowledged that you both heard something.”

“Sorry, man,” said Gary. “I didn’t mean anything. It just slipped out.”

“That thing gets off on being noticed,” said Bill.

“Yes, we know, Bill,” said Mike. “He just slipped up, that’s all. Is there any chance we could check out the place alone for a few minutes?”

“What do you mean?” asked Bill.

“Exactly that,” explained Mike. “You jump in the car and run down to the corner store or something. Anything to get you off the property so we can understand if its power is connected to your presence.”

“That happens a lot,” said Katie, backing up Mike.

“I don’t think so,” said Bill. “What if something happens? I don’t want that responsibility.”

“We’re not going to agitate it, or even acknowledge it. Trust me, we know that lesson. We just have a couple of possibilities that we can only rule out if you’re not here,” said Mike.

“Like what?”

“Well, it could be a doppleganger. Those don’t have their own representation, they’re just a reflection of a person. It’s said that if you’re good, your doppleganger will be evil, and vice versa. But either way, it’s connected to you, and has no power without you.”

“So you’re saying that I’m haunting the second floor?” asked Bill.

“No, not at all,” said Mike. “We just have to discount the possibility that this thing is using your own energy to manifest. It won’t take long, just give us ten minutes to poke around and then we’ll decide when to come back with the full equipment.”

“I want your word that you won’t try to antagonize it,” said Bill.

“You’ve got it,” agreed Mike immediately.

“Okay then, but this is on you,” Bill crossed to the front of the garage and lifted the outside door. “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you so much,” said Mike.

While Bill pulled the overhead door shut and then started his car, Mike talked about the type of equipment they would bring back to investigate the house. Once they heard Bill pull away, he turned to address his colleagues seriously.

“We don’t have much time. What do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t think it’s a hoax,” said Gary. “I didn’t get that vibe at all. People who try to hoax us usually go overboard with shit.”

“Maybe he’s not a very smart fake,” suggested Katie.

“You’ve really turned the corner since the phone call,” Mike noticed.

“That phone thing pisses me off. I think he had a hand in that,” she said. She glanced around the garage. “What if this place is bugged?”

“Could be, but don’t worry about it,” said Mike. “If the place is bugged then he’s definitely a fake. If he calls us out then we pull the plug.”

“So what did you think?” Katie asked Mike.

“I didn’t have any sense of foreboding or danger,” said Mike. “That swinging noose was cheesy. He could have done that a million ways. I vote for hoax. Maybe some hidden speakers in a couple of spots. He practically begged us to go provoke a response. I say we go back in and call the thing out and see what happens.”

“Let’s do it,” said Katie.

“Good,” said Mike. “Gary, how about you check around the building? Look for an accomplice or any kind of remote controls. Let us know if he comes back while we’re still in there.”

“Got it,” said Gary.

“After you,” Mike said, holding the door open for Katie. Gary headed for the door to the outside.

Pausing in the kitchen, Katie flipped through a stack of mail on the counter.

“There’s a bunch of stuff addressed to Trudy. Do you think she still lives here?” Katie asked.

“I still get stuff addressed to my grandparents, and they’ve been dead for years. I think he lives alone.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Katie.

“He’s got one plate and one fork there next to the sink,” said Mike. “I do the same thing. I have one plate that I eat from and then clean it right after I eat. I never go in the cabinet or use the dishwasher.”

To prove his point, Mike opened the dishwasher. The interior gleamed—dry and empty.

“What about pots and pans?” asked Katie.

“Don’t need them,” said Mike. He hunted through the cabinets until he found the trash can. When he pulled it halfway out of its space, he found what he expected. “Just frozen dinners and fast food. He’s a man after my own heart.”

“Ugh,” Katie stuck out her tongue. “How do you survive?”

“Fat and happy,” said Mike, patting his belly. “Do you feel anything weird in here? Any feeling of dread?”

“Not really,” said Katie. “But you and Gary seem to have a radar for that stuff. I’m like oblivious most of the time.”

“Really?” asked Mike, leaving the kitchen and heading back to the front stairs. “What about when we’ve seen legitimately paranormal stuff? Like Bruce’s grandmother.”

“Nope,” she shook her head.

Mike paused at the bottom of the steps. “Try to open yourself to it. Try to lower your defenses and just feel.”

“Okay,” Katie nodded.

They mounted the stairs and rose deliberately, looking up as they stepped. Mike noticed the cold shift in the air again as he crossed from the lower floor to the upper. He held up a hand and stopped, three steps from the top.

“Something feels different,” said Mike.

Katie passed him and ascended to the top, turning slowly and surveying the floor.

“I don’t feel anything,” she said. “This was what I was talking about.”

They heard a low giggle from the back part of the house. “Huh-huh-huh.”

Katie whipped around and moved her head from side to side, trying to see between the studs. She crept away from the stairs towards the source of the laughter and Mike jogged up the last few stairs to join her. They walked between rows of framed walls—what would eventually be a hallway—until they reached the outline of a future doorframe.

“I think it came from back here,” said Katie. She pointed towards the corner of the framed room. They stood in the back part of the house, where new construction had raised the roofline to accommodate this space. In the corner, the old pitch of the of the roofline made a triangle with the floor for the last couple of feet before the wall. In contrast to the bare rafters overhead, the rafters of the old portion were thick, hand-cut beams, darkened with age and chinked with dirty insulation.

Mike led the way to the corner and ducked down to his hands and knees to investigate the narrow space. “I wonder if there’s a speaker or something tucked into the old part of the ceiling here,” said Mike. He pressed back the insulation and pulled it away from where the ceiling met the plywood flooring. He found nothing but dust and cobwebs. “Could be under the floor I guess.”

“That laugh was odd,” said Katie. “It sounded like a kid’s voice, but it also sounded sad and, I don’t know, mature or something?”

“Weary,” Mike agreed. “It sounded weary from a hard life." Mike gave up his search in the corner and pressed up, out of the narrow corner to a seated position, facing Katie.

His young assistant stood a few feet back with her arms folded.

“I’m not sure,” she said slowly, looking up and focusing on nothing, “but I might be feeling something.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Mike. “What does it feel like?”

“Cold.” She breathed and hugged her arms in closer. “When I was little my dad used to hunt a lot. He’d drive back home with a deer in the back of his truck and then hang it up in the garage to gut it and bleed it out. I don’t know how to describe it, but this is how the garage would feel when a deer was in there. Sometimes I could feel it even in the summer when I was out in the garage. It just felt lonely.”

“That’s good,” said Mike. “You’re opening up. You’re allowing yourself to reach out with your senses. Keep going.”

Katie shuddered and blinked several times. “I’m not sure I want to,” she said. “It feels too desolate.”

“You can do it,” Mike said. “Just give yourself permission.”

Katie relaxed her shoulders and lifted her chin. Mike watched as she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and opened them again softer, less focused.

“Good,” he whispered. “What do you feel?”

“It’s cold,” she sighed, “like before. But there’s a spot that’s colder than the rest. It pushes the warmth away. It’s not just cool, it’s like the enemy of heat.”

“Excellent,” said Mike. “You’re doing great. Now reach out to the cold spot and describe it.”

“Okay,” she began. “Wait. I think it’s moving. Yes, but it doesn’t actually move itself. It’s like the world moves around it. I think that…” she trailed off.

“What do you…” Mike was interrupted when the lights shut off. An afterimage of the bare bulb burned in his eyes. He glanced to where the nearest light hung and saw the quickly dimming orange glow of the filament.

Before he could speak a loud series of thumps cascaded from Katie’s direction. When she screamed, he could tell her voice came from floor level. The thumps had been caused by her young body tumbling to the unfinished plywood floor.

“Aaaahhh, no! Birds! Birds!” she shrieked from the floor, several feet into the darkness in front of Mike. Her voice trailed as she wailed, but not because her words diminished in energy. He heard her rapidly moving away from him, into the unfinished hallway, and then towards the stairs.

Mike rose to his knees, prepared to make chase through the utter black when a second loud sound rang out in front of him. He heard the unmistakable whoosh of a heavy door swinging rapidly, followed by a thunderous slam as it clapped shut. Mike jumped to his feet and ran in the direction he expected to find the entry cut into the stud wall. Instead of space punctuated with naked pine studs, Mike’s outstretched arms crashed into a thick wooden door.

Something about the paint which coated the door made him recall his childhood bedroom. He found the cold brass knob, but it wouldn’t turn or pull. The door didn’t move even a hair as he pushed and pulled at the handle. If he hadn’t just heard it shut, Mike might assume it was an ornamental door, bolted to concrete.

Hand-over-hand, he felt his way to the right and found a cool plaster wall. He worked up and down the wall and then found the switch-plate slightly more to the right. His fingers paused when they touched the plastic plate around the light switch. Even in the complete dark, he could tell it wasn’t a plain rectangle. Sharp peaks defined its irregular, rounded perimeter. Suddenly, Mike could picture it perfectly. If there was any light he would be looking at the Scooby Doo switch-plate that had adorned his childhood-bedroom wall. He flipped the switch, but no light came from the overhead fixture. He tried the switch several more times before giving up.

Mike spun, put his back to the plaster, and sunk to a crouch with his back against wall. His eyes were useless. Open or shut, the result was identical. His heartbeat and breathing comprised most of what he heard. He reached out with his hearing and tried to pick up any sound from the room. He thought he could almost hear the sound of his own breathing, echoing off the surrounding walls.

He swallowed and considered yelling for help. After a few seconds, he reasoned that it was unlikely that calling for help would yield any results—he wasn’t even sure he was still in Bill’s house. As he finished his swallow, his dry throat clicked. He heard a radio switch on.

With just this one clue, Mike could put a time to the place. The texture of the painted door and the Scooby Doo light switch had given him the place—his childhood bedroom—but there was only one time in his childhood when he would turn on the radio in the night. That had been when Mike was eleven: the year after his baby brother had died.

Mike lowered his butt the last few inches to the floor and pulled in his adult feet as he listened to 102.9’s version of classic rock for the middle of the night. After his brother and roommate, Charlie, had passed away, Mike would wait up past midnight, until he knew his parents were asleep, before turning on his bedside radio.

In the dark, the adult version of Mike listened to the classic rock for just a few seconds before the dial changed position, turning the music into static. This had also been part of the eleven-year-old Mike’s routine. The classic rock station had been just a placeholder, so he could remember the position where the static came in best. Soon the room was filled with scattered white noise.

“Charlie?” a young voice whispered. Mike recognized it as his own. “Charlie?”

The white noise changed shape, flowing in waves through the room.

“Charlie?” eleven-year-old Mike whispered in the dark.

Adult Mike pressed his back harder against the wall.

The radio static began to swirl again, and Mike heard the envelope of a syllable. “Miiikeeeey,” the white noise whispered.

“Charlie? Is that you?” asked boy-Mike.

“Yessssssssssssss,” the white-noise-Charlie trailed off.

“Where are you Charlie? Are you in heaven?” boy-Mike pleaded.

“Yesssss, ehhhhn nooooh,” Charlie shaped the noise.

“What do you mean?” asked boy-Mike.

Adult Mike cradled his head with invisible hands in the pitch black and heard a low moan coming from his own throat. He suppressed the noise—he didn’t want to call any attention to himself.

“I’m nahhhhhht,” said Charlie. “I’m nahhhht all-a-way deeead,” he hissed through the noise.

“I don’t know what you mean,” boy-Mike’s voice began to break as he tried, and failed, to hold his voice to a whisper. “You had the leukemia. You were in the coffin.” His voice hitched.

“I gahhhhhht,” Charlie paused, “awaaay.”

“Away?” asked boy-Mike. “Away from what? Charlie—where are you?”

The white noise flared, but the shapes within the noise decreased, and Mike was only able to make out the long words. He pushed away from the wall and moved towards his childhood bed, accessing his ancient mental map of the room.

“I gahhhhht … graveyard,” he heard, “… inna crahhhhwl spaaace.”

“Charlie, you’re scaring me,” blubbered boy-Mike. “Why are trying to scare me?”

Mike took to his hands and knees and started to crawl towards the sound of his young voice. He reached out a hand, expecting to find the edge wooden bedframe. A hot hand clamped around his trailing ankle and he was jerked back, with his hand swinging through empty space before slapping down on the unfinished plywood floor.

He opened his mouth to scream and warn his young counterpart. Before he could make a noise, he heard Charlie shape the white noise one more time—“Onnna khiiiiilll yooouuuu toooo,” hissed Charlie.

Mike clawed at the plywood, but was helpless to slow his backwards progress. Light flooded around him, forcing him to squint and raise his arms defensively as he was roughly rolled over.

“Mike!” yelled Gary, inches from his face.

Mike lowered his arms and saw his friend.

“Gary? What happened?”

“Come on,” said Gary, extending a hand to help him to his feet. “Let’s get going.”

Once standing, Mike blinked against the bright light and found himself at the top of the stairs. Gary brushed at the sawdust and dirt clinging to Mike’s shirt, and Mike joined in, the two of them raising a small cloud. Gary led the way down the stairs and Mike followed slowly, gripping the handrail tight and moving one step at a time.

Before descending too far, Mike took a look around and found the unfinished second floor once again completely unremarkable.

“Where’s Katie?”

“Garage,” said Gary.

Mike glanced back once more before pulling the extension cord from the outlet at the bottom of the stairs, killing the upstairs lights.

“What happened to you?” asked Katie, once they had closed the door to the garage.

“I don’t know,” said Mike, shaking his head. “But are you okay? I heard you scream and then it sounded like you were being dragged away.”

“No,” said Katie. “When the lights went out I called for you, but you didn’t answer. I went back to the stairs and then came down and found Gary. He told me to wait in the garage.”

“Thanks for coming back for me,” Mike said to Gary, patting him on the shoulder.

“No big deal,” said Gary. “The lights were on, and you were just lying there, whispering about a crawl space and some other stuff.”

“Me? Really?” asked Mike. “What else did I say? Did you hear?”

“Sorry, that’s all I could really make out. You were whispering really quietly. So what do you think? Is it real?” asked Gary.

“Oh yes,” said Mike. “I think it’s definitely real. Did you find anything outside to change your mind?”

“Nope,” said Gary. “Looked clean. This house is pretty remote, and I couldn’t find the sign of any accomplices.”

They looked to Katie to see if they had consensus. “Well I didn’t experience anything except the lights going off,” she said, “but I did feel something, and that’s unusual for me.”

Headlights flashed against the wall and the three researchers heard the approach of Bill’s car.

“I’ll do the talking,” said Mike.

Bill lifted the garage door and pulled it shut behind himself before addressing the group.

“So? Did you make up your mind? Is it just me?” Bill asked.

“We definitely heard the laughter again, and we’re convinced that it doesn’t need you around to perform,” said Mike.

“Good,” said Bill. “So you’ll let me study your methodology?”

“Yes,” said Mike. “But I will ask you to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I explain how it works. And we’ll have to bring it here to dial it in for your entity.”

“Wait, wait,” said Bill. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. That thing is strong enough as it is.”

“I think we have to,” said Mike. “Each time we’ve had success, it has only been after carefully testing everything and find just the right combination of inputs.” He looked to Gary to back him up.

“It’s true,” confirmed Gary. “We have to adjust the frequency, amplitude, pulse-width.”

Mike held up his hand, to stop Gary from revealing too much.

Bill rubbed his temple and bowed his head for a second. “I’m just trying to get rid of this thing. Boosting it up seems like a really shitty idea.”

“I hear you,” said Mike. “It’s the only way though.”

“Okay, shit. Okay,” said Bill. “Can you set up in the daylight though? It doesn’t seem to be very observant in the daylight.”

“No problem,” said Mike.

“And I want to do this as soon as possible,” added Bill. “I want this done.”

“Saturday?”

“Good enough,” said Bill. He extended his hand to Mike. “Thanks, man.”

“Thank you,” said Mike. “Here’s my phone number. You call if you have any problems between now and then.”

* * *

“WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU in there?” Katie asked when they were back on the road.

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” said Mike. “It was like I was in the room where I grew up.”

“Like remote viewing?” asked Gary.

“No,” Mike shook his head as he merged onto the highway. “It was more like reliving an old memory from the third person.”

“Was it a dream?” asked Katie.

“Sure, I guess,” said Mike. “Yeah, that makes sense because it never really happened exactly like that, but it was close. I had a really active imagination when I was a kid, and I had a really hard time after my little brother died.”

Katie sat back and adjusted her seatbelt.

Gary studied the trees as they passed out of the angle of the headlights.

“Charlie?” Gary eventually asked.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “How did you know?”

“I think you mentioned his name just before you woke up.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Crooked Tree

SNOW FAWN HUGGED HER BABY CLOSE against the cold evening and rubbed his gums, checking for a tooth. She had executed this single-fingered move about a thousand times that day and in the previous few weeks. It was her waking obsession—the first thing she did when he woke her up with his insistent mewing, and the last thing she did before he drifted off to sleep.

Her sister hadn’t come in over a week, which meant that Snow Fawn had survived only on what she could gather near her cold cave. She moved a hand from her baby’s chest and checked her own, feeling her sharp ribs poking through her thin skin. If only his first tooth would appear, she would be able to return to her home with no fear for his life.

When her boy had descended in preparation for birth, that’s when she had known for sure. Her sister had warned her weeks before, but she had discounted her sister’s opinion as jealousy. Her sister, Rose Blossom, had warned her that her smell had become sour. Snow Fawn didn’t notice a change in her own odor, and tried to ignore the hard truth. She had sensed the same sour smell that Rose Blossom described, but she smelled it whenever Sharp Claw, her boy’s father, was around.

But this was her first child and, given her age, would likely be her last. She was unable to admit to any possibility of a health issue until she saw him with her own eyes. When she did finally see him, she could deny it no longer.

She froze when she heard the approaching footsteps. With her hand cocked just above her sleeping boy’s mouth, she prepared to clamp down her hand, to silence him if he should make a noise.

“Fawn?” a timid voice called. “Fawn?”

“Rose Blossom,” she whispered. “Are you alone?”

“Yes,” her sister answered. “I brought you some meat and squash.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Snow Fawn scrambled from her rocky den, careful not to wake her baby.

“How is he?” asked Rose Blossom. “Does he have a tooth yet?”

“No,” said Snow Fawn, “but I think he will any day now.”

“I think you should come back,” said Rose Blossom. “You look so thin, I can tell even in the moonlight. He’s old enough. They won’t make you give him up.”

“You remember Pidgeon’s baby girl? She was older than this boy, and they still dashed her head on the rocks.”

“That was years ago,” argued Rose Blossom. “Sharp Claw has softened since then. He’s much more gentle. And besides, she had a closed hand. She would never have been able to work.”

“I’m not taking chances with this boy. He’s my only child, and I won’t be able to have another,” said Snow Fawn.

“Don’t say that,” said Rose Blossom. She sat down on a rock and laid out the food she had brought for her sister.

Snow Fawn sat on the other side of the offering and rocked her baby.

“How is everyone?” asked Snow Fawn.

“Your nephew brought home a rabbit yesterday,” Rose Blossom smiled.

“You must be so proud,” said Snow Fawn, tilting her head and putting her finger in her son’s mouth again.

“Fawn? Did you ever think about why the men would smash your boy’s head on the rocks?” asked Rose Blossom, quietly.

“Don’t say that,” said Snow Fawn. “I know why these things are done, but I’m not going to let that happen to my boy. He’s my only child,” she pleaded.

“Okay, okay,” her sister consoled. “I just wonder what life will be like for him. I’ve heard of such boys. Sometimes they can’t talk, and can’t understand either. He may never have a name, and never bring home meat to his family.”

“He’ll do all of those things,” said Snow Fawn. “You don’t know. He’s the son of a great provider, a great leader, he’ll do all those things and more.”

“Then why do you have to wait for his first tooth before showing him to the family?” asked her sister.

“They won’t understand,” said Snow Fawn. “They’ll see his mouth and his nose and just assume. A baby’s look can change you know. You remember how small your boy’s chin was when he was born?”

“All babies have small chins,” said Rose Blossom.

“I know that. I was just saying,” said Snow Fawn.

They sat in silence and watched a puddle reflect the moonlight. Snow Fawn took a piece of meat from the rock and gnawed at it with her molars.

“I should get back,” said Rose Blossom.

“I’ll come back soon,” said Snow Fawn. “Don’t risk coming here again. I don’t want someone to follow you.”

“Okay,” said Rose Blossom. She laid a hand on her sister’s arm and then touched her nephew on his soft cheek. “He’s sweet,” she remarked.

“Thank you,” said Snow Fawn, not looking at her sister.

After Rose Blossom made her way across the hillside and disappeared into the trees, Snow Fawn sat at the cave’s entrance and chewed on the meat. She wanted to save some for morning, but couldn’t risk drawing the attention of any nearby animals. Building a fire would keep the animals away, but likely draw attention of her estranged family.

When she had finished her meager dinner, Snow Fawn carried her son over to the narrow river through the woods so she could wash his wrap and relieve herself before sleep. He squirmed and wouldn’t return to sleep after she swaddled him. She adjusted his little body, tucking his arm under hers so he could nurse while she moved.

Walking back to her small cave, she heard the return of footsteps and waited for her sister to appear from the forest.

“Did you forget something?” she asked the footsteps.

Snow Fawn’s breath caught in her throat, refusing to return to her lungs. The shadow stepping from the dense trees didn’t resemble her sister at all. The form stood impossibly tall, taller than any person Snow Fawn had ever seen. The hulking form rose from stocky legs that bulged at the calf and thigh. The creature’s torso cut a triangular hole in the canopy of stars it blocked. She sensed danger from only the tilt of the thing’s head, and she imagined the eyes staring at her. Her boy stopped suckling abruptly, picking up the fear in his mother’s body.

The creature crouched and Snow Fawn found her breath. Although it stood many paces away, she turned her foot back towards the relative safety of the woods, and waited for it to pounce or leave her alone.

It pounced.

She turned as soon as she saw the creature spring, but heard it closing the distance before she even had her feet in motion. Snow Fawn knew instinctively that this was no mere human, and her only course of action leapt to the front of her mind: she must make it to the shallow river. Since childhood, she had been taught that demons and spirits couldn’t cross running water. Until this moment, that knowledge had been completely useless.

Quick thinking took her to the left—downhill and into the thick scrub—as if she was being chased by a bear. The same rationale must apply; something so big would have trouble with the low branches and downhill slope. Even with the advantage, Snow Fawn knew the creature gained ground with every stride. Its chuffing, spitting snarls closed the distance and would overtake her.

Darting to the right, away from the river, Snow Fawn extended her lead by weaving into a copse of alder. The frustrated creature growled as it snapped pliable limbs and squeezed between trunks. Snow Fawn broke from the stand of young trees and could see the small river just beyond several paces of moonlit ferns. She panted as she sprinted to the edge.

The creature emerged from the dense trees nearly horizontal, extending its thick arms and long claws towards Snow Fawn. She heard its voice creating a low purr, and understood that its grip would soon close on her shoulder. Hugging her boy tight, she leaned forward and propelled herself towards the banks of the small river, leaving her feet just as she heard the creature crashing to the ground behind her. For a moment, she made no noise. Her breath and heart stopped as she dropped towards the shallow stream and her boy, pressed against her flesh, kept perfectly quiet.

She threw her leg forward as she fell towards the bubbling water and aimed her foot at a large flat rock. She hoped to spring off this submerged rock and vault most of the way across the river. Leaning back, Snow Fawn attempted to center her weight appropriately, making her best guess at how to execute this athletic move with an infant strapped to her chest.

Her foot slapped the water and plunged to the slippery rock. Her leg was bent to absorb the shock of the descent, but instead buckled as her weight compressed the tired muscle. Snow Fawn’s foot slipped forward off the rock and sent her sprawling to her back in the rushing water. Her left leg flew forward untethered, but the right one, the one that had slipped off the rock, caught between the flat rock and its neighbor, causing her leg to bend back unnaturally.

She screamed with pain and anger. Pushing her arms back, trusting her boy to the sling which held him to her chest, she tried to stand in the current. Her left leg slipped and she nearly spilled again when her right leg refused to take any weight. She hopped to the opposite bank and clawed her way to the shore.

Snow Fawn turned to assess her pursuer. She sobbed with relief to see the creature gingerly picking its way into the shallows before it balked and returned to the opposite shore. Suddenly this giant attacker looked more like a little boy than an evil spirit, and she watched it as she pushed away from the shore and attempted to regain her feet. Her boy, sensing the partial ease in his mother’s fear, coughed a brief cry.

Across the stream the creature pointed to her—“Boy,” he said and then paused, “must die.”

Snow Fawn’s jaw dropped and she froze, shocked to be addressed by a spirit. When she found her composure, she was surprised that her first emotion was righteous anger—“He has a tooth,” she spat. “He deserves to live.” All the families shared the same rule—if an infant survived until it had its first tooth, it should be allowed to live. She squared her shoulders to the creature and stood as straight as she could on her injured leg.

“No,” said the giant.

Her thwarted pursuer turned his shoulders away, as if he would retreat, but his hips stayed pointed across the river at Snow Fawn.

“You can’t follow me,” she said, realizing that this was a hope more than solid fact. Snow Fawn backed a single pace and reached out to grab a sapling to help her pull her injured leg along.

On the other side of the river, the creature’s upper half snapped back around to face her. The only thing missing from his moonlit body was his trailing arm—that came around last, in a wide arc. She never saw the rock as it hurtled towards her chest, but she heard it. Her arms came up to protect her baby boy, but they were an instant too slow. The impact of the big smooth rock knocked her back. To keep her balance, Snow Fawn braced her legs, but the injured knee failed and she collapsed to her back with her right leg sticking up, knee bent at an odd angle.

She screamed.

Her hands found a wet mess where her baby’s head should be. She screamed high and loud until her voice ran thin and then gave out entirely. She tried to cup her son’s tiny crushed head to her dripping breast. Eventually, Snow Fawn rolled to her side and wept as she clutched her dead son to her chest.

The Hunting Tree had claimed his first victim.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Davey

“WHAT’D YOU GET FOR number seven?” asked Paul.

“Twenty-four,” said Davey.

“Wait a second,” said Paul with his shoulders hunched as he glanced around the library, “you put down twenty-one.”

“Yeah, but the answer is twenty-four,” said Davey.

“Start making sense, jag-off,” demanded Paul.

“Just because I know the answer doesn’t mean I have to put it down,” said Davey, focused on creating the perfect curve of a shoulder. His thin paper was scarred by dozens of erasures.

“I don’t get you,” said Paul. “How come you know the answers but you never pay attention? And how come you don’t just put down the right answers?”

Davey stopped drawing and looked up at Paul with puffy, sleepless eyes. “You remember when I got straight A’s last year?”

“Yeah.”

“You remember how my mom started talking about me going to that other school, and how she got all those papers for those stupid summer classes?” asked Davey.

“Oh, so you don’t want people to think you’re smart?” asked Paul.

“It’s just easier that way,” shrugged Davey. “I get to hang out with morons like you, and I don’t have to do much work.”

“What’s that a picture of?” asked Paul, pointing to Davey’s mangled sheet.

“Nothing,” said Davey. “You want to go play in the gym?”

“It’s not four yet,” argued Paul.

“I mean at four, artard,” said Davey.

“Whatever,” said Paul. “Explain to me how to do number eight.”

“I can’t explain it, you just have to memorize it,” said Davey.

“You weren’t even here when Mrs. Roberts explained this stuff. How come you already know how to do it?”

A thin woman approached the table from behind a bookshelf—“Sharing our work today, boys?” she asked.

“No Ms. Smit,” said Davey. “I missed class when Mrs. Roberts explained how to do this stuff, so Paul was just explaining to me how to do it.”

“That’s great Davey,” Ms. Smit said. “Next time you should think twice before offering such an obvious lie,” she put her hands on her hips.

“It’s not a lie,” Davey said calmly.

“You’ve got a full page of answers, next to a drawing of a very muscular man,” she noticed. “Paul has,” she began, turning her head to read Paul’s paper, “about half a page of answers. If he’s helping you, why are you done?”

“I don’t know,” said Davey.

“Excellent,” said Ms. Smit. “Perhaps you can figure that out in the study room.”

Davey lowered his eyes and began packing his papers into his pack. Paul tilted his head back and let out an exasperated breath. He looked about to lodge a protest when Davey shot him a warning glance. Paul closed his mouth and started to gather his things.

“You can come back tomorrow, but I want you to keep this in mind,” said Ms. Smit. “The library is a privilege. I don’t get paid extra to let students study here while I work. It’s a benefit I grant to only those children who respect my rules without constant supervision. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ms. Smit,” said Davey. “I’m sorry that we broke the rules. It won’t happen again, and thank you for letting us come back tomorrow.”

Paul held his breath. In his experience, speaking reasonably to an adult never ended well. To his surprise, Ms. Smit paused and then smiled at Davey.

“Well, thank you,” she said. “You are very polite.”

Davey nodded and waited for Paul before heading for the door.

Out in the hallway, Paul couldn’t contain his surprise. “When did you get so smooth?”

“What do you mean?” asked Davey.

“That was awesome, the way you talked to Ms. Smit.”

“Whatever,” said Davey. “We’re still going to the stupid study room. I hate that room.”

“Just show the people that you already have your work done and maybe they’ll let you skip,” suggested Paul.

“It doesn’t work that way,” said Davey. “Those people don’t even really work for the school. They’re just being paid by the hour to make sure that all kids show up, don’t leave the room, and don’t talk.” He set down his bag and took a long drink from the water fountain.

“They don’t let you leave the room?” asked Paul. “What if you have to go to the bathroom? Let’s go back up the hall so I can go now.”

“It’s twenty of. You can’t make it twenty minutes?” Davey wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know,” said Paul.

The two boys retreated back up the hall, towards the bathroom. A few paces from the restroom, Davey’s feet got tangled and he crashed down to his knees. He sprung back to his feet, but a troubled expression furrowed his brow.

“I just thought of something,” said Davey. “Ms. Smit probably doesn’t even talk to the study room people, we should just not go.”

Paul’s eyes grew wide and he slowed—“Seriously? What would we do?”

“Whatever we want, I guess,” said Davey. “We could go hang out in the woods behind that creek until your mom comes.”

“How would we get out?” asked Paul.

“We just go out the side door. It’s not locked or anything,” said Davey. “What are you afraid of? Our parents pay for this after-school stuff, it’s not part of normal school. We can do whatever we want to, really.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” said Paul. He pushed into the boys room and Davey followed. Paul went into the first stall and Davey went to the sink and looked at his face in the mirror.

“Hey,” said Paul over the stall wall, “maybe we could steal one of the kick-balls from the gym, and play with it in the woods.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Davey. “Mr. Mulgrove is always in his office. He’d probably catch us.”

Paul flushed the toilet and Davey glanced down. “Don’t take your pants all the way down to pee, you artard.”

“Why not?” asked Paul, appearing from the stall.

“It’s just dumb, is all,” said Davey.

Paul moved to the sink and ran a hand through his hair.

“Gross,” said Davey. “You didn’t even wash your hands.”

Paul looked ready to respond, but whipped his head around as the door creaked open. Both boys froze and waited. Around the corner, Ted arrived carrying a wooden hall-pass.

“Well, well,” said Ted, “Stinky and Dummy, pulling each other off in the bathroom.”

“Shut up, Ted,” said Davey.

Ted puffed up his chest and tilted his head back, raising his chin, and stalked towards Davey.

“What’d you say to me, Stinky?” demanded Ted.

“Just shut up, is all,” said Davey. “Why don’t you go ask your stepdad to teach you some more stupid things to say.”

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” said Ted. “I should knock you out right here. My brother showed me how to knock out punks like you.” He moved closer, invading Davey’s space.

Davey folded his arms, gaining a little distance from puffed-up Ted. “There’s two of us, Ted,” said Davey.

“So what?” asked Ted. “I’ll knock you out and take care of the dummy before you even hit the ground. I learned two new submission holds last weekend. You’re going to tap out and beg me to stop.”

“Go ahead,” said Davey, pushing back against Ted’s chest with his folded arms. “Why don’t you stop talking and just go ahead and do something.”

“Oh you don’t even want that,” said Ted. “You’ll be in the hospital.”

“Look, Ted,” said Davey, lowering his voice and staring into Ted’s eyes. “I know you’re mad. You’re mad that your real dad took off. You’re mad that that new guy is staying with your mom. You’re mad that sometimes he hits you. But you’re not mad at me, so stop pretending that you are.”

“You are so dead,” said Ted, punctuating his last word with a shove to Davey’s chest.

Davey took a half-step back, but braced himself for the second push and didn’t lose any more ground.

“Let’s go then, Ted,” said Davey. He bent his knees slightly and pushed up, sending his left fist in a wide loop around towards Ted’s head. Surprised by the aggression, Ted ducked his chin and raised both arms to ward off the blow. The instant Ted’s arms came up, Davey shifted his weight and launched a powerful uppercut with his right hand to Ted’s stomach. The two punches landed simultaneously—the hook glanced uselessly off of Ted’s arms, but the uppercut caught Ted off guard and easily knocked the breath out of him.

Ted doubled over, clutching his stomach and gasping.

“See ya, dumbass,” said Davey. He strode past and shoved Ted’s shoulder hard, sending him sprawling to the floor, under the sink.

Paul rushed towards the door to the hall and Davey walked casually.

Out in the hall, Paul was flushed but ebullient. “I can’t believe you did that,” he said as they passed a closed office door. “That was so awesome.”

“He deserved it,” said Davey.

“Well yeah,” said Paul, turning around and walking backwards to face Davey. “He’s always deserved it, but nobody ever had the guts to knock him down like that. What was that stuff about his step dad? Do you know him?”

“Just a guess,” said Davey. “Ted had all those bruises on his back that time, and then Mr. Mulgrove talked to him, you remember?”

“Sure,” said Paul. “But it only ever happened once.”

“Yeah, but you could see bruises right below the line of his shorts last summer, when we were playing soccer. I don’t think his step dad stopped beating him; he just stopped beating him where everyone could see. And I figured it was his step dad because Ted and his mom have different last names.”

“Wow,” said Paul. “That’s cool that you figured that out.”

“Turn,” said Davey. “Turn here,” he pointed to the short stretch of hall that led to the music room and the side door.

Paul looked up and down the hall and clenched his fists. He looked like a coiled spring as he changed direction and started towards the door. Davey followed casually, looking natural and almost bored.

“What if there’s an alarm?” Paul whispered.

“There would be a sign,” said Davey.

“You open it.”

Davey reached out and pressed the metal bar, swinging the heavy steel door outward. It squeaked and screeched, and bright light burst through the doorway. The overload of sensory input startled Davey, and for a second he thought that the door might indeed have sounded an alarm. He paused to let his eyes adjust to the light and then cocked his head and let the door shut on its own.

“What are you doing?” asked Paul, looking around nervously. “We’re going to get caught just standing here in the hallway.”

“Relax,” said Davey, “we’ll be able to hear anyone coming. I want to wait for a second.”

“What for?” whined Paul. “This is a bad idea. We’re going to get caught.”

Davey held up his hand with authority and Paul hushed. They waited for a few more seconds, with Davey holding his head at an angle. Davey pushed the door open again and waved Paul through. He followed closely, slipping through the door as it closed, and pointed Paul up the small hill, towards the woods. The two boys trotted to the edge of the thick undergrowth and Paul began to pick his way into the brush.

“Quick,” said Davey, pushing Paul into the leaves and following close behind. He shoved his friend to the ground and they both spun around to look back at the school.

“Ow,” complained Paul.

“Shhh,” said Davey, pointing towards the door they had just exited.

As they watched, the school’s vice principal, Mr. Vincent, pushed the door open about a foot and poked his narrow face through the opening. He looked left and right and then pulled back inside, shutting the door.

“Wow,” breathed Paul. “That was close.”

“He saw the door on the camera,” said Davey.

“What camera?” asked Paul, pushing back to his hands and knees.

Davey pointed at the corner of the building where a dark bubble protruded from the brick wall. “It’s up there,” he said.

“We gotta go then,” said Paul. “They probably saw us run up here.”

“No, I waited until they weren’t looking before we left the school,” said Davey.

“What? How did you know?”

“I just did, okay?” said Davey. He lifted himself from the ground and sat cross-legged in the leaves.

“Yeah, right,” said Paul. “Look, knowing how to do the math workbook is one thing, but you can’t just know when a camera is looking at you. It’s impossible.”

“Mr. Vincent didn’t come looking, did he?” asked Davey.

“I bet he will,” said Paul.

“What’ll you bet?” smiled Davey.

Paul opened and shut his mouth without replying. After losing several treasured video games to hasty bets with Davey, he had finally learned to be cautious. “I’ll bet you a piece of gum,” Paul said finally.

“No bet,” said Davey. “You already owe me gum from when I gave you some this morning.”

“No bet then,” agreed Paul. “So then how did you learn to know when cameras are looking at you?”

“Nunya,” said Davey.

“What’s that mean?”

“Nunya business,” smiled Davey.

“You doofus,” laughed Paul. “Let’s go play over at the nature trail,” said Paul, crawling through the bushes and rising to his feet behind the screen of leaves.

“Okay,” said Davey.

They wound through the dense trees, taking a wide route around the playground, and the swampy area near the road. Their winding path brought them to a narrow wooden footbridge which crossed a bubbling creek. With his finger, Paul traced the carved letters of a sign that talked about the types of trees around the path.

“We’ve gotta figure out what to do about your mom,” said Davey.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s going to try to pick us up at the front of the building, but we can’t go back there,” Davey explained.

“I didn’t even think of that,” said Paul. “We can just sneak up from the side and pretend that we were inside the whole time, can’t we?" Paul gathered a handful of small rocks from path and took them atop the footbridge so he could drop them over the railing.

Davey lowered himself down on a rock and poked a stick into the gurgling water. “They count off the kids that go to the gym,” said Davey. “I’ve seen them with the clipboard, they’re going to know that we weren’t there.”

“Really?” Paul paused from his rock-dropping and stared at the water. “We’re going to get in trouble.”

“Not if we can think of a way out of it,” said Davey.

“Like what? They know we didn’t go. This whole thing was such a bad idea. My mom always says that you’re a good influence, but you’re not,” whined Paul. “Lately all you do is get me in trouble. When you stole that car from the toy store—who got blamed? Me.”

“Your mom didn’t even punish you,” said Davey. “You get away with anything because your mom’s afraid you’ll say you want to go live with your dad.”

“But I didn’t even do anything,” complained Paul. “You get away with stuff and I get blamed. I never even do anything.”

“Whatever,” said Davey. “Least you have a dad.”

Paul resumed dropping rocks, trying to get one to land on a snagged leaf so it would wash downstream. “So what are we going to say?” Paul asked after a minute of silence.

“I got it,” said Davey. “Dip your pants in the water and we’ll tell your mom that we didn’t go to the gym because you had an accident. We’ll just say we spent the whole hour in the bathroom so nobody would see.”

“But people will see. When she picks us up,” reasoned Paul. “Besides, why don’t you get your pants wet? And I don’t want my mom to think I had an accident, either. That’s gross.”

“We could say that Ted attacked us,” said Davey. “We ran out of the school because he said he was going to beat us up more. We have to beat each other up though, and we can’t use our fists. We’ll hit each other with sticks until it looks like Ted beat us up.”

“Good one,” said Paul. “You’re just trying to make the accident thing sound less stupid.”

Davey laughed and Paul eventually joined him.

“What else you got?” said Paul.

“Space aliens?” Davey giggled. His laughter was contagious.

Paul snorted back a chuckle and suggested—“Let’s tell my mom we died trying to take a shit.”

“She would shit,” said Davey, and they both doubled over with new amusement.

“Hey,” said Paul as he checked his watch. “Whatever we’re going to say, we better go say it now. My mom’s going to be at the school in ten minutes.”

“Okay,” said Davey, climbing to his feet from the creek-side rock. “I think…" He never finished that thought. He had planted both hands cautiously on the bank to support himself in case his feet slipped, but both his feet and hands slipped at the same time. With no limbs holding him up, Davey crashed to the ground, getting a mouthful of dirt, and catching a sharp rock in his ribs.

“You okay?” asked Paul.

“Ugh,” said Davey.

Paul ran around the edge of the bridge and grabbed Davey’s armpit, hoisting him up to his knees.

“I … can’t,” wheezed Davey, “breathe.”

“What do you mean?” asked Paul. “Is something wrong with your mouth, or what?”

Davey pointed to his chest and shook his head. His shoulders pulsed up and down as he tried to force air into his stunned lungs. The best he could manage was a thin whistling stream of air.

“Jeez,” said Paul. “I’ve seen you fall down like a million times, but I’ve never seen you get hurt.”

Davey nodded slowly and pointed back in the direction they had come.

“Yeah, come on,” said Paul. Propping his friend up under his armpit, Paul dragged Davey slowly through the woods.

After several steps, Davey held up his hand, beckoning Paul to stop. He hunched over for a few seconds before attempting to speak—“You … go … ahead. Get … your … mom,” Davey managed.

“You need help though,” said Paul.

“She’ll … leave,” warned Davey.

Paul thought about it for a minute and then saw Davey’s point. If neither boy stood at the front door when she pulled up, Paul’s mom would likely go inside looking for the boys. They often got involved in complex competitions with each other in the gym and had to be dragged to the car. Not finding the boys in the gym, his mom would ask someone and Paul couldn’t even guess what she would do when told they hadn’t shown up.

“Okay,” said Paul. “You keep coming this way though, and I’ll bring my mom back.”

Davey nodded insistently.

“Don’t worry,” said Paul, and then he was off. Davey watched him run off before attempting to stand up.

Each inhale felt like a hot knife being jabbed between his ribs. Each step felt like the skin and muscles in his abdomen were separating and tearing. Davey tried a few more steps, breathing very shallow, but he soon had to stop. He pursed his lips and sucked in air slowly, trying to sneak up on a full breath to avoid the pain penalty.

After a few more steps, Davey tried to breathe exclusively through his nose. He winced at the pain and continued moving foot after foot to return to the school, establishing a rhythm of inhaling, stepping, and exhaling. Near the end of each inhale, he focused on trying to breathe a tiny bit deeper than the last time. With his shoulders hunched and his head lowered, he looked up every few steps to keep track of the stand of black-barked pines in the distance. Those trees marked the edge of the woods between him and the school’s parking lot.

The pain came back in waves, cresting with each inhale, but Davey kept moving. In his attempt to get back as quickly as possible, Davey hadn’t veered around the marshy area. He sloshed across the wet soil and realized that he had made a classic mistake. The survivalist guy on TV always stressed that if you got lost or injured in the woods you should signal for help and then stay put. Davey grabbed a small tree and thought about his situation—should he stay put? He decided no, he should keep moving, because Paul might not even think to look for him in the marsh, they always made a wide loop around it.

A cough started deep in his chest and he was unable to choke it back. Davey bent at the waist and held himself up with one hand on the small tree, and the other propped against his knee. The coughing lasted until his vision began to fade out and his head throbbed. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and found a crimson streak of blood from his knuckle to his wrist.

His self-sympathy began to fade. Until that moment, Davey had viewed his injury through his mom’s eyes—how she would fuss over him and take care of his pain. Now, when he saw the blood, his predicament became real and personal. It hit Davey with the force of revelation—he could die. He straightened against the pain and sucked in a deep breath through his mouth.

The corners of his eyes tightened with the new jab of fire in his ribs, but he clenched his jaw and moved his feet. He moved with determination, feet rising and falling mechanically as he sublimated his urge to feel sorry for himself.

Davey crashed through the underbrush near the side of the school standing tall and determined—holding his breath while his vision swam. Paul and his mother, Sophie, charged up the hill towards Davey as he crumpled to the ground, sucking in tortured sips of air. Sophie thrust her purse to her son and collected the muddy boy from the ground, lifting him with a deep grunt. His feet and jeans were soaked to the knee, and the front of Davey’s shirt was spotted with red dots of blood.

“Unlock the car, honey,” Sophie ordered Paul.

Paul ran ahead with his mom’s purse bouncing at his side. He turned as he ran—“Shouldn’t we call nine-one-one?”

Sophie panted as she covered the ground with long, confident strides. “No,” she responded, “the hospital is right down the street. We can get there faster. But call Ms. Hunter as soon as you unlock the car.”

Paul reached the car and opened both the front and back doors. He dialed his friend’s mom and then turned to his own mother. “What do I say to her?”

Sophie arranged Davey across the back seat and pulled one of the seat belts awkwardly across his body. “Tell her to meet as at the hospital. Wait, no. Just give me the phone when she answers,” she amended and then turned back to Davey, “How are you doing, kiddo?” she asked.

“Okay,” Davey croaked.

“Good boy,” Sophie said as she patted Davey on the cheek.

“Hi Ms. Hunter,” Paul said into the phone. “Hold on. Mom wants to talk to you.”

He handed the phone to Sophie.

“Hi Susan,” she said, taking the phone. “Yes, a little one,” she continued. “I’m going to run him up to KC Emergency. Want to just meet us there? Great.” Sophie hung up her phone.

She closed the back door.

“You have to sit up front, Paul,” she said.

“Okay,” yelled Paul, as he ran around to the passenger door.

Sophie started the car and moved the gear-shift into neutral. She leaned over and gathered up her papers from the passenger’s seat and stuffed them into her purse while Paul slid into the vacated seat.

“Look out,” Davey said from his recumbent position across the back seat.

“What’s that, honey?” asked Sophie.

“Look … out,” he pronounced carefully.

Sophie looked up from her purse, confused, and saw the alarmed figure of Jack Vincent just beyond her hood. She jammed her feet into the brake pedal to stop the rolling car from knocking him over. Mr. Vincent ran around to her window.

“I’m so sorry,” said Sophie. “I didn’t know we were moving.”

“The boys haven’t checked out, Ms. Murphy,” said the Vice Principal.

“I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident, and I have to get Davey to hospital,” she put the car into reverse as she talked and started to pull away from the man.

“Have his mother call please,” he called after the moving vehicle.

She waved and backed her vehicle away.

* * *

“HOW ARE YOU DOING, CHAMP?” the doctor asked as he smiled.

“Oh-oh-okay,” Davey coughed.

“You’ve had a busy few months,” commented Dr. Stuart. He smiled again and looked between Davey’s folder and Melanie

“Yeah,” said Davey.

“Looks like you were doing some work with Dr. Chisholm? I’m not sure I have all the records here; it looks like there was supposed to be some follow-on work?”

Melanie crossed her arms, wiped her mouth, and then cupped her chin in her hand. With her head tilted down, she looked up at Dr. Stuart from a veil of hair. “Yes—we did a lot of tests. Nothing ever came of it. He didn’t figure out anything. It’s not in his file?”

“Okay, Champ,” said Dr. Stuart. “We’re going to leave you alone for a minute. I’ve got some papers I need Mom to look at down the hall.”

“I’ll send Paul in,” Melanie said to her son and then kissed him on the forehead.

Dr. Stuart held the door open for her and ushered her through.

“Thanks again,” Melanie said to Sophie, who waited with Paul in the hall. “I’ve got to talk to Dr. Stuart for a few minutes, would you two go keep Davey company for me?”

“Sure, Melanie,” said Sophie, “anything. But would you like me to come with you? I know it can be hard to process everything the doctor says. Not to say you won’t be easy to understand,” she quickly amended, placing a hand on Dr. Stuart’s forearm.

“Thank you,” said Melanie, “I’ll be fine though. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Sophie flashed a big sympathetic smile and then herded Paul into Davey’s room. When the door shut, Dr. Stuart walked Melanie down the hall.

“I think you’ve got a fan,” said Melanie.

“I won’t let it go to my head,” replied Dr. Stuart. He pointed Melanie towards a small, empty waiting room.

“So,” he began once the door shut, “I’ve read the file, but why don’t you tell me what’s been going on.”

“Well,” Melanie brushed her hair back from her face, “things started a few months ago. I was worried about Davey’s clumsiness, so I took him to Dr. Chisholm.”

“Clumsiness?” asked Dr. Stuart.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “They call it ‘situational clumsiness,’ and they ruled out that developmental thing.”

“Dyspraxia?” Dr. Stuart offered.

“Yes, that’s it,” she continued. “The thing is, it only seems to happen sometimes. He’s great at sports and things, but sometimes you wonder how he makes it across the room. His body is always covered in bruises, as you can see. And today—this is the first time he’s ever been in the hospital because of it.”

“Well,” said Dr. Stuart, “I’m not entirely sure that his pneumothorax, the lung problem he’s having, was entirely caused by the fall he described.”

“Oh no,” Melanie’s shoulders slumped. “What is it?”

“I can’t be sure yet,” said the doctor, holding up the palm of his hand, “but there is a congenital disorder we need to rule out. It’s called Marfan syndrome, and it can sometimes cause pneumothorax.”

Melanie bent her head and cradled her forehead in her hand.

“But this brings me back to his history. Tell me about the tests Chisholm ran.”

Melanie looked up at Dr. Stuart and blinked tears back from the corners of her eyes. She shook her head and sighed. “He was very odd about it all. I don’t know what he was trying to prove or figure out. Poor Davey couldn’t take all those examinations.”

“We need to do everything we can to diagnose him, Ms. Hunter. The sooner we find problems, the easier they are to deal with,” prompted Dr. Stuart.

“I know, I know,” said Melanie. A tear leaked from her eye and she wiped it away as she tilted her head to the side. “It’s just that he was so creepy,” she said.

“Who’s that?”

“Dr. Chisholm,” she admitted. “He seemed so interested in Davey’s early puberty. It was so uncomfortable—I was so uncomfortable and Davey was too, I could see it in his eyes when Dr. Chisholm was examining him.” She used her fingers to make air quotes while she said “examining.”

Dr. Stuart pinched his mouth into a thin horizontal line and looked down at the chart.

“I should tell you,” said Dr. Stuart, “that I consider Dr. Chisholm to be a brilliant doctor, and an unparalleled diagnostician.”

“Yeah,” Melanie said as she squeezed her eyes shut. “That’s what everyone says." She shook her head with resignation.

“Hold on,” Dr. Stuart jumped in, “I should also tell you—he was my doctor when I was a kid, and if I had a son, I would never take him to Dr. Chisholm.”

Melanie looked up and studied the doctor’s moist eyes.

Dr. Stuart looked away first and took his gaze out the window. “Actually,” he said, “I shouldn’t have told you that at all.” He smiled. “I mean, I have no evidence, and he never really did anything out of the ordinary. Nothing that any doctor wouldn’t do when examining a child. It’s just that he somehow made the whole thing seem wrong.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“How about we not talk about unsupportable allegations that will get me fired and ruin my not-so-young and mostly promising career?”

Melanie chuckled at first and then broke into a sincere laugh in spite of the reason for their conversation. Dr. Stuart smiled while she laughed. By the time her laughter had died away, her eyes resumed leaking. She dabbed at them with a tissue, pulled from her pocket.

“Okay,” she said. “So what is it?”

“Short answer: don’t know,” he admitted. “But we’ve fixed the pneumothorax. He had air outside of his lung, and that was causing his trouble breathing. The blood was from the pressure in his chest cavity; it forced some blood through the vessels in his right lung. I’d like to see him stay overnight for observation, and then a week at home to minimize his activity.”

“Okay,” Melanie sighed.

“And I really want to get these follow-up tests done,” he tapped the clipboard. “I’m not big on poaching patients, but if you’d like, I’ll supervise the process going forward.”

“Oh would you?” Melanie exhaled, relieved. “That would be wonderful.”

“No problem,” said Dr. Stuart. “I’ll check in with Davey at noon tomorrow, and we’ll talk about getting him home. In the meantime, you should be able to get these filled anywhere, but this one I will call ahead to wherever you prefer.” He handed her two prescriptions, and then the third.

* * *

WHILE MELANIE MET WITH THE DOCTOR, Sophie read a book from her purse while Davey and Paul watched TV.

“Excuse me, Ms. Murphy?” Davey muted the TV during a commercial.

Sophie closed her paperback on her finger and looked up. “What’s up?”

“Do you think you could call the nurse for me?” asked Davey. “I have to go.”

“Go? Oh!” she said, standing. “Come on Paul, let’s give Davey some privacy for a second.”

“Can we go to the snack room?” asked Paul.

“Sure,” said Sophie. “Can we get you anything?”

“No thanks,” said Davey, crossing his legs under his sheet.

“Okay, we’re going. Come on Paul.”

They shut the door behind themselves and Davey watched the muted TV and tried not to think about how much he had to go. When the nurse pushed through the door he thought he was going to burst.

“Which is it hon? Number one or number two?” she asked, crossing to the bathroom.

“One,” said Davey.

“Super,” she said. She grabbed the plastic pitcher from next to the sink, and returned to Davey’s bedside. The pitcher had a large bent opening on top; she pointed it at Davey and asked, “Can you handle this?”

“Yes, thanks,” said Davey. He took the container and waited for the nurse to turn around before pulling down his sheet and hitching up his gown.

“All done,” he announced.

The nurse, Beth, took the half-full pitcher and smiled at Davey. Beth liked Davey’s smile; he seemed like a very nice boy. Making brief contact with his relieved eyes, she thought that even though she had never wanted children, if she had, should would have wanted to raise a nice polite boy like this one.

“You just ring that buzzer if you need anything else,” she said, pointing to the cord looped around his bed’s handrail.

“Okay,” said Davey. “Thanks again.”

“No problem,” said Beth. She took the pitcher over to the bathroom and flipped on the light. She raised the seat—better safe than sorry—noted the volume of fluid, and dumped it into the toilet. Beth transferred the plastic jug to her left hand so she could mark the number of CCs on Davey’s bathroom chart.

Beth made no secret of her disdain for the prissy new nurses who felt the need to don latex gloves every time they got within ten feet of a patient, and she certainly wasn’t afraid of urine from an nine-year-old boy. She barely noticed the drop that spilled from the mouth of the plastic jug onto her wrist. Beth filled the pitcher with water from the tap, sloshed it around, and cast it into the toilet with the rest. She flushed, returned the pitcher to its home, and washed her hands with hot, soapy water.

When she returned to Davey’s bedside, she spotted a mark on his cheek. “You’ve got a little schmutz on your cheek, hon,” she said.

“Oh, thanks,” said Davey. He grabbed a tissue from his tray and wiped his face.

“Don’t forget, hon,” Beth said as she turned to the door, “just buzz.”

Davey waved.

By the time she had returned to the nurses station Beth had forgotten all about the single drop of urine which had landed on her left wrist. Once washed off, a small thing like that was expunged from her memory—just another minor detail in a day full of duties.

Beth had no way of knowing that the single drop, washed and forgotten, would see her dead within a few months of that day. Her only living relative, her older sister who had taken up permanent residence in Beth’s guest room, would die just five minutes after, also because of that same accidental drop.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Mike

“MIKE, SERIOUSLY, I’VE GOT to show you something when you get a chance,” said Gary.

“Okay Gary,” Mike snapped, “I heard you the first time, but there’s a lot of shit going on here.”

“Got it,” said Gary, as he stalked off towards the van.

“So you’ve got feeds for us?” asked the producer.

“Just pull your truck up next to the van and talk to that pudgy guy there,” Mike said pointing at Gary.

“I heard that,” Gary yelled.

“Shit,” Mike said under his breath. He turned his attention back to the paperwork spread out on Bill’s workbench and tried to make sense of it. The writing was tiny, and the lighting in Bill’s garage proved inadequate as the sun set outside.

“Mike?” asked Katie. “I think Bill is coming down the road.”

“Stall him,” said Mike. “We don’t need him complaining too.”

“Fuck it,” Mike said, sighing. He flipped to the last page of the contract and signed his name. “Let him sue me. I don’t have any money.”

Mike spun around at the sound of yelling outside the garage. As he expected, Bill rounded the corner and strode through the garage door, already yelling.

“What the hell are you guys doing?” demanded Bill.

“Relax, Bill. We’re just getting set up,” said Mike.

“I thought I told you to keep the door shut,” said Bill. He leaned in close—“If that thing figures out what you’re up to, this is going to be one hell of a night.”

“That wouldn’t exactly be bad news for us, Bill,” said Katie, standing off to the side of the irate man.

“Yeah, well,” said Bill, striding over to the workbench and picking up the contract that Mike had just signed, “this paper says you agree to my rules, or I get a percentage of your business.”

“We don’t make any money,” said Mike.

“You will once I’m done with you,” said Bill.

Mike raised his eyebrows and cocked his head, wondering what Bill meant.

“Can we do some establishing shots inside now?” asked a well-dressed woman from the garage door.

“This is a fucking circus,” said Bill, throwing up his arms.

Mike pointed from the woman to Bill. “Leslie, this is the homeowner: Bill Carson. Bill, Leslie.”

“So nice to meet you, Bill,” said Leslie, turning on her TV personality charm. “I’ll be doing the narration and scene work. My producer wants to know if we can get inside for some shots. Is that okay?” She smiled and winked at Bill.

