“Sounds appropriately spooky. Ever go there?”

“No!” Crow said abruptly, startling Newton, but the look of alarm that had appeared on Crow’s face passed quickly. He tried a dismissive laugh, but it sounded flat. “Uh…no, man, I don’t think I would ever go there.”

“Why not? Surely you aren’t scared of ghosts! Not you, of all people.”

“Ghosts? No…no, I don’t think I’m afraid of any ghosts.”

“Then what?”

“It’s just…ah, man, it’s really hard to say without sounding like I’m off my nut.”

“Too late for that, sweetie,” Val said softly. Crow gave her leg a little pinch and she slapped his hand.

“Why…what is it you’re afraid of?”

Crow looked at him strangely. “Why, him, of course.”

“Who?”

“Griswold.”

“I thought you said the man was dead.”

Crow shook his head vigorously. “You see, that’s just it. He wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t—what? Wasn’t killed.”

“No, wasn’t a man,” Crow said. “I don’t think Ubel Griswold was a man.” Before Newton could reply, Crow explained. “You see, when I looked into his face back then, even though it was just a brief look, and even though I could still recognize him somehow as Griswold, the face I saw wasn’t a human face. So, I don’t think he was a man.” His eyes were intense, haunted. “I think Ubel Griswold was a monster.”

(4)

In the silent wormy darkness, he waits; beneath tons of muddy dirt, he waits. He is not lost in the utter blackness of his forgotten grave in Dark Hollow; he is not dwarfed by the immensity of it, but the lightless vastness of it. When he trembles and the ripples of each shudder rolls out through the roots of the mountain, he is not trembling with fear, or loneliness, or despair. He is shuddering with a darkly sensual delight that undulates outward and upward toward the town, throughout the farms, into wells and beneath cultivated fields until it laps against the rushing waters of the canals and rivers that ring all of Pine Deep. Beneath those millions of pounds of bubbling muck he is the poison in the earth, the author of blight and sickness, the soulless heart of corruption. As each new tourist car rumbles over the bridges and rolls along the black arm of A-32, as hotels fill and fill, as everyone in town turns blindly away from manhunt toward holiday, as hearts quicken with excitement at the coming of Halloween, he—down deep in his grave—laughs with a ravenous and expectant delight.

Interlude

(1)

Dad opened the door to the den and leaned his head into the room, saw Adrian and Darien in front of the big plasma TV, controllers in their hands, a continuous electronic gun battle rattling onscreen. “Look, boys, keep it down to a low scream and it’ll be fine.”

The twins turned and gave him identical stares with their big green eyes. They showed him identical smiles. Adrian said, “Sure, Dad. Sorry if it got too loud.”

“We’ll turn it down,” agreed Darien.

“Thanks, guys.” Dad gave them a warm chuckle and a wink and closed the door.

Adrian and Darien looked at the door their dad had closed behind him. Both of them wore their thin cat-smiles. Darien turned to his twin, his smile not reaching his eyes, and gave a slow shake of his head. “What an asshole.”

Adrian nodded, turning the volume down only one notch. “No shit.”

They turned back to the PS2, pressed the restart button. They had reached the thirty-second level, where Lord Vega and his Scarlet Assassins were laying in wait for Simon Dart and his companions when there was a sound at the window. The twins ignored it, focusing on the game. Then it came again. A tapping. Louder, more insistent, breaking through the game’s hip-hop soundtrack. Adrian looked up. “What’s that?”

“What?”

“That.” The tapping repeated itself and Adrian jerked his head toward the window.

“Just a bird,” Darien said, turning back to study the screen, which the pause button had frozen on an image of Simon Dart drawing his stun gun as two Scarlet Assassins were leaping down from a shadowy walkway. “Come on…”

“No, listen…” The sound came again. “There’s someone at the window.”

“Well, go look, for Christ’s sake,” said Darien. “Maybe it’s Dylan with the stuff.”

Darien smiled. “Cool!”

The “stuff” in question was stack of porn videos that Dylan’s older brother had downloaded and burned to disk; Dylan had promised to swipe them and bring the stash by to share with the twins. Dylan was a bit of an asshole, but he was good for stuff like that, and the twins had no other source for that kind of thing. Dad, asshole that he was, had put parental controls on the home computer. Already Dylan had brought over some copies of Hustler and well-thumbed paperbacks about girls who liked to tie each other up and use whips and stuff. Adrian and Darien loved all of it, craved it, demanded as much of it as Dylan could appropriate. This latest batch was to be the real bonanza because one of the disks had a bunch of sex scenes from movies and there was one that showed Kate Beckinsale and you could see her tits. Adrian hadn’t believed him at first, but Dylan had sworn on it, and the twins had half-bribed, half-intimidated Dylan into bringing over the disks. Dylan always hesitated, because if his older brother ever found out he would skin Dylan alive and hang his carcass out for the crows, but Dylan needed the approval of Adrian and Darien far more than he needed a whole skin. He had promised.

