LEISURE BOOKS

$6.99 US $8.99 CAN $14.95 AUS

i

Praise for Michael Laimo!

"Deep in the Darkness [is] one of the best and most refreshing horror
novels you're likely to read this year.."

--Gary A. Braunbeck, author of In Silent Graves

"Atmosphere is a thriller that titillates and repulses in a grand,
impressive style."

--Hellnotes

"An impressive novel of highly polished intrigue, horror, and viscera.
Atmosphere showcases Laimo's ability to discover the macabre situations
inherent in the everyday."

--Cemetery Dance

"A creepy, bone-chilling, read-with-the-lights-on story."

--Midwest Book Review on Atmosphere

"Michael Laimo has the goods."

--Hellnotes

"Michael Laimo is a writer on the rise. He has a shrewd eye for macabre
situations and knows how to draw the readers into the action."

--Tom Piccirilli, author of A Lower Deep

"Michael Laimo, in my mind, is the Alpha Male in the pack of new
horror/dark suspense writers."

--P. D. Cacek, author of Canyons

"Laimo cranks up the fear quota several notches."

--Edo van Belkom, author of Teeth

"Michael Laimo's dark fiction creeps and cuts, calling as easily upon
supernatural effects as psychological insights to disturb, startle, and
just plain scare the living hell out of readers."

--Gerard Houarner, author of The Beast That Was Max

"Michael Laimo is able to draw out tension and suspense until it's
almost unbearable."

--Masters of Terror

"Laimo is a delightfully twisted read. His work makes the dark scary and
deliciously unforgettable."

--Linda Addison, author of Animated Objects

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IN THE DARKNESS, GOLDEN EYES

"I walked closer, light still shining on the animal," Phillip said. "I
could see all sorts of insects buzzing about it. And then the smell ...
it was awful, something like bad vegetables. I took a swig of bourbon
and as I did the light fell away from the animal. That was when I saw
the eyes."

"The dead possum's eyes?" I asked.

He grinned. "I wish that were the case. No, these eyes were alive. As
golden as the center signal on a traffic light. These eyes belonged to
an Isolate."

I smiled, half incredulously, half out of discomfort. I didn't want to
believe him. But something inside told me I should.

"It creeped over the far edge of the rock, just a hand at first, long
fork-like fingers gripping the dead animal like a doll. Then I saw the
head, and it grinned at me, bright golden eyes cutting the darkness like
two beacons. It was as though it knew I was there and had waited for the
right time to make its grand entrance.

"When I finally made it past the dreadful glow of its eyes, the rest of
the thing's face came into focus. ..."

iii

DEEP IN THE DARKNESS

iv

Other Leisure books by Michael Laimo:

ATMOSPHERE

v

MICHAEL LAIMO

LEISURE BOOKS

NEW YORK CITY

vi

LEISURE BOOKS ®

February 2004

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this
book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to
the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any
payment for this "stripped book."

Copyright ©2004 by Michael Laimo

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher,
except where permitted by law.

ISBN 0-8439-5314-4

The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks
of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in the United States of America.

Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com.

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In no particular order, I'd like to thank the following people for their
support, inspiration, and encouragement:

Family: Sherrie Laimo, Anna Rose Laimo, Emma Grace Laimo, Mom and Dad
Laimo, Bob and Larry Laimo (thanks for buying all those copies of
Atmosphere, Bob), Samantha and John Huxtable, Mary Ann & Pat Ballaro,
and the Mercury Beach-Maid gang.

Friends and Associates: Don D'Auria, Shane Staley, Gary A. Braunbeck,
Tom Piccirilli, Gerard Houarner, Linda Addison, Matt Schwartz, Brian
Hopkins, Gord Rollo, Gene O'Neill, Judi Rohrig, Brian Keene, Edo van
Belkom, Joe Nassise, Douglas Clegg, Dallas Mayr, Gordon Linzner, Shannon
Gronley & Eko Kreal of Jeans To Go, Perry Tepper, John Everson, Greg F.
Gifune, Charlee Jacob, Michael Arnzen, Jack Fisher, Garrett Peck, and
Clive Barker, who asked me to sign a book for him.

Research conducted at www.mayoclinic.com and www.microbeworld.com.

Written exclusively on the Long Island Rail Road, and at the Barnes &
Noble Cafe in Melville, NY.

viii

DEEP IN THE DARKNESS

ix

MICHAEL LAIMO

x

DEEP IN THE DARKNESS

1

Prologue

Dark basement.

Heavy breathing.

The grainy shuffle of feet on a cement floor. Edgy fingers tapping a
table's rough surface. The reek of things moist and damp.

Somewhere upstairs a clock chimes. A useless breeze sweeps a single
candle's flame.

A hand moves to a small tape recorder, sitting on the tabletop.

One hesitant finger seeks out the record button. Presses it.

Ten seconds of deep, labored breaths. Then, a voice.

"Please let me start by stating that in my opinion, the incredible story
I am about to record can only be efficiently portrayed through speech.
That although I have

2

recorded a series of handwritten pages discussing the events that have
taken place here at 17 Harlan Road-- my home if you will, though I can
hardly call it home despite the fact I still reside here--I feel the
circumstances must be recorded in my own voice, on the tapes you are
listening to.

"If you, hearing these tapes, should listen to these recordings to the
very end, I assume that given the complex story I have to tell, there
will be more than a few hours of audio to consider. I will therefore
mark each cassette with numbers indicating the order in which these
tapes should be played. Of course the tape you are listening to at this
moment will be marked 'Number One,' with a side-note of 'Play first.'

"It is my strong desire to spell out every detail of my experience while
living here at 17 Harlan Road in an effort not only to detail it to the
fullest extent, but also to demonstrate my lucidity so that you will not
reject these ramblings as those of a man whose mind has been steered
toward utter madness. I am a sane man, and the story I am to tell is
nothing less than the absolute truth. I will say this only once, for I
feel no reason to repeat myself in an effort to convince you, unassuming
listener, of the truth of the whole seemingly implausible matter.
I--Michael Cayle, M.D.--have experienced everything I am about to reveal
while living in this house at 17 Harlan Road. That said, I'll defend my
sanity no further.

"I must also add that I assume no involvement whatsoever in the
disappearances of my wife, Christine, and my daughter, Jessica. Although
I do know what has

3

happened to them, I possess no knowledge at the moment as to their exact
location, nor how I am able to get them back. This said, I know that my
fight is far from over and there is much more I need to do, and ... and ...

"Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Again, it's my intention to reveal
every moment of my story on these tapes in an effort, however vain, to
not only harvest your belief, but to also help myself recall every damn
torment I have been through. In doing so, I feel that I might discover
something, however small a slice of experience, that might help me in
the future--what little future I have left. This battle I am fighting is
far from over.

"I suppose now would be as good a time as any to recount the events of
the last six months, because if I meander any more, you might stop this
tape before I've had anything interesting to say ... and unquestionably,
the scribblings I've left behind look like the ravings of a madman who
should be spending his days and nights locked away in some faraway
asylum, not a series of notes chronicling the experiences of a man
simply trying to protect his family.

"So ... I beg you, dear listener ... suspend your disbelief and listen
to these tapes... and give me your undivided attention. ..."

4

4

5

Part One

Within the

Darkness,

Golden Eyes

6

6

7

Chapter One

If you came to me several years ago and offered me a million dollars to
hand over Manhattan for a place in the country, I would have told you
there was a better chance of a Subway Series taking place between the
Mets and Yankees. Christ, even if you'd asked me last month, I still
would've refused trading my big-city apartment for a wood-framed house
in some Grandma Moses countryside, where there were more cows than
people and your closest neighbor lived a half mile away with nothing but
trees in between. Of course, the Mets and Yankees did meet in the
Series, and I met my closest neighbor, Phillip Deighton, who lived a
half mile away, the day I moved into the quaint township of Ashborough,
New Hampshire.

The man had become the savior of our family pet, Jimmy Page, a purebred
cocker spaniel who'd

8

bounded from the minivan and disappeared into the woods alongside the
four-bedroom, three-bath colonial the day we moved in. Page was really
Jessica's dog, a gift from my wife for her fourth birthday last year,
but we all really took to the furball quite a bit.

Fate seemed to play a role in our finding this home. It had been so
easy, really, as my desire to purchase an existing practice had never
grown beyond comfortable proportions; it practically fell into my lap
just days after I reluctantly agreed with a very relieved Christine that
for Jessica's sake we'd be much better off in the burbs. A few days
earlier, I revealed to Dr. Scully that I was going to break away from
his corral of internists in Manhattan. Lou Scully, who'd offered me the
position upon completion of my residency at Columbia-Presbyterian
Medical Center, had treated me like a little brother, and when I told
him that I wanted a house in the suburbs, for the good of Jessica, and
explained, You know how the schools are here in the city, he nodded and
assumed I wouldn't be battling the Long Island Railroad or the Metro
North every day into Manhattan. He also knew that starting from scratch
would mean a harsh change in lifestyle.

Then he told me about Dr. Neil Farris, an elderly physician from New
England who'd maintained a practice for thirty years in a New Hampshire
town called Ashborough. A good friend of Lou's, the man was tragically
killed, the victim of a dog attack. Dr. Farris had been an avid exercise
enthusiast, practiced what he preached, and even at the age of seventy
ran three miles nearly every morning. The week before, a mile

9

from his home, he came across a loose mutt with a very nasty
disposition. It'd been at least an hour before someone discovered Dr.
Farris, and by then he'd lost quite a bit of blood. We're talking small
town USA here, he was the only doctor, so he had to be taken to the
nearest medical center in Ellenville twelve miles away. He died en route.

Neil Farris's wife made an immediate decision to sell the home and
practice. Apparently they owned another home in Manchester. I was told
her kids went to school at the university there and she wanted to be
nearer to them. The sale of the house would provide for her ftnances and
needs. And if you ask me, Michael, Scully said, it's a steal. You'll
never find a complete practice and such an elegant home for so low a price.

Of course I had no intention of straying too far from the cultural
offerings of Manhattan. I'd lived there for fifteen years, met Christine
at the Met, had raised Jessica in a beautiful Upper East Side apartment.
Putting aside the schools, which hadn't won me over, New York City did
have a great deal of plusses. Long Island or Connecticut would be close
enough for the weekend excursions we'd enjoyed so much and felt were
important to Jessica's continuing development, and most importantly,
could offer her the educational attention both Christine and I wanted
her to have.

But then, this.

You really can't refuse, Lou said. And the school is very highly rated.
I had it checked out for you, he added, handing me a folder filled with
papers. I smiled and thanked him, my thoughts in a sudden whirlpool.

10

The next day I contacted the Widow Farris, and drove up on Saturday with
Christine and Jessica in tow. We arrived just after noon. The place was
beautiful. But Christine, who'd lived in Manhattan her entire life,
broke out in tears, presumably at the thought of leaving her current
life behind. And Page had a barking fit, so much so that we had to keep
him in the car; I assumed Emily Farris wasn't too fond of canines these
days anyway, for good reasons.

The meeting with Emily Farris wasn't as stressful as anticipated. We
both felt pressured to get the sale ironed out, so there wasn't much in
the way of splitting hairs when it came down to the nitty-gritty. All
terms had been agreed upon in a few hours, and I drove my family back to
Manhattan the next day knowing that in two weeks I'd be the next
Ashborough Township physician.

Despite the stress and anxiety suddenly upon us, I tried to dwell on the
positives. There'd be no worries about clientele, no competition. But
there'd also be no city within ninety miles. I expected utter boredom,
but put off those worries for now. The most important thing was that I'd
be able to continue providing for Christine and Jessica, and that
Jessica would get the educational attention we wanted her to have.

The place looked different on our arrival. Used and abused, like a
haunted house, I thought. I shrugged off the thought and leaped from the
minivan like a man with a new lease on life; this was my way of
countering the fact that we were all so weary and stressed out. Jimmy
Page had been barking up a storm from his cage

11

in the back, Jessica had complained the entire trip of a stomachache,
and Christine had cried a bit too much for someone who'd instigated this
move from New York in the first place.

Of course my enthusiasm was feigned, and I did my best to hold back my
own tears. When push came to shove, I really didn't want to live here in
the middle of nowhere. Sure, I was more than willing to flee the city,
but had had my sights set on a house in the burbs, a neighborhood where,
if I wanted to borrow a cup of milk from my neighbor, I wouldn't have to
get in the car and drive to get there. For a moment I almost suggested
we nix the deal and head back to Manhattan, where the apartment we
leased might still be available. I even considered leaving the yapping
Page behind.

But the family followed suit, Page's enthusiasm to get out of his cage
taking him like a dart into the woods alongside the house. The house.
The place where we'd be living from now until who knows when; the place
where its last owner lived unassumingly just three weeks before,
sleeping and eating and working and doing the private things that no one
else knew about except him and his wife and the walls around him. This
man who'd left his house never intending to be mauled to death by a dog.
I wondered, morbidly, if the house possessed any feelings, whether it
welcomed being sold to a new, unfamiliar personality. New furniture, new
people running it. If I were a house, I thought, I wouldn't be too taken
with the idea. It'd be like having all your organs transplanted when
there was nothing wrong with the old ones.

12

Nevertheless, it was a nice place. An old center-hall colonial with four
rooms (including an eat-in kitchen) downstairs and four bedrooms
upstairs. Throw in three baths--two up, one down--and you've got
yourself one helluva place. And then, of course, there was the study and
office attached to the house in the rear. Fit for a king! There was a
separate entrance along the side of the house where my future patients
would enter a small waiting room. On one side of the vestibule was an
examination room, which when I'd seen it had still been filled with Dr.
Farris's equipment; should still be, according to the deal I worked out
with the widow. On the other side, flanking the rear, was a study, a
grand room with floor-to-ceiling windows, a fireplace, and bookshelves
that lined almost every inch of wall. It was a physician's dream come
true, and I imagined myself getting lost in there after dinner, gazing
out the windows at the dark expanse of woods in the backyard, counting
the fireflies.

The backyard had a nice lay of lawn to it that even now in May possessed
a healthy lavish green color. There was a large bird fountain made of
cement, and further back at the foot of the woods sat a padlocked shed
that I hadn't noticed before. The woods themselves went on as far as the
eye could see, and from what I understood from Emily Farris, there'd
never really been a line of demarcation between the property and the
state's land. I figured the only thing I had to worry about was some
developer coming in to build a shopping mall or a parking lot, and the
odds of that happening were pretty slim. For now, I was quite willing

13

to bet against any kind of construction in my backyard. The population
didn't warrant it.

After getting out of the minivan, I gave Christine a gentle stare. She
was wiping her tears away with a tissue. "Well... here we are." I felt a
bit of anxiety, a tremble in my legs. They say that buying a house is
one of the most stressful things a person can do in a lifetime, right
after getting married and having a baby. I'd breezed through the latter
two without a hitch, but for some reason standing in front of our new
home in Nowhere, New Hampshire, felt even more intimidating than
experiencing Jessica's birth. At the moment, it sure seemed that way for
Christine too.

She walked over and hugged me. I felt her damp cheeks press against my
shoulder. "I've never been happier," she said.

Of course she was lying, but I was damn happy to hear her say that. It
meant that she was ready to accept this change in lifestyle, and that
took a load off my shoulders. Being unhappy myself was a personal issue
that I was perfectly capable of handling--I could learn to be happy
again. But contending with Christine's unhappiness, that was another
issue altogether. She was so damn steadfast in her emotional ways. If
she decided on traveling the path to unhappiness, then I'd be screwed.
For life. There'd be no changing her, no turning back. She was a rock
when it came to her emotions.

She ran her eyes over the front of the house, from the front door to the
empty windows to the walk that led to the driveway. I could practically
hear the wheels in her mind turning, unearthing gardening ideas for the

14

space below the bay window, perhaps charting another hundred or so
decorative pursuits.

I heard Page barking in the distance, and for the first time I wondered
if he'd be able to find his way back.

Jessica walked over and grabbed Christine's hand. "Mommy, I don't feel
well," she said.

I'd heard that line a thousand times on the way here. As usual,
Christine was more attentive to our daughter's complaints than I was.

"What is it, honey?" Christine asked, bending at the knees, rubbing a
hand through Jessica's blond curls.

"I have a stomachache. I want to go home."

Christine gave me a sorrowful look. She felt badly for Jessica. Me, I
figured our five-year-old might need a week or two of adjusting to her
new surroundings. In a month she'd completely forget about Manhattan.
Unlike me.

I walked over to Jessica and kneeled down next to her. At this level the
singing birds sounded very loud. I had to admit, it was a nice change of
pace from the never-ending wail of sirens filling the streets.

"Sweetheart, this is our new home." I pointed to the house.

She gave the house a quick once-over, then gently said, "Cool beans."

I gave Christine a quizzical look, then we all broke out in laughter,
Jessica included. We had no idea where she picked up that neat little
phrase, and figured it was better than holy shit or piss my pants, the
sort of witticisms she'd undoubtedly acquire while attending
kindergarten in Manhattan. That's why we moved out

15

here. And cool beans, that was just fine with me.

I put my arms around Christine and Jessica and we all took part in a
community hug.

A perfect way to start our new life together.

16

Chapter Two

The moment should have lasted forever, I thought, because everything
really went downhill after that. I broke the family hug to fish out the
house keys from my jacket pocket, and as soon as my finger hooked
through the loop, Jessica threw up all over me.

Christine yelled my name, then said, "Oh, Jess honey ..." She stood up,
giving Jessica her space as she heaved again all over the front walkway.
Really, though, Christine was thrilled not to have been in the line of
fire, and she set herself back a good three feet to avoid getting
splattered. Me, I just stood there, utterly mystified, glancing back and
forth between my sick daughter and the mess dripping down the leg of my
jeans.

As her heaves died down, her cries grew into wails

17

of dread. She sounded terrified, as if she'd just puked up a baby bird
or something.

"Jessica..." I said, not sure what to do about the vomit on my leg.
"It's all right, there's no reason to be scared. You've got a little bug
in the tummy. That's all."

"But my tummy!" she cried. Her eyes were red and wet and bulging, like
two cherry tomatoes.

I was at a loss for the moment. All I wanted to do was get my pants off.
I still had the keys in my hand, but that did me no good because the
moving van hadn't arrived with our things yet, and all I'd brought along
was a gym bag with a change of clothes for that night.

"Don't just stand there, Michael," Christine said. "Do something." To
Christine, being a doctor meant I had the power to bring calm to any
situation, medical or not.

"What do you suggest?" My temper was rising and I thought again about
hightailing it back to New York, this time alone.

"Get your pants off, Doc. Then go get your daughter some Pepto from the
first-aid kit."

Jessica always became my daughter when things got a bit unruly. Like
now. "Where should I change? I'm not gonna trail puke into the house, or
the car."

"Michael... there's not a soul around for miles. We're in the middle of
nowhere, remember? Just take them off."

I was about to argue with her, but Jessica produced a few
aftershocks--three giant croaking heaves. Tears sprouted from her eyes
like rain, and she cried

18

inconsolably when it was over. I staggered to the car and kicked off my
sneakers and socks. The first-aid kit was in the glove compartment. I
grabbed a towel from the rear seat and wiped some of the puke off my
pants; it made me nauseous. I decided it might be better to take them
off after all, which I did. Now, wearing nothing but boxers, I walked
back to Christine and Jessica, feeling like a snake who'd just shed its
skin, cold and vulnerable.

Christine had picked up Jessica. She was tapping her lightly on the
back, trying to ease her hysterics.

"She's sick, Michael. Her skin is warm."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"Well... did you know that you're standing in the front yard of your new
home with no pants on, doing absolutely nothing?" Her face was stiff,
not a hint of a grin showing up. Clearly she wasn't trying to be cute or
funny, as I'd hoped. She was being crass, and it made me want to scream
and race into the house, to be away from the mess outside.

And then I did scream, but not at Christine. There was a sudden
excruciating pain in the sole of my foot. It felt as though my foot had
been amputated without anesthesia. I went down on one knee to
investigate, throwing down the first-aid kit in a huff.

"What's wrong, Michael?" she yelled, placing Jessica down in the grass.
Through the lancing pain in my sole,

I could hear Jessica's cries start up again, as if someone had pushed
her panic button. She clawed at Christine, then at me, looking for
support, and I had no choice but to give her a gentle shove as I
inspected my foot.

19

Of course, she fell down right in the puddle of vomit. That caused quite
a furor of cries, from both daughter and wife.

I couldn't pay them any heed, though. When I twisted my foot around I
beheld a gruesome sight. A rusty nail had found its way into the center
of my sole. It stuck out crookedly like an old fence post. A vicious red
bulge the size of a quarter had risen about the point of entry. Blood
came out in a flow. I yelled again, in pain, fear, shock, whatever.

Blood and vomit! I thought crazily.

Christine had the gall to reprimand me for pushing Jessica, and amidst
my own cries, I had to practically shove my foot in her face in my
defense. That earned me quite a look of disgust. She cringed and turned
away.

"Sure got your hands full, eh?" a deep voice from behind me said. And
then I heard barking. Jimmy Page.

I turned and saw a man of about fifty standing five or six feet away. He
had on a worn pair of Wranglers and a plaid shirt with gray chest hair
exploding from the open collar. His skin was pale, and he chewed on the
end of an unlit half-smoked cigar. He was holding Jimmy Page like a
baby, stomach facing skyward. The dog's tongue lolled from its mouth
like a ribbon.

"Rumor has it that you're the new doctor. Looks like you're your own
first patient."

I grimaced through the pain. "Yeah, I'd say," I agreed, wondering what
he really thought of me, considering I was in my underwear.

"Found your dog," he said, then kneeled down and

20

let go of Jimmy Page, who immediately hopped over and sniffed Jessica's
vomit.