Mike winced, predicting a negative response from Bill to the obvious flirting.

Bill surprised everyone by thrusting his hands in his pockets and stowing his earlier irritation. “Yeah, sure,” he said.

“Thank you so much,” she said. She put her hands together in a prayer position and bowed slightly to Bill, Katie, and Mike before stepping back, out of the garage.

“This better go smooth,” said Bill, regaining his ire as he turned back to Mike.

“Don’t worry,” said Mike. “We’re just here to make some observations and the press is here to keep everything documented and credible.”

“Hey, do you think I should show her the hand?” asked Bill, changing personalities once again.

“What? No!” said Mike. “They’re here to show that we’re not crackpots. Please don’t do anything crazy. Not to mention that you’ll probably get sued or go to jail if anyone finds out you’ve got a severed hand in your freezer.”

Gary trotted back into the garage, panting. “I’m ready to start doing cameras, but we’re never going to have enough cable. Do you think I could pull up on the lawn to get the van closer?”

“Hold on,” said Mike. “One step at a time. First, you can’t set up the equipment yet because the news crew is about to do their establishing shots. They want an untouched house; they don’t want to see our equipment everywhere. But as soon as they’re done, I want you in there. Second, ask Bill if you can pull up on the lawn. It’s his lawn.”

“Bill?” asked Gary.

“Go ahead,” said Bill.

As Gary jogged back out, Mike wore a puzzled expression. “Why wouldn’t he have enough cable?”

“The windows are nailed shut upstairs,” said Katie.

“Really?” Mike asked Bill.

“The contractors did it,” said Bill. “They said the windows made them uncomfortable and offered to replace them at the end of the job if I let them nail ‘em shut.”

“That must have been a strange outfit,” commented Mike.

“We’re going in for our shots now,” said Leslie, standing with her producer and camera man at the entrance to the garage. “Would you care to give us a tour?” she asked Bill.

“Sure, no problem,” replied Bill. He looked down at his his worn jeans and t-shirt. “Should I change?”

“You won’t be on camera,” said Leslie. “You just show me around and I’ll do the rest.”

Bill kept his eyes locked on the newswoman, but Mike saw Leslie’s producer roll his eyes slightly.

When Mike and Katie were finally alone in the garage, Mike sat down on a stool and sighed.

“What was that thing you signed?” asked Katie.

“It was a contract that Bill had his lawyer draw up,” answered Mike. He rolled his head around, trying to find relief from the stress building up in his neck. “Part non-disclosure for the technology of the amplifier, and some language about how we can’t seek damages if any of our equipment gets destroyed on his property. Also some stuff about how we won’t destroy his property through negligence. Standard stuff.”

“Standard? What about any of this is standard?” she laughed.

“True,” Mike smiled. “I think he was just trying to cover his bases.”

“Anything financial?”

“Not really,” answered Mike. “Nothing I saw, at least. Honestly, I really don’t think that Bill is trying to profit off this whole thing, he just wants his house back.”

“I think Bill tries to profit from anything he does,” commented Katie. “We really haven’t talked financials either.”

“How’s that?” asked Mike, rolling his neck again and scratching his head.

“Well if you end up profiting, what about me and Gary?”

“Oh, I won’t profit. I’m not in it for the money. Someone else will end up making all the money. That’s just the way it is with scientific breakthroughs. I remember when I was a grad student, the professors used me like slave labor. They push, and push, and then they never made a dime. I didn’t have a chance. A step down from nothing is less than nothing. I was lucky I didn’t owe them money at the end of a project.”

“So Gary and I get less than nothing?” asked Katie.

“No, no, I didn’t mean you guys,” said Mike. “I was just saying that’s the way it was when I was in school. You guys are in this for your own reasons, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Katie. “Hey, don’t forget, Gary wants to show you something.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mike, pushing himself up from the stool dramatically. “The boss’s work is never done.”

Katie watched him leave the garage and folded her arms.

* * *

“GARY,” SAID MIKE as he climbed into the van. “What’s up?”

“I’m trying to work in the new numbers,” said Gary. “Give me a second.”

At the front of the cargo area, Gary had folded down the small table and propped a laptop open with a map on the display. He typed coordinates from a piece of scrap paper into the application.

“Yup, it aligns,” said Gary.

“What’s that?” asked Mike.

“Okay, let me start at the beginning,” said Gary. He zoomed out the map display revealing a view of New Hampshire and scrolled over to the Maine coast. “You remember our first couple experiments with the new instruments? How we saw that big bias point to the west?”

“Sure,” said Mike. “The sunset was giving off a ton of signal and everything peaked.”

“Yeah, right,” said Gary. “That’s what I thought too. But then as we worked more and more cases we started to do a lot of work to the south.”

“But the readings were all pretty much west,” said Mike.

“Well, not quite,” said Gary. “They all had a west component, but some were more northwest than west.”

“Okay,” said Mike. “Sure, but the earth is on an axis. The sun’s not always west. Plus it was earlier and later in some of the measurements.”

“Yup, that’s true,” said Gary. “I didn’t think anything about it either. When I plotted the bearings on my paper map, they just seemed to be pretty random lines. But then I started thinking, those maps use a Mercator projection,” Gary pointed to a map hanging on the wall of the van. It showed the New England states and had several red lines traced across from the locations where they had conducted investigations.

“What does that mean?” asked Mike.

“Well, simply put, north and south, east and west, are all straight lines on these maps, but we live on a sphere.”

Mike shrugged.

“That means if I just walked off in a straight line, then it wouldn’t appear as a straight line on this map. It would make a curve. It’s called a ‘great circle curve,’” said Gary.

“Where are you going with this?” asked Mike.

“If I use a mapping program, I can put in the positions and bearings of our readings and plot the great circle curves to see where the lines actually go.”

“And that gives you a different answer than your paper map?” asked Mike.

“Sure does,” said Gary. “Check this out." He spun the laptop towards Mike and overlaid the data. The red lines from their investigations curved gracefully and all met at a common point in New Hampshire. “See where they meet?” asked Gary.

“I do,” said Mike. “What does it mean?”

“You tell me,” said Gary. “Once I factored in the projection, these lines all meet within two hundred feet of each other, and it’s in the mountains of New Hampshire, near Campton.”

“Can you zoom in?” asked Mike.

The display changed as Gary decreased the scale and individual roads appeared on the map. The satellite imagery disappeared, leaving just the labeled lines of roads.

“What’s this dotted line? It goes right near your intersection,” commented Mike.

“Looks like a hiking trail,” said Gary. He pulled up the information on the line and reported—“It has two names according to this: ‘Moose Cross Trail,’ and ‘The Ledges.’”

“Huh,” said Mike.

Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the side of the van.

The producer poked his head through the door. “We’re all done with our shots. Ready for your setup,” he said.

“Hey,” called Mike after the man’s head had vanished around the corner.

“Yeah?” The producer looked back in.

“Did you guys see anything?” asked Mike. “Anything unusual?”

“What, in the house?”

“Yeah,” said Mike, frowning.

“Just a house,” said the producer, raising his eyebrows.

“Thanks,” Mike called out as the producer dismissed himself. “That’s weird,” he said to Gary. “I wonder if the entity in Bill’s house hides before sundown.”

“Could be,” said Gary. “But Bill said the contractors were hearing stuff all day when they were here.”

“You’ve got a point, but maybe its behavior has changed,” said Mike. “Either way, let’s get in there and get the equipment online while nothing’s going on.”

“Roger that,” nodded Gary.

* * *

GARY, KATIE, AND MIKE FINISHED their preparations several minutes before sunset that Thursday afternoon. In the driveway, Leslie chewed the inside of her lip and talked to her producer about the editing schedule required to get the piece on the air that weekend, and to create a compelling teaser for their station to run to generate interest. Bill waited in his garage, reviewing the schematic of Mike’s paranormal amplifier.

At the edge of Bill’s yard, Gary leaned against a rock and smoked his cigarette. Just upwind, Katie stood with her arms crossed and the two spoke casually. Mike surveyed the scene, looking at everyone gathered for this unique research, and tried to think of how the night’s events would change his life. Convinced that he had finally arranged the right people at the right location, he was certain that he would finally have solid evidence. His theories would be confirmed, and his positions vindicated.

Mike narrated his own television biography in his head—“Paranormal research started as just a hobby for Dr. Markey,” he imagined the announcer saying while his college pictures glided across the screen. “He left his field of study and invested every dime to prove his theories.”

“You ready?” asked Gary.

“Jeez Gary,” said Mike. “You scared the shit out of me,” Mike said and then laughed nervously. “Those guys set?” He pointed to the news crew.

“Yup,” said Gary. “Just you and me at first and they’ll do the outside piece once we’re in.”

“Good,” said Mike. “I think that will play out really well. Did you tell Bill not to touch anything?”

“Don’t worry,” said Gary. “Katie will keep him in line.”

“Let’s do it,” said Mike. He unclipped the radio from his belt and clicked the send button twice. “You set, Katie?”

“Yes,” Katie’s voice came from the speaker.

“After you,” Mike waved Gary to the front door.

The first floor of Bill’s house appeared normal except for the bundle of cables tucked into the corner of the front door and running up the stairs. A reading light in the living room illuminated a pleasant, inviting space to curl up on the couch. To their left, the short hall showed a kitchen both well-equipped and clean. Mike mentally compared Bill’s cozy home to his own tiny house and envied the engineer despite his second-floor troubles.

Mike clicked his radio once more “Heading upstairs,” he said. He took the lead this time, and Gary followed close behind. They came to a stop several steps from the top when Mike heard child’s laughter once more.

“Did you get that?” he asked his radio.

“Nothing here,” said Katie through a wave of static.

Mike turned and raised his eyebrows at Gary who shrugged back.

“We’re getting a little static here Katie. Everything clear on your end?”

“As a bell,” said Katie.

Mike and Gary continued up the stairs and stopped at the top. Mike scanned the room, checking the camera locations. He glanced one more time at Gary and then made a statement for the record—“This is Mike and Gary, we’re doing our initial sweep of the second floor to check for abnormal activity and perform the final check on all the equipment before we introduce any stimulation.”

They moved methodically through the space, verifying the operation of each instrument. They had almost finished their initial sweep when Gary tapped Mike on the shoulder.

“Hey Mike, I’m getting a really odd sensation here,” said Gary.

“Odd, like what?” Mike asked, pointing a tape recorder.

“I’m not sure how to describe it,” said Gary. “I feel cold, but not like an external cold. More like it’s coming from the inside.”

“Okay,” said Mike. “And we’re in the back right, so this would be the northwest corner of the house." He snapped off the tape. “This is just the sweep, Gary. I don’t want to discourage you from letting me know when you have a strange feeling, but let’s get some hard-core action for the news guys before we talk about too much touchy-feely stuff.”

“Okay,” said Gary.

“Mike?” Katie asked over the radio.

“Yeah?” Mike replied.

“You’re right next to one of the open microphones,” said Katie.

“I know,” said Mike, but his face told a different story. He took a deep breath, wondering if he had just ruined his credibility with the news crew. It was important for them to believe that they were invisible, impartial observers at this investigation, and that Mike wasn’t trying to put on a show for them. Now the news people might have just heard evidence to the contrary. Mike exhaled and turned to Gary. “I think we’re done with the initial sweep. Let’s get back to the van and calibrate the instruments.”

On the stairs, Gary leaned close to Mike’s ear and spoke—“Hey, I really did feel something weird up there.”

“I know you did Gary. I believed you, but I want us to seem like completely cold, unaffected scientists until shit starts happening,” explained Mike, keeping his voice low as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Oh,” said Gary. “You should have told me that.”

“I didn’t expect that acting like a scientist would be a special order,” said Mike. He reached for the door and held it open for Gary. The newswoman, Leslie, waited with her producer by the van.

“Are you guys conducting an investigation here, or is this some kind of informercial to drum up business?” the producer accused Mike.

“Whoa, you’re way out of line, buddy,” said Mike.

“Am I? What was that all about then?”

“First of all,” explained Mike. “We don’t make a dime from this. Ask Bill. Second, I just want to make sure we don’t waste your time with our personal experiences. I know you’re here to see irrefutable evidence of paranormal activity, and Gary’s feelings are not measurable.”

“Just so we’re clear,” said the producer. “We’re not here to shill your future business, whether or not you happen to be charging for it right now.”

“This is not a scam, and it’s not a business. We’re conducting research. We just want to have an impartial, credible third-party here to help us document the event in case we have some success.”

“Good,” said Leslie. “That’s a good answer.”

“But,” said the producer, “we’re not going to give your name or any contact information as part of the story. We’ll identify you as a researcher and say you wanted to remain anonymous.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Mike. He figured he had pretty good odds that cases would find their way to him whether or not his name was announced.

“Let’s move forward then,” said Leslie. “We’re all on the same page.”

“Great,” said Mike. “We’re about to calibrate the instruments and then we’ll be ready to begin the tests.”

Leslie and her producer turned and walked off.

Mike watched them go before climbing into the van. Gary sat in front of the controls and mouthed a sincere “sorry” to Mike. “Thanks,” Mike whispered back.

“What are we looking at?” asked Mike.

“Cameras are five-by-five,” reported Gary, “and I already told you about the New Hampshire bias.”

“Right, I remember,” said Mike. “Any levels on the property?”

“Nope,” said Katie. “Everything is offsite. Just normal background noise.”

“Same as daylight readings?”

“Yup.”

“From everything Bill has said, that makes this an unusually quiet day,” said Mike. “Where is Bill, anyway?”

“I think he’s still going over those circuit diagrams you gave him,” said Gary.

“More power to him,” said Mike. “So what do you guys think? Are we ready?”

“Yes,” said Gary.

“Sure,” agreed Katie.

“Wonderful,” said Mike. “Remember, as soon as we start transmitting, I want everyone sharp for any kind of movement. We’re looking for any unexplained motion at all.”

“Bad idea,” said a voice from just outside the van. Mike looked and saw Bill listening in.

“What’s that?” asked Mike.

“You just told it what you want,” explained Bill. “That’s a great way to guarantee it’s not going to show you any motion. It’s kinda a contrarian. I thought I was pretty clear about that.”

“We’ll see,” said Mike. “Leslie?” he called as he got up and exited the van.

“What’s up?” Leslie asked, reappearing with her producer and cameraman in tow.

“We’re going to start the first sequence,” said Mike. “Are you guys ready?”

“Yes,” said Leslie. “You said that he’s going to announce the levels?” She pointed to Gary.

“That’s right,” said Mike.

She turned back to her crew and led them several feet away from the vans. “I think we should start here, and I’ll narrate while we hear that guy counting.”

“Excellent, Leslie. That sounds like a great idea,” said her producer. “Any time, guys,” he said, calling over his shoulder to Mike.

Mike leaned in the van and nodded to Gary.

“We’re here tonight to document a paranormal investigation taking place at this modest rural home,” Leslie explained to the unblinking camera. “These researchers were brought here by claims of unusual activity on the unfinished second floor.”

“One point zero,” Gary called out from the van.

Leslie nodded as if to acknowledge Gary’s level. “The man you hear is announcing the power being sent to a unique piece of equipment,” she spoke into her microphone. “This is a paranormal pump, if you will. Imagine that a ghost is like a flashlight whose batteries are almost completely drained, so you could just barely make out the beam. They claim that their machine acts like a fresh set of batteries, and when they power it up, we’ll be able to capture the ghosts on these cameras.”

The cameraman moved with Leslie as she crossed the yard. “This machine works by lending power to supernatural entities so they can manifest visually, or affect our physical world. The creators are scientists who wish to remain anonymous until their findings can be verified, but they’ve allowed our cameras here today to help them document this investigation.”

Mike tore himself away from the filming to check in with Gary and Katie.

“Four point three,” Gary read as Mike climbed into the van.

“Any response yet?” Mike asked Katie.

“Completely flat on the meter, but we thought we caught some movement on one of the cameras.” Katie pointed to the third monitor.

Mike configured one of the review monitors to display the camera Katie indicated and moved through the footage backwards at fast speed. Mounted on a tripod and pointed at an empty room, the video show the same unchanging scene with the occasional dust mote floating by.

Mike saw something flash by the right side of the screen. He backed the video several times and watched the movement in slow motion.

“Four point four,” announced Gary.

“What do you think it is?” asked Katie.

Mike rubbed his chin and regarded the video again—“I think maybe it’s fabric from something just off-screen. Why did we point the camera this direction anyway?” he asked Gary. “If we had gone just a tiny bit to the right, we could see the entrance to this room.”

Gary shrugged and read the next number.

“I’m gonna go reposition number three,” said Mike, placing a hand on each knee and getting ready to stand.

“That’s a little hinky,” said Gary.

“Yeah,” agreed Katie.

“But that’s the corner,” said Mike. “Or it should be. That camera is almost pointing at the same corner that Gary complained about. If there’s something there, I want to catch it. It was just a stupid mistake that we didn’t repoint the camera before.”

“Four point six,” said Gary.

“I’ll tell those guys and do it really quick,” said Mike.

Gary shrugged again.

Outside, the producer coached Leslie—“Let’s go from the top again. Just dumb it down a tiny bit more this time. Give it to me so my grandmother would understand what you’re saying. Just ghosts, and making them stronger.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Mike. “I have to go move one of the cameras.”

“Let’s get that,” said the producer, nodding at Mike.

“Okay,” Mike trotted over to Bill’s front porch as Leslie moved further down the face of the building to get a clean shot of the house.

Upstairs, Mike turned the tripod to cover the area where Gary had felt a cold spot. Mike moved in front of the camera, trying to reproduce the feeling that his assistant had mentioned. He reached down for his radio, so he could ask Gary and Katie if the camera was repointed well. His hand found his belt, but the radio usually clipped there was absent. Mike felt panic flood up over him as he realized that he was out of communication with his team.

Remembering the microphone placed near the camera, he leaned down and addressed his team—“Can you guys hear me? I left my radio down there. I’m wondering if the camera is placed well. I guess there’s no real way for you to let me know. I’m coming back down.”

Mike nearly wet his pants when Katie’s voice rang out.

“Check your back pocket,” said Katie. “I saw it when you were walking towards the house earlier.”

Mike reached back and blushed when he found the radio clipped to his back pocket instead of its normal location.

“Thanks,” he said into the radio.

“Did you move the camera? We don’t see any difference here,” said Gary over the radio.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “I sure did. What do you mean, no difference?”

“We still have the exact same scene as when you left,” said Gary.

“Are you sure you’re looking at the live feed? Sounds like you’re looking at replay down there. I’m currently in front of camera three.”

“What’s that, Mike?” asked Katie. Mike heard his assistants discussing the camera position before Katie released the radio send button.

“I said that I’m in front of the camera,” Mike spoke slowly and with a slightly raised voice.

“That’s negative Mike,” said Gary. “We’re looking at live feeds and we have no visual of you on any camera.”

“Impossible,” said Mike. He moved quickly between the bare stud walls and waved his hand in front of a different camera. “How about now?”

“Still nothing,” said Gary. “Stay put, I’m going to bring a cable tester to you.”

“I’m at camera five,” Mike said into his radio.

“Got it,” replied Gary.

Mike walked around the bare floor and glanced at the readouts of the different cameras. Everything appeared to be operating normally, and no camera showed any signs of a communication problem with the van. Gary crested the stairs after a few seconds and tracked down Mike.

“Did you tell the news guys?” asked Mike.

“Yup, don’t worry,” said Gary. “I gave them the whole story.”

“Let’s get this fixed,” said Mike.

Gary removed the cable from the fifth camera and plugged into a handheld device as he explained to Mike what he was looking for. “We could just be seeing a digital lock on this signal,” he said. “Any loss of signal on these digital devices can make the signal totally freeze up.”

“You know what’s weird about that?” asked Mike. “I reviewed the footage and I saw plenty of dust and random noise in the image. It didn’t look like a still frame at all. There were plenty of normal video artifacts.”

“Maybe it happened after you came up?” suggested Gary.

“Did you leave the amp on?” asked Mike.

“Yeah,” said Gary. “Four point something,” he said.

“Five point five,” Katie announced from Mike’s radio.

Gary furrowed his brow. “That’s too much,” he commented.

“Go ahead and shut it off for a second please Katie,” Mike.

They waited several seconds before she responded: “It won’t shut off.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gary slowly.

Mike felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand up and a deep chill, as if his bones had turned to ice. A frigid breeze passed by the men, fluttering Mike’s shirt. The skin on his arms tightened as Mike shuddered against the sudden blast of cold.

“Guys?” Katie sounded panicked over the radio. “What’s going on? Two of the cameras just shut off, and this thing will not …” her voice dissolved into static. The radio chirped and buzzed with feedback until Mike reached over and turned the knob.

“What was that?” Gary whispered.

Mike whipped around but found nothing moving or out of place. “Stay calm,” said Mike touching Gary’s elbow.

Gary’s unfocused eyes didn’t react, but he pulled his arm away from Mike’s touch.

“Gary? It’s time to go,” said Mike. He felt uneasy and spooked by the cold, but couldn’t determine a cause for Gary’s sudden stupor. He wondered if his friend could hear him at all. The color had left Gary’s face.

Mike shoved the radio in his pocket and moved behind Gary, guiding his shoulders and pushing him back towards the stairs.

“It’s huge,” slurred Gary, a line of drool escaping the side of his mouth. Mike felt another chill as he regarded the profile of Gary’s empty expression. The lights flickered twice, coming back on just as the filaments of the bare bulbs glowed red, and then powering back up even brighter than normal.

“Let’s get going, Gary,” said Mike. His shoves only elicited shuffling steps from the unresponsive man. “Come on Gary. We need to get back out to the van.”

Gary froze and pushed back against Mike’s prodding. When he looked him in the eye, Mike wished Gary had stayed catatonic: his eyes were wild, and filling with tears.

“Mike, we can’t leave now. It will kill us both,” said Gary. His mouth stayed open; his lips peeled back, baring his teeth.

“What are you talking about? We’ve just got an equipment failure and we’re going back to the van to fix it,” said Mike. He tried to sound convincing.

“But it’s huge,” Gary responded. He clamped his jaw shut and shook his head sending spit flying. When he looked up the intelligence had returned to his eyes. “Mike, we have to get out of here.”

“Yes,” said Mike, taking a deep breath for the first time since Katie’s last transmission. “Stairs,” he said, pointing through the rough-framed door opening and down the short hall.

They rushed together through the door and out to the hall. Gary reached the steps first, but pulled up and stopped again, turning to face Mike. “Hey Mike?” he asked.

“What, Gary? Let’s go,” said Mike.

“But remember when I said it was huge? I think it might have bit me,” he said, as he looked down to his own side.

Mike followed Gary’s gaze down, but veered off to glance at his friend’s crotch, where a dark wet spot was spreading across his jeans. The acrid hot smell of Gary’s urine stung Mike’s nose and then another wet spot caught his eye.

It was a dripping pool of blood forming under Gary’s right hand. Actually, Mike corrected himself, it was a dripping pool of blood forming under the stump where Gary’s hand had once been attached.

Mike gagged back vomit as Gary slowly raised his stump, pumping thick ropes of blood to the floor through a tangle of sheared bones and glistening gore.

“I think I might…” Gary didn’t finish his sentence.

Mike’s puke burst up his throat just as he tried to drag in a breath. Most of the retch became redirected out his nose, but a fair amount flowed into his lungs, dropping Mike to the floor in a coughing, vomiting mess. He looked up between spasms to see that Gary still stood between him and the stairs and still regarded his own stump thoughtfully as blood gushed down his arm. Mike choked on a fresh torrent of recycled lunch and clawed a wide arc around Gary to reach the stairs.

“But Mike,” said Gary. “He loves hands.” His voice was low and threatening, but that’s not what caused Mike to look back over his shoulder. What drew his attention was a popping, crackling sound. His eyes confirmed what his ears had already guessed—rolling flames had engulfed the rafters, flowing around the insulation and wiring. The fire licked down the bare studs, dripping like water down the knotty pine.

Mike flipped over on his back, pushing himself away from Gary. He only had a few feet separating him from the stairs, but what he saw drained the strength from his limbs. Flames dripped down and touched Gary’s head, turning his hair into a torch. Gary stared at Mike’s eyes and a sinister smile passed across his lips.

Gary didn’t acknowledge his burning and smoking hair. As he spoke, the flames reached Gary’s collar and flames moved down to his shoulders—“It’s time for us to join him Mike,” said Gary. “Down in the crawl space.”

Mike could barely hear him over the crackle of the flames.

Gary reached out his stump as if to help Mike to his feet, but instead a fresh glob of blood jetted out, hitting Mike’s waist.

Mike watched in horror, unable to scream or move away from his possessed friend or the searing heat. Gary’s body stiffened and his face curled, as if he suddenly smelled something disturbing. His jaw dropped open and a guttural, ripping scream tore from Gary’s throat. His legs pumped and Gary ran over Mike’s prone body, around the stairs and towards the front of the house. Mike’s eyes followed the flaming man. Gary’s run fanned the flames and his shirt burst into flames just as he hit the window at the front of the house.

Momentum alone would have carried Gary through the window, but he leaned forward and thrust himself through, launching himself and taking his scream out into the night.

Fresh air burst through the window and the fire exploded down at Mike. He could smell his own hair and clothes smoldering, so he pulled towards the stairs and tumbled down the treads, rolling, crashing and banging to the landing. A whooshing sound preceded the crash of exploding windows above on the second floor. Mike rose to his knees and spit out a mouthful of upchuck.

The doorknob grew in size as he reached for it. By the time his hand reached it, the handle was the size of a softball; he had to grab it in both hands to make it turn. Several things occurred to Mike simultaneously: the knob was at eye-level, but he was no longer on his knees. He wore his favorite green pajamas from when he was a child, and this knob belonged to inside of the bedroom he’d shared with his brother, Charlie.

“Don’t leave me, Mike,” sobbed Charlie.

Mike turned around but already knew what he would see—his brother’s bruised and fragile face. Charlie’s balled fist was pressed against his temple. He was about to cry.

“You died of leukemia, Charlie. It already happened,” said Mike. He tried to sound confident, but his little-boy voice sounded tentative.

“You made me go to the crawl space,” pouted Charlie. Fat tears rolled down his drawn cheeks.

“You didn’t catch it from the crawl space,” Mike protested. “Mom said so.”

“She said prolly,” corrected Charlie. “You know it’s true.”

“I can’t stay,” said Mike. “You’re trying to trick me.”

“You owe me, you said so. Just stay until I fall asleep.”

“No, Charlie,” said Mike. He turned back to the doorknob and exhaled with relief to see that it had returned to its normal size. When he touched the knob, Mike heard the splintering crash of the roof collapsing. He turned and pulled, collapsing through the door and away from the devastating heat, into the night.

Rough hands plunged under Mike’s armpits and he blinked against the heat of the burning building as he was dragged down Bill’s driveway. Katie and the news crew clustered in the lawn. Both Leslie and her producer had their cell phones clamped to their ears. The cameraman looked naked with nothing on his shoulder.

“What happened?” asked Mike, looking up at Bill.

“You tell me,” said Bill.

Conversation was impossible for the next minute—an explosion from the house pushed warm air over the group and showered down glowing debris. The ringing in Mike’s ears was replaced with the sound of distant sirens as he regained his hearing.

“Where’s Gary?” Mike yelled, coughing and choking, still spitting out chunks of lunch. He blinked several times to clear his eyes and propped himself up to look at the house. The top half of the house looked like a bite had been taken from the roof. Flames flowed up through a ragged, burned hole that stretched from the two outer dormers. The center window, the one Gary had plunged through, was completely gone, burned away with the surrounding roof.

Mike’s research van, parked just to the right of the front porch, had rolled right and leaned heavily against the news van. Both vehicles were gutted by flame.

Katie knelt next to Mike and fixed her cold eyes on him. “He’s gone,” she said.

“Gone? Are you sure that…” he was cut off by another explosion. The rear wheels of the news van lifted several feet as a fireball shot out from under its frame. A wave of heat made Mike blink and he scrambled away from the noise and debris. Mike glanced back and saw that Bill and the news crew had retreated farther across the lawn. Except for Gary, everyone was present.

“He fell out of that window and crashed through the windshield of your van,” said Katie.

Mike panicked and jumped to his feet. He overbalanced and almost crashed to the ground, but caught himself and stood up. “Where is he? We’ve got to help him,” he said to Katie.

She folded her arms and shook her head. “It’s too late. He was dead when he hit the van. Dead and on fire.”

“Oh my god,” said Mike. He had to struggle to stay upright. Mike propped himself up with his hands against his knees for a moment and then turned back to Katie. “Do you have any idea of what happened? Did you get any readings at all?”

“No evidence of the paranormal, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said, sneering.

Mike sunk to the ground as the first fire truck pulled up.

The Hunting Tree

BOOK TWO

- Stage of Hunger -

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Crooked Tree - 3141 B.C.

THE PREDATOR PUSHED UP from the tree branch and shifted to the left. He had a perfect starlit view of the path, but couldn’t afford to have his muscles go numb from inactivity. When the wind picked up, and started the tree swaying, he clenched and released the muscles of his legs in time with the creaking of the limbs.

The moving air brought a new scent—the one he had been waiting for. He rolled his shoulders and flexed his back, preparing for his attack. This moment was the culmination of several days of careful observation, and he didn’t want to waste the opportunity because of a careless mistake.

Leaning forward and looking back between his legs, he was able just make out the path behind him. At the edge of perception, he saw a woman adjust her stance. Could she have seen him? Was she getting ready to cry for help? Was it time to run? His mind raced—his calm confidence eroded instantly.

He braced his feet and prepared to flee, but took one more look down the path. This time he saw the reason for the woman’s delay: another set of legs. She hadn’t seen him, she was just engaged in a conversation. As he watched, she pulled away from the other woman and continued up the path, directly towards his tree. He shielded his eyes and refocused, where her back would be to him in his tree.

She moved quickly. Perhaps, he thought, she had heard reports from other families, and knew that a predator lurked in these woods. The thought excited him, and he held his breath while he waited for his opportunity. Her step was light and quiet, but he heard every footfall.

His luck served him well—just as she passed under his tree the wind rose and masked the sound of his movement. He pushed away from his branch and swung towards the ground, hitting the path with soundless feet and dropping to his hands to absorb the fall.

Her feet didn’t pause. She continued north, away from her family, into the darkest part of the woods without detecting the predator who had dropped to the ground just five paces behind her.

He crept on hands and knees for the first few steps and then rose to a crouch, waiting for his prey to round the next corner where the path swung around a large rock. If she managed to make noise, he figured this rock would block the sound from traveling back to her family and give him the extra few seconds he would need.

Accelerating to close the distance, he rounded the corner and found nothing. She was gone.

The man stood, confused, swinging his head up and down the path, eyes wide in the dark. He closed his eyes and stilled his body, listening. To his left, he heard his prey running quietly up the steep hill. He gave chase.

At the top of the ridge he finally spotted her just on the other side of the crest. The trees stood more sparse up here and he easily picked her out in the starlight. No longer trying to conceal his movement, he ran fast across the top of the hill, feet beating a hard rhythm across the rocks and leaf-litter.

She heard him gaining and bolted to her left, down the hill. He grinned at her mistake. If she hadn’t moved to the other side of the hill, she might have drawn the attention of her family. But here, on the far side, she was alone.

His course cut off her escape and she tried to turn back uphill. Faster and stronger, he closed the distance. At the last second she turned, brandishing something in an outstretched hand. The predator circled right, moving into the shadow of a bushy tree. His face and body were painted to conceal his identity, but he didn’t want to take needless risks.

When he backed into the shadows she turned and tried to run again, but he was ready. He sprung out and grabbed her long hair, pulling her backwards to the ground. She managed a small scream before he clamped a rough hand over her mouth and pressed a sharp flint edge against her neck.

“Make a noise and I’ll kill you,” he growled low into her ear, trying to disguise his northern accent.

He shoved her face to the ground and pulled her arms behind her back, wrapping them in a leather strap and using his leverage to keep her hips raised in the air. Her body made an uncomfortable triangle with the ground. She tried to take the weight off her face by pressing her shoulder into the ground, but her neck bent awkwardly as he kicked her feet apart and pushed up behind her. He took another deep whiff of her ripe feminine scent, and summoned his desire.

Despite his earlier threat, she barked a small cry as he forced himself into her. She tried to tilt her hips forward to reduce his penetration, but he pulled a fist up into her belly, moving her back into position.

His grunting and thrusting seemed to continue forever as she spit leaves and dirt out of her mouth and tried to breathe. He paused. She turned her head and tried to hear what he was listening to. He pulled out slowly and released his grip on her arms. She slumped forward and clawed the ground to get away. When she had scrambled a few paces from the rapist, she rolled over and saw him clearly in the starlight, head cocked, looking off into the night. He hadn’t finished, she was almost certain; his erect member protruded absurdly, its business incomplete.

She started to rise and then heard what he heard—a low growl from the woods. It didn’t sound like any animal she knew, but it was unmistakably dangerous. Suddenly the leaves rustled. She heard two steps—only two steps took the thing from deep in the woods to atop her attacker.

Her rapist crumpled to the ground under the weight of this giant creature. The beast’s bare skin flashed and something flew off the crumpled form and rolled to a stop near her feet. She pressed back against the tree as she realized the object was the head of her attacker. His painted face showed only surprise.

The creature rose from the decapitated body to its full height. She gauged that it stood at least one-and-a-half times taller than a full-grown man. At the creature’s feet the rapist’s erection finally wilted as blood jetted from its neck.

With one graceful step, the creature approached the prone woman. She didn’t recognize the hulk as human until it spoke.

“You’re impregnated,” it said, pointing at her midsection. She had never heard the word it used, but knew exactly what the creature meant.

“I’m not,” she put a protective hand on her bellybutton. “He didn’t even finish,” she protested.

The monster bent at the waist and lowered its massive head towards her. She cowered as it aimed its nose at her and tilted its head from side to side, as if examining her from all angles.

Finally, the monster raised its head slightly and looked into her eyes. She stared back, so transfixed by its gaze that she didn’t see its hands come up on either side of her face. It cupped her head between its massive palms and tugged her gently to her feet. Still bending over, so their eyes remained locked, the creature released its gentle touch from the sides of her head.

She exhaled and relaxed slightly, glad to be free of the monster’s touch.

The monster, formerly known as Crooked Tree, now calling himself The Hunting Tree, surviving son of a powerful hunter and warrior, raised his hands like an eagle spreading its wings and brought them together with a thunderous clap, crushing the young woman’s head.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Davey

“HEY, YOU BETTER START getting ready,” said Melanie as she leaned in Davey’s door.

He sat on his bed propped against the headboard with several pillows and schoolbooks scattered around. Davey wrote a final figure in his workbook before closing it on his pencil and looking up at his mom.

“I’m only halfway done though,” he lied. So far that week he had finished most of the math problems for the year and it was still April. With one or two more days at home he figured he could complete most of the reading and vocabulary assignments as well. The only thing he couldn’t anticipate were the special projects that Mrs. Roberts kept in the cabinet near the window.

“You can bring it with you and work in the waiting room. Are you going to get dressed, or just go in your PJs?”

“All right,” Davey said with a groan.

“I’ll be down in my office,” Melanie said. “We have to leave by quarter of. I expect you to be ready by the door then.” She disappeared around the corner.

Davey looked up at his clock and saw that he only had minutes to take a shower and get dressed. He pushed his books away and lunged for his dresser. The quick movement made him grab his chest in pain. Davey stopped until he could breathe deeply once more without the hot stab to his lung. Picking through his dresser and pulling out clothes to wear, Davey thought about how much his outlook had changed in the past year. This time alone, while his lung recovered, had brought a new introspection that made him feel like he was becoming an adult.

The first time he had noticed the change, he had been talking to the woman who lived next door, Mrs. Bevelaqua. They had sat in the backyard on a nice summer day. Davey’s mom had been inside, getting everyone some lemonade. Mrs. Bevelaqua related a story about how her brother had been employed by the Army. His job had been to crash cars so they could determine how they would fail.

“That’s crazy,” Davey had said, laughing. “Why would anyone do that?”

Mrs. Bevelaqua had regarded Davey carefully. He realized that she was trying to assess how much a boy of his age could comprehend. “Yes, Davey,” she said finally. “That’s what we would call a ‘Man Bites Dog’ story when I used to work in the news room. You think it’s going to be one thing, but then it’s another.”

He remembered the way she had folded her hands in her lap and waited for his mother to return.

Davey had been insulted and angry. He knew that she and her husband had never “been blessed with children,” but didn’t she understand that having no experience didn’t make him stupid? The realization hit him like a brick—sometimes grownups were just rude. Other occasions of people talking down to him had occurred to Davey as he sat next to Mrs. Bevelaqua in the backyard that day.

This week had brought similar revelations. He visualized his brain moving small steps back from his body. He still experienced what was happening, but he had a new perspective and saw the world at arm’s length. With this new outlook he realized that he liked being alone, but he also missed his friends and the social aspects of school. He knew that he would need to find another way to occupy his brain or he would be bored out of his skull once he returned to class.

* * *

DAVEY GOT TO THE DOOR just one minute after his mom’s deadline. She was still in her office; he could hear her talking on the phone. He ambled over to the doorway to her office and regarded his mom, sitting at her desk.

She listened to her earpiece for several moments before delivering her decision—“I know you’re tapped, but I need to know how many hours you can give me next quarter." She paused. “It’s part of your job,” she said. “If you’re not estimating your capacity then you’re not doing your job.”

“Mom?” he asked during her pause.

She sighed deeply and then swiveled her chair to face Davey. Her eyes stared off over his head. “I know. Yes, I understand that, Peter." She paused again.

That’s what it’s like, thought Davey. That’s what it’s like when you disconnect from your body and live in your head. That’s what adults do all the time. I’ll never do that. I’ll stay connected.

“Goodbye,” she said as she reached up and removed her headset. “Sorry Davey,” she said. “I’m all set until two. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“That’s okay,” said Davey. He watched his mother collect her wallet and phone into her big purse. “Mom?”

“Yeah?” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

“What do you do exactly?” he asked.

She laughed and herded him towards the door. “Some people would say not very much.”

“How come?”

“My job is to be the glue; to stick together all the things that need sticking,” she said.

“What’s that mean?”

“I’ll give you an example,” said Melanie. “Let’s say you have a test next week, but you also have to send a letter to your grandmother." She waited for him to catch up—Davey moved slowly to make sure he didn’t have to breathe too deeply. When he made it to the car, she continued: “My job would be to write down that you have a test and a letter. Then, when you get really wrapped up worrying about your test, I make sure you don’t forget about your grandmother.”

“How do you do that?”

“Mostly just by having meetings. I keep a list and then I ask everyone around the table about all the stuff they were supposed to do since the last meeting.”

“Couldn’t everyone just keep track of what they were supposed to do for themselves?” asked Davey. He clicked his seatbelt as Melanie started the car.

“One would think,” she said, laughing again. “I guess they would, but they have competing priorities, so they get really focused on one thing and forget about everything else. Why the sudden interest in my job, Davey?” She smiled at him as she turned around to back out of the driveway.

“I just was wondering how you can do your job at home when I’m sick. You don’t have to stay home with me. I can take care of myself.”

“You’re funny,” Melanie said as she smiled again. She put the car into drive. “I don’t even think it’s legal to leave a nine-year-old home alone." She glanced at her son in the rearview mirror. “Are you still having bad dreams?”

“Not too much,” Davey lied for the second time that day. His dreams had increased in both frequency and detail, but he had adjusted to them. They still scared him, but he didn’t wake up screaming, like before.

Melanie glanced to the rearview and saw the cloud pass over Davey’s face. She regretted her question. Her son had been happy and smiling, asking her intelligent questions about her job and now he sat tight-lipped and upset. Her well-intentioned query had caused him to drop into the condition she was worried about.

She attempted to changed the subject. “How’s Paul doing?”

“He’s still grou…” he cut himself off. After the hospital, Davey had never been punished for sneaking out of school. Paul hadn’t been so lucky. He had been denied television and video games for a week, and fully blamed Davey. “He’s fine,” Davey said.

“Wait a sec. Didn’t you bring anything to do in the waiting room?”

“I’ve got ‘The Hobbit,’” he said.

“What’s that, a game?”

“No,” he said, giggling. “The book?”

“Oh, good for you!”

* * *

“ANY HEADACHES?” DR. STUART FINISHED his examination of Davey with a look in his ears.

“Nuh-uh,” Davey shook his head.

“You’d tell me if you did, right?” asked the doctor.

“Sure,” said Davey. He shot a sideways glance over to his mother.

Dr. Stuart nodded and turned to address Melanie. “Oh, I forgot to ask. Ms. Hunter, did you get all the insurance forms to the front desk?”

“Yes,” she said. “I filled out all the paperwork while we waited.”

He turned his head away from Davey, and raised his eyebrows at her.

Melanie clued-in all at once. “Oh, no I didn’t. I forgot to give them something. Would you mind if I went and did that now?”

“Sure, that’s no problem,” said Dr. Stuart. “We’re just wrapping up here.”

When he turned back to Davey, the boy scrutinized him closely.

“You know I was just trying to get rid of your mother, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Davey.

“Do lots of people underestimate how much you understand?” asked Dr. Stuart.

“I guess,” said Davey, looking down at the floor.

“Not to worry.” Dr. Stuart sat down in the chair that Davey’s mom had vacated. “Everyone grows up at different rates. You’re a little early, some will be late. Everyone catches up in the end. Well, most everybody catches up.” Dr. Stuart smiled.

Davey smiled back.

“Do you know what doctor-patient privilege is, Davey?” asked Dr. Stuart.

Davey shook his head.

“That means that if you want to tell me something, I can never be compelled to repeat it. Well, at least in Maine,” he amended. He knew that kids this age could be like little human lie-detectors. The only way to gain their trust was to be completely honest. “They could bring me in to court and threaten me, but I would never repeat something you said in confidence because then you could sue the heck out of me. Now if I find anything medical, I’m probably going to tell your mom, but that’s mostly so she can help you get better. But I think there’s something else wrong. Am I right?”

Davey considered the question, wrinkling his brow and trying to decide which issue, if any, he thought the doctor might be able to help with. He decided to start with a test, to see if the doctor was truly trustworthy. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“Well,” Dr. Stuart sighed. “That’s a pretty hard one. We’re doing a lot of tests to figure that out, but it’s mostly because if we could find something early it would be a lot easier to deal with. Do you know what I mean?”

Davey nodded.

“Your last doctor, Chisholm, he figured that given the fact that you stumble sometimes, and your early development, maybe you had inherited a condition. So, we’re going to do some more tests on all the blood we took and see if there’s anything we can find. That’s not what you’re really worried about, is it?”

“No,” Davey admitted. He bunched his shoulders up and lowered his head.

Dr. Stuart suppressed the urge to prod him further, and just waited for a response.

“Sometimes I have dreams, but I’m afraid to talk about them,” said Davey.

“Why’s that?”

“‘Cuz What if then they come true?”

Dr. Stuart nodded and frowned. “That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to be afraid of, Davey. Lots of people have that exact same fear, and it’s okay to be careful about what you say. But can I tell you something else? Sometimes dreams get a lot less scary when you tell them to someone else. I had to study a lot of science to become a doctor and we learned that nobody has ever shown any causal link between telling a dream and it coming true.”

Davey nodded.

“My dad understood how these things work. He was telling me about everything, but then he died,” said Davey.

“Would you like to have someone else to talk to? There are people who specialize in just that—they’re really good listeners and they make a job of helping people understand their thoughts and dreams and stuff,” said Dr. Stuart.

“Like a shrink?”

Dr. Stuart laughed. “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

“I don’t know,” said Davey. “I’ve heard they’re expensive.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said the doctor. “If I can prescribe it, most of the cost will be covered by the insurance company. If we have a problem with getting the money, then we won’t do it. Do you want me to do that?”

“I guess,” said Davey, rubbing his neck.

“Now, is there anything else you can tell me about physically?” asked Dr. Stuart. “Any aches, pains, balance problems, anything?”

“My chest still hurts when I move too fast,” said Davey.

Dr. Stuart nodded vigorously. “Yup, you can expect that for at least another couple of weeks. I think you’ll be ready to go back to school by next week though. You can play just as hard as you want, but you let me know if you have any more pain after,” he said and looked up at the calendar, “let’s say April first. If you feel any more pains after then, tell your mom and ask her to let me know.”

“Okay,” said Davey.

“What else?”

“I don’t like the way I smell,” said Davey.

“Okay, good. That’s normal for a boy your age. You might be a tiny bit ahead of the curve on that one, but everyone is different. I’m going to ask your mom to pick you up some special deodorant if you don’t mind. I just want you to make sure you stay away from antiperspirant for now, okay?”

“Sure,” Davey said.

“What else?” Dr. Stuart prompted again.

Davey shrugged and held up his hands.

“Okay, great!” The doctor slapped his knee and stood up. I’m going to talk to your mom for a couple of minutes about the blood tests and everything. I’ll also tell her that I would like you to have someone to talk to, is that okay?”

“Sure,” said Davey.

Dr. Stuart led Davey out to the waiting room and waved Melanie towards his office.

“How’s he doing? Sorry I was so dense,” said Melanie.

“Don’t worry about it,” the doctor said, smiling. “He’s good. Very smart boy, but you know that. I didn’t really get a chance to know him last time with all that hospital stuff going on.”

“Is there something he’s not telling me?”

“Well,” said the doctor. “I think he needs someone to talk to. Honestly, he still misses Dad, which is perfectly normal. It’s also normal for him to have some feelings about Dad that he can’t talk to Mom about. I’m going to write down a couple of names of colleagues I trust. Insurance can be tricky on this. I can write it up as necessary based on his injury, or any conditions we might find, but if you’re planning on switching carriers at any time, it might alert as a pre-existing condition. You might just want to consider on a couple hours a month out of pocket, depending on how much it costs and how much you have to spare.”

“Okay,” said Melanie. “That’s a lot to take in, but I have seen that he needs to talk to someone.”

“I’m also going to write down this product for you,” said Dr. Stuart.

“A prescription?” Melanie wrinkled her brow. She was willing to accept some minor counseling, but didn’t like the idea of medicating kids who had trouble sleeping.

“No.” Dr. Stuart laughed. “It’s a deodorant. This one is mild and natural and it smells like fresh laundry. Should help him blend in a little better.”

“Oh.” Melanie exhaled.

“I know,” said the doctor. “It’s hard to accept your little boy is growing up so fast. Finally, we should talk about the tests.”

“You have results?” she asked, confused.

“No, not yet. But I want to make sure that when we get the results we have the right set of eyes looking at them.”

“Of course,” agreed Melanie.

“Here’s the thing: as you may have already guessed, I’m not the biggest fan of the insurance companies.”

“Who is?” she asked.

“In your case, if I refer you to someone in your network to analyze these results, we’re not going to get the most detailed, informed answers,” said Dr. Stuart.

“No?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Then what?” Melanie asked.

“I’d like to bring in an old friend of mine. He strictly a research guy, he doesn’t have patients—more like IDs on a clipboard, but I’m thinking that if anyone can give us an answer, it will be him.”

“Okay,” said Melanie, but she chewed on a fingernail.

“That makes you nervous?”

“A little?”

“If we don’t get good answers—something we can fully test and prove out—we’ll go straight on to one of the doctors in your network and go a more conventional route.”

“I trust you, Dr. Stuart. I feel like you’re being straight with me. Let’s give it a shot,” said Melanie.

“Okay, great,” he said. “I’ll get his schedule and have reception get in touch.”

“Thank you,” said Melanie.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mike

AFTER THE DEPOSITION, Mike rode north on I-93 into the mountains of New Hampshire. He tried to focus on his finances—he was convinced that there must be some way he could pay off his loans and the damages he owed, and still have enough money to live. His bank account painted a bleak picture. It had steadily declined since the day Gary died. In the fire, Mike had lost his van, his equipment, all the findings that supported his research, and his friend. All that he had left were debts, legal bills, and hateful phone calls from Gary’s family.

The urge to flee had been overwhelming. Until he passed through Manchester he hadn’t realized what should have been perfectly obvious: he was headed directly towards the energy source that Gary had pinpointed. Mike took this as a sign from his subconscious and stopped at a gas station to spend most of his cash buying a map and filling up his thirsty vehicle. Before the pump clicked off, he had already found the town, the road, and the trail where Gary’s lines had intersected.

He took the exit written on his pad, and stopped at the first intersection. A big truck with giant tires pulled up behind him and honked its throaty horn. Mike waved the driver around and pulled the map into his lap. Studying the lines, he turned the map around several times, trying to construct directions to the trailhead.

Mike squeezed his temples and closed his eyes. The same image drifted in his imagination. Every time Mike closed his eyes or even blinked hard, he saw Gary. His dead friend wore a seasoned, experienced smile in his mind’s eye as his hair and eyes burned. Mike’s eyes flew open and he found perfectly normal New Hampshire roads. He pushed the map away and pulled up to the stop sign with his blinker on. The thought crossed his mind that eventually he might get a full night’s sleep, but it wouldn’t be any time soon.

* * *

THE PARKING LOT WAS EQUIPPED with steel poles flanking the entrance and a chain to keep out trespassers, but the chain lay on the ground. Mike pulled in and chose a spot not visible from the road. He shut off the engine and gripped the wheel before stepping out of his car.

This would be easier if I had one of the handheld detectors that Gary built, he thought.

Bill had taken those though. He had demanded them as part of the payout described in the contract should anything go awry with the investigation of his house. Mike remembered the arrogance with which he had signed the document. At that point he had thought there was nothing to lose. Pushing open his car door, Mike stepped out into a deep, muddy puddle. His loafer sunk, and the cold water flowed over the lip of his shoe, soaking his foot.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself.

Pushing away from the car, he stepped over the mud and made his way to the trunk. Inside, a backpack of fresh clothes sat—a remnant of his former late-night investigations. Mike sat on the lip of the trunk and changed clothes.

Katie’s betrayal hurt the most, even though he hadn’t talked to her in-person since the fire. His lawyer had briefed Mike that Katie’s statements would be read during his deposition, but he hadn’t guessed how clearly he would imagine her saying those terrible things. Mike remembered her deposition as he buttoned his flannel shirt.

“Did you ever see any unexplainable events?” she had been asked.

“No,” she replied, “but Mike tried to convince us that there were ghosts and spirits at all the houses we visited. In fact he had convinced Gary. That poor man totally believed everything Mike said.”

The next question seemed to refute her statements—“What about Bruce Wallace? He wrote about an event involving a dead grandmother in his newspaper column, and repeated those claims at an earlier interview.”

In her deposition, Katie had rebutted this evidence easily. “Bruce told us that he wanted to sell newspapers. In fact, Mike even told me that time that he didn’t see Bruce’s grandmother.”

Mike stood next to his car in the parking lot at the start of the Moose Cross Trail and told himself that a hike would help him clear his head. He pushed his keys deep into his front pocket, closed his trunk, and set off for the overgrown path.

* * *

HIS PROGRESS WAS SLOW, and Mike’s lungs soon burned with the exertion. The path took him winding down a forested hill until he passed close to a deep creek. For early May, the afternoon was heating up and the black flies enjoyed a healthy feast of every inch of exposed flesh. Mike knelt next to the creek and splashed cold water on his neck and forehead.

When he straightened up from his crouch, Mike found that the path branched ahead. To his left, the path wound up the hill, and to the right, it followed the creek. The tree between the two choices held a marker. His Moose Cross Trail stayed with the creek, and the other was labeled “The Ledges." Mike opted for upper route. Something about the thick smell of the cool water made him uncomfortable.

Mike’s new path took him out of the woods and into the open, amidst loose white rocks broken from the battered cliffs. He blinked back the bright sun reflecting off the rocks and pulled his folded map from his back pocket. It lacked the detail he needed to be precise, but an inset of the area showed him his approximate position. Against this map, he tried to overlay his memory of Gary’s red lines. Judging by the trail split, he figured he was about halfway to the nexus of those intersecting arcs.

He trudged on, following the thin line worn into the loose rocks. When his path crossed a wide expanse of smooth granite, he had to study the far side to detect where his trail picked up again. After a while he noticed that if he focused farther down the path it was easier to see the winding trail. His trail followed the contours of the cliff up and down, but he noticed that it steadily gained altitude above the creek.

The trees encroached on the rocky plain until his path wound through a thin margin between the vertical cliffs and the scrub. Mike consulted his map one more time and decided that he had probably reached the convergence of Gary’s lines. He thought about taking a break before turning around, but decided instead to press on. The sky looked to open up a bit and he thought he might be rewarded with a view.

Mike was quickly disappointed. After moving with hands and feet over several large rocks, he found a sign mounted on a twisted fir tree. It showed that “The Ledges” trail headed back downhill here, presumably to rejoin the creek. He hadn’t seen a good view yet, and the thinner trees up ahead promised that his reward must be near. Deliberating for less than a second, he pulled himself over the next rock and made his way along the steep ridge.

With very little hiking experience, Mike was completely charmed by the sight that greeted him a hundred yards later. He made his way around another big boulder, pressed between sharp branches and the cliff face, and saw that the trees pulled back from the wall. Here a small clearing opened up and the trees and sky framed a nice view of the valley below. When he squinted, he thought he could even see where the small creek joined a larger river.

He stayed high against the wall, to maximize the distance he could see over the trees, and found a large rock to lean against. The stone had been warmed by the hot sun. It instantly relaxed his tight back. He propped his head up on his interlaced fingers and enjoyed the serenity.

After only a few minutes of relaxation, Mike’s problems crept back to the front of his head. He took a deep drag of the fresh air and tried to empty his mind, but the thoughts continued to intrude, banishing his solitude. Mike sighed and decided to talk through his problems.

“Guess I have to start over,” he told the clearing. “Lost my savings, my research, and I’m probably going to lose my grandparent’s house. If I’m lucky, I’ll manage to hold on to my freedom.”

He tilted his head back and looked at the flawless blue sky.

“I’ve got my life. That’s more than Gary,” he said. Mike closed his eyes, knowing that he would be greeted with Gary’s terrible visage, but wanting to feel the pain and sorrow of his loss.

His guilt was compounded, and he had just arrived at the point where he could admit why. When Gary had raised his ruined, handless arm, for a brief moment Mike had been glad—glad that the news crew would have solid evidence of activity, and glad that his research had uncovered horrific, incontrovertible manifestations. He tried to forgive himself for his own greed, but his pain was too fresh to be dismissed.

When no more tears would come, Mike leaned back against the warm rock, propped his head in the corner of his elbow, and dozed. He awoke to a cool breeze, deep thirst, and nagging headache. There was plenty of daylight left, but the sun had moved behind the rock face and the shadows were cooling quickly.

Mike slid across the rock and dropped down to the loose rocks below. His feet crunched down and his ankle twisted on the uneven terrain. He rotated his foot and looked down, hoping it wouldn’t swell.

“What’s this?” he asked aloud. He knelt down, feeling a sharp stab in his tender ankle, and peered at the dark lumps between his shoes. Grabbing a twig, he rolled one of the lumps while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the shadow of the rock. The furry lump included a leathery appendage. He brushed it with his stick until the wing of the bat was stretched across the scree. Something about the shape of the dead bat didn’t make sense. He poked another until he figured it out—the bats were missing their heads.

“Ozzy? Did you do this?” he asked under his breath. The corner of his mouth turned up at his slight joke.

Mike tossed aside his stick and picked up the first bat by its tiny hands. He spun the body to see the neck. He poked at the dry wound and wondered why no scavengers had picked up the easy carrion.

Diseased, he thought.

He dropped the bat and wiped his hands on his jeans. His curiosity won out and he stepped back so he could lower his head to examine the bats further. Spinning around the decapitated, desiccated corpses, he counted five animals and got an unexpected clue as to why nothing had carried them off. A breath of cool air flowed out from under the big rock. Mike noticed that the deep shadow continued much farther than he had first thought, and the air emanating from the deep shadow harbored a disgusting, malevolent odor.

Mike pushed back frantically to get away from the smell. It was the stink of death mixed with an unidentifiable stench that made him think of evil, hate, and murder. He couldn’t imagine a crow or raccoon being hungry enough to ignore this smell for a free meal of dead bat.

He backed away even farther, and sat on a low rock that faced the cave. From his new vantage point he noticed that the color of the rocks surrounding the cave entrance didn’t appear as bleached and dry as the rest of the clearing. One of the rocks had been flipped on its back, exposing its bottom—stained dark brown with moisture—to the sun.

Mike stood and considered the possibilities: perhaps a bear had moved the rock, eaten the bats, and then crawled in the cave to die? Perhaps a rabid wolf? Either way, Mike found himself ready to get back to “The Ledges” trail, and back to his car.