Adrian went quickly to the window, parted the drapes, and cupped his hands around his eyes so he could peer out into the shadows. Darien restarted the game and made Simon Dart draw his gun and blow bloody holes in both assassins. He smiled wolfishly as their blood splattered on the walls. Adrian pressed his face to the glass. It was pitch dark outside and he couldn’t see a thing, and then something loomed up right in his face and he let out a small startled cry. Dylan’s pale face suddenly filled the lower pane of glass.

“Shit!” gasped Adrian.

“What?” called Darien distractedly.

“Little dickhead nearly scared the shit out of me.”

“Is he out there?”

“Yeah.” Dylan’s face looked milk-white in the spill of light from the house, but his eyes were in shadows as he bent toward the glass. He reached out and touched the pane, tapping it with a fingernail. Adrian made a gesture that asked if Dylan had the goods, and the pale-faced twelve-year-old held up a vinyl CD wallet and waggled it. “Oh, yeah!” said Adrian.

“Go let him in,” called Darien. “Hurry up.”

Adrian jerked his thumb to indicate the door and Dylan faded back into the shadows. “Be right back,” he said to his brother, and hustled out of the room to the entrance foyer. If Dylan truly had the promised goods, then the three of them would whisk away to the third floor, which was the sole domain of the twins. Their PS2 could play any kind of CD-ROM, and this was going to be jerkoff heaven.

Smiling in anticipation, Adrian stepped into the foyer, twisted the door handle, and jerked open the heavy oak door. “Come in, come in!” he was saying even as he swung the door wide to reveal Dylan Jamison standing in the doorway. Dylan was only five-three and thin but he had a huge smile on his wide, wet mouth. It was not a nice smile, not a pleasant smile, and the second he saw it Adrian, who had also been smiling, felt the grin drain from his face, leaking like liquid from a broken glass. He stared at Dylan, not understanding at first what he was seeing, and then he slowly, very, very slowly, began backing away from the door. Accepting the invitation to enter, Dylan stepped over the threshold, his smile stretching wider, seeming to tear his cheeks as he grinned, his pale lips pulling tightly back from his teeth. Behind him, other shapes moved, detaching themselves from the shadows, becoming figures that also moved and smiled.

Adrian tried to scream, but his throat had locked shut with the shock of what he was seeing. With a soundless cry of terror, he spun and tried to run, tried to race up the hallway to the family room, but Dylan caught him before he had taken five steps. He caught him by the hair and jerked him back so hard that Adrian’s heels kicked up into the air and something in his neck went Pop! Adrian fell so hard on his ass that a white-hot firebolt of pain shot from his tailbone all the way to the top of his head. Dylan jerked Adrian’s head back and whatever had popped before now went Crack! Lights exploded in Adrian’s eyes and he felt himself being bent savagely backward, his spine arching too far too fast as all of the vertebra in his back popped loudly like a string of firecrackers. With tiny white hands Dylan pushed Adrian’s shoulder and head apart to expose his neck, doing this with such force that the skin on Adrian’s neck stretched and suddenly split, splattering Dylan’s face with bright red dots. Growling low in his chest, Dylan bent close, his smiling lips brushing the soft skin, but then he paused and looked up quickly as a shadow fell over him. The man who stood over him smiled coldly, and in a voice that was no more than a graveyard whisper, he said, “Do it.”

Dylan’s eyes blazed as red as coals as he plunged his head downward, driving the long spikes of his teeth into Adrian’s throat. Blood geysered past Dylan’s face with tremendous hydrostatic pressure, spraying the wall and scattering ruby-red droplets on the sleeve of the man’s coat.

Karl Ruger raised his sleeve and licked the droplets off with a long, sharp tongue. The taste was exquisite. Behind him, the two other shapes were becoming agitated, incensed by the sharp, sweet smell of blood. Ruger gave a slow, grand gesture, indicating the whole of the house with his bone-white fingers.

“Do ’em all,” he whispered.

Gaither Carby and Dave Golub rushed past him, howling with red delight.

(2)

Vic Wingate sat on the tailgate of his truck smoking a cigarette and watching the stars wheel overhead, listening distractedly to the screams coming from the nearby house. He knew he shouldn’t be smoking this close to the two drums of paraffin in the bed of the truck, but he figured screw it.