I looked up at the man, managed a smile, and said, "Thanks."

Nothing like a good first impression, I thought.

21

Chapter Three

Pocketing the spit-soaked cigar in his shirt pocket, the man explained
how he'd been sitting on his front porch when Page came sniffing at his
feet. After some petting and a slice of turkey for a treat, he'd
escorted the cocker spaniel back home. "Being new in these parts, I
figured he might have trouble finding his way around." Then he added,
"Mighty happy fellow, he is."

While Christine changed Jessica's clothes by the minivan, I plucked the
nail from my foot in a quick, calculated flick of the wrist. I bellowed
just once, and even though I'd removed my share of nails and needles
from patients, I'd never experienced a pain quite like it. Couldn't have
imagined anything much worse, actually. Then, amazingly, it was over. At
least the bad pain was gone. Now I was left with a dull throb, and I
doused the wound with antiseptic and covered it with

22

gauze, knowing that it'd be quite a battle just walking around the house
for the next week or so. Not a good thing, considering we had a lot of
unpacking to do.

"Wonder how it got on your lawn," the man said. He honored me with a
witty grin, then held out his hand, which I graciously accepted.
"Phillip Deighton, at your service," he said, helping me to my feet.

"Michael Cayle, and yes, I'm the new doctor."

"Mommy, who's that man?" I heard Jessica ask. Christine shushed her as
they returned from the car, then smiled and introduced herself.

"Our daughter isn't feeling well today," she said. "She's had a bit of
an accident." Page was doing circles around everyone, tailing back now
and again to investigate Jessica's vomit.

Deighton fished his cigar back out and inserted it back into his wet
lips, but didn't light it. "Pleased to meet you," he said. He kneeled
down to Jessica's height. "And what is your name, young lady?" Jessica
stayed mostly silent. I urged her to be polite and introduce herself.
Eventually she mumbled her name beneath her breath, then buried her face
in Christine's thigh.

"Welcome to Ashborough." He stood back up and offered up a most
welcoming smile. Then I realized he was grinning because I was standing
there in my underwear.

"Uh ... yes, as you can tell, there's been a bit of an accident. Sorry
for the messy scene." I didn't need to point it out on the walkway.

Phillip held both hands out in front of him. "No need

23

to apologize ... we all have our days, and you're probably all out of
sorts from the move, I'd say."

"Yes, this has been a rather inauspicious start."

Deighton smiled, then looked at Christine. He was probably getting
uncomfortable with my unclothed state. "You folks are more than welcome
to come by my house for the time being, at least until your things get
here. You can meet my wife, she's anxious to meet you. She'll be one of
your regular patients--by default, I suppose. I'm certain you'll learn
all about her in Dr. Farris's files. And Michael, while you're at the
house you can get that wound cleaned up. You're probably gonna want to
give yourself a tetanus shot, no?"

I looked over at Christine, who gave me a half nod, half shrug. We were
anxious to start exploring the house and the grounds, but without our
furniture there'd be no place to rest, and the water wasn't even turned
on yet. I also didn't want to refuse the hospitable offer from our new
neighbor, despite the awkward timing.

"We'll fix you up some lunch. You're all probably hungry about now." He
put his hands on his knees and smiled at Jessica. "Rosy has a special
iced tea with honey that'll make your tummy feel all better. Would you
like that?"

Jessica nodded and returned a weak, thin smile.

Well, I was hungry, Christine probably was too, and there was only a bag
of chips in the car. Earlier we'd discussed heading into town to find a
diner, but it seemed we had other plans now. "Sure, lunch would be just
fine. Thank you." I limped to the car, got out my

24

spare pants, and put them on. Christine gave Jess the Pepto, and the
five-year-old, now beyond the trauma of throwing up, was more than
thrilled to be sipping it right out of the bottle.

We all piled into the minivan--Phillip and his new friend Page in the
backseat, Jessica sitting on Christine's lap in the front. As we drove
off toward Phillip Deighton's house, I looked along the side of the
house and saw nothing but woods.

I couldn't help but wonder how far back those woods went.

25

Chapter Four

The road curved quite a bit, for no good reason, I thought, as
Deighton's house faced the same easterly direction as mine. The charming
colonial appeared around a bend of woodland--we'd passed nothing but
thick trees on the left, with open pastures on the right, each giving
way to the front porches of some additional homes. Each house had its
very own inviting stretch of woods in the back.

As I pulled into the long gravel driveway, I wondered why past
Ashborough physicians hadn't set up an office in the center of town
where the thickest flow of traffic would bring in the most patients.
Perhaps it was tradition to maintain a sense of isolation, keep a safe
distance from society so there'd be minimal distraction and a stream of
peace and quiet. It had probably been this way since the eighteenth
century, back when these

26

houses were built by hand. Like today, there would've been only one
doctor in town, with a house in the wooded outskirts that you had to
travel to if you needed some fixing up. I wondered, with some dismay, I
might add, if those doctors made house calls, and whether that kind of
service might be expected of me. Am I on a house call now? Could this be
some kind of diversionary tactic on the part of Phillip Deighton? I
tried to convince myself that hunches like this were the side effects of
a tired, anxious mind, but for some reason, I thought otherwise.

You can meet my wife, she's anxious to meet you, Mr. Cayle. She's one of
your regular patients.

"Well... here we are. Home sweet home," Deighton said. "Been here
thirty-two years. Couldn't imagine uprooting myself like you folks just
went and did." He stepped from the car, Page circling his ankles,
yapping happily. Jessica, in an amazing transformation from sick to
cheerful, chased after the dog.

"Easy, Jess," Christine said. "We don't want to have any accidents here."

The house was much like mine, from what I could tell, a rather large New
England colonial blanketed in dark wood shingles and white trim. The
driveway ran like a vein alongside a generous sprawl of lawn. Like the
driveway, the walk to the house was also unpaved. At the end of the
walk, four wooden steps led up to a gray-painted, wraparound porch. The
mild spring weather had compelled the azaleas alongside the porch to
release their blooms, the scent of which hung pleasantly in the air; a
few bumblebees rejoiced,

27

buzzing in circles. Obviously, the house had more of a livedin look to
it than mine, complete with a weather vane in the grass, a cowbell on
the eave, and corn husks on the front door. This was small-town New
England at its finest. Phillip led us all inside, then pointed me in the
direction of the stairs.

"Bathroom's to the left at the head of the steps," he said with enthusiasm.

I'd brought the first-aid kit with me, and realized with some amusement
that I'd never had to use it for a tetanus shot before. I worried for a
moment whether or not there would be syringes inside, as it had been so
long since I'd looked through it. But my mind told me not to worry. The
needles would be in there, just as surely as there was a throb of
looming infection in my foot.

"Thanks," I said. I smiled absently at Christine, then looked over at
Jessica, who was feeding Page a slice of bologna Phillip had gotten from
the refrigerator. I started upstairs, and heard Christine begin to
narrate our reasons for deciding to move out of Manhattan. I figured by
the time I finished cleansing the wound and injecting myself, the whole
tale would be told and we could go on our merry way back to 17 Harlan
Road. Home sweet home, as Deighton had said.

The steps creaked on the way up, and at the top I made a left just as
Phillip instructed. There was an open door about eight feet away at the
end of a long wallpapered hallway; waist-high wainscot molding with
etched floral patterns ran the entire length. A faint stale odor
lingered in the air. It could have been mothballs,

28

but might have been something else. Something old. Like hair that hasn't
been washed in a month.

I stopped and turned for a quick moment, and saw two more doors on the
opposite side of the stairs, one straight ahead, the other in the wall
alongside the landing; I figured them to be bedrooms. I shrugged my
shoulders, then spun back, grabbed the doorknob, and entered the room.
The first thing I did was look at my watch--it was one o'clock. This
might have been an instinctive diversionary tactic, a way for me to
dissuade my mind from realizing that I'd made a wrong turn.

I wasn't in the bathroom. I was in the master bedroom, face-to-face with
Mrs. Deighton.

She was asleep in bed, thankfully, propped up against two pillows, head
tilted awkwardly and resting on her left shoulder. My palms began to
sweat, but I did not drop the first-aid kit. I held it tighter as my
heart began to trot in my chest. Somehow I'd either made a wrong turn at
the top of the steps, or the clever Phillip Deighton had purposely
misguided Ashborough's new physician into the bedroom of his first patient.

This is what you're in for, neighbor. Just a little fair warning.

Mrs. Deighton moved. It was an involuntary bob of the head, quickly
followed by a knee-jerk snort that tossed her swathed arms through the
mess of sheets covering her. My heart took a more forceful trot--a
gallop, perhaps--and for a few tense seconds the room seemed to spin
around my head. My feet were cemented to the floor, and I held my breath
in what I hoped was an effort to not wake the sleeping woman--

29

but knew in my hammering heart was fear.

I probed my physician's mind for a diagnosis, and immediately came up
with cancer, the malady that plagues nearly one in every nineteen
Americans. The signals seemed obvious. A good portion of her lower jaw
had been cut away, a crude job if you ask me, primitive-looking and
carelessly jagged. But I'm not a surgeon, nor did I have any details as
to the severity of the problem, so I couldn't know exactly what options
for surgery existed at the time. All I could tell was that there'd
evidently been a malignant tumor festering in her jawbone at one time
that nobody knew about, and it had grown and grown until it was too late
to save her jaw, so it was sectioned away along with a hardy portion of
her cheek, and what you had left was a gaping hole that revealed a wet
blackness inside that no one should ever have to look at. Let me tell
you, I've seen my share of open wounds, and this baby was a doozy.

Call me foolish, but I took a step closer, my eyes probing the horrific
imperfection with utter curiosity, and I couldn't help but just stare at
her face. In some crazy, ridiculous way, I thought I was looking at the
rind on a rotting apple discovered at the bottom of some forgotten fruit
basket. The doctor in me wanted to study it. No, ogle it. Christ, I felt
like a kid in the freak tent at the circus. What was wrong with me?

I turned and let the vision of the woman go. I focused on a photo
hanging on the wall, that of a younger Phillip, an unblemished Rosy, and
a younger girl perhaps fifteen years old between them. Their daughter, I
assumed. There was an open door inside the bedroom,

30

and I slipped past it into the bathroom. I found the light switch and
flipped it. The room filled with a sharp yellow glow that reflected off
the ceramic tiles, which climbed all the way to the white plaster
ceiling. The throb in my foot began to intensify, and the feel of it
against the cool air as I hurriedly removed the bandages sent gooseflesh
across my skin. I pulled the shower curtain aside and let the water run
in the steel-toed tub, keeping it tepid. Once the tub was a quarter of
the way filled, I immersed my foot. There was an initial sting, but pain
soon eased as the injury soaked.

As I stood there, I tried hard to think of the movers who were probably
filling my front lawn with cardboard boxes, and how I really needed to
get back to the house so I could tell them where all the furniture
needed to go. But it was difficult to stay focused; the image of the
woman from the next room stayed with me, haunted me, made me shudder.
Perhaps it'd been the unanticipated sight of her that had me so
unnerved; I told myself that my professionalism would take over once I
was settled into my position as Ashborough's respected internist. I hoped.

After five minutes, I removed my foot from the water. Examining the
puncture, I could easily make out the beginnings of infection setting
in, the appearance of a warm red ring about the perimeter of the wound.
In a few hours pus would start amassing--the nectar of decay. Oh, joy.

Time for an inoculation.

This is one of the perks of being a doctor. You can administer a
medication or write yourself (or a family

31

member) a prescription without having to spend a few hours seeing the
doctor, dropping off an Rx, and spend God knows how much time waiting
for all this to happen. In a matter of a minute I had the syringe
unwrapped and fitted into the plunger, had dispensed the vaccine, and
inoculated myself in the thigh. To this day I still wince at the pain
brought on by the needle, no matter how briefly it lasts, and I hoped
this would be the last one for a while. Two sharp pokes in one day was
more than this doctor could stand.

I leaned over and closed up the first-aid case.

I saw something move.

In my peripheral vision, an elongated, lopsided shadow splayed across
the tiled wall; it looked like a sea serpent's head. I jerked away,
leaning into the shower curtain, then grabbing it to prevent me from
falling into the tub. Three plastic rings popped from the shower rod and
clattered on the floor; the rest held just fine, long enough for me to
regain my balance. But the noise had been more than sufficient to wake
Mrs. Deighton. Unless, of course, the shadow itself had belonged to the
unsightly woman, now up to investigate the odd noises in her bathroom. I
wondered what she would think finding a strange man in her bathroom,
barefoot and clutching her shower curtain. It'd scare the bejesus out of
her.

Better give her some fair warning.

I stepped toward the door, and cringed back at the same time, at first
keeping my eyes on the wavering shadow, then on the open door leading
into the bedroom.

32

"Hello?" I called, half-whispering.

No reply. Might be hard of hearing too.

I called out again, this time louder. "Hello? Mrs. Deighton? Your
husband told me I could use the bathroom."

I stepped out of the room.

Mrs. Deighton was awake, all right, out of bed and standing beside the
lone window in the room. Wearing only a nightgown, she was faced away,
thankfully, so I wouldn't have to look at her face. Her eyes were
pointed out the window, and her body swayed slowly back and forth, as
though she were under the influence of some potent spirits.

She turned toward me in an ungraceful totter, eyes muddy, yet still
piercing. She didn't scream, didn't make a move. It was as if my
presence had been expected, or perhaps unnoticed. Her jaw still
quivered, except now I could see that dark open half of her face, and
the dangle of loose skin that joggled from it like a turkey's wattle.
For the first time in my career I was playing with the fact that this
woman might not be human after all, as ludicrous as that sounded. I felt
no more civil than one of those terrified Englishmen that had chased the
Elephant Man, John Joseph Merrick, down in that London subway over a
century ago.

Our eyes locked, and the first thing that came to me was that hers were
different, somehow devoid of emotion, as though they'd seen terrible
horrors beyond the rigors of cancer. Then I saw ... there were
additional horrors, which seeped into my world at once and staggered my
breath, sending adrenaline racing through my

33

weakening muscles. Her right hand... it was gone. Somewhere between the
elbow and forearm was a gnarled mass of knotty scar tissue amassed in a
stump. Half the bicep on the same arm was missing, which formed a
glaring U-shape. Those were the more obvious injuries. All over her
exposed skin, on her arms, neck, shins, and feet, were tiny masses of
white scars, some more prominent than others, but each as startling as
the next.

This was no cancer. It didn't take a doctor to come to this conclusion.
No, this woman had been viciously attacked by an animal. Animals.

I wanted to be away from her. I had no business being here in the first
place. I wondered why in God's name Phillip Deighton had sent me through
their bedroom when there was probably another bathroom somewhere else in
the house.

Has to be another bathroom, Michael. Your new home has three of them.
Hey, you said it before yourself. Good ol' Phil Deighton wanted to give
you a little fair warning, wanted to give you a taste of what to expect
when you open your doors to the public.

I blew out a nervous breath. I had to say something, break the alarming
silence. "Mrs. Deighton? I'm Michael Cayle, the new doc--"

"You can't help me," she interrupted, but her injury made it come out
like Ooo cand elp me. A dollop of saliva pooled out of the bottom of her
mouth-hole and wavered down in a long, swaying string.

I took a step forward. The woman staggered sideways and faced back out
the window, bumping her shoulder

34

against the pane. She brought her only hand up and dragged two-inch
yellow nails across the glass, producing a harsh squeaking sound.

"Mrs. Deighton..." I said, feeling on the defensive. "I'll try my best, I--"

"They'll come for you, just like they did for me, just like they did for
Dr. Farris, like they will for everyone else in this godforsaken town!"
Her voice had started quietly, but rose in volume with each staggering
word, and by the time she came to the end of her bizarre statement, her
voice was a virtually indecipherable bark.

My breathing had increased, was exploding from my lungs in clutches. I
wanted to console her, perhaps usher her back into bed ... but I
couldn't bring myself to touch her. I was afraid of her. And it wasn't
just the woman herself--I'd seen similar injuries, many fresher than
this--it was the look in her eyes, coupled with the swirling dark void
in her face. It made me crazy. It made me fearful of what had happened
to her.

They'll come for you, just like they did for me, just like they did for
Dr. Farris.

Suddenly I asked, "Wasn't Dr. Farris attacked by a dog?" Her injuries,
and then the story about Farris, had me thinking.

She remained unanswering, staring out the window, thick yellow nails
tapping-tapping-tapping against the windowpane.

Of course he was, I thought. That's why I'm here. He was killed in a
savage accident, and now I'm moving into his home and taking over his
job. Christ, the whole

35

situation, which began as a godsend, was looking more and more morbid by
the minute. Perhaps he'd been the fortunate one, I thought, unlike Mrs.
Deighton, who'd survived her own dog attack and was now living
permanently blanketed in her injuries. I pulled my sight away from her,
then paced from the room, taking long, slow, deep breaths in a struggle
to soothe my dizziness. My fear-response system was working rigorously,
and I needed to massage it into retreat mode.

Once in the hallway, I stopped and leaned against the wall, my thoughts
waging battle. Why on earth had

I been so damn afraid in there? Was it the anxiety of the move that had
me all bundled up in knots? When I first heard about the jarring
circumstances concerning Neil Farris's death, I'd been shaken and a bit
uncomfortable having to assume his revered position in this town of
daily handshakes and hellos. Now, Mrs. Deighton, my new neighbor ...
she'd suffered a similar burden, and the discomfort blooming in me
seemed to fall under the lens of a microscope.

Were there wild dogs running loose in Ashborough?

I shook the unpleasant thought from my head, but made a mental note to
make some checks once we were all settled in. I walked to the top of the
stairs, then detoured to the first door across the hall, to the right.

Bathroom. Full. With a tub.

36

Chapter Five

Phillip had traded his cigar for a pipe, and was packing it when I
arrived back downstairs. I feared that someone might've heard his wife
barking at me, but apparently her shouts weren't loud enough to travel
all the way downstairs. He was busy folding up the rectangular package
of tobacco, and when that was done, he placed it alongside the pipe on
the table; apparently this was a pleasure he'd planned to savor after we
left. "Yep," he said, taking a sip of iced tea. "Neil was a dear friend.
Real crying shame what'd happened to him." Three glasses half-filled
with tea sat on the red gingham-checked cloth that covered the kitchen
table. On the gas stove behind them was a clear pitcher filled halfway
with green tea and lemons. A jar of honey in the shape of a bear was
nestled alongside it like a clinging baby. There were hero sandwiches on
the table

37

(well, heroes if you're from New Yawk; subs if you're a New
Hampshire-ite); Christine had a half-eaten sandwich before her, and even
Jessica nibbled on a piece of bread. My stomach immediately announced
its hunger, so I sat down in the open seat and helped myself to half a
turkey-and-cheese sub. Christine and Phillip discussed the local
amenities Ashborough had to offer, like the shops in the town square and
the sprawling grasses of Beaumont Park. I stayed mostly silent, keeping
to my sandwich, and started to feel a bit better now that I had some
food in me. Amazing how hunger can set irrationality into a man. Once
I'd eaten, my confrontation with Mrs. Deighton didn't seem so scary
after all. Still, I wasn't all that thrilled being in the same house
with her--much less having to make another house call someday.

"You take care of that foot, Michael?" Deighton asked.

I nodded. "I don't think we'll need to amputate."

Deighton broke out in laughter. Christine had heard me use that one a
few dozen times, so she just rolled her eyes. Jessica sipped the green
tea (it was a brightly odd color for tea) and offered up a long whiny
Daaaad! She didn't think it was funny either. The joke was meant for
Phillip anyway.

Phillip kept his eyes on his glass, then looked back and forth between
Jessica and Christine. I'd hoped to lock gazes with him, to see if I
could catch a bit of accountability in his eyes for sending me the wrong
way at the head of the stairs. But he kept purposefully stoic, then went
right on talking about Neil Farris.

38

"The Farris family lived here long before we came to town, and this is
going back now twenty-seven years. He'd been there for over forty years,
and from what I understand, he replaced the last physician, who'd also
lived at 17 Harlan Road, and that one had been there for a good number
of years as well. So you see, there's a long history of physicians in
that house, at least a hundred years' worth. I reckon that if you look
even beyond that, you might even find some more doctors that used to
live there, but that's just a guess. Emily Farris was a good woman, a
close and dear friend to Rosy. She used to come by here every other day
just to say hello and check in to see how Rosy was coming along.
Needless to say, Rosy is quite upset with the sudden and rather
disconcerting change of events. The moment Neil Farris checked into that
old folks' home in the sky, she not only lost a neighbor in Emily, but
her only friend."

"Your wife ..." I said.

For the first time, Deighton looked me right in the eye.

"Rosy... that's her name?" I asked.

"Yep, named after her grandmother. Short for Rosana."

I nodded, then said, "You mentioned earlier that she was looking forward
to meeting me."

"Yep, she sure is ... but she's sleeping now." He said this in a curt,
almost insinuating tone, as if accusing me of secretly slipping into the
sanctuary of their bedroom to investigate his wife's whereabouts.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, a rare

39

occurrence given the fact that both Jessica and Page were in the room.
Finally I said, "Well, as her new physician, I'm looking forward to
meeting her." Such a liar.

Deighton smiled, a rather forced grin, I thought. Then he said, "I do
need to get her medication to her."

That was our cue. Or our green light, depending how you looked at it.
"And we need to get back to the house," I added, looking over at
Christine. "There's probably boxes all over the place, and we need to
tell the movers where to put the furniture."

With half-eaten sandwiches and half-filled glasses before us, we stood
and shuffled around the table so we could say good-bye to Phillip.

"You'll love it here," Deighton said, walking us to the front door.
"Like I said, we've been here for twenty-seven years. I met my wife in
Boston, married her, then moved up here a year later. Got a job at the
plant on the other side of town, put in twenty-five before taking an
early retirement three years ago. Rosy needed someone to take care of
her." He shrugged.