He turned away from the bats and the small cave and almost managed to miss the most interesting feature of the clearing. Just two paces further, Mike spotted a footprint in a patch of loose sand. In the lee of a rock, the details of the footprint were unsullied. He counted five toes, spread wide to distribute the considerable weight associated with such a giant imprint.

Mike put his own foot down next to the print. Even with his shoes, the mark in the sand dwarfed Mike’s feet. Balancing carefully, Mike put his other foot directly in front of the first. The length from the print’s naked heel to toes reached past the arch of Mike’s second foot.

He uttered a low, barely audible whistle and squatted next to the enormous footprint. He reached around to the back of his belt and unclipped his cell phone. He pressed the button on the side to activate the camera.

“What the hell?” he asked. The phone’s display was black. None of the buttons had any effect.

Batteries must be dead, he thought.

Mike straightened up, clipped the phone back on his belt and took one last look at the giant footprint before the long hike back to his car.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Crooked Tree - 3141 B.C.

CROOKED TREE WATCHED THE SKINNY MAN washing the animal skins in the shallow pool. The river took a sharp bend just downstream where it squeezed between tall rock walls. This natural dam created some still, but reasonably fresh, shallows where one local family liked to wash the skins of their fresh kills.

The skinny man, Crooked Tree’s prey, stood no more than a hundred paces from where Dr. Mike, the failed paranormal researcher, would eventually splash cold water on his face, thousands of years in the future. Crooked Tree only cared about the future in terms of the next few moments; the ones leading to him culling his sickly man from the pack. Even at this distance, Crooked Tree could smell the man’s disease. It was the worst kind of sickness, passed down between generations and not affecting the person until he was already of breeding age, already passed on to his children. First, Crooked Tree would remove the source, and then he would be free to take out the man’s offspring. He might remove his wife as well, as she had not shown enough instinct to avoid this man’s poisoned seed.

Crooked Tree tilted his massive frame, moving in rhythm with the waving trees and silently covering the distance to the busy man. He had studied this man from a distance for several days, noting his habits. The man routinely broke away from his family at night and found chores to do away from their camp so he wouldn’t wake them with his racking cough.

Crooked Tree wasn’t surprised to find him washing in the middle of the night, but stopped halfway to his prey and sniffed the air. He smelled fear. This man washing his skins in the moonlight shouldn’t be fearful, at least not yet. Considering this development for several seconds, Crooked Tree realized the source of the man’s fear—this man must be a coward, afraid to die of his cough. With that explained, he resumed his stalk and drew to within a few paces.

The skinny man stood up quickly—he must have sensed Crooked Tree’s presence—and spun around, wielding a short flint blade. Crooked Tree was stunned by the man’s defiance. Having judged this man a coward, he fully expected the man to run downstream or dive into the pool. He smiled in the moonlight and rose to his full height while spreading his arms wide.

Thrusting his short blade towards the giant, the skinny man uttered a sharp “Yip,” to the night.

Suddenly the forest exploded with noise. Faces emerged from the shallows of the river, spitting reed breathing-straws as they stood. From the forest floor, men materialized from the soft pine-needle carpet, scraping dirt from their eye sockets. Spinning his massive head, Crooked Tree gauged the team to include at least twenty attackers, carrying spears, knives, and clubs. They sported the colors and markings of several area families and consisted of the strongest and most skilled warriors of their clans. The circle tightened on Crooked Tree, cautiously, but deliberately.

Crooked Tree lowered his torso, crouching, ready to spring on the first to reach him. The circle tightened their ranks until they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, just past Crooked Tree’s massive reach. The first attack whistled through the air and stung the side of his head, just behind his ear. He spun to see a man on a nearby rock, reloading his sling. The next jab hit his calf, and he spun back to see the retreating spear. He decided to waste no more time waiting.

Crouching slightly closer to the ground, Crooked Tree exploded force through his thick legs and launched himself up and back. Another rock whistled by his face as he flew through the air, easily clearing the circle and landing behind a thick-muscled boy who carried a long sharpened bone. The young man spun to face Crooked Tree, leading with his weapon, but by the time he turned to face the giant, Crooked Tree connected with a single, skull-crushing blow. Crooked Tree ran north, along the river, hoping to break up the hunting party so he could kill them one-by-one without needing to cope with flying rocks. Several of the men whooped and gave chase.

The river curved left, and as he followed it to the west, he sensed more men converging on his position. Crooked Tree stopped to asses their numbers. Clearly more men had joined the party; from the sound and smell, several dozen had formed a line and were sweeping through the woods.

He considered the river behind him—it was deep and hard to cross, and he knew the legends as well as anyone: spirits couldn’t traverse running water. He would be swept away and disintegrated by the cleansing power of the river. He had no fear of death, but saw no point in testing the old wisdom. The men in front of him moved with no great skill. They sounded clumsy and haphazard. He knew their methods. They would have two lines, separated by enough distance so that if the first line was breached the second could collapse on the struggle. The men to the south were clearly well-trained and fearless. Crooked Tree decided to take his chances with the line in front. He found an appropriate tree: a tall oak with a full canopy of branches, high up the trunk. He executed another spectacular leap and grabbed the lowest branch, pulling himself up into the heights of the forest.

Releasing a long, slow breath, Crooked Tree stopped breathing and slowed his heart. He waited.

The inexperienced men of the front line crashed through the underbrush and jumped at every shadow. The forest rang with the occasional yip of a false sighting, quickly retracted by an embarrassed man. They passed under his tree without detecting a trace of his presence.

The second line moved with efficient silence. The men paused with each step, listening, looking, and sniffing the air. The two warriors who moved under the branches of Crooked Tree’s roost stopped and studied the ground. His launch had left rustled leaves and indentations in the ground.

Crooked Tree didn’t wait for the men to complete their analysis. With his eyes shut and body nearly deactivated, he sensed their movements and whispered consultation. He pushed away from the trunk and plummeted to the ground, landing on his hands and feet just past their line. On either side of the tree the hunters whipped around. A spear flashed by Crooked Tree’s side. In one quick move, Crooked Tree spun and tore off through the woods, leaving the line of men yelling as they sprinted after him.

Their cries called everyone to action.

He moved away from the river at a pace which no man could match, but the hunters had numbers. Their well-positioned reinforcements swarmed from the south as another contingent cut off his escape to the north. His flight took him into the arms of the cliffs to the west. As Crooked Tree broke from the forest, he beheld the white cliffs, stark in the moonlight. A warm breeze cooled his skin and he sniffed its message. Not dozens, but hundreds of men swept up from the south.

They must have summoned every family from either end of the long valley and all the way to the saltwater, he thought. His systematic killings in the past few months had finally prodded the families into action.

Crooked Tree turned his head slowly and processed the information his ears reported. Aside from the cliffs, every avenue was cut off. He could try to fight his way through the line, but they might collapse on his position too quickly for him to escape. He bounded towards the cliffs and pulled himself up the vertical rock face gracefully and quickly. He had ascended halfway to the top before the first warriors burst from the tree line, into the clearing at the bottom of the rock face.

Not all families shared the same language, so when the hunters spotted him climbing the rocks, they whooped and yipped. Those armed with slings sent missiles hurtling up at Crooked Tree, but his grip was strong and the rocks lacked any velocity by the time they reached him. Just a few arm-lengths from the top, the rocks stopped coming from below. He risked a glance down, expecting to see his pursuers defeated. Crooked Tree was surprised to see that they had all backed away to the edge of the woods—the clearing below was empty.

A single man below cupped his hands around his mouth and uttered a high, lonesome “whoop” into the night. That’s when Crooked Tree heard the rustling above him. He understood at once: this had been their intention all along, to get him exposed on the rock face. He looked down and considered the consequence of attempting a jump. He had survived such a fall once, and that was before he’d been converted to a supernatural spirit, but he suspected that his powers had limits. Pulling himself up, he continued to climb and figured he would take his chances with whomever was meant to fight him at the top.

The hunters had no intention of letting him summit the cliff. The whoop had been their signal to begin the avalanche. As he climbed, dozens of small rocks bounced off his shoulders and then the large boulders began to fall. He managed to pull himself close to the cliff face and avoid the first few tumbling boulders, but then he misjudged and a huge, sharp rock the size of a bear cub thumped his forehead. His hands and feet clung to the wall, but his body slumped away from the face and became an easy target for the falling rocks.

Several seconds passed with Crooked Tree continuously pelted by rocks. He started to pull himself back up, getting renewed strength from his anger, when another heavy stone connected with his chest, ripping his right hand from the wall. He clamped his jaw shut as two of his claw-like fingernails were stripped from his fingers. He batted his hand back towards the cliff, trying to regain purchase, but before he could grip the cliff, another rock connected with his left wrist. Splitting in two, the radius bone tore through his skin and muscle. It jabbed out into the moonlight. His left hand fell from the wall and he spun as he fell.

Crooked Tree thought about his brother as he tumbled through the cool night air.

He landed flat, chest down, on the sharp rocks of the clearing. His massive body shook the ground as he hit and most of the hunters backed up a step reflexively. Several more stones, hurled from above, caught up with him. Pain ripped through his flesh—the first he’d felt since he had become a spirit. He laid still, trying to catch his breath, until the first spear drove into his thigh. His head came up and he spotted his potential salvation—one of the tumbling stones had knocked aside a rock, revealing a cave entrance. Pulling with his broken hands, he lost more fingernails and chunks of flesh to the sharp rocks. His legs dangled useless at the end of his torso, his spine shattered from the fall. Men emerged from the trees, screaming their bloodlust. Their spears reached him first.

Crooked Tree reached the small mouth of the cave just as the first warrior landed on his back, trying to work his crude flint blade between Crooked Tree’s ribs. He thrust one mammoth arm backward, crushing the man’s chest and launching him towards the next two attackers. A loose rock fell on its own and took out three other men, missing Crooked Tree’s foot by a hand-length.

The hole in the rocks was just high enough to accommodate his giant frame. Through the opening, the floor fell away, allowing Crooked Tree to fold his torso under and pull his legs through quickly. Facing out towards the entrance, he brought his bloody hand up in time to fend off the next attacker by crushing the warrior’s cheekbone back into his brain. The man fell limp, helping to seal the cave, but was pulled back by the next eager stalker. Crooked Tree found a rock that fit his fist and hurled it at the next man who appeared, silhouetted by the night sky.

Spears came through next, one driving into his shoulder, but they did little to injure Crooked Tree and offered him more weapons for his defense. He jabbed through the opening, killing several more men before the attacks subsided. Crooked Tree cocked an ear towards the hole and found a flat rock, flecked with shiny mica, to reflect the moonlight around his cave. The burrow was small for his big body, and offered no other avenue for escape. Turning his attention back to himself, he gripped his left hand and pulled, tucking the sharp bone back into his skin. His teeth were clamped so tight that one of his molars cracked, but he didn’t utter a sound.

He pulled himself slightly closer to the opening and heard the din of a large crowd, debating their course of action. Crooked Tree’s deliberation was short and easy. He would stay put, healing faster than the hunting party could imagine, and kill them one-by-one as they tried to attack.

By the time the group made their next move, the night had worn thin. The moon had set, and the stars began to fade. Using his keen senses, he smelled their smoke. He wondered if they knew how nocturnal he had become; wondered if they were just waiting for the daylight to stage their final attack. Although it had been a while since Crooked Tree had been awake in the sunlight, he suspected it wasn’t impossible for him.

The hunting party grew quiet just before their next move. Creeping feet approached and Crooked Tree readied himself for battle. Even without feasting on victims, he’d had time to heal. His legs mostly worked, although he wanted to avoid testing their power, and the bone of his left arm had nearly knit back together. He armed himself with a long spear and a heavy rock and kept his eyes trained on the opening.

The next thing through the hole wasn’t a spear or a man, but a log. A smoldering log, giving off thick, acrid smoke rolled down through the opening and landed next to Crooked Tree’s hand. He picked it up to cast it back out, but it collided with two more logs coming in and all three rolled back into the hole. Soon his cave was thick with gray smoke and Crooked Tree couldn’t take a deep breath without coughing it back out. His cave grew dark; the men placed a large rock over his exit.

Crooked Tree shoved the rock aside with one of the burning logs, but an instant later it was replaced with another boulder. He fought back and forth with the men trying to block the cave, but the smoke took its toll. Each stone blocked the hole a little more. The walls of his cave shook with the next rock they dropped into place. He imagined the size of a rock required to knock the dust from the walls and pictured dozens of men hefting it into place. Ready or not, he decided it was time to test his legs. Pulling in a thin lungful of air from the only crack in the wall that still smelled fresh, Crooked Tree braced his feet against the cave floor and pressed his shoulder into the obstruction. He felt it move, but not nearly enough. The most he could accomplish was to shift the rocks a few inches.

The exertion spent the rest of his energy. Crooked Tree sunk to the floor of the cave and pulled shallow breaths by pressing his nose to the crack in the wall. Outside the cave, he heard the men piling on rock after rock, sealing him in with the smoky logs.

He drifted into a trance, robbed of his consciousness and silently suffocating in his tomb.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Davey

“USUALLY BY THE THIRD VISIT, my guests start to talk a little bit,” said John.

John was the first adult Davey had met who insisted on being called by his first name. He had been impressed for about fifteen minutes, and then found the soft-spoken man both boring and irritating. John’s bald head was accented by a thin beard. Davey guessed that the little man would rather die before getting dirt under his fingernails or going to a hockey game.

“How is school going, David?” asked John.

Davey generally ignored the doctor’s statements, but he was too polite to not respond to a direct question.

“Okay, I guess,” said Davey. He squirmed in the big leather chair.

“I thought I heard that perhaps you had a bit of trouble this week,” stated John.

Davey kept to his rule and offered no information in response to the stated fact.

John corrected his approach and asked, “Did you get in trouble?”

“Yeah,” sighed Davey.

“Could you tell me what happened?” asked John.

“The teacher caught me putting a dead mouse in some kid’s book,” Davey admitted.

“Where did you get a dead mouse at school?” asked John.

“I found it,” said Davey.

“You found it,” John stated.

Davey kept quiet.

“Somehow, I sense you’re not giving me the whole story, David. How was your friend Paul involved?”

“He didn’t do anything.”

The psychiatrist paused and reviewed his notes, trying to find a way to get Davey to open up.

“The notebook belonged to,” John started, flipping back through his notes, “Ted?”

“Yeah,” confirmed Davey.

“Does Paul have a problem with Ted?”

“I guess,” said Davey.

John sensed an opening. “Why doesn’t Paul like Ted?”

“Nobody likes Ted,” said Davey. He made firm eye contact with John as he said this, punctuating his point. “He’s a big jerk.”

“What does Ted do?”

“He’s always making fun of people, and playing tricks on people. He’s mean for no reason at all,” said Davey.

“What are some of the things he says about Paul?”

“I don’t know,” said Davey, rolling his eyes back and to his left, “stuff like how he’s a big queer. Jerky stuff. He makes fun of everyone that way.”

“Who was he making fun of that day?” asked John.

“Mostly Christina,” said Davey. “He’s always making fun of her.”

“You hate it when he makes fun of Christina?” asked John.

“Yeah, well not just her. I just hate it when he does that stuff. It’s so dumb.”

“What did he say about Christina that day?” John asked.

“He didn’t really say anything,” said Davey. He paused before he continued. “He and Nicholas were going to play a prank on her. She didn’t deserve it.”

“Is she pretty?”

“What?" Davey twisted his face into a scowl. “No way,” he continued, “she’s kinda gross.”

“Gross in what way?”

“Everyone says she eats her own snot,” said Davey. “She’s pretty fat, too. I don’t know why she does the gross things, but sometimes I feel sorry for her.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know,” said Davey. “She only started at our school last year, and she had this big rash on her face. She didn’t try to be anyone’s friend or anything, she mostly just stayed by herself, so I thought that the other kids should just leave her alone.”

“Don’t you think she would have been lonely if everyone ignored her?” asked John.

“I’m not saying they should ignore her,” said Davey. “But sometimes the kids will climb over chairs so they don’t have to sit next to her and stuff. Then they say she eats snot in the bathroom and whatever. I wouldn’t like, be her friend or anything, but I don’t do that stuff.”

“Do you sit next to her?”

“No, I sit with Paul,” said Davey.

“So what were Ted and Nick going to do to Christina?” asked John.

“Why do you do that?” asked Davey.

John suppressed his excitement. He had been hoping that Davey would ask him a direct question about the therapy. The first sign of engagement was notoriously difficult to achieve. “Do what?” asked John, raising his eyebrows.

“You call me David, and I told you that other kid’s name was Nicholas, but you called him Nick,” said Davey.

“Oh, did I?” asked John.

Davey pressed his lips together and regarded John.

John offered a better answer before Davey could fully shut down—“I refer to people with their less common names so that you can see things with a new perspective. Do you know what I mean?”

“I guess,” said Davey, unclenching his jaw.

“I’ll stop, if you’d like,” said John.

Davey nodded.

“So what were Ted and Nicholas going to do to Christina? Was it something with the mouse?” asked John. He had waited until Davey showed interest in his process before revealing that he was capable of producing deductions from Davey’s veiled information.

“Yeah,” admitted Davey. “They were going to put it in her lunchbox.”

“How did you find out?”

“I heard them talking near the cubbies,” said Davey.

“And you took the mouse out of the lunchbox and put it in Ted’s book?”

“Nope,” said Davey, smiling. “They never got it into her lunchbox.”

John smiled and quickly covered his mouth. “How did you get it?”

“I could smell it in Nicholas’s cubby. It was in a sandwich bag, behind his book. I said I had to go to the bathroom and then I found the mouse. It was covered in little white bugs. I dumped it out in Ted’s book and then squished it closed.”

“That must have smelled terrible,” said John.

“It did.” Davey beamed.

“So how did Paul get in trouble?”

Davey puffed out his cheeks and sighed. “He was right near Ted when he found the mouse. I told him not to laugh, but he pointed and laughed at Ted. When Mrs. Roberts came, Ted said that Paul did it. They started to take Paul down to the office and that’s when I told her it was me. I didn’t want Paul to get in trouble for what I did.”

“Your heart was in the right place,” said John.

“I guess,” said Davey, turning to look out the window.

“Seriously, Davey, it takes a lot of guts to stand up for someone who is being teased by a bully. It also takes a lot of guts to admit it was you instead of letting your friend get in trouble.”

“Yeah,” said Davey.

“You pretty much screwed up the most important part though,” said John.

Davey turned back to John and looked surprised.

“It’s not enough to do something for the right reason,” said John. “You also have to do the right thing.”

“What? Like tell?” asked Davey.

“Sometimes, yes. But not always,” said John.

“What then?”

“Well, when you heard that Ted and Nicholas were going to put the mouse in her lunchbox, you could have gone to them and told them not to do it, that it wasn’t right.”

“Yeah, then they would have said I was in love with Christina,” said Davey. “They would have told everyone.”

“Are you?”

“No,” said Davey. “No way. I don’t even like her.”

“Then what’s the harm? If you’re worried that someone like Ted will lie, then you’ve got an awful lot more worrying to do. People like Ted lie all the time. He could say you love Christina no matter what.”

“That’s true,” said Davey. “But just because I tell him not to put the mouse in there doesn’t mean he won’t do it.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” said John. “More often than not, people like Ted are cowards. They’re afraid of confrontation, and they’re usually pretty insecure about themselves. I bet if he found out that you knew what he was up to, it might discourage him from even trying it.”

“You think so?” asked Davey.

“I do,” said John.

“That would be good if I didn’t have to tell on him,” said Davey. “I hate doing that.”

“There are some things you should still tell about,” said John. “But I think you’ll know those when you see them.”

Davey grunted.

“Have you been sleeping okay?” asked John, risking a change of subject.

“Okay I guess,” said Davey.

“Any bad dreams?”

“Sometimes,” Davey said slowly.

“Could you tell me one?” asked John.

“I don’t know,” said Davey. “I don’t remember.”

“I’ll tell you one of mine if you want,” said John.

Davey nodded.

“I haven’t had this one in years, but it used to scare the bejesus out of me,” John said as he rubbed his temple. “I would wake up, and it would be a few minutes before sunrise. You know when you can see everything even though the sun isn’t quite up yet?”

“Yeah,” whispered Davey.

“I’d be about to get up, but then for some reason I would look across the room before I would swing my feet off the bed. In my old room there was a heating vent a couple of feet to the left of the door, and just for a second I would see a little face looking out from behind that vent.”

“Really?” asked Davey.

“Yeah, well it was a dream, but you couldn’t have convinced me of that at the time. That little baby was scary. It would back away just when I saw it. Sometimes I would try to scream, but nothing would come out.”

“Then what happened?” asked Davey.

“Most of the time that would be it,” said John. “I’d wake up and I would be sweating all over, but by then the baby didn’t seem as scary. But sometimes the dream would keep going, and I would be walking through the house and everywhere there was a vent, that baby would be looking out at me. I just knew it was waiting for me to stop looking so it could get out and come after me. It was just a baby, but I knew it could hurt me.”

“But you stopped having that dream?” asked Davey. His eyes had grown wide.

“Yeah, eventually,” said John. “I learned about lucid dreaming. Have you ever heard of that?”

Davey shook his head slowly.

“I’m not surprised. Nobody talks about it much anymore,” said John.

“What is it?” whispered Davey.

John took a sip of his water and coughed into his hand. “Tell me about your dream and then I’ll tell you about lucid dreaming. My throat is a little scratchy.”

“Well,” Davey paused. He concentrated hard for a second and then his face softened, from his brow then down to his chin, as he dropped into a trance. “Most of my dreams are about the giant man.”

John held very still; he knew not to interrupt.

“I used to think that I created him, but that was wrong,” said Davey. He spoke low, just above a whisper, and at a measured pace. “I thought that he was like the sideways-head thing, but he’s not. He’s been around almost forever, but he’s been asleep.”

John almost prompted, but then Davey continued—“Something has been waking him up, and he smells me. He’ll come to find me some day, and he can’t be stopped.”

John waited for several moments, but decided it was important to get as much information as possible before their hour was up. “What do you know about him?” asked John.

“He’s big,” said Davey. His eyes looked beyond the walls of John’s office—wide, but focused on nothing. “He’s bigger than anyone you’ve ever seen, and he can kill with a single swing of his hand. He hunts people like me—people who are sick, or … flawed,” said Davey. He swallowed a hard knot before continuing. “He started by eating his entire family. He ate their brains, and lungs, and muscles until he took their strength and smarts.”

John wished he had the capability to record Davey’s monologue. He was certain that nobody would believe that this nine-year-old had dropped into a self-hypnotic trance to talk about a cannibal monster who stalked his dreams.

“Why does he hunt you?” asked John.

“He has to,” said Davey. “His family was poisoned, so they killed themselves. Now he’s a wandering spirit.”

“But why you?”

“Because I have the disease, too. When I grow up, I’ll spread it,” said Davey.

“What disease?”

“Don’t know,” said Davey. “But he can smell it. When the power came and woke him up, his eyes opened in the dark, and he could smell me from miles and miles away.”

“Where is he now?”

“He rests during the day,” said Davey. “He’s underground somewhere, where it’s wet and smelly. But he stirs.”

“I thought he was coming for you?”

“He wants to. He can smell me.”

“Where is he?” asked John.

Davey’s brow knit with concentration—“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t see that.”

“You said he has been around forever,” John consulted his notes, “where did he come from?”

“He used to be a normal boy. His people were the people of the valley with squash and corn. They were from the man who created himself. Then he ate his family,” Davey said. “Now he eats bats and mice. He has to replace his body a little bit at a time…” Davey slowed as he trailed off.

“You said you used to think you created him,” said John. “Why did you think that?”

“Because he was born in the Stage of Possibilities. I thought he was from my dream, because maybe I stayed up too late and imagined him into possibility,” said Davey. “But he moved into the Stage of the Hunger long before I was born. Now he’s coming into the Stage of the Hunt.”

“Can you tell me what he looks like?” asked John.

“Tsi-noo,” said Davey.

“Pardon?” asked John.

“Odzihozo, Tsi-noo,” Davey said in a low, guttural tone. “Tsi-noo,” he repeated again. The boy squeezed his eyes shut and thrashed his head, sending out hot tears in small arcs.

“What does that mean?” asked John. “Can you tell me what it means?”

Davey’s eyes flew open and he clamped his jaw shut. He wiped his eyes with the back of his arm arm turned his attention to the doctor. “What?” he asked.

“Can you tell me what Tsi-Noo means?” John asked.

“I don’t know,” said Davey, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head.

“You were saying Tsi-noo,” said John.

Davey looked around, confused. “I don’t know,” he said.

John’s clock dinged twice, and Davey pushed away from the leather chair.

“Can you do me a favor for next time?” asked John.

“Okay,” said Davey.

“When you wake up in the morning, can you write whatever you can remember from your dreams?”

Davey’s face dropped into a frown. “Do I have to?”

“I would appreciate it,” said John. “I’ll tell you about lucid dreaming next time you come in.”

“Okay,” Davey shrugged again, uninterested.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mike

MIKE PULLED INTO THE PARKING LOT of the medical center and flipped his visor down to check his hair. The call from his old friend took him by surprise, and he drove for twenty-five minutes before realizing he hadn’t showered or shaved in days. Instead of turning around to go home and clean up, he stopped at a convenience store and picked up a travel-sized stick of deodorant and tube of toothpaste. After a bum-shower in the bathroom, he got back on the road and arrived at the office just five minutes after eleven o’clock.

Greasy, but presentable, he thought.

Mike climbed out of the car and walked up to the building. He squinted against the bright sun, and took a deep breath of the fragrant apple blossoms. Spring had always been Mike’s favorite time of year, but this spring had been ruined by his legal troubles. He slumped as he exhaled, and made his way up the steps.

“I’m here for Ken Stuart,” he told the receptionist.

“Is Dr. Stuart expecting you?” she asked, flipping open the doctor’s calendar.

“Dr. Markey,” said Mike, reaching to straighten his tie and then realizing he wore a sweatshirt. “Eleven o’clock consult.”

“He’s running a bit behind,” said the receptionist. “Would you care to take a seat?”

“If you could show me to his office?” said Mike. “I’ll wait there.”

“Well,” she said. “He didn’t leave me any…” she trailed off.

“Mike!” said Dr. Stuart, emerging from the hall behind the desk.

“Hey Ken,” said Mike.

“Come on around,” he waved Mike towards the door. “Nothing until after lunch, right Jules?”

The receptionist nodded.

“Great,” said Ken. “Emergencies only, then. We’ve got a tough one to figure out.”

“Certainly,” said Jules.

* * *

KEN PULLED UP TWO CHAIRS to his desk and spread out test results. On the screen of his computer, more results were arrayed. Mike studied silently for twenty minutes before asking his first question.

“How come you haven’t sent these out for a consultation?” asked Mike.

“I did,” said Ken. “Sent them to your firm, and asked for you specifically. That’s when I found out you were on hiatus.”

“That’s a nice way for them to put it,” said Mike, smirking. “More like shit-canned without pay until they could figure out what to do with me.”

“What happened?” asked Ken.

“Bad stuff with a side thing I was doing,” said Mike. “Nothing to do with my work, but they’re afraid I’ll get convicted of something and they don’t want any impropriety scandal. So what was their conclusion about the results?”

“How about you tell me what you think first?” asked Ken.

“Well,” Mike said rubbing his temple. “It’s nothing that has been classified, I can tell you that. It’s great you’ve got samples from the mom and dad, but why only sperm from dad?”

“He’s dead,” said Ken. “Had a vasectomy before he kicked, so they banked some.”

“And what’s this with mom?” Mike pointed at an anomaly on Melanie’s results.

“Uh, don’t know. Probably got contaminated. I’m going to have her retested,” said Ken. “Do you want to see some of the casework?”

“In a second,” said Mike. “Not to be crass, but this is my favorite part.”

“Okay,” said Ken.

“I’m going to say…” Mike tapped a page of results with his finger and hummed a little. “Clumsy.”

“Wow,” said Ken. “That’s amazing. How did you know?”

“It’s a gift,” Mike smiled. “No, seriously, none of these results show any of the markers I would expect. So he clearly isn’t dying of cancer. Plus, you don’t have any signs of delayed development here. If anything, I’d say he’s an early bloomer.”

“Right again,” said Ken.

“So it had to be an external indicator—something big enough to get him to you. Did someone think he was abused or something? I saw another case where the kid was reported as an abuse victim, but then they just figured out he couldn’t keep his feet under him.”

“No, he came in for a punctured lung that was supposed to be from a fall. But his fall shouldn’t have caused what I was seeing,” said Dr. Stuart.

“Cystic Fibrosis? Maybe Marfan syndrome?” asked Mike. He flipped through a couple of pages. “No, can’t be.”

“Yeah, no, we ruled out both of those right away," said Ken. “But you already told me that. Nothing that’s been classified, remember?”

“I thought maybe I’d missed something,” said Mike. “Not as much confidence as I used to have.”

“Happens to the best of us,” said Ken. “So, have any other ideas?”

“Well, if it’s something nobody has seen, then he’s a clean slate, right? How bad are the symptoms? Any organs misfiring?”

“Symptoms aren’t bad—he’s clumsy sometimes, early puberty, gets these weird chalky marks on him, especially on his neck.”

“Weird,” said Mike, looking towards the window.

“Yeah, right? What else… He’s really smart, almost too smart for his age. Great memory, sight, hearing, all above average. He’s quite an athlete, too. Great kid, you should meet them. Him and his mom.”

“No thanks,” said Mike. “I don’t know how you can do that. It would break my heart if I had to think of all these crazy diseases belonging to actual humans. I’ll leave that to you.”

“I hear you,” said Ken. “It gets easier over time, but not much.”

“So I’d get it published, see if anyone else is seeing the same thing, and then just treat the symptoms. You know, he’s got some unusual markers here, looks like they’re from the dad, but who knows, maybe you’re chasing ghosts. You have him with a shrink?”

“Yeah, he started with John Tooley a few weeks ago,” said Ken.

Mike nodded. “Wish there was something more I could tell you.”

They sat silent for a few moments.

“You ready for some lunch?” asked Ken.

“Absolutely.”

* * *

DR. KEN STUART LED MIKE a few buildings down from his office to a steak house. They kept the conversation light while they walked down the block, in deference to the beautiful day. They joked about the weather and talked about old friends until they had settled in the privacy of a booth with menus tilted between them.

“So how long are you out of a job—do you know?” Ken asked, trying to sound casual.

“Who knows,” said Mike. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s cool,” said Ken.

“I miss working—trying to combine the paranormal with my genetic research. That was my passion, you know? I really think I’m on to something, but now I can’t even work on it if I wanted to.”

“Why’s that?” asked Ken. “Just because of the investigation and the lawsuits?”

“That’s not the half of it,” Mike explained. “Our last case, the one where Gary died, was for this engineer guy, and he made me sign all these long documents. Turns out I was handing over my intellectual property if anything went wrong. I didn’t even realize that at the time, but when the shit hit the fan, I lost my rights to even work on anything combining technology with paranormal investigation.”

“Wow,” said Ken.

“Yeah. But seriously, let’s change the subject,” said Mike.

“No problem.”

“You know what’s weird? When I first got into paranormal research I ran into something that reminds me of your kid,” said Mike.

“My kid?”

“You know, the clumsy kid.”

“Oh sure,” said Ken, realizing that Mike was referring to Davey Hunter.

Their waiter approached as they talked.

“I studied the history of genetics for a while. Before there was solid genetic theory, there were some surprising myths that had interesting scientific components wrapped into them. Hi there,” Mike said, turning to the waiter. “What do you have on draft?”

The waiter looked at the ceiling and turned his head to the side as he recited, “Shipyard, Guinness, Bud.”

“Let me get a Guinness,” said Mike. “Ken?”

“Diet coke?” asked Ken.

“Ready to order?” the waiter asked.

“Give us a few,” said Mike. “Where was I?”

“Ordering a liquid lunch?” smiled Ken. He liked catching up with Mike. It gave them both a chance to talk like they did when they were younger—before they had careers and responsibilities.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “You’re buying right?” he asked, laughing. “Anyway, if you went back a couple thousand years, there were some sophisticated theories about how groups maintained their genetic health.”

“Really?” asked Ken. “I thought natural selection was a silent partner.”

“It was amongst the Romans or Greeks,” Mike explained. “What I’m talking about you’d have to go to more tribal areas. Away from big culture. Like Africa or North America—away from Europe, South America, or Asia, where people were forming big super-colonies. The tribal people had pretty interesting practices; eskimos too—they had the same ideas.”

“What kind of ideas?” asked Ken.

“Well, like beached whales, or dolphins. You’ve heard of mass strandings?” asked Mike.

“I guess,” said Ken. “You mean when lots of dolphins all beach themselves at the same time?”

“Exactly,” said Mike. “Marine biologists have tons of theories, but none very satisfactory. They’ll say things like there was a disturbance in the magnetic field, or the animals can’t see a slowly sloping beach or something. They want to blame the environment for everything, but animals have always needed to quickly adapt to changing environments. All those theories sound like a bunch of bullshit. Way back, tribal people displayed the same behaviors.”

The waiter returned with their drinks. Mike took a long sip of his beer and wiped the foam from his stubble with his open hand.

“Ready to order?” asked the waiter.

Mike took another sip of his beer and pointed to Ken.

“I’ll get the burger with cheddar, medium, and house fries,” said Ken.

“Sir?” the waiter turned to Mike.

“Fish and chips, the onion soup, and the Greek salad,” said Mike. “Lots of bread with the salad, please.”

The waiter retreated, still writing on his pad.

“Hungry?” asked Ken.

“You have no idea,” said Mike. “So these whales and dolphins. There are a bunch of oral histories among indigenous North Americans talking about the same thing with people.”

“Really?” asked Ken. “Mass suicides? Like the Heaven’s Gate cult, or Jim Jones, or something?”

“Yeah,” said Mike, “mass suicide. And the reason they did it was because they knew that their genes were polluted. If the whole tribe had the same mutation, they’d figure it out. They knew that if any of them lived to breed, they would pass it around until the whole race would be doomed.”

“How could they know that?” asked Ken.

“It was like a highly specialized instinct. People who believe in it think that we don’t have a need for this instinct anymore because the population of man is thriving, but if you look at some of the marine mammals, they’re right on the hairy edge of survival all the time. If there was a mutation that shortened the lifespan, or caused the offspring to fail to thrive, they’d be sunk, so to speak. So when a group evolves with a trait like that, it carries with it this trigger. Get enough individuals together who all have the same trigger, and they get this uncontrollable urge to commit group suicide,” explained Mike.

“I think I get it,” said Ken, “but it seems a little far fetched.”

“Is it really though?” asked Mike, sipping his beer. “Think about the complexity of other mechanisms that have evolved. There are some really intricate feedback loops and dependencies there. If we didn’t have any medicine and our population was really small, you’d need ways to ensure that truly worthy individuals breed. Something above simple survival of the fittest.”

“Wouldn’t that just be handled case-by-case?” suggested Ken. “Some guy is sickly, so no woman will mate with him?”

“True enough, but there are different kinds of mutations. You’ve got lethal mutations, loss-of-function, gain-of-function, dominant negative. Like your Marfan we were talking about before. What if there’s a type of mutation that goes unnoticed, or even becomes an attractor? You’ve heard of epigenetics?”

“Sounds familiar,” said Ken. “Remind me.”

“Epigenetics is when an environmental change influences the way a gene is expressed,” said Mike.

Ken raised his eyebrows.

“I’ll give you an example: you could be perfectly healthy, but you carry a gene for diabetes. You have one kid, and everything is fine. But then you go through a period of famine before you father your second kid. Your kids could have nearly identical DNA, but the famine flipped on the gene for the diabetes, so your second kid has it and your first never has a problem.”

“Could that happen?” asked Ken.

“Some studies link environmental effects to life expectancy of grandchildren,” said Mike.

“Grandchildren? That’s unreal,” said Ken.

“I know, right?" Mike sat back and finished his beer.

“So why does that remind you of my case?” Ken waved back towards his office building.

“Oh, yeah,” said Mike, reinvigorated. “That’s the most interesting part,” he hunched his shoulders and dove back into his narrative. “Along with these group suicides, you also get the rogues.” He twirled his fingers in the air. “A rogue mutation produces an individual who survives the mass suicide.”

“To what purpose? Isn’t that individual also infected?”

“Yes, but he never breeds. He prunes the dead branches of the genetic tree,” said Mike.

“Say what?” said Ken, surprised.

“This creature is born just to weed out the weak. A killer who’s skimming shallow end of the gene pool. Once every thousand generations a killer is born, and he’s somehow uniquely able to seek and destroy all the sick and weak members of his species. Cool, huh?”

“I guess,” said Ken. “So this thing would kill its own species. I’ve heard of that with chimps, killing rival troupes and things. Or lions that take over a pride will kill all the cubs.”

“Almost like that, but not exactly. Those are examples of animals who kill to increase the propagation of their own genes. The rogue is non-breeding. It acts on behalf of the whole species by only killing individuals with a genetic defect or communicable disease.”

“Weird,” said Ken. “But what benefit is there to the individual?”

“None,” said Mike. “It’s more like a hive mentality in that way. Doing the thing that’s best for the whole species so they don’t go extinct. It’s like a one-in-a-billion creature. It would only come out in the most dire of circumstances.”

“And you think that my patient is one of these rogue mutations?” asked Ken. “I don’t get it.”

“Nope, not at all,” said Mike. “The opposite, in fact.” He placed his empty beer glass near the edge of the table, to attract the attention of the waiter. “What have you told me about this kid? He’s good at sports, he’s developing early, he’s smart with a great memory, and he’s got heightened senses. This kid could be the perfect extinction vector. That would make him the target of the rogue.”

Ken chuckled at the assertion—“How so?”

“Take a look at the results when you get back to your desk. Look at the abnormalities I circled in his dad’s results and compare those to your kid. They’re nearly identical, and it’s nothing I’ve ever seen before. Then glance at what you thought was contamination in the mom’s sample. Why did everyone assume it’s a contamination?”

“Because it’s so out of place, and its clearly a duplicate from Davey’s results,” said Ken.

“Right,” said Mike. “But what if it’s not? What if the kid somehow infected his mom with that genome.”

“Like a retrovirus? Like HIV?”

“Exactly,” agreed Mike. “But this abnormality is accompanied by early puberty, above average intelligence and senses—so he’s better able to survive and thrive—likability, and, best of all, situational clumsiness.” Mike ticked off the attributes on his fingers.

“Why does the clumsiness help the disease?” asked Ken.

“Imagine that this thing can spread through blood contact. What better way to gain blood contact than a clumsy kid? People will sometimes shy away from a bleeding adult, but everyone runs to help a bleeding kid,” said Mike.

“That’s quite a theory,” said Ken. “So if I’ve got this straight, then this all starts with a terrible genetic defect that a whole group of people inherits.”

“Yup,” said Mike, “the whole tribe has it.”

“And they all commit suicide because they somehow realize that their existence threatens the whole species. But one of them survives, and he’s the perfect killer.”

“That’s right,” said Mike.

“But there’s also a kid. He’s a perfect extinction vector and the perfect killer wants to hunt the kid down?” asked Ken.

“Makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective,” said Mike.

Ken laughed. “How’s that?” he asked.

“Well, you’ve got to test the viability of the species somehow,” explained Mike. “Otherwise we’re just taking up space when the crows, or snakes, or trees should be taking over. You’ve got to think of the whole ecosystem as one big machine. Dinosaurs go and mammals come up. It’s all one big optimization. You can’t narrow your focus on just one species without thinking about what’s optimal for the whole planet. So, you get this perfect disease and a perfect cure and let them battle it out.”

Ken propped up his chin with his hand.

“What do you think?” asked Mike as the waiter brought over two plates of food.

“Two things,” said Ken. “First, you should stop drinking on an empty stomach. Second, I’m never letting you near any of my patients.”

The men laughed and dug into their food.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Crooked Tree - Present Day

THOUGHT RETURNED TO CROOKED TREE FIRST. His body knew instinctively to not breathe. Using the last energy in his muscles, he could draw a deep breath and flood his lungs with fresh oxygen, but that would bring quick death. His cells, confronted with a fresh supply of fuel after having been deprived so long, would explode—tearing themselves apart. He would die in a trillion tiny suicides.

None of that occurred consciously to Crooked Tree. His body handled the process of waking up, sipping fuel from the fresh air leaking into the cave, automatically. Crooked Tree’s ancient synapses awoke thinking only of the boy. This boy was more dangerous than any of his previous conquests. The boy had the power to destroy all families; his sickness would spread like raging fire.

As quickly as his consciousness returned, it began to fade. Crooked Tree drifted back to sleep.

* * *

THE NEXT TIME CROOKED TREE WOKE, almost a week later, he noted that his lungs had moved. He reached out with his mind and tried to sense the boy. It was difficult to locate his prey. The world around him seemed overcrowded with souls, packed into every corner. Sifting through all the competing voices, trying to find one particular boy, seemed too complex. He lay perfectly motionless—his body still recovering from its long slumber—when he felt his heart beat for the first time since his awakening. Fresh energy coursed through his core and then died away.

As his new vitality faded away, Crooked Tree realized his mistake. He couldn’t find the boy again because he had regained too much power. His perception had recovered to the point where he was sensing all the signals, not just the strongest. With his focus narrowed, trying to not reach out, he once again sensed the boy. His prey was asleep, dreaming of him, and far away—farther than Crooked Tree had ever roamed.

If Crooked Tree had regained control of his face, his next realization would have made him smile: the boy was undeveloped. His infection was immature, and not yet capable of spreading easily. This would give Crooked Tree time to find the boy and eliminate him before his disease could reach its full potential.

He felt his energy once again seeping away as his consciousness washed away.

* * *

CROOKED TREE SAT UPRIGHT and gasped, sucking in an enormous volume of air. He had felt minor bursts of energy since the last time he had been awake, but he had ignored them, sleeping and recovering. This time the power surge was too much, and although the air burned his lungs, he was alive.

He tried to blink in the near darkness, but one eyelid was sealed shut and the other glued open against a paper-dry cornea. His desiccated limbs creaked as he spun his body to find the source of the light. Over time, the rocks sealing his tomb had shifted or ground away, and he had a tiny window on dim stars, just big enough to fit his fist.

While he considered the hole, the starlight was blotted for a moment as a tiny bat streaked through the hole to return to its roost. His hand shot out on its own and plucked the squeaking creature from the air. He brought its flapping form up to his unmoving, unblinking eye and then scraped his bony thumb across its tiny neck, decapitating the little mammal with his slow swipe.

He caught the little squirt of blood in his open mouth and felt the liquid spread through his awaiting tissue.

His eye blinked twice and he spotted another bat swopping into the cave.

Almost half the colony fell victim to Crooked Tree that night before he returned to sleep in his narrow chamber.

* * *

WHEN CROOKED TREE AWOKE for the fourth time, he knew that this would be the night of his escape. He wasted no time on bats, and instead began to claw at the rocks around the small patch of starlight. By midnight he estimated that he might just barely fit through the opening, but he was too tired to try. Instead, he positioned himself at the mouth of the cave and snatched the last few bats brave enough to attempt refuge in the cave.

While he waited for his flying refreshments, Crooked Tree reached out and attempted to sense the boy. The boy’s thoughts were elusive, as if he had learned how to disguise his mind amongst the masses, but eventually Crooked Tree was able to hone in on him. Crooked Tree was dismayed to find that the boy had been developing rapidly; closer to outbreak than Crooked Tree would have imagined.

He mustered his strength and pulled himself through the hole, breathing plentiful fresh air and turning his face to the sky.

How many winters does it take for the stars to change? Crooked Tree wondered as he beheld the sky.

The effect was disorienting: not only had some of the stars moved, but hundreds were missing. It took him several deep breaths to realize the issue. Even though the moon had set, the sky looked as bright as if the moon were nearly full. In several directions the horizon glowed, as if giant fires burned. When he closed his eyes, Crooked Tree realized that the directions with the most light coincided with places where he sensed multitudes of human minds. He wondered again how long he had been unconscious in the cave.

He crossed the small clearing and compared the landscape to his memory. Rocks had tumbled from the cliff, leaving the clearing littered with their debris. Some of that he attributed to the attempts to wall him into the cave, but others were too big to have been influenced by human hands.

A breeze lofted up from the valley and Crooked Tree tilted his head back to receive the information it carried. He gagged on the air, it was tainted with foreign, acrid smells. Under the local noises, far in the distance, he detected a rhythmic hissing sound, droning like rushing water.

Reducing himself to shallow, cautious breaths, he stepped through the thick bushes into the forest. Forced to duck and step over crowded limbs, Crooked Tree noted how dense and tangled the forest had become. The inhabitants were different as well—more rodents and prey compared to apex predators. He tilted his head down and listened to them scurry away from his unusual presence. He was glad to find a path that wound through the trees, but still had to hunch over to account for his height.

Moving downhill at an even pace, Crooked Tree made his way to the river while stretching his muscles and cracking his joints. Each breath helped him stand taller. At the river’s edge he knelt and lowered his face to the deep pool carved off the main current in the lee of a rock. The water’s surface bubbled and foamed with foul-smelling contamination, but his thirst overpowered his revulsion. He drank through pursed lips, sipping slowly so as not to overwhelm his tight knot of a stomach.

He drank for hours, pulling in a tiny amount of water with each sip and letting it find its way to his dehydrated extremities. He took long breaks from drinking, propping himself up against the rock and memorizing the new patterns of stars through the gaps in the canopy. Many of the trees were shorn and re-grown, several feet from the tops. Others were dead and leafless, waiting for the next strong breeze to topple them. Crooked Tree wondered what had visited all this devastation on the valley he had once known so well.

When he stood again, thirst completely slaked, he felt firm and plump. He flexed his naked muscles and admired his own form in the dim light. Crooked Tree cocked his head and listened for the hissing he had heard from the from the clearing. It was there, but greatly filtered by the trees and leaves. He was anxious to determine the source of the noise, but it emanated from the other side of river in front of him. Upstream from this point he could find a spot where he could leap across the running water, but that wouldn’t solve his entire problem.

Crooked Tree knew the boy he sought lived east, far east of this valley, and running through the center was a river he could not hope to cross. He had traversed the river before, when he was a boy, but that was when he was human and not afraid of the consequences of submerging his body in rushing water. He picked his way south along the riverbank as he considered his problem. The big river ran as far north and south as he had ever ventured, and although he knew there must be headwaters somewhere, he couldn’t gauge how far that would take him astray from his quarry.

Hundreds of paces south from where he drank, Crooked Tree climbed a small hill and found a location where the river narrowed to squeeze between walls of rock. He estimated the distance and backed away from the edge, preparing to make the leap. Just as he prepared to run, a grinding, hissing sound caught his attention to the south. Dropping to a crouch and focusing all his senses towards the sound, Crooked Tree discovered something completely unexpected. A light flickered, moving through the woods faster than a human could run. But he sensed a human associated with the light. The sound, light, and person moved from left to right and he tracked the presence until it disappeared to the west.

He stalked towards the spot where the thing had passed. As he neared the trail of the thing, he detected its odor—the same foul-smelling mixture he had whiffed earlier. He ascended a mound of gravel and found himself on a hard, gray surface, etched with countless black streaks, and bisected with both a solid and a dashed yellow line. It was clearly the hard-packed path of a huge entity. Crooked Tree guessed immediately that the trail had been formed to provide a path for a human conveyance, and he marveled at the work it must have taken to create such a trail. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the trail continued unbroken over the river he had been following.

He moved tentatively on to the bridge, bouncing to ensure its stability before committing his weight to the span. Dropping to all fours, ready to pounce for the opposite shore, he stalked across the bridge. When he had reached the other side, he heard the same hissing behind him. The lights followed almost immediately. The thing moved at a blinding speed. Crooked Tree whipped his head around and leapt into the boughs of an overhanging tree just as the lights swept over his position.

Crooked Tree held his breath as he watched the giant thing streak past on the trail below. The smell it left on the wind was disgusting, but Crooked Tree had become accustomed enough to refrain from coughing. Once it passed he dropped back to the hard surface and laid his hand on the tracks. He could feel the vibrations of the thing moving away, and felt no more smelly things coming his way. He decided to keep to the hard-packed trail. It was nearly straight, and provided enough headroom for him to run comfortably.

He covered several miles, stopping only to creep off into the woods occasionally to find his bearings. Once away from the occasional interruption of the fast-moving things, he could meditate and pinpoint the boy’s location to be sure he was moving in the right direction. Soon, his path was joined with a high strand, stretched from pole to pole. Crooked Tree’s mouth hung open as he regarded these bizarre artifacts created during his long slumber.

Eventually, his trail was broken by another similar trail, running perpendicular. Crooked Tree evaluated the merits of the new possibilities, but decided to continue straight. The landscape changed as his path wound down a hill and the trees on either side opened up to patches of grassland. He slowed to a walk and considered the animals trapped behind sharp wire fences, draped from post to post. Crooked Tree slowed even more at the first dwelling he encountered. Reaching out with his senses he established that the inhabitants were fast asleep. His ability to be surprised was quickly waning. By the third encampment he passed, Crooked Tree moved casually. He ignored the foreign sights and smells and kept his focus on the boy.

As he approached a nearby cluster of people, Crooked Tree found it difficult to maintain his focus on the boy’s distant mind. He sensed grave, infectious diseases, and suboptimal lineage in the people around him and wondered why they survived in this world. He managed to ignore them while they were still in the distance, but once he was surrounded by distractions, he found it impossible to continue his hunt.

To the north, a burning infection called to him. He knew that if he could just snuff this beckoning, he would have a better chance of resuming his quest. He took a deep breath, confirming that the person was in his vicinity, and changed his direction to seek and eliminate the abomination which clouded his senses.

Off the hard-packed trail, over a fence, and on the other side of a small hill, Crooked Tree found a two-story dwelling, dark beneath tall oak trees. The swift-moving animals, like giant deer, penned inside the fence were unfamiliar to Crooked Tree, but he disregarded them as they sprinted off into the night. He stepped easily over another fence and found himself in a small yard adjacent to the house. Creeping slowly to the nearest window, he knelt down to peer inside. Strange angles met his eyes, but he recognized these new things as works of man. Circling the building, navigating over fences and around bushes, he surveyed the lower floor completely, but saw no sign of inhabitants. The windows of the second floor were just out of range of his curiosity.

Finding no obvious entrance, Crooked Tree laid his palm across several mullioned panes and pressed. The window creaked and buckled under his pressure, shooting a jagged crack from top to bottom of the glass. Its snap startled Crooked Tree. He removed his hand and studied the transparent surface. To his left, a small porch led to the kitchen door. He lowered his face to the boards and studied the wear of thousands of tracks. He deduced the purpose of the door and pressed his hand against the worn brass door-handle.

The wood snapped and splintered, swinging the heavy door inward and revealing a rectangular portal into the house. Crooked Tree nodded to himself, absorbing these new details as easily as he had rehydrated earlier. He hunched into a crouch and moved inside the house, experiencing the new sights and smells as the floor bowed under his weight. As he made his way down the center hallway, shoulders brushing the walls on either side, he heard labored breathing from the second floor.

His mind locked on the disease that had drawn him to this place, but another sound suddenly overshadowed the heavy wheezing—tiny claws chattered across a hard floor above him, padded down the upstairs hall, and revealed diminutive, yipping dog at the top of the stairs. Crooked Tree smiled at the miniature hunter, bouncing and barking above him.

When the dog saw that Crooked Tree refused to flee, it bounded down the stairs. Before it could begin its futile attack, Crooked Tree reached out and swatted it, sending the dog flying towards the banister uprights. The dog flopped down the stairs, rolling and squealing, its front paws waving frantically while its hind legs stretched taught, but useless. The dog’s back had broken.

Crooked Tree silenced the dog’s screams with his foot as he ascended. The staircase, two hundred years old but thousands of years younger than the giant who climbed them, groaned and sagged with his weight. At the top of the stairs, Crooked Tree sat on his heels, uncomfortably crowded by the low farmhouse ceilings. He turned his head and located his target. With a few sliding steps he reached the half-open door of the inhabitant.

“Oh, good lord,” gasped the gaunt man tucked in to the bed.

Crooked Tree smiled. He had no need for words to understand the sentiment. A wave of urine smell crashed through the room as the man panicked.

“Are you an angel?” the dying man whispered at the naked mammoth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Davey

“SERIOUSLY, I JUST FELT A DROP!” Davey exclaimed.

“Oh shut up,” said Paul. “You probably just spit on yourself.”

They pushed themselves on the swings with their feet, achieving only tiny arcs. At the other side of the park, Paul’s brother, Kris, sat in a small circle with his friends, passing a joint one direction and a basketball in the other.

“If we wait for it to be completely raining, then we’ll be all wet by the time we get back to your house,” argued Davey.

“My mom said it wasn’t going to rain at all,” said Paul. “Besides, if I get home before my brother then my mom is going to be pissed at him. Then he’ll get pissed at me. That’s the last thing I need.”

“He probably wants to go too,” Davey waved in Kris’s direction. “He’s not going to want to get his pot all wet.”

Paul waved a hand towards Davey, trying to smack him on the shoulder, but missing and hitting the heavy chain of the swing. “Ow!” he yelled. “Don’t talk about him smoking anything. If he knows you’re talking about that he’ll kill you.”

“Whatever,” said Davey. “If he cared he wouldn’t be doing it right out in the open like this.”

“Just don’t say anything,” said Paul.

“What’s with you? We should go play that game at your house. It’s not even fair. My mom won’t let me have it, and you won’t let me play it at your house. What the hell?” asked Davey.

“You just can’t,” said Paul. “I’ll get in trouble.”

“How come?”

“My mom doesn’t want me to hang out with you right now,” Paul admitted after they had swung back and forth, passing each other several times.

“What? Why?” asked Davey. “Sophie loves me. Who doesn’t?”

“She said you’re a bad influence,” said Paul. He dragged his feet in the dirt, skidding to a halt.

“Me?” asked Davey. “How am I a bad influence?”

“I don’t know,” said Paul. He stood up from the swing.

“She must have said something,” Davey insisted, he rose and followed Paul in a slow walk across the playground.

“Well, there was that day you got hurt ‘cause we were away from the school. Then, the other day when I got in trouble because you put a mouse in Ted’s book.”

“You didn’t get in trouble,” said Davey. “I got in trouble.”

“My mom heard about it though, and she figured I got in trouble because of you. I almost did, you know.”

“That one wasn’t even my fault,” said Davey.

“Whatever,” said Paul. “She thinks it was…” he trailed off.

Davey stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, unconsciously imitating Paul. He kicked a big rock and it bounced off the metal pole of the jungle gym. A piece of the brittle rock snapped off and ricocheted up, hitting Paul in the arm.

“Ow,” said Paul, rubbing his arm. He looked up at Davey with accusing eyes.

“That was an accident,” Davey said.

Paul sat down on the edge of a big spinning platform they had named the Barf Machine on a sunnier day. Davey gave it a small push and plopped down next to Paul.

“So what? I’m not even allowed at your house anymore?” he asked.

“Just for a while, she said.” Paul frowned.

“But you’re leaving in a couple of weeks for California,” said Davey. “Then we won’t even see each other until like August.”

“I know,” said Paul. “We can still hang out at school though.”

“We only have three days left,” said Davey. “Two and a half, because Wednesday is early-release.”

They took turns pushing gently, keeping a constant, slow spin on the platform. Davey plowed into Paul’s shoulder when the platform came to a sudden halt.

“Hey bro, let’s go,” said Kris. Just a few years older than Paul and Davey, he towered over them.

“I thought you were going to hang out for a while,” said Paul with the slightest hint of whine in his voice.

“Nope,” said Kris. “Gotta get back.”

Davey and Paul stood up from the platform.

“Not you,” Kris said, pointing at Davey. “Mom doesn’t like you,” he sneered.

“Yeah, I know,” Davey looked Kris in the eye.

Kris nodded, warming up to Davey’s strength. “You be alright getting home?” he asked.

“Yup,” said Davey. “See ya, Paul,” he punched Paul lightly on the shoulder. Davey turned from the brothers and set off towards his house. He lived only a block away from the playground and was allowed to come to meet Paul if Kris was going to be around too.

Davey held his head up until he rounded the corner and glanced back to see that Paul and Kris had disappeared from view. When he was sure he was alone, he sat down hard on the curb and propped his chin up with his palms. The weekend before the end of the school year would normally thrill him, but this year it brought a sense of loss.

His mom had signed him up for catcher’s camp every morning, and now he couldn’t go to Paul’s house in the afternoon. His afternoon would consist of hours trapped in educational summer programs.

Might as well be summer school, he thought, scowling.

He imagined a typical day and sunk further into depression. His mom would mandate breakfast at home, which meant he would have to get up even earlier than usual. Dressed in his baseball clothes, she would drop him off at the practice field, rain or shine, and he would move through perfect summer days executing drills, sucking the life out of a game he was supposed to love.

When Davey played sports, he would get lost in the game, enjoying every second. Practice was the heavy price he had to pay. Coaches always focused their attention on moving the group forward, but Davey excelled at sports and would spend the days repeating maneuvers he had nearly perfected. He wasn’t a showoff, so he didn’t anticipate the praise the practices would surely bring. Instead, Davey’s quiet shyness meant he was in store for weeks of blushing discomfort.

Davey sat up straight, surprised by a thought echoing up from the back of his head unlike his normal thoughts: I won’t have to play baseball too long, it said, he’ll come for me soon. Davey shuddered in the warm June sun. He stood slowly, brushing off the back of his pants, suddenly unsure if the voice had come from inside his head after all.

Davey ran home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Mike

THE MIDDAY SUN SEEPED IN around the edges of the blankets covering the windows. Mike had never been very good at home improvement. The quilts and comforters were held in place by yards of duct tape, struggling to adhere to the walls. He couldn’t remember committing this vandalous act of decor, but he resonated with the sentiment. The bright light of the day didn’t serve any purpose other than to remind him of his problems.

With no income and mounting debt, he would lose his small house soon. His company had stretched his forced hiatus another week; still waiting on sufficient cause to fire him outright. Mike pushed himself up from the couch and scratched the top of his head. Down the hall the bathroom called. He shuffled by his unused bedroom and noted how clean it looked compared to the rest of the house. His typical day involved watching television until he was hungry or drunk enough to make a meal of popcorn, rice, or noodle soup. He had no use for the formality of clean sheets and pillows, preferring to spend his night dozing so he wouldn’t feel the letdown of nothing to do in the morning.

He returned to the living room just as the local newscaster appeared in the commercial break of the morning game shows with a news flash—“Police have responded to this New Hampshire home this morning based on a distressed call from a neighbor.” She glanced back over her shoulder at the pleasant two-story cape that served as her backdrop. “Find out what they discovered. That and your weekend forecast, all in our noon report.”

Mike propped his arm on the couch cushions and let his eyelids sink halfway, thinking he could use another short nap before breakfast. His eyes had nearly closed when curiosity fluttered them back open. In the background of the reporter’s shot, a nicely dressed young man with glasses appeared briefly in the distance. Mike couldn’t be sure, but he thought there was a chance that the guy had been Leslie’s producer. Mike searched for the remote control. He hadn’t seen the young producer since the incident at Bill’s house, and he didn’t even know the guy’s name, but he flipped to Leslie’s channel to be sure. He was just in time to find Leslie delivering a more lengthy broadcast from the same scene.

“Authorities aren’t commenting on exactly what they found inside this quiet country house,” she informed her viewers, “except to say that the owner and sole inhabitant appears to have been the victim of foul play." She tilted her head and frowned slightly, letting the public know that she disapproved of murder.

“A few minutes ago, we had a chance to ask the officer in charge a few questions,” she continued.

The shot cut away to a medium-sized, plump man wearing the uniform of New Hampshire state police. “We don’t have any details yet except to say that we have indeed found evidence of a break-in, and there appears to have been a struggle. We’ll have more information in the coming hours,” he assured the camera.

Just after the officer finished his statement, but before the live shot of Leslie returned, the camera panned down as the cameraman moved away. Mike’s thumb stabbed at the remote control, pausing the image. His lips parted as he beheld the officer’s feet, shown on TV because of a bad edit by the local station. Just to the left of the officer’s scuffed shoe, Mike spotted a giant footprint in the loose dirt. The similarity to the footprint he had found on his hike was unmistakable. He stared at the footprint for another few seconds and then started the video again, noting every detail. Eventually, Leslie described the town of the attack, but not the exact location.

Mike recognized the town name: East Motton. He had driven by that very town just days before, on his way back from his hike. He replayed the newscast again, picking out pertinent details and trying to discern visual landmarks from Leslie’s brief on-camera monologue. Rubbing his forehead, Mike jumped up and trotted to the kitchen to fetch a pencil and paper. He watched the story a third time, writing down the facts he would need. When he was finished, he turned off the TV for the first time in days and propped his notepad up against the front door. He was shaved, showered, and out the door in under fifteen minutes.

* * *

ON THE ROAD, Mike scanned the radio for more information about the murder. Until recently, conducting genetic research had provided this same feeling—turning over a wide set of jumbled details again and again until they fit themselves together into one coherent world-view. Doctors would send him mountains of unsorted test results. His job had been to synthesize everything—all the tiny tidbits—into a big picture. In that same way, Mike puzzled through the details of the crime, trying to understand why he was so sure that it was connected to his hike. He paused on a AM news station when he heard the phrase “home invasion,” but it turned out to be a different crime.

“Police say the Montville couple were discovered by a home healthcare worker this morning, but won’t comment on whether the case is linked to East Motton incident reported earlier,” read the DJ.

Mike checked his mirrors and then pulled off the highway to the shoulder. The map on passenger seat confirmed what he guessed: he could draw a straight line from the cave’s location, through East Motton, directly to Montville. Furthermore, he could narrow the location of the East Motton farmhouse down to two roads which traveled west to east and might match the northern view he had spied in the newscast. Mike circled the map with his pencil, turned on his signal, and merged back onto the highway.

* * *

BY THREE THAT AFTERNOON, Mike found the house of the first victim. It was easy to spot, the emergency vehicles had left muddy tracks in and out of the driveway and several vehicles were still parked at the house. From the road he could just pick out the yellow police tape that cordoned the yard.

He sucked in a deep breath and tried to control his fast heart. Grabbing a clipboard from the back seat, Mike jumped out of his car. Using the house as his landmark, he consulted his memory and rounded the building until he found the side where the police officer had given his short statement. Mike glanced nervously at the house, but nobody came out to greet him, so he studied the ground until he found the print. He knelt to study its outline. The print was surrounded with plaster debris. Mike was pleased that the police had discovered the print and thought to make a cast of it. It matched the size of the one he had seen at the cliffs and had the same odd spread to the toes. Mike pulled out his phone and used its camera to snap a picture of the giant print.

The porch door opened and a young, broad-shouldered policeman strode out to greet Mike—“Can I help you?”

“Yes sir, thank you,” said Mike, raising the pitch of his voice slightly. “Did you happen to find any more prints like these?”

“May I ask who you are?” asked the officer.

“Certainly,” said Mike. “My name is Dr. Mike Markey. I’m from U.N.H.? They called me in to see the cast of this footprint, but I wanted to see the original. Do you know if there are any other examples?”

The officer knit his brow and considered Mike carefully. He reached up to the radio clipped to his pocket and placed his thumb on the button. “I’m going to have to call this in,” he informed Mike.

“That’s fine,” said Mike, holding his clipboard in front of him. “Could I see the other prints while I wait.”

The officer shrugged and waved him towards the house as he squeezed the receiver and placed his call. “Dispatch, this is Sutliffe,” the policeman told his radio as Mike entered the house. In the hallway he found two spots in the hall had been taped off, marking other footprints. He stepped around those as he headed for the front door. When confronted with the cop, Mike had panicked and arrived at this simple plan; he decided to pretend he belonged at the scene and then get away as quickly as possible. He was thrilled that the officer had stayed out on the back porch to make his call. As he put his hand on the doorknob leading to the front porch, Mike felt the slightest glimmer of hope that he might get away clean.

Pulling open the door, he expected a protest to come from the officer at any second. He held his breath as he opened the door and slipped past the screen door, finding freedom on the other side. Carefully controlling his stride he walked down to his car, Mike slipped behind the wheel, set the clipboard down on the passenger seat, and started his car. He twisted around in the seat as he pulled the gearshift back into reverse. He had to jam on the break to avoid colliding with the new police car pulling into the driveway behind him.

“Shit,” Mike said under his breath. He pulled forward a couple of feet to give the officer room to pull up alongside, and then give himself enough room to resume his escape. A bang from the front of his car drew his attention, and Mike whipped around to see if he had hit anything.

He discovered that something had hit him. Officer Sutliffe stood in front of his car, having just slapped Mike’s hood. The policeman rounded Mike’s car and motioned for him to roll down his car window.

“Where you going?” he asked.

“I have to get back to the university,” Mike lied.

“That’s great,” said Sutliffe. “We don’t have any record that you’re working this case.”

“I was just brought in this morning,” said Mike. “Maybe word hasn’t gotten around.”

“This case is being run by Bob Farrell,” said Mike. “If you think any decision about this case is not going through Bob, then you’ve clearly never worked with Bob before.”

“Okay,” said Mike. “My mistake. Thank you for your time.”

Now that Sutliffe wasn’t blocking Mike’s path, Mike was free to pull ahead and then make his getaway.

“I think we’re going to have to take a little trip back to headquarters,” said Sutliffe.

“I don’t have time for that,” Mike protested, still trying to make his way out of the situation with just pure denial.

“You’ll just need to make time,” said Sutliffe. He pulled open Mike’s door.

Mike felt helpless facing the big man. He reached over and unbuckled the seatbelt.

“Am I under arrest or something?” he asked.

“Nope,” said Sutliffe. “Not yet.”

Sutliffe gripped Mike’s elbow as he got out of his car.

* * *

AT HEADQUARTERS, THEY SAT MIKE ALONE in an interview room and left him for close to an hour. When they finally entered, he had become both scared and angry.

A man wearing a button-down shirt and suspenders entered first, followed by a uniformed officer. They both sat opposite Mike and laid out notebooks and folders before addressing him.

“So, Mr. Markey,” began the man in plain-clothes.

“Doctor,” Mike corrected.

“Yes,” said the man. “My mistake, Doctor Markey,” he continued. “My name is Pat Farnham, and his gentleman is Red Bisson. “What was your intention at the crime scene today. Officer Sutliffe said he caught you examining a footprint?”

“Yes,” said Mike. He wondered if he should demand to have his lawyer present, but he didn’t want to incur any more hourly charges to his already expensive defense fund.

“And then you pretended to be a member of the investigation team?”

“Yes,” said Mike. “But I was just trying to find an excuse to leave.”

“Why was that important to you?” asked Pat Farnham, hooking a thumb under one of his suspenders.

“I thought I had seen a footprint like that before,” said Mike.

“What brought you to that house?” Pat asked quickly.

“I saw the footprint on TV. I saw it on channel six,” Mike clarified.

“Channel six,” Pat commented. “Where were you when you were watching TV?”

“At home,” said Mike.

“So you were at home,” he said, consulting a paper on the table, “almost a hundred miles away, and you saw something on TV that made you drive all the way up here so you could look at a footprint?”

“It looked like a pretty unusual footprint,” said Mike. “Big, you know? I’m a scientist, and I study mutations and species and stuff. Footprints that big are really interesting to a guy like me.”

“Let’s get right down to it,” said Pat. “Tell us what you were doing at the scene of a brutal murder—how you came to be there, and more importantly, why. Interfering with an investigation is incredibly easy for us to charge, so you better have some really good answers.”

“I found the house because I know where the guy started from,” said Mike, abandoning all pretense.

“Okay,” said Pat. “Where?”

“I found another footprint the guy left behind on a hiking trail, west of Campton. When I heard that there was another murder in Montville, I figured out what road he must have taken. Once I drove by the place, it would have been hard to not know where the murders took place,” said Mike.

“Never hear of a phone? Never think to call us and let us know your information?” asked the officer.

Mike shrugged and tried to choose just the right words—“I’ve investigated this type of thing before, and my experience has shown me that people in your position are sometimes averse to receiving unusual theories.”

“It sounds like you’re suggesting that I don’t know how to do my job,” said Pat. “Perhaps you can explain that a little further.”

“Okay,” said Mike, trying to sound even-tempered and rational. “I investigate paranormal events. This footprint, and where I found it, suggested a paranormal source. I didn’t think it would be very helpful if I called you up and said ‘I know who killed the guy in that house—it was paranormal being.’”

Pat pushed back from the table and smiled with only the corners of his mouth. “That’s perceptive,” he said. “So how about you give me an explanation that I can believe.”

“But that’s it,” said Mike. “That’s my only explanation. I think something paranormal is heading east, and it happened to kill your guy a couple of days ago, and maybe this pair in Montville sometime today. There must be similarities in the cases. Aren’t there?”

“I can’t discuss the details at this moment,” said Pat.

“Okay, sure,” said Mike, “but you must have run across at least one footprint like the one I saw today. And I can take you up to that hiking trail I was talking about. It’s called The Ledges. I’ll show you the footprint that I found last Thursday,” he assured.

“That’s great,” said Pat. “We had a giant thunderstorm last weekend. The trail almost certainly got soaked. Probably washed that footprint down to the river. I’m guessing you knew that already,” said Pat.

“No, I hadn’t heard,” said Mike.

“So what exactly am I to do with you?” Pat looked over at his uniformed associate as he asked. The man shifted in his chair, but stayed silent.

“Maybe you could show me the scene in Montville?” asked Mike. “I am a very experienced paranormal investigator. I might be able to see something that your other officers overlooked.”

“Well,” said Pat. “Here’s the thing about your paranormal investigations: I’ve been on the phone with Rockingham county a few times this afternoon. When they heard that I was trying to nail down the credentials of Dr. Mike Markey, I found out there were a number of people down in Rockingham who already had an opinion on the matter.”

“Oh?” asked Mike. He struggled to think of anyone who might know him from that county.

“Yes,” said Pat. “Turns out that their sheriff, Sheriff Murphy, has a fully-developed opinion about Dr. Mike Markey. In fact, he seems to think that you’re a grave-robbing charlatan.”

“Come on,” said Mike, rolling his eyes. “That guy is an ignorant hick. He wouldn’t listen to any of my evidence.”

“Stop right there,” said Pat. “That ignorant hick happens to be one of my in-laws.”

“Shit,” said Mike.

“You said a mouthful,” said Pat.

Mike leaned back in his chair, trying to think of something to help him win some credibility. He took a deep breath and considered starting from the beginning, spilling his whole story, but he released the breath and idea almost immediately. Some people were intelligent and pragmatic, but had no imagination for things they couldn’t explain. Mike figured he currently sat in front of one of those men.

“Oh wait!” said Mike. A sudden flash brought an idea of how to convince Pat that this was a paranormal event, and that the two incidents must be connected. “If my theory is correct,” he continued, “and the same creature committed both crimes, then he would have to be on foot, so the murders would be separated by at least a day or two. Wait, how far apart are Montville and East Motton?”

Pat folded his arms as he listened. “Forty miles,” he informed Mike.

“So you would think that it would take him at least a couple of days to cover that distance,” said Mike, “but this guy moves fast. Probably about ten miles an hour, but he only moves at night. I bet he made the Montville couple within twenty-four hours.”

“Okay,” said Pat. “A guy doesn’t have to travel on foot to take a day between killing.”

“How about this then,” offered Mike. “I bet something was missing from the bodies. Maybe an organ, probably even the brain, because he’s trying to figure out where and when he’s at.”

“Where and when?” prompted Pat.

“Yes,” said Mike. “I think he was asleep for a while. I have data that suggests that he was in the same location for several months. I’m guessing that he was there for years before that, trapped underground.”

The other man at the table, Red Bisson, leaned forward and whispered something in Pat’s ear. Pat glanced at Red and then nodded while he frowned.

“It seems that each time you start a sentence, some new detail emerges that completely changes the nature of your story,” said Pat. He pushed up his sleeve and glanced down at his watch. “In the interest of time, start from the top, from his hiking trail, and give us one more quick run-through.”

“Okay,” said Mike, “but some of this stuff is a little hard to believe.”

“Don’t worry about that part,” said Pat. “We’ll get that sorted out later.”

Mike nodded, tilted his head back, and stretched his neck. “From the top: I conduct paranormal investigations,” he glanced to Red and Pat, pausing until they nodded their affirmation. “My former colleague, Gary, discovered a paranormal power source off that trail called The Ledges. The other day, I went to check out that place and I saw a giant footprint.”

Pat scribbled a note down on his pad and tilted it up so only he could see it.

“I didn’t think that much of the footprint until I saw the news today. On the news, channel six, the camera panned down after the press conference, and I saw another giant footprint. When I heard that another murder had happened in Montville, I put everything together and decided to come up and see the scene for myself, so see if I could find any other clues as to the origin of this giant-footprint creature.”

Red leaned forward and whispered to Pat for a second time.

“Thank you,” said Pat. “Can I get you anything? We’re going to have another officer come in and continue this interview.” Pat gathered his papers and pushed his chair back from the table. Red straightened his back and began to press down on the arms of the chair.

“Am I free to go?” asked Mike. “I thought you had to let me go if you weren’t going to charge me with anything.”

“Good question,” said Pat. “You’re actually not free to go, and we haven’t figured exactly what we’re going to charge you with yet.”

“Wait,” said Mike, suddenly more concerned for his freedom, “there are very few entities that could actually do this kind of manipulation of the physical plane.”

“Is that so?” asked Pat casually, not slowing in his preparations.

“Yes,” said Mike, rushing his explanation to try to convince the men before they left, “it could be a ghoul or a revenant, but those usually don’t have the power to kill, but certainly like to feast on the dead. Maybe if the victims were weak already?”

“Someone will be right in for you,” said Pat. He and Red moved towards the door.

Mike turned around in his chair to continue his plea—“If you just give me more information, I’m sure I can help you figure this out. For instance, it can’t be a wight, because they’re always small, like dwarves.”

The door clicked shut behind Pat and Red.

* * *

AFTER A FEW MINUTES, two uniformed officers offered Mike a phone call before moving him to a cell. He left a message for his lawyer with his location and his circumstances.

* * *

ELEVEN THAT EVENING, two new officers came to Mike’s jail cell and brought him to meet Bob Farrell, the lead investigator. They were back in the same interview room, and Mike sat in the same hard seat. Bob didn’t have a partner or any papers. He sat across the table for several minutes just staring at Mike. Uncomfortable under the man’s gaze, Mike looked at the table and the ceiling, only touching his eyes to Bob’s occasionally.

Bob unbuttoned his cuffs and pushed his shirt and suit jacket up to his elbows before propping them up on the table.

“What’s with all the fairy tales?” he asked, finally.

“I’m sorry?” asked Mike.

Bob narrowed his eyes and flared his nostrils as he inhaled. He spoke low, forcing Mike to lean forward to hear the question—“Why have you been ranting like a lunatic every time someone asks you about these murders?”

“I haven’t been,” Mike said slowly with his voice low. He wasn’t trying to mock the lead investigator, but understood immediately that he sounded like he was.

“What’s your game here, Mike?”

“I really don’t have a game. I explained why I was looking…”

Bob cut him off, “You have admitted to knowing details of the murders that have not been released.” Bob’s voice rose with each syllable, until the last sounded like a threat.

“I have experience in this field,” said Mike. “I keep explaining that.”

“You’re a geneticist. Murder is not part of that field.”

“I am also a paranormal investigator,” Mike said slowly, enunciating each word.

“Great,” said Bob. “Chasing ghosts also doesn’t get you access to unreleased information about an ongoing investigation. Who told you about the missing organs?”

“It was a guess based on the type of entity that would…”

Bob cut him off again, “Or did you take the organs? That would certainly explain a lot: how you just happened to show up at the first house; how you knew about the organs; how you knew the victims were sick.”

“I didn’t know those things, they were educated guesses…”

This time Mike was cut off by the door swinging inward and plain-clothes Pat peeking in the crack.

“Bob?” said Pat. “Got a sec?”

Bob locked his eyes onto Mike’s before rising from his chair. He thrust out his rear as he stood, sending his chair skittering back to the wall.

Mike sat alone for several more minutes. He chewed at his fingernails, three of them already bleeding from the stress of the day. Finding no purchase, he turned his teeth to his cuticles and glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room. He regretted almost everything he had done that day. All the mistakes jumped out as he considered the events. Seeking the crime scene, impersonating an investigator, talking about paranormal things, guessing at the details, all the bad decisions looped over and over as he nibbled on his skin. Even with his hindsight firing on all cylinders, Mike hadn’t the slightest idea how to proceed without doing more damage to his credibility and freedom.

The lead investigator, Bob Farrell, ended Mike’s rumination when he burst back through the door. He slapped his hands down on the table and hunched over without sitting.

“Assuming you think you’re telling the truth, what next?”

“Pardon?" Mike was genuinely confused.

“In your crazy world,” explained Bob, “where murders are being committed by a paranormal entity, what’s our next move?” asked Bob.

“Oh,” said Mike. He felt like his brain was mired in quicksand. There was some important information concealed in Bob’s about-face, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. With another flash of inspiration, Mike figured it out—“You found another victim didn’t you?” he asked. “Another person was killed while I was in here?”

“Get back to your theory,” said Bob. “If you’re right about this paranormal thing, how do I use it to stop the killer?”

Mike relaxed a little, feeling the accusations lift from his shoulders. “Well,” he began, “you can’t approach this like you would a human killer. There’s very little you can do to stop a paranormal being most of the time. You have to go after its motivation.”

“And what would the motive be to kill these people who had nothing in common?”

“But they did have a few things in common,” said Mike. “They were in a straight line, so they were on his way. You said they were sick. I only suggested that they might be weak. Maybe their sickness had something to do with it. He’s traveling towards something, but when he comes across a sick person he feels the need to stop and kill. Or maybe he just wanted those organs that he stole, and it was easiest to go after weak people.”

Bob let Mike ramble and sat on the edge of a chair, hoping to hear some information he could make use of.

“He doesn’t seem like he needs to go after the sick though. Moving quickly through the night like that, I think he’s strong; really strong. He’s got his clear mission, but he keeps being distracted.” Mike leaned his chair back and laced his fingers behind his head, feeling almost comfortable as he turned over the details of the mystery. “This seems really familiar somehow.”

When his third and final flash of intuition of the day hit him, Mike was so surprised that he tumbled back, crashing his chair to the floor.

“Sorry, sorry,” he scurried to get back upright. He hoped that the fall had masked his realization. When he looked up to Bob, he thought his secret might be safe.

Bob was punching buttons on his phone and had apparently tuned out during the end of Mike’s analysis.

“You were saying?” Bob asked as he looked up.

“Oh, nothing,” said Mike. “I just think your killer’s victims are incidental to his overall mission.”

“Great, thanks,” said Bob. “Mr. Markey…”

“Doctor,” Mike corrected.

“I don’t want you leaving the area, but you’re free to go,” he informed Mike. “You can pick up your things at the front desk, and your car is parked outside.”

“Thanks,” said Mike.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Crooked Tree

THAT NIGHT HE MADE good progress, running through the woods, tuned to the sights and smells of this time. He leapt small streams and creeks, with his target calling him east. Most of the time, the boy presented such a strong signal that Crooked Tree felt he could track him down with his eyes closed.

Just before dawn, the signal became clouded. Crooked Tree realized he would need to remove another local distraction before he could continue. He veered out of the woods with just enough time before dawn to snuff the offending person and find a place to sleep through the day.

Crooked Tree maneuvered down a steep hill and slowed as he emerged from the trees. He found himself on a narrow neighborhood road. Houses dotted the length of the street and behind them another line of houses sat on the next block. He felt momentarily overwhelmed with the sights, sounds, and smells from this high concentration of homes.

A startled dog barked in a frenzy to the west. Crooked Tree wound through the streets to the east, circling his distraction and finding his way to the man’s door. He knelt and smelled the porch of the small house. A couple lived in this house, he discerned, but only the sick one and a cat were at home that night. He opened the screen door and pressed the handle of the front door until it buckled and snapped inward.

Squeezing through the narrow frame, Crooked Tree dropped to a crouch and infiltrated the house. The owner’s hot, sleeping breath filled the small building. The cat regarded him through lidded eyes and then returned to licking its paw and Crooked Tree moved through the living room. Behind the staircase, Crooked Tree found the bedroom door cracked open several inches. The sleeping man didn’t even stir when the floor groaned, signaling Crooked Tree’s approach.

Once close to the man, his face inches from his snoring face, Crooked Tree wondered why this man had clouded his lock on the boy. His sickness didn’t smell contagious, and Crooked Tree couldn’t sense that it was hereditary or likely to be passed on in any way. Without considering why, Crooked Tree reached one thick finger forward and tapped the sleeping man on the forehead.

He woke with a snort and a fart, deep within the covers.

“Babe?” he asked, squinting into the dark. “Is that you? Who is that?”

Crooked Tree backed off a few inches, so the man could see his visitor.

One sick hand fumbled out from under the covers. Without looking away from the giant looming over his bed, the man switched on his light and grabbed his glasses from the nightstand. Once his vision had cleared, the man took a deep breath between pursed lips.

“I’ve dreamed about you,” he said to Crooked Tree. The admission was quickly followed with a racking cough which doubled over the supine man.

Crooked Tree tried to parse the words, repeating the sounds in his head. “Ooo,” he croaked.

“I’ve prayed for you to come…” He interrupted himself with his coughing, “while I still had the strength to beg one request before you send me to hell.”

Crooked Tree straddled the corner of the bed and rose up until the tops of his shoulders and back of his head rubbed the ceiling.

“So…” the man wheezed “big.” He squeezed his hands together in front of his chest and hunched forward with his final words. “Could you take my…”

The man’s request was cut off as Crooked Tree’s fist crashed down, splitting the man’s skull. The giant killer brought his enormous fingers together and split the sick body from top to bottom, exposing his organs to the lamplight. He picked through the remains eagerly, taking what could help him understand why the proximity of this man had been able to blur his perception of the boy. As Crooked Tree knelt on the bed, feeding, the cat ambled through the open door and hopped up on the mattress next to his dead master. Crooked Tree and the cat paid no attention to each other as they both chewed the man’s flesh. With each organ he ate, Crooked Tree took in the man’s memories. Integrated with the knowledge he’d picked up from his previous victim, the new memories help Crooked Tree piece together a deeper understanding of the world he now inhabited.

* * *

A COMMOTION OUTSIDE woke him up. After his latest kill, Crooked Tree had found an empty house which hadn’t been entered in months. Breaking in as quietly as possible, he had made his way to the building’s old root cellar, damp and dark, to sleep through the day. But now something was happening outside his lair.

He sniffed the air and reached out with his mind. The approaching dusk had brought scores of men and dogs. They had found his trail. He had been careless and not put enough distance between his victim and his current hideout. His impression of the warriors of this era was unfavorable. In fact, all the people he encountered, sequestered in their rigid homes, seemed oblivious and weak. He snapped a fist-sized rock from a corner of the stone foundation.

Crooked Tree crept towards the rickety stairs and left the dirt floor of the cellar, climbing to the dark kitchen above. A man, dressed in black, held something in front of his face at the back door. In the shadow of the basement stairs, Crooked Tree watched as the man nudged the door inward with his toe. Although he couldn’t see them, Crooked Tree sensed several other men on the other side of the door, ready to pounce with the door-nudging man.

These men moved like warriors, protecting their blind spots and moving as a unit, but Crooked Tree could smell ripe fear baking from their skin. He raised his right hand in the shadow, cocking back the rock. One of the men whispered. Crooked Tree couldn’t make out the words, but recognized the communication as a signal to attack. Before they could attack, Crooked Tree unleashed the rock, sending it splintering through the wall, just to the right of the doorframe.

The wall exploded outward with the force of Crooked Tree’s throw. Still moving at a murderous speed as it exited the other side of the wall, the rock knocked two men flat. The third, on the other side of the door, flinched back and away from the flying debris. His flashlight came on as he spun. It described a long arc across the kitchen ceiling.

Crooked Tree sprinted to the door as the men fell away. He heard another contingent of men bursting through the front door as he stepped on one cowering man lying on the porch. With three big strides, Crooked Tree had nearly traversed the long back yard. His destination was a high stockade fence. Dogs barked and snarled behind him, straining to be unleashed. He judged that he could clear the fence easily.

He didn’t bother to weave or crouch as he ran—none of the men carried slings or even spears to hurl at him as he fled. His confidence plummeted as he heard the explosions behind him. Before the bullets closed the distance, Crooked Tree had guessed the source of the sounds.

Hot metal tore through his calf as he cursed himself for not predicting that these small soft men would have superior weapons. Another bullet lodged in his thigh as he reached the fence. He dove towards the top of the fence and barely cleared it, tucking into a roll as his horizontal body reached the other side. With one tight tumble across the neighbor’s yard he rose, barely slowing his pace.

By compensating for his injuries, Crooked Tree managed to even his stride, sprinting through the adjoining yards. He bounded over fences until he found the next side street. When he hit the asphalt he achieved even more speed. An approaching car only saw a flash as Crooked Tree jumped its length and wound left through another set of yards. Reaching out with his senses, he tried to gauge his lead on the hunters. Their pursuit had begun slowly, but now they had picked up speed.

Crooked Tree scanned the horizon, looking for the densest forest. He knew these men spent most of their effort on making open spaces and wide roads, so he guessed he could outpace them in the woods.

North showed the most promise. He turned and lengthened his stride, pushing himself harder. Confidence returned as the bullet once lodged in his thigh slipped out of his muscle and the wound closed behind it. He smiled as his full strength returned. One row of houses still lay between him and the wooded hillside. Roving lights approached from his right, and Crooked Tree realized that the hunters were trying to cut him off before he could reach the forest.

He shortened his stride and bounded across the yard of a one-story house, preparing for a jump. Vaulting from one leg, he lifted his other and landed on the roof and climbed up and over the peak just as his angry pursuers arrived at the front yard. Crooked Tree sprinted down the back slope of the roof and dropped to the ground. Men approached, coming around either side of the house, but he could see the woods calling to him from the back of the dark yard and he decided to take his chances.

This time he did weave—fearing the sting of their explosive weapons—but still made it to the tree-line before the men had time to fire. He sprinted up the wooded hillside, taking no time to look behind himself until he reached the ridgeline. Through the leaves behind him he saw the twinkling settlement, with lights from the houses shining in the dusk. The men below him had entered the woods, but moved at a fraction of his pace.

Crooked Tree remembered the summer gatherings of his youth, when families would come together. Boys would leave their mothers to join the bachelor groups and girls would be wooed by young men. The largest of those gatherings Crooked Tree had attended hadn’t equaled the magnitude of the village beneath him. He wondered what his father would think of these sights.

He shook his head to break his reverie and ran down the other side of the hill in a wide arc so he could turn back east to his eventual goal. Once he had crossed a few more hills, still running at full-speed, he paused at the top of another ridge to assess the progress of the pursuit. A stand of tall pines gave him a perch from which to survey. Echoing in the distance, howling dogs drove wildlife through the forest, away from the village. The sound of baying and crashing was soon muffled by a thumping, chugging sound coming from a flying thing, hovering over the woods to the west. Crooked Tree saw the lights of the effort on the ground and in the air and realized they had underestimated his speed, but wouldn’t make that mistake for long. They were poor trackers, and slow at the chase, but they learned quickly and possessed unfamiliar advantages.

Before climbing down from the pine tree, Crooked Tree spun around its trunk, looking each direction to plot his strategy. With their ability to move through the sky, he needed to stay well ahead of his pursuers and that would mean moving in an unexpected direction. Back west, and to the north, he spotted a set of bald mountains, which would mean rough terrain, but exposure from above. To the right of those mountains the glow on the horizon meant another large village, perhaps even bigger than the one he had just left. To his south he saw a black hole in the landscape signaling a large body of water. He made his decision—he would move south until he found that lake, and then head east if he could.

When he had climbed halfway down the tall tree, Crooked Tree jumped to the next tree and made his way halfway down the hill without leaving the branches. His descent made a crashing racket, but he wanted to shake them off his scent. With that in mind, Crooked Tree took a route that led him up and down smaller hills where he could spring from the forest floor up to a rock ledge, or down from a ridge to a tree below. He suffered scrapes and bruises, bouncing off the terrain, but they healed almost instantly.

Once he descended to the foothills, Crooked Tree was unprepared for the thick, scrubby swamp he found. To stay clear of the hard-packed road to his left, he had to circle to the right, bringing him closer to the hunt. He could hear them, still several hills away, but closing the distance. To his dismay, he could also sense a mounting pursuit gearing up to the west. They focused on where they believed he would emerge from the woods.

Just west of the swamp he found an open forest of tall, protective trees. Crooked Tree ran at full tilt, as fast as he could towards the smell of the lake to his south. He ran alongside a small creek that joined forces with another, tributaries of the water ahead. He jumped across the waterway, clearing an amazing distance downstream.

As he neared the lake, Crooked Tree discovered a row of houses lining the edge of the body of water. The wind changed and he smelled their campfires and roasting meat. He kept his distance and skirted the swamp. Soon he found himself back in the proximity of the paved road, and men streaking north to try to cut off his escape. He crouched in the brush and waited for an opportunity to cross.

One more set of men passed, packed into their conveyance, and Crooked Tree crept out from the brush to cross. Red lights flashed from his left and he felt that someone had perceived his presence. He melted back into the tall grass and waited. The men continued their movement north, but Crooked Tree knew he had just been very lucky. A very intuitive tracker had passed by and almost detected him. As he sprinted across the road, he resolved to increase his prudence even further and not underestimate these hunters again.

Crooked Tree maintained a fast pace for most of the night, stopping only to drink from springs and climb the occasional tree to spot the chase. Before dawn he ascended another hill and reached out with every sense to find a trace of the men on his trail. He couldn’t find any evidence of their pursuit in the distance. He rested on a rocky ledge and considered next move.

Through the night, his exertion had brought several realizations. He seemed to be learning about this world at a faster pace than experience could justify. With very little interaction with its inhabitants, other than killing or being chased, he had acquired details about their language, society, and culture. Crooked Tree supposed that he had gained some of this knowledge just from sensing the thoughts of the sleeping people around him, but guessed that most of it had been from ingesting the organs of his prey. He thought about that first night after plunging off the cliff—it had seemed natural to learn and grow from his relatives, but somehow the idea of learning from these soft, mysterious denizens of this foreign world felt unlikely and distasteful. Nonetheless, he couldn’t deny the new facts swirling around in his consciousness.

The roads he had used the first few nights were dangerous to him now, because they also carried cars with police who were looking for him.

Crooked tree rolled these words around on his tongue—“Khaaaars,” he pronounced slowly.

“Pole-eesssss,” he continued.

He rose to his feet and climbed halfway down the rocks before continuing laterally, to make his scent harder to track. He sprung over a gap and clutched the wall on the other side of the drop. Pausing to look at the sky, he realized that dawn would be on him before long. He had run most of the night and would need cover soon. It seemed unlikely he would find another empty house in this sparsely populated area, and caves were few and far between. The mountains in this region seemed older—more overgrown and eroded—and not likely to have good cover.

Climbing down from his low ridge, Crooked Tree took to the forest floor and set off to seek shelter. With dawn approaching, he doubled back to a familiar smell and found the remnants of a bear den dug into the hillside. The interior barely accommodated his bulk, but he bent and twisted until he fit. Pulling a long, flat rock across the entrance, he sealed himself in and closed his eyes. A pair of frightened mice scurried across his arm, fleeing their hideout’s new occupant.

Against his eyelids, Crooked Tree pictured the chase of the night before. The memories he had stolen from his victim’s brains together with the behavior of the police forced Crooked Tree to realize the real strengths of his pursuers. They had firepower, speed on roads and in the air, and instant communication. What they lacked was courage, confidence, and instinct. Self-preservation weakened these warriors.

As dawn broke outside, Crooked Tree drifted off to sleep, packed into his underground hole.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Davey

“HEY KID, THAT WAS a pretty good catch back there,” said the girl, catching up to Davey as he walked towards the building.

“Thanks,” said Davey.

He glanced over at her and recognized her from the adjacent field. She had been doing fielding drills while he was training to catch foul pop ups. His coach hadn’t even begun their lesson on foul pops, but when the ball had popped off the coach’s bat and disappeared above his head, he had reacted instinctively. Head tilted back, he saw the ball even before he shed his mask. Jogging evenly, Davey tracked the ball towards the fence.

With one hand out, Davey saw the ball land in his glove and then begin to quickly skitter away. His hand closed fast, but the ball was faster, it rolled off the end of his glove and fell towards the dirt. Davey saw everything in slow motion: the wicked backspin of the ball, the dust kicking from his glove, the arc of the descent. His legs triggered, dropping his body at the same rate as the ball. When he saw that he couldn’t catch up to the speed of the ball, he thrust his arm out and down, picking up the extra speed he needed. He scooped the ball before it even travelled half the distance to the ground and this time he clamped his fingers tight around the spinning baseball, and slapped it still with his right hand.

“Nice one,” the coach called, clapping his approval with the bat tucked tucked under his arm. “Now, John,” the coach addressed the pitcher, “when that ball pops up you need to yell ‘Up!’ Got it?”

“So what’s your name?” asked the girl, snapping Davey back to their conversation.

“Davey,” he said. “What’s yours?” He squinted into the sun as he looked up at her.

“Charlotte,” she said, taking off her cap and running her fingers through her hair. “Hey! Watch out!” she barked.

Davey didn’t heed her warning quick enough. He tried to stop his feet, but they kept moving as he spun his head down to see the big sprinkler head sticking up from the field. This time nothing moved in slow motion, and he didn’t have supernatural control over his actions. His shoe bounced off the side of the sprinkler and his ankle crashed into the sharp metal of the head, scraping his skin away.

“Oh,” Davey said, sucking in his breath as he tumbled to the ground. He pulled his knee up to his chest, gripping his shin on either side of the cut.

“Jeez, that must hurt,” said Charlotte. “Are you okay? You want me to get your coach?”

“No,” said Davey. “I’m okay. Is it bleeding much?”

“Yeah,” commented Charlotte as she stood over him. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”

“Thanks.” Davey squinted up at her.

“You’ll be okay,” she giggled. “It actually doesn’t look that bad. Here,” she said as she pulled a tissue from her pocket and folded it carefully, trying to find a clean side. “Hold your breath,” she instructed Davey. “Really hold it.”

When Davey puffed out his cheeks, Charlotte knelt next to him and grabbed the bottom of his calf. She squeezed her lips together with concentration as she pressed the tissue firmly against his wound. Davey’s breath exploded from between his teeth.

“Thanks for the shower,” said Charlotte. She wiped his spittle from her face with her shoulder without removing the pressure from his leg. “Does it hurt?”

“A little,” said Davey. “Not much.”

“I gotta go,” said Charlotte, removing her hand from the tissue and pulling one of Davey’s hands over to cover the spot. “Just hold that for another minute and it will stop.” She wiped Davey’s blood from her palm onto her bare knee.

“Thanks,” said Davey.

“No problem,” said Charlotte. She stood up and surveyed him one more time. She pulled her hat from her waistband and tucked her hair underneath as she put it back on. “See you later,” she said.

Davey watched as she bounced away towards the field house for her water break.

Charlotte washed her hands carefully at the end of practice that day, her right still sticky from Davey’s blood. From a hygiene perspective, she need not have bothered. The instant Davey’s blood had touched her sweaty palm, his aggressive white blood cells attacked her skin, burrowing through fifteen layers of dead skin cells until they reached live cells to penetrate and inject his mutated genes.

By dinner that night, genetic information from Davey would course through every part of Charlotte’s young body, setting up the machinery required for Charlotte to infect others. At first, she barely noticed the effect on her physiology. The next morning she was a little more tired than usual, but then her energy exploded and Charlotte felt like she could run all day. Later that week, her coach commented on how much her fielding had improved.

Two weeks after meeting Davey and touching his blood, the transformation of Charlotte’s body was complete. She progressed beyond infected and became infectious—able to pass the mutation through her blood and saliva.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Mike

“HI MORRIS, I’M MIKE,” he said, extending his hand to the expressionless man sitting in the booth.

Morris’s voice rumbled low as he spoke. “I don’t know what Roland told you, but I don’t support poaching,” he said, ignoring Mike’s outstretched hand.

“No, I know,” said Mike, sliding onto the other bench-seat of the booth. “I told him, it’s not like that.”

“That’s what he said,” said Morris. “Roland says a lot of things. He does a lot of poaching too.”

Mike reached out and moved the maple syrup jar. Each time Morris spoke, his resounding voice rattled it against the salt shaker.

“I’m not after an animal,” explained Mike. “And I’m not going to kill it. I just want to catch it.”

“And Roland said he owed you for what you did with the Loogaroo, but I don’t owe you. Just so long as we’re clear,” said Morris.

“Perfectly clear,” said Mike. “Just hear me out, and then tell me what you think.”

Morris nodded.

Mike started at the beginning and told his story. He didn’t leave out a single detail, from the ghost of the drowned woman through to his brief incarceration. Mike ended with telling Morris the revelation he’d had in the interrogation room—that the creature was headed for where Mike and Gary had first used the paranormal amplifier at the river.

Morris simply watched him talk. Mike finished, sipped his coffee, and waited for a response.

Morris slid halfway out of the booth before addressing Mike. “I’ve got to be up that way on Thursday,” he said. “I know where that trail is. I’ll meet you where The Ledges trail splits off.”

“Thank you,” Mike said to Morris’s back.

* * *

AS HE ASCENDED THE HILL, Mike began to suspect that Morris was no longer following him. He paused at the big rock to look back. He grabbed his chest, surprised to find the tall man directly behind him.

“You scared me,” he said, panting.

Morris stared at him, still emotionless.

“I forgot to show you this the other day.” Mike pulled out his phone and pulled up the picture of the print he had taken at the crime-scene house. “There’s no way to see the scale of the thing, but it’s a pretty good picture of the footprint. I guess it doesn’t tell you very much,” he babbled, waiting for Morris to reply.

“No shoes,” said Morris finally.

“Yeah, well sure, he’s barefoot.” Mike was puzzled.

“I mean he’s never worn shoes with a toe box,” Morris said.

“Oh? How can you tell?”

“Toes spread too wide. You might see that in a third world country, but not around here,” said Morris.

“I was just thinking,” said Mike. “If the man came down this way, I’m probably stomping all over his trial.”

“Nothing has been down this way,” said Morris. “Except you.”

Mike tried to keep his doubt from his face. His last hike on this trail had been more than a week before, and he seriously doubted that any tracker could speak definitively about activity on a rocky, gravel trail.

“Okay,” said Mike. He caught his breath to the best of his ability and scaled the rock that blocked the clearing. Dropping down on the other side, he was quickly followed by the large man.

“Stop,” said Morris. He blocked Mike with his arm.

Mike thought back to the explanation he had given Morris in the diner. He wondered if his description could possibly have informed Morris well enough for him to guess that this was the clearing.

Morris skirted the clearing, placing each foot carefully, and bent close to the ground several times. Finally, with Mike watching in awe, Morris approached the small opening to the cave. When he knelt to examine the entrance, he dropped behind a rock. Mike began to creep forward to try to see what Morris was doing. He stopped himself when he remembered Morris’s last order.

“It’s okay,” said Morris, still behind the rock.

Mike approached and found the tracker studying the bodies of the decapitated bats.

“I thought those would be gone by now,” said Mike, “carried off or something.”

“Nothing’s going to touch these,” said Morris, his voice echoing slightly in the cave’s depths.

“How come?”

“I don’t know,” said Morris. “But I don’t even want to touch them.”

Neither man spoke for a few minutes while Morris shielded his eyes and tried to look into the darkness of the cave.

“Are you going in there?” asked Mike.

“Nope,” said Morris. “Nothing to see.”

“So what do you make of this?” asked Mike.

“Something strange,” said Morris. “Don’t know what yet.”

“Can you tell anything from all this? Any ideas at all?”

Morris turned his gaze to the horizon and then glanced back down to the ground, as if he were watching something move across the landscape. When his eyes touched the edge of the forest, he looked back to Mike. “Your man’s big,” he said.

“Yeah, I thought so. I told you about the footprint, right? It was right over here." Mike crossed to the sandy place and pointed down, but when he looked up, Morris was already headed back for the big rock and the trail back to his truck.

Mike scurried behind him to catch up.

“So, are you going to help me track him?” he asked.

Morris kept walking, but turned his head briefly for his monosyllabic answer. “Yup.”

* * *

THEY TOOK SEPARATE CARS all the way to Montville, where they joined up in the parking lot of a shopping mall near the highway. Morris studied several USGS maps in silence for the better part of twenty minutes while he traced his finger between the points of the murders.

“You have a street address on the latest?” he asked Mike.

“No,” said Mike. “They just said Sandham Depot, which is a little suburb north of town here." He pointed to a tight grid of roads edged by railroad tracks. Tight contour lines described the tall hills encompassing the neighborhood.

“We need to go there,” said Morris.

“Let’s go,” said Mike.

Those were the last words either man would speak for an hour. Each time Mike would open his mouth to say something, he would glance at Morris and get the distinct feeling that his conversation would fall on deaf ears. He thought that Morris’s feelings for him were something less than contempt, but perhaps bordered on apathy.

When they reached Sandham Depot, Morris drove his truck up and down several side streets. Mike finally found his tongue.

“What are we looking for?” he asked.

“That,” said Morris.

He parked across the street from a slightly rundown old house with a realtor’s sign in the yard. Mike almost missed the thin strip of yellow tape sealing the front door, but saw it once Morris pointed it out. Pulling down the street a few more car-lengths, they both saw the yellow markers set up in the back yard.

Morris located their position on the map and then repeated his silent finger-tracing until he landed on a point north of their location. He pulled away from the curb and moved through, heading towards the northern ridgeline.

“Shingles,” he pointed.

Mike looked that house in the direction of Morris’s finger, but couldn’t decipher what he was supposed to see.

“I don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head. “Some of them look blacker, is that it?”

“They’re darker because they’re not as weathered,” Morris explained. When Mike still didn’t get it, he explained further—“The ones on top were torn off, there, there, and there." He jabbed his finger at three points leading from the gutter to the roof. “Something climbed that roof quickly.”

“You think our guy scaled that roof?”

“He ran over that house like it was porch stairs,” said Morris.

“Wow,” said Mike.

“Yup,” replied Morris.

* * *

THE NEXT PHASE of Morris’s investigation involved driving slowly up Route 203, just east of Snow Pond. Mike fidgeted and sat on his hands. He finally lost his struggle with his own silence.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “How are you going to see anything on this road?”

Morris didn’t answer, but continued to scan the grassy ditch on the side of the road.

“This murder was days ago,” said Mike. “They showed helicopters looking for this guy. He’s long gone. Shouldn’t we be looking like forty miles from here or something?”

Morris shot a look at Mike and then pulled off the road where the shoulder widened slightly. Mike thought that Morris had stopped to address him, but was surprised when Morris simply used the wider patch of road to turn the truck around.

The quiet tracker pointed to the right as they drove south. “Swamp,” he said. Then, a few hundred yards later, he pointed again and said, “Lake.”

Pulling over at the driveway to a camp, he pulled out his laminated map. Tracing his finger around contour lines, he pronounced his judgement. “Chased from here,” he pointed, “he would have fled through here.” His finger showed a path skirting between the swamp and the lake. “You say he’s heading towards the Brunswick dam on the Androscoggin.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely where he was heading. All four of these locations point to it, and that’s where we first used the amplifier. I really do think he must be headed towards that spot,” said Mike.

Morris tapped the map. He thought several moments and then decided—“We have to wait for him to make another move.”

“What? Why?” asked Mike. “I thought you were on his trail.”

“We can’t catch up to him. He’s too fast. And he knows he’s being chased, so he’s changing his course randomly. If you’re right about his destination then we could wait there, but I think it’s best if we wait for him to make another move and then try to guess when he’s going to get there.”

Morris stowed his map, pulled out of the driveway, checked the road behind, and pulled back into the southbound lane.

When he got the truck back up to speed, he spoke without turning towards Mike—“Why are you looking for this thing anyway?”

“Pardon?” asked Mike. Morris’s low, quiet voice was absorbed the ample road noise of the old truck.

“Why track this thing?” Morris asked again.

“Oh,” said Mike. He was startled that he didn’t have an answer at hand and had to think carefully. “I think maybe I had a hand in waking it up,” he said eventually.

This time Morris glanced at Mike before speaking. “You believe that?”

“I guess,” said Mike, sitting back in his seat. He had leaned forward to hear Morris’s question. “I guess I also feel guilty about Gary, and he believed there was something interesting to find in those mountains. I want to prove him right; not that it changes anything.”

Morris nodded. Mike felt like they had made a connection with that answer. He hoped to make Morris genuinely interested in the quest to track down the killer before the taciturn man discovered that Mike didn’t have money to pay him for his services.

“What do you think it is?” asked Mike.

When Morris didn’t answer, Mike wondered if Morris had heard the question.

“Still don’t know,” Morris said. Mike leaned back again, figuring the conversation had concluded, but Morris started talking again. “My grandfather used to talk about an Armless Hunter. He would stalk the night and destroy those who wronged him. He had no eyes or arms—just legs and a neck that ended with a thousand teeth. He was a mortal turned supernatural; immortal.”

“I’ve read about that,” said Mike.

Morris drove another mile before continuing. “These victims are too spread apart, and not connected,” he said. “Doesn’t fit the Armless Hunter.”

“Also one per night,” said Mike. “Like he has to kill. He’s compelled to kill each night.”

“And he travels fast, like he’s headed for something,” said Morris.

“The signal,” added Mike.

The conversation died. Mike tried to resuscitate it several times on the remainder of the drive, but Morris remained silent, lost in thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Crooked Tree

THE PREVIOUS FEW NIGHTS had resulted in little progress for Crooked Tree. He spent hours carefully navigating around settlements—the population density increased steadily as he moved east. But his lock on the boy had grown much stronger. Side distractions—local infections—no longer clouded his vision. When he reached out to sense the boy the signal was many times stronger, aided by the proximity and because the infection had spread to more people.

His pursuers hadn’t managed to renew their fix on his position. Crooked Tree’s careful pace competed with his growing unease that the boy’s infection had begun to spread to others.

Crooked Tree sat on the branch of a pine tree atop a tall hill and looked towards a lake in the distance. The lake covered a huge span from north to south and brought a large concentration of houses and people. Further to the north, another lake wasn’t nearly as wide, but he couldn’t see how far stretched. Earlier that evening, he had tried to cross a thin spit of land between the lakes, but the heavy nighttime traffic kept forcing him back into the forest.

He pondered three choices: wait to see if the traffic on the road abated in the deep hours of the night; try his luck south where more people lived; or travel north to skirt both lakes. The boy was so close. He thought that before the next full moon he could locate and remove him, perhaps fulfilling his final duty as a loose spirit roaming the earth. He opted for the cautious approach and headed north—around the lakes—to avoid more contact with gun-wielding police.

The tree shook as Crooked Tree dropped to the ground next to its thick trunk. He started down the hill, moving from shadow to shadow. He had adjusted to this world—he could creep within a dozen yards of a house, stepping over a shaft of light projecting down through a window, and remain undetected. Halfway down the hill, he crossed a narrow private road and toured the outskirts of a well-maintained yard. A half-dressed man paced the living room. Crooked Tree saw him through the windows, walking back and forth. The bare-chested man talked into a phone and paused at the mantle to rearrange his curios.

Crooked Tree sniffed the air and approached the house. He sensed no other people in the house, and no dogs to reveal his trespass. He stopped a few feet from the window, not wanting to reveal himself in the light from the house. As he watched, the man’s shoulders slumped and he spun slowly, speaking low into the phone.

In the quiet night, the man’s conversation was just barely audible through the glass. “…just seems like it’s time. You know?” the man asked his phone. The man stopped in the center of his clean living room and looked up at the ceiling as he listened. Crooked Tree studied him. He wore only pajama bottoms; his bare feet were planted in the soft carpet. His torso sagged and bulged.

Crooked Tree tried to summon some emotion. He thought he should feel anger or even hatred for this soft, solitary denizen of the ruined landscape his family had once called home. At the very least, Crooked Tree thought he should feel offended that this man didn’t surround himself with his progeny, fulfilling his mandate to build the largest, strongest clan he could during his years. Crooked Tree’s education on the purpose of life was short and simple. His father had taught him to fight and propagate; anything less was failure. He just didn’t feel enough connection to this man who stood before him to even try to hold him to the same standards.

While he watched, the man neared, step-by-step, until he was only a pace from the window. Crooked Tree shrunk back. The man reached down and retrieved something from the table next to the couch, but continued to look out the window. Concern spread across the man’s face. He held up the device from the table. Crooked Tree recognized it from his stolen memories—this device was a remote control. With that realization, Crooked Tree took a half-step back from the window. The giant had suddenly grown concerned, but remained unsure why.

By stabbing his thumb into the remote, the man triggered his outside lights. The yard lights came on with an thump as relays closed. Light spilled all around Crooked Tree, as if the sun had jumped into the night sky. He turned to flee into the woods, but stopped himself before he could take another step. Beyond the buzz of the lights he recognized that the man in the house hadn’t uttered a word into his phone since he’d turned on the lights. Perhaps he was stunned at the sight of a mammoth, naked, dirty man standing in his yard. Crooked Tree recognized both the danger and the opportunity. He would spend the remaining hours of the night trying to flee to safety if this man managed to call the police.

Crooked Tree pivoted back towards the house, fell forward, and sent a burst of energy through his leg muscles, launching himself towards the window. He crashed through the glass hands-first, with one hand opening and deftly plucking the telephone from the stunned man’s dropping hand. The handset was crushed by Crooked Tree’s right hand as his left hand curled around the back of the man’s neck.

The half-naked man’s phone-talking days ended forever as Crooked Tree snapped his neck—closing his fist around the vertebrae. Still horizontal, Crooked Tree’s momentum carried him fully into the living room where he landed on his latest victim and skidded briefly, bunching up the carpet before coming to rest.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, focusing his senses once again to tune to possible threats. Detecting nothing, he retrieved the remote control from the man’s limp hand and studied the buttons. Most didn’t make sense, but he found a large button in the corner that he could identify. He pressed the button and the outside lights shut off instantly.

* * *

CROOKED TREE DRAGGED THE BODY deep into the woods before opening the soft man to examine and consume him. It rankled his sensibilities to taste healthy flesh, but he ate defensively. Even with limited understanding of this time, Crooked Tree intuited that this man warranted extra care. He scooped soft dirt from forest floor and fashioned a grave as memories and images from the dead man’s organs leaked into Crooked Tree’s consciousness. Before he finished covering the new corpse with the damp dirt, he knew he had to return to the house. The house contained video surveillance, which the man had doubtlessly triggered with the lights. Crooked Tree didn’t know exactly where to find the device in the house, but he could picture it through the dead man’s eyes.

Walking on the balls of his feet, Crooked Tree gripped the dead man’s boots between his oversized toes. The prints behind him weren’t perfect, but he thought they disguised his giant bare feet. He had found the boots next to the back door where he had also located a broom to clean up the glass from the living room floor. In a cabinet in the basement, he found the video system. He carefully took the components to the woods, where he smashed each piece before burying them far away from their former owner.

Crooked Tree glanced around the living room one more time before shutting off the lights. It nearly matched the residual version in his head, so he turned off the lights and exited through the kitchen door. He tread carefully, balancing on the borrowed boots until he found a patch of rocks where he could remove the shoes and toss them up into a tree. His crime wasn’t perfect. His understanding had caught up enough for him to guess that the police would eventually uncover the details, but he figured it was good enough to buy him time. With any luck, by the time anyone discovered the murder, he would have already dispatched the boy and moved on to the afterlife to join his family.

He finished the night with the fortuitous discovery of an old, forgotten graveyard next to a neglected dirt road. Pressing his shoulder against the edge of a crypt he found enough room to curl up inside with the dust of ancient inhabitants. He drifted off to sleep just as the sun rose on a clean, empty house with a broken window, halfway up the hill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Davey

“THANKS AGAIN FOR THE RIDE,” said Davey.

“No problem Davey,” said Coach Peterson. “You run up to the building there. I told your mom I would see you from door to door.”

“No problem, Coach P.,” said Davey.

He smiled as he climbed out of the passenger seat of the coach’s car. The coach’s own son sat in the back seat and made no effort to address Davey’s departure. Davey returned the favor. As soon as he turned towards the Center, Davey frowned. The concrete two-story building looked cold and musty, like a sewer pipe. Mindful of the coach’s time he jogged towards the door, with the bag of his baseball clothes under his arm.

A few yards from the door he turned to wave goodbye to the coach, but his instructor was already pulling away from the curb, and saying something between the seats to his young son.

Davey’s frown returned, full strength. All the kids his age knew to stay away from the Career Center, it was the domain of older kids. Kids that hung around its treeless campus were more like Paul’s brother Kris, but meaner. The credible stories included lunch thrown on the roof, and shoes stolen and tossed over the power lines.

He looked up at the big metal door and considered his options before grabbing the handle. Since the coach had left, he supposed he could sneak away and return when it was time for his mom to pick him up. He didn’t trust his mom’s timing though—should could easily decide to pick him up early and ruin his plan.

An image of Paul popped into his head. In his imagination, Paul would likely be sitting at home, killing time playing video games and eating cookies.