"And that someone was you," I said.

"Yep. What was I gonna do?"

Jessica and Page were on the porch, and Christine was holding the door
open for me when I said, "You never told me what was wrong with her." I
always felt it was improper to ask someone a question regarding a family
medical issue, especially outside the office, but as her doctor in
waiting, I figured I had the right to ask.

"Cancer."

He was lying. I didn't need to look into his eyes to know that.

40

"Anyways, you folks hurry along. Get yourselves all settled. We're here
all day, up late at night, and Rosy's usually her best around about
dinnertime, so you all feel free to stop on by at your convenience.
There's always some cold tea brewing in the fridge, and Rosy's one
helluva cook." He winked playfully at Jessica, who still looked a little
pale to me. "And if Page gets hungry, he's always welcome to stop by for
a snack too."

"Page is always hungry," Jessica said.

"We definitely will, Phillip," I said, lying again. Lunch was good for
all of us, but I had no desire to race back for second helpings. I still
felt the man's foremost intention was for me to give Rosy a once-over,
and that soured my taste a bit. We walked down the porch to the minivan.

"Nice meeting you, Dr. Cayle," he added. There was something sharp and
glowing in his eyes that made me believe he knew exactly what I was
thinking.

I smiled. "Likewise, Phillip."

We piled into the minivan, and as I pulled away I watched him walk back
into his house with the sudden pain-filled stagger of a man of eighty.

41

Chapter Six

We spent most of the day shifting boxes around the house and directing
the movers, who'd arrived while we were at Phillip's. We'd toured the
house only once before, so we were still a bit uncertain as to where
everything should go. In the end, however, we got it all figured out.
Christine and I took the largest bedroom upstairs, Jessica picked the
one right next to ours, and even Jimmy Page got his own room, down the
hall next to the bathroom.

The movers pulled out around ten-thirty. By then Jessica felt better and
was sleeping in her new room, Page nestled alongside her on the bare
mattress, snoring quietly. Mountains of boxes surrounded them; inside
were Jessica's things, countless dolls and toys and books and clothes
and other childhood necessities that would become giveaways in a year or
two.

42

Throughout the day Christine had been in charge of opening boxes and
sliding tables and chairs around, as well as placing knickknacks here
and there and everywhere, while I complained that her desire to decorate
had kicked in a bit too early. I'd argued--we'd spent a good fifteen
minutes of every hour bickering--that we needed to be more organized and
settle on the locations of big things like furniture and televisions
before pot holders and trivets were hung on the walls. Of course I lost
this battle, so she did her thing and I did mine, with us crossing paths
every now and then on the hazier matters, like where to put the beer
cooler full of Page's toys.

When fatigue got the best of us, I convinced Christine that a glass of
wine might be a good way to end the day. So we uncorked the bottle of
Merlot we'd brought along, dug back into the crackers and cheese we'd
had for dinner, and clinked our glasses in a toast, sitting across from
one another at the kitchen table.

"To our new home," I said, taking a sip.

"To our new home." Christine smiled and I noticed a worn look about her,
eyes red and drooping, brown hair slipping from her bun. She was tired.

"Sure looks like you could use some shut-eye."

"I look that bad?"

"I didn't say you looked bad. ..."

"Well, you don't look so hot yourself." She smiled thinly, then added,
"You should heed your own advice, Doc."

"I don't think I'm gonna be able to sleep. Too much going on."

43

Christine started laughing. A bit of wine spilled from her lips and she
used a napkin to dab at it.

"What? What's so funny?"

"I just got a visual of you standing out on the front lawn in your
underwear trying to act all pleasant and nice for the new neighbor." She
laughed again.

I laughed too. It must've been a sight, me semi-naked and smelling puky
in front of the unassuming Phillip Deighton. "His timing was less than
perfect, huh?"

"I'd say so."

"And then he finds it in himself to invite us over even though Jess is
puking and I'm in my underwear."

Christine said, "You know, at first I got the impression that he was
aiming to have you look at his wife."

I agreed, and even though I really wasn't in the mood to discuss the
matter, I told Christine what'd happened upstairs with Rosy Deighton
(leaving out what she had said to me), and how I thought Phillip might
have purposely misled me.

"I'm sure that if he really wanted you to see his wife, he would have
come right out and asked you. He doesn't strike me as the type to play
games. It was probably an accident, or maybe you just didn't hear him
correctly."

"No, he definitely said to make a left at the top of the stairs."

"Maybe the bathroom off the hall was broken, or dirty. Could be any
number of explainable reasons why he didn't want you to use it."

I shrugged my shoulders. Perhaps I was overanalyzing the situation.
Being presumptuous, as

44

Christtine had said earlier. Then I thought of something else. "Remember
that he said his wife had cancer?"

"I heard that. Terrible ..."

"What I saw on Rosy Deighton wasn't caused by cancer. I thought so at
first, but when I saw her entire body... without question she was mauled
by some kind of vicious animal. A dog probably, and more than just one
if you want my professional opinion."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Kind of scary, considering what happened to Farris."

"Exactly."

Christine downed the rest of her wine. There was a bit of silence that
seemed to end the troubling topic of conversation. "That's it for me,"
she said. "I'm bedbound. You coming?"

"No ... I think I'm going to poke around in the office for a bit.
Haven't set foot in there yet."

"Michael, it'll be there tomorrow. ..."

"I'm too wound up, plus I'm real curious too see what kind of equipment
the widow left behind. I'll only be a few."

"She said she was going to leave everything."

"Yeah ... I'm anxious to see what everything is."

"Please, don't be too long. First night in the new house. I'm bound to
be spooked by all the creaks and noises."

"Don't worry, you'll be asleep in no time," I said, and kissed her good
night.

45

Chapter Seven

I felt like a cat exploring a closet for the very first time, eyes wide,
searching for the light switch in the hallway leading into my new, still
unexplored office. Finally I located it on the wall to the right. An
exposed bulb in the center of the ceiling, weakened by a layering of
dust, emitted a pallid glare across fading green walls. The hallway
(that's all it was: a five-foot hallway connecting the house to the
examination room and medical office like a big vein) was as bare as a
prison cell with chipped plaster walls and a steel institutional door
complete with the tandem security of a dead bolt and chain. I thought it
strange that Farris chose to install the sort of door you would normally
use to partition a garage--the impassable type that keeps the burglars out.

I made a mental note to have it changed to match the rest of the paneled
doors and closets in the house.

46

I opened the steel door. It led into the waiting room, where my patients
would sign in and fidget away their time before seeing me. Two small
plaid sofas hugged the walls, and were separated by another door, this
one leading out to the side of the house where the patients would enter.
Opposite this door was a small cut-out partition. Looking through it, I
could see a small desk that was built into the short wall. Here's where
my wife would do her job, greet the patients with her pleasant smile and
enter all their personal information into the computer I was hoping to
have set up within the next few days.

Just to the right behind the partition was another doorway, this one
leading into the examining room. It was painted the same odd green color
as the hallway, and I made a second note to put a fresh coat of cool
sterile white over the queasy clinical decor. In the eight-by-eight room
was an eye chart on the wall alongside a 3-D diagram of the human
nervous system. On the opposing wall sat a stainless-steel examining
table, which still had half a roll of sanitary paper beneath it. This
paper always reminds me of the wrappings they use when you buy a hero,
er, submarine sandwich at the deli.

I closed my eyes for a moment and fantasized about meeting my first
day's worth of patients. They would be very different from the breed of
people haunting Dr. Scully's practice in Manhattan. There I'd served a
Medicaid population with general family health care, poor people whose
green cards still had wet ink on them. Teenage pregnancies and flulike
symptoms that were a

47

result of either painkiller withdrawals or the beginnings of hepatitis.
A real treat. Here in Ashborough I'd end up spending my time crawling
through annual checkups, treating the occasional flu or trifling with
the sniffles and broken limbs of schoolchildren. In six months time I
would end up crossing paths with most of the town's population--at last
count hovering around twelve hundred--and I say most because there's
always your small percentage of individuals who refuse to see a doctor
for one of two reasons. Either they feel invincible to nature's harmful
ways, or they're too scared to face God's music. These are the same
people that come crawling to me for a miracle cure a day late and a
dollar short. Sorry, Charlie, God I ain't.

There was another door two steps into the entrance of the examining
room, this one also, oddly, made of steel. It led into my future
sanctuary. The library. I've made myself quite clear about my
hesitations regarding moving my family from the city to the country; but
this room, well, let's just say that its presence made it much easier
for me to look beyond my reservations. Upon walking through the door you
are faced with an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, and we're
talking lofty, vaulted ceilings that start at twelve feet and point
skyward to an apex of nearly eighteen feet high. Being in this room made
me feel as though I were in a church, with cathedral ceilings and arched
doorways purposely constructed to further inspire a reflection of the
heavens--to induce a mysterious quiet apprehension that a divine
presence is in visitation. Spooky, yet breathtaking. A room with a view,
and so much more.

48

This room was a sanctuary. Here, I felt protected.

Apparently Emily Farris felt it necessary to not only leave her
husband's medical supplies behind, as shown on the immediate right where
two large oak armoires stood; inside were all the materials I would need
to patch and mend and record and administer and perform all my doctorly
duties: a fresh and wealthy inventory of medicinal furnishings and
instruments. Really, I could go to work tomorrow if I had to. The widow,
in an apparent struggle to vanquish all memories of her husband's
career, had left the entire room untouched. And I'm not just talking
filing cabinets stuffed with medical records or cases of promotional
Pharmaceuticals, I'm talking furniture that included the aforementioned
armoires, a huge cherry desk facing out the windows, plus custom
bookshelves lining two entire walls stuffed with every medical
encyclopedia under the moon (after all, it was night). There was a coat
rack by the door, original paintings on the back wall. And don't let me
forget the fireplace, set with harvest-gold brick that went up the
entire wall to the peaked ceiling. She even left behind a set of brass
hearth tools. Magnificent.

I scanned the books, then sat in the leather chair at the desk. I pulled
at the drawers, but they were all locked; someplace, I would need to
locate the key. There was a small cabinet to the right of the desk, near
the fireplace. I stood up, walked over to it. It was unlocked. Inside
was an assortment of liquors, plus three glass tumblers. I chose the
brandy, sat back down at my desk, and poured myself a drink. As I sipped
the alcohol, I stared beyond the glass panes of the

49

floor-to-ceiling windows, and for the first time relished in the flavor
of my new country home, all the while thinking of my fantasy of gazing
out the windows at the dark expanse of woods in the backyard, counting
the fireflies on a hot summer night.

I smiled as the warm spirits softened the anxieties of the day. Perhaps
I wouldn't miss the city after all.

Ten minutes passed. I downed the last drop of brandy in the glass and
decided that now would be a good time to retire to bed. I placed the
glass on the table, looked out into the darkness, and saw, in the
distance of the woods, a brief and single flash of gold light. I walked
to the window, cupped my hands around my face, and peered out. It did
not come again. Perhaps one of my fireflies had paid me a visit?

When I turned around, I saw a small icebox in the farthest corner of the
room. I hadn't noticed it until now, as it hugged the corner between the
bookshelf and armoire. I went to it, pulled at the door, but it was
locked. Rifling through the desk earlier, I'd noticed a few small keys,
which I'd assumed went to the liquor cabinet. I retrieved them, then
fitted the first one into the lock on the icebox. It opened with a small
click.

Inside was an assortment of blood samples, each one labeled with a
patient's name. I found it odd that Farris had presumably collected the
blood of his patients, which wasn't necessarily out of the ordinary if
he'd planned to send them out for testing. However, there was quite a
collection here. Then I discovered something amazing.

The man had samples of disease-infected blood.

50

They were labeled as such: Hantavirus, HP/ +, Malaria, Bubonic Plague. I
wondered where he'd gotten them from, and what they could be used for.
Was it possible that he'd had some patients who'd come down with these
diseases? HIV, yes. Hantavirus, possible. But malaria? Bubonic plague? I
locked the cabinet back up and made a point to research Farris's files
as to why he'd had those samples on hand.

Back in the house, all was quiet. I peeked in on Jessica, who along with
Page appeared not to have moved since I last checked in almost two hours
ago. I felt a true, powerful sense of love for my daughter, a feeling so
deep it scared me. Perhaps it was the unfamiliar surroundings, seeing
her here for the very first time, sleeping so peacefully, the simple act
appearing oddly precarious, as though she'd settled down in the first
comfortable place she could find after a day wandering as a lost runaway.

In my new bedroom, I undressed and crawled into my half of the bed that
for the time being was a stark metal frame holding up two twin
boxsprings and the king-size mattress; the rest of the wood bed was
disassembled on Christine's side, towering against the wall like phantom
trees. I lay there for ten minutes feeling the pressures of the day
waning, and all the while I listened to Christine's shallow breaths and
the occasional grind of her teeth. Still, sleep seemed as far away as my
life in Manhattan, and I propped myself up on my elbows and peered out
the window facing the woods in the backyard. In the full moon's light, I
could see the birdbath, the shed at the perimeter of the

51

woods, and then the woods themselves, which pitched up slightly and
disappeared in the distance, even at this height.

All was quiet. Too quiet.

Deep in the darkness of the woods, I saw a second brief flash of golden
light. And then, like the first, it was gone.

A half hour later, while I still lay awake in bed, I thought, Fireflies
don't come out until July.

52

Chapter Eight

The next three weeks were a transitional period for us, but proved to be
busier than we'd ever expected. I ended up opening my practice to the
public one week after moving in. It was by default. I hadn't planned on
ramping things up so quickly, but as soon as the phones were hooked up
they began an eternal serenade of tolls, and in twenty-four hours I had
a tapeful of messages from Dr. Farris's old patients (my new patients)
seeking checkups and appointments, all for non-lifethreatening issues.
Through my perusal of their records, and the general lighthearted
conversations that took place during their stopovers, I realized that
these people simply wanted to be the first ones to initiate some chatter
with the new doctor in town. It was all part of the small-town
directive. She who plants the grapevine grows the most acquaintances.
And while I played

53

mayor, Christine assumed command of the household.

Jessica was having a grand old time exploring the nooks and crannies of
the house, and even helped Christine choring about with an enthusiasm
that'd remained previously dormant. She'd do the job that was asked of
her as long as it incorporated a conversation pertaining to all the fun
activities she'd soon encounter in kindergarten, plus, as Christine so
duly illustrated, how she'd be the smartest kid in class because all her
roots were planted in city soil. I frowned upon this type of workload
bribery despite the fact that it served its purpose quite well, and
hoped that Christine's egoboosting commendation would fade from
Jessica's mind before September arrived.

I'd had lunch with Phillip a couple more times, and soon enough I was
formally introduced to Rosy Deighton. As it turned out, she didn't
remember our encounter in the bedroom, although I still had my
suspicions as to whether there might have been some ulterior motive that
day on the part of her husband. Looking at her was still a little hard
on the stomach (she even joined us for lunch one afternoon--I'll spare
the details), but she seemed a rather pleasant lady who did her best to
keep up a good attitude despite the fact that the golden years of her
life had been pretty much wiped out.

Curious as to her condition and certain that cancer hadn't been the
culprit, I'd spent many hours searching Neil Farris's files for Rosy
Deighton's medical record, but found nothing. I'd never met Farris, and
knew very little about him before I assumed his life here in Ashborough.
But I'd learned that he was a very

54

detail-oriented man. His files were immaculately kept, alphabetized by
last name, and categorized by condition. There were fourteen people
suffering from cancer in Ashborough (at least those who came to Farris
for support), and Rosy Deighton wasn't one of them. Actually, according
to the records left behind for me, Rosy hadn't even been a patient.

I never told Phillip that I couldn't locate Rosy's file--I felt this bit
of information was something he didn't need to know about; the last
thing I needed was the necessity to unearth it under his watchful eyes,
wherever the hell it was. I ended up examining her (another choice by
default) during my lunch breaks, and prescribed her a mild anti-anxiety
medication in addition to the painkillers she was taking, something that
would help her get through the mental aspect of her discomfort. That's
the difference between Old World practice and New: Farris, in his
seventies, mostly avoided prescribing antianxiety or anti-depressive
meds for fear of their addictive properties, something he indicated in
many of his patient files. Little did Mr. Small-town Physician know that
half of America chows down Xanax and Zoloft like they're Tic-Tacs.

Although I knew the medication would help Rosy's thinking (I decided to
chalk up her window-tapping outburst as a case of sleepwalking, and
prescribed some Ambien to keep her bed-bound), I felt disappointed that
there was nothing else I could do for her to make coping a bit easier.
She'd have to live with her deformities for the rest of her life, and
she'd have to deal with it, otherwise she'd end up in a padded room.

55

On a different occasion Christine met Rosy, and did her best to make
nice with her by talking herbal teas, spice candles, and aromatherapy;
as it turned out, Rosy had a bit of new age in her bones, and Christine
took to that just fine, happily discussing the healing properties of
jasmine and sandalwood and other essences of the mind. Rosy had
mentioned how much she enjoyed children, but Christine thought it best
to keep Jessica away, and I agreed. To a five-year-old, Rosy was the
bogeyman. To some adults too.

Sometime during the third week I took the afternoon off so that we could
tour the elementary school and get Jessica registered for kindergarten
in the fall. When we first arrived there, Jessica had spotted an unruly
line of older children in the hallway, third-graders, I supposed, and
cast a silent wary look up at me as if to ask whether she had a choice
in this matter. Suddenly, school didn't seem all the fun and games
Christine made it out to be.

We met the elementary school principal, a bald and rotund fellow named
Goodwin Clarke, who made a point of discussing the rheumatoid arthritis
in his hands and how the anti-inflammatory meds gave him the bloodies,
something both Christine and I really didn't need to visualize at the
moment. Christine did her best to not look at me for fear of bursting
out in laughter, and I changed the subject by promising Goodwin an
appointment the following Saturday.

When we arrived home Jimmy Page was eyeing his leash. He ran to the
door, then looked at me, then at the door, then at me again. I got the
hint and took him for a walk in the back before he started whimpering.

56

Page's first and favorite spot had become the cement bird fountain, and
in no time all the weeds around the pedestal were dead. They ought to
market the stuff, I thought.

I spent some moments between appointments here in the backyard (not much
hustle and bustle here in Ashborough, unlike New York, where you bounced
back and forth between examining rooms like a volleyball), circling
about the property, checking out the grass and the weeds and the sea of
trees and copses that seemed to go on forever. Regardless of the amount
of time, whether it was a few minutes or a half hour, each time out
seemed like a small journey, and I would discover something else on the
property I didn't know about, simple little things like where the water
spigots were or how someone had planted a line of white rose bushes
about twelve feet deep into the woods. One Sunday afternoon--soon, I
promised myself--I would take a few hours to search these woods. Don't
ask me what I expected to find. But since most of my life had been spent
on sidewalks and concrete, I thought it'd be fun playing the role of
forest explorer.

The rest of the day was spent in typical Cayle family fashion. Jessica
ran about the property with Page, Christine rearranged our things while
getting dinner ready, and I painted the hallway and examining room the
flatwhite color I thought it should be. At one point Jessica slipped
into my office to proudly show off a marvelous scrape on her knee. I
covered it with Bacitracin and a Band-Aid and sent her on her ungraceful
way.

After dinner we spent the evening relaxing in the

57

living room, something we really hadn't done as a family since moving
in. The television was off, another rarity. Jessica was lying on her
stomach on the spiral-weave rug reading Dr. Seuss, and I poked through
the last of Farris's files trying to acquaint myself with the medical
histories of Ashborough's families. At one point Christine glanced over
at me. She was sitting on the love seat by the window that looked out
across the front yard. I saw a glossy joy in her gaze, and she aimed her
eyes down as if embarrassed by her tears. Jesus, I thought, she wants
another child. Ain't that a number you can bet on. And she wants one
soon. My excuse of having no space is moot now. No more tight city
living for the Cayles. We could have two or three more with the room in
this house. I'd have to settle for one more.

Then she said it. "Michael... I want to talk."

I stood, walked over to her, and kissed her, knowing that I'd have to
give in to her appeal. Yep, she wanted another baby, and she'd start the
conversation by saying, I'm thirty-four, and I'm not getting any younger.

Neither was I. And I wanted another child too. Kind of. "Wait until Jess
is in bed, then we'll talk."

She nodded, smiling, knowing she was finally going to win this cold war.

An hour later Jessica was asleep on the floor, unaware of her mother's
yearnings. Christine looked up from her Better Homes and Gardens with
that same glazed stare. "Michael... I'm not getting any younger. And you
know Jessica needs a sibling." She always started the talk that way. It
was her path of least resistance, of trying not to sound too selfish.
Thing was, I

58

was starting to agree with her, more so now that we lived at 17 Harlan
Road. Without any other children in the immediate area--heck, there were
hardly any people in the immediate area--Jessica would have much to gain
with a brother or sister in the house.

I said, "Let me put her to bed, and then we can discuss it." Me
procrastinating again.

I scooped Jessica up and carried her upstairs, walking through the moon
shadows that painted the open staircase with gray slants. I made it to
the top and thought of Rosy Deighton... well not Rosy, but the woman in
the room I met that day, how she rose from bed and spoke inscrutably of
them, how they'll get me like they did everyone else in this godforsaken
town. I'd kept this odd little tidbit of information to myself, did my
best, really, to try to shove it from my mind. But it kept coming back,
the image of Rosy and her gnarled face, her disfigurements, the yellow
nails tapping their signal upon the windowpane as she warned me of some
obscure and hidden threat.

It terrified me.