“Makes a better door than a window,” a voice spoke from behind Davey.

He turned to see the kind eyes of a woman who looked somewhat like his grandmother. Davey smiled back at her.

“I was just…” he began.

“Never mind,” she prodded, “just open the door for a lady. You know that much, don’t you?”

A cold edge wore through the edges of her command. Davey reacted instantly. After holding the door open for her, he felt helpless; he had to follow her in. Before continuing down the hall, she pointed Davey to a table at the far end of the air-conditioned lobby.

“First day?” asked the girl at the table.

“Yes,” said Davey.

“Name?”

With her questions answered, Davey was given a slip of paper and pointed down the hall where he would take a left, and find his room on the right.

Worse than school, he thought as he listened to his shoes squeak on the polished-tile.

He found his room and slung his bag over his shoulder so he could turn the big knob with both hands. On the other side of the door, the long room was nearly empty. A few feet away a woman sat with her feet atop a desk and a book propped open on her thighs.

“Name?” she asked.

Instead of replying, Davey strode forward and handed her the paper from the lobby-girl.

“You’re not supposed to bring your bag in here,” she said. “Didn’t you get a locker?”

“Locker?” he asked.

“Tomorrow,” she said slowly, “get a locker from Melissa.”

“Okay,” said Davey, reaching over and scratching his arm.

“Just put your bag there for today,” she pointed to the corner near the door.

“It’s just my baseball clothes,” he said.

She continued to hold her arm out, aimed at the corner, until he dropped his bag there and returned.

“Everyone’s out in the courtyard until one,” she said. “Then Mr. Nguyen comes back for afternoon stuff.”

Davey stood nervously, awaiting clearer instructions, but the reclining woman had already returned to her book.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” she asked.

“No,” said Davey.

“Then you can go to the courtyard.” She nodded towards the back of the room.

Davey finally saw what she meant—near the far corner of the long room, a set of double-doors blended into the windowed wall. He crossed the big, empty room and pushed the bar to let himself out. Compared to the air-conditioning of the building, the heat was instantly oppressive. Davey squinted as he descended the few stairs to the dry, dirt yard.

Surrounded by the two-story Center, the courtyard felt like a mockery of outdoors. Davey had spent his morning doing drills in catcher’s camp—an activity that he had previously considered to be the antithesis of play activity—but compared to this place, it had been a lush paradise. Davey shaded his eyes with a hand just in time to spot a kickball hurtling towards his face.

He ducked, reacting without thinking. The ball grazed the top of his hair, and smacked hard into the glass that made the top half of the door.

The woman from the desk appeared at the door almost instantly. She rapped her knuckles on the pane several times and then pointed while glaring. Davey followed her finger and saw an older boy with long blond hair sitting on the back of a bench. The blond boy ignored the woman and stared at Davey.

Davey turned left and headed toward the other end of the courtyard, where some younger kids played in the shadow of the building. He shuffled towards them trying to see if he recognized any of their faces before he committed to joining their number. Nobody seemed familiar, and the biggest boy looked to be a full year younger than Davey. He sat near the outskirts of their group and listened to two boys playing with small action figures.

From his new vantage point, Davey could survey the entire population of the courtyard without meeting the direct gaze of the blond boy. What he found disheartened him further. The small group of younger kids to Davey’s left were closest to Davey’s age. Everyone else was at least a couple of years older, and to Davey’s eyes they looked like trouble. In groups of two and three they had formed little cliques and circles. Aside from the two who appeared to be punching the ground, most of the older kids simply talked to each other, sometimes drawing with their fingers in the dirt, or tossing pebbles.

“I’m Evan,” a plump kid landed in the dirt next to Davey.

“Hey,” said Davey, eyeing the boy. Davey guessed that Evan had just gotten out of first grade.

“What do you do?” asked Evan.

“What do you mean?” asked Davey.

“Do you go to school?”

“Not now,” said Davey. “It’s summer.”

“I go to school in summer,” said Evan, sneering a little. “Most kids do.”

“I don’t,” said Davey. “I have camp in the mornings.”

“Oh yeah,” said Evan. “Me too. These kids all go to school,” he drew a circle in the air around the cluster of younger kids next them.

“What about those guys over there?” Davey asked, pointing with his chin to the older bunch.

“You shouldn’t mess with those guys. They’ll make you do bad stuff,” said Evan.

“Okay,” said Davey.

The door to the classroom squeaked open and a small asian man stood in the doorway. “Let’s go,” he shouted. “Back inside.”

Davey rose slowly and followed the other kids towards the doors. He found himself near the back of the pack of younger kids; lined up with the older, slower group.

Mr. Nguyen pointed at Davey as he walked through the door. “You’re new,” he said to Davey, pointing him to the side.

Back in the classroom, the kids were divided roughly by age and set up with different activities. The youngest were assigned finger paints, and the oldest left with the desk woman to go to a different room.

“We put you here.” Mr. Nguyen pointed to a group of five which included the blond boy. “Together we do drawing or writing,” he continued. Davey’s group-mates seemed to know the agenda. They dragged desks and chairs to the center of the room to form a rough circle. Each student received a couple sheets of unlined paper and a charcoal pencil.

Mr. Nguyen gave brief instructions. He set up a table bearing a bowl of artificial fruit; to this he pointed. “Draw or write,” he said. “One hour.”

Davey’s eyes scanned his group. They included two other boys and three girls, all of whom bent over and went to work on the assignment. He looked at his pencil and wondered what sort of script he might achieve with such a tool. As far as he knew, he had no interest or aptitude in art, but that seemed like the less onerous option. He began to sketch the round arc of the front of the bowl.

Even to his untrained eye, he could see that his drawing was a naive interpretation of the simple shapes. Mr. Nguyen circled the group once more and then stalked off without offering any advice. Davey glanced around at his fellow inmates and hunched over his work, imitating their concentration.

He glanced up again at the apple, tried to memorize its contours, and focused back on his paper. Something in the back of his head clicked as he looked back down at his paper and Davey’s head snapped back up. His eyes focused on the empty seat across the circle. The older boy with the long blond hair, the one who had thrown the ball earlier, was no longer in his chair.

Davey glanced to his right just as a hand clamped down on his left wrist. He fought his arm as it moved back, across the edge of the desk and jerked back up behind his back. The blond boy’s face appeared just over Davey’s right shoulder; his hair brushing Davey’s neck and cheek. Blondie lifted Davey’s arm another inch, until he could have scratched his own shoulder blades. Davey felt his elbow and shoulder light up in pain, but he kept his quiet—not rewarding his attacker with a yell.

“Hey queer-boy,” the blond boy whispered in Davey’s ear. “I heard your mom’s a whore. Is that true?”

Davey’s eyes danced around the room, looking for help. Within his group kids glanced up at the altercation, but they quickly returned to their own work. Davey’s eyes touched on young Evan, across the room, covered up to his wrists in finger paints. If Evan saw the attack, he made no outward sign.

“Leave him alone, Curtis,” said a girl across the circle.

“Shut up, bitch,” said Curtis. She shot him a disgusted look, but she heeded his order. “Now, faggot. Is your mom a whore or not?” he asked again.

Davey didn’t answer. Not because of some brave act of defiance, but because he wasn’t quite sure what was happening to him. The world had slowed again, like when he was catching the pop foul at catcher’s camp. His vision sharpened, focusing only on the world within ten feet, but he could see everything.

With awe he realized that he could take this frozen moment and disconnect himself almost entirely from the slow-motion scene and see himself from the outside. Davey pictured clearly his own sitting form, arm pinned painfully to his back, and Curtis’s crouching form and savage sneer.

Davey chose to repel the attack, and to inflict as much damage as possible on the bully in the process. He fired the strong muscles of his thighs, turning the toes of his right foot outward and kicking his chair back and to the left. Rising a few inches from his seat, the pressure left his arm and Davey dropped his shoulders, moving his shoulder-blades onto his back. He accomplished all these actions before Curtis had time to respond.

“Hey,” Curtis barked as the back of Davey’s chair drove into his hip. He didn’t have time to utter another syllable—with his shoulder-blades out of the way Davey was free to drive his head backward, hitting Curtis’s temple with the side of his skull.

A flare of pain shot through Davey’s head, but he was prepared for the blow. The sound from Curtis’s head sounded like a rock hitting a rotting pumpkin, Davey decided. With his head driven back, Curtis staggered as his brain sloshed.

Given the extra distance between their bodies, Davey pivoted and took full advantage of Curtis’s stupor and spun to his left. Once he faced the blond bully he realized that the only thing keeping Curtis on his feet was his death-grip on Davey’s wrist. Davey raised his right arm quickly and chopped Curtis’s grip, leaving Curtis swaying on his feet. With his accelerated perception, seeing the world one frame at a time, Davey had time to consider if this retribution on the bully had been good enough, or if he should exact further revenge. He almost decided to show leniency, but then remembered the ball that Curtis had aimed at his head earlier. For whatever reason, Curtis meant to conquer Davey. Based on this fact, Davey decided to strike a decisive blow.

Even in a daze, Curtis raised his hands to ward off Davey’s attack, but Davey saw the blond boy’s hands come up and ducked under. He waited for gravity to catch up to his legs and then thrust upward, driving his arms up, underneath Curtis’s defenses. Davey’s hands connected with Curtis’s chest, driving him backwards—away from the circle of desks.

As he stumbled backwards, Curtis’s feet interlocked and he tumbled, landing flat on his back and sliding a few feet on the shiny tile floor. With two long strides, Davey leapt on the prone boy. With one leg bent and the other knee to the floor, Davey drove two knuckles down with all the force he could muster. His sharp knuckles connected squarely with Curtis’s solar plexus.

The effect was instantaneous—Curtis’s torso rose up off the floor as he pulled his knees to his chest and produced a strange, inhaling “Ghurrrp!”

Davey stood and stepped back from the blond boy who was struggling for air. Time started to speed up for Davey again as the threat passed. The color returned to his vision. He once again heard the ambient sounds of the room, and his focus waned, returning him to a broad peripheral view of the world again. Footsteps pulled his attention to his left—Mr. Nguyen banged through the door and strode to Davey’s side.

“Come,” he said to Davey. The small man stalked back towards the door.

Davey lowered his eyes and followed him, leaving Curtis still on his knees.

Once they reached the hallway, Mr. Nguyen closed the door to the classroom, clasped his hands behind his back and faced Davey, scanning the boy’s face.

“You too smart for room,” he said.

Davey struggled to parse the sentence before he realized that Mr. Nguyen purposefully omitted words to disguise his accent.

“No sir,” said Davey, taking the statement as an accusation of vanity.

“Yes,” said Mr. Nguyen. “You too smart. Those kids not smart.”

Davey wondered suddenly why Mr. Nguyen had drawn this conclusion. The little man hadn’t witnessed the fight, and even if he had, he wondered why fighting back would mean Davey was smart.

“You want library?” asked Mr. Nguyen. “Read alone? Away from boy?" He jabbed a finger at the classroom.

“No sir,” Davey blurted out his reply. His first instinct told him that to go to the library would be almost as bad as losing the fight; it would be an admission of weakness. Mr. Nguyen didn’t reply right away. Davey found he didn’t want to change his answer.

Sensing Davey’s resolve, Mr. Nguyen didn’t repeat the offer. “Okay, but no more fight.” He wagged a finger in Davey’s face. “You fight again and you go to library.”

“Yes sir. Thank you,” Davey nodded to the thin man.

“Okay. Go finish bad drawing.” Mr. Nguyen smiled at Davey as he opened the door.

As he crossed back to his desk, Davey assessed the room. Everyone still seemed to be concentrating on their tasks, but he noticed the quick glances as he fetched his chair and dragged it back to the desk. Before sitting down, Davey took one last look around the room, this time noticing that Curtis had flopped his hair over his forehead, to cover the rising lump near his temple.

Curtis made one more attempt to intimidate Davey. When he noticed Davey looking at his forehead he caught his gaze and made a motion across his own neck, miming slitting Davey’s throat.

Davey stared at Curtis until the older boy looked away.

* * *

HE WAS EXHAUSTED by the time Mr. Nguyen tapped Davey on the shoulder. The little man simply pointed to the door and Davey knew what it meant—his mother had come early to pick him up. His emotional and physical stress melted away at the prospect of getting home and getting away from forced activities and older antagonists.

During their afternoon recess, Davey had admitted to himself that he might have made a mistake when he challenged Curtis. As soon as they entered the courtyard, Curtis had joined a group of boys who hadn’t been present during the confrontation. It dawned on Davey that Curtis and his friends might gang up on him in the courtyard. When one of the boys laughed at Curtis and pushed him away, Davey breathed a sigh of relief. Based on his chilly reception, Davey suspected that Curtis had as few friends as himself.

All those concerns faded into memory as Davey pushed open the front door and saw his mom’s car parked at the curb. He rode home without uttering a word. He simply looked out the car window as his mom talked on her cell phone and drove.

* * *

AT DINNER, DAVEY WAS UNSURPRISED to find his sister in a bad mood. She spent most meals either brooding or trying to find a spiteful angle of attack against her mom.

Tonight she targeted Davey.

“How was retard school, retard?” she asked between bites.

Davey didn’t respond. He simply chewed carefully and looked at the calendar on the wall. He was re-counting the number of days until Paul returned from vacation.

“Susan,” their mother scolded eventually while reading a piece of mail. “That’s an ugly word.”

“What do you care?” Susan challenged. “You sent him there.”

“It was our only choice at this late date, and it’s a perfectly fine class,” Melanie explained.

“Ashley’s brother has to go there, and he’s a total retard,” said Susan.

Melanie moved her glasses to the bridge of her nose and lowered the letter. “Susan, what did I just say?”

“You said it was your only choice,” said Susan, sneering.

“I said, don’t use that word,” said her mother.

“No you didn’t,” Susan informed her. “You said it was ugly. You never said don’t use it.”

“Well I’m saying it now.”

Through this exchange, Davey kept quiet, but made sure his chin was up and shoulders back. He sensed another challenge coming his way and he meant to greet it head-on.

“Well, Ashley’s brother can barely dress himself, and he’s older than Davey. Is that what you’re learning? How to dress yourself?”

Not detecting any direct insults or threats, Melanie tuned out the question and returned to opening her mail.

“Did you?” Susan asked again. “Are you too dumb to answer?”

“Susan…” Melanie warned.

Davey looked up and raised his eyebrows at his sister. After swallowing his mouthful, he shrugged slightly. “Whatever,” he said.

“Oh my god,” said Susan. “You’re so retarded.”

“Susan!” Melanie raised her voice. “You could join your brother at the Career Center. Would you like that?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” said Susan. “You’ve already paid for my dance class and it’s non-refundable.”

“Keep testing me,” started Melanie, “and you’ll find out what I’ll do.”

Susan sensed truth behind the threat and shut her mouth without rebuttal. Scoring a minor victory, Melanie pressed forward. “Now apologize to your brother.”

Susan glared at Davey for several seconds before her one-word apology. “Sorry,” she said. As she spoke the word, Davey was lifting his fork with another bite of potatoes. Under the table, Susan pulled her foot back and kicked out at Davey’s shin. The velocity of her hard-shoed foot was savage, despite the day of dancing class. Davey never took his eyes from the calendar and didn’t slow the fork to his mouth, but quickly pulled his legs back, out of the way of the unseen kick.

Susan cried out as her foot connected with the hard table leg instead of her soft brother’s.

Unfolding a bill, Melanie hardly seemed to notice. “What’s wrong, honey?” she asked.

“Nothing,” said Susan, tightening her mouth to a thin line. She shot Davey another glare, but he never met her gaze.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Mike

“HELLO?”

“Morris? I think it’s him. Did you hear about the guy near Sebago?” Mike asked the phone.

“I’ll call you back,” said Morris.

Mike clicked off his phone and turned up the volume on his television. The reports lacked any real detail, but the hair stood up on the back of his neck and his instinct screamed that there was a connection. Since mid-morning, the local stations had been reporting on yet another murder in the area. According to Mike’s improving mapping skills, this new one made perfect sense in the chain that he and Morris had tracked earlier.

When the phone rang Mike nearly jumped off the couch.

“Morris?” he asked before he even had the phone all the way to his ear.

“It’s not him,” said Morris.

“What? How can you be sure?”

“I talked to my cousin,” he said. “My other cousin,” he clarified. “Says the MO is totally different. The guy was connected to some shady stuff. Someone broke through the window, took the guy off into the woods, cut him up, and buried him. This guy used tools and wore boots. They’ve ruled out a connection.”

“But its right in line,” said Mike. “How many times is someone killed around here? It’s got to be our guy. Did you find out when it happened? If it was more than a day or two ago, our guy is probably almost to the coast by now.”

“I heard it was earlier today,” said Morris. “Just a fluke that they found him so quick. If it was our guy, then he would be moving much slower than before.”

“How did they find him so fast then?” asked Mike, unwilling to renounce his suspicion.

“Don’t know,” said Morris, starting to return to his regular, more taciturn self.

“You want to go out there? See what we can find?” asked Mike.

“Nope,” said Morris. “You haven’t even paid for my gas for last time.”

“I know, I’m sorry about that,” said Mike. “Like I said, I haven’t had a chance to go to the bank, but I will really soon. You’ll get it as soon as I’ve got it.”

“Tell you what,” said Morris. “You bring by money, and we’ll go track.”

“Seriously?” Mike asked the phone, pulling it away from his head to look at it. He found it impossible to believe that Morris wasn’t as intrigued as he was at the prospect of tracking down the elusive giant. “You must want to know what this thing is?”

“Not enough to waste my time for no pay,” said Morris.

“Okay, whatever,” Mike sighed. “Thanks anyway.”

“Get my money,” said Morris.

Mike heard the phone disconnect with a click. He returned his concentration to the television and wondered how he could find the location of the latest crime. The report gave precious few details, and nobody yet on the scene. They settled for updates every thirty minutes from a reporter behind a desk in the studio. A generic map of the area took up the other half of the screen.

He muted the television again and picked up the thickest book from his coffee table. History of local tribes was maddeningly sparse, but he had collected the best information available from the local libraries. As the indigenous people were overrun with colonizing immigrants, their rich oral history had been twisted and discarded. He sought information on the mythology of local tribes, but most of the legends he read were contradicted, sometimes just pages later in the same book.

He snapped shut the book and slammed it down on the table.

Snatching his keys, he stood up, pulled down the biggest map from the wall and headed out to his car. Mike spent the rest of the day in his car, until his back had sweated through to the seat and then dried again in the cool evening air. He drove from one side of the state to the other, starting in the west, near where he and Morris had left off, and continued east until he found himself back at the dam where Gary and Katie had helped him stake out the woman from the water.

He sat on the hood of his car and looked over the flowing water at dusk. After losing his friend, job, and his financial independence, Mike had latched onto the idea of redeeming his work and himself through tracking down this mysterious killer. At first he’d felt that it was his duty to Gary’s memory to finish the detective work that Gary had started.

I should’ve stuck to my day job, thought Mike.

For several years, Mike had split his time between working as a geneticist and investigating paranormal activity. Both obsessions stemmed from the death of his brother, and a deep desire to prove his worthiness to his dead parents.

Mike walked through the timeline of his own childhood. His family had been doomed to tragedy. When he was seven years old, riding his bike down a quiet suburban sidewalk, he had been struck by a swerving van and thrown into a tree. His spine had nearly been severed, and his family had endured several months of caring for Mike while his body lay in a motionless coma. Years passed before Mike’s young life returned to normal. His parents rearranged every aspect of their lives to accommodate his various therapies and expenses.

Even at his ninth birthday, Mike understood the dynamic of his family. Their parents worked tirelessly to guarantee that Mike had every chance for a full recovery, and shielded him from anything or anyone that would make him feel strange or burdensome. If Mike had been an only child, their careful act would have been perfectly convincing, but his parents also had Charlie. Younger, mischievous, independent, and healthy, Charlie was almost ignored for the years of Mike’s recovery. Although their energy and money was consistently directed to Mike, he could feel their silent devotion to Charlie. His little brother was the unsung hero of the family, oblivious to any injustice in being the younger brother of an accident victim.

His parents’ hardened hearts slowly broke when Charlie was diagnosed with leukemia. It didn’t matter that Mike had fully recovered, they couldn’t count on him the way they might once have—he was already fragile and damaged. Charlie was their last hope at an unblemished child, and once he became scheduled to die, Mike’s parents died too.

After the funeral, Mike knew his mother was already dead. She spent the first half of each week lost in depression, not bothering to dress or even leave her bed. For a while, his father made a good show of resuming a normal life. He kept his job, kept the bills paid, and kept the family going. But when Mike’s mother collapsed with pneumonia, and then drifted off to death, Mike’s dad started down the same slope.

Mike turned thirteen as an orphan. His grandparents took him in and raised him to value education and hard work above all else. It was also on his thirteenth birthday that Mike vowed to one day help find the cures for diseases like the one that had taken Charlie and the soul of his small family. When Mike first heard Charlie’s voice through the static on the radio, he also committed himself to furthering the research of paranormal phenomenon.

Now, just a couple years away from his fortieth birthday, Mike had lost his job helping people with genetic disorders, and had failed at paranormal research. It didn’t occur to him until just that moment, but he was almost exactly as old as his father had been when his father had died.

Is there still time? he wondered. Mike had never placed a high priority on relationships, getting married, or having kids. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he always thought there would be time later for those considerations; after his scientific discoveries, renown, and financial success. He counted back on his fingers—his last girlfriend had been seven years before.

Sandy had left him over an argument about his priorities. She said that he cared more about maintaining his house as a shrine to his dead grandparents than her. He attempted to argue that point, but knew he was on shaky ground. In fact, between his job, his paranormal hobby, and keeping his house exactly as his grandparents had left it, he didn’t seem to have much time for Sandy. When it came to things that she wanted to do, he participated begrudgingly, or not at all.

Mike slid off the hood of his car and glanced at his watch, startled by the time. He must have been sitting in that same spot, thinking about his life, for hours.

I’ve got to think of a way to combine my interests, he thought, then they won’t always compete.

Mike walked around the side of the car and stopped in his tracks, dropping his keys in the gravel. A new thought formed in the wreckage of his failed ambitions. Connections swirled in his mind. He didn’t need to combine his interests—they were already tied together.

He realized everything in a flash—the case that Ken had called him to consult on, the one about the boy, and the creature he had been chasing were part of the same puzzle. He had nearly described the entire thing to Ken at lunch, completely ignorant of how correct he had been.

The last piece fell into place in his mind.

“Oh shit,” he said aloud. The sound of his own voice snapped him into action and he bent over to grab his keys from the gravel. He fumbled for a few seconds, but then jumped in the car and started the engine. His latest realization was something that the creature and the boy already knew: the rogue and the extinction vector were on a collision course. If his latest theory was correct, the rogue wasn’t headed for the dam at all. The creature’s real destination would be wherever the boy called home. Since there wasn’t much land to the east of where Mike stood, it most likely meant that the boy lived west. The creature had already shown the ability to cover ground quickly, and that meant the boy’s life was in immediate danger.

Mike put his car in reverse and gunned the engine, sending gravel flying. After he backed around, he dropped the transmission into drive and took a deep breath. Getting himself killed in a car accident wasn’t going to help the kid, and he had to find a phone so he could alert Ken to the danger.

It wasn’t until he was back on the main drag, scanning for a pay phone and cursing himself for letting his cell phone expire, that he realized that he didn’t even have a home number for Dr. Ken Stuart.

Mike focused back on the road in front of him and sped up; he would have to visit Ken at home to deliver the news.

* * *

THE DOORBELL HAD NO LIGHT, and even when he pressed his ear to the door, he couldn’t hear the bell ringing inside. Mike resorted to knocking. On his third rap, the door fell away from his knuckles. The porch light came on as the door cracked open.

“Mike?”

“Hey Ken, I’ve got to talk to you about something. Can I come in?”

“Sure,” said Dr. Ken Stuart, opening the door to reveal his foyer. He stood in front of Mike in a full-length robe and bare feet.

“Did I wake you?” asked Mike. “What time is it?”

“It’s ten, but no, I was just about to go to bed,” said Ken.

“Everything okay?” a woman’s voice called from the top of the stairs. She poked her head and robed shoulders around the corner to look down the stairs.

“Yeah,” Ken called back. “It’s my friend Mike.”

“Hey, I’m really sorry.” Mike leaned towards Ken as he apologized. “This is really important. You’ll understand when I tell you.”

“No biggie,” said Ken, waving his friend into the living room. “Have a seat. Are you okay, man? You look kinda terrible.”

“I’m fine,” Mike said, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ve just been on the road a bunch today, but I’m seriously fine.”

“Okay,” said Ken.

Ken waited a few seconds before prompting Mike again—“So what’s up?”

“Okay,” said Mike, showing Ken his palms and leaning forward. He sat back and then leaned forward again. Ken fidgeted too, in response to Mike’s nerves. “You remember that thing I was telling you about the other day?”

“Which thing? The diagnosis?”

“No, not exactly,” said Mike. “Well, almost, but not really." Mike began another round of twitches.

“What is going on?” asked Ken, crossing his legs and tucking his robe modestly around them.

“I’m sorry. It’s just, I know how this is going to sound. If I had known your phone number and called you when I first thought of it, I would have sounded perfectly natural, but on the way over here I started to think about what I would say and how it would sound.”

“I’ve known you forever, Mike. Just say what you came to say.”

“Okay, okay. The other day at lunch I told you about the rogue mutation. At the restaurant, remember?”

“Yeah, the thing about beached whales? That was kind of interesting.”

“Yeah, yeah, it is. The whales are more the general case, though. I was talking more about a specific subset of cases. This subset is like the whales that commit mass suicide in that you start with a doomed branch of a family tree that culls itself for the good of the race, but in this fringe case one of the members survives.”

“Okay?” Ken prompted.

“So, you’ve got this one survivor—I call it the rogue mutation—and it lives only to pick off other inferior members of the race. Eventually it dies out and everything goes back to normal.”

“Right. I remember. It sounded far-fetched. Why does that bring you here?” asked Ken.

“It is far-fetched. In fact, it’s incredibly rare. The reason it brings me here is because of the other side of the equation: the extinction vector.”

“Didn’t you refer to my patient, the boy, as the perfect extinction vector?” asked Ken.

“Yeah, exactly,” said Mike. “My theory is that the rogue mutation plays itself out quickly, because it doesn’t have a balance. But the extinction vector is the perfect balance. Do you see?”

“Not really, no.” Ken’s answer was clipped, his patience wearing thin.

“Remember, this is beyond survival of the fittest,” Mike said. “Any species benefits from mutation. Combined with natural selection, mutation is the change agent that helps species evolve. That all works in the short term, but in the long term, you might have a dead-end—something that causes temporary benefit, but in the long run will do the species damage.”

“Like what?” asked Ken.

“Like promiscuity coupled with a short life-span,” offered Mike. “Imagine if a bunch of people were prolific breeders, but all died by the time they were twenty-five. People need a longer life-span than that because it takes thirty years just to catch up with the world’s accumulated knowledge. If we all lived to be twenty-five, we’d never advance human knowledge.”

“This is very interesting, but I do have other company at the moment. Can we speed this along a little?” asked Ken.

“Sure. I’m sorry, Ken, I’ll get to the point. I’ve been tracking something that crawled out of a cave in New Hampshire and it’s headed east. I think it’s one of these rogue mutations I’ve been talking about, and I think it’s tracking an extinction vector.”

“What?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but if there was a more likely candidate in this part of the state, I would know about him or her.”

“Forget about if my case is the most likely extinction vector,” Ken made air quotes around Mike’s term, “the whole thing is just crazy. I really think you might need to get some help, man. This whole lawsuit thing has just worn you out or something.”

“No, no, this is totally testable. You don’t have to take my word.” Mike started to get really worked up, and sat on the very edge of the couch, waving his arms as he talked. “All you have to do is draw some blood from the boy. If I’m right, then he would have to be massively infectious; like aggressively infectious, just look for cells that attack…”

Ken cut him off, grabbing Mike’s flailing arms at the wrists. “Stop,” he said to Mike. “Just stop. We’re not taking any blood, and you need to stop talking about my case as part of your delusion.”

“But they’re not…” Mike objected, pulling his hands away from Ken’s grip.

“STOP!” yelled Ken. “Listen to me. This is beyond reasonable. You’ve always been a little manic during late-night conversations, but this is out of hand. I’m a professional, and I intend to keep acting like one.”

Mike looked down at the floor.

“I just talked to that boy’s mother this evening—he’s fine. I’ve nearly ruled out a medical cause for his symptoms. He’s seeing a psychiatrist and he’s better already. This is the last conversation we’re having about one of my cases. You hear me?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” said Mike.

“Are you going to be okay?” asked Ken.

“I will be,” said Mike, rubbing his eyes with his palms. “I’ve just had a lot going on. Everything is going wrong.”

“It will get better. You just have to keep going. Everything will be better,” assured Ken.

“I know, I know,” said Mike. “Did I tell you I might lose the house?”

“Oh man, I’m sorry to hear that. Didn’t your grandparents have that house paid off?”

“Yeah, but I had to mortgage it to buy the equipment and, well, you know. It’s just awful,” said Mike, dropping his shoulders and hanging his head once again.

“Listen, it’s getting late. Why don’t you hang out in my guest room tonight and we’ll get some breakfast in the morning? Can you do that?” asked Ken.

“I don’t want to put you out,” said Mike.

“It’s no bother—seriously. The room’s always made up, and you have your own bath. I miss talking to you. We can catch up some more at breakfast,” said Ken.

“That would be great, if you’re sure.”

Ken nodded.

“You know, you’re the only one left around here that I can really talk to. Like we used to, you know?” asked Mike.

“Definitely,” said Ken. He stood and gently pulled on Mike’s elbow. “Come on, I’ll get you settled.”

* * *

MIKE LAID AWAKE for several hours. He was exhausted by the emotions from earlier that night, but he couldn’t stop thinking about his theories, and how Ken hadn’t been willing to entertain them. When they were fresh out of school and sharing an apartment with a third post-grad, they had always given each other the benefit of the doubt. No theory, regardless of how outlandish, would have been dismissed without first establishing a way to test it for validity. Mike wasn’t bothered that Ken was protective of his patients—that fit perfectly with Ken’s personality. Ken and Mike shard the same devotion to helping people, so Mike completely understood that position.

What bothered Mike was that Ken had been so willing to write off Mike’s theory as absurd when Mike had offered a simple, benign way to test his hypothesis. Mike was offended that Ken hadn’t been willing to apply scientific principles; he had just rejected Mike and assumed he was crazy.

Twisting in his bed, sleepless, Mike never experienced a moment of doubt. Instead of questioning his own motives, he tried to determine why Ken had so easily come to the wrong conclusion. The most plausible explanation he could draw was that Ken had become indoctrinated into the culture of reactionary science which plagued the modern medical profession. This fit well with Mike’s opinion of most medical doctors, but it saddened him to think that Ken had become one of them.

Mike pushed up on his side and smiled in the dark. He realized that his old friend might not be completely unreasonable.

He must have had second thoughts about sharing the details of a case with someone not officially connected to his office, Mike thought. This explanation allowed for all of Ken’s admonishments without assuming that Ken really thought Mike was delusional. And furthermore, Ken had dropped a pretty obvious clue: he had mentioned talking to the boy’s mother on the phone that evening. Mike threw back the covers and swung his legs to the floor. By the time he got to the door of his bedroom, he was convinced that Ken wanted him to find the mother’s phone number, and he had devised a test to prove his theory.

Without turning on any lights, Mike relied on the glowing red and green lights from appliances to guide him down the hall towards the kitchen. He found what he was looking for on the wall next to the microwave. Mike lifted the cordless phone from the charger and took the phone over to the window, where a streetlight provided enough illumination for him to make out the buttons. Scrolling to the last number dialed, he pondered the digits and considered the odds that he was wrong. If this number happened to belong to Ken’s girlfriend, perhaps her cell phone, then Mike’s welcome might run out very quickly.

Mike took a chance and hit the call button. Pulling the phone away from his ear, Mike tried to listen to the handset while also straining to hear if there was a similar ringing from upstairs.

After four rings an answering machine picked up—“Thank you for calling China Town. Our hours are…” he turned off the phone. Glancing at the counter while putting the phone back on the charger, Mike saw the empty takeout bag with the restaurant’s logo. His confidence began to ebb as he trekked back down the hall towards the guest room.

He stopped and backed up a step—Ken’s cell phone sat on the side table near the front door. He smiled and lifted the small device. Scrolling back through the phone numbers, he found what he was looking for: only one number was not named in Ken’s address book. The only other calls from that evening were to and from Sharon, who’s picture in the address book matched the woman Mike had seen at the top of the stairs.

Assuming he’s not sleeping with the boy’s mother, Mike thought as he copied the unnamed phone number to slip of paper from the table. He returned the phone to the state and position where he had found it and slunk back to his room.

If he really didn’t want me to get in touch with the boy’s mom, he certainly couldn’t have made it any easier, Mike thought as he finally started to fall asleep. He woke himself up one more time to set his watch alarm for five-thirty. His plans for the morning didn’t involve breakfast with his old friend.

* * *

MIKE FOUND A QUIET PAY PHONE at the side of a convenience store.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Hi, I’m sorry to bother you at this hour. This is Doctor Stuart’s office, I need to confirm your address for the insurance information,” he said, making his voice more nasal and trying to adopt the monotone disinterest of a harried office worker.

“There’s not a problem with my insurance, is there? I filled out the forms,” said Melanie.

“No, it’s just that we have to get this out before eight, and Stephanie is out sick. I’m not sure where she put your son’s info,” said Mike. He covered the phone and spoke away from the receiver—“I think it’s on top of the desk there, can you wait for just a second, I’m on the phone with the mom now,” he said to nobody. “Sorry about that,” he said, as if returning to the call.

“No problem, my address is three one two Maplewood, and that’s in Lisbon Falls, oh-four-two-five-two,” she said. “Don’t forget your lunch,” she said away from her receiver.

“Thanks. Again, I’m so sorry to bother you this early,” said Mike. He hung up and wandered back to his car to consult the maps scattered across his back seat.

* * *

MIKE FOUND MELANIE’S HOUSE within an hour. The street looped around, but the orderly numbering made Melanie’s house easy to find. He parked his car out in front of her house and jogged up to the walk to raised the flag on her mailbox. Mike drove home to clean up and change his clothes. After lunch, he filled his tank, taxing his credit card yet again, and returned to her address and found the flag down—the mail had been delivered.

This time, Mike found it more difficult to act. It had been easy to jump out and raise the flag on her mailbox. That would hardly be considered a crime. Now that he knew there was mail in the box, he figured he could simply steal a piece of junk mail to find out her name. Of all the details he remembered from the file that Ken had shown him, the name eluded him, and it was crucial to making credible contact.

He put his car in gear and decided to drive off. Even minor theft, like a piece of junk mail, was beyond Mike. With a quick impulse he slammed his transmission back into park and jumped out. Before he knew it he was in front of her mail box, sifting through her mail. Amongst all the generic mail, two pieces bore the same name: Melanie Hunter. Mike closed the box and nearly ran back to his car, slowing his pace with an extreme act of will. Behind the wheel he panicked and though he would have to read the name again, but he took a deep breath, remembered her name, and wrote it on his pad next to her number.

Mike drove around the small mill town and tried to imagine a giant killer stalking the streets, looking for Melanie’s little boy. He drove by a playground full of kids and wondered if one was the extinction vector he sought. The thought of being near someone so contagious didn’t bother Mike. Disease fascinated Mike, and he experienced no revulsion at the thought of it. Even so, he reminded himself to not get too close, just in case.

When six o’clock rolled around, Mike found another pay phone, this one outside a tiny candlepin bowling alley on a quiet street.

This time he lowered his voice, and tried to sound confident and trustworthy, like a newscaster. He tested the voice on himself as he dialed her number, this time adding star-six-seven before the number to block the caller ID. The phone rang four times before she answered.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Hunter?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“Hi, I’m Dr. Markey. Ken Stuart brought me in to consult on your son’s case. I’m a geneticist,” he explained.

“Oh. Hello. Did you find something? I usually talk directly to Dr. Stuart,” said Melanie.

“I know you do,” said Mike. “It’s just… There’s something I wanted to talk with you about directly, and he gave me your phone number. Is there a chance we could talk?”

“Uh, sure. I tell you what, can I call you back in a few minutes, I’m just putting dinner on the table,” she offered.

“No problem, but how about I call you—my office has a policy about patients and incoming calls,” he said.

“Huh,” she said. “Okay, fine, call me in fifteen.”

“Thank you, Ms. Hunter,” he said and hung up.

* * *

WHEN HE HAD HER on the phone again, he got right to the point—“Ms. Hunter, I’m afraid your son might be in danger.”

“What? Shit, did you find something? Why didn’t Dr. Stuart say anything. He just said he thought everything was okay.”

“He’s not immediately sick,” Mike said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to think that. Is your son paranoid, by any chance? Does he think someone is after him? A really big man, by any chance?”

Mike heard nothing but a stretch of silence as Melanie considered the question. He almost interjected, but decided to wait to see how she would react.

“Who is this again?” she asked, all business.

“Dr. Markey. I’m a geneticist,” he said. “It’s really important that I talk to you about your son. I’m really afraid that something might…”

Melanie cut him off - “And what exactly are you doing, calling me and asking if my son is paranoid?” she asked, raising her voice.

“It’s part of his condition,” Mike said, attempting to sound calm and reassuring. “It’s part of what’s wrong with him. Your son, that is.”

“I’m going to call Dr. Stuart, thank you,” she hung up the phone.

Fuck, Mike thought, that couldn’t have gone much worse.

He returned to his car and sat behind the wheel.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Davey

MELANIE STOOD IN THE DOORWAY to the family room for a second before calling his name. After the uneasy phone call with Mike, she was glad to see him safe and unharmed, sitting in front of the television and eating his dessert.

“Hey Davey, can you mute for a second?” she asked, sitting down in the chair next to the couch.

“Sure Mom,” he said. He continued to stare at the silent TV while she talked.

“Have you told anyone about your dreams?”

His eyes bounced off of hers for a second and then closed slightly as they returned to the TV. “Yeah,” he said.

“Oh? Who?” she asked.

“John,” he said.

“John? Is that someone at camp, or at the Center?” she asked, trying to remain casual.

“No,” he said. She recognized the tone. “He’s my psychiatrist,” he said slowly. Melanie wondered for a second if Davey would turn into a sarcasm-machine like his sister.

“Okay,” she said. “So you’ve told me and Dr. John. Anyone else?”

“Nope,” he said, spooning more ice cream into his mouth.

“And are you still having the same one? About the big man that’s chasing you?”

“Nope,” he said again. This time he squinted a little as the word left his mouth, as if forming it hurt him a little.

“Great,” she said, patting him on the shoulder as she stood. “Thank you.”

At the phone, dialing Dr. Stuart’s cell phone, Melanie felt her annoyance rising to replace her earlier fear.

“Melanie?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“I thought so. I don’t have your number recorded, but I thought I remembered it from…”

She cut him off—“Who’s this Dr. Markey?”

“I’m sorry?” he asked. She heard the phone shift and the ambient noise from his end of the call died away.

“Dr. Markey? Who is he?” she repeated.

“Damn, did he reach out to you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, trying to channel her annoyance into the handset. “He called saying crazy stuff.”

“I’m so sorry about that,” said Ken. “He’s a doctor that I had consult on your case. He’s been having a hard time recently with his personal life and I’m afraid he’s developed some really strange ideas.”

“Well he’s got strange ideas about my son,” she said. “And did you put him in touch with Tooley?”

“Pardon? Dr. Tooley? The psychiatrist?” asked Ken, dismayed.

“That’s the one. How come this crazy guy is talking to my son’s psychiatrist?” she demanded.

“He’s not, as far as I know. He couldn’t possibly know who Davey is seeing. All those records are confidential, I never showed anything like that to anyone who consulted on your son’s case,” said Ken.

“Then would you mind telling me how Markey happens to know my son’s dreams?” asked Melanie.

Ken was silent for several seconds, trying to process this new information. “He can’t,” he said finally. “Maybe it was some weird guess? I certainly didn’t say anything, and I can’t imagine Dr. Tooley would ever betray that trust. It’s got to be coincidence.”

Melanie considered this while squeezing her temples. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes, completely,” he said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “Look, I’m actually glad you called,” he lied. “I need to draw one more sample from Davey.”

She sighed into the phone. “Why?” she asked.

“It’s nothing, I promise. We’re still on the home stretch with this stuff, I just wanted that one last test, and I need a fresh sample for this one.”

“Okay. When?”

“As soon as you can?” he asked.

“You’re open early, right? How about before work tomorrow?”

“We’ll be there. Name the time,” he said.

* * *

KEN STUART LISTENED TO MELANIE hang up and then closed his phone while he walked back to his living room. He sat down in the chair next to the couch, the same one he had used when talking to Mike the day before.

“Who was it?” his girlfriend, Sharon, asked.

Ken looked up with squinted eyes and a furrowed brow. “I need to do some tests tomorrow. Can I come by around nine?”

Sharon laughed. “You’re kidding, right? Have you started seeing four-legged patients now?”

“No, no,” he said, not returning her smile. “I’ve got to look at some blood and it’s not something I can send it out for. I don’t have any scopes or centrifuges or anything like that at my office. I truck all that stuff out.”

“For a human patient?” asked Sharon. “What are you looking for exactly?”

“I can’t say,” said Ken, shaking his head. “I really don’t know. Hopefully nothing, but I’ll know if I can look under a scope.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Sharon. “Just give me a little notice so I can clear my techs out of there. I wouldn’t want anyone thinking you’re using veterinary equipment for people stuff. That’s frowned upon, you know?”

“Sure,” he said. “That makes sense. I’ll call you before I swing by.”

The Hunting Tree

BOOK THREE

- Stage of the Hunt -

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Mike

AROUND TWO IN THE MORNING, Mike realized he couldn’t stay up all night. Coffee cups littered the passenger well of his car, but the caffeine boost didn’t last. Staking out Melanie’s house would be easier, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself after the phone call earlier that evening. Coupled with his trouble with the police over the murders, Mike knew that one more encounter with law enforcement might earn him some serious scrutiny.

He settled for moving his car between various parking lots and cruising slowly by Melanie’s house every hour. As he rolled down the street each time he wondered what he would see in the cool June night that might alert him to the monster’s presence. Between trips he had plotted several courses from Sebago Lake to Lisbon Falls, trying to gauge which night the monster would arrive. He had too many variables and not enough information to make a reasonable guess.

At three in the morning, he made one more pass by the house. His car had just cleared Melanie’s driveway when he saw a light come on upstairs. Two of the four windows lit up, one brighter than the other. He saw some ambient light through the small glass inset in the front door and guessed that the light upstairs originated from a hallway. The street rose slightly uphill, so Mike simply let his car roll to a stop while he watched the windows for any movement. A shadow dimmed the brightest of the center windows and then passed. After a minute, the light shut off and Mike nudged his car down the street.

Stabbing at the controls, he put down the rest of his windows as he picked up speed. Mike shook his head from side to side to wake himself up. The clock told him that sunrise was on its way, so he continued past the last gas station and pointed his car towards the highway so he could head home.

When the rumble strip, cut into the shoulder of 95, snapped him awake for the second time, Mike pulled to the shoulder and got out. After relieving himself in the bushes, he grabbed a water bottle and dumped half of it over his head. He got home just before dawn.

It felt like seconds later when Mike woke to the ringing phone. The clock read eight. When he answered the phone, Mike barely recognized his own voice.

“Hello?”

“Can I speak to Mike Markey, please?” asked the caller.

“This is…” Mike began, coughing. “This is him. He. This is Mike.”

“Hey Mike,” said the caller, “this is Bill.”

“Bill?” asked Mike, pushing himself upright on top of his covers. He looked down to see that he was still fully clothed.

“Bill Carson? My insurance company is suing you,” said Bill.

“Oh,” said Mike. “Bill. I’m not supposed to talk to you. Call my lawyer.”

Mike pulled the phone away from his ear, and tried to turn it off, but only succeeded in pressing the button marked “1.” He was about to try again, but he could hear Bill imploring him from the distance.

“Wait, Mike? Mike? I want to talk to you.”

He put the phone next to his ear and answered—“What?”

“I want to offer you a deal,” said Bill.

“What kind of deal?” Mike asked.

“I’ll drop my claim, and my company will stop bugging you. I never thought they would go after you anyway. I figured you must have some kind of insurance.”

“Yeah,” said Mike. He once again considered hanging up.

“Yeah,” Bill agreed. “Anyway, I think we can work something out.”

“For what?” asked Mike. “I don’t have anything left.”

“You’ve got knowledge,” said Bill. “Irreplaceable knowledge. Can we meet somewhere? I want to talk to you in person.”

Mike didn’t blame Bill for all his problems, but he associated Bill with his own failures. His instinct told him to hang up on the man, but he was intrigued and flattered by the concept of his knowledge being irreplaceable.

“Okay,” said Mike. “You can buy me breakfast.”

* * *

MIKE NURSED HIS DECAF and chased it with plenty of water. The overdose of coffee from the night before left him feeling dehydrated and achy. He wanted to order breakfast, but didn’t want to commit to spending the money in case Bill decided not to show. When the thin engineer walked through the door, Mike called the waiter over so he could order immediately.

“Can you give us a minute?” Bill asked the waiter as he sat down.

“I’m ready,” Mike said, and ordered his breakfast.

“Sorry,” said Bill. “I didn’t know you were that hungry.”

“No problem,” said Mike. He took another sip of water and looked at his watch. “So what do you want?”

“Well,” Bill held up his hands over the table and then laced his fingers together. He tilted his head slightly before continuing. “I’m interested in your machine.”

“Which?” asked Mike, pursing his lips against a fresh sip of decaf.

“Not the amplifier, but the detector. The thing that detects paranormal?” he asked.

Mike sat his cup down on the table and looked down at his own hands.

“The one that burned up in your yard?” Mike asked. “That one?”

“Yeah, kinda,” said Bill. “Really interesting design. Took me a while to figure out exactly what it was doing with that phase-locked loop, but it’s really quite an interesting combination of ideas.”

“I don’t know the specifics,” said Mike. “I only worked on the theory. That information all died with Gary.”

“Yeah,” said Bill, lowering his head for a second. “I pretty much figured that. I got most of my information from the notes he gave me before…” he trailed off. “You know.”

“Funny time to bring it up,” said Mike. “I didn’t know you had notes about our invention. That would have been an interesting thing to let everyone know about during your deposition. You know, when you were under oath?”

“I know, I know,” said Bill. “You’ve got to understand, I had just lost my house and my insurance company was investigating everything, so I didn’t have a house and I didn’t have any money from the settlement either. Hell, I still don’t have a dime from that place.”

“So what changed?” asked Mike. “Why are you coming to me now?”

“Oh,” said Bill. He took a deep breath. “I built one. I built one of your detector things, and I need some help figuring some stuff out.”

Mike’s mouth hung open for several seconds before he thought to shut it.

“It’s your invention, so I wanted to come and talk to you about what we could do together,” said Bill.

Mike cut him off—“Why don’t you just take it? That seems to be your standard procedure.”

“I’m trying to do the right thing here,” said Bill.

“Wait,” started Mike. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to do, but I’ll bet it’s the right thing for you.”

Bill studied Mike’s eyes and then looked away. He made eye contact again and capitulated. “Fair enough.”

“Good,” said Mike. “So what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know,” Bill shrugged. “The thing looks like it should work, and I get a tiny reading where my house used to be, but mostly I just get interference.”

The waiter returned with Mike’s food and took Bill’s order, but Mike’s hunger had taken a backseat to the conversation—“What kind of interference?”

“It’s weird,” said Bill. “The signal is about the same as the one from that night at my place. It’s about that strong, I mean, but it has this low-frequency element to it, and it seems to wax and wane with the night and day.”

Mike thought this over and then raised his eyebrows—“So what kind of deal are you offering.”

“Wait a sec,” said Bill. “You already think you know what’s going on with my device, don’t you?”

“I do,” said Mike, through a mouthful of breakfast. Between the food and the meeting, he was beginning to feel much better than he had a right to. “Let me ask you—is this interference moving very slowly clockwise on a compass reading?" He studied Bill’s eyes and read an affirmative answer. “So what’s it worth to you?”

“I’ll drop my claim and get the insurance company and collectors off your back,” said Bill.

“Keep going,” said Mike.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you get, and what do I get? From the device.”

“We haven’t proved it’s worth anything,” said Bill. “I can’t even make it work.”

“It is and it does,” Mike stated. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t believe that.”

“Okay,” said Bill. “We’ll split everything.”

“That’s a good start, but I’m going to need more,” said Mike. “I’ve got some immediate financial issues from legal fees and being out of work. I need cash. And we have to cut in Katie and Gary’s family.”

Bill pushed back from the table, leaning back in his booth, taking it all in. “Anything else?”

“Those are the basics,” said Mike. “I’m willing to leave the details until later if you agree on principal.”

“I do,” said Bill. “So what’s your theory on the device?”

“You’re tracking my rogue,” Mike said as he bit down on a piece of toast.

“Pardon?”

Mike spent the next ten minutes casually explaining his theory and eating breakfast. He had told the story so many times that the details flowed sensibly. For Bill, who had tangible evidence to integrate with the suppositions laid in front of him, the explanation sounded viable enough to pursue.

“If you’re right we can actually prove this thing works, and we’ll be able to help this kid, too,” said Bill.

“Yeah,” said Mike, “and the police aren’t going to be any help. They’re already convinced that I’m a charlatan.”

“They’re generally a little too pragmatic to accept that kind of information,” said Bill.

“Like engineers aren’t pragmatic?” asked Mike.

“True,” said Bill, “but I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit first-hand.”

“So to speak,” said Mike.

Bill smiled.

They ate and talked, taking their time once they compared notes and understood that Mike’s rogue only moved at night.

After paying the check, Bill brought up the question of their next steps—“We’re going to need some high-quality maps.”

“No problem,” said Mike. “I’ve got every map published in my back seat. Let’s go use the device and see where this thing is holed up.”

“I’ve got it wired up in the car,” Bill said, smiling.

The two men adjourned to the parking lot. They spread the maps out on Bill’s hood and powered the detector from Bill’s car. Mike made a dot representing the diner and drew a line from their position in the direction of the strongest signal.

“What do we do if we find this thing?” asked Bill. “If you’re right, it kills at will. It must be incredibly strong.”

“I don’t think it moves at all during the day,” said Mike. “If we find it, we might be able to immobilize it completely as long as we get to it while the sun’s up.”

“I still think we should be able to weaken its energy. If we can detect it, we certainly should be able to counteract it,” said Bill.

“We don’t have time to experiment,” said Mike. “It’s moving roughly west to east, and from this latest reading, it could be within fifty miles of where the kid lives. That’s only two nights, if it’s moving at full speed. I say we track it down now and go at it with physical restraints.”

“Well, at least we could figure out what we’re dealing with,” said Bill.

“Yeah, exactly,” agreed Mike. “I live close to here. Let’s drop off my car and go in yours.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Bill.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Dr. Ken Stuart

“READY FOR ME YET?” Ken asked his girlfriend over his phone. He stood with a paper bag near the back door to her animal clinic. Sharon owned and ran a small veterinary clinic just a few blocks down from Ken’s practice.

“Yeah,” said Sharon. “I’ve got Lisa doing a training session. She wanted to run it anyway. You’ve got thirty minutes in the lab.”

“Can you let me in?” asked Ken.

“Oh!” said Sharon. She hung up and pressed open the door to let Ken into the lab. “Do you have everything you need?” she asked, standing at the doorway.

“I think so,” said Ken. “Where does biohazard go when I’m cleaning up?” he asked.

“Big trash can,” she said.

Ken laughed. “I’ll be done soon.” He smiled and kissed her cheek. “Thanks again.”

“Just don’t go bragging to any of your buddies. You’ll have my ass in a sling.” She backed through the door to the examination room.

Ken pulled the sample from his paper bag and fetched the test tubes and slides he would need to conduct his experiments. For a target, to test to see if there were any factors in Davey’s blood that were actually aggressive, Ken sliced a tiny patch of cells from the side of his finger. He used a scalpel from his bag and then carefully restored the instrument to its case.

After running a sample through the centrifuge, Ken extracted a clump of cells from the wall of the tube and laid samples out on several slides. He used different dyes to highlight the various types of cells he hoped to find and moved his prepared slides to the microscope to view the results.

The first slides showed completely normal results. Pulling back from the microscope, he blinked his unaccustomed eyes and nodded to himself. He chastised himself for humoring Mike’s crazy theory and demanding another blood sample from Davey.

It wasn’t until Ken gave Davey’s cells a fresh sample of his finger that he detected anything unusual. On that slide, instead of simply isolating and attacking the foreign cells, Davey’s immune response erupted in bizarre activity. Ken found a line of Davey’s white blood cells, organized away from Ken’s own cells on the slide. Instead of acting independently, the cells seemed to be moving in concert to plot against Ken’s skin. As he watched, a line of small projectiles moved against the enemy cells, and punctured their outer walls. Instead of killing them, the missiles took over and turned the cells against each other.

Ken watched in awe as his finger cells on the slide turned from placid skin into marauding attackers. Unable to immediately believe the evidence, Ken flipped back and forth between the slides, comparing the normal ecosystem of a slide consisting of all Davey-cells to the pandemonium that existed on slides combining Davey-cells with Ken-cells.

He broke his promise and made his way through the examination room to find Sharon. She stood at the back of a pack who listened to a lecture from Sharon’s partner. Ken waved to her, and she excused herself silently.

“Smooth,” she said when they were alone in the lab. “Thanks.”

“I just need someone else to look at this,” Ken explained.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You tell me.”

Ken prepared fresh samples and didn’t give his girlfriend any hint of what to expect.

Sharon pulled up one of the tall bench stools and moved her eyes in front of the microscope. “Seems pretty normal,” she said, adjusting the first slide. “Heathy complement of all the cells I would expect. A couple of contaminants here, but a pretty well-prepared sample.” Sharon moved the controls of the scope precisely and canvassed the community of dyed cells.

“Ready for the next one?” asked Ken.

“Not quite done,” she trailed off. “Hold on,” she said, “something here seems to have triggered an immune response. I’ve got some pretty aggressive activity here.”

“Aggressive,” said Ken, remembering Mike’s caution. “Wait until you see this.” He held the fourth slide, wanting to skip to the revelation.

“Bring it on,” said Sharon, intrigued.

Mike’s carefully gloved hand passed the glass slide to Sharon’s bare hand. She was accustomed to handling samples and fluids and barely paid attention to what she touched anymore. Very few pathogens possessed the ability to move from pets to humans, so she rarely wore gloves for lab work. In this case, neither Ken nor Sharon could have foreseen the colonizing nature of Davey’s virile cells. Some had moved from the slide cover to the edge of the bare glass and attacked Sharon’s hand as she first touched the slide.

“Wow,” she said, looking at the new slide. “This is incredible. It’s like they’re staging a coordinated…” A new thought crossed her mind—“Jesus, I hope these things don’t manage to get airborne!”

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” admitted Ken.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Sharon, returning her examination. “It’s not really even a possibility, but if your patient was here, I wouldn’t want to be in the room if he sneezed. Hand me that bottle, would you?” She pointed at a blue bottle of antiseptic cleanser.

Ken passed her the bottle and watched as Sharon took a long swab from a jar and dipped it in the blue liquid. Bracing her wrist with her other hand, she gently introduced the tip of the swab to the edge of the slide, and held it there until the blue had spread between the thin slide cover and the sample slide. She dropped the swab in a metal trash can and put her eyes back to the scope.

“Well that stuff kills it,” she informed Ken. “At least they can be dispatched fairly easily.”

“So what do you think? Send it off to the CDC?” asked Ken.

“Yeah, I guess. You’re the people doctor. What’s the protocol?”

“It’s not like this kind of thing happens everyday,” he said. “I’ll get everything cleaned up here. I’ll hose the place down the blue stuff just to be sure.”

“You can just pitch the glass. That stuff is cheap. Wrap everything in one of these bags and put it in that container. That stuff gets incinerated.” Sharon pointed to a smaller bin.

“Thank you, darling.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. He started to gather up everything he had brought while his girlfriend washed her hands thoroughly in the sink, taking belated caution around the dangerous samples.

“Okay,” she said, drying her hands on a paper towel, “you’ve got five minutes before this place will be swarmed.”

“Thanks again,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, facing her boyfriend and rising up to her toes to kiss his lips. “I’ll get my payment later.” She smiled.

“Is that a promise?”

“You’re too cute,” she said. Sharon reached up and pinched Ken’s cheek. Some of Sharon’s re-purposed skin cells transferred to Ken’s face and began their attack on the new host.