I stood on the landing for a minute, maybe more, holding Jessica,
embracing her as though a clear and present danger positively existed in
the cool unstirring darkness of my home. She fidgeted slightly in my
arms; a wave of sick fear burned a hole in my stomach. Confusion beset
me, strengthening the fear.

Something bad happened here, my mind told me. There was a sudden surge
of anxiety torturing me. My breathing was quick and labored, matching
the urgent pace of my heart; my legs felt like sodden tea bags; my

59

feet and hands tingled, as though all the blood had rushed away from
them toward my head, causing my lightheadedness. The human body responds
dramatically to the perceived threat of danger, the symptoms as real as
if an actual intruder emerged from the darkness with a weapon aimed in
one's direction. But there was no intruder, no immediate peril. So then
why am I so damn terrified? Is my subconscious trying to tell me
something? Or do I need medication like so many of the patients that
leave my office with an Rx for Xanax clutched tightly in their sweaty palms?

Something crashed in Jessica's room.

I was startled--exaggerated response, I told myself-- then tried to
soothe it away, taking long, slow, deep breaths through my nose, blowing
it out across my coated tongue. My body ran with gooseflesh, and again I
had to remind myself that there was nothing to be afraid of--spontaneous
crashes were nothing out of the ordinary when you had a playful cocker
spaniel sniffing about the house. No what ifs here, nothing to ask the
anxious mind that never offered a practical answer.

I took Jessica into her room and placed her gently on the bed. A cool
breeze raced in through the screen, tossing the lace curtain toward the
ceiling; the billowing fabric looked like a ghost caught in the clutches
of the window frame as if it attempted to sneak its way in from the cold
night. On the floor alongside the dresser lay one of Jessica's many
plastic dolls, its fall obviously coming from a toss of wind, not one of
Page's nosy pokes. Its head had come loose and rolled halfway across the
room. I could see the glassy eyes staring up

60

at me, unblinking, seeming to demand, Michael, give your wife another
child I need another playmate. I retrieved the head and tried to
reattach it, but failed, thigplastic eyelids blinking as it shifted in
my grip. On the dresser Jessica had all her dolls lined up. There was a
gap in the queue. It reminded me of a missing tooth. I walked over and
fitted the doll back in its spot, alongside her teddy bear with the one
button eye that dangled from loose threads, and nestled the head in its
lap. I then pulled the curtain aside and peered out the open window. The
woods were as dark as the ocean at night. Huge. Threatening. A monster.
Psychologically, I could have been standing at the edge of the universe,
or in the wake of a giant tidal wave.

That's your anxious mind speaking out again, Michael. Time to let it go.

I closed the window, swallowed a dry lump in my throat, and tucked
Jessica in, snug as a bug. Gently, I ran a finger across her cool brow,
moving aside a blond curl, then kissed her good night. Standing in the
doorway, I couldn't help but stare at my sleeping beauty before heading
back downstairs to discuss adding another child to the Cayle family
household.

61

Chapter Nine

The fourth Sunday we were in the house, I decided it was time to strap
on the work boots and take a nice long hike through the woods. Christine
had brought Jessica into town for lunch, a haircut, and perhaps some
shopping (as per Jessica, there was a toy store in town, a bit of
information she must have gained through osmosis), and I took in the
warm June sunshine with some iced tea (Rosy Deighton's recipe) while
snuggled in a folding chair in the front yard. As soon as I finished the
tea and stood to make my way around back, Phillip Deighton came walking
across the front lawn. Page, who'd been sleeping in the shade of the
chair, yipped a few times, then licked himself and went back to dreaming
about filet mignon or T-bones.

"Hello, Phillip," I said. "Have a seat. Chair's a bit old, but clean.
Found it in the garage."

62

"Looks as though you're headin' out." Phillip had on a pair of carpenter
shorts, work boots, and a golf shirt. As usual, gray chest hair exploded
from the collar.

"I was going to explore the woods a bit."

Phillip nodded knowingly. "Hmm ... you know where you're going? I'm only
saying this 'cause it's easy to get lost when you don't have your
direction about you." Phillip painted a straightforward grin on his
face: next best thing to coming right out and asking if he could come along.

"No, I haven't been back there yet. At least beyond about thirty feet."

"Well, it's a good thing I wore my boots. Gets a bit mushy back there.
And there's also something back there I think you'd like to see."

Apparently I wasn't going to be spending this time alone. Not that I
minded, of course. Phillip had been pretty good company since we moved
to Ashborough, and when push came to shove, he was my only friend. "I
could use a tour guide, I suppose."

"There's some beaten paths in and about the clearer areas," he said.
"Best to find them and not stray too far. Three, four times a year the
sheriff and his men end up scouring the woodland beyond the town 'cause
some kids end up losing their sense of direction. And don't you think it
hasn't happened to any adults either."

"As long as it isn't any trouble ..."

"No trouble at all."

"Well, then let's go."

63

I grabbed two plastic bottles of water before heading out, and in five
minutes we were well beyond the perimeter of the woods, to a point where
I couldn't even see my house anymore. The land rose up over a hill and
then down along one of Phillip's aforementioned beaten paths. I thought
it interesting how the woods, quite thick in most places, cleared every
now and then to give way to brambles and high grass. Still, the trees
remained intimate, their branches reaching out and caressing like
fingers, the leaves whispering songs down from the clutches of balmy
winds. It was that special time of year when spring surrendered to
summer, sending kisses of warmth across your moistening skin. It showed
down my chest in a dark wet stripe. Phillip had one on his back. A
product of nature's embrace. How poetic, I thought.

Phillip walked off the path, to the left. Twigs and sticks crunched
under his feet. "Come this way."

"Don't stray too far. I don't want to get lost."

"I know these here woods pretty well, Michael. You just stick with me
and there'll be nothing to worry about."

The path we traveled was carpeted with slick leaves and scattered pine
needles, making the going a bit slow, which didn't matter much to me, as
I'd intended on a leisurely stroll with Mother Nature and this was as
close to pure nature as you could get (putting aside the errant soda can
or beer bottle whose labels were as colorless as Phillip's chest hair).
My guess was that we'd traveled about a quarter mile now, more than half
of that on flat land. Eventually we stopped for a breather.

64

"You mentioned that you had something to show me," I said.

"Yep ..." Phillip took a mouthful of water, smacked his lips, then
changed the subject. "You've any idea where we are?"

"Forgot my compass, Phil."

"That way's north," he said, pointing. "About four miles from here is
the town. If you walk in a westward direction you'll end up in someone's
backyard. If you go south, well, then you'll get nothing but forest...
probably forty miles' worth."

Something shifted in the woods about ten feet away. I felt a bit of a
scare in my heart, then peered watchfully ahead. Phillip hunkered down,
and I followed suit. He placed an index finger across his lips (which
still had the cigar between them) and pointed. I looked back and saw it.
To the right, nestled amidst a patch of ferns, a spectacular doe. Its
felt was smooth and nutty, eyes wet and wide and cautious, mouth gnawing
fruitfully on a sapling. This was a hunter's dream come true, I thought,
and I savored every moment by admiring this tiny yet exquisite slice of
God's creative pie. Man, what a rush.

And then, in a leap, it was gone.

Phillip stood up, groaned some. "Oh ... that was a treat."

"Is that what you wanted to show me?" I asked jokingly.

He smiled, trudged forward. "Follow me."

65

We walked perhaps another quarter mile. My legs tightened up on a few
more short inclines--the result of a lack of exercise, I thought--and i
made a mental note to heed my own advice one of these days. I looked
good, but I needed to start jogging again.

Neil Farris took to a daily ritual of jogging. Lot of good it did him.

The passage twisted downward, cutting in and about some very old pines,
then the trees fell away in a spot home to a mass of tangly undergrowth.
Roots rose up from the ground like tentacles, reaching to trip up the
path. The ground here was spongy and the mud came up to my ankles at one
point. But then the path rose again, and the pines reclaimed the
territory, as did firmer ground. The canopy of branches here was thin
and had a difficult time blocking the sun's rays, which were now lancing
down from directly overhead. Sweat jeweled on my brow. My heart rate was
that of a runner's.

"So where are we going?" I asked Phillip. I realized, suddenly, that
he'd taken me to the proverbial "middle of nowhere."

"Almost there," he answered, wherever "there" was.

We climbed another small hill, then came back down into a rather large
clearing within a circle of ivy-shouded oaks. I was filled with awe. The
scene before me was unbelievable.

I described it as a circle of oaks because that's exactly how this area
was shaped, leading me to believe that this place had not been some
casual fluke of nature; it was too perfect to have not been influenced by

66

the hand of man. Here was a rather large area, the diameter perhaps
sixty or seventy feet across the open center, the pines standing like
soldiers around the perimeter. Yet, despite the oddly cut-out area, I
couldn't help but find something even more incredible here, something
extremely... ominous.

The clearing was crowded with stones, and I'm not just talking about a
few random rocks and pebbles. These were great slabs of non-indigenous
stone, each of them rectangular in shape and fitted into an odd
configuration as though the whole had been constructed as some sort of
altar or temple. I thought to myself, This baby is old, and I couldn't
help but think of Stonehenge, or Easter Island. Some of the stones stood
on end as high as ten feet, some only went a few feet in the air but
were no less menacing. Others lay flat on the forest floor at seemingly
complementary angles. I imagined that if one viewed the entire structure
from above, some pattern would make itself present. Of course, such a
feat would be impossible because, despite the large circular clearing in
which these slabs of carved stone were erected, the trees here had still
found a way to extend their branches out to close out the sky. This
forced the surrounding shrubs and smaller trees to compete for precious
sunlight, and kept this miraculous work of ancient art a secret.

Even more amazing was how nature itself appeared to have conformed to
the ancient monuments. A perfect carpet of leaves and pine needles
blanketed the floor around and about the stones, and yet not one leaf or
needle lay atop them. It was as though someone had

67

meticulously tended to the area, passing through every so often with a
broom to take away any leaves or needles littering the smooth, weathered
surfaces. But that wasn't the case, of course, and the more I gazed at
the stones, the more I came to assume that there might be some
incredible harmony at work here: the forces of nature toiling gracefully
alongside some deeper metaphysical power. It sounded a bit kooky, but I
just couldn't see humans being involved here, not with the evenness of
this place. It was too isolated. Too spooky. Too perfect. Too ... I
could go on and on.

"This is amazing," I said. I walked across the center of the area,
pacing from stone to stone, checking out their smooth surfaces and the
crude enormity of them all. A quick count had me estimating the amount
of stones to be about thirty. Jesus, I thought. How did they get here?

"I knew you'd like it," Phillip said, sitting down on one of the stones
and lighting his cigar.

"This is incredible," I said, tilting my head in attempt to make out
some sort of purposeful pattern in their layout. I tried not to get too
crazy about it, though. Local town historians had probably studied this
scene for years without finding any answers to their ancient function,
design, or intent.

Although the stones exhibited no flutterings from above--at one point I
saw a leaf seesawing lazily down from the canopy and magically divert
its path to avoid a stone before alighting on the ground--some had had
their fair share of crude carvings, and the largest stone, which lay
flat and detached from its brethren in the

68

middle of the configuration, possessed a multitude of brown
Rorschach-like stains.

Blood.

I paced over and took a closer look at the stains, touched them, wanted
to smell them--doctor's intuition setting in--but stopped myself from
doing so. They were as dry as the rocks themselves, but didn't look as
old. Common sense told me that over time they would have eroded and
faded away regardless of the stones' porousness. Which meant the
bloodstains--if that's indeed what they were--hadn't been there very
long. That unnerved me.

Looks like an ancient altar of some sort.

I turned to face Phillip, but he'd gotten up from his spot. The trail of
smoke from his cigar showed that he'd moved beyond the circle of stones.
I could see him trembling, restless with deep lines of tension creasing
his aging face. I thought: He's tormented about his wife. Given the dire
circumstances, I'd be too, and again I told myself, despite Phillip's
constant reminders, that Rosy Deighton had not been a victim of cancer.
(I still hadn't located her file, and resigned myself to the fact that
one didn't exist.) My gut told me that she'd been attacked by an animal,
more than likely a dog or two. Or three. Like Neil Farris. So what? I
thought, trying to minimize my concern. Regardless of how Rosy's
afflictions were caused, they had been endless and traumatic and
gruesome and would always be till death do them part. I offered Phillip
a nod of reassurance, and he knew where I was coming from. He winked
back, puffing on his cigar.

69

"How old are these?" I asked. One of a half-million questions rolling
around in my mind.

He shrugged. "Don't know for sure. Thousand years, I guess. Let me show
you something else."

We walked to the outermost edge of the circle at the opposite end of the
structure. A very large stone stood perpendicular to the others, ten
feet away from the edge of clearing. Crabgrass hugged the bottom in
bunches, errant ivies snaking about it like lanyards. On the face of the
stone were a series of heiroglyph-like carvings, illegible pictograms
that decorated the upper half of the ten-by-six-foot stone. Had anything
like this ever been discovered outside Egypt? On the bottom was a
succession of straight-line markers, as though someone many years ago
had kept a running total of something important. Sequenced by fives, I
easily added up the notches. They totaled eighty-three.

"See those notches?" Phillip asked as I ran a finger in the indentation
of one. "Four hundred years ago people used this place to make
sacrifices. Each one of those markers represents an event."

"An event?"

He nodded. "Yep, a sacrifice."

"What kind of sacrifice?"

Phillip put his hands in his pockets. "Well, according to legend... town
legend, that is, and I say that because nobody knows for sure how far
out beyond Ashborough our little piece of history has traveled over the
years. Old Lady Zellis, she'll tell you tales that'll pull your eyes out
of your head, and she knows every legend that runs from Ashborough all
the way to Blacksburgh

70

and beyond, though she might be the only one. You see, each town has
their own personal legend and where they originate is usually where they
stay. No one cares much for the next town's folklore, and no one likes
to share their stories either. I guess you can call it hometown pride.

"Anyway, there used to be a race of aboriginal people, not Indians, but
a different kind of people who lived here in isolation long before the
white man came and pilfered it all away. This land had been wholly
unoccupied and shunned by the native folk, and for years our New England
forefathers heeded their warning and steered clear."

"Their warning?"

He hesitated, looked me in the eyes, then said, "That all those who
tread this land shall fall victim to the savagery of the Isolates."

"The Isolates..."

"This is what the Indians called them, these supposedly underdeveloped
aborigines."

A silence grew between us. I took a sip of water and let the story sink
in. The savagery of the Isolates. I moved my sights from Phillip to that
large white slab in the center with the brownish stains. To me it looked
like a great dead heart, the surrounding stones the fossilized remains
of some long-extinct dinosaur. Again it occurred to me that the whole of
all these parts seemed much too tended in appearance, very un-ruinlike
for something supposedly a thousand years old, and it really bothered me.

"Yep, Old Lady Zellis, she'll tell you the story much

71

better than me, but she's a tough cookie to get ahold of these days,
pretty much keeps to herself and her home, and if you ask anyone they'll
tell you that she's a card shy of a full deck, myself included. But she
sure as heck knows her lore, at least that's what all the townsfolk say.
I'll never forget the day I met her. She told me all about the Isolates
and of this place they used for their rituals. It was thirty-two years
ago, right after Rosy and I moved to Ashborough. I was in my twenties
and the old lady was even an old lady back then."

Phillip put his right foot up on one of the stones, rested a forearm on
his knee. "We'd just moved into our home the week before. It'd been a
real cool autumn evening and we needed some wood for the fireplace, so I
took off into the woods with my ax in search of a couple of healthy
branches. I suppose I could've taken what I needed right away, but the
crisp air felt good in my lungs so I kept on walking, and in no time I
was a few hundred feet deep into the woods. And then like magic, she
appeared--Old Lady Zellis.

"I'd already heard some stories about her from the townspeople. Some
folks were saying that she was all sugar and spice, and others thought
she was a real bad apple--rotten to the core. Me, I didn't know her at
all so I had no opinion at the time, but upon first glance I'd say there
was definitely some hocus-pocus brewing up her sleeve. She's one of
those kooky-odd types. Every town has their share and everyone
formulates an opinion about them despite the fact that nobody really
knows anything about them. She lives by her lonesome, rarely goes
outside except to spend some afternoons on her porch.

72

"Her past, well, it's mostly a secret too, although the townsfolk say
that she once lived with her mother, an old Gypsy who used to travel up
north and trade for wax to make candles. Rumor has it that they used
these candles to perform some kind of witchy ceremonies in their
basement at night, and to this day if you check out some of the older
trees in the woods in her backyard, you'll find some crude carvings in
the bark just like these. It's told that her mother died when the old
lady was just twelve ... heh, I've always wondered if she was an old
lady back then too! There's a grave in her backyard that's supposed to
be her mother's. It's right at the edge of the woods, you can even see
it from the road. Even nowadays people don't like talking about her.
They say that she can see and hear everything you do despite the fact
that she stays all to herself, and they'll tell you that she has a bit
of darkness in her soul that can delve into your thoughts and spoil the
purity of your Christian blood if she discovers you're doing something
against her wishes."

Phillip went silent. I waited.

"So anyway ... there I was in the woods. It was getting dark. Some owls
had started hooting and the breeze'd picked up, making all the leaves
sigh like ghosts. I'd stepped around a large tree and was face-to-face
with a woman that looked older than time itself. She wore a black robe
with a hood and had a walking cane in both hands, although I don't
remember her using it to actually walk. I remember feeling hypnotized by
her round eyes, which were brown with flecks of gold that seemed to glow
slightly in the darkness. She

73

was short, five feet tops, with a slight hunch that made her look much
shorter. Her skin was white and weathered and trembled in the stirring
winds. I half expected a swirl of fog to roll in, but that never happened."

"Were you scared?"

"Well, I suppose I was. I'm not really sure exactly how I felt at the
time, although I don't remember feeling too pleased at the unexpected
encounter. She just kept on staring at me as though she were working up
some kind of harem-scarem on me, and I recall trying to back away but my
legs wouldn't move. She kept her ground, then stepped to the side and in
a high cackling voice said one word: follow."

"So you followed her."

"Had no choice, really. I felt as if I were under some kind of spell,
although I suppose I could've broken away. Didn't matter, though,
because I wanted to go. Fear had set in and I was too concerned with the
consequences should I try to fight her. She led me to this place,
talking as we went, and to this day I can still hear that gravely
witchlike voice of hers. She told me all about the Isolates and about
this place where they used to perform their sacrifices. She told me that
the center stone was used for the killing because it was the biggest,
and that it absorbed all the blood well enough so it wouldn't drip to
the ground and violate the earth. They fed their people with the
sacrificial meat, usually deer or moose, and had resorted to the daily
rituals at sunrise after the nocturnal tribe spent a night of hunting.
Soon the Isolates grew in numbers, and they eventually spread out to
assume the land of the natives." He

74

paused, then added, "And in order to feed their growing tribe, they
began to hunt, capture, and sacrifice some of the natives as well."

"The Isolates ... they ate the natives?"

"The winters were cold and hard on the Isolates, who lived with only the
shelter of the earth above their heads. Food had been hard to come by,
and they eventually discovered that catching a man was a lot easier than
taking down a doe--one old sick Indian would be food for a night.
Remember, these people were savages and would do anything to stay alive
just like you and I would under similar circumstances.

"Then I'd started crying for some reason. The tears'd just sprouted, and
I'd begun to have visions of these poor little outcasts scouring the
earth for bugs and vermin in order to stay alive. Of course, for reasons
I still can't explain, I pitied the people who resorted to cannibalism
in order to live, who'd elected to be outcasts because they were too
barbaric and uncultivated to commingle with the native society. Christ,
it felt as though that trance she had me under had started making me
feel things ... things I wouldn't normally feel. I had sympathy for the
bad guy. I wiped my tears while the lady continued talking. She'd added
that the natives who apparently were no match for their shrewder
counterparts had no choice but to make sacrifices of their own in order
to protect their race. They hunted twice as hard, sometimes having to
surrender their only kill of the day and face the night hungry rather
than brave the death of one of their own. They sacrilegiously abstained
from burying their dead and surrendered the

75

bodies to the enemy, placing them right here on this rock, slicing the
stomach open and exposing the innards so the scent of blood would
attract the Isolates. Sometimes the natives waited in the darkness of
the woods until the Isolates showed to claim their prize, their only way
of paying last respects to their kin."

"Jesus," I uttered, then added uncomfortably, "This is just folklore, an
ancient tale from the old lady, right?"

"Legend," Phillip replied.

"I'm sorry?"

"Legend. Not folklore. Not just a tale."

"What's the difference?"

"Difference is that legends never go away."

I felt a bit of a shiver race down my back. I drank the last of my
water. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that what the old lady was telling me was not only true, it
was real. You see, she had a responsibility, a job, and that was to
protect the people of Ashborough. I was the new kid on the block, so I
needed to be educated, and protected."

"Protected from what?"

He paused, looked to the canopy, then back into my eyes. "The Isolates."

"Wait a minute," I said holding a palm up, then thought, Why am I
standing here listening to this? He's playing a nasty joke on me, the
neophyte in town, just like the old lady did to him thirty years ago
when he first moved here--that's if there really is an Old Lady Zellis!
Deighton is either playing me for a fool or off his rocker, "You've got
to be kidding me, Phillip." I wanted to

76

leave, but stayed and listened, as though I were... tranced.

Ignoring me, he continued. "So the lady just reaches down behind the
large rock and pulls up a possum. The thing looked as though it'd been
drugged. It was still alive, that much I can say for sure because it
wriggled a bit in her arms and its eyes caught the moon in such a way
that they glowed like two searchlights. She stroked it some, then placed
it down on the big rock in the center. The animal crouched on its
haunches and went still, as though willingly playing a role in the
ungodly act about to take place. Michael, if legends were to be made,
then this was one event to be handed down in history, my own personal
history, just like the first conflicts between the natives and the
Isolates were all those years ago."

"You didn't..."

Phillip nodded. "I did ... I had no choice in the matter. The old lady's
eyes started glowing this odd golden color and they had me hypnotized. I
couldn't move, that is, until she came forward and handed me the knife.
Don't ask me where she got it from, but it appeared right there in her
hand just as sure as her eyes glowed that strange golden color, and then
she ushered me to the stone and before I could even attempt to pull away
from her, she began an odd chant. Seconds later I was kneeling on the
stone grasping the squealing possum by its neck and plunging the knife
over and over again into its body until it squealed no more."

"Jesus, Phillip ..." I tried to speak, but a sudden lump in my throat
blocked my words. My Sunday afternoon

77

stroll through the woods hadn't turned out as relaxing as I wanted. My
nerves jangled like fire alarms, and I promised myself that once I got
back home I'd leave the woods to themselves for the rest of my time in
Ashborough. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't Phillip's stories of Isolates,
Old Lady Zellis, and cannibalism that had me all spooked out. It was
Phillip himself. His cuckoo was in need of rewinding.

"I stayed kneeling over the dead animal," he continued, "and after a
long time I finally climbed down from the rock. I still had the knife in
my hand, the animal lay spread out on the rock, but the old lady, she'd
upped and vanished, nowhere to be seen, as if she'd never been there in
the first place. The woods fell as silent as a vacuum, as though
everything out there had died along with that possum. No owls were
a-hooting, no crickets chirped. I'm talking complete and utter silence,
Michael. The only thing I could hear was my breathing and a sharp little
hiss of gas coming from the punctured possum. After some time I looked
down at my hands and saw all the blood. It was everywhere. On my hands,
my shirt, my pants.

"I looked at my watch and realized that I'd been gone for over an hour.
Without doubt Rosy would be at the window biting her nails, worried to
death. I remembered thinking that she might've even panicked and called
the sheriff. But when I finally stumbled my way into the backyard, the
windows were dark. I went into the house through the kitchen and found
Rosy on the couch in front of the television, fast asleep; another
ingredient in Old Lady Zellis's stew, I figured. This gave

78

me the freedom to sneak up into the bathroom, where I took a shower and
bagged my bloody clothes for the garbage."

"You never told Rosy, did you?" I asked, eyeing the bloodstains.

"No, I didn't. I went to bed, and so did Rosy. No words were exchanged,
she just pulled the sheets over her head and continued what she'd
started on the couch. Me, I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed with my eyes
closed, and a few times I felt myself nodding off, but then I would
flinch awake. It was as if someone or something had wanted me to stay
awake. As if there was unfinished business."

"Probably the longest night of your life."

Phillip laughed a bit. "That's an understatement. Eventually I crawled
from bed and peered out the back window. There were fireflies in the
backyard, and I thought that strange because it was October, and then I
remembered Old Lady Zellis's eyes, how they glowed that golden color at
the climax of the ritual she put me through. I looked outside again and
saw the tiny lights fading back into the darkness of the woods, six or
eight pairs of them.

"So with the moon shining through the windows, I got dressed and headed
downstairs. I opened every drawer in the kitchen in search of a
flashlight--remember, we'd just moved in a week before so I still didn't
know everything's proper place yet--and finally located it in the
cabinet above the sink, which of course made a creak that the hounds of
hell could've heard. It made me shudder, and I listened to hear if it had

79

stirred Rosy from her sheep-counting, but thankfully all remained calm.
Oh... I did know where the liquor was, and I downed a couple of
mouthfuls of bourbon before heading back outside; nothing like some good
spirits to settle the soul. But, alas, it didn't seem to work that
night. A couple of swigs and I was still scared to death, so I took the
bottle with me when I went back into the woods.

"The walk seemed to take forever, perhaps half the night. I didn't
really know where I was going, and I'm certain I veered off track at
times. But then I saw the lights of gold again, and they seemed to say,
Follow me, and follow them I did back into the woods."

Phillip's second mention of the gold lights in the woods reminded me
that I'd seen them myself--and more than once: a few weeks ago while
sitting at my desk, and then again later that night as I looked out my
bedroom window. I'd written them off as fireflies. Jesus, I thought, my
heart in my throat, not wanting to hear any more of this story that had
become intimidating and significant. Could this all really be true?

"I drank the bourbon as I went and caught myself a healthy crock. I even
fell down a couple of times along the way; those roots are hard to see
even in the daytime, much less past midnight. Eventually I got to the
circle of stones, and at first all was quiet. I shined the flashlight
around and didn't see anything right away, but let me tell you, these
woods here at night are just about the damn scariest place you'll ever
want to be. Ain't nothing like the daytime with all its lovely fauna and
scenic outlooks. The owls and birds call out from the trees in

80

droves--weird-sounding ones that you never hear during the day. And then
there are animals moving around out there, jostling the copses and
making you flinch every five or ten seconds. It doesn't matter much if
the moon is full and the sky is cloudless, it gets darker than you can
imagine here. And the bugs? Well, when it's dark and humid and sticky,
they crawl out of their holes in a mighty playful mood--you can hear
them fluttering by your head like tiny helicopters.

"So I aimed the light at the center stone where I killed the possum and
sure enough, it was still there. I'd half expected to find it gone, not
from the hand of an Isolate but from the claw of an owl. I walked
closer, light still shining on the animal. I could see all sorts of
insects buzzing about it. And then the smell... it was awful, something
like bad vegetables. I took a swig of bourbon and as I did, the light
fell away from the animal. That was when I saw the eyes."

"The dead possum's eyes?" I asked, sitting on the center stone. At this
point there was no sense in trying to end this conversation. Phillip
seemed determined to take this to the very end, and frankly I was
intrigued by the significance of the gold lights--to find out if the
ones I saw, or imagined I saw, were something more than just fireflies.

Fireflies in May, Michael?

He grinned. "I wish that were the case. No, these eyes were alive. As
golden as the center signal on a traffic light."

"Old Lady Zellis?"

81

He shook his head. "Nope ... these eyes belonged to an Isolate."

I smiled, half incredulously, half out of discomfort. I didn't want to
believe him. But something inside told me I should, and I promised
myself a few shots of something strong when I got back to the house.
Maybe even bourbon, the liquor of occasion.

"It'd creeped over the far edge of the rock, just a hand at first, long
forklike fingers gripping the dead animal like a doll. Then I saw the
head, and it grinned at me, bright golden eyes cutting the darkness like
two beacons. It was as though it knew I was there, and had waited for
the most opportune time to make its grand entrance and scare the piss
out of me, which it did, but I hadn't noticed that until later.

"When I finally made it past the dreadful glow of its eyes, the rest of
the thing's face came into focus. It was no less sinister-looking. It
looked like an old man's, all brown and wrinkled like a crumpled paper
bag that's been smoothed out. There were some colored streaks on its
cheeks and forehead, made with spoiled berries, and in its hand was a
pointed spike of slate. It aimed the makeshift weapon in my direction
and jabbed the air as if to say, Come near my warm meal and I'll scalp
you, you motherfucker. Of course I stood my ground, and at that moment I
felt as though I'd been scared sober, my body stiff and poised to flee
at the first indication of threat. Slowly it crawled up on the rock,
taloned feet gripping the smooth surface as deftly as its hands, those
golden eyes not leaving me for one second as it patiently claimed its prize.

82

"The first thing I noticed about its body was that it had been clothed,
crudely, however, with nothing more than dirty rags shrouding the groin.
The torso, arms, and legs on the slight creature were emaciated, covered
with patches of coarse hair. The skin beneath was thick and calloused
and mottled with warts. At this proximity I could really smell the thing
now, a horrid stench of bodily filth and decay. Goddamned awful. It
speared the animal with the slate spike, then grinned, showing a mouth
filled with thick brown teeth. And then ... it laughed. Michael, the
damn thing laughed at me, made this deep chortling sound that was
instantaneous, and utterly deliberate."

I shuddered, envisioning the scene in my head, trying very hard not to
believe him.

"It stood up on its hind legs, holding the possum above its head in a
prayerful stance; from head to toe the thing couldn't have been more
than four and a half feet tall. With an alarming quickness, it jumped
down from the rock and darted back into the woods with the speed and
accuracy of a frightened squirrel."

At that moment I wondered if there was something intrinsically wrong
with Phillip. I didn't doubt for a moment that something had happened
here all those years ago. After all, I did see the golden lights, and
when I looked in Phillip's eyes I saw something sorrowful in them,
telling me that he truly believed everything he saw that night.
However... for me to assume this story was true would be utter madness,
and I forced myself to conclude that Phillip had been the victim of a
vivid dream, a sleepwalk perhaps, or maybe even some odd

83

hallucination brought on from one of Rosy's medicinal teas.

"Somehow I found my way back, but I don't recall how. Apparently I
blacked out--it might've been the alcohol, but was probably yet another
flick of the old lady's spell-slinging wrist--and the next thing I
remembered was waking up in bed the next morning with all my clothes on.
My boots too, and for weeks I caught hell from Rosy for all the mud I'd
dragged through the house."

"And you say that Rosy never found out?"

Phillip nodded. "Yep. Never told her. It was part of the deal. Old Lady
Zellis told me that the sacrifice should be kept a secret from my
family; otherwise they would fall victim to the savagery of the Isolates."

"Like the native legend ..."

Phillip nodded. "Just like the legend."

Something he said then hit me like a sledgehammer. "Wait, Phil... a
secret from your family? You mean Rosy? Or..."

Phillip nodded. At once tears filled his eyes. "You're probably
wondering why I brought you here, Michael?"

"Suddenly... suddenly I'm getting the picture, Phil."

"Michael... this is extremely difficult for me to talk about. Although
it's never left my mind after all these years, it also hasn't left my
lips either. And if you ask anyone in town about it, they'll pretend
that you're as nutty as Old Lady Zellis, but believe me, they'll know
exactly what you're talking about. Some things are better left unsaid,
and this is one of them."

"So why are you telling me?"

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"For the same reason Old Lady Zellis told me all those years ago."

"For my protection?" I added an incredulousness to my voice.

"You're a resident of Ashborough now," he said. "Your new government
lives right here in these woods, Michael. You best live by their laws."

"This is crazy "

He shook his head. "It's not." He pulled a fresh cigar from his pocket,
unwrapped it, and stuck it between his lips. His hands were shaking a bit.

I laughed uncomfortably, then said, "Gee-whiz, Phil. For a second I
thought you were gonna pull a dead possum out of your pocket."

Phillip grinned. At that moment I thought he was gonna burst out in
laughter and brag about how he really had me going, but that didn't
happen. Instead he said, "No, the animal can't be dead, Michael. It has
to be sacrificed on the big stone."

In a sudden jerk, Phillip's cigar fell from his mouth. He brought his
hands to his face as if in shock or pain. My paranoia was instantly
replaced with concern, and I stepped over to him. "Phil? You all right?"
He pulled his hands away from his face. There were dense tears filling
his eyes.

"I didn't listen to her, Michael," he coughed. "I should have, but I
didn't."

"Listened to... ?"

"Old Lady Zellis." His voice was a strangled mess. "This place... it
seemed too special for me to hold inside. It'd haunted me for weeks,
years, all day long and

85

then in my dreams. There was no escaping it. It'd grabbed me, held on
until it became a part of me ... like a virus in my veins for which
there was no cure." He sat back down on the stone and broke down in
sobs. He looked like a sickly old man in wait for the reaper to come sow
him into the earth.

"I'm sorry, Michael... I'm so sorry that I have to do this to you. But I
have no choice... it's my duty. I know, I know, it's impossible to find
it in yourself to understand me right now. But in time you will."

"I think I understand. ..." I lied. There was no proper way to express
the alarming images rolling around in my mind, nor was there a way to
make this less painful to Phillip. But what I had to say wouldn't quell
my sudden fear either. "You did tell someone else, didn't you? About
that night. About the Isolates. Didn't you, Phil?"

Weakly, he nodded.

"Not once, Phillip, have you ever mentioned anything about your daughter
to me. But I saw her picture on the wall in your bedroom the day I moved
in, when I went upstairs to fix my wound."

He stayed unspeaking. His sobs lightened, but remained constant.

"If I'm to believe this story you're telling me, and I admit I'm having
a difficult time doing it, then your daughter... are you trying to tell
me that your daughter was killed by the Isolates?"

He nodded.

"And Rosy?"

He nodded again. "Not cancer."

"I'm a doctor... that much I figured out." I paused,

86

then said, "And it's also this doctor's opinion that you should seek
some professional help. To help you deal with the trauma of losing your
child. You may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder."

"You don't believe me, do you?"

I felt a surge of exasperation well inside my lungs, and I blew it out.
This conversation, which began with intellect, had turned sharply into
opinions that danced on the tips of our nerves. Phillip and Michael, we
were two well-worn men more than ready to call it a day.

There was no way I could answer him truthfully; frankly, I didn't know
what to believe at the moment. So on my suggestion we turned back, and
kept silent while walking back home. During this time my mind raced, and
it became all too obvious to me that the entire experience--seeing the
circle of oaks for the first time, hearing Phillip's tale of the
Isolates and Old Lady Zellis--seemed much too rehearsed, much too
convertient to be true. I told myself that even though nature works in
mysterious ways, there wasn't enough disorder here to make it all
non-coincidental. I took one last look back into the woods upon crossing
the backyard of my home, and it wasn't until later that night while I
lay in bed that I finally answered Phillip's last question.

No Phillip, I don't believe you. Not one little bit.

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Chapter Ten

The next day I pretended that none of my conversation with Phillip had
ever happened. I told Christine that I'd taken a walk into the woods,
spent most of my two hours there following the random paths that sprang
up. But I never mentioned Phillip, nor did I say anything about the
circle of stones, much less what I knew about Ashborough's shadowy
legend. Withholding this information was my only way of keeping it under
a shroud of secrecy, and it helped me maintain my belief that the whole
tall tale was nothing more than just that: a fable strong in the hearts
of the town's staunchly devoted residents.

The day was filled with patients, and that kept me mostly distracted
from Sunday's events. By the end of the day seventeen people had passed
through my office with minor aches and pains, both physical and mental,

88

and my labored thoughts had been replaced with mostly work-filled
specifics. That is, until Jessica came into my office.

As had quickly become a habit, I was seated at my desk itemizing the
day's charts and returning the dozen or so calls that had come in while
I was busy with patients. Christine still hadn't settled into her
secretarial duties as of yet; the house had pretty much consumed her
time. It became apparent to me that interior decorating and housekeeping
were full-time jobs in themselves, especially when you had a little one
vying for your attention all day long. The advent of kindergarten would
alleviate much of this strain, however, and place Christine where I
needed her most.

I'd heard Jessica's footsteps coming in from behind me, and turned to
see her slowly approaching, looking a bit worried. Placing the folder
I'd been holding down on the desk, I wondered for a moment what
retirement in Florida would be like: children all grown up, far away
with all-new worries of their own. The moment was silent except for the
arrival of the night's first cicada, which had blared its toll from the
not-too-distant woods.

"Hi, dear. Whatchya doin?"

"Uh ... looking for Page," she said, but I could see the telltale signs
of a lie in her features, the unconscious twitch of her upper lip, the
quivering downcast gaze of her eyes. She leaned against the desk,
wearing knit shorts and a T-shirt that said, I may be small but I have
my daddy wrapped around my finger. She smelled of lavender, which meant
she'd just taken a bath.

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She then asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm finishing up my work." Suddenly I wanted a shot of brandy from the
liquor cabinet. Neil Farris's stock was still plentiful.

"Oh. Boring," she said.

"Yes, it is kind of boring. But it pays the bills."

Jimmy Page had sniffed the lavender trail into my office. He circled
around my legs, then nestled himself under the desk for a snooze.
Jessica backpedaled from the dog in a rather unusual way, as if somewhat
repelled, or maybe frightened. This was odd considering the corny love
she usually exhibited for him. She walked over to the bookshelf, thumbed
the outside of one of the medical journals there as though she could
actually read the spine, then asked, "Daddy, are there such things as
ghosts?"

Once the words came out of her mouth, I knew there'd be a fair share of
counseling sessions ahead of me. She'd gotten the idea from somewhere
(those damn daytime talk shows; I'd have to have a word with Christine
about this ASAP), and now it was sticking in her head like tar-balls on
an unsuspecting wader's feet.

"Of course not, honey," I said. "And just where did you hear about such
things as ghosts?"

"Scooby Doo," she revealed matter-of-factly. Thank you very much.

I laughed inside. So much for my talk-show theory. No psychics in this
girl's world just yet. "Scooby Doo. The dog from the cartoons?"

She nodded. And then she blew me away. "On the cartoon Scooby can always
smell the ghosts before they

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come. And so can Page. He smells the ghosts at night in my room."

Hearing these words coming from my little innocent daughter's mouth sent
wild shivers across my skin. It wasn't so much that Jessica might've
spoken of a common childhood fear of things going bump in the night...
it was more the fact that she said her dog was smelling something
otherworldly in her room.

"Honey, he can't possibly smell ghosts in your room because, as I said,
there's no such thing as ghosts. They don't exist. Except in cartoons,
of course, and in the movies. But not in little girls' bedrooms. Not
anywhere."

"Well... I guess Page can be wrong." There was a pause, during which I
smiled and admired the naivete of my daughter. Her imagination had run
amok, and I realized at that moment that the stress of moving into a new
home in a whole new town had finally taken hold of her mind-strings and
given them a nice healthy tug.

"Does he bark in the middle of the night? Wake you up?" I'd never heard
any late-night barking before, and it occurred to me that Jessica might
have simply dreamed it. Until she said: "Yes, he does bark at night. Out
the window. At the lights."

"The ... lights?" There were sounds in the room, of shuffling: Page
finding a new position by my feet to lie in. His tail brushed against my
exposed ankles, and it exacerbated the sudden fear racing through my
blood. Her words, at the lights, equaled a slight form of horror, now
out of the mouth of an innocent and into the open for me to experience
once again.

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She began to cry, not unlike Phillip Deighton had. "I'm scared of the
lights! They're ghosts. Page growls at them."

I drew Jessica close to me. I felt her tears soak through my shirt.
Christine must've heard the commotion, and was standing in the entrance,
leaning against the door frame with eyebrows raised. I rocked Jessica
gently, knowing that there'd be no battling her impenetrable fear, that
for now it would remain obstinate. At this moment I realized that all
people, children and adults alike, had a wonderful yet ruinous knack to
turn unexplored frontiers into conclusive answers that might very well
be somber and offensive. Ghosts in the woods? A fitting deduction for
floating firefly lights and a dog's aggressive response to them--at
least to a young child.

What about the Isolates, Michael? Those lights might be little malformed
people seeking a sacrifice from the new kid in town. Certainly that
would get Page all riled up.

Jessica pulled away from me, sobbing and looking awfully adorable with
her big wet eyes--a timid expression thankfully shattering the black
thoughts racing through my mind. Isolates? Bullshit. The idea of their
existence was ridiculous, pure folklore. Wait... I stand corrected. Not
folklore. Legend. There's always a bit of truth in legends, right?
Phillip had said that. And here, my child was feeling out the presence
in its ancient golden impressions.

"Jess," I said, "there's no ghosts out there. Those lights are
fireflies. They're small glowing bugs that come out

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only at night. We didn't have them in the city, but there's tons of them
out here in the country. Page never saw them before either, and that's
why he got all excited."

I wanted to scold myself for making up this little story. After all, I
really didn't know for certain that those small golden lights were
indeed fireflies. I'd promised myself in the past that as a father to my
child I would never make up a lie to preserve the sanctity of a
situation. Yet here I was, for the sake of protecting my daughter's
rationality, creating excuses for an unknown glow in the woods: the
golden lights I'd seen a month ago when I first moved in. The same
lights my now-distant neighbor claimed were the eyes of an ancient race
of wood-dwellers called Isolates. The same lights my daughter thinks are
ghosts from the Scooby Doo show.

"Fireflies?" she sobbed, sounding a bit relieved.

I nodded and hugged her once more until her tears stopped. I glanced at
Christine, who, unacquainted with Phillip's clinging tale and the golden
glows, smiled in a purely innocent and loving way, her beaming eyes
pleading for another child that we might someday dissuade from fear.

I smiled back, then peered out the study window into the growing
darkness, seeing nothing at all but feeling that something might be out
there.

Watching us.

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Chapter Eleven

One hour and two short stories later Jessica was asleep in bed, Page
alongside her. Christine was in the kitchen brewing a pot of decaf. She
forced a weak smile in my direction while digging out two mugs from the
cabinet.

"Looks like our daughter inherited a bit of her father's anxiety," she
said curtly, as if the entire scene tonight was all my doing. Christine
was being serious again. Great.

I ignored the cutting remark. "I take it you got the gist of our
conversation."

"Yeah... I heard most of it. You know," she said, sounding suddenly
congenial, "I did hear Page growling in the middle of the night last night."

"Really?" I smiled, half amused, half unnerved.

"Yes, really. It woke me up and I thought it odd that Page would rile up
like that in the middle of the night.

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I heard Jess moving the sheets around a bit and thought about getting up
to check in on her, but I fell right back asleep."

"Well, apparently she's all spooked out because she thinks there're
ghosts in her room. When I asked her where she got such a silly idea
from, she said she learned it from the Scooby Doo show. That doesn't
make sense, does it? A kid frightened by cartoons?"

"She's beginning to show some signs of stress," Christine decided. "The
move from the city to this small town with no other kids nearby, it's a
bit testing on the mind. We've been here a month and she still has no
friends. And then in September she's going to start kindergarten. That
alone is a lot for a five-year-old to handle. Wouldn't you agree?"

"You don't have to tell me. I know."

"So then help your daughter."