By the time Ken left Sharon’s veterinary clinic with a sealed plastic bag, Davey’s cells had reached Sharon’s bloodstream and had nearly found the capillaries in Ken’s cheek.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Davey

“HEY,” A VOICE CALLED from over Davey’s shoulder.

He glanced back towards the fence and saw a girl clutching the high chain-link, calling to him. His left hand came up automatically and caught the unseen ball rifled towards his face. Davey and Shane had been practicing jumping up from a squat and throwing to second base. The combination of movements made accuracy and speed difficult, but Davey was a natural and Shane was learning quickly. Davey flipped the ball to his right hand and stepped closer to the beckoning girl.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“That’s my brother.” She nodded at Shane, who had already started jogging towards Davey and the girl.

“Oh,” said Davey.

“What’s up?” Shane asked his sister.

“We’ve got to go. Mom’s coming.”

“How come?”

“One of the girls on our team got attacked or something last night?” she said.

“Seriously?” asked Shane. He was a full year older than Davey, and the two didn’t consider each other friends, but Shane was the closest acquaintance Davey had in the camp. He joined Shane and his sister at the fence.

The three stood close, separated by the tall fence.

“Yeah,” said Shane’s sister. “She got murdered in her house. They didn’t tell us that, but Brittney heard it because her dad is a cop. I didn’t know her, but we’re not supposed to practice. They said we can either go talk about how we feel or our parents can come pick us up. I called Mom so she’d come get me, but now she wants both of us to go. Lots of the girls are really upset.” She scuffed a ragged groove in the grass with her foot as she talked.

Davey saw through her bluster and phrased his question delicately—“What was her name?”

“Charlotte,” said the girl. “Anyways,” she continued to her brother, “Mom’s coming in ten minutes to pick us both up.”

“Okay,” said Shane. “I’ll go tell Coach Peterson.” He took off his cap and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm before jogging off to find the coach.

Davey was left at the fence with Shane’s sister, who still clung to the fence and squinted after her brother.

“So you didn’t know her?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said.

“I did,” said Davey. “I mean I met her once. She helped me a couple days ago when I cut my shin.” He pointed down to the scab.

“She was nice that way,” said Shane’s sister.

“I’m sorry she got murdered,” Davey offered.

“Yeah, whatever,” she said. She pushed away from the fence and started off towards the parking lot. “See you later,” she said to Davey.

“Bye,” he replied.

Davey sat down in the grass and pulled the sweaty mitt from his left hand. He placed it in his lap. He thought about his dreams from the previous night; about how frightened Charlotte had looked as the monster slowly turned the handle to her bedroom door. She hadn’t been surprised. Davey would have known that even if he hadn’t seen her eyes. She had known exactly what stood on the other side of her door as she sat up in bed.

Why didn’t she run? Davey wondered as he spun the scuffed baseball in his hand. He pictured the scene, trying to make Charlotte move to the window or run to the closet—anything to get away from the approaching giant. His eyes welled with tears as his imagination failed him. She refused to move even in his rewritten fantasy. Charlotte had known the fate that approached because she had seen it too. She had seen her future as the beast silently killed her parents, stopping in their room first before mounting the narrow stairs. They had been surprised. Davey knew that too.

Her father had awoken first. He began with curiosity, wondering why their daughter was opening the door to their bedroom, and then jumped to relief that the unexpected visit wasn’t taking place during the matrimonial bliss earlier that night. It never occurred to Charlotte’s father that the thing pushing open his bedroom door wasn’t his lovely daughter. His high-priced security system made intruders the furthest thing from his mind.

Charlotte’s mom woke next, just as the door swung open to reveal the giant monster on the other side. She gasped as her eyes picked the shape out of the gloomy doorway, and she clutched her blankets tight to her neck, as if the quilt could ward off the attack.

Both of Charlotte’s parents brimmed with infection from Davey’s cells, passed through his blood to their daughter, and from her innocent lips to theirs. The infection drew the monster, and neither parent had time to scream before their killer crossed the room and silenced their voices forever.

Locked in this trance, picturing the untimely death of her entire small family, Charlotte sat in her own bed as the creature trapped her in her second-floor room.

“Davey?” The coach crouched in front of the boy. He snapped back from the scene of Charlotte’s death; a remembered dream, forgotten until the news had reached him through Shane’s sister. When he looked up at the coach, several tears escaped from his eyes and made tracks through the dust on his face.

“What’s wrong?” asked Coach Peterson.

“Nothing,” Davey wiped his tears with the tail of his shirt.

As he started to stand, his coach reached out and grasped his wrist. Davey pulled his arm away quickly from the man’s gentle grip.

“Whoa,” said the coach, “what’s wrong? And don’t tell me ‘nothing’.”

“One of the girls.” Davey waved with the mitt he held in his left hand. “One of the girls got killed or something. I met her one time.”

“Oh,” said the coach. “I’m so sorry about that.” He reached out to put his arm around Davey’s hunched shoulders, but pulled back when he remembered how Davey had reacted to being touched. “Do you want to come talk about it? Or should I call your mom to pick you up?”

“No,” said Davey. “I’ll be okay. I just want to go get a drink first.”

“That’s fine,” said Coach Peterson.

“And Shane’s going home, so I need a new partner for drills,” said Davey.

“That’s fine,” the coach said to Davey’s back as he trotted off towards the water fountain.

Davey spent the next hour of practice preoccupied with the ramifications of Charlotte’s death. Once he remembered the dream about her death, he started to recall the other gruesome dreams which had haunted his nights the previous weeks. If each terrible nightmare represented an actual murder, Davey wondered how many more nights he would last until the monster showed up at his door. His own death inconceivable, Davey focused on the horror of losing his mother or even his sister.

Davey still missed his dad, and he was still a little angry with him as well. His dad had turned into the terrifying, mutilated corpse on the stairs. To Davey, his dad’s transformation still seemed like a betrayal. He promised himself that he wouldn’t let something like that happen to his mother.

* * *

“THANKS FOR THE RIDE, COACH,” said Davey, getting out of the car.

The urge to hide was almost overwhelming, but Davey knew that if he didn’t show up at the Center they would alert his mother immediately and the search would commence. Pretending everything was normal, he walked through the door and checked in with the woman at the desk. Davey pushed through the interior doors and took a left to get to his assigned locker. Most of the kids arrived in the morning. Davey was one of a handful of children who only attended for the afternoon so he had the hallway to himself. With his bag stowed, Davey found his classroom and checked in with the paperback-woman before finding his way to the courtyard.

Davey scanned the courtyard and made his way to the outskirts of the younger group to take a position against the wall. Relieved, he saw that the pointing and staring from the previous day had abated. Unable to best him physically, Curtis had attempted to spread a rumor that Davey was the retarded son of a raped prostitute. The notion took hold briefly amongst the older kids, but having only one backer, it died away. Confronted at the end of the day, Davey had simply said, “Whatever.” The rumor lost its legs.

“Hi Davey.” Evan sat down next to Davey.

“Hey Evan,” Davey replied, smiling. He didn’t make eye contact.

“Whatchoo doin’?” Evan asked.

“I’m trying to think of a way out of here,” said Davey.

“Just go through the door,” Evan said, laughing. “That one there.” He pointed back towards the classroom.

“That won’t work,” said Davey. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Sure,” said Evan.

“I need to run away for a while,” he confided. “So my mom doesn’t get hurt.”

“Well then don’t go through that door,” Evan said, as if the idea had been Davey’s. “You have to wait until they start an activity and then get signed out.”

“What do you mean?” Davey turned to Evan, surprised the boy had even offered advice. He had started to think that Evan was not all there, but wondered if he had judged too quickly.

“That woman who reads the books only sticks around while Mr. Nguyen gets his lunch. She keeps a sheet in her drawer. If someone has to go home early, she marks them down on the sheet and the Mr. Nguyen knows that they’re not around.”

“How do you know about that?” asked Davey.

“I just do,” said Evan.

Davey turned to thank him for the advice, and remind him to keep the secret, but when he looked up Evan was already moving away, back to the other younger kids. Davey faced back front and saw why Evan had left—Curtis stood in front of Davey, blocking out the sun except where his blond hair appeared like a halo around his head.

Davey looked up and squinted at the older boy.

“Hey, man,” said Curtis. He sat down next to Davey and elbowed him in the side.

“What?” asked Davey, keeping his voice low and even to show his disdain.

“Sorry those kids were talking about your mother yesterday,” he said. “You’re pretty cool.”

Davey didn’t reply, he just cut his eyes over to see Curtis’s expression. The older boy had offered his hand to Davey. Wary of a trick, Davey slid a few inches away before taking the boys hand. They shook with two fast pumps and then released the grip.

“I just figured you were another d-bag like some of these other kids. That’s why I was so mean to you at first,” said Curtis.

“Okay,” said Davey.

“You wanna go throw the ball around or something?” asked Curtis.

“We only have like fifteen minutes,” said Davey.

“Yeah, I know. I meant, like, next recess,” said Curtis.

“Sure,” said Davey.

“Cool,” said Curtis.

Sensing no immediate attack, Davey relaxed a little. He figured Curtis was the type to come out swinging, and no fast attack most likely meant none was coming.

“What do you do in the mornings?” asked Curtis.

“Baseball,” said Davey.

“I used to do that,” said Curtis. “You’re lucky you’re not here. This place blows in the mornings. It’s so boring.”

“Yeah,” said Davey.

They talked for a few minutes, forging the beginning of a connection, and then Davey came up with an idea.

“Hey,” he said to Curtis, “can you help me with something?”

“Sure,” said Curtis.

* * *

DAVEY WAITED UNTIL FOUR MINUTES before the end of recess to put his plan into action. Curtis explained the protocol, and Davey followed the instructions carefully. He smacked his palm on the door and cupped his hands to the glass to spot the paperback-woman. She put down her book, walked over, and cracked the door.

“Yeah?”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.

“You can hold it,” she said, glancing at the clock. “You only have five minutes.”

“I can’t. I really can’t,” he pleaded.

“Okay,” she said. “Go fast.” She held open the door and let Davey pass.

He squeezed his legs together and shuffled quickly across the long room, trying to look distressed. Davey slipped into the hall and shut the door behind himself. Back in the classroom, he heard another commotion. He knelt down below the frosted glass, and pressed his ear against the wood so he could listen to what was happening.

“Hey,” Curtis shouted into the classroom. “Hey lady, he’s trying to run away. That kid is trying to run away.”

“Whatever, Curtis,” the paperback-woman said.

Davey’s stomach flopped and he looked up and down the hallway, sure his plan would fail.

“He is,” Curtis continued, “he just left, you have to catch him.”

Short breaths were all Davey could manage, he didn’t have a word for the panic and excitement that had turned his legs to rubber. Certain the the paperback-woman would open the door at any second, he backed away slightly, looked at the frosted glass, and saw the dark blur of the woman moving behind the desk.

“If you’re messing with me, you’re not going outside for a week,” the paperback-woman addressed Curtis. Miraculously, Davey heard her voice trailing off as she moved away from the door. He reached up, still crouching on the shiny tile, and turned the knob. It took both hands to form a grip with his sweaty hands. Davey cracked the door open and saw the paperback-woman standing in the far doorway, looking over the courtyard. He wanted her to turn completely away, to be more engaged with Curtis’s subterfuge, but he also didn’t want to squander what might be his only chance.

Davey shuffled, staying low, over to the back of the desk and slid open the top drawer. Opened to page twelve, the ledger listed each student’s name. Next to the entry, a time showed when the child arrived. Flipping back through the pages, Davey found what he was looking for—an example of an entry from when a child had been extracted from the program early by a parent.

He memorized the syntax and flipped back to page twelve. Next to his name, the inscription “B/R 1:26” showed the reason for his current absence. Davey erased the entry and replaced it with “OUT/MTHR 1:26,” copied from the example on page ten. He slipped the book back into the drawer and pushed it closed.

Davey steeled himself for the dash to the door. He poked his head around the side of the desk, to ensure the paperback-woman was still engaged with Curtis’s story, but what he saw forced him back behind the desk: the paperback-woman had seen through the lie and was already back in the classroom, the door swinging shut behind her. Curtis had his face pressed against the glass of the other door, but Davey wasn’t sure if his new friend had spotted his predicament. Davey tucked under the metal desk—where the woman’s legs would go if she didn’t always prop them up to support her book—and listened to the click of her approaching shoes.

She slowed as she rounded the desk and picked up her book from the surface. Davey heard her sigh interrupted by the outside door crashing open again.

“Hey!” an unfamiliar voice called out. “That guy just cut himself on something.”

“For Christ’s sake,” the woman said as she flopped her book back down.

Davey heard her shoes clicking away and mentally thanked Curtis for giving him more time. He didn’t bother to look, he figured it was his last chance. Davey scurried towards the door and slipped into the hallway, turning the handle before pulling it shut to avoid the click of the latch. Instead of heading towards the bathroom or his assigned locker, Davey took a right towards the glowing red exit sign.

The end of the hallway was dark, with only minimal lighting. Around the corner he found two heavy doors marked as an exit. He paused and listened. Davey didn’t know if he was using his ears or some other sense, but he thought of it as listening. He reached out with his senses to determine if this way was safe. Unable to perceive any danger, he pushed through the door, reminded of when he and Paul had snuck out of school. Only a couple short months before, Davey already pined for those carefree days of school.

Behind the building he found a loading dock and a short stretch of asphalt to the fence that bordered the woods. A dumpster near the fence looked to provide decent cover, so Davey slipped through the door and sprinted for the narrow shadow next to the dumpster. He stayed low during his run, but once he reached the safety of the shadow, Davey poked his head out to see if he had been spotted.

Convinced he hadn’t been seen, he plotted his next move. He stood, grabbed the top of the dumpster and pulled himself up. With the fence now at waist-height he threw himself over and tumbled to the ground on the other side. Two steps later, Davey was safe in the woods, shrouded by the thick blanket of foliage.

He crawled farther away, until he couldn’t even make out the bricks of the Center, and then stood. A thin path wound down the hill and then followed a dirty creek. Davey followed the path, and plotted the rest of his day. He jolted to a stop and gasped. He thrust his hand deep in his pocket, sure that he had left his running-money in his bag in the locker. Davey smiled and exhaled when his fingers touched the wad of bills.

The sun came out from behind the blanket of clouds and brightened the woods just as Davey’s mood lightened. He ambled carelessly, figuring he had plenty of time to get to the road and hitch a ride before anyone would miss him. His plan took him across the creek, down the summer version of a snowmobile trail, and across the river on the railroad bridge so he could get to the big patch of woods south of his hometown.

Once he hit the big woods, he knew what to expect. He had hiked here with friends and knew a lot of the trails. At least one trail went for miles in either direction, hooking up to the cross-country snowmobile trails in the wintertime, but he didn’t plan to walk all afternoon. For one thing, he knew that the trails would eventually bog him down in swamps—the snowmobilers didn’t have to worry about bogs and small bodies of water, they just skated right over that mess—but more importantly, he wanted to catch a ride before nightfall. Davey suspected that the monster could easily outrun him on foot, but might have trouble keeping up with a car.

He took a right on the next branch and continued on the rutted trail until he saw the road through a thin margin of trees. He couldn’t recall the road number. It had two lanes and a double yellow line—he figured that was enough to ensure a certain amount of traffic. Davey cut through the woods and walked through the gully until a car going the wrong direction passed. When the road cleared, he trotted across and continued down the shoulder of the southbound side.

Davey shuffled down the gravel shoulder for fifteen minutes before the next car passed. He turned around and stuck his thumb out. A white minivan gave him some extra space and kept going. Right on its heels, just after the minivan had cleared the corner, a blue sedan slowed down as it pulled alongside Davey.

The window lowered and a middle-aged man with a thin mustache looked out.

“Where you headed?” the man asked.

“Portland?” Davey asked.

“Jump in,” said the man.

Davey walked back a step and reached for the handle to the backseat, but the man called out to him—“Get it front, would ya?”

“Okay,” said Davey. He was unaccustomed to riding in front, but didn’t want to scare away his ride. Davey climbed into the sedan and pulled the door shut, but it didn’t latch. The man began to pull away from the shoulder. “It’s not closed, I don’t think,” Davey told him.

“Try again,” the man instructed.

Davey pushed open the heavy door and saw the road streaking by below them. He jerked the door with both hands and it sealed shut. The closing seemed to trigger a burst of stale cigarette smoke to puff up from the seat. Turning away from the man, Davey fumbled with the seat belt and pulled it across his body.

“All set?” asked the man.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Davey. He looked up at the man. Deep lines were carved into his tanned face, and a forest of stubble covered his chin. Most of the wrinkles started around his eyes and curved up and away. The man squinted constantly, but his eyes were so light-blue, almost white, that Davey could make out their color just from the small amount he could see. At the man’s temples white hair feathered back, but the rest of his short hair was charcoal gray, salted lightly.

“Name’s Horace,” the man said, sticking out his weathered hand.

Davey took the thick-skinned hand and gripped it briefly before pulling away. Despite the heat of the afternoon, Horace’s hand was cold.

“I’m John,” Davey lied. He had an elaborate backstory to tell, if he should be pressed. Horace didn’t ask.

“It can be a royal bitch to get a ride. How long were ya walkin’?” asked Horace. Davey noticed that the car moved at a steady pace, not too fast at all, perhaps even too slow.

“Only a little while,” said Davey.

“Anybody else pass you?” asked Horace.

“Just a van,” said Davey. “I was going to…” he began to lead in to his cover story.

Horace cut him off, hissing under his breath. “Shit,” he said, “get down." He reached out and pressed on Davey’s shoulder with his right hand. Davey spotted the white van on the right side of the road, with its front end pulled out to cross the lanes in a wide U-turn. As he ducked he spotted the back of the woman’s head—she looked towards the north-bound lane to gauge if she could continue pulling out.

“I figure you’re on the run and don’t necessarily want that lady to spot you headed south,” said Horace.

“Oh,” said Davey, still processing the situation. He inched back up as Horace brought the car back up to speed. Davey looked around out the back window and saw the retreating shape of the minivan, now headed north. “You think she was looking for me?” asked Davey.

“Prolly not,” said Horace. “Bitch like that prolly forgot her purse at home, but better safe than sorry.”

Davey thought of various things to say, but didn’t want to commit to an opinion until he got a better handle on what was happening.

“So, John, how old are you, ehnways?” asked Horace.

“I’m thirteen,” said Davey.

Horace nodded and ran his tongue over his teeth behind his chapped lips. “Whatcha runnin’ from?”

“My stepdad,” said Davey. “He hits me.”

“Yup,” Horace said, raising his eyebrows and shooting a glance at Davey. “My old man was like that too. It’s a real bitch.”

Davey nodded in rhythm with Horace and looked down at his own hands. He absently rubbed them together, but made himself stop.

“My old man broke horses. Di’nt he love to beat things, though,” said Horace, smiling to himself. “Wasn’t gonna matter whatcha did, or di’nt do, sumthin’ was gonna get stove up.”

A mile passed before Horace spoke again. He attempted to engage Davey in conversation—“My dad usetah say that a horse never really trusts you, he only trusts his ability to get away from you. You know?”

“No sir,” said Davey.

“He’ll come close,” Horace explained, “but only if he knows there’s room to run. Get it?”

“Yes.” Davey looked out his window and watched the trees passing. He knew fear—he feared the monster stalking him in the night and what he would do to his family and even himself. And Davey knew threats as well; he had fought off teasing and bullies a few times that year. The sense he got from his new traveling companion was both more immediate and more direct. Davey felt almost like he was leaning over a tall cliff, but without the thrill of knowing that he could move away from the edge.

“So muh’dad would let that horse think he had room to run, but then he’d trick ’em. Trick ’em good, too,” said Horace. “Funny thing—only one Sunday a month would one of ’em get the notion to really fight once he was tricked. Most times they’d just put their heads down and wait for the hammer. Old man would bring it, too. Can you pitcher that?”

“Yes sir,” said Davey. He squeezed his arms close to his body and chewed on a fingernail. He didn’t need to recall the warnings about strangers imparted by his mom, he was certain that Horace meant to do him harm. His thoughts quickly shifted from worrying about living through the next week to simply finding a way through the next twenty-four hours.

“Almost like he was mad at ’em for givin’ up.” Horace chuckled and flipped on his turn signal. Davey looked ahead and saw the stop sign, but Horace traced the direction of his glance and barely slowed down for the turn. He rolled through the stop sign with his hand on the emergency brake, ready to haul Davey back in if he should decide to take his chances with the moving pavement.

“You seem all done up alluvasudden,” said Horace, glancing down at Davey.

“No sir,” said Davey, eyes fixed forward. He jumped when Horace’s right hand landed on his thigh. The man’s coarse palm slid up and down along Davey’s jeans, rubbing the fabric uncomfortably against his skin. Horace squeezed Davey’s thigh as he flipped on his signal and swept into a wide turn onto a dirt drive.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said Horace. “I’ve got to stop at the house for a second.”

Davey swallowed hard and tried to slow his pounding heart. He tried to ignore the man’s abrasive hand scratching his skin through his jeans, but each time the hand rose up it brushed closer to Davey’s privates. Davey tasted thick, sour acid in his mouth as his teeth drew blood from his mangled cuticle. His muscles, tensing and pulsing with his desire to run, already felt weak as if he had run a marathon sitting in this car.

Without understanding his own motive, Davey flicked his bleeding finger at the man’s hand. A tiny drop of bright-red blood stood out on the back of Horace’s craggy hand. Horace didn’t notice; he focused on moving his hand closer and closer to breaking several more laws.

Horace kept the car moving fast as he pulled up to the trailer in the woods. Davey scanned the property and readied himself to spring from the car. Horace finally lifted his hand from Davey’s thigh as he jammed on the brakes, flopping Davey into the restraint of his seatbelt. Just as Davey recognized his one chance for escape, Horace’s fist came crashing down on the side of Davey’s head, snapping it to the right. The man said something, but Davey’s world had turned gray and he couldn’t follow the words.

* * *

“YOU ALL RIGHT?” Horace asked.

Davey blinked and shook his head, trying to find his vision in the dark room. The only sources of light were tiny cracks and seams around the windows and door, and a pair of dusty lava lamps in the corners.

“Hitcha a little harder than I shoulda,” admitted Horace. “You was out for a good piece. I di’nt wanna hafta wrestle you all the way ’cross the yard.”

Davey put his hand to his head and looked down at himself. He sat in the corner of a long couch, across from Horace who sat on the edge of a rocking chair, leaning forward.

“I di’nt do nuthin’ to ya,” said Horace. “Aside from that knock, that is,” he amended. “We’ll get to what you want, I promise.” He wagged his finger. “But I’m not feeling just right yet. You want some weed?”

Davey shook his head and stayed silent.

“What’s that? Can’t hear ya?” Horace prompted.

“No, thanks,” said Davey.

Horace reached down next to his chair and raised a tall plastic bong. Its transparent blue surface was covered with white skull stickers. The wrinkled man packed the bowl and puffed away, blowing a cloud of smoke towards Davey.

Davey wrinkled his nose and tried to not inhale until the smell had dissipated. He blinked hard several times, trying to bring himself back to full consciousness.

“I felt great just a minute ago,” said Horace. “It’ll pass. I know I’m a tease, makin’ you wait, but I want to give you my best.” He winked at Davey as he sucked in another bong hit.

Scanning the room, Davey inventoried the blacked-out windows and the thin line of sunlight beneath the door. He watched as Horace inhaled, hoping the man would pass out from the drugs. His captor coughed out another cloud of thick smoke.

“I’m saturated,” said Horace. He smiled and waved to Davey. “Why dontcha come over here for a minute. Maybe you can get me goin’?”

Davey bit down on his lower lip, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to prepare himself for his escape attempt. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly as he slid forward to the edge of the couch. He stayed quiet. He didn’t want Horace to guess his intentions until he was past the man’s rocking chair.

Davey kept the round table between himself and the door as he moved over to Horace. He didn’t know much about weed, but Davey suspected that it would slow Horace’s reactions, and give him an even better chance of escape. As he put one foot in front of the other, moving towards Horace’s beckoning wave, Davey willed the world to slow down. His foot slowed to slow, gentle arc, and Davey thought he had done it—he had slowed down the world like when he first fought Curtis. Glancing back up at Horace’s full-speed hand, Davey realized that he had succeeded in nothing more than walking extra slowly. Panic rose to his throat.

He didn’t know exactly what Horace intended to do. In his estimation, nothing good would happen in this dark, dirty trailer. When Davey reached Horace’s side, the wrinkled man’s hand shot up towards Davey’s wrist. This time Horace’s motion did slow to a crawl and Davey realized that the threat of being touched again by those leathery hands had triggered the slowdown that he couldn’t force.

Horace’s hand, slow as it was, kept coming. Davey jerked his hand out of the way and cocked back his fist to repeat the solar plexus move that had disabled Curtis days before. He fired his pointed knuckles at Horace’s chest and put his whole shoulder into the blow. Having missed its original target, Horace’s hand kept coming, correcting fast for Davey’s evasion and speeding up despite Davey’s supernatural speed. Davey’s own hand connected with Horace’s chest, but didn’t find the soft patch of flesh it anticipated.

Horace’s abdomen stood taught. It repelled Davey’s punch and the man neither gasped nor doubled over. Regardless of his ineffectual attack, Davey had the advantage of speed, so he spun and pumped his legs towards the dented door.

Behind him, he heard Horace begin to yell. Horace’s voice sounded stretched and low to Davey’s super-speed ears. Davey reached the door and jerked back on the handle. It didn’t move. He flailed back and forth, tugging on the knob. It didn’t move even a fraction of an inch. Horace’s sounds behind him started to make sense—Davey realized that the man was laughing.

A tightening at his waist preceded a violent tug backwards. Davey looked back and saw Horace pulling a thick hunk of rope with both hands. He turned back to the door, but something new caught his eye—in the gloom Davey could just make out the shape of a deadbolt mounted near the top of the door and another near the floor. The world began to speed back up as Horace reeled him in by the rope threaded through his rear belt-loops.

“Heh, heh, heh,” Horace cackled as Davey caught back up to real time. “Where’s ya goin’, Johnny?” He laughed. “You can run, but yer pants are stayin’ here, as you can see.” Horace’s accent thickened as he laughed. He stretched even the short words out to multiple syllables. “Now who ya tryin’ to hit with that little fist?” He cooed at Davey as he grabbed his belt and hauled him in the rest of the way.

Now stretched across the man’s lap, Davey could smell the second-hand weed and cigarettes. He cringed and pulled up his legs, but Horace wrapped his wiry arms and gripped him tight.

“I’m not like my pops,” said Horace. “I don’t wanna break you.”

Horace coughed again. He paused for a second and then coughed even harder. Davey tried to pull his arm away from Horace’s hot breath, but he wasn’t strong enough to counter the man’s grip. A wet mist rained on Davey’s arm and he looked down to see Horace smiling up at him. This close to the man, Davey saw the thick red blood coating Hoarace’s lips. Horace had coughed even more blood onto Davey’s arm. Somehow in the clutches of this drugged rapist, Davey’s fear began to dissolve as the realization traveled up from his own arm: Horace had been infected and wouldn’t last much longer.

Davey smiled at the thought.

“Glad yer comin’ around.” Horace’s smile broadened. “We’re gonna have some…” he trailed off into another coughing fit—this one consuming enough of his energy that his grip loosened and Davey was able to pull away.

By the end of the hacking, Davey had moved back several feet and regarded Horace with a curious smile. He knew what had happened; he realized that Horace’s current disability was his own doing and Davey stood proud, watching the effect. Horace was a victim of Davey’s blood. At the time, Davey hadn’t even realized why he had shook the tiny drop of blood on Horace’s molesting hand, but he knew now. That blood had done it’s job and now doomed Horace to this terrible fate.

“What…” said Horace. “What?” he continued and then stopped again to shudder and double over with spasms of coughing.

“Goodbye, Horace,” said Davey.

As if on cue, Horace vomited a stomachful of thick blood and stringy clots. He retched for several minutes and a pool of gooey black blood spread around his rocking chair on the thin dirty carpet. Davey backed away until his legs hit the couch. He rubbed the smear of blood on his left arm.

When he had cleared his stomach, Horace raised his head enough to eye Davey. Strings of blood-drool dripped towards the floor. He managed one last confused question—“Whud you dooda me?” Horace slumped forward, his head hitting the table and arresting his fall. Davey circled the room the other direction, never taking his eyes from the dead man. His smile evaporated.

Davey fumbled with the deadbolts, getting the upper one quickly, but struggling with the lower. He looked up frequently to check on the state of Horace, who remained dead.

With the deadbolts finally released, Davey returned his focus to the knob, pulling and twisting and checking back over his shoulder. It took him several seconds to realize why he hadn’t made any progress. He peered at the sweat-polished knob and saw the inset lock. He pinched the dial and turned it until the knob was free. Davey pulled open the door, blinded by the dappled sunlight of the wooded yard and threw himself outside.

Halfway down the wobbly wooden stoop, Davey was jerked back again and landed in a heap. He panicked. Adrenaline surged through him as he imagined Horace laughing from inside the dark trailer. He clawed at the flat stone in front of the porch, trying to escape the restraint, and nearly succeeded in pulling his pants past his hips. Davey stopped struggling and looked back at the taught rope. It was still connected to his belt-loops. The other end was either caught or tied, but either way, he would have to get loose.

Davey imagined going back into the dark trailer to untie the other end of the rope, but cast that idea away immediately. Sitting on the porch and peering through the dark doorway every few seconds, he tried to work the knot free from his pants. His numb fingers couldn’t get a grip and he stopped to try to tear the belt-loops open, but the angle was wrong and he couldn’t get leverage.

Considering his options, he could only think of two: leave his pants behind, or go back inside to either find a knife or free the other end. He had almost settled on leaving the pants when the knot gave way and he managed to thread the rope through the loops. He bolted. Davey sprinted down the long twin ruts that served as the trailer’s driveway. Normally an excellent runner, Davey spent his energy carelessly and was sucking wind before he even reached the road.

He paused by the mailbox and bent at the waist, fresh air tearing through his burning lungs. An approaching engine snapped him upright and he whipped his head left and right, looking for a place to hide. A chest-high boulder sat back from the corner of the driveway. Davey tromped through the ferns and knelt behind the rock, using it to shield his body from the road. He bent his head and waited for the vehicle to pass.

Davey pulled his arms in closer as he heard the car slowing. The dirt and gravel crunched as the tires left the road and turned on to the driveway. Davey crouched lower, making himself as small as possible and trying to disappear into the dirt. His fears were realized when he heard the car skid to a stop directly alongside his position. He steeled himself to run again. Neither his mind nor body were ready for a chase, but Davey decided he would force himself to run as far and as fast as he could.

Without facing his new adversary, Davey sprung up and ran around the rock towards the road, cutting through the underbrush and gully in the shoulder of the road. He only covered a few paces when a strong hand clamped down on his shoulder. Davey’s hand went to his mouth—he realized what his instinct instructed him to do: he would poison this new captor with his blood, just as he had done to Horace.

A voice stopped him from cutting his teeth too deep into the flesh of his hand.

“Son.” The strong hand spun him around.

Davey looked up at the wide-brim hat and uniform of a police officer. His shock and exhaustion overwhelmed him. Davey fell back out of the grip of the cop and onto his butt in the soft forest dirt.

“You’re okay,” the man said, kneeling next to Davey. “It’s going to be okay.”

His finger went up, lifted by his guilt and fear. Davey pointed down the long dirt driveway in the direction of the trailer. “Th-th-there’s a muh-muh-man,” he stammered.

“I know,” said the officer. Davey glanced up to see another office rounding the vehicle with a radio in his hand. “One of the neighbors called in a young hitchhiker. She suspected that Mr. Dunn picked you up. We were just coming by to check everything out—make sure you were okay.”

“But h-h-he’s,” Davey tried to finish his confession.

“Don’t worry,” reassured the cop. “Stan’s going to take care of Mr. Dunn, and you and I will go someplace safe and get in touch with your parents. That sound good?” He put out his hand for the boy. Davey reached up with his slightly bloody hand and then pulled away and extended the clean one. Now that he knew what his blood could do, he didn’t want to risk hurting his rescuer. The officer helped Davey to his feet and walked him slowly back to the cruiser.

Another police car pulled up to the mouth of the driveway as the helpful officer closed the door. Davey kept his eyes dry, but his breath hitched on every inhale. The cop adjusted his mirror and glanced at Davey every few seconds on the ride back to the station.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Mike

BILL DROVE AND MIKE RESTED with his head against the window in the passenger’s seat. They had already stopped at two different hardware stores to purchase rope, straps, duct tape, and other supplies to help them secure the Rogue. Bill aimed his GPS at where they approximated the Rogue had hidden and they drove in silence.

When they approached to within a few miles of their destination, Bill nudged Mike fully awake.

“How close are we?” asked Mike.

“Not really sure, but maybe a mile and a half,” said Bill.

“Why aren’t you sure? Did it move while I was asleep?” Mike looked around and saw the detector on the seat behind him. It was off.

“No,” said Bill. “Well, actually I don’t know, but it’s still daylight for another few hours. I was thinking though—we know it’s on this heading, but it could be any distance. We assumed that it was nearly on a straight line from where you first saw the footprint to the kids house, but it could have veered.”

“That’s true,” said Mike. “It will be easy to test though. We’ll just fire up that thing and wait for the direction to change if we pass it.”

“That’s why I woke you up,” said Bill.

“Oh,” said Mike. “Sorry, I’m still a bit asleep.”

He reached around and fetched the device. The device was small, tiny compared to Gary’s version, and Mike could hold it with one hand and point it in various directions to find the strongest signal. The display was a simple bar-graph, made of green, yellow, and red lights. Only the power requirements, which meant it had to be plugged into the car’s accessory outlet, prohibited the device from being truly portable.

Mike flipped the switch and waved the device in a short arc, honing in on the signal.

“Still headed the right direction,” he announced. The signal was at its peak in nearly the exact direction they traveled. Mike reached to the back again and pulled out one of his large paper maps he had brought along to supplement Bill’s GPS. He propped the map up on his knees.

A woman’s voice called out from the GPS, instructing Bill to turn right.

“What do you think?” asked Bill.

Mike traced the lines on his map before answering. “Makes sense,” he said. “This road is going to veer off to the left up here, so yeah, a right turn.”

Bill slowed and turned on the next road. For almost a minute the signal stayed off to their left, forcing Mike to point the detector almost in Bill’s face. As soon as their road wound around a few more turns, the signal moved out front once more.

“Arriving at destination,” the GPS announced, surprising both men.

“I guess I missed the mark with the GPS,” said Bill.

“No worries,” said Mike. “We’re still going the right direction.”

Bill obeyed a stop sign and they took the opportunity to conference over the paper map.

“There’s nothing in this direction,” he said.

“Could be he’s holed up in another cave,” offered Mike. “We know he’s fine with cave-lodging.”

“Yeah,” said Bill. “I’ll just keep driving until the signal pulls off.”

* * *

SEVERAL MINUTES LATER, when they had traveled almost four miles, Bill prepared to pull over so he could see if Mike knew how to properly read the device.

“I’m telling you, it’s fine,” said Mike. “The signal is getting gradually stronger, and it’s for sure… Wait. Stop!” he yelled as he spun in his seat.

Bill brought the car to a skidding halt on the cracked pavement. When he had pulled off the road onto the shoulder, Mike handed him the detector and focused on the map.

“It’s here,” he tapped his lap. “Through the woods.”

“Just out in the woods?” Bill asked as he adjusted the device and narrowed down on the exact bearing. He didn’t look up from the readout to ask his question.

“Nope,” said Mike. “Look. I think it’s here." He held his map right in Bill’s face, so the engineer couldn’t ignore him.

“Huh,” said Bill. “Sewage?”

“Yeah,” said Mike. “All the town’s sewage comes down to this treatment plant. It’s just far enough away so the smell isn’t a nuisance.”

“That’s great,” said Bill. “Where would this thing hide in a sewage treatment plant?”

“I don’t know,” said Mike. “We’ve got a couple hours of daylight left. Let’s go find out.”

Bill nodded and handed the detector back to Mike so he could find a good place to park. They had to settle for a wide shoulder on the other side of the road about a tenth of a mile north. Mike gathered up the two maps he found most suitable and climbed out of the car. He stretched while Bill collected the detector and several other things from the back seat.

“Wait a second,” said Mike, “how are we supposed to use the detector? It hooks up to the car.”

“Ah,” said Bill. “I have another surprise.” He flashed a smug smile at Mike and bent over to pull the trunk lever. Mike met him around the back of the car and looked on as Bill hoisted open the trunk.

“That’s got to weigh a ton,” said Mike, pointing at the extra car battery in Bill’s trunk.

“It does,” Bill admitted, “but I’ve got a backpack for it.”

After wiring the device to the spare battery, Bill loaded the heavy power supply into a small backpack and held up it to Mike.

“Help me on with this, would you?” asked Bill.

“As long as you’re carrying it,” said Mike. He took the heavy load from Bill and helped him thread his arms through the straps.

“Not bad,” said Bill, adjusting his shoulders. “Wouldn’t want to sprint or anything.” He fed the wires under his arm and held the device with one hand.

“How long will it last on battery?” asked Mike.

“I think about an hour, but I’m not too sure,” said Bill. “I know how much current it draws, but not how long this particular battery will go between charges.”

“Leave it off for a while then,” said Mike. “We can spot check it later, but I think I have a good idea where we should start.”

They crossed the road and plunged into the woods quickly, leaving the road behind and getting enough foliage between them and it for good cover. Even though it was slower going, they didn’t want to risk being seen trespassing. Mike led the way. He kept his head up most of the time, keeping an eye on the position of the sun. The map’s contour lines provided him enough information to keep them on track.

“Let’s get a fix,” Mike said after twenty minutes of walking.

Bill powered on the detector and ran a sweep. His big arc showed the strongest signal in the direction they had been walking. “Good job so far,” he said. “Right on target.”

“Good,” said Mike. “We’ve got one more small hill before we should see something.”

“I can smell something already,” said Bill.

“Yeah,” agreed Mike.

As they crested the small hill, Mike had his head buried in the map as he shuffled along. Bill caught him by the collar and stopped him. On the other side of the bush, just past where Mike would have pushed through the branches, the hill was cleared all the way to the sewage facility.

“Thanks,” said Mike.

“Let’s circle it,” suggested Bill.

Mike nodded.

Bill powered up the device and the two men headed south, staying in the woods and skirting the clearing. By sweeping a narrow arc every few steps, Bill was able to point accurately at the origin of the signal. They crouched and had a decent look at the buildings and pools.

“Is this place manned?” asked Bill.

“I don’t know,” said Mike. “Wait—yeah. Look at the cars.” He pointed towards a small parking lot sticking out from the other side of a low building. They could see the hoods of three cars.

“Maybe we could pretend to be inspectors or something. Get inside the place?” asked Bill.

“I don’t think that would work,” said Mike. “These guys are going to know who’s supposed to be here. We’ll never be able to bullshit our way through that. I wonder where he’s hiding?”

“Must be some underground part of the place,” said Bill. “Maybe where the pipeline comes in from the town?”

“I guess,” said Mike. “We could wait and see if everyone goes home, but it’s already after five. Maybe they run multiple shifts here?”

“I don’t think we can afford to wait here,” said Bill. “Assuming that thing’s in there, we don’t have of the ropes and stuff. We’ll have to go back for those at least, and it’s too far to carry them. I mean, what are we going to do—knock on the door with a bag full of ropes and straps and ask to search the place?”

Mike laid out the map on the leaves and roots. The two men crouched down in front of it.

“Looks like this road must have the entrance to the place,” he said. “Why don’t we move the car over here and wait to see if everyone leaves at eight?” he asked.

“Yeah, okay,” said Bill. “But what if they don’t?”

Mike thought for a few seconds—“Well, if they don’t leave then he might have a hard time getting away undetected. He’s been keeping a low profile lately. Perhaps we can catch him while he’s trying to sneak away.”

“Or maybe he’ll decide to kill everyone in the place,” said Bill.

The two men started to crawl backwards away from the clearing. Without resolving the discussion, they headed through the woods in the direction of the car.

“So we’ll just wait,” said Mike. “We’ll be able to tell if he’s moving from the device.”

“You’re saying we might have to just follow him tonight and go after him tomorrow when he rests again?” asked Bill.

“Could be,” said Mike.

* * *

BILL PULLED OFF on the shoulder again. From their position, they could just make out the entrance to the sewage treatment plant, marked by a weathered wooden sign. Not long after they took their position, several cars pulled out of the plant.

“Eight,” said Mike, checking the clock. “Must be the end of the shift. Sunset should be in about twenty minutes—should we go see if we can get in?”

“It’s too late,” said Bill. “I’m starting to think we should just use this opportunity to find out if the theory is right. We’re making a lot of assumptions here.”

“So you think there’s some other source of strange energy in the sewage treatment plant?” asked Mike.

“No, I don’t, but you’re the scientist. Come on—is breaking into a municipal facility warranted by what we know so far?”

“Yes,” said Mike. “I thought that’s why we were here.”

Another vehicle pulled out from the driveway and exited the plant.

“See there,” said Bill. “If we had gone in we would have been busted by that guy. Who knows how many others are still coming. Hell, we could have missed a shift change while we were driving over here. There could be dozens of workers in there.”

Mike only half paid attention to Bill’s words of caution. He studied his watch and made an announcement when Bill had finished—“Sunset. Right now.”

“Seems too light out. Are you sure?” asked Bill.

“Yeah, but it will still be light out for some time,” said Mike. “I don’t know precisely when it will move.” Mike shifted around in his seat with the detector on his lap. He angled his head against the window, as he had earlier when he slept.

“Are you still tired?” asked Bill. “You slept most of the way up here.”

“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” said Mike. “I was waiting for this thing.”

“Well you can’t sleep now,” said Bill. “We have to be alert in case we see movement.”

“Fine,” said Mike, shifting upright.

Within five minutes, Mike leaned his head back against the seat and struggled to keep his eyes open.

“Tell me when you were most frightened,” said Bill.

“What? Why?” asked Mike.

“It’s a great way to stay awake. We used to use it on road trips in college. Just describe when you were most afraid and it will help you wake up,” said Bill.

“I can’t think of anything,” said Mike.

“Are you kidding? What about what happened at my house? Didn’t that scare the shit out of you?” he asked.

“The first time, maybe. The second time was just tragic,” said Mike. “I guess there were a few moments when I was a kid.” Mike thought about his brother.

“I figured you paranormal investigators were all fear junkies,” said Bill. “You know—living for that rush.”

“I know what it was,” said Mike. He sat up straight in his seat and looked down the road as he spoke. “It was when I was in my twenties.” He collected his thoughts for a second. “I was living with my grandparents. My parents both died before I was a teenager, so I lived with my grandparents and we were really close. Actually, the story really starts when I was in my teens.”

“Yeah?” prompted Bill.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “My grandfather was a really proud man—former Air Force Colonel. We saw this disabled vet in Augusta and he pulled the car into a parking spot and nodded at the guy. He said ‘Mikey, if I ever get that way, I want you to help me end it.’ I didn’t know what to say. My dad always told me that being handicapped or disabled didn’t mean you couldn’t live a good life.”

“How old were you when this happened?” asked Bill.

“I don’t know, maybe sixteen or so,” said Mike.

“Oh.”

“Anyway,” continued Mike. “Ten years later, he was in pretty bad shape. He wasn’t in a wheelchair, but he might as well have been. He had a catheter, had to use a walker, and he had this terrible skin condition to go along with all his other problems. These big, painful blisters of pus and blood would form all over his skin and then burst if they came in contact with anything.” Mike circled his thumb and forefinger and demonstrated the size of the lesions on his own forearm.

“Oh, man,” said Bill.

“It’s called bullous pemphigoid,” said Mike slowly. “Pretty rare.” Mike swallowed and stared down the road. “He was in terrible shape: helpless, completely dependent on healthcare workers, in pain all the time. My grandmother wanted him to move to a nursing home, but he just wanted to die at home. That’s when he asked me.”

“To help him?” asked Bill.

“Not directly,” said Mike. “Maybe if he had asked me directly it would have changed what happened.” Mike took a second to collect his thoughts before he continued. “He sent me upstairs to the nightstand beside his old bed. By that point he was living in a hospital bed installed in his old den. Grandpa said something like ‘Run upstairs and get me that gun from my nightstand.’ So I did.”

“Did you ask him why he wanted it?” asked Bill.

“You didn’t ask him why he wanted anything,” said Mike, shaking his head. “Even in that state, he had a really strong personality. At least to me,” he added. “Anyway,” Mike continued, “that’s when I was most scared. I walked up those stairs knowing that by the end of the day I would be consoling my grandmother and talking to the police. I’ve had some experience with suicide. Once it happens, you just have a series of numb decisions to make. People will guide you by the shoulders and move you through it. But knowing it’s going to happen before it happens—that’s scary.”

Mike exhaled.

Bill waited for a few seconds before asking—“So what did you do?”

“I got the gun,” said Mike. “But before I took it downstairs I took out the clip and unloaded the chamber. He was careful with firearms. I knew that was the only loaded gun in the house, and the ammo was locked up. I left the bullets upstairs in the back of a drawer in the guest room, and took the gun down to him. He was beyond pissed,” Mike continued. “I just stood there and let him yell at me and just lied. I told him I had no idea what happened to the clip. He sent me back upstairs three more times to look for it again; telling me different places to look. After that he seemed to give up on me.”

“What happened to him?” Bill asked softly.

“He died a few months later in a nursing home,” said Mike, wiping his eye with the back of his hand. “It was easier on my grandmother that way, and she lived several more years. I’m glad she didn’t have to live those years remembering the sound of a gunshot.”

“It was the right thing,” said Bill.

“Well, it worked,” said Mike.

“How do you mean?” asked Bill.

“I’m not tired anymore.” Mike smiled. “A little sad, but not tired at all. You want to go see if anyone’s in there? We could just go up the drive and see if there are any cars in the lot. No harm in that.”

“Yeah,” said Bill. “But hold up that detector. Maybe we can get a more precise fix on its position as we drive up.”

Bill steered and drove slowly as they rolled into the entrance of the facility. He split his attention between the road and watching the device in Mike’s hand. Sweeping gently from side-to-side, Mike pinpointed the direction of the strongest signal.

“No cars,” Bill announced. “Place looks empty.”

“That’s odd,” said Mike.

“Why’s that?”

“No, I mean the device.” He pointed. Bill brought the slow-moving car to a stop to see what Mike referred to. “Even though we’re not moving anymore, I’m not getting a consistent signal,” Mike explained. He swung the device off to the left.

“That’s because it’s moving,” said Bill. He whipped around in his seat and pressed his face against his window, searching in the direction of the signal.

“We’ll turn the car around, jackass,” said Mike. “It’s almost behind us.” Mike pointed the device with one had and reached down for the map with the other.

“Shit,” Bill whispered under his breath as he made a three point turn on the narrow drive. Halfway through the maneuver, he realized that he should have backed up to the road to save time, but by then it was too late. Mike held up the device but dodged and ducked his head to try to see out the window.

“See anything?” asked Bill.

“I can’t see much in the woods,” said Mike. “It’s getting too dark out there.”

With the car turned around, Bill raced to the end of the drive and slowed. “Which way?” he asked.

“Hold on,” said Mike, alternating between scanning with the device and looking down at his map.

“Hurry up,” said Bill, “just make a decision. To the right? It looks like it’s moving south.” Bill reached up and turned on the passenger’s light, mounted under the rear-view mirror.

“Yeah, but that road curves back west. Yeah, go. Right! Go!” urged Mike.

Bill sent gravel flying from his rear tires as he bolted out onto the road. Laying the map down on his lap, Mike reached up and angled the GPS towards himself, so he could compare its display to the map. He had the detector pointed off to the left of their current direction of travel, following the creature.

“You’re gonna take a left in about a quarter mile,” Mike told Bill.

“How fast is it going?” asked Bill. “Any idea?”

“Not yet,” said Mike. “We should get a better idea once we’re going east, but right now the signal hasn’t decreased much, so I’d say it doesn’t have a huge lead.”

Bill stabbed the brakes and then released, preparing for the sharp left. He accelerated down the winding narrow road and the two men bounced over rough pavement. Mike struggled to get a lock on the direction, but the twists in the road made the task nearly impossible.

“Talk to me,” said Bill. “Am I going to fast, too slow, what?”

“I can’t tell,” Mike replied. “Wait, slow down. You’re about to cross another road.”

When the road straightened out and Bill decreased their speed, Mike was able to get a better idea of the creature’s path.

“Which way?” asked Bill, stopping at the intersection.

“Straight. Straight.” Mike pointed. “I think we’re almost caught up, but we’re right on the edge of this page.” He flipped back and forth.

The road widened and featured a dotted yellow line.

“Slow down,” ordered Mike. He pointed the detector past Bill and out his window. “It’s right through those woods, moving the same direction as we are.”

“Let’s get ahead of it,” said Bill, accelerating once again.

“Yeah, good,” said Mike. He shifted in his seat, twisting around to the left as Bill pulled ahead of the signal. Soon Mike had to point the device out the back window to track the strongest signal. “Take your next left,” he said. “I want to get a look at this thing.”

“Can do,” said Bill. He glanced at the GPS for a cue and then took a left turn, moving them in the path of the creature.

“Okay,” said Mike. “Stop here and it should pass by us.”

Bill pulled off the road where a dirt track ran underneath cross-country power lines. He killed the engine so they could hear and Mike climbed out, stretching the detector’s power cord through the car window. Bill pushed his door open, but sat in the seat with his hand on the key.

“Signal’s stronger,” said Mike. “Don’t know the distance…”

“Shhh,” ordered Bill. “I can hear something.”

Mike held his breath and listened. At first, all he could hear were crickets and buzzing insects. The deep blue sky showed the first stars of the evening. Streaks of black painted the dome as bats swooped for mosquitoes. Mike opened his mouth to say that he couldn’t hear anything, but then he heard the first pounding footsteps. He thought it must be same sound that early mammals had heard when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and the sound elicited the same response: he wanted to find a nice deep hole to crawl into.

The pounding drew closer until it approached the opposite side of the road. The footfalls were spaced evenly, but too far apart, as if the creature bounced along in low gravity. Suddenly the footsteps stopped, and Mike counted the seconds reflexively. He made it almost to three Mississippi when the car exploded.

Mike ducked away from the car and brought his arms up to protect his head. The detector pulled free from his hand when it reached the end of its cord. Mike didn’t notice as it tumbled to the ground. He was too busy trying to cover up from the flying debris.

Bill’s voice rescued him from his fugue—“Mike! Get in!”

“What?” he opened his eyes and looked around. From the interior lights of the car and small amount of ambient light from the night sky, Mike surveyed the damage. The back window of Bill’s car had shattered, peppering Mike with glass. Bill’s car now featured a deep dent in the roof. Mike gathered the abused device and piled back into the car.

“What happened?” he asked Bill.

“The thing jumped over the road and landed on my roof,” Bill explained. When Mike closed his door, Bill put the car in gear and whipped it into a u-turn while Mike struggled to buckle his seat belt.

“I was so focused on the readout that I didn’t even see it,” said Mike. “What did it look like?”

“Fucking huge,” said Bill. “Where do I go?”

“Next left,” Mike gathered back up his navigation aids. “Device still works, but it’s a little dinged up.”

“As long as it works,” said Bill.

“Do you think it knew we were chasing it?” asked Mike.

“I don’t know,” said Bill. “But it could have stopped to kill us easily enough. I suggest we keep a little distance until we form a better plan.”

“It’s moving in a straight line,” said Mike. “We should be able to figure out where it’s going, and get there first.”

“Then what?” asked Bill.

“We set a trap,” said Mike.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Davey

DAVEY SAT ALONE on a sticky leather couch. The man behind the desk leaned forward, propping himself up on his elbows, and the officer who had driven Davey to the station sat on a chair by the door.

“Let’s just start with your name, son. Can you at least tell us that?” asked the man behind the desk. He pulled at his tie and rolled up his white sleeves as he pushed back from his desk.

“John,” said Davey.

The officer and the man behind the desk exchanged a glance, and then the officer pulled his chair closer to Davey.

“I didn’t really introduce myself before,” he said. “My name is Sam Arenaz.” Sam held his hand out to Davey the same way he had when Davey had been cowering in the gully next to the road. Davey glanced at his hand before shaking it.

“Call me Sam,” he said.

“I can’t tell you my real name, Sam,” said Davey. “There’s a monster after me, and if you send me home, he might hurt my family.”

“You’re very brave, son,” said Sam. “But we found that man dead. He’s not going to hurt you or your family.”

“Not him,” said Davey. “There’s a much worse thing coming.”

Sam looked up at his commander, who rose and came around the desk to sit on the edge of the couch next to Davey.

“Call me Jim,” he said to Davey’s upturned eyes. “We’re the police,” he continued. “We stop the bad guys, and protect people like you and your family. We can protect you, but we can’t help your family until we find out who they are.”

“Cap’n?” A young man poked his head through the door.

“Yeah?” said Jim.

“Phone for you.” He waggled his spread thumb and pinky next to his face.

“Thanks,” said Jim. He rose from the couch and followed the young man through the door, leaving Davey alone with Sam.

“Were you running away from home?” asked Sam.

Davey nodded and noticed the rough stubble on the officer’s chin.

“Can you tell me about what’s scaring you?” asked Sam.

Davey shook his head and looked at the ground. “You won’t believe me,” he said.

“Why would you say that?” asked Sam. “Can I tell you a secret?” Davey looked into Sam’s earnest eyes.

“I can tell when people are lying,” Sam revealed. “It’s something they teach us at the academy. I know you weren’t lying when you said there was a monster chasing you. I can tell.”

“Really?” asked Davey.

“Yeah,” said Sam. “So you can tell me anything. I’ll know you’re telling the truth.”

“Can I ask you something?” asked Davey.

“Anything,” said Sam.

“Did you find the nurse yet?” asked Davey.

“I’m sorry?” asked Sam.

“The nurse and her sister. They lived west of here,” said Davey. “He killed them last night, after he killed Charlotte and her family. I saw it in my dream, but I know it was real.”

Sam’s eyes had grown wide, despite his best efforts to maintain a neutral expression. His throat clicked when he opened his mouth to ask his next question—“Who killed them? Who killed those people?”

Sam jumped halfway out of his chair when Jim came back into the office.

“That was your mom, Davey,” said Jim as he strode passed his stunned officer and reclaimed his position next to Davey on the sticky couch. “She’ll be here in twenty minutes.” Jim looked at Sam and saw his shock. “What’s going on? What were you guys talking about?”

“He, um, Davey was just telling me about how the man who is hunting him killed several people last night,” said Sam.

Jim did a much better job at handling this new information. He turned to Davey and fixed a look of deep sympathy on his face. “Tell us what happened, son. Were you there? Did you witness something last night?”

“No,” said Davey, shaking his head.

“How did you know about the murders?” asked Jim.

“A girl at camp told me about Charlotte and her family,” said Davey. “I met her one time. Can I get something to drink?”

Sam jumped up and disappeared out the door to fulfill the request.

“That must have made you really sad,” said Jim. “Is that why you ran away?”

Before Davey had a chance to answer, Sam had appeared with a paper cup filled with cold water.

“No,” said Davey. “I mean, sorta. I was upset about Charlotte, but I ran away so I wouldn’t lead the monster back to my family. I don’t want them to get killed too.”

“Davey,” interrupted Sam. “Tell Jim about what you were telling me when he was out of the room. About the nurse?”

“I was just wondering if you found them yet,” said Davey. “I don’t know how to tell you exactly where they live, but I bet the hospital would be able to tell you where.”

“Which hospital?” asked Jim.

“The one next to the river,” said Davey. “Where they took me that time I fell down and couldn’t breathe.”

“And what happened to the nurse?” asked Jim.

“I don’t know exactly,” said Davey, “but the monster got her. It got her and her sister after it got Charlotte.”

“And this is the same monster that had you in the trailer? Did he tell you about the nurse?” asked Jim.

“No,” said Davey, frustrated. “I told you, he wasn’t anything. Horace didn’t kill anybody, he wanted to…” Davey found it hard to speak as he remembered the dying man’s hands on his body.

“Davey,” Jim said sharply, bringing him back from the memory, “tell us about the nurse.”

“She took care of me when I was at the hospital. That’s why the monster wanted to get her. I didn’t really see anything. I know he must have killed her though. He kills everyone he goes after,” said Davey.

“Start at the beginning, and tell us what you know,” said Jim.

Davey nodded and finished his cup of water. “I saw him go to Charlotte’s house first. He jumped from the tree down to the driveway so he wouldn’t leave any footprints. He’s trying to fool you. Then he took a piece from underneath the car. I couldn’t see what it was, but it must have been metal or something, because he straightened it out and went over to the house.”