There we go again. She's my daughter. "I think I did a fairly good job
of cooling her spirits tonight."

She nodded but didn't look at me, which meant I did a fair job in her
eyes. Not a great job, but passable nonetheless. Nothing she really
wanted to give me credit for. "I don't want you taking her into the
woods," Christine declared after pouring two cups of coffee in silence.
"There're animals and bugs and poison ivy and who knows what kinds of
things. It's dangerous, even unhealthy."

I shuddered for a moment, wondering if perhaps Christine might have
heard Phillip's legend from Rosy. She peered out the kitchen window
along the side of the house, into the woods.

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"Chris ... I never took her--"

"I didn't say you did. I just don't want you to, that's all. For all we
know the dog that got Dr. Farris might still be out there."

My mind said, Oh, it's out there, all right. But it ain't no mad mutt.
My common sense disagreed with my mind, however, and my words followed
suit. "Not to worry. I won't."

There are moments in a marriage when you might have trouble knowing
exactly which part of the ballpark your partner feels like playing in,
despite how well you think you know her. Here Christine had decided to
change positions, and instead of tapping soft, easy grounders in my
direction, she'd elected to smack a couple of line drives at my head. Of
course, this left, me no margin for error lest I walk away with a fat
lump of shame on my face. And there ain't no erasing that injury.

"I don't like those woods," she repeated. Tears started rolling down her
cheeks.

"Christine ... what's wrong?" For a moment I had a crazy impression,
something like deja vu, only with a heaping spoonful of reality thrown
in. An hour before I'd had to console my weeping daughter. Now my wife
was sinking into her own depression. That made two meltdowns in one
night for this family man.

She shook her head, then peered up at me with wet, soulful eyes, holding
out a plastic pregnancy test strip she plucked from her front pocket.
"I'm pregnant."

I immediately sulked, not because I was unhappy with this revelation ...
but because I'd missed it, the

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weeks of obsessive-compulsive behavior that commingled with the
on-again, off-again crying. It had been thrust before me like a great
big vista and I, Michael Cayle, educated physician who was paid the big
bucks to catch these kind of things, never saw it. I might as well have
been sleepwalking all along, thumbs in my ears, pinkies up my nose. I
took the pregnancy strip from her and eyed the positive result.

"Christine ... that's wonderful news." I put my best smile on, despite
the confusion of the moment.

She stared at me resentfully. "Depends on how you look at it."

Silence filled the room. "I don't understand."

She broke down crying. "We weren't even trying. I know we talked about
it, but I don't remember us actually trying. I mean, how many times have
we been together since we moved here? Three? Four times? So how did this
happen?"

"You don't need a doctor to tell you that. Apparently we weren't being
so overly protective."

"Apparently? This doesn't just happen apparently!" she shouted, banging
her fist against the kitchen counter. "We tried for five months with
Jessica before I got pregnant. And damn it, Michael, you were wearing a
friggin' rubber."

I nodded. Indeed I had been.

"So how, Michael? How?"

"I don't know ... any number of ways. It may have torn, or leaked at the
edges. It doesn't make a difference. What difference does it make? We're
going to be parents again. That's what you wanted, right?" I tried to

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place a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away, quick and
hard.

"Forget it, Michael," she said contemptuously, burying her face in her
hands. "You'll never understand." Her sobs sounded just like Jessica's.

"I'm a doctor. I do understand. Not only what your body is going
through, but what's happening in your mind as well. At least, now I do."
I gave her my best wounded look--brow furrowed, eyes narrowed-- which
she didn't bother looking at.

She shook her head, clearly frustrated. "Don't placate me, Michael.
Until your body goes through the same changes I'm going through ..." She
took her mug and slammed it on the counter. Coffee spilled out. She
walked away and sat at the kitchen table, sobbing.

"Christine..."

"I don't want to discuss this anymore."

Now it was my turn to get pissed, changes or no changes. She'd dropped
the bat and put on a totally different uniform. Something totally
psychotic. Like Rollerball. I needed to defend myself. "This discussion
as you call it has been totally one-sided. It's my turn to take some
swings now." It was only at this moment that I realized that the
pregnancy tester was still in my hand. I pointed it at her, reminding
myself at that instant to put the kid gloves on. Tread softly and carry
a pregnancy stick. "We have a smart, well-behaved, beautiful child in
Jessica. And now we have another on the way. Jesus Christ, Christine, we
had a talk about this a few weeks ago, about how you were getting older
and that now was the time to have a baby. Consider yourself

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blessed." This time I was the one doing the slamming, tester on counter.

"Fuck you, Michael!" she screamed, and I cowered back. My arm struck the
counter, and one of the mugs toppled off and shattered on the floor.
Coffee spilled everywhere.

"Shit," I said bleakly, avoiding Christine's penetrating gaze. I kneeled
down to gather the pieces, realizing that in our six years of marriage
she'd never used such a tone of voice toward me. And I hadn't done
anything wrong either. I think.

From upstairs, Jessica began to cry. Page soon followed with a series of
frantic yips.

"Fucking wonderful," Christine said. "Wake the whole damn neighborhood,
why don't you." She stood up at the table and started storming away.

I grabbed her right arm. We locked eyes, mine tearing with ire, hers
ablaze with pain: mental, physical, hormonal. A triple combo. "What's
gotten into you?" I asked, despite the fact she showed no intention of
listening. "And what's with the foul language, Chris? You gonna start
talking like that in front of Jessica now? For sure she'll need a
counselor. A real one who can do the job correctly, not someone like
this doctor who's only good at Band-Aids and boogers."

She yanked her arm away. "Don't you touch me," she spat. There was a
great deal of anger in her eyes, but also a glaze of confusion that
stated she had no idea why she was behaving this way toward the man she
presumably loved. The man whose baby she was carrying. "I'm going to
take care of my daughter." Wouldn't

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you know it. Jessica was her daughter now.

Women's emotions. They astound me.

"Christine!"

"This conversation is over, Michael," she said, running upstairs and
leaving me alone in the kitchen with porcelain chips and hot coffee
circling my feet, the echoes of our voices still resonating in the air.
Silence resumed upstairs, and Christine never came back down. I cleaned
up the mess, all the while thinking about how arguments as alien as this
one grow right out of thin air; how simple differences of opinion or
emotional fluxes can create a tremendous and unavoidable banging of
heads. It works that way between married couples and with entire nations
of people. But in the end a resolution must be made, good, bad, or ugly.
All things must pass. And I was confident, as I'd been in the past, that
the dust would eventually settle at 17 Harlan Road, lying quietly in
wait until something unseen sent it all flying once again.

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Chapter Twelve

I watched television for an hour after cleaning up the mess. It was
still early, and sleep seemed as foreign to me as the woods had been the
day I stepped in to explore them for the first time. In between harried
thoughts of Christine's tirade (and revelation of pregnancy), Jessica's
sudden fear of ghosts, and me being a father once again, I found myself
getting up to peek out the kitchen window into the side woods, looking
for the lights. I saw them, but these lights were greener, smaller,
floating lazily alongside the house. Dangling from the rear ends of insects.

Fireflies.

Perhaps it had been denial, thinking that the golden lights had been
fireflies all along. I'd only seen them twice, but I remembered them
being bigger, perhaps the size of golf balls, drifting far back in the
darkness

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of the woods for only a brief moment before blinking out.

Not fireflies.

Then what?

Isolates? No, Michael, a raccoon or opossum probably, or some other
brand of nocturnal dweller whose wide, peering eyes fell into the yellow
glow of the house light next to the back door.

Despite the early hour I decided to try and go to bed. I figured it was
possible that Christine might still be up, although it was highly
doubtful that she'd be in any kind of forgiving mood just yet, which
suited me just fine; my mind was still racing like mad, and not quite
into harmonizing. I peeked into Jessica's room and found her bed empty,
the sheets in a bunch at the footboard. I panicked for a brief moment,
but assured myself--prayed, actually--that my king-size bed would be
filled to capacity. I paced down the hall and stuck my head into the
bedroom. Indeed, Christine, Jessica, and Page were all sprawled out on
the mattress, curled into sleeping positions. Someone was snoring
lightly. Probably Page.

It was possible that Christine would wake up overcome with guilt--that
come morning she would take me in her arms and plant apologetic kisses
all over me. Then again, she might not. So I had no choice but to plan
for the worst and hope for the best. We'd had lesser arguments in the
past that'd led to two or three days of resentment and pointless
brooding. Some were my fault, others hers. This time no one carried any
blame; our little world seemed to have been rocked by

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an invisible third party plunging in from out of nowhere. So who knows
what lay ahead? I simply wanted to get it all over with, try to find a
way to offset my sadness, my frustration, even if it meant making a
first move.

I considered waking her up.

Something told me this wouldn't be a good idea.

So instead, I undressed, showered, shaved, and took two ibuprofen to
help chase away a looming headache. I'd had enough excitement to fill
two hard days, and that had set the cranial hammers into motion. By the
time I crawled into Jessica's bed, my head was pounding, assuring me
that sleep wouldn't come anytime soon. My mind raced in nutty circles,
playing out the last two days like a bad motion picture. Phillip
Deighton. Isolates. Sacrifices. Old Lady Zellis. Jessica. Ghosts. Golden
lights. Fireflies. I'm pregnant. Christine. Fuck you, Michael.

And with this came images of pure anxiety-born speculation: Rosy
Deighton caught in the jaws of a dark monster, her hand torn free as
spouts of blood punctuated her terror-filled screams; she trying to
break free while sharp teeth rendered chunks of flesh from her body, a
strong swiping claw cleaving half her face away in one monstrous swoop.
Then, Neil Farris: the man whose home and livelihood I'd come to
replace. I pictured him writhing on the ground, bleeding out on the
pavement in buckets, waiting for help that would come all too late. I
recalled my first conversation with Lou Scully. He'd said that a stray
dog had made meat of Farris, that Ashborough's doctor had been taken to the

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Ellenville Medical Center but was declared DOA. Then the Widow Farris
confirmed this event. Exactly.

As if it had been rehearsed.

I shook away the thought. This was clearly my overtired mind creating an
ominous scenario, one befitting my growing paranoia. Rosy. Neil.
Isolates. Yet, outside of Page, I couldn't remember seeing a single
dog--free or leashed--in this neighborhood since we moved in.

I shuddered. What difference did it make? Neil Farris was dead, and as a
direct result I owned a fantastic practice brimming with patients. On
the outside it would appear that I'd been at the right place at the
right time; me, I couldn't decide whether I'd been blessed or cursed.
One man's bane is another's benefit. After an hour of mind-spinning, I
got up and headed back downstairs. The clock in the living room chimed
eleven. I made a peanut-butter sandwich (the kitchen still carried the
aroma of coffee; I figured it would stay this way until I took a mop
with ammonia to the floor), grabbed a glass of milk, and headed down
through the hall into my office.

There was a small corkboard in the reception area pinned with various
messages and notes to myself. Nothing was of great importance, primarily
the phone numbers of patients who'd left messages on the answering
machine earlier in the day. I looked down at the machine; the message
light was dark. Nice.

My office was as quiet as a morgue, and I took to my desk, where I began
to eat and rearrange some papers. I'd rigged the lights in here so that
the switch on the wall would trigger only the desk lamp. This created a

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nice concentrated glow that traveled no farther than the confines of my
work area, enabling me to peer out the floor-to-ceiling windows even at
night. The porch light alongside the back door was lit, splaying a dull
yellow glow across the expanse of grass that reached all the way to the
edge of the woods. For a moment I imagined myself as some
nineteenth-century muse working by candlelight on his most recent
future-classic. Like Charles Dickens maybe, or Edgar Allan Poe.

I stared out the window, into the darkness, waiting for the golden
lights. Instead I saw only the concrete birdbath and the old shed that I
still hadn't gone into yet. It'd never intrigued me.

Until now.

I went back inside, suddenly adrenalized. I changed into a pair of jeans
and a sweatshirt, then grabbed a flashlight and hammer from the toolbox
under the kitchen sink. Once equipped (I'd hoped a few blows from the
hammer would prove sufficient to break the rusty lock on the shed), I
stepped outside via the side door in the patient waiting room. The fresh
night air felt great, cool and crisp and comfortable on my lungs.
Fireflies floated by in a slothful manner, moths fluttering briskly
about the house light in droves. Hordes of beetles clung to the screens
like appliques on a Batique-style shirt. Quite a bugfest.

The woods were alive with the sounds of nature. Cicadas, crickets, owls,
and nightbirds, all tossing their calls into a wind that embraced the
sea of leaves in a soothing, static-toned sway. The trees themselves were

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a monstrous moving shape against the cloudless sky, front-lit from the
light on the back of the house. Above, a glowing half-moon illuminated
the backyard, the stars pinpoint flames burning through the great dark
canopy above. A rather massive contrast to the city, this great
symbiosis with nature was something I still hadn't gotten used to.

A gust of wind rippled my shirt as I paced across the lawn toward the
shed. I hadn't switched the flashlight on; didn't need to. The moon and
house light provided enough illumination to guide the way. The grass
beneath my feet was dry and needed to be cut; the blades ran under my
pants and tickled my ankles like the spiny legs of an insect.

I reached the shed, which marked the boundary of the woods. I stopped.
Listened. The branches of the trees groaned restlessly in the growing
wind. The ancient wood of the shed creaked and settled, making it sound
alive. It scared the heck out of me, and I suddenly felt like a madman
in search of a diabolical act to commit. I looked back at the house. It
had a spooky charm to it, standing there in the ghostly hue of the
moon's light. During the day it feigned innocence, sitting in its
colonial decorum with daisy patches and painted shutters that welcomed
all approaches in smiling, gleeful colors. Now at night, its true
character seemed to emerge: dark, dank, full of secrets bursting at the
beams. Put a jack-o'-lantern outside and it would be Halloween, just
like that.

Scratch ... scratch.

I jerked my gaze back to the shed. I heard something.

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A noise, emerging from within the weather-beaten walls: like sharpened
nails picking splinters away from an overly dry spot. Now I switched on
the flashlight, aimed its honed beam into the quarter-inch space between
the door and wall. The light disappeared beyond the slight gap, making
it impossible to see inside.

Scratch ... scratch.

There it was again. Although discreet, it gave me quite a start, as
though a muted alarm went off nearby. I stepped back, the flashlight and
hammer now shaking in my hands. I wanted to yell out, to see if anyone
was inside the shed--common sense dictated this was highly doubtful
because the door had been locked from the outside. Unless, of course ...
unless he, she, or it had been forcibly locked inside against their will.

This was possible. ...

I shuddered at the thought and cursed my anxieties for allowing me to
think such a thing. My jumping thoughts were no more rational than
Jessica's sudden fear of Page and his ghost-smelling nose. I told myself
to get a grip, be strong, to handle the situation just like any
pants-wearing man of the household might: with strength, vigor, and courage.

I switched tools, the flashlight now in my left hand, the hammer in my
right. The woods appeared darker, suddenly dead despite the ongoing
chorus of insects. The wind picked up again and I shuddered, not from
the cool gust but from a feeling of aloneness that bore down on me
powerfully and aggressively.

I looked at the lock in the flashlight's beam. It dangled on the rusty
hinge like a tiny pinata waiting to be

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pummeled. I raised the hammer a little and whacked it. It jangled
against the clasp, and the subsequent clang echoed loudly despite my
weak effort. The woods answered with yet another pervasive draft.

Aiming the flashlight's beam at my handiwork, I could see that the lock
was still in place but the clasp appeared looser, one rusty screw gone
forever in the surrounding dirt beneath my feet. I thought about
whacking it again, but decided that the hammer's claw would do the job
just as efficiently and much more quietly. I hooked the sharp edge of
the claw behind the rusted fastener. I gave it a weak tug. It remained
steadfast despite the missing nail.

Then ... another sound. I held my breath, listening intently over the
beating of my heart. Again, it had come from within the walls of the
shed. But it was not the faint scratching I heard earlier. This noise
was a muted pounding of sorts, something boots might make while kicking
up chunks of dry soil.

"Hello," I called, my voice sounding hopeless, barely more than a
whisper. Jesus, did I really expect an answer? I inhaled and knocked
gently against the door with the hammer. This time I did get an answer.
More grinding, shuffling, and then a knock, as though something inside
had come in accidental contact with one of the four walls.

My God ... there was definitely something inside. Something alive.

"Hello in there?" I said, a bit louder this time, but still only
croaking faintly. "Can you hear me?"

No response, no sound. But there was an odor now,

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a pissy-smelling waft that reminded me of the NYC subway system during
August. I took another deep breath, eyes tearing from the stench, and
wedged the hammer's claw behind the clasp. I tugged once, twice. On the
third pull the wood splintered and the screws popped free. The fourth
pull was made with less effort--as much needed to render the latch and
lock from its weak foundation. They fell to the floor with a soft thud.

From inside, more scratching. Another thud. I stepped back a few feet,
almost falling backward. A feeling of giddiness hit me as though the
environment had been subtly shifted into an askew position. I did my
best to steady myself, holding the flashlight and hammer out at
equidistant positions alongside my body. Once I regained my balance, I
stared back at the shed.

What the hell is inside? Person? Animal? Isolate?

No, I told myself. I knew better than to consider something horrific,
something impossible. Here I would find a bird or squirrel that had
somehow wedged its way in through a crack at the base, had starved for
days until this moment when it heard its potential salvation fiddling
beyond the darkened walls of its prison.

Telling myself--yet again--that there was nothing to be alarmed about, I
stepped forward and gripped the rusted door handle. I opened it. First a
crack. Then all the way.

I shined the flashlight inside.

At first all I could see was a bulking shape in the gloom, no real
details. But as I waved the light around,

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everything came into view, and my legs went soft with fear and anxiety.

The smell hit me hard, as if it were something solid-- like ruthless
hands around my neck. A horrible blurting sound arose, and for a moment
all my muscles turned to jelly as my weakened sights confirmed my first
assumption. Inside the walls of the shed lay no human, no Isolate, no
squirrel nor bird. Here was an animal, but one I was in no way set to
contend with.

Lying on its side against the far wall of the shed was a full-grown
deer, a doe. It made that half-blurt, half honking sound again (rather
loud now with the door open), and when the flashlight caught the
animal's face, its wet bulging eyes rolled toward me like eggs in
boiling water. There was a nasty open wound on its side, a wash of
glistening crimson tiding out on the earth beneath its heaving bulk. It
attempted to move, four long legs frantically kicking at the ground, one
coming in solid contact with the shed wall.

I began to back up, tried to grab hold of some thoughts, to figure out
how this animal got in there. You know how it got in the shed, Michael.
Someone put it in there. After stabbing it in the gut. And they promptly
locked the door on the way out, thank you very much. So the question
remained: who? And why?

I felt suddenly cold, as if the near-dead animal had emitted a ghostly
chill. For a quick moment I thought back to the doe I saw the day
Phillip escorted me through the woods, how it seemed to appear out of
nowhere as if Phillip had just known that it would be there to add to
the serenity of the environment. It had

110

flitted away into the woods just as quickly as it had come, and I
wondered with a bit of alarm if this doe in the shed was the very same
one I saw that day. I shuddered at the possibility, and at that very
moment the injured deer staggered to its feet. I backed away at the
sudden confrontation, tottered actually, the stench of pee and shit and
filth driving me back just as much as my fear did.

At that moment I remembered the hammer. It was still in my hand.

Think about this for a second, Michael... sure, you're a city boy
totally out of his element... but handling this situation should be a
piece of cake... folks round here would set some kind of hypnosis into
the animal, have it feeding out of their hands like a puppy dog ... do
this: just make believe it's a mugger on Eighth Avenue and Forty-third
Street, trying to snatch your pregnant wife's pocketbook. ...

My pregnant wife.

My arm brushed into a naked bush at the edge of the woods. I flinched
and the flashlight fell to the ground. I still had the hammer, though,
and I readied it, just in case. Just in case ...

It was a stare-down, the deer's eyes on mine. Its face was fouled with
dirt. Blood and bile foamed at its gums, its breathing a succession of
hurried bursts. It shook its head defiantly, croaked angrily, then
charged me.

In a move that was purely instinctual, I leaned my weight forward and
brought the hammer down on its skull, just above the left ear. The
cracking sound it made, the contact of steel on bone ... it was both

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horrible and amazing. It sounded like a bat on a home-run baseball. An
offensive hiss shot from the animal's throat and nose, and the hammer
rebounded from my hand, end-over-end, striking the face of the shed with
a dull thump. It came to rest on the ground alongside the lock and clasp.

I jumped back in the opposite direction of the collapsing animal.
Instinctually, the words "Oh dear Jesus" fell from my lips. I felt a
warm drizzle of blood on me, my face, my arms, even through my clothes.
The deer thudded to the ground, skidding a few feet toward the woods
before its painful leg-kicks tapered down to mere reflexive spasms. The
gush of blood from its shattered skull glistened in the moonlight,
matching the wet gloss dousing its bulging eyes.

And then it stopped moving

Moments passed in hardened silence, and it was only then that I realized
that my feet had come out from under me, that I was lying on my back,
head twisted in such a way that the downed animal appeared
right-side-up. I pressed my hands against the ground, wet moss
squelching coldly between my fingers, and sat up. Something slimy
wriggled across my hand. Without looking I shook it away in disgust. The
mud-covered flashlight was within reach of my right hand, and I
stretched and took hold of it. I groped for the switch, fingers sliding
across the plastic surface. The light came on and I shined it at the deer.

The sight of it was sickening, and if I'd thought there was enough
strength in my legs, I would have forced myself to race away into the
warm comfort of my home,

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never to come outside again. But all I could do was kneel in the damp
earth, my mind and body trembling at the harsh result of my blind
fury--of the instantaneous moment of do-or-die that mirrored the innate
fear of the deer's just seconds before. The whole moment went
out-of-body on me, and I felt as though I were looking down upon a
madman whose nerves had raced maniacally for a fix of terror just
minutes earlier, his dark deed now complete, the feral urges that drove
him now utterly sated.

Of course I was just a man who'd defended himself from some perceived
menace.

I took a few deep breaths, came back down to earth, then stood up and
took a step toward the animal. Just one step. I looked toward my right,
at the gaping entrance of the shed, and tried to peer into its fouled
depths.

The flashlight showed only the blood-tainted flooring: old wooden beams
withering to rot, grass and weeds sprouting everywhere, toadstools
cluttering the corners in swelling clusters. When I neared the entrance
the smell hit me, and I cringed, gagging. I stood my ground, and just
when I thought my nausea had been tamed, my peanut-butter sandwich and
glass of milk came up in a surge. I stayed motionless, hands on knees,
panting until the sickness passed. When all was said and done, I
clenched my teeth and forced myself to step forward into the shed,
shining the light into the previously unseen section inside.

A deep revulsion that bordered on the edge of panic

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fell into me, and I had to hold my breath to stop myself from puking again.

Inside the shed was another deer, this one a baby fawn. It had been dead
for a long time.

Both my trembling hands grasped the flashlight, the beam bouncing up and
down and back and forth like a nightclub spot, and it took a good
fifteen seconds before I could steady it back over the motionless
target. Slowly I moved the beam over the decaying animal's body, all
three feet of it, its nutty hide long surrendered to dark patches of
moss, clumps of twitching maggots, and mosquitoes that buzzed about the
putrid mass in droves. Its legs were withered to bone and cartilage, the
head bulging in odd directions, eyeless and noseless with an incredible
gaping wound at the neck.

The evidence was clear. This animal, like the other, had been killed
too. And most likely, I thought, placed here in this shed for some
unsound reason.

Although it had been obvious to me that the baby deer carcass had been
here for quite some time, I still considered the fact that it had been
purposely placed here, like the other, after I had moved into this
home-- meaning less than a month ago. The evidence was clear. Someone
had trespassed on my property and committed this dirty deed after I had
moved in. This was no leave-behind from the Widow Farris, no residue of
her husband's lifestyle.

I turned and escaped the damp confines of the shed, my boots slapping
against the moist soil just beyond the entrance. The moon hid behind a
thin layer of cloud cover, making the yellow porch light of the house

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appear to shine more brightly than before. I prayed that Christine and
Jessica had stayed asleep this whole time, and wondered how Page hadn't
heard the clamor I'd made out here. I wiped my brow, and immediately
decided to keep this event a secret from my family. Some things were
better left unsaid, and this was one of them--along with my first-day
conversation with Rosy Deighton.

I stood my ground outside the shed for a few minutes, and when I
gathered my composure, I realized that I had to get rid of the dead
animals. But how to do it?

Hey, Michael, how about running them up into the woods and placing them
on the sacrificial altar of the Isolates? You know, that big ol'
bloodstained slab?

I shook the crazy thought from my head, combatting it with an equally
insane argument: Phillip had said that the animal must be alive at the
time of sacrifice.

"Are you out of your mind?" I exclaimed to myself in a hoarse whisper,
trudging away from the scene around the left side of the house toward
the detached garage. I went inside through the side door, almost
blessing the dry stale air within (and the fact that I was away from the
woods), and pulled down a pair of Christine's mesh gloves from the
wood-beam shelf where she kept her gardening supplies. In the corner
next to the lawn mower, I gathered up the blue plastic tarp I'd used to
cover the floor when I painted the hallway and office.

My stomach spun at the thought of what I planned to do. I tried to
suppress it, but other gut-gouging factors were at play, like, despite
my distance from the shed,

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the stench of decay riding the slight wind with the determination of a
suckerfish on a shark's fins. I could smell it from inside the garage.
This, coupled with the image of having to roll the stinking carcasses
onto the tarp while their smashed bulks shifted loosely in my hands,
made my insides spasm. And of course there'd be thousands of insects
beneath the fawn, skittering away to find cover because their glorious
homeland treasure had been recklessly shifted after days and days of
immobility.

I tucked the tarp beneath my left shoulder and exited the garage, doing
my best to shake away the repulsive memories that would stay with me
long after this night ended. I made the trek across the back lawn
slowly, passing the floor-to-ceiling windows of the library, wishing I
were still seated at the desk, eating another sandwich and shuffling
papers beneath the hushed gleam of the reading lamp. The walk back felt
like an eternity--perhaps I tried to make it last that long--but I
finally returned to the scene of the crime: the place where I'd aided in
murdering a full-grown deer.

I told myself that everything was going to be all right, that I, man of
the house, would muscle my way through this unanticipated chore, wrap
the two animals in the tarp, and drag them a hundred yards back where
they could finish decomposing into the terra firma, and then attempt to
erase this night from my mind.

But it wouldn't happen that way.

I dropped the tarp, my whole face tightening as if I'd taken a hard blow
in the knee. The flashlight fell from

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my grasp too. But not before I saw. And knew, unequivocally, that from
this moment on, everything wasn't going to be all right. Both carcasses
were gone.

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Chapter Thirteen

I stayed awake all night, but that was to be expected. Was sleep really
a possibility after what had happened? The confrontation with the deer
had been enough to inflict insomnia on any man, but the horrific mystery
of two carcasses having vanished in a matter of minutes promised to
torment me for years to come. Unless, of course, I could come up with a
reasonable explanation. It wasn't until half past two a.m. before I made
it back inside. I took another very long shower, mulling all I'd just
been through, my mind floating haphazardly away into territories of
empty voids and giant incredulities. Soon after, I was face-up on the
living room sofa, my back surging with pain, the muscles in my arms and
legs twitching and jumping with exhaustion. I considered for a moment
going back outside to investigate the shed again, to confirm that the
baby fawn was not

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there despite the fact I already knew it wasn't. I'd looked in there at
least five or six times, alternating between it and the deep dark woods,
but I'd been able to see only a spotted trail of blood leading away from
the place where the dead mother deer had lain. When the horrible truth
of the matter had sunk in, I'd resigned myself to defeat and come back
into the house, my mind fighting my body, and now it was clearly winning
the all-night battle on the couch.

When morning came, I rose from the couch and, despite my lack of
appetite, made the family breakfast: eggs, bacon, coffee, juice, toast.
Christine came down and cold-shouldered me (rightly so, I'd completely
forgotten about her tirade and our subsequent argument last night), but
acquiesced once she saw the nice spread. Apparently the pregnancy had
given her an appetite, and made her grateful for the plate of food I put
down before her.

"I guess this is your way of making up," she said calmly.

I shrugged my shoulders, accepting her assumption as fact. Frankly,
given the depth of our argument last night, I was a bit stunned by the
ease with which she calmed her anger; in the past she'd allowed lesser
quarrels to string out for days. So, as it seemed, this dispute was
officially wrapped up, and for that I was very grateful. I had more
pressing issues deserving my attention at the moment.

Like how those animals vanished last night. They didn't just get up and
walk away. ...

I heard Jessica's pitter-patter on the steps, and she

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appeared in the kitchen with Page circling her feet. I placed a plate of
food before her and she dug in with silent enthusiasm. Page skulked over
to his metal bowl and munched on some Kibbles 'n Bits, a bit dejected
that there were no eggs and bacon for him.

While preparing breakfast, I'd hoped to have a few words with Christine
about her--our--plans for the future now that we had another one on the
way. I realized now that that discussion would have to wait until later.
There was a time and place for everything, and now wasn't either to tell
Jessica about the pending arrival. Christine and I were in silent
agreement about that.

I sat at the table and nibbled on a slice of toast, watching my wife and
daughter (and dog) eat in silence. When Christine finished her food, she
rolled her seat next to mine and hugged me. "I apologize for being so
witchy last night. Thank you for breakfast. It was delicious."

"You're welcome." I returned the hug, feeling a bit awkward. One didn't
see Christine bowing her head in defeat too often, unless it was after
she got her way. Today, she demanded no prerequisites. A
once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Lucky me.

Jessica fled the scene and started digging through the foyer closet for
her sneakers. "C'mon, Page!" she cried.

I looked over, perplexed. "Where are you going?"

Christine said, "Yesterday I told her I'd take her and Page to Beaumont
Park. I was hoping she'd forget."

"Are you kidding? In this town of nothing-to-do, -a promise like that
will never be forgotten."

Jessica had her sneakers and jacket on despite the

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fact that Christine was still in her sleeping gear: knit shorts, age-old
T, and scrunchie. "Give me a few minutes to get changed, okay, hon?"

Jessica, leash in hand, yelled, "Okay," then hooked up Page and headed
out the front door. "We'll be outside."

Christine stood up and put her dish in the sink. "I hope you won't mind
if I don't help you clean up, Michael."

I didn't expect her to, really. I smiled. "No, you go and have a nice
time." What I really wanted to do was ask her when she was going to
start working for me. The paperwork, although manageable, was taking up
more of my free time than I wanted. And besides, it'd be nice for the
patients to be greeted by a happy face when they walked through the
door, not a barren office. Now, with the new baby coming, I'd pretty
much have to hire someone from town to fill the role before I dug myself
too deep a hole. Jesus ... all of a sudden Christine was becoming a
full-time mom. So much for our little plan.

"Thanks, hon. We'll probably have lunch out too, after the park." She
walked over and kissed me, and just like that all was back to normal
between us. Then I wondered: Did she call into town for an OB/GYN? That
would be her next step. I was going to say something about this, but
decided against it for now. I'd gotten one reprieve, and didn't want to
spoil the moment. This doctor knows a great many things, including the
tempestuous pregnant-female/hormonal symmetry, and believe me, that
doesn't need prodding with any size stick,

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especially when all biological waters are calm. So I let that sleeping
dog lie by smiling and waving before she went back upstairs to get changed.

In five minutes she was out the door, and I was alone.

I stepped outside on the front porch and watched as Christine took the
minivan to the end of the driveway. She made a left turn and disappeared
down the road, the exhaust leaving a wispy trail of smoke in its wake,
like the tail of Aladdin's genie. The sky was saturated with blue, the
temperature reaching a stunningly dry eighty, so said the porch
thermometer. Despite the fatigue in my blood, I could still easily
admire this beautiful summer day in Ashborough. Sometimes the incredible
contrast of Ashborough to Manhattan can be alarming to this city boy
(like last night); other times it can be truly luxuriating, like now. I
stood there taking deep breaths, forgetting in the span of these few
moments the transient worries of my life. That is, until the clock in
the living room chimed nine and whisked me away from my reverie. I had
my first patient in fifteen minutes, so I forced myself back inside and
drank a cup of coffee, staring at the pile of dishes in the sink that
needed cleaning. I walked over, turned on the faucet, then peered out
the window at the loose tarp caught at the edge of the shed, the open
door of the shed, and the bloody trail leading into the woods.

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Chapter Fourteen

I went into my office to check out the schedule of appointments. Today's
first patient was due in at nine-fifteen--about another five minutes.
I'd examined her once before, a mid-thirties woman by the name of Lauren
Hunter who had dyed-blond hair, expensive jewelry, and smooth skin.
She'd made it quite apparent that she was more than available--cocoa
eyes all deep and dreamy and pointed in my direction; low-cut blouse; a
mile-wide Colgate smile--and I defended myself by making my happy
marriage just as obvious, you know, talking about the kids and the
family vacations we never took. Her complaints of stomach ills magically
evaporated once Ashborough's new physician became virtually inaccessible
(I say "virtually" because here she was again making another
appointment; I wondered if she was actually sick this time).

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The remainder of the schedule was light, another appointment after
lunch, then two more later that afternoon. I'd noticed through Neil
Farris's records that the summer months ran a bit slow--after the
initial flurry of meeters and greeters, this was proving to be true.
Traffic the rest of the week was going to be light as well.

I waited inside until about nine-thirty, then, assuming Lauren Hunter to
be a no-show, slipped out the side door of the office. I walked to the
front of the house and looked across the road to make sure she wasn't
pulling in late. The coast was clear (my father used to say that to me
when I was a young child, after checking my dark bedroom for the
bogeyman before I went to bed). So I went into the garage and grabbed
the metal lawn thatcher (best tool, I figured, for disseminating the
bloody ground), then walked back to the shed, much more briskly than I
had last night after retrieving the tarp. Once there, I surveyed the scene.

The brownish ghost of a bloodstain remained in a wide circle amidst the
matted grass. Standing up close, I saw it possessed a fouled mocked-up
look, as if someone had added another quart or so of blood later on,
long after I'd gone to bed. From there a swath journeyed up into the
woods, lines of blood thinning out across the soil, about ten feet away.
They disappeared just beyond that, near a thicket of saplings.
Hesitantly, I walked over to the shed and peered through the door. Even
now, beneath the bright morning sun, darkness reigned inside. Still,
there were a few gaps between the rotting slats--and the open door, of
course--that allowed enough light through for me to see that there

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was no baby deer. Just a brownish stain, with no streaks. Whoever took
it had picked it up and carried it away, nice and quickly, with no
intention of being seen.

Until this moment, everything had been peaceful, nice and quiet. A
typical morning, just as Ashborough liked it. The birds were serenading.
The trees quietly whispered beneath a gentle breeze.

I backed out of the shed, leaned the thatcher against the door, then
walked over to the birdbath, feeling suddenly giddy. This return to the
scene of the crime had me unnerved a bit. I did my best to battle these
bad feelings by itemizing some of the tasks that needed attending to,
like filling out all those insurance forms and drug-stock purchase
orders piled on my desk. But it didn't work--it seemed there was plenty
of room in my mind for everything.

The birdbath was dry, and I realized now that it hadn't rained for
weeks. I could remember only one instance since we moved in where it
rained at all, and that was a late-afternoon thunderstorm that
transformed the skies into a mean charcoal-gray color; it also had a
yelping Page scurrying fearfully away under Jessica's bed. I ran my
finger along the rough cherub statuette, totally engrossed in thought,
thinking for a passing moment that another cup of coffee might go down
just fine right now--when a scream ripped through the backyard.

I started, then bolted around as though I'd expected all along that some
kind of terror was about to take

125

place. (Stories of golden-eyed goblins? Animal bodies being dragged from
my backyard? That might've had something to do with it.) I saw nothing,
but a shriek as high and as sharp as a guillotine issued from around the
side of the yard. This was followed by the dull thud of something
sharply hitting the house.

I darted around the side of the house, and was immediately greeted with
blood--at least it was the first thing I became aware of. Blood,
everywhere. A lot of it: on the walkway, in the grass, on the shingles
alongside the entrance to my office. Then I saw the body, and in a
reflex shoved my fist in my mouth to keep from screaming.

Lauren Hunter had arrived for her appointment. But she'd run into some
big trouble along the way. What exactly that trouble was I had no clue,
and I could do nothing but stand frozen and stare down at her, hoping
that some miracle group of paramedics would show up in their bleating
ambulance, toting their black bags, IV, and stretcher while rushing to
my patient's rescue. That's how it's done in New York--stand back and
let the pros handle the situation. Here in this wee little township of
curvy back roads and Smoky-the-Bear forests, I was the only show in
town, flying solo and manning the cockpit in a plane I couldn't operate
very well.

My knowledge and experience in emergency situations is limited--I'm just
an internist, my specialties are sniffles and coughs, snot and phlegm.
Still, the diagnosis was obvious. In a few minutes Lauren Hunter would
meet her maker. Given her condition, it was amazing that any life was
left in her at all. A good

126

portion of her face had been stripped away. What remained was a bloody
slab that ran from her scalp line to her trembling jaw. Her shirt had
been reduced to ribbons, a dangling left arm twisted from the socket
like a storm-damaged branch. Two shattered ribs swelled through the
bruised skin beneath her right breast. She coughed, and blood and yellow
phlegm showered out onto the grass. Then she moaned--loud enough to make
me jerk back--and rolled over, both legs twitching much like the deer's
had last night--as if charged with electricity. This revealed a large
gouge in her waist, and when she shifted, purple-gray organs spilled out
onto the cement walkway. A large pink tube wriggled out too. It looked
alive, one end leading back into her body like a leash.

In my mind I heard Phillip Deighton say, The animal can't be dead,
Michael. It has to be sacrificed on the big stone.

I became harried and distressed, and I knew for certain that if I'd been
forced to say something, only gibberish would come out. It didn't matter
anyway, I told myself. Nothing I could say or do would change the fact
that Lauren Hunter, a patient under my care, was going to die.

She coughed again. Clotted swirls flew out with such force they
spattered the shingles. Amazingly, she kept moving. In fact, she
attempted to lean up. Her eyes quivered, then opened, unfocused and
stirred with tiny masses of blood. Her head bobbled back and forth, and
I finally kneeled down before her, my hands at once pinning her neck,
mindful of the fact that the shock and

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trauma striking her body didn't deter it from squirting pints of blood out.

My knees slid forward and I said to myself, The hole in her waist... her
organs... Jesus Christ! And all I could wonder was what could have
possibly happened to Lauren Hunter. My crazed common sense kept saying
over and over, Same thing that happened to Rosy Deighton, same thing
that happened to Neil Farris, same thing that happened to... To think
otherwise would be a waste of good thought. Something evil and horrible
was going down in Ashborough, and damn the residents here who'd
obviously accepted it as readily as a hot meal on the dinner table at
supper time.

I had to shove those thoughts aside for the moment. More important right
now was what to do next. I stood and thought about running inside for a
blanket, but that would only ruin the blanket. Still, I couldn't just
let her suffer. I needed to call for help in spite of the fact that
she'd be dead long before they got here. It wouldn't ease her suffering,
but it was the only option, given the dreadful circumstances.

I leaned down next to her. "Lauren?"

Her head shook. Her lips puckered like a fish's. She said, "Ah ... puh
... ahg."

"I'm going to help you, Lauren. You just be good and try to relax. Help
will be here soon." It was the grandest lie I'd ever told.

Her head turned in my direction, as though she were trying to look up at
me, but there was no way to tell for sure... there was too much blood
everywhere. I wanted to get up, get away, perhaps go inside and wait

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in a dark corner while she writhed to death. Instead, her one good arm
jutted up like a moray from its lair and grabbed my wrist. A spurting
sound came from her throat. Her tongue moved, I could see it flicking
around in the swamp of blood and snot in her mouth. Some unclear sounds
spilled forth, odd foreign syllables like dar and uug. I tried to make
some sense of them, but I was growing more confused by the second. I
tried to break free of her bloody grasp. I couldn't. She had quite a
grip on me. Reflexive bodily instinct, they once taught us at Columbia.

They never taught anything like this during Family Practice 101, Michael.

"Isolates ..." she barked, then choked up some lung fluid.

I gazed down at her, in total denial of what I'd just heard. It had come
out fully intentional, as clear as the skies above our heads. Not as
some misinterpreted hack or gurgle. And not as some stress-induced
delusion on the ears. Can't be, Michael. It can't be that she just said
that word. No. It was nothing more than some ironic string of
nonsensical utterances coincidentally formed into a word that's been
haunting you for the better part of twenty-four hours.

She was still looking at me. I managed to ask, my voice barely a
whisper, "What?"

And then her voice changed. It was deeper, stronger, not the voice of a
woman who lay buried in agony, seconds from death. "They want you ...
they're coming for you. ..." Her eyes rolled up into their sockets,
revealing bloody ruptures. The corners of her mouth

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drew downward, as if pulled by invisible strings.

And then my mind went back to six weeks ago, to the day we first moved
in. I'd met Phillip for the first time, and he was kind enough to invite
us to his home, and despite my encounter with the rusty nail on my front
lawn, I'd thought everything was just going to be sweet and peachy here
in Ashborough, but then I'd taken a wrong turn while looking for a
bathroom and Rosy Deighton spat at me through her black hole of a mouth,
They'll come for you, just like they did for me, just like they did for
Dr. Farris, like they will for everyone else in this godforsaken town!

And now, a similar warning from a woman also in distress. Terror shot
through me, changed me, made me a different man in a matter of seconds.
Smaller, weaker, a man who needed to call the hospital not for the dying
woman on the sidewalk, but to reserve myself a room in the mental ward
ASAP. I'd been dealt a big blow this morning, and needed to check myself
in fast.

Instead, I leaned close to her bloody head. At this close proximity I
could see a tiny slice of white skull peeking through. It looked like an
eye. I turned away, said, "Lauren ... speak to me. What are you trying
to say?"

"Christine..." she spat, teeth bearing down on her bottom lip. Blood
poured out like a fountain.

Jesus Christ, how does she know my wife's name?

Then she let go of me and went back to her spasms. I threw myself back
against the wall, looking at a kidney or a liver on the cement walkway
that'd met its fate beneath my knee. Her body stiffened up one last time,

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then released itself and went motionless. Something foul-smelling hit me
like a bag of potatoes. Her eyes glossed over.

I sat there against the house for an indeterminate amount of time,
knowing very well that someone, my family included, might nonchalantly
stumble upon this horrific scene--items brought in loving arms would
undoubtedly drop to the ground. I waited until my breathing returned to
a somewhat normal rate, and shivered as the sweat on my body cooled. But
then my vision faded, a gray sheet enveloping the environment around me.
My head spun like mad, body swaying like a pendulum. Sickness found my
gut, and for the second time in twenty-four hours I threw up. When
everything found its way out of me, I laid myself down against the
cement foundation of the house and allowed the gray to turn to darkness.

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Chapter Fifteen

When I came to, feelings of surreality and bewilderment made me feel as
if I'd woken up from a dream within a dream, although I knew that this
waking nightmare would not go away. The true magnitude of how I felt
then could never be described in the right words, although I imagined
that this was how an addict felt after an all-night binge of needles and
spoons.