“What did the car look like?” asked Jim. “What kind?”

“I don’t know cars,” said Davey. “It was dark, maybe blue?”

“Go ahead,” prompted Jim. “So he went over to the house?”

“Yeah,” said Davey. “He went over right next to one of the windows and then he jammed the metal thing into the wall. He had made the metal thing long and straight, like a coat hanger, so he could poke it through the wall.”

“What did he look like?” asked Jim. The captain reached over to his desk and grabbed a small notepad to jot down the details of Davey’s story.

“I can’t really see him,” said Davey, “but he’s really big.”

“Why was he jamming the coat hanger through the wall?” asked Jim.

“It wasn’t really a coat hanger,” corrected Davey. “It was from the car. He was trying to break the alarm. It must have worked because when he pushed through the door next to the garage, nothing went off.”

“How did he get through the door?” asked Jim. “Wasn’t it locked?”

“They had a flag next to the door—he used that. He knows about fingerprints and stuff. Then he just turned really hard until it broke.”

Jim nodded and waited for Davey to continue.

“He went to the parents’ room first. I didn’t watch what he did to them, but I know he took stuff. I think he wanted you to think that he was there to take things instead of killing people. Then he went upstairs and killed Charlotte. I think he took her body somewhere, but I couldn’t see anything once that happened.”

“Why is that?” asked Jim.

“Her eyes were closed,” said Davey. “And plus she was dead,” he added. “But it did feel like she was moving. Sometimes I can’t see so well…” Davey trailed off.

As Davey slowed down, Jim redirected his attention in an attempt to keep the momentum going. “And then he went for the nurse?”

“Yeah,” Davey responded without looking up.

“How did he get to the nurse’s house?”

“He runs,” said Davey. “He runs everywhere—through the woods. That’s why he’s been going so slow lately. He has trouble finding ways to get where he needs to go.”

“What did you see?” asked Jim.

“I didn’t get a chance to see very much at all,” admitted Davey. “The nurse knew he was coming. She could feel him, so she got her sister and was going to try to get away. That’s all I know.”

“Why? Why is that all you know?” asked Jim.

“My mom woke me up,” said Davey. “She said I was making noise like I was having a bad dream.”

Jim set his pencil down and looked over to Sam. His next question was interrupted before he got a chance to ask it.

“Ms. Hunter is here,” the same young man poked his head in the door. “I asked her to wait, but she said no. She’s kicking up dust pretty good.”

“Send her in,” said Jim. He rose from his spot on the couch next to Davey and took his chair behind his desk. “Get Davey some more water, would you?” he pointed to Sam.

Melanie burst through the doorway and spotted her son on the couch. She rushed over and gathered him into a big hug, pressing her face against the top of his head. “Baby,” she said to him, “you scared me.” She pulled him close again.

“Ms. Hunter,” began Jim, “I’m Jim Wyckell. We were just talking to Davey about last night.”

“Last night?” said Melanie. “Wait, I’m confused. Davey was at home last night. He didn’t run away until this afternoon.”

“Your son has details about two active cases from last night. Do you know where he might have come across this information?” asked Jim.

“I’m sorry officer, but Davey was sound asleep last night. I even checked on him in the middle of the night, and I can assure you he has no details about active cases. Perhaps you’re the victim of the over-active imagination of an intelligent little boy who has been through a lot today?”

“I wish that were so,” said Jim. “But he just told us information about a case that we haven’t even announced to the press yet.”

Melanie cut him off—“You mean about that poor woman and her sister?”

Jim raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, well maybe you haven’t announced any information, but that doesn’t stop people from talking. I heard about it three times on the radio on my way over here. Maybe when you take someone to the morgue in the same hospital building where they work, someone is going to recognize them. Not to mention, I picked up several details you may not have released on my way through your office out there.” She waved towards Jim’s door. “My son can read, do you think he might have read something on one of those big whiteboards out there?”

“Even so,” said Jim. “There was another death last night, and Davey described several key pieces of information. If you could just have a seat, maybe we can get to the bottom of this.”

“Davey?” Melanie turned to her son. “Did you tell them about another person hurt last night?”

Davey nodded.

“Did you hear about this thing from someone at camp?”

“Yes,” said Davey. “Shane’s sister heard it from Brittney.”

“Where did Brittney hear about it?” Melanie asked.

“Her dad’s a cop,” said Davey.

“There you go, officer,” Melanie said to Jim. “Case solved. Now I’m going to take my boy home.”

“Ma’am, I’d really like to get this straightened out a little more before you leave. Please just sit down for a second and we’ll make it…”

Melanie cut him off again—“I’m sorry, but we can’t. I’ve got my teenage daughter in the car, and a full day tomorrow. Don’t you think Davey has been through enough already today? Perhaps if you didn’t keep putting registered sex offenders back on the streets, parents wouldn’t have as much to worry about.”

Jim stood, taking offense to the implication and ready to assert his authority. “I’m afraid I really must insist.”

“That’s great,” Melanie pulled Davey to her and took a step towards the door, “but unless you plan to arrest me and my son, we’re going. And in case you’re wondering, there are roughly a dozen newspeople out front talking about all the murders. I’m sure they’d love a bulletin about a woman and her pre-teen son being held for questioning about crimes that took place an hour away while they were at home asleep.” As she spoke, Melanie pulled Davey closer to the door.

Sam stood behind her, blocking her way and holding a paper cup with a refill for Davey.

“No?” asked Melanie. “Okay then, thanks for everything.”

She and Davey pushed past Sam and made their way through the office.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Mike

“IT STILL DOESN’T WORK,” said Mike.

Bill guided the car through the gentle turns at speeds just slightly greater than his comfort level. He had been lucky so far. He kept expecting to come around the next turn and find a woman walking out to her mailbox, or a stunned deer crossing the road. Bill was beginning to get irritated at Mike’s inability to operate a paper map.

“Tell me what you’re doing,” ordered Bill.

Mike flipped back several pages and described his methodology—“I plotted the thing’s course in terms of how many boxes down it should move for every page it crosses. It’s only based on the first few miles of travel, but I think it should be enough.”

“So what’s the problem?” asked Bill.

“When I extrapolate over to the page with the kid’s house, the course is off by almost half a page,” explained Mike.

“How far is that?”

“About fifteen miles,” said Mike.

“That seems significant,” Bill said, now echoing Mike’s concern. “Are you sure you didn’t mess up when you transferred the line from page to page?”

“I checked it three times,” said Mike. “Hey, could this be a great circle problem?”

“Your scale is too small,” said Bill. “Maybe it’s not headed where we think?”

“Of course,” said Mike. “That’s got to be it. Maybe it has a stop to make first.” He flipped back through the pages, tracing their current trajectory versus the creature’s predicted path. “Wait a sec,” he paused. “Let me borrow your phone.”

While Bill handed over his cell, Mike pulled out his wallet and retrieved the scrawled number from the back of a business card.

“Who are you calling?” asked Bill.

Mike held up a single index finger in the glow of the map light. Bill drove on, focusing on the road with his eyes, and the conversation with his ears.

“Pick up, pick up,” Mike whisper-chanted to the phone.

“Hello?” Ken answered.

“Hey Ken, it’s me, Mike.”

“Jesus, Mike, you don’t answer your phone anymore?” asked Ken.

Bill glanced at his travel-companion, only hearing Mike’s side of the conversation. Mike covered the phone and whispered to Bill—“It’s the kid’s doctor.”

“Mike?” asked Ken.

“Yeah, sorry Ken. I’ve been away from the house. Are you pissed that I contacted Ms. Hunter?” asked Mike.

“You’re damn right I am,” said Ken. “That was way out of line. But I was calling about something else. I wanted to tell you what I found in Davey’s blood.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” said Ken. “You might be on to something with that crazy theory. I saw some stuff in the blood that I can’t explain. His cells have been taken over by something. They attack anything foreign, like it was an infection, but they don’t really kill them. Crazy. I sent a bunch over to the CDC. They’re going to check it out first thing and advise on what to do.”

“What about the kid?” asked Mike. “Where’s he now?”

“Not sure,” said Ken. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with the mother all afternoon. I left some messages, but I didn’t want to scare her.”

“It might be too late for that,” said Mike.

“What do you mean?” asked Ken.

“The other part of my theory—the real crazy part—might be coming true and heading right for you,” said Mike.

“Just when I thought you might not be losing your mind, you step it up a notch?” asked Ken. “Real classy.”

“Look,” said Mike. “I’m going to come over there. I should be there in a half-hour, tops. Can we talk about this?”

“Sure thing,” said Ken. “Sharon’s asleep, out cold, so don’t knock. Just come on in. I’ll be in the living room.”

“Thanks, Ken,” said Mike. “I appreciate you not just assuming I’m crazy.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Ken, “I totally did. I was completely convinced you were crazy, but then my curiosity made me check out Davey’s blood one more time. I still think you’re insane, but you may have stumbled onto something anyway.”

Mike laughed into the phone. “I’ll see you soon.” He hung up and handed the phone back to Bill.

“So you know where we’re going?” asked Bill.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “Ken’s house is right on the line. Maybe the thing knows that Ken is the kid’s doctor? At any rate, I think Ken’s house is on this thing’s agenda. But that’s good, ideal even—we can set up a trap at his house and not even worry about putting the kid in jeopardy.”

“Except we’ll be putting your friend in danger,” said Bill.

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Mike. “Ken’s a big hunter, and I think he can defend himself pretty well.”

“That’s probably what some of the other victims thought,” said Bill.

“Except that Ken knows what’s coming,” said Mike.

* * *

WITH MIKE’S NAVIGATION, Bill pulled his car into the driveway. Using the strength of the creature’s signal as an indication of distance, Bill calculated that they had at least an hour before the creature would catch up to their current position at Ken’s house.

The two men decided to split up—Bill would gather the supplies from the car and meet Mike inside after he had made contact with Ken. Following instructions, Mike opened the door to find Ken’s house quiet, but well lit. He left the door open a crack and slipped down the hall to Ken’s living room. He paused in the arch. Ken had fallen asleep in his chair, with his head slumped to the side. From his position, Mike could only see the back of Ken’s head and part of his arm.

“Ken?” asked Mike. A premonition crashed across his thoughts. He could picture Ken from the other side, where his friend’s throat would be slit and his robed chest would have a gaping, bloody hole.

For several seconds, Mike couldn’t move. He didn’t want to see his dead friend and perhaps come into contact with the thing that had laid him unconscious. Mike backed away a half-step and prepared to run.

“What’s up?” Bill asked from directly behind Mike, causing him to jump several inches and bite down on his tongue.

“Let’s go,” whispered Mike. “We’re too late.” His eyes welled up with tears. His flesh crawled with deep chill.

“Can’t be,” said Bill. “I just re-checked the levels. That thing will be another seventy minutes before it gets here. Unless its power is falling off, but I don’t think it is.”

Mike pointed towards the chair. Bill’s face flattened and tendons stood out on his neck as he clenched his jaw. Turning sideways, Bill approached the chair. He rounded the chair with his arms away from his body, as if balancing against the potential shock.

Bill studied Ken before announcing his findings. “I think he’s asleep,” he said.

Mike rounded the chair to see for himself. At first glance, it seemed Bill was correct. Ken had slumped in the chair, but his chest rose and fell quickly. A line of sticky drool dripped from the corner of Ken’s mouth to his robed shoulder.

“Ken,” said Mike. “Ken!” he said louder.

When Ken didn’t stir, Mike reached out and tugged at the sleeve of Ken’s robe.

“Wait,” Mike said to Bill. “Don’t touch him.”

“I wasn’t about to,” said Bill.

Mike glanced around and settled on a rolled up magazine. He used it to tap Ken’s chest. “Ken?”

Ken began to breathe more rapidly. His chest rose and fell at a sprinter’s pace.

Bill raised an eyebrow and turned to Mike. “That’s odd,” he said.

Mike tucked the magazine under his arm and cupped his hands around his mouth. “KEN!” he yelled. Ken’s eyes flew open at the sound. Ken looked in Mike’s direction, but his eyes were parallel and unfocused, making Mike wish they would shut again.

“Mike?” asked Ken. His head and eyes didn’t change position, and his arms never moved. Only his voice betrayed his consciousness.

“Yeah, Ken, what happened?” asked Mike.

“So tired,” said Ken. “I see him,” he said. “He’s coming for me. He’s drawn to me,” he informed Mike and Bill. “And Sharon, too.”

Mike and Bill exchanged another worried look.

“But what’s wrong with you?” asked Mike. “Are you okay?”

“Infected,” said Ken. “Figured it out. After we talked. Sharon down first—she’s upstairs—can’t move.”

“What? How?” asked Mike. He inched away. Bill was much less subtle. He quickly moved to the other side of the coffee table, to put space between himself and everyone else. “We’ve got to get you to the hospital.”

“Look,” said Ken. “No needles. They can’t help. Careful.”

“Ken?” Mike asked. “What do you mean?”

Ken’s eyelids fluttered. He didn’t answer.

“Shit,” said Bill. “This is bad news. We’ve got to get him out of here. Call the hospital or something.”

Mike disappeared through the door to the kitchen. Bill looked around for a place to sit and then decided to remain standing. When he returned, Mike was wearing yellow rubber dish gloves. He took Ken’s wrist and felt for the pulse.

“Racing,” he said.

“Who do I call?” asked Bill. “Nine one one?”

“No, don’t do that,” said Mike. “You heard what he said. No needles. He’s afraid it will spread if we take him to the hospital. How much time do we have? An hour?”

“About,” said Bill. “But this is too big. We’ve got to get your friend help before that thing gets here.”

“Help with what?” asked Mike. “He’s totally infected. Every cell is undergoing a change so fundamental that it has completely altered his physiology. The best we can do is make him comfortable and hope the change doesn’t kill him. A hospital would do no better than that. Besides, if the monster attacked at the hospital, Ken would be a sitting duck.”

“What do we do then?” asked Bill. “We can’t just leave him here. We’ll never be able to defend him from that thing. You didn’t see the size of it, and we know the monster has no qualms about killing.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Mike. “We have an hour, and we should have the element of surprise. This thing is old, it probably doesn’t even understand cars, and as far as it’s concerned, it already left us behind. What’s it going to be worried about? All we have to do is set up a trap, like we talked about, and we get a chance at this thing without having to put the boy in jeopardy. Ken’s my friend, make no mistake about that, but if we can use him as bait, so much the better.”

“But the police…” Bill started.

“Will never in a million years believe us,” finished Mike.

“True,” said Bill, defeated.

“Between what we bought and what you’ve got in your trunk, what can we rig up?” asked Mike.

“Well…” Bill paced around the living room. “Not much to work with here. Do you think we could get him upstairs?” he waved at Ken.

“No problem,” said Mike. “I’ll make a stretcher, but you’ll have to help with the stairs.”

“Okay,” said Bill. “Let’s do that quick, so I can put some traps on the stairs.”

“You have some ideas already?” asked Mike.

“I think I do.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Davey

“I JUST DON’T KNOW what you were thinking,” Melanie said. She pounded the steering wheel and tried to catch Davey’s eye in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t know,” said Davey. He looked down at his lap and wished the car ride would end. His sister, Susan, remained uncharacteristically silent as their mother grilled Davey.

Melanie pulled off the road into the parking lot of a gas station.

“What possessed you? Why would sneak out of the Career Center and start hitchhiking south? Where were you even going?” Melanie turned around to face Davey. She reached out to lift his chin so he would look her in the eye, but he pulled back when he saw her hand. She ended up bumping his nose as he moved away. Davey’s hand flew up and he grabbed his nose, more from surprise than pain. “Davey?”

Tears welled up in his eyes. He had felt both powerful and frightened that day. Looking into his mother’s eyes, he only felt shame.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” he said.

“That’s absurd,” she dismissed. “Don’t you think it hurts us, your family, when you put yourself in danger and get picked up by the police.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. Something in her tone helped him regain control of his own emotions.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, turning around in her seat and removing her seat belt. “Davey, stay put. Susan, make sure he does.”

Davey could see her head over the back of the seat as she nodded silently.

When their mother exited the vehicle and approached the store, Susan spoke without facing Davey—“Do you remember when Dad told us about riding a bike?” she asked.

Davey nodded and then realized she couldn’t see his gesture. “Yes,” he said eventually.

“Dad told us that our arms were like the steering wheel. And our legs were the spark plugs. Remember?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Davey. He puzzled at the memory she had recalled for him and wondered why his normally bossy and sarcastic sister had become so contemplative.

“I bet you do,” she said. “But somehow you missed the bigger lesson.”

Davey stayed quiet.

“Dad tried to teach us how to be good people, but you missed something. What you did today was really mean,” said Susan.

“I know,” Davey admitted.

“I don’t think you do,” she disagreed with him. “There’s something missing in you. Something that Dad didn’t have a chance to teach you before he died.”

“That’s not fair,” said Davey. “You’ll see what I’m talking about. He’s coming for all of us, and he’s going to kill us. You’re not going to be able to stop him, and if Dad was here he wouldn’t be able to do anything either.”

“Whatever, Davey,” said Susan. “You’re not even making sense. You never knew that when Dad talked about all that scary stuff it was just stories; it was supposed to be fun. You were too young to understand.”

“I wasn’t,” Davey yelled, losing his cool but unable to maintain his aloof demeanor in the face of the attack. “Sometimes I hope the monster does get to you. You’re such a bitch to Mom all the time, how could you possibly say I’m the one who doesn’t care about Mom? I hate the way you act all the time. I’m not going to be sad at all when he gets you.”

“Davey, that’s enough,” Melanie ordered, opening the car door. “I could hear you halfway back from the store. Susan, take this bag and hand me the bottle.” Susan handed the plastic bottle to her mom and took the bag. Melanie shut the driver’s door and climbed in the backseat next to Davey.

Still shaking with anger, Davey’s face spelled out his anguish.

“I want you to take one of these,” said Melanie. “Dr. Tooley said you should take them if you have extreme anxiety. I think this counts.”

“You said I didn’t have to take those,” said Davey.

“I said I didn’t want to treat phantom symptoms,” explained Melanie. “Your symptoms tonight are certainly not phantom. It won’t hurt you. You like Dr. Tooley, remember?”

Davey shook his head, and a tear finally escaped each eye.

This time Melanie didn’t miss when she reached for his chin. He opened his eyes to her look of concern. “Just one,” said Melanie. “The label says you can take two, as needed. Let’s start with one.”

Davey let his head rest in his mother’s palm as he capitulated. With her other hand, Melanie pressed a pill between his lips and Davey took it into his mouth. She grabbed a water bottle from the cup-holder and Davey took a sip.

“You might get sleepy,” said Melanie, reading the label. “And it says to take with food, so we’ll have to stop somewhere. You’ll feel better soon, I promise.”

Davey felt a rush of heat building up in his cheeks and the back of his neck.

“Mom?” he said.

Melanie raised her eyebrows.

“Can’t we just go stay down at Grandma’s house tonight? Please?” he asked.

“That’s an hour away,” she explained, “and I have work tomorrow. Plus your sister has dance class, and you’ve got catcher’s camp. What would she think, us just showing up on a weeknight?”

Davey gave her his most sincere and grave expression. “I’m asking because it’s really important.”

“I know, honey,” she said. “But what seems important at your age is not always the best thing to do.”

Davey lowered his head. He wondered if he was imagining the effects, or if the pill was already working. When he spoke next, his voice was low and mature. Melanie shuddered at his tone. “He’s coming,” said Davey, keeping his head bent but raising his eyes.

“That’s enough, Davey,” she said, frightened of her pre-teen son, and ashamed of it.

“He won’t stop until we’re all dead,” he continued.

Melanie stifled an urge to slap her son to make him stop talking. She tried to recognize her son, her baby, as she scrambled from the seat. When she climbed back into the front seat, she had regained some of her composure.

“You’ve had a hard day,” she said over her shoulder as she started the car. “You’ll feel much better in the morning.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Mike

“THOSE TWO SEEM SAFE ENOUGH,” said Mike. “What have you got going out here?”

“I couldn’t set the alarm system,” said Bill. “You need the code to engage it, and he’s not talking.” Bill cocked a thumb at Ken’s unconscious body.

After muscling the unconscious Ken up the stairs, they had decided on the master bath. It was the only room on the second floor that didn’t have windows. Mike shoved a dresser in front of the door from the bedroom, and drew the curtains in all upstairs rooms. Their plan involved narrowing the creature’s options and forcing him up the stairs. Mike’s other big contribution to the defense involved breaking the lock on Ken’s gun cabinet. He found Ken’s shotgun and a few boxes of ammunition.

Ken and Sharon had stabilized into a fast-pulsed unconscious state. Mike maintained his earlier proclamation that they were no worse off than they would be in a hospital, and they wouldn’t be affected by waiting for Mike and Bill to dispatch the thing that hunted them.

While Mike prepared the upstairs, Bill lugged the contents from the trunk of his car into the second-floor hallway. With that inventory arrayed on the carpet, Bill set about booby-trapping the steps.

“Let me show you the stairs,” said Bill, as he pulled shut the hall door to the master bath. Mike followed his new partner over to the landing.

Each step bore strips of aluminum foil taped to the tread.

“Touch it,” said Bill, pointing to the closest sheet of foil. “Lightly,” he added.

“No way,” said Mike. “It’s electrified, right?”

“Yeah, but it won’t do much to you,” said Bill as he tapped his finger lightly on the tread. “Every other stair is grounded, and the other ones are hot. So you’re not going to get a real shock until you touch an odd an even stair together. The thing was still barefoot—you can see the print on the roof of my car—so it should hit him pretty hard.”

“Will this carry enough current?” asked Mike.

“I’ve got it hooked up to a twenty amp breaker, and I’ve layered the foil with conductors. So yeah, it should give a good punch,” he said. “I’ve also got these paintball guns.” He picked up one of the air-powered guns and demonstrated by shooting a ball at the front door. “I assume one of us will have the shotgun and the other one can try to hit it in the eyes with these.”

“What else?” asked Mike.

“That’s about it for direct weapons,” said Bill. “If we can stun it, then we’ve got all these ropes and straps. But that’s a big if.”

“Yeah,” agreed Mike.

“Oh, and I do have that.” Bill pointed at a round metal case with a power cord and a thin, branching antenna.

“What is it?” asked Mike.

“I don’t know if it will work, but that’s the suppressor thing I talked about. It’s basically the opposite of that amplifier that you and Gary built. Instead of emitting energy that the creature can absorb and use as power, it emits the opposite, which I think should deplete the thing’s energy.”

“Huh,” said Mike.

“Only problem is, I don’t really know if it will work as intended. There’s a chance that it will just power the creature in a way I don’t expect. It’s still an amplifier of sorts, it’s just trying to put out an opposite energy. You know what I mean?”

“I think so,” said Mike. “How will we know?”

“Well,” said Bill. “We should be able to see the effect on the detector, but having them both in close proximity might give us strange results.”

“I wish we had tried that back at the sewage treatment place,” said Mike.

“Couldn’t,” said Bill. “It takes too much power—has to be run on house current. Even with an inverter it would have been too much of a draw to use in the car.”

“Oh,” said Mike. “So, what, we’ll just try it and see if the thing looks weaker?”

“I guess,” said Bill. “Flip a coin?”

“Sounds risky,” said Mike. “Let’s leave it off, but keep it handy.”

“Yeah, alright,” said Bill. “I don’t really know how the detector will react anyway. There’s a chance it could damage it,” he admitted.

Mike smiled. “Good to know,” he said. He pushed open a door to one of the guest rooms and returned with two desk chairs. They set them against the wall and brought their supplies to within close reach. “I’ll keep an eye this way, and you that way,” he said. “And we’ll both watch the middle.”

“Perfect." Bill settled down in his chair and picked up a six pack of soda he had brought up from the kitchen. “Coke?”

“Sure,” said Mike. “More caffeine—that’s what I need.”

They sipped their drinks for a few minutes as Mike loaded shells into the shotgun. Bill paralleled his effort by filling his guns with paintballs.

“Have you ever shot anything?” Bill asked Mike.

“I used to hunt when I was a teenager,” said Mike. “My grandfather taught me. Never shot anything bigger than a pheasant, but yeah.”

Bill picked up the detector device, adjusted the dials, and swept it back and forth until he had a good lock on the signal. “Hard to tell exactly, but I think it’s still a few miles away. The terrain affects the signal, but that should be worst case.”

“So what’s the most frightening thing that’s ever happened to you?” Mike turned the tables on Bill.

“Probably this,” said Bill, chuckling nervously.

“Well you said you used to play the game on college road trips, what was your answer back then?” asked Mike.

“For a while I used to tell a story about how I thought I’d knocked this one girl up, but it turned out that she was missing her period because she was a long-distance runner,” said Bill.

“Was it really that frightening?”

“It might have been, but I was making it up,” said Bill. “I was a virgin until my senior year of college. My second senior year. I made up that stuff about thinking my girlfriend was pregnant as a cover.”

“So you were really just frightened of being found out as a fraud?” asked Mike.

“Yeah,” Bill said. His expression changed quickly as he frowned at the detector, adjusted a knob, and frowned deeper.

“What’s up?” asked Mike.

“The signal has been growing stronger very consistently as the thing approaches, but it just went down a tiny bit,” Bill answered.

“Problem with it?” asked Mike.

“Could be,” said Bill. “Or maybe the creature had to backtrack a little. We’re not exactly out in the country here. And you said it would want to hide.”

“Yeah,” said Mike. “It’s getting more careful as it goes. Bad news for us in a way—means it’s learning.”

Eventually, Bill set the detector back in his lap, convinced that the creature still had significant distance to cover.

“I hate to bring it up,” said Bill, glancing at Mike for a second and then returning his gaze to the landing at the bottom of the stairs, “but I want to tell you about a more recent scare.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Mike. He had set up extra shells on the floor next to his chair, but now was removing more from the box and stuffing them in his pockets, in case he was on the move when he had to reload.

“Until tonight, the most frightened I’ve been was at my house, that night with the fire,” said Bill.

“Yeah,” said Mike, “that was horrible.”

“I didn’t mean for Gary to get hurt,” said Bill.

“What does that mean?” asked Mike. He stopped jamming shells into his left pocket and rested the gun over his arm, pointed safely at the floor.

“I wanted to move out of that house, but I knew I couldn’t sell it half-finished. I figured the only way I could get away was if the place burned down,” said Bill.

“That’s not possible,” said Mike, shaking his head and denying what Bill was saying.

“Somehow the fire started while you guys were still in there,” said Bill. “I was going to trigger it when everyone was back out in the vehicles, but something went wrong. When I saw that smoke, I didn’t know what to do.”

“Nope,” said Mike. “No, I’m telling you that’s not possible. I saw that fire, it was supernatural. It moved with a purpose.”

“I hid the device in the kitchen, under the sink, and waited for you guys to leave, but the next time I saw Gary, he was falling out the front window already on fire,” Bill continued, not even hearing Mike’s protests.

“Bill, listen to me, that’s not the way it happened,” argued Mike.

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw the fire start, and it wasn’t like that. First of all, it started upstairs and it flowed across the rafters like water. One second there was nothing, and the next, the whole place was lit up like Vegas. Gary already had his hand bitten off, and the fire just dripped…”

“Wait, what about his hand?” asked Bill.

“You remember all that blood on me when I got out of there? That was Gary’s. That thing that was inhabiting your house bit his hand off and he sprayed blood everywhere. I don’t know how it started the fire, but that was no man-made thing.”

“Like the carpenter’s hand,” said Bill, exhaling. “That’s so awful.”

“I know,” said Mike. “It really was. I should have never put Gary in that situation. He was just doing it out of friendship with me, and I got him killed.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Mike,” said Bill. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have known because you warned us.”

“Shit, I didn’t know anything. I was just trying to get you guys to do an investigation and give me an alibi. Weird stuff happened there, for sure, but nobody could have foreseen that day,” said Bill.

“We’ve both been carrying around a lot of guilt,” said Mike.

Bill didn’t reply. He stared at the display on the device. “It’s coming,” he said.

Mike sat up straight in his chair and raised his shotgun slightly. It was aimed down the booby-trapped staircase, and he flicked the safety off with his thumb. “How close?”

“A few miles,” said Bill.

“Oh,” said Mike. He reengaged the shotgun’s safety and set the gun down. “I’m going to check on our hosts." He pushed up and stepped over the supplies set around Bill’s chair on his way to the bathroom. Inside he found Sharon lying as they had left her, resting face up with her head next to the toilet, but Ken had rolled over to face the bathtub. “Ken?” asked Mike. “Ken?”

The doctor moaned softly in response. Mike stepped over Sharon’s legs and started to kneel next to his friend, but then remembered the infection that had caused the man’s distress. He plucked the rubber gloves from the bathroom sink and pulled them on while he stepped over Ken and Sharon so he could stand in the tub.

He leaned down close to Ken and gripped his friend’s shoulder. “Hey, Ken?” he asked again.

“Whuh?” asked Ken.

“How are you feeling, Ken? Your pulse seems a little slower, are you feeling any better?”

“Bedder than whuh?” Ken asked. His face was pressed against the cold tile. Ken’s eyes remained unmoving and half-closed.

“We’re going to get you to the hospital very soon,” said Mike, hoping it was true. “What’s the code to arm the security system?”

“Ol’ zip coe,” slurred Ken. His left eye, the one closest to Mike, opened slightly wider and rolled up to look at Mike.

“Our old zip?” he asked.

“Yuh,” said Ken. His eyelid drooped again, and Mike rose to pass on the information.

In the hallway, Bill had cracked another soda and sipped it while keeping a close eye on the detector.

“I think I’ve got the code for the alarm,” he told Bill.

“Doesn’t do us a lot of good now,” said Bill. “I don’t want to risk screwing up the stairs to go set it.”

“There’s another keypad in the bedroom,” said Mike.

“Fancy,” Bill said. He rose and set down his soda. He placed the detector on his chair and picked up one of the paintball guns. Mike followed him to the master bedroom, where Bill turned on the light and quickly found the panel. “What is it?”

“Try zero, two, two, eight, three,” said Mike. Bill prepared the system with a few quick button-presses to enter the correct mode, and then typed in the code.

“It’s green,” said Bill. “Does this mean our bathroom friends are waking up?”

“Not exactly, but almost,” said Mike. “Let’s get back to the command center, it’s making me nervous being away from our post.”

“Roger that,” said Bill.

Mike sat down first, after stepping carefully through the various supplies arranged around Bill’s chair. He took up the shotgun and pointed it down the stairs towards the front door. Next to him, Bill sat down and exchanged his paintball gun for the soda and the detector.

“How we looking?” asked Mike.

“Hmmmm,” said Bill. He then uttered the last two intelligible words that would ever leave his mouth—“That’s weird…”

Bill’s knees lifted for a split second, and his chair rocked back. The surprise set Mike’s legs in motion; he sprang away from Bill’s panicked scream and the tearing, splintering sound coming from the floor. Mike spilled off his chair to his right, away from Bill. His chair was knocked backward, giving him a view of the tragedy befalling his partner.

An enormous hand, stretching from Bill’s heel to the back of his knee, had blossomed from the carpet and latched on to Bill’s leg. As Mike watched, the hand jerked down back through the hole, pulling Bill’s leg with it. Amongst the screams, Mike heard Bill’s pants ripping against the jagged plywood of the edge of the hole.

Blood arced from hole. Bill’s scream jumped a register as his hands beat at the floor. Holding the shotgun up and away from his body, Mike tried to get his feet under him. The scream echoing in the hallway changed to a gurgling moan when Bill jerked down another four inches. Already up to his hip in the floor, the next pull produced a deep, horrifying snap.

Mike had just reached his feet. He swept the gun across the floor, between himself and Bill, and wondered if shooting would yield any result. Beyond conscious thought, Bill flopped back and forth, looking at the ceiling as the color drained from his face.

“Fuck it,” said Mike. He pointed the gun at the floor and pulled the trigger. His finger stopped short; he had to look at the gun before remembering to disengage the safety. He pointed and pulled. The gun fired and dirtied the floor with a cluster of black-lined holes. He pumped and shot again, bringing more definition to the rough circle in the carpet.

Bill jerked again and then fell over backwards, his torn pants and skin trailed off towards the hole in the floor, sparing Mike from seeing the ragged stump.

Mike swept the gun again, trying to decide where to shoot when he suddenly realized the folly of standing on the carpet. He jumped atop his overturned chair, balancing on the side of the seat and one of the legs. The floor shook. It shook a second time and nearly toppled Mike from his perch.

He looked up and down the hall at the closed doors and tried to decide which direction to run.

“Ghaaa,” said Bill. Mike had raised his weapon and almost shot at the sound. The hand appeared again from the hole and reached towards Bill’s dying body. Mike aimed carefully and released a shallow breath before pulling the trigger. Two of the long, weathered fingers evaporated with the spray of shot. The hand disappeared back through the hole.

Mike held his breath and tried to listen past the ringing in his ears to hear the movements of the monster. His own pounding heart filled his ears and he almost missed the sound of breaking glass from the first floor. Earlier, Bill had closed the door to the kitchen and balanced a glass on the knob. Mike knew that the creature would be in the hallway, heading for the staircase. He lifted his foot from the seat-edge of the overturned chair and tried to silently move to the floor. Halfway down, his change in balance upset the chair and he wobbled before starting to fall.

His foot hit the floor hard, ruining his stealth. Downstairs the whoosh of air rushing down the hall was the only indication of the creature’s approach. Mike took his eyes from the stairs as he glanced down at the supplies. A streak rounded the bannister; the creature moved so fast that Mike could just barely see it. He only got a lock on the thing when it’s second foot hit the staircase.

Bill’s trap worked perfectly—even skipping two steps, the monster’s feet soon landed on one grounded and one hot stair. It sprung backwards and disappeared through the doorway to the living room. Mike looked at his gun, as if his failure to fire had been its fault. Resting his finger hard on the trigger, Mike crept to the edge of the stairs, stepping carefully past Bill’s bloody corpse, and looked down the stairs. The only sign of the monster’s attempt to climb the stairs was a splotch of blood on the wall.

As Mike watched, the sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom step twitched. He guessed what would happen next, and it came true almost instantly. The monster ripped at the cords supplying power to the trap and the sheets tugged through the railings. A buzzing, snapping sound erupted as the trap shorted out.

Desperation flooded Mike’s thoughts. The stair trap had worked, but only once, and the creature would be back very soon. He remembered the energy-absorbing device that Bill had placed carefully behind his now empty chair. The earlier caveats about it’s potential downsides faded in Mike’s new state of panic. He stepped backwards, away from the stairs, and nearly tripped over Bill’s remaining leg. Keeping the shotgun trained on the stairs, Mike knelt and plugged in the device as the creature pulled the last of the foil from the stairs.

It hummed and pulsed, but gave no other indication that it was working. Mike smelled ozone wafting up from the device’s antenna. He stepped over to the side to get further away from Bill’s leg hole and so he could have a better view of the stairs.

When the creature appeared again, it moved slowly. Mike watched it round the bannister this time and pause at the bottom of the stairs. Aside from its enormous size, it looked human as it grabbed the rail and mounted the first step.

Mike raised the shotgun. He pointed it at the monster’s chest.

It paused on the stairs and pulled its hand from the bannister, holding it up for Mike to see. The fingers eradicated by his earlier shot had been replaced by tiny, baby-like appendages. Mike considered the absurd digits, almost hypnotized as the creature eyed him. He only braced himself and reset his grip on the gun when the creature lowered its hand again and climbed another stair.

With the shotgun trembling in his shaky hands, Mike waited before pulling the trigger. He couldn’t hold himself back anymore. With the creature mid-stride, on the third step, Mike’s finger twitched, giving enough of a tug to fire the weapon.

The blast rocked Mike’s exhausted, tensed muscles. When he lowered the barrel back down to his enemy, Mike saw the damage from his shot. The creature still stood on the stairs, but instead of climbing, it simply looked down at its own chest.

Bouncing off ribs and tearing through skin and muscle, the shot had carved a deep rut in the monster’s pectorals. Mike could see part of its beating heart and swelling lung. He held his ground and pumped the shotgun. When he raised it again, he took careful aim at the standing monster and shot for the center of crater that his last shot had made. Forgetting to exhale and squeeze the trigger, Mike’s shot pulled up and to the right slightly. The new wound overlapped the first, but barely. This time, the monster wavered backward with the impact.

Mike didn’t waste any time, he pumped and pulled the trigger again. A dry click was the only result. He backed up a step and looked down at the weapon, realizing that he had shot five times, the gun’s capacity. The creature rose up and ascended one more step. Mike backed away and tucked the shotgun under his arm so he could dig a hand into his pocket. Without looking away from the creature’s slow progress, Mike fumbled to get his hand into his pants pocket for several seconds before he gave up. He reached up for his shirt pocket and pulled out two shells.

His fingers felt numb as they tried to feed a shell into the magazine. The first shell shook out of his panicked hand and tumbled to the floor. Before it bounced on the carpet he had already started to align the next. Mike backed up another step and exhaled, managing to click it home. As Mike fumbled with the second shell, the monster’s torso cleared the top of the stairs. It wavered and swayed as the creature’s life flowed out from the wounds in its chest. Weighing his options, Mike continued to load the gun instead of shooting the two rounds he had managed to load.

The creature fell facedown, landing on Bill’s body. Mike had backed nearly ten feet down the hall as he worked on pushing the third round into the shotgun’s magazine. He watched the creature rock and spasm. It’s paroxysms slowed, and Mike felt a glimmer of hope that his adversary was dying.

Conditioned by books and movies his entire adult life, Mike never once assumed that the battle was complete. He finished loading the fourth and fifth shells as he stared at the creature. Fully loaded, he raised the gun and took aim at the top of the creature’s skull and marveled again at its size. From his position he could only see the head, shoulders, arms, and part of the back—the rest of the beast was draped around the corner, down the staircase.

He settled on the head, hoping the the rounds would have some effect on the giant skull. Mike aimed at the jet black, matted hair and pulled the trigger. He pumped the shotgun but his finger fell away from the trigger. Mike was stupefied by what he saw: as the shot hit its skull, the creature pushed its head up, away from Bill’s body. Bill’s shirt now had a ragged, bloody hole, and gore streaked the monster’s face. Facedown on Bill’s corpse, the creature had been feeding on Bill’s flesh. While Mike had thought it was convulsing in death throes, it had fed and regained some strength. Evidence of the regeneration showed on the creature’s chest where flesh had re-grown to protect the monster’s organs once more.

Mike blinked hard and shook his head to snap himself out of his stupor. He raised the gun again and aimed at the newly healed chest and fired.

The creature reacted instantly. Its long arm swooped down and plucked the paranormal attenuator from the floor. Mike got off one more shot to the creature’s chest, but before Mike could shoot again, the metal box was flying through the air towards his head. The dangling antenna fluttered behind, dragged along by its cord. Mike ducked and raised his hands defensively, taking the brunt of the missile with the shotgun.

He tried to re-aim. The giant hurled the chair and it crashed into Mike’s pelvis and knees. He dodged to the side, to avoid being hit by the detector Bill had built to track the creature. Mike ducked into the master bedroom just as another chair crashed down the hall.

Leading with the gun, Mike popped out into the hallway and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The blow from the amplifier had damaged the action of the shotgun and the trigger would no longer squeeze. The cans of soda buzzed by Mike’s head and exploded against the wall at the end of the hall. He pulled back into the bedroom and tried to focus. Now that he’d injured the creature, his instinct to fight was powerful. Without a working shotgun, fighting would be suicide.

The alarm system panel caught his eye. He crossed to it, and considered if he really wanted to activate the alarm. It might draw the authorities and buy him some time. On the other hand, he would be endangering the lives of people coming to his aid. The debate was moot—the display on the alarm panel flashed “ERROR.”

Mike looked around the room for a telephone, but found none. He wondered about Ken’s cellphone and then remembered that his friend usually kept his cellphone on the counter downstairs at night. He had to run. Mike steeled himself and poked his head out through the doorway again. The monster had curled itself in the hall, around Bill’s body. Mike pulled back from the sight quickly, but the scene had burned into his mind. The creature was quickly eating its way through Bill’s corpse, and the results were evident in both its chest and head wounds. Each swallow was helping it regenerate its flesh, repairing the shotgun wounds.

Mike hung his head and exerted all his control to subdue his nausea. The door to the bathroom, where Ken and Sharon presumably still lay unconscious, was still blocked by the dresser. He could move the dresser and get to his friend, but the other door to that bathroom led directly to the hall.

Still carrying the broken gun, Mike sprinted for the window and threw back the curtains. In the ambient light from the downstairs windows he saw Ken’s back yard and a row of bushes on the ground just below him.

It’s not that far, he thought frantically. Mike jerked on the window several times to no avail. He sat down the shotgun and tried again with both hands, but it wouldn’t budge. The window was locked. After disengaging the lock his next attempt almost pulled the window from the frame. He fumbled with the screen and let it tumble down into the night.

He didn’t let himself think about the drop—he had never tried to climb out of a second-floor window, and didn’t intend to ponder too long in the face of what was curled up in the hallway. Mike thrust his leg out the window and straddled the sill while he ducked his head under upper sash. Lifting his upper body with his hands, Mike tried to pull his other leg through while his outside leg banged against the siding. His leg wouldn’t come. His pants were caught. As he tugged, his arms sagged, jamming his crotch painfully into the ledge. In desperation, Mike pushed away from the wall.

His jeans held him briefly and then ripped at the cuff. He tumbled backwards with his arms flailing. Mike landed on the bush squarely with his back and rolled off to the side. He took his feet and hunched towards the door. His ankle had knocked into the window frame. He moved quickly despite the slight limp.

Mike tugged on the back door. It was locked. His body wanted to run; to stretch his legs and run until they fell off. He actually entertained the idea for a second before his conscience took over.

I have to try to help Ken, even if it’s probably too late, he thought.

Holding his left arm close to his body, Mike hustled around the garage to the front yard. Each step seemed to bring a new injury report from a different part of his body, but he did his best to ignore the pain as he shuffled towards the front door. Just before his hand reached the knob, he realized it was probably locked. Bill had sealed the house pretty carefully before trapping the stairs. Not because he thought a locked door would stop the giant, but because he hoped it would force the monster to make noise while breaking in.

Mike let the lock make his decision: if the door was locked, he would run off into the night and do his best to live with his failure to help yet another friend.

The door was unlocked.

Mike swung the door slowly inward, trying to make as little noise as possible. Once inside, he left it wide open, leaving himself the option of escape. His first objective sat on the counter. From the sideboard in the downstairs hallway, Mike pocketed Ken’s keys and turned on his cell so he could dial nine-one-one.

“What’s the nature of the emergency?” asked the dispatcher.

“There’s a man in my house,” said Mike, keeping his voice low. He recited the address and told her that his friend had been murdered by the intruder. She instructed him to get to a safe place as he stepped over the aluminum foil and broken glass to get to the kitchen. Without thinking, he hung up the phone as he turned the corner into the kitchen. They had left a few lights on, mostly the under-cabinet ones that cast a soft glow on the countertops. But a brighter light came from the ceiling, to the right of the doorway.

Mike’s attention was drawn up by the light cascading from the hole in the ceiling and he stepped right into a huge puddle. He stared upwards at the ragged hole, dripping with blood, as his foot splashed in the pool of Bill’s blood on the tile floor. He pulled away from the mess and braced himself against the center island. Fortunately, the item he sought sat only inches from his hand.

Mike grabbed the largest knife from the butcher block and pushed back towards the door. He wanted to act quickly, before the monster could recover further or hurt Ken and Sharon. Back through the hall he focused more on the staircase than the floor and he shuffled through the remnants of Bill’s booby-trap. The foil crackled as he stepped. He saw no movement from the top of the stairs.

The stairs were spotted with bits of flesh and blood from the creature’s wounds, but Mike didn’t see them. His eyes were locked, waiting for movement from the top. He froze in fear when the phone in his back pocket rang. With the knife held out in front of him, he reached into his pocket with his other hand and squeezed the phone, pressing all the buttons, until it stopped ringing.

Mike resumed his climb. He expected to see Bill’s body, but where it had lain, he found only a gory spot next to the hole. More disgusting than the slick patch of blood and guts, the sound of the monster feeding struck Mike’s ears. With one more step he could see the door to the bathroom. It stood open, and the giant’s feet poked out into the hall. Mike readied himself to attack, only hoping he was there soon enough to prevent more tragedy. With his next step, his hopes were dashed.

Ken’s head rolled from the doorway, between the monster’s legs. Mike dropped the knife and fled across the hallway and back down the stairs. In his imagination, every step he took was shadowed by the giant killer, but when he burst through the front door and hooked a left across the lawn, he could see no pursuit. Mid-stride, he pulled Ken’s keys from his pocket and thumbed the fob to unlock the SUV parked next to Bill’s dented car.

Panting, he kept close watch on the rectangle of light spilling from Ken’s door as he started the car. He gunned the engine and spun the tires while backing out of the driveway. The truck lurched as he slammed the brakes and tugged it into drive. He tried to press the accelerator gently, but fine control was not in his current repertoire. The tires chirped again as he swerved away. He tried to keep the car centered on the suburban street, but he spent more than half of his time craning his next around to watch Ken’s house for signs of the killer.

He slowed briefly at the stop sign, pulling the car to the right and skidding into the oncoming lane before regaining control. Mike willed himself to calm down and pull his foot from the accelerator. When the SUV had settled down to a reasonable speed he noticed the sirens approaching. The flashing lights appeared next, and Mike pulled over to them pass in the opposite direction. Panic gripped his heart again as he realized that his maps and all his notes were still sitting in Bill’s car.

How am I going to warn Melanie? Mike thought. Her phone number is back at the house, which should be swarming with police soon. Maybe I won’t have to—maybe the police will stop it.

Mike knew he couldn’t rely on the authorities to dispatch the beast; its strength and survival instincts were too strong. Besides, they had been hunting the thing for a while and had been unable to stop it. He didn’t realize he was slowing down until he saw the headlights behind him and got his foot back on the accelerator pedal.

I can beat it there, he thought. Then I won’t have to warn her.

He drove another mile before his realization: he had Ken’s phone in his pocket, and that’s where he had stolen Melanie’s number from in the first place. Mike dug the phone out of his pocket and stole glances at it to find her number in the recent calls. Her number was on the list from that very morning.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Davey

BY THE TIME they got home, the pill started working. His mom had stopped at a drive-through for fast food and insisted they eat something in the car, so Davey would have a full stomach as the prescription recommended. Davey felt different—less paranoid and able to think clearly—but didn’t feel any profound effects from the medication.

When his mom pulled into the driveway, Davey unbuckled his seatbelt slowly and climbed deliberately out of the car, placing his hands and feet with care, as if these small motions demanded his full attention. Without being told, he gathered the fast food trash and his mom’s bag from the store. He wasn’t sure if his mom noticed the change in his behavior, but he wanted to be subtle, so he underplayed what he assumed the effects should be.

Davey put the trash into the large can in the garage and smiled to himself when he remembered that it was trash night. He would have extra time to play out his act. He pulled the can back on its wheels and moved it slowly past his mom’s car. His sister had already gone inside, but his mom was still collecting her work from the back of the car. She paused to watch him go by. Davey swallowed a tiny yawn.

He left the trash can at the curb and shuffled back to the house. His mom met him at the door.

“Where’s your bag?” asked Melanie.

“I left it at the Career Center,” said Davey. He looked at his feet. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Do you have stuff for catcher’s camp tomorrow?”

“All except knee pads,” he answered. “But I can borrow those.” He walked over to the kitchen table and sat at his place, looking at the placemat. Although his torpor was mostly an act, he did find it very easy to concentrate on very small details for a long period of time. He could have suggested that he go to bed early, but he knew it would carry more strength if it came from Mom.

“Did you get enough to eat?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, not bothering to look up at her.

“Your sister is watching TV,” she said. “Do you want to go watch with her.”

“No thank you,” said Davey.

“Ice cream?”

“I’m stuffed, thanks,” said Davey. He regretted this last answer immediately. Davey sensed that turning down ice cream might be too obvious, but to his surprise, she seemed to believe his answer.

“You seem tired, honey,” she said, walking over to stroke his hair. “Do you want to go to bed early?”

“I guess,” he said, staying put in his seat.

“Come on,” she said, tugging at his arm, “You’ve had a long day. Let’s get you to bed.”

“Okay,” he said.

* * *

ONCE ALONE, DAVEY WENT through all the motions of preparing for bed. After his shower, instead of wearing his pajamas, he pulled out fresh clothes and dressed himself before climbing between the sheets. When Melanie tucked him in, he wore everything except the windbreaker, hanging from his doorknob.

In the dark, Davey shut his eyes and thought about the hunter—the monster working its bloody way across the state to reach his family. If he were dreaming, he would be able to watch its every move, but he didn’t dare sleep. It was too close. The best he could do while awake was to form a general sense of its actions. Flashes played across his closed eyes. He saw Doctor Stuart’s kind face twisted in agony. He saw another woman. He didn’t recognize her, but she was also connected to his blood.

Davey opened his eyes in the dark and tears escaped the corners of his eyes. He had almost gotten used to waking from horrible nightmares, but watching the monster eat its prey was too much for his conscious mind to bear. Davey panted as he slipped back into the mellow funk of the drug. He craned his neck and watched the band of light under his door. Footsteps crossed from left to right. The bright hall light was doused. He heard his mom padding down the stairs.

In the kitchen, the house phone rang. Davey recognized his opportunity and slipped from between the sheets. He grabbed his jacket from the doorknob and pulled his door shut behind him. His plan was simple, but relied on some luck. At the bottom of the stairs he caught his first break—his mom’s bag sat next to the coat closet. He crouched and rifled through the bag, grabbing her cellphone, keys, and wallet.

The front door was closest, but it made terrible squeaking noise when opened and a loud click when closed. He needed one more bit of luck to get away. Stuck to the side of the house, his mom’s office had a sliding door which he could open and close silently. It led to the side yard. Unfortunately, to get to the office he would have to pass right behind the couch where his sister was watching TV.

Davey crept past the closet and halted behind the potted palm so he could spy on his sister using the reflection in the window. He stood so still that his legs started to burn with the exertion. The volume on the TV was low and above it Davey heard the steady flip of magazine pages. Just from the sound of her page-turning Davey knew his sister was mad at something. He froze, watching the reflection of the back of her head. As perceptive as his sister was normally, when she was angry she was even more so: apt to complain that he was breathing too much or his heart was beating too loudly. He knew he couldn’t dare try to sneak past her.

He turned back towards the front door, ready to take a chance. Just as his foot crossed back into the hall next to the stairs, he heard his mom on the phone, pushing her way through the swinging door from the kitchen.

“I just think we’re not going to have time for that,” she said into the phone. Davey pulled his foot back and pressed himself flat against the wall. His mother was right around the corner; he heard her talking as she bent to pick up her purse. “Hold on, I’ll ask her royal highness. Susan?” she yelled, retreating down the hall.

“What?” he heard his sister from his other side.

His mom called something from the kitchen that Davey couldn’t quite hear. She addressed his sister from the other side of the TV room. Davey compared his options again. The front door was too risky, but now that his mom was on the other side of the TV room, she would see him sneaking into her office.

“Okay, I’m coming,” he heard his sister say. “God,” she said, exhaling.

When he heard his sister’s discarded magazine hit the table, Davey took a gamble. He sidled down to the plant and checked the reflection in the window one last time. As quickly and as quietly as his sneakers would allow, Davey tiptoed behind the couch and made the safety of his mom’s office without being seen.

He slipped out the sliding door, closing it harder than he intended. Glancing in the window, he found he was safe—his sister and mom were deeply engaged in the kitchen. Davey moved across the side yard and crossed through the Jankovick’s yard to get to the alley between the houses.

Crouched behind the bushes, Davey dialed Paul’s number.

“Hello?” Paul answered the phone timidly.

“Hey Paul, it’s me,” said Davey.

“Jesus, Davey,” Paul said, “I thought it was your mom. You know I’m not supposed to get calls on this phone. My mom’s gonna kill me if she finds out.”

“Don’t worry,” said Davey, “she won’t find out. You don’t get charged for nighttime calls, and she’s not going to look at the bill if there are no unexpected charges.”

“Yeah, but she could,” said Paul.

“Look, I need your help,” said Davey.

“No way,” said Paul. “My mom might eventually let us hang out together after I get back from vacation, she even said so, but if she catches me helping you with something now, she’ll never forget it.”

“I’m totally serious about this,” said Davey. “If you don’t help me now I might not be around when you get back.”

“Seriously?” Paul’s voice became very small at the other end of the call.

“Yeah,” Davey said with a heavy sigh. “You know I wouldn’t joke with you about that.”

Davey waited while the phone was silent. He knew Paul and knew that his deliberation couldn’t be influenced once it began.

“Yeah, okay,” Paul said eventually, “what do you need?”

“Meet me out back your place,” said Davey, “and bring the keys to the shed.”

“How come?” asked Paul.

Davey waited again while Paul figured it out. He suspected that if he stated the request aloud, it would be easier for Paul to deny.

“No!” said Paul. “No way. Anything but that. My brother really will kill me.” Paul muffled the phone with his hand, but Davey still heard him address his mother—“Nothing, Mom. It’s my game.”

When he came back to the phone, Davey applied pressure. “You have to Paul. I wouldn’t ask unless it were life and death, you know that. Plus you owe me for that other thing.”

“This is different,” said Paul. “My brother’s gonna know it was me, and he’s my brother.”

“Paul, I’m scared,” said Davey. “I really think this is my only hope."

He waited for yet another pause until Paul came back on the line. “Okay, but you have to take the lock all the way down the street and bash it and then bring it back. Then he won’t know it was opened with a key.”

“I don’t have the time to do that,” said Davey.

“Okay, but you have to push it all the way to the corner so he doesn’t hear it start,” said Paul.

“Yeah,” agreed Davey. “I’ll do that.”

“Meet me out back in five minutes,” said Paul.

“Thanks, man,” said Davey, but the call had already ended.

* * *

BY DAVEY’S WATCH it was more like fifteen minutes before Paul arrived. Davey had slunk from yard to yard, avoiding the streetlights and triggering the occasional barking dog. His feet were muddy and his pants wet almost to the knee by the time he got to Paul’s yard. He crouched behind his friend’s backyard shed.

“Davey?” Paul whispered.

“Right here,” said Davey.

“What’s going on with you?” asked Paul.

“I can’t really explain,” said Davey. “It would take too much time. There’s a guy trying to kill me, and if I’m around here, he’ll kill my family too.”

“Whoa,” said Paul, “that’s bad.” He shifted his slippered feet and looked out across his dark yard towards his house.

“I know,” Davey nodded.

“Well, here,” he held out the keys for Davey. “I gotta get back in before my Mom catches me.”

“Which one is it?” asked Davey.

“Little round one,” said Paul. “I’ll see you later, I guess.”

“Wait,” said Davey. He wiggled the key until the lock popped open. “You better take these back.”

“Oh yeah.” Paul turned back to get the keys.

“Thanks again,” said Davey. “Have a great vacation.”

“Sure,” said Paul. He shuffled back to his house and left Davey to his task.

He could barely see inside the dark shed. Fortunately, the dirt bike was parked close to the entrance. It took most of his strength to wheel the heavy bike out into the moonlight. He wondered how he would ever keep his promise to get it to the corner. Ignoring the challenges soon to come his way, Davey focused on the easier prerequisites. He filled the bike’s empty tank with a can next to the lawn mower and hunted for a helmet. The only helmet hanging on the wall was way too big—meant for Paul’s brother.

Paul wouldn’t be old enough for his own helmet until his next birthday, if at all. The last time Davey had been allowed to try the bike, he had worn his own bicycle helmet, but he hadn’t remembered to bring it during his escape from the house.

Davey glanced around one more time, trying to think of what he had forgotten. He raised the kick stand and then put it back down, remembering to go back to the hiding place in the back of the cabinet, where Kris kept the key for his motorcycle. Before he left, Davey closed the doors to the shed and pocketed the lock. Even if there would be no sign of a break-in, at least the missing lock would point that direction, he figured. He grabbed the handlebars and set his sights on the back gate. Despite its weight, the bike rolled fairly well down the gently sloping yard.

CHAPTER FORTY

Mike

SHE ANSWERED THE PHONE and skipped all formality, wary of any more bad news. “Did you find something wrong?” she asked.

“Pardon?” asked Mike. He glanced at the phone and confirmed the number on the display matched his vague memory of Melanie’s number.

“From the blood this morning. Was there something wrong?” she asked again.

“I’m sorry Ms. Hunter,” said Mike. “I’m a colleague of Ken Stuart’s. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“Oh Jesus,” she said. “What is it? What’s wrong with my son?”

“Ken was attacked tonight in his home,” said Mike. “I’m afraid he didn’t make it.” Mike fought to keep his voice calm while delivering the news.

“Oh my god,” said Melanie. Her voice was unmistakably lighter than it had been a moment before. Mike figured that was natural, she must have thought he was delivering bad news about her son. He heard her shuffle the phone and guessed she was taking a seat. “What happened?”

“There’s a man,” said Mike. “He’s insane, and he murdered Ken and his girlfriend this evening. I’m afraid that your family will be his next target.”

Mike waited for her reaction, but instead heard rustling from the phone as she walked rapidly.

“I recognize your voice,” she said. “You’re that crazy guy who called yesterday, asking me if my son thinks someone is after him, aren’t you? Markley? Wasn’t that it?”

“I’m Dr. Markey, Ms. Hunter, and I’m not crazy at all,” said Mike. “I’m talking on Ken’s phone and driving Ken’s truck because I just watched him die at the hands of someone who is crazy. And if you don’t listen to me, you’re next. He’s coming right for you and your son.”

“I’m going to hang up now,” said Melanie. “I suggest that you… Oh fuck.” She let out a slow breath.

“What is it?” asked Mike. “He can’t possibly be there yet. It should take him at least a half-hour to cover that much ground.”

“I’ve got to go,” said Melanie. “I don’t know what you’ve been telling my son, but now he’s gone. Are you happy now? I’ve got to call the police.”

“Wait!” yelled Mike. “Don’t hang up!” When he heard no response he looked down at Ken’s phone and saw that the call had ended. He tried to connect again, but received first a busy signal and then a set of rings that went to voicemail.

Mike gunned the engine and picked up speed in Ken’s powerful truck. The headlights in his rearview mirror kept a constant vigil, tracking his pace. The realization dawned on him slowly—those same headlights had been behind him almost since the moment he left Ken’s house. At first he thought it must be the police. They had somehow spotted Ken’s license plate and thought that he was the killer. The timing didn’t make sense.

And why wouldn’t they just pull me over? Mike asked himself.

Unable to think of a reasonable explanation, Mike maintained his speed and covered the distance to Davey’s house in less than ten minutes. He pulled to the curb in front of her mailbox and slammed the SUV into park. He jumped out and rounded the vehicle without taking the keys or closing the door. Melanie sat on her front stoop—the front door stood open behind her and she held a telephone in her hand.

“Ms. Hunter?” asked Mike as he crossed her yard.

She stood and backed towards her door at the sight of the stranger.

“Wait, hold on,” Mike stopped, still ten paces away. “Just hear me out.” Mike was so focused on trying to persuade Melanie from flight that he didn’t notice the truck that had pulled in behind him.

“The police will be here any second,” said Melanie. “If you’ve done anything to hurt my son, I’ll make you pay.”

“You’ve got me all wrong,” said Mike.

Before he could begin a full defense, their conversation was interrupted by a tall man, crossing the yard quickly.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” said the man. “My name is Morris, I’m a tracker.”

Melanie opened her mouth to protest the interruption, but Morris cut her off—“I know this all must be very confusing.” He spoke low—Melanie and Mike both had to strain to hear his words—but his sonorous voice reverberated with authority. “You’ll have to take my word that you’re in grave danger. We need to find your son and get moving. There’s a powerful, murderous man headed this way.”

“The police…” Melanie began.

Morris cut her off—“If we wait for them to be convinced, you’ll be dead before dawn.”

Melanie wiped away a tear with the side of her thumb as she stood. She opened the door to her house and called for Susan.

Mike turned to Morris, ready to ask a thousand questions about how and why he had shown up at Melanie’s house. Morris shook his head, demanding silence. Glancing at the street, Mike realized that Morris owned the headlights that had followed him from Ken’s house.

Susan appeared in the doorway with her shoulders squared for a face-off. She shrunk a little when she noticed the two men standing in the lawn.

“Get your stuff, we have to go,” said Melanie.

“I can’t,” said Susan. “I have stuff to do.”

“Suze, no,” said Melanie. “Hand me my bag and get your butt in gear. No arguments.”

Melanie pawed through her bag and then yelled back to her daughter. “Have you seen my keys?" She turned to Morris. “My keys and wallet are gone. I couldn’t leave if I wanted to.” She buried her face back in her bag. “Where’s my cellphone?” she asked to nobody in particular.

“We’re all riding with him,” Morris pointed at Mike.

“Great.” Melanie rolled her eyes.

Susan appeared in the doorway, holding her backpack.

“Do you have your keys?” Melanie asked her.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Then please lock up,” Melanie said, pointing her daughter to the door. “Okay,” Melanie said to Mike, “we’ll ride with you. But give me Dr. Stuart’s phone.”

“Done,” said Mike. He held out the cellphone.

“Call me,” Morris said to Melanie when she had the phone. He gave her his number and waited for her to dial.

“Why? Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m going to track your son,” he replied. He strode confidently around the house and out of sight, leaving Melanie, Mike, and Susan standing in the yard.

Over the phone, Morris asked a question—“What’s your son’s name?”

“Davey,” she said.

“He called someone and then headed off north. Who does he know in that direction?” Morris asked.

Melanie looked up at the stars as she pictured the town. The answer was obvious once she had her bearings. “Oh! Paul, his best friend,” she said.

“Get in the car and go north on Walnut Court,” Morris instructed.

Melanie waved Mike and her daughter to the doctor’s SUV while she listened to Morris breathe through the phone. She pictured him jogging up the street.

“Where does Paul live?” he asked.

“Two blocks in that direction. Um, north. And then two and a half east on Center. But Davey might not go that way. He’d probably take the…” she said.

Morris cut her off—“Alley. Yeah, he did.”

Melanie showed Susan to the back seat of the SUV and then climbed in after her. They sat in the back while Mike drove. She waved at him to turn the truck around so she could follow the directions from Morris.

“Where are we going, anyway?” asked Susan.

Melanie’s hand flew up, gesturing for Susan to be quiet. Morris hadn’t spoken in a while, but she didn’t want to miss any instructions.

“Right on Hewey,” said Morris.

“Back up,” Melanie demanded. Mike slammed on the brakes. “You just passed Hewey,” she said, “go back and take a right.” Mike obeyed and Melanie reached back to grab her seatbelt.

“Slow down,” Morris instructed over the phone.

“Slow,” she said. She yipped into the phone as a dark shape emerged from the space between two houses and jumped out at the car.

Morris pulled open the passenger-side door and pointed. “Right there.”

Mike squinted into the dark. Melanie hit a button on the doctor’s phone, ending the call, and handed it back between the seats up to Mike.

“Just turn off the lights and drive,” said Morris, climbing into the vehicle.

Mike flipped off the switch for the automatic headlights, but the running lights stayed illuminated. Morris reached between them and pulled up slightly on the emergency brake. The sensor on the brake doused the running lights and they rolled down the street in stealth.

Melanie strained against her seatbelt so she could look between the seats in the direction Morris pointed.

“Pull just past him and I’ll jump out,” said Morris.

“Wait,” said Mike. “Don’t touch his skin. Not if he’s frightened.”

“What?” asked Melanie. “What do you think is wrong with my son?”

“Nothing,” said Mike. “It’s hard to explain. Can you get him in the car without frightening him?”

“Of course,” she said.

At that moment, when Mike had driven three quarters of the way down the block, Mike finally saw what Morris’s eyes had picked out of the darkness: at the unlit corner, with bushes between him and nearest house, Davey was frantically trying to kick-start the stolen dirt bike.

Mike slowed as they approached the runaway. Melanie unbuckled and jumped out. Preoccupied with trying to start the motorcycle, Davey didn’t hear her until the door of the SUV fell shut.

The boy stole a quick glance over his shoulder and abandoned the bike and started to run.

“Wait!” yelled Melanie. “Davey, wait. You have to come with us.”

“I have to get away,” he yelled, slowing so he could turn towards his mom. With the combination of moves, Davey’s feet tangled and he spilled to the ground. His teeth slammed together and he yelped in pain when his head hit the ground.

“We’re all going,” she ran to him. “We’re going to run. We’ll get away.”

Relief spread across his face in the starlight. “Really?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, putting out her hand to help him up. “Let’s get going.”

As she pulled him to his feet, Davey asked his mom a question—“Who are those guys?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “But I think they’re here to help. They’re telling me the same things you are.” She helped her son climb into the SUV.

“You’re the guy who tried to help Dr. Stuart.” Davey said, pointing to Mike.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “He was my friend. How did you know?”

“I saw it,” said Davey. “Before.”

Mike reached out towards Davey’s face and then pulled his hand back. “You have a little spot of something on your cheek,” Mike said.

Melanie pulled out a tissue and wiped Davey’s face.

“Does that happen a lot?” asked Mike.

“What?” asked Melanie.

“Those marks,” said Mike.

“Yes. Since he was a baby,” said Melanie. “The doctors say it’s nothing to worry about.”

“It’s true then,” said Mike. “The ancient stories say that those with the poisoned blood will bear the mark.”

“That’s absurd,” said Melanie.

Morris had his head out the window, looking back down the street. He pulled his head back inside. “Drive,” he said to Mike.

“Where?” asked Mike.

“Where does that go?” Morris asked, pointing south.

The men in the front seat looked around at Melanie.

“All the way to the river,” she answered. “It ends at route 196.”

“Then go,” said Morris, pointing to be perfectly clear. “Fast.”

“Okay,” said Mike. “We’re going to have to get some gas soon though, I didn’t start with a full…”

His statement was cut off by an enormous bang from the rear of the vehicle. Susan’s hands flew to her face as she screamed; the SUV rocked with the impact.

Mike’s foot slammed on the brake pedal instinctively. His first thought was that they had somehow hit a deer. The doctor’s truck rocked up onto its left wheels and hung there before starting its descent back to the pavement.

“Go!” Morris yelled. His deep voice filled the cabin of the truck and everyone shrunk in their seats. Mike moved his foot from the brake and stabbed down at the accelerator. He pulled back and thrust again when the truck didn’t move. The engine whined and revved, but seemed disconnected—the truck didn’t accelerate. Suddenly, when the wheels regained their place on the pavement, the SUV lurched into action.

“Where is it?” asked Melanie. She spun around in her seat, looking out the tinted back windows. The big window on the right, on the passenger’s side of the cargo area, had a small hole near the top. Spidering cracks traced away from the hole.

“He’s at the end of the block,” said Davey.

“What?” said Mike. “What the hell hit us then?”

“A rock,” said Morris.

“Fuck,” said Mike. “A rock did that?” The vehicle swerved as Mike spun around in his seat and looked the hole in the window.

“Just drive,” Melanie yelled. “And watch your language, please. Honey, we’re going to be okay,” Melanie said to her daughter. Susan’s hands still clutched either side of her face in fear.

Morris thrust his head outside the window while Mike accelerated. He pulled back in and spoke—“He’s still chasing. We’re pulling away, but just barely. Don’t slow down too much for the stop.”

“What?” asked Melanie. She spun in her seat to look out the back. “How could he possibly keeping up with us? We must be going forty-five. I don’t see anything.”

“There,” said Morris. He pointed as the creature passed under a streetlight. Its huge strides made it almost appear to be moving in slow motion. It was only a hundred yards back.

“What is it?” Melanie whispered. She spun back around to address the men in the front seat—“You said a man was after us. That’s no man. The rock that thing threw nearly knocked us over, and now it’s running as fast as we’re driving?”

“Hold on,” said Mike. He let the truck drift to the right side of the street, near the curb so he could get a better angle on the turn. Leaning forward over the wheel, he tried in vain to get a look at the cross street, to spot any oncoming traffic.

“We’re fine,” said Morris. “Just do it.”

Mike nodded and leaned back. He positioned his hands on the right side of the wheel so he could pull the vehicle left. Barely slowing, Mike tapped the brake pedal as the truck raced towards the stop sign. Melanie turned to look for the monster. As Mike whipped the truck around the turn she saw the hulking dark form zip off into the woods.

Her heart slowed, as if it were freezing in her chest. “He’s coming,” she said.

Once they’d safely made the turn, Morris turned to assess how much ground they had lost. “What do you mean?”

“Through the woods,” said Melanie, “he’s going to cut us off.”

This proclamation seemed to wake Susan from her stupor. She spun to her left, smacking her hands against the window, trying to peer into the woods passing by. “Faster!” she cried.

“I’ve got it floored,” Mike yelled.

Melanie leaned over Davey and joined her daughter at the side window.

“We’re doing almost seventy now,” said Mike. “I’m certain he can’t go that fast.”

“Not alone,” said Davey.

“Do you know where he is?” Melanie turned to her son. “Like before? Can you tell?”

“He doesn’t want me to know,” said Davey. “And there’s nobody else to see him.”

“What does that mean?” asked Susan.

“We’re coming up on the highway,” said Mike.

“South,” said Morris.

“Yes, south,” agreed Melanie. “My mother-in-law lives down that way.”

“Okay, hold on to something,” said Mike. “I don’t want to lose speed.” The SUV had an even harder time with the right turn. The high-speed turn made the vehicle lurch to the side. At the apex of the turn, when Mike was losing confidence that the vehicle’s wheels would stay planted on the pavement, Morris reached over and corrected the position of the steering wheel. He gave a little ground to the radius of the turn but all four tires stayed on pavement.

Mike merged with the sparse highway traffic and nudged the SUV up to seventy-five before setting the cruise control.

“Won’t this thing go faster?” asked Melanie.

“We can’t afford to get pulled over,” said Mike. “And I think this should be fast enough to gain some ground.”

“What about gas?” asked Melanie.

“What’s that?” Mike glanced in the rearview mirror.

“You said we needed gas—how much is left?”

“Oh,” said Mike. He studied the instruments. “A little less than a quarter tank, whatever that means. Fifty miles, maybe?”

“We’ll need more,” said Morris. He fished out his cell phone and pulled up his address book.

“Why? Where are we going?” asked Mike.

“We’ve got to see my cousins,” said Morris. “They’re the only ones who can help us.”

“This is crazy,” Susan interjected. “Mom, why are you going along with this. This is all Davey’s fault. Why did you get us into all this crazy stuff?” she shoved her brother. He sat motionless, not reacting to the push.

“Susan,” said Melanie. “None of this is your brother’s fault.”

“Whose fault is it then? That thing is chasing him. He’s only been dreaming about it forever,” she asserted.

In the front seat, Morris connected with his cousin. Melanie hushed her daughter so she could hear the conversation. As Mike drove steadily down the highway, everyone in the car listened in on Morris’s end of the phone call.

“S’me,” he said when the connection was made. “That giant’s awake,” he said. “I know.” He listened for a long time, Melanie began to wonder if his cousin was still on the line when he talked again. “Maybe hour and a half.” He disconnected the phone.

Waiting for the call to end first, Susan started up again—“Why do we all have to run away if it only wants him? Let these guys take Davey and we can just go home.”

“That’s enough.” Melanie shot a look at her daughter. “We’re a family and I intend to keep it that way. Now hush so we can figure out what we’re going to do.” She turned her attention back to the front seat. “Who was that?” she asked Morris.

“My cousin,” he said.

“And what was that all about? Does he know about this thing too?” she asked.

Morris shifted around so he could look to the back seat. He looked down at Davey for a moment before he spoke, but the boy didn’t meet his gaze. “I talked to my cousin about the giant a few days ago. He and his brother know about this kind of stuff. They keep the history of our family. I’ll tell you what they told me. It’s not very much.”

Mike kept his eyes pegged to the road, but his attention was focused on the deep-voiced man in the passenger seat. In the back, Melanie leaned forward, ready to absorb any information. Her daughter looked out the window and pretended not to listen. Davey appeared to be deep in thought.

“I’m not much of a storyteller, but what my cousin said was something like this,” he said. “A hundred generations ago, ancestors of my blood lived just south of here. They were just beginning to stay settled year-round, instead of moving with the seasons. They lived simply. The families farther north were always slightly more advanced. They built better shelters and made better pottery.

“The runners came early for the summer gathering one year. This would have been between four and five thousand years ago, but it’s impossible to know for sure. Nobody kept track of the years until much later. When the runners showed up, lots of people thought another war party was coming, but they came to warn of a different threat. The message was about a giant killer, moving amongst the families and murdering the sick and weak. The runner gathered a pledge from my ancestors—we would all help dispose of the monster in an unprecedented cooperative effort.”

“I don’t see what any of this has to do…” Melanie began.

Morris silenced her objection by simply raising a finger. He spoke slowly—“Hundreds and hundreds of the most skilled hunters and warriors from every family within traveling distance gathered to form this mob. I heard about the chase when I was a kid, when we’d pester my great uncle into telling us a story. Even when I was young I understood the hyperbole inherent in the tale. His stories were always full of talking rabbits and enormous flying turtles. But when Mike and I started to track this beast from the cave in New Hampshire where it must have slept through the years, I couldn’t ignore the similarities to my uncle’s story.”

Mike stole a glance at his passenger, the normally silent Morris. He wondered if Morris had ever strung that many words together before in his life. The answer seemed obvious—this type of long-winded explanation was like a hundred-year storm for Morris: he might not talk ever again.

“So you’re suggesting that thing slept for millennia and then woke up to hunt my son?” Her arm, protectively around Davey, drew him in close.

“Yes ma’am,” said Morris.

“That’s just absurd,” she said. “I can’t explain what I saw running behind the truck earlier, but nothing can live for five thousand years.”

“I never took my uncle’s stories as gospel, but sometimes his explanations made more sense than anyone else’s. In this case, he probably would have told you that the thing that woke up was a Tsi-noo. That’s something that used to be human, but its heart got replaced with ice when it lost its soul. According to him, those things could last forever because they weren’t really still alive.” He lowered his voice and leaned further between the seats. “They eat souls for their strength.”

Behind the wheel, Mike shuddered and checked his mirrors. The highway was nearly empty.

“But there’s another thing my uncle never talked about. It wasn’t one of his stories—it belonged to the grandmothers. They talked about the man who created himself, but sometimes it was a woman. Depending on who you talked to, that thing was the father or mother of everything. Not that I’m saying the thing that chased us through your neighborhood was that type of god, but I think its strength comes from the same well.”

Melanie’s skepticism had been worn away by Morris’s persistence. She found herself leaning forward to hear the details. When Morris paused, Melanie noticed that even her angry daughter now hung on every word.

“I’ll tell you what I mean—when we’d get together for the big family gatherings, we kids all slept together outside in sleeping bags, or under a big tent if it was raining. We’d run around all day long, but still couldn’t get to sleep at night. Kids would be whispering and playing jokes all night long. So one of the adults would tell us about the stages of the night. It was a way of scaring us into quieting down.”

Beside her, pressed against her side, Melanie felt her son take in a large breath. She had assumed that he was in deep shock, and was barely processing the world around him. Now she wondered if perhaps he was in some sort of trance. When she remembered the pill, his behavior made more sense. Its intended effect was to relieve anxiety, but detachment was a common side-effect.

“In the first stage of the night, the Stage of Possibilities, the rules of the world would change,” Morris continued. “That’s when your imagination could actually take legs and turn into something real; something with claws. I always thought that the man who created himself, Odzihozo, probably came forward in that Stage of the night. All the kids knew they’d better get to sleep before the Stage when anything was possible, or they’d end up calling forth something that could hunt.”

“Who could sleep if they were that scared?” Melanie asked.

“Once the extra adrenaline wore off, you’d be asleep before you even knew it. The parents probably figured that the kids would shake in their beds for a while and at least they’d be quiet until they crashed.”

“That’s so cruel,” commented Melanie.

“Maybe so, maybe not. If there’s any truth to it, then I think we can figure that’s where our thing came from.” He waved off towards the dark rear-window. “What if that thing was half Tsi-noo and half Odzihozo—the man with no soul that imagined himself into being. That thing would never have a reason to die, unless it was a reason that it believed in.”

“Odzihozo,” whispered Davey.

“I think you’re frightening the children,” said Melanie.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” said Morris. He pulled back around to the correct side of his seat and settled back.

“So wait a second.” Mike interrupted the silence. “Why are we going to your cousins’ house again? Do they have some sort of magic or something that’s going to stop this thing?”

“Nope,” said Morris, “but they’ve got plenty of guns.”

“Guns?” asked Melanie. “Didn’t you just say that it doesn’t have any reason to die?”

“I did,” said Morris. “Where reason ends, gunfire starts.”

“I’m not sure I’m on board with this plan,” said Melanie. “Why don’t we just keep running tonight and get out of range until tomorrow when we can get the authorities to help us.”

“I feel strongly that we have to act now, tonight, while the creature is tired, maybe even injured, and hasn’t had a chance to rest,” said Morris.

“But you’re assuming that it will keep chasing us. As far as we know, it has given up,” said Melanie.

“It only moves at night,” said Morris. “If we make it to dawn and it still hasn’t attacked, then we’ll have all day to try your plan.”

“Is it true that it only moves at night?” she asked Mike for confirmation.

“Yeah,” said Mike. “And I have to agree about trying to hit it while it’s tired. I shot it a couple of times and it really did seem to slow it down. I just couldn’t finish the job before it had a chance to…eat.”

“Well how about you guys do that, and we’ll just keep going south?” asked Melanie.

“It’s after him.” Morris cocked a thumb over his shoulder without turning around.

“So we’re going to your cousin’s house to have a big gunfight against the supernatural Methuselah, and you plan to use my nine-year-old son as some kind of bait?” asked Melanie. “I can’t go along with that.”

“That monster is not going to give up,” said Mike. “Do you know how many people he’s killed already?”

“Okay, we’ve had enough,” said Melanie. “Even if everything we’ve said here turns out to have some basis in truth, we’re done talking about it in front of my kids. They’re frightened to death already.”

“We need a plan,” said Mike. “I agree it’s not perfect, but…”

“Enough,” said Melanie.

They drove in silence for several miles before the chime from the SUV made most everyone jump. Even Morris pulled away from the noise; Davey was the only one who didn’t flinch.

“I think that means we’re low on gas,” said Mike. “The little pump light is on, and the needle’s just hovering about empty.” He peered at the gas gauge as if there was a chance of some mistake. They had already driven fifteen miles further than his predicted fifty miles.

“There’s an exit in a couple of miles,” said Morris.

Mike shut off the cruise control and let the vehicle’s speed drop a little as they exit neared. He pulled off to a small town built around the intersection of Route 1 and the Interstate. After stopping, Mike turned right and flipped on his turn signal at the first station. He waited for oncoming traffic to clear so he could make his left.

“Anyone got a card?” he asked.

“I lost my wallet,” said Melanie.

“Pull to the next station,” said Morris.

“How come?” asked Mike. Even though he didn’t have funds to purchase the gas, the price was cheaper at the closer station and he didn’t make a move to pull down the road.

“Not as much cover,” said Morris. “We’ll be able to spot anything coming.”

“We just covered seventy miles in an under an hour,” said Mike. “Even at the fastest we saw him run, we’d have an hour before he caught up, and his average speed is way lower than that.”

“You’ve underestimated him before,” said Morris. “I’ll pay for the gas, but down at the next station.”

“Okay, fine,” said Mike. He turned off his signal and pulled away.

During the conversation, Davey began to move in his seat. He shed his mom’s arm from his shoulders and retrieved her wallet and keys from his back pocket. He straightened in his seat and turned towards his mother.

She took then and looked into his eyes. “Hey, honey,” she said. “Are you feeling better now? You seemed a little out of it for a while.”

“Mom,” Davey began, “I’m so sorry about all this.”

“Oh, honey, no,” she shook her head and blinked back the tears welling in her eyes. “This is not your fault. Don’t ever think that.”

“It is, though,” said Davey, his voice strangled by emotion. “I can’t even feel where he is anymore. He could be anywhere.”

“He’s far away.” Melanie smoothed his hair. “We drove away, just like you wanted. Now he can’t get us.” She leaned over and kissed his young forehead. “Right?”

“Yeah,” said Davey. A troubled look crossed his face.

“Okay guys.” Melanie addressed the front seat with her new resolution. “We’re getting off here. Thank you for your help, but I’m taking my kids to my mother-in-law’s house.”

“Thank god,” Susan said.

Mike had the wheel cranked to the right as he pulled into the Morris-approved gas station, but he slammed on the brakes at the news. “What?” he asked. “The danger is not over. We need to stick together so we can be ready for this thing when it comes.”

“What you’ve told me so far is that you need Davey so that you can have a chance at fighting this thing. I don’t have any intention of fighting. We’re just going to keep moving. What time is it? Midnight? She’ll be thrilled to hear from me.”

“Mom,” Davey whispered, “it’s not far enough.”

“It’s okay honey,” she said pulling in close to a tight conference with her son and daughter. “We’ll get Grandma’s car and keep moving. In the morning we’ll call the police.”

Davey and Susan nodded in agreement for the first time that evening.

“Melanie, please,” said Mike. “You have to listen to me. You don’t know how dangerous this thing is.” Morris reached across the center console and touched Mike’s elbow, but Mike had one more plea—“Please come with us. We’ll help you stay safe.”

“Thanks, but no,” said Melanie. “Although I appreciate the offer.”

The SUV flowed with tension as Mike pulled up to the pump and shut off the engine. In the back seat, Melanie organized her children and led them all out her door. In front, Mike sat behind the wheel.

Morris exited the vehicle, shut his door, and rounded the front to pay for the fuel. Melanie herded her kids towards the small store and had covered ten feet when Mike came trotting after.

“Wait, Melanie,” he said, holding out his hand. “At least take Ken’s phone. You won’t have to call your mother-in-law collect.”

In each of her hands Melanie held a child’s hand. She didn’t relinquish her grip to reach for the proffered phone. From his back pocket, Davey produced his mother’s phone. He tapped her on her arm.

“Thanks, dear,” she said. She let go of his hand to shove the phone in her purse. “We’re all set, thanks,” she said to Mike.

Mike nodded and walked back to the SUV, leaving Melanie to resume her march to the store. When he got back around to the other side, Morris had already started pumping the gas. Morris watched neither the pump display or the handle, his eyes focused on the empty lot just past the small parking lot.

“I’ll do that,” said Mike. “You go talk to her. She trusts you more than she trusts me.”

Morris turned over the pump handle to Mike, but didn’t move towards the store. Instead, he walked to the rear bumper with eyes still riveted to the spot where the glow of the station’s lights ended and the shadows began. “Give her a little time,” he said.

“I’m not sure we have that much time,” said Mike. “Do you see something out there?”

“Don’t know,” said Morris. He moved a few feet away from the truck, stepped between the pumps, and shielded his eyes from the glare of the overhead lights. “Probably a deer.”

Mike let go of the pump handle and stepped to end of the truck. He looked off in the direction that had drawn Morris’s attention and then turned to the building to check on Melanie and her kids. They stood off to the side of the store, within a few feet of the register, and she held her cellphone to her ear. From her flailing hand, he guessed she was having a very interesting conversation with her mother-in-law.

Looking back to his right, Mike saw that Morris had moved even farther away. He now stood almost next to the pumps of the other island. Morris broke his gaze with the night and shrugged slightly as he headed back towards the truck.

“We’ll wait here until her ride comes,” said Morris. “Then let them know that we’ll follow for a few exits to make sure she’s okay.”

“That sounds like a good…” started Mike.

Morris cut him off with a deep, angry yell—“HEY!”

Mike ducked instinctively. He glanced at Morris and saw that he was reaching back beneath his light coat and under his arm as he lowered his body into a slight crouch. Mike turned to his right, trying to get himself on the other side of the truck as quickly as possible. He only made it a half-step.

Out of the darkness, a slicing noise whipped through the air. Mike only heard it for an instant.

When the sound cut through the air, Morris’s eyes were locked on a dark shape in the vacant lot, near a waist-high wire fence. He thought he was looking at a bush, but then yelled when the edges of the shape suddenly moved in a very non-bush way. The movement in the corner of his eye drew his attention. He looked over just in time to see the top of Mike’s head disappear.

Morris took two giant strides back towards the truck and the downed man before he tucked into a tumbler’s roll to finish the distance to the pumps. He crouched low with his pistol drawn, pointed in the direction of the shadows. Morris tucked himself tighter behind the pumps before looking down to Mike. His first impression had been right—Mike’s head was sliced in half. Tracing the blood trail off to the left he discovered the resting place of the top half of Mike’s head. Just past that, a red and white diamond, about a twelve inches square, read “Flammable Liquid 3.”

Morris recognized the metal projectile—it had once marked the back of a tanker truck. Ducking even lower to see under the SUV, Morris caught a glimpse of the store windows. With his face pressed against the glass from the inside, Davey was tugging at his mom’s shirt with one hand while pointing with the other. Morris glanced up at the open driver’s door and wondered if Mike had pocketed the keys.

Squeezing between a metal column and the pump, Morris poked his head out enough to look towards the dark shape—it was gone. Instead, a rock flew at him, challenging his lightning-fast reflexes. He pulled his head back and avoided having his skull crushed, but caught a deep scrape from his temple around to the top of his ear. Blood welled up in the scrape instantly.

Keeping his body protected behind the pump, Morris snaked his hand across Mike’s body, checking pockets for keys. He didn’t find any, but couldn’t reach under the man to see if he had tucked them in a back pocket.

Another rock glanced off the metal pole at Morris’s back. Chips of stone exploded from the impact, peppering his exposed neck. He risked another quick peek around the left side of the pump and then leaned right, leading with his gun. When he spotted a dark shape over near the dumpster, he took quick aim and shot. The shape changed direction, fleeing farther into the dark. Morris was a good shot, and had a pretty good sense when he’d hit his target. This time he was almost certain.

Morris sprang back to the left and lunged for the open door of the truck. They keys were hanging from the ignition—pulled out just enough to silence the warning chime. He shoved them home and had the truck started and in reverse before the first rock hit the back window of the SUV. He kept the engine gunned as he reversed in the direction of the creature. The pump handle popped from the side of the vehicle and snapped back. When he had cleared the pumps, Morris dragged the gearshift down into drive, letting off the throttle just long enough for the transmission to engage, and then sent the truck lurching forward towards the low building.

He achieved just enough speed to lock the tires into a sideways skid, bringing the passenger door inline with the front door of the convenience store and resting the quarter panel of the SUV against one of the strong concrete-filled posts designed to protect the facade from runaway vehicles.

His side of the truck, the driver’s side, was at an oblique angle to his last-known position of the monster, but Morris still felt exposed as he watched Davey pushing his mother and sister towards the front door of the store.

A metallic thump from the side of the truck drew Morris’s attention back to his mirror. The door behind him had been pierced by another rectangle of metal. This projectile had begun the day as a license place.

The Hunter family piled in through the rear door of the truck, with Davey bringing up the rear. Another rock glanced off the truck, dinging the rear window. It was followed by a more direct hit to the driver’s window, which sent a spidering crack across it, next to Morris’s elbow. Morris used his mirror and saw the dark mass taking shape as it lunged towards the vehicle, coming in for the kill.

The rear door had just closed behind Davey when Morris threw his elbow at the window at his side.

“Go! Go!” ordered Melanie, but Morris bashed again. This time his arm blew out the window, sending glass down to the parking lot. The clerk from the convenience store had reached the front doors, phone in his hand at his side, when Morris fired his next shots. The clerk ducked back and away. He had called the police when the first shot rang out, but only found the sense to hide behind the counter with this latest volley.

After busting out his window, Morris spun and leaned out of his window. He brought his gun level with the approaching beast.

Morris got off six shots before the hulk crashed to its knees. Its enormous fingers gripped the rear bumper of the SUV. Morris finally obeyed Melanie’s order, pulling his body back inside the truck and accelerating away from the front of the store. The monster held on to the bumper for several seconds before the friction of the pavement quelled its deadly grip.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” demanded Melanie, raising her voice over the rushing wind coming through Morris’s broken window.

“Mom,” asked Davey, “what are you talking about? He just saved us.”

Under Morris’s control, the SUV jumped and danced around corners, leaving the convenience store far in the distance before too long. They headed south on the local road instead of the highway.

“Let us out!” Melanie yelled. She sounded much more in control this time, but still close to hysteria.

“The giant’s only injured,” Morris turned to make himself heard. “You’re still in danger.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Melanie said, sighing. “What next?”

“Mom, that thing killed Mike,” Davey explained, trying to make her understand the situation.

“How do we know he didn’t kill him,” she waved at Morris. “This whole thing is just insane.”

“You saw it,” said Davey. “Remember?”

“It’s no use,” said Susan, unexpectedly taking Davey’s side. “When she gets like this she can’t be reasoned with.”

“What are you talking about?” Melanie turned on her daughter. She looked between her daughter’s patience and her son’s imploring stare and flopped back against the seat. “Everyone’s gone crazy,” she said. “Might as well join the crowd.”

In the front seat, Morris executed a series of tight turns down close side-streets to get them back on track. He waited until he found a straight stretch of road to really pour on the speed and pull out his cell phone.

“Hey,” he said after holding the phone to his ear for a few seconds. “We’re coming in hot. Twenty-five minutes and he’ll be right on our tail.” Morris listened for a bit before hanging up. “They’re ready for us,” he announced to the back seat. He wiped his own blood from the phone onto his shirt before putting it away. The car dinged and the check engine light came on.

“Great,” said Melanie. Her arms were crossed.

“Probably just because the gas cap,” said Morris. “Davey?” Morris addressed the boy.

“Yeah?” he asked, leaning forward so he could hear over the wind.

“How is he tracking you? Do you know?” Morris asked.

“It’s,” Davey looked up to his mother before answering, as if he was embarrassed, “my blood, I guess.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Crooked Tree

WITH HIS HEAD SWIVELING from side to side, looking out each window, Morris tempered his speed down the dirt road. The ruts pulled at the wheel each time he veered off-course. Concentrating mostly on the woods, he missed the break in the center-hump where he should have turned into the driveway, and the SUV bounced and jerked as he made the turn.

Once on the driveway, the surface evened out and soon they pulled into the wide open yard which surrounded the homely trailer.

Morris’s cousins had parked several cars with the trunks together and headlights pointed out in a rough circle. Morris took the one spot left by pulling past and then backing in to the space. As he put the truck in park, Morris spun to address his passengers: “Get out, stay low, and make your way to the center of the circle.”

“Shouldn’t we go inside?” asked Melanie.

“Too hard to defend. Get going,” he said. “Stay low.”

Davey pushed open his door and dropped to the ground. Melanie and Susan followed and imitated his hunched shuffle. In the center of the circle, surrounded by the rear-ends of the vehicles, the family joined three of Morris’s cousins who rapidly prepared firearms. Overhead, a light canvas tent flapped in the light breeze.

Before getting out, Morris leaned over and pushed open the front passenger door. He left the vehicle with all four doors open—they interleaved with the door of the vehicle next to the SUV, forming a shield for the center of the circle. When he arrived at the center, Melanie was introducing herself to his three relatives—Roland, Merritt, and Chester.

“Thank you, Roland,” she said.

“How we looking?” Morris asked.

“You tell us,” said Merritt. “What are we looking at?”

“Big guy,” said Morris. “Maybe ten feet or more. Naked. Heals fast. Very determined.”

“And he’s after the boy?”

“Yeah.”

“Weapons?” asked Roland.

“Anything he can throw,” said Morris. “Got me here with a rock from twenty-five yards,” he pointed at his left temple where the blood had crusted over the furrow. “Strong, too. You don’t want to be close.”

“Anything you know stops it?” the fourth relative, Chester, joined the conversation.

“Bullets slow him down,” said Morris. “Too bad your old man’s not still around, he would know.”

Chester approached Melanie who had stood to the side of the conversation, hugging a child tight to each of her sides. “Ma’am, you’re going to want to come over here, behind my car,” he said, pointing.

Melanie shuffled her kids in the recommended direction.

“It’s my Deputy Sheriff’s car. It’s reinforced in several spots,” he explained.

“Well what good is that going to do,” she pointed to the tent overhead. “What is it? Fabric?”

“It’s not to stop anything except vision. It’s just so he can’t see us from above.”

“Oh,” Melanie said. She settled her children and herself down on the ground behind the unmarked vehicle. Morris’s cousins had backed the car right up to a propped-up snowplow to create even more of a barrier. The family pulled together tight in the concavity of the metal and watched the men prepare.

Low conversation passed between the cousins and then Chester came over to crouch in front of Davey. “Davey?” he asked.

Davey nodded.

“You’re connected to this thing, right?”

“That’s absurd,” said Melanie. “None of this is his fault.”

“I’m not blaming him,” Chester said. He turned back to the boy. “Morris says you’ve lost connection in the past few hours, is that right?” he asked slowly.

“Right.” Davey nodded rapidly at the big man kneeling at his feet.

“We need you to get that back,” said Chester. “We need you to focus very hard…”

Melanie cut him off—“Why do you think he has any ability to make a connection with that monster?”

“And we need you to keep quiet for a minute,” Chester said to Melanie. “You don’t have to understand it, but you do need to accept it.”

“We’re set, Chester, heading out,” Morris called from across the circle. Morris, Roland, and Merritt found their way out between the spokes of cars. Each held a shotgun and had several other guns and packs of ammunition strapped to their bodies.

Melanie’s eyes darted around. Her daughter, Susan, was pressed against her side. She had her arms pulled close and her hands bunched in her lap, rubbing her thumbs together.

“So you’re gonna work on it, right?” Chester asked Davey.

“I’ll try,” said Davey. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Melanie glanced down at his concentration and was reminded of the long trip in Ken’s SUV. She felt her irritation fade, replaced by a sense of impotence.

Chester pushed up from his kneeling position and scanned slowly between the cars. He took a spot near the center of the circle, but closer to the side with Melanie and her kids, as he rotated to keep watch on all sides.

“So what are Morris and your cousins doing?” asked Melanie.

“They’re patrolling,” said Chester. “And Merritt is my brother. The other two are my cousins.”

Melanie nodded.

“I still think we should be running or calling the police,” she said.

“I am an officer, and trust me, this is one of the few situations I wouldn’t rely on them. We’d spend the next few hours just trying to convince anyone there was a threat.”

“But you believe it,” she said. “You seem like you believe it even more than I do, and I’ve seen it.”

“I’ve seen the evidence,” said Chester. “One of the cases was up where I work. A guy on the west side of Sebago. At first I thought it was just an organized crime thing, but then I started to see the irregularities.” As he talked, Chester kept his body moving. He dipped slightly to see through windows and checked behind himself as he slowly spun. “Plus, my dad warned us all a while ago.”

“Is that Morris’s uncle? The one who used to tell all the stories?” asked Melanie.

“No.” Chester paused his surveillance and smiled at Melanie. “No, the story-teller was my uncle, too. Dad didn’t have stories, just a lot of advice.”

Chester stood up straight and turned his head at the sound of a distant gunshot.

“Did they…” Melanie began, but Chester cut her off with a raised hand.

After a few moments, he explained—“A sighting maybe. Could also be they’re trying to flush him out. Hunting apex predators is tricky; we can only guess what’s going on out there. Like hearing one half of a conversation.”

“Mr. Morris,” said Davey. His eyes were still closed but he turned his head to face Chester before speaking again—“Mr. Morris fired because the monster was stalking Roland.” Davey opened his mouth again and then shut it without speaking further.

“Where are they, Davey?” asked Chester. He kept his eyes glued on where the headlights touched the edge of the forest.

“Near the house rock,” said Davey.

Chester nodded but took his eyes away from his scan for a second to assess the boy’s face. With her mouth pressed into a thin white line, Melanie’s brow betrayed her skepticism.

“He sees it again,” said Davey, just above a whisper.

Another shot rang out in the night.

“I don’t understand,” said Melanie. “You couldn’t see this thing all the way down here, and now you can?”

“Mr. Morris has my blood,” Davey explained, not leaving his trance. “They all do.”

Chester nodded.

Davey’s eyes flew open and Melanie couldn’t help but pull away from the terror on her son’s face.

“He tricked them!” Davey yelled. He turned his body and tucked his head, wrapping his arm around his mother and sister. With a giant crash, the car on the other side of snow plow lurched backwards tearing through the circle at full speed. Chester leveled his shotgun. His first shot rang out just as the bumper hit his thighs. Flight was never an option for Chester, the rusty old Charger knocked him flat and dragged him for several feet before it rear-ended the vehicle on the other side of the circle. Melanie watched the murder through wide eyes.

For Davey the world had slowed down. As he spun he could see his own body, as if he hovered over it. The old car’s tires never spun. They were locked by the brakes. Instead, the car skidded just over the surface of the grass. It lifted enough to almost hover as it plowed through their brave protector. Davey turned away just as the car impacted Chester’s legs. He had no desire to witness that.

Davey pushed away from his mother. One of the doors of the Charger hit his side of the plow and the extra momentum helped Davey rise quickly to a crouch. He pulled free from his mom’s arm as he stepped past his sister towards the gap between the vehicles. His senses had been enhanced by the adrenaline and he knew that Morris, Roland, and Merritt were on their way, but the monster was much closer. He had to get away from his family and lead the creature back towards the men with guns.

“No, Davey!” Melanie reacted much quicker than he expected and almost managed to grab his hand as he pulled free.

Davey danced between the doors, still seeing the rest of the world in slow motion, and emerged into the headlights. Time slowed further, almost to a stop, when he spotted the creature with his own eyes for the first time. In his dreams its shape was always undefined, a hulk without detail. In person, just fifty feet away, he saw nothing but the details: its foul and filthy skin, clumps of long hair stringing down from a oily, over-sized skull, and bulging, swollen muscles.

Far away, Davey felt strength draining from his legs. The creature came for him, moving absurdly slow through Davey’s sped-up perception. It snarled and drooled past savage teeth sparkling in the headlights. With two steps it was close enough to dive. Davey waited until it was in the air, and then waited until he could count the gritty grooves of its talons. As the monster fully committed its body to the strike, Davey pulled back, almost peeling himself downward, flattening to the ground as the creature passed overhead. It lunged with such vigor that Davey was up and running before the monster rolled to a stop.

Davey reached the woods and ducked under low branches into a stand of pine trees while the monster pounded across the clearing in pursuit.

From between the two vehicles at the monster’s back, Melanie rushed out, stretching a pistol out in front of her. She locked her eyes on the monster’s back and pulled the trigger. The monster whirled, uninjured by the bullet but surprised. Melanie fought the kickback from the powerful weapon and aimed again. She tightened her grip as she pulled the trigger a second time.

The monster stalked out a broad circle around Melanie. She had missed the monster twice, but it stayed at a respectful distance, waiting for her to fire again. She narrowed her eyes as she prepared to shoot, but Susan appeared at her side, startling Melanie and making her lose her concentration.

“Run, Mom,” said Susan.

“No, honey,” said Melanie, waiving her off with one hand while brandishing the gun with the other. “Go hide,” she ordered.

The monster reached the perimeter of the car circle, near the gap where the Charger had rested, when Melanie fired a third time. This shot hit, tearing a chunk of flesh from its shoulder. It sneered as it squared itself back to face her again. Melanie felt slightly more comfortable, more in control now that she had a few cars offering her partial cover from the monster. She’d managed to wound it. Her daughter backed away between the cars, hiding, finally obeying.

Crooked Tree ducked as she fired the fourth shot. Most of his body was now obscured by the front end of Ken’s SUV. When his head came back up she fired three more times in quick succession. Each shot missed.

“Bihhhh-tch,” Crooked Tree screeched across the distance.

“Hey!” Davey yelled from the edge of the woods. He had crawled back out to draw the monster’s attention away from his family.

“NO!” Melanie yelled, waving the gun. She could just see the monster’s eyes as it ducked it’s huge head below the level of Ken’s hood. Melanie knew what was next, she could see it with perfect clarity: the monster would rush back across the clearing, faster than she could possibly shoot. Even if she still had bullets in her gun she would be helpless to stop the creature from getting her son.

A horrible clang of wrenching metal rang out as Ken’s truck lurched to the side. Melanie hunkered down behind the hood of Chester’s car and watched as the SUV crashed into the car parked next to it. She puzzled at his intention a split second too long. That’s how long it took for Chester’s car to lurch, pinning her daughter between it and the rusty van behind her.

“Suze!” she screamed. Melanie dropped her gun and squeezed into the gap between the cars. She ignored her own safety and reached out a hand to her daughter. The grinding, twisting noise of bending metal stopped and she could hear Susan’s sobbing moans.

“I’m stu-huh-uck,” wailed Susan.

“Oh, baby, I’ll get you out. I promise,” said Melanie. “Are you cut? Can you breathe?”

“It hurts, Mom,” said Susan.

“Hold tight, baby,” Melanie said as she pulled back. She skittered back to the front of the car and grabbed the gun from the ground. She raised it up and saw what she expected—the monster had run back to the stand of pines where Davey had again disappeared. Melanie pointed the gun at its broad back. It was likely too far away for her imprecise aim, but she pulled the trigger anyway. After two more shots the gun was empty and the creature had bashed through the branches into the darkness.

Melanie looked between the woods and her sobbing daughter. Caught between her kids she stood frozen, unable to decide what to do. To her right, the headlights picked out a dark shape emerging from the woods. She raised the empty gun and pointed it towards the figure. It was Morris.

He saw the tracks across the clearing but asked anyway—“Which way?”

Melanie pointed and yelled, “There! Near the pine trees. He’s chasing Davey." With Morris on the trail, well armed and capable, Melanie turned back to her daughter. She threw herself to the ground and shimmied under the cars to assess from below.

“Here, honey, you’ve got to straighten out this leg,” she said.

“It hurts too much,” cried Susan. “I can’t.”

“Just try to lift up a little,” said Melanie. “Good, now take the weight off your leg." Melanie pulled on her daughter’s ankle. Susan’s foot carved a rut in the mud and her knee gave a tiny pop, but Melanie was able to straighten the limb out, pointing it parallel with the other.

“Hard to breathe,” Susan whispered.

“Hold on,” said Melanie. She raised herself up and wedged her arm between the two vehicles. Pulling on her own wrist with her other hand, she popped the sheet metal of the van’s broad door, giving Susan enough room to lower herself down.

“Keep going, honey,” she said. Susan and Melanie were able to slide through the dark mud and wriggle free from the trap.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Davey

DAVEY FLED THROUGH THE FOREST by the starlight, trying to keep to the thickest growth. Behind him the monster crashed through the woods, trading stealth for blind, destructive speed. When Morris got close enough, Davey felt his presence and looped around to get back to him. With each step he knew that the monster was cutting off the turn and gaining ground, but at least this course brought Davey closer to help.

When the crashing in the woods had nearly caught up, Davey felt the wind of downed tree limbs pounding to the ground. The force behind him seemed inevitable and unstoppable. Davey burst from the woods, back into clearing as Morris’s shotgun erupted again.

Crooked Tree’s scream shook the ground and rattled the leaves. Davey saw his mom and sister, huddled near the front of Chester’s car, but he ran on a tangent to the circle of cars to keep the creature from them. Gasping for breath, Davey sprinted. The giant crashed out of the woods as Morris’s gun fired again.

Davey stole a look back and saw the monster on its knees. Part of its skull glimmered bright-red in the headlights. Its side had been perforated by another well-placed shot.

Roland stepped from the woods, about halfway between Davey and the creature. Seeing his cousin on the other side, he dropped to the ground and aimed up, to avoid any cross fire. His shot tore through Crooked Tree’s shoulder, expanding the hole made by Melanie’s one good shot.

Morris circled to get out of Roland’s line of fire and pumped his shotgun, before sending another blast to the monster’s thigh.

Crooked Tree lurched forward and fell to the earth. He sent one hand in Davey’s direction and clawed at the ground, dragging himself forward a few feet. Roland stepped forward calmly and shot through the monster’s palm. The arm came away from the ground handless and flailed, sending his blood every direction.

Merritt limped out of the woods as Morris approached the downed giant, leading with his shotgun. Morris raised his gun to about a foot away from the back of the creature’s head.

“Watch it!” yelled Merritt. His warning distracted Morris at just the wrong time. Crooked Tree’s other hand, which had been lost under his enormous torso, flew out to its entire length and snagged Morris’s foot. When the monster tugged, the man’s shotgun swung up to the sky and he fired his next shot at dim stars. Morris’s foot was in the jaws of the beast instantly.

Even from his distance, Davey could see life returning to the killer as it bit into Morris’s foot. Morris’s scream was not unlike that of Crooked Tree—low and terrifying.

Merritt and Roland were on it at once, firing rounds into the giant’s back and side. They avoided shooting at its head, where Morris could be an unintentional casualty. Still screaming, Morris lowered his gun and fired down the length of his own leg, hitting Crooked Tree in the forehead just as Roland jumped away to avoid getting tagged by the ricochet. Roland blinked and shook his head, unable to process what he saw. Each blast tore a gaping hole in the creature’s flesh, but just as it started to bleed, the wound would skin-over and start to heal. Crooked Tree pulled fresh strength from Morris’s gnawed leg.

Completely focused on their task, nobody saw Davey approach. Even his mother didn’t see until it was too late. Davey ducked down, narrowly avoiding a blast from Merritt’s gun and thrust his left hand into the monster’s mouth.

“NO!” Merritt and Roland screamed at the same time. Roland dropped his gun and grabbed the back of Davey’s shirt, tearing it as he pulled him away. Merritt stepped forward and put the muzzle of his gun directly in the creature’s back, where he estimated the heart must be, and fired the final round. As Roland dragged Davey away, Morris clawed the dirt, pulling the remainder of his leg away from the monster.

The three men backed away. Roland held Davey close to his body and tried to assess the damage to the boy’s hand. Melanie ran over and scooped Davey up.

The monster had gone still. Merritt backed away a few feet, mindful of its reach, and kept his gun trained on its skull. Roland circled behind Morris and pulled him further towards the headlights before using his belt to make a tourniquet.

Crooked Tree lurched one more time, but Merritt merely backed away another half-step. The monster’s head came up off the ground and as it wheezed in a ragged breath, something gurgling deep from its chest. Before the head crashed back to the ground, Roland noticed that the flesh around its mouth had turned black and started to peel away.

“I think it’s really dying this time,” Merritt said. He pointed at the thing’s back and his cousin rose up from bandaging Morris’s leg to confirm the suspicion. Instead of healing as before, a black circle had formed around the gaping wound in the monster’s back. As they watched, fingers of black spread like cracks from the hole. More black lines spread away from its missing hand and injured shoulder.

Within seconds the black lines had connected into a web of decay, covering the beast’s body.

Merritt backed away another step and called nine-one-one. As he described the emergency and asked for several ambulances, they watched the giant’s back puff and then deflate. By the time he hung up with the operator, the monster’s corpse had become a flat black spot on the grass.

Melanie held her son on her lap and used the dew from the grass to wipe the thick blood from his hand. She guessed that most of the gore was from Morris’s leg because she could only find two small cuts in Davey’s hand.

“You’re very lucky,” she said to her son. “Why did you do that?”

“My blood had to stop it,” Davey explained.

Melanie considered that for a second.

“Well that was very brave, but very foolish,” she said and hugged him close. “And lucky.”

“Mom?” he asked. She looked into her son’s eyes. “Is he going to be okay?” Davey pointed at Morris.

“Yes,” she said. Merritt and Roland knelt over their cousin. Morris was either unconscious or incredibly stoic—he laid still on the damp grass. Melanie looked over to see her daughter limping towards the cluster of survivors. “I think he’ll be okay if the doctors get here fast.”

“Where’s my brother?” Merritt asked, swiveling his head around as he realized the absence.

Susan had just pulled even with the men. She pointed back to the circle of cars. Merritt trotted off towards the headlights, leaving Roland to tend to Morris.

“I,” Davey started, swallowing hard before continuing. “I don’t want to die.”

“You’re going to be fine, honey,” she said. “You’ve barely got a scratch.”

Davey frowned at his mother, holding her gaze, and slowly shook his head. She was puzzled. A tear leaked out of her boy’s eye and traced a line down his dirty cheek.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. Her daughter lowered herself to the ground, making their family complete again. Susan tenderly stroked the back of Davey’s head as another tear escaped down his sad face.

“Honey? What is it?” she asked again.

He looked down at his hand.

Melanie followed his gaze and blinked several times. She saw nothing wrong with his perfect hand. She blinked because she knew that she should see the two small holes where the giant had punctured his skin. When she blinked yet again she saw that the wounds were there, as they should be, but were now circled with dark black.

Tiny lines crept out from the black circles as she watched, and covered her son’s hands.

“No, Davey! No!” she said. She held his hand up, like it was something he was trying to steal from her. Roland looked up, still keeping pressure on Morris’s wound. He dropped his cousin’s leg when he saw Davey’s hand.

“What’s it mean?” Susan asked, face filled with fear and awe.

“Davey,” Melanie said, sobbing. She held her son tight against her body while using her other hand to hold his black hand away. “No, baby. Fight it. You’ve got to fight it.”

Roland approached fast and pulled a long knife from his belt. “We’ve got to cut it off,” he yelled. “You saw how fast it happens.” He reached for Davey’s hand.

“NO!” Melanie screamed, pulling his arm in tight. “We need a doctor. GET A DOCTOR!” she yelled. Davey’s head flopped around as she shook.

“Mom,” Susan pointed.

Davey’s eyes were lidded, hiding his pupils. Tendrils of black streaked up from his collar and encircled his face.

“DAVEY!” Melanie wailed.

Morris stirred and moaned. Merritt ran back towards the group, casting long, dancing shadows in the headlights.

Melanie pulled her son even closer, hugging him tight.

As she clutched his motionless body, his skin turned black and dried out. Her tears fell on his face sending up puffs of ash into the beams of the headlights. His sagging lips revealed his shiny dry teeth—the only part of Davey that hadn’t turned black. Melanie pulled one of his limp hands to her face and kissed his palm. Her lips were stained black with the residue of his burned skin. She sobbed and tried to rub the ash from his cheek. She found only more blackened skin underneath.

Roland knelt next to mother and son.

“I think he’s gone,” Roland said.

“No,” said Melanie. “You’re wrong.” She bent her head and heaved with sobs.

Roland reached out and took one of Davey’s wrists between his fingertips. Davey’s skin crackled under the pressure.

“He’s got a pulse,” said Roland.

EPILOGUE

Davey

THE PARAMEDICS RUSHED DAVEY to the pediatric burn unit where they placed him in a special tub to evaluate his wounds. When they cut away his clothes, Gerald—a nurse with fifteen years experience treating horrific burns—fainted at the sight. The boy’s entire body looked like a piece of chicken that had been left under the broiler all night, Gerald later told his sister.

When the remaining staff first started to clean Davey’s skin, one of the doctors sighed and said, “Oh, thank God.” With minimal effort, the blackened skin wiped away, revealing clean, healthy skin. In disbelief, they sent one of the aides to fetch a camera halfway through the procedure.

Davey regained consciousness while they cleaned the bottoms of his feet. He squirmed and laughed until they finished.

After visiting with his mom and sister, Davey wanted to see Morris. He had to settle for thanking Roland and Merritt; Morris didn’t regain consciousness until later that week.

Both Davey and Melanie warned the hospital staff that Davey might be contagious, but tests revealed no known pathogens. He was released three days later with a clean bill of health.

The Hunting Tree

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed “The Hunting Tree” as much as I enjoyed writing it. The ideas for this book came from a couple of sources. I read somewhere about a tribe of Native Americans committing mass suicide by jumping off a cliff and I wondered if they might be exhibiting the same behavior as marine mammals (who occasionally beach themselves for no apparent reason). Around the same time (as reading that piece about suicide), I had a dream about a kid who was constantly dirty, and I wondered if he was somehow marked by nature. When I put those things together, I ended up with Crooked Tree and Davey.

Contact me any time!

ikehamill@gmail.com or @ikehamill on Twitter.

You can find my novels and my blog at www.ikehamill.com.

Please take a minute to review this book on Amazon.com, and tell a friend. If you do leave a review, please drop me a line at ikehamill@gmail.com and I’ll email you a copy of my next eBook.

Read on for previews of my other books available on Amazon.com

Thanks, Ike

More by Ike Hamill

The Vivisectionist

The boys have the perfect summer planned. They’ll camp out in the backyard for their last vacation before high school. There’s only one problem — even though they're just a hundred feet from the safety of the house, they’re being hunted by a serial killer.

Join Jack, Ben, and Stephen as they strap on their backpacks and go out looking for adventure. The woods behind Jack’s house contain endless trails to explore, and the boys have weeks to investigate them all. Their neighborhood finally seems at peace again, now that the man who snatched the kid from down the street has been caught. But there’s still danger in those woods, and the boys are about to stumble into it...

Lies of the Prophet

Gregory was the first to rise from the grave. With no organs and no pulse he burst from his coffin demanding to know why he’d been buried. His subsequent book made him a billionaire and encouraged others to follow in his footsteps. Unfortunately, the decayed, mindless undead who rose after him were nothing like him.

Lynne, Carol, and Marta are on a collision course with the same goal: they must stop Gregory. Join these three women as they battle supernatural forces and discover their own paranormal powers. They each have their own reasons for fighting Gregory, but the fate of the world rests in their hands.