I was still hopeful that an emergency team would soon stream in, but as
we all know by now, my closest neighbor is a light year away and as
those Alien movies tout, In space, no one can hear you scream. The
whirlwind that went down in the yard on the side of my house might as
well have taken place on Mars. No one had seen or heard anything. Hence,
there was no help on the way. It was up to me to grab the bull by the
horns with what little strength I had left.

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Dizziness tried to claim me as I stood. I balanced myself with one hand
against the house. The bloodprint it left on the shingles was still
slickly wet, and made me realize that I'd only been out for a few
minutes. I looked at the body--what was left of Lauren Hunter. In her
unmoving state I could see that her injuries had been much more severe
than I'd first observed, if that was humanly possible. Her legs were
covered with what I could only describe as bite marks, circular-shaped
punctures befitting the size and shape of a human child. The skin around
the horrible gouge in her side had deep jagged impressions along the
edges, indicating some crude weapon (or claw, I reminded myself). I
could see four deep notchlike grooves inside the injury to her face,
reinforcing my belief that she'd been swiped at by some kind of taloned
fist. Once the horrific attraction wore off, and the gross realization
of the situation set in, I lurched away, threw off my shirt and shoes,
and stepped inside the house.

All was eerily silent inside.

I picked up the phone, noticing that there were no messages (for a
change, I was thankful for the slow season), and pressed 0 for operator.
A woman with no personality came on the phone.

"Operator."

I took a deep breath, tried to speak, but a dry tickle in my throat sent
me into a fit of coughs. Once I had control of my voice, I said, "I need
some help. It's an emergency."

"What type of emergency, sir?"

"What type?" I found it strange that the operator

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would ask this. Then again, I wasn't thinking too clearly at the moment.

"I need to know where to connect you. Fire, Police, or Medical?"

Good question. Definitely not fire. Police maybe. No... I needed
medical. Yes. Jesus, am I losing my mind? I'm a doctor for Christsakes!
"Medical emergency," I panted, wiping my free hand across my forehead.

There was a brief silence on the other end, and in this time my mind
wandered back to Lauren Hunter and the uncanny utterances that had come
from her mouth. Just noisy chokes, I told myself. I must've
misinterpreted these as referring to Christine and the Isolates. I
couldn't have heard her say those things, I kept repeating in my mind,
grabbing the sentences that were sticking in my head as if pinned there
with thumbtacks, wrapping them up in pretty little mental boxes, and
sending them off to gather dust in some room within my untapped
subconscious--a room whose door had the word denial stamped on it in big
bold letters.

I felt the phone slipping from my grasp, and I did my best to hold it
against my mouth, but that only captured the mad giggles that started to
swell in my throat.

"Sir ... sir? Are you all right?"

I heard her but couldn't answer right away, and she heard me laughing, I
knew. That tipped me a bit, made me dizzy. I took my hand and wrapped it
across my waist to keep me here, on earth, in this plane of existence.
Yes, I'd heard only the yips and yaps of a human being drowning in the
swells of death. That, and nothing more.

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"Sir, do you have an emergency to report?"

"Y-yes ... yes I do."

"I'll connect you to the hospital in Ellenville."

Seconds passed. I tried to make myself feel better, but I couldn't help
going back to those impossible moments when Lauren Hunter had spoken to
me. Damn it, she spoke to me!

And then I was disconnected.

A dial tone met my ear. At that instant I felt like a sole survivor on
some desolate planet, my only means of communication taken away by some
unseen force. My heart pounded, my hands were shaking. I dialed up the
operator again. This time I got a male voice on the phone.

"Operator."

"Ellenville hospital, please."

"One moment..." Another void met my ear; I never knew silence could be
so deafening. Finally, after a minute of flexing away the tightness of
drying blood on my hands, I heard a ringing. A woman answered,
"Ellenville Medical." Her voice was curt. Clearly I'd interrupted
something important. Tough cookies.

"This is Dr. Michael Cayle calling from Ashborough. I have a medical
emergency and need an ambulance here at once."

There was silence on the other end. I could hear the woman breathing
before a backdrop of rushed voices and ringing phones.

"Hello? Are you there?" Surely she heard the impatience in my voice. "I
said I have a life-and-death emergency."

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"You said you're a physician from Ashborough?"

"Yes ... as far as I know I'm the only goddamned one here. What seems to
be the problem?"

There was a shuffling of papers on the other end. "What is your address
sir?"

"17 Harlan Road."

"There'll be an ambulance there in ten minutes."

"Thank you!" I hung up the phone, but not before I heard the other end
disconnect.

I wondered at that moment if I should have simply called the coroner,
but I wasn't sure whether I'd have to call into Ashborough or
Ellenville--this was a poor time to realize that I'd never once looked
into the names and addresses of my constituents. Regardless, wherever
this coroner resided, whoever he was, he'd have to come up with a cause
of death and I'd be his only material witness to a death that would
clearly blow him out of the water. Animal attack? Isolate? Close your
eyes and flip to a page in the family medical journal. Here we go, she
died of thanoplastic dystopia. Whatever the hell that is. Suddenly
Small-Town USA didn't seem as quaint as it once did. Beneath every
charming little vista seemed to lie a cold dark enigma.

I walked to the door and peeked out the window at Lauren Hunter's
sprawled body. There was blood everywhere, on me as well, and I knew
that a good part of the afternoon would be spent cleaning it all up.
After the body was taken away. After I gave a statement to the police.

The police.

I should've called them. I moved toward the phone.

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Stopped. Something told me not to do it. Not yet.

Instead I went into my office, dug through the prescription drug sample
case, and snatched a two-milligram Xanax. Zany Xanax we used to say in
med class. We'd pop them after an exam, then assemble in clusters of six
or eight and mellow out to some Pink Floyd before passing out on the
carpet. Ecstasy for the post-grad scholar.

The phone rang. I picked it up expecting the police, or the medical
team. It was Virginia Hastings canceling her three o'clock appointment.
All the better.

Ten minutes had passed. No sign of an ambulance. I called Ellenville
again and was put on indefinite hold.

Something didn't smell right.

Finally I hung up and dialed 911, hoping that the police might be a wee
bit more prompt than the Ellenville medical team; I'd lose another two
inches on my hairline before they showed up. I got a tired-sounded girl
on the phone, who sounded unmotivated and bored, not spent from a hard
day on the job. I reported a life-and-death situation, my voice cracking
with anxiety and unsettling impatience. Another promise was made for an
ambulance.

"How about the police?" I asked.

"I'll notify the Ashborough sheriff."

"Thank you," I said unappreciatively. My fear and anxiety were peaking.
Couple that now with frustration and you had one shredded individual.

Another ten minutes passed. No one showed.

I went back outside. Lauren's body was starting to

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pale--rigor mortis setting in. The blood had rushed to her head, which
was angled off the edge of the walkway into the grass, turning it a
purple color with sticky black blood pooling from her mouth and nose.
There were so many questions that needed answering. I stood there
realizing that I'd have to be the one, for now, to try and find out what
exactly had happened. If a person in Lauren Hunter's condition popped
into my Manhattan office in a similar state, we'd come to immediate
assumptions: dragged by a bus (or a subway), maimed by an angry mob (or
a pack of wild dogs; every now and then a trio of pit bulls goes haywire
on some poodle-walking bystander in Central Park). Other than that, what
else could it be? Here in Ashborough with its unexplored woodland and
uninvestigated maimings and, dare I add, its ominously unpleasant lore,
anything goes.

With all these thoughts running around in my mind, more time had passed,
and my head had screwed itself back on to some degree. I was thinking
more clearly now, and now was the time to trust my instincts.

I went into the garage and got the tarp back out. Noon was approaching
and more than an hour had passed since I placed the first call for help.
I'd subsequently left a message at the sheriff's office, tried
Ellenville again, 911, ran the whole help-line gamut. No one had come,
and that scared me even more that what'd happened to Lauren Hunter.

I laid the tarp down next to her body, keeping my eyes and ears on high
alert in case someone--a patient, Phillip, whoever--decided on a visit.
Christine and

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Jessica were probably having lunch in town by now, and an educated guess
said they'd do some shopping afterward. Plus having Page with them
wouldn't be a problem. She was a calm pup and small enough to be held,
and I'm sure most store owners wouldn't mind a cute little canine to pet
as long as she didn't lick at them too much. So, no worries about them
coming home right now. Fingers crossed.

The July sun beat down on me like a hammer, and it didn't do much
justice to Lauren either. The smell was like nothing I'd ever
encountered before, thick and assaulting on my nose in a cesspool kind
of way.

This was the first time I noticed her footprints. She'd worn tennis
sneakers and their flat soles had left clear impressions on the cement
path. I eyed them all the way to the right corner of the house, where
the walkway angled left and wrapped around the front of the porch. But
the footprints... they didn't lead that way. They went off in the
opposite direction, on the grass.

Into the woods.

I'd never gone more than five feet into the woods on this side of the
house. But I'd spent a good amount of time peering into them; the window
over the kitchen sink looked out across the side yard and provided a
serene view every time I washed the dishes. The addition of the bloody
trail (second one in two days; things seemed to work in pairs around
these parts) leading into the woods ate into the serenity like crude
graffiti on a stark white wall. It began to eat into my mind as well.

I stepped into the woods, following the bloody trail,

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which broke up over the choppy earth, then petered out about twenty feet
in. The trail really should've gotten thicker, considering Lauren's
injuries would have left quite a mess, unless ... unless I'd veered off
track by following an errant spattering.

I looked around, turned left, then right, saw an opening, then some more
streaks of blood on the ground. I followed them, eventually stepping
through a bloodstained thicket of shrubberies, into a small clearing.

Here I located the scene of the crime.

At this moment I knew for certain that I had to get the police here. But
I also knew deep down inside that they'd be too frightened to come.
Somehow it became apparent that they had full knowledge of what'd just
happened here ... just as they most likely did with Neil Farris and Rosy
Deighton and God knows how many other unfortunate bastards. I had no
evidence to support such an allegation, but it seemed all too obvious.
All I could do was stand in place and try my damnedest to shake off the
feelings of bleak dread, the indisputable realization that something
very wrong had taken place here. And it was evident in the underlying
chill in the air--not even the hot sun of this July afternoon could
dispel it. The pinnacle of fear I'd always considered previously
unimaginable, conceivable only in nightmares, had become fully concrete
at the thought that a conspiracy of great proportions might very well be
in play here.

Within the ten-foot clearing was a set of stones like those in the
circle of oaks Phillip had shown me. A smaller representation of its
larger model, they were

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also arranged in an equally artful manner, perhaps twenty to twenty-five
white oval-shaped monuments, twelve to eighteen inches in height,
erected in a circular fashion with one larger rock at the nucleus of the
framework. The center stone had a douse of blood cloaking it, thick
drippings slowly lining the surface and pooling at the base in small
dense puddles. Stepping around to the far side of the stone revealed a
hunk of tattered flesh--clearly the missing piece in Lauren's
midsection--lying at the base of the rock like a huge scavenging slug. I
bent down and ran a finger across one of the erect stones. A thin white
film of powder coated my finger, leaving me to postulate that these
stones weren't of ancient origins like the larger ones. No, these were a
more recent tribute to the legendary temple, recently carved.

The dry earth crunched under my feet as I stood. Like its larger
counterpart, the clearing maintained a healthy canopy of reaching
branches and leaves sufficiently cloaking it from moisture. At once I
felt the need to flee this place before I too fell victim to the curse
of the Isolates. I staggered away haphazardly, my mind struggling to get
itself into gear, struggling to explain to me that everything going on
was all part of a grand scheme and that the dreadful chill in the air
might be the final catalyst to some evil plot I had unwittingly become a
part of.

I promised myself that as soon as Christine and Jessica returned with
the car, I would immediately take them far away from Ashborough, leave
the house and

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my business behind to the vile happenings taking place here on a regular
basis.

Good idea, Michael. But tell me this ... why doesn't everyone else
leave? Do they choose not to? Aren't they affected by the local
corruption? Don't they know about it?

Or are they kept here against their will?

That last thought sent horrible shivers racing throughout my body, and I
made another steadfast promise to flee this godforsaken place as soon as
my family arrived home. I slipped from the woods, ran up the walkway
alongside the house, and realized only as I got there that Lauren
Hunter's body was gone.

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Chapter Sixteen

There's a time in your life when something really scares you. Not just
scares you, but scares the piss out of you, and you leap and scream and
your heart pounds and your skin ripples and your blood races and your
breathing goes shallow, and then, in a domino-effect type of way, your
head spins and your eyesight blurs. There's a tightness in your chest
that simulates a heart attack, and you claw at your breastbone with
sweaty palms and pray for dear Jesus to save you from the hellfire and
damnation that sits at the end of your tunnel like some great black
cloud blocking out the eversaving light.

But then it goes away, and you return to the world of love and roses and
all-things-sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice with only a vague memory
and perhaps

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a little eye-rolling, shoulder-shrugging giggle of denial that you were
ever scared at all.

That's all good and fine.

But then there's pure fear. Pure fear is something different altogether.
Pure fear is the type of fear that many of us never live to tell about.
It's the feeling you get when you realize your plane is most definitely
going down and that you have only one minute left to live, and in that
minute you can do nothing but pray that the Good Lord has decided you've
lived an exemplary life and that you deserve a red carpet to the pearly
gates despite all your forthcomings. Pure fear exists in those precious
seconds after you lose control of the car just before it slams into the
utility pole. It's in all those moments when you realize that certain
death will take you and you can do nothing but succumb to the finish and
the irrefutable fact that you can't say good-bye to your family on your
way out.

I, for the first time in my life, experienced pure fear. But I lived to
tell about it.

Without question, the person who survives pure fear becomes changed. I
knew it the very moment I saw the bloodstained walkway where Lauren
Hunter's slaughtered corpse had lain not five minutes earlier. Suddenly,
I'd become a different man. My mind shifted into some irreversible mode
where I would now look at the world through a starkly gray-toned filter,
where my common sense drowned in a muddied pool while my nervous system
swam in violent storm-driven swells.

Like the baby deer the night before, Lauren had been

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carried away, that much I could hypothesize. There was no trail of blood
beyond the puddle--even her spilled organs had been taken, perhaps
scooped up and crammed back into her cavity. Now, it wasn't just the
fact that I knew, with no doubt, that I was being watched, perhaps drawn
into some wicked ritualistictype game of death, that had me experiencing
pure fear. It was what I discovered on the ground beside the puddle of
blood that had me staring death right in the face.

Footprints. Not the staggering impressions of Lauren's tennis shoes. Not
my own booted feet (I even made a point to stare at my boots alongside
the house to make sure--I'd taken them off before going inside). These
prints were numerous, made by what appeared to be a group of animals.
They had certain reptilian characteristics, long, pointed digits with
winding patterns in the soles. The only difference was that they
possessed five digits in total, something purely distinctive to a
biped--a human. But they were too small to carry anything more than four
feet tall.

I remembered what Phillip had said during our walk into the woods:

It'd creeped over the far edge of the rock, just a hand at first, long
forklike fingers gripping the dead animal like a doll.

"Jesus Christ," I whispered aloud. Was he telling the truth after all?

There were now so many questions that needed answering, none of which I
knew would ever be resolved.

What did they want from me?

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The animal must be alive at the time of sacrifice.

"Oh, my God ..." I said, thinking of the deer, then of Lauren. Clear-cut
clues as to what they might want. Were they actually giving me a
handicap, starting the process for me. Could it be?

I managed to find the strength to gaze at my watch.

1:30. Time was moving along at a lightning pace. I suppose I could've
left the mess there, it surely would've aided in my arguments for
wanting to move out of this house so abruptly. But I also knew that this
was no image I wanted in my wife's or daughter's head.

The tarp ... oh, my God ... it was gone too. I realized this only now.
This led me to believe that whoever, whatever took Lauren Hunter, had
used it to help with their task. I fitted my boots back on, then raced
into the garage, got out the gardening hose, and attached it to the
spigot in the back of the house. Twisting the nozzle to the "jet"
setting, I sprayed the blood until it diluted away into the grass and
soil. Fifteen minutes later, all signs of Lauren Hunter were gone, at
least to the untrained eye. It looked as though she were never here.

I kicked off my wet boots, went inside, and tried calling the police
again. This time I got no answer. 911 was the same story. The operator
would put me on hold until I either got tired of waiting or was
disconnected. The word conspiracy entered my mind again, but so did the
word paranoia. I had every right to feel this way given the alarming
circumstances, but I also reminded myself that this wasn't New York City
and that the societal gears here weren't as well oiled as I'm used to.
Perhaps help was still on the way? My hopes were still

146

alive but walking on a very tenuous rope. I figured that eventually,
after fleeing this insane asylum, Lauren Hunter's disappearance would be
investigated and someone would find out that she had had an appointment
with the local doctor who'd just upped and left with no fair warning,
and then the investigators would show up and find minute traces of
Lauren's blood on the walkway or on the house, and I'd end up on the
FBI's Most Wanted list or as a special guest on America's Most Wanted.
Fucking great.

What to do?

I checked the time. Almost three. I paced like crazy around the
property, my legs guided by a force of adrenaline I never knew I had. I
told myself that this is what a caged animal must feel like, under lock
and key and unable to go anywhere. I had my hands and legs tied, I might
as well've been bound and gagged too. I'd have to stay put until my wife
and daughter returned. And this, my home sweet fucking home, was the
last place I wanted to be.

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Chapter Seventeen

I went into the house and continued pacing back and forth between the
kitchen and living room, thinking of all the blood, and those
footprints. I'd tried calling for help a few more times--a force of
habit at this point-- even though I knew damn well that it was too late.
I'd covered up the crime already: my only sensible response to the
alarming absence of emergency relief here in Ashborough. The whole time
inside the house my heart continued pounding like crazy, and it did not
let up until Christine and Jessica got home.

Three hours later.

I'd packed up a few bags: some valuables, jewelry, clothing, and food.
All essentials. It had all been done in vain, however, for when
Christine and Jessica pulled into the driveway, I knew that we weren't
going anywhere tonight.

148

Our minivan had been replaced by a ratty Dodge pickup driven by a burly
bearded man wearing a Genesee Beer baseball cap. He grinned toward me in
a friendly manner and tipped his hat as I stepped from the house. I was
so nonplussed I almost tripped on the front steps. Christine slipped
from the passenger seat, placed Jessica down (she'd been sitting on her
lap), then shrugged her shoulders and burst into tears as the pickup
backed out of the driveway.

Christine had actually planned on arriving home a couple of hours
earlier but an accident had occurred and instead of catching me in the
act of rinsing away Lauren Hunter's remains, she'd found herself staring
her very own monster right in the face. She'd been driving up the road
that led out of Beaumont Park toward Main Street, thinking about what to
make for dinner, when an animal darted into the road (she couldn't say
for certain what kind of animal it was; she mentioned that it was about
the size of a dog, but lankier, sort of like a monkey) right in front of
the minivan.

After she told me this, I said, "It was probably a dog."

She shrugged her shoulders, head down, face wet with tears. "There was a
man jogging on the sidewalk. I didn't see him. I lost control of the
car, I tried to avoid the ... the dog," she finally admitted, "but I
couldn't. I ran it over," she told me again. "I could feel the car
thump, and when that happened I lost control of the car and the wheel
spun from my hands and then the car shot sideways across the road over
the curb... right... right into the man." She wailed, "I killed him!"

I knew she couldn't be mistaken, the shocking truth

149

was too obvious in her face, but I tried to comfort her nonetheless.
"How do you know for sure, Chris?"

"I hit him and I saw him ... I saw him fly across the front lawn of
someone's house ... it was like he'd been shot from a fucking cannon! He
went forty, maybe fifty feet and hit a tree next to the house.
Headfirst... face first. Michael... it was so fucking unreal. ..." More
tears. "His head ... his head ..."

Jessica was looking up at us, lost in a cloud, blue eyes buried in a
welling of tears. She'd seen what'd happened too, in full living color,
and I wondered what would have been worse: death number one on the road
or death number two right here at home. I pulled her close to me and she
snuggled against my leg, scared not only by what had happened, but also
by the sudden fear-induced hostility Christine conveyed. For a moment I
thought about asking her to wait for us in the house while Christine and
I talked this out, but I couldn't be certain what horrors might be
waiting for us next, so I kept a strong arm on her shoulder, which she
graciously accepted with a comeback hug around my waist.

Christine continued, stammering through her cries, "Michael... he hit
headfirst into the tree ... I saw it fucking explode! He lay there for a
minute before I could even move. I could only stand there and watch him
bleed out onto the lawn. I was about to call out for help when some
people came out of the house."

"Some people," I repeated, stunned at what I was hearing. "What did they
do?"

"They did fucking nothing, Michael," she sobbed,

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hands trembling. "These people, they looked crazy, mindless, like
robots. The expressions on their faces ... there was nothing there at
all, blank, eyes all glassy, mouths hanging open. There were four of
them and they never spoke a word, not to me, not to each other. One of
them, a man, he had a blanket and he laid it out on the grass next to
the man I'd hit. After that, they picked him up, one person holding each
limb, and put him on the blanket. He was dead, I'm telling you, Michael.
The body was hanging like a pendulum, deadweight. They wrapped the
blanket around him and then they picked him up and carried him inside
the house. They left the door open, and I should have gone in with them,
but I couldn't. I was too scared and they were too fucking spooky the
way they were acting, the way they just ignored me, and I didn't want
Jessica to see any more of... of..." She fell into my arms, wailing, at
a loss for words.

"Chris ... did the cops come?" My heart was pounding, sweat poured from
my body like rain. I knew that either answer to this question would
explain the lack of response I got that afternoon.

She nodded a wet "yes" against my shirt. "There were two cops. That's
it. I had to give them a statement. They let me go after that, but the
car was totaled, so it got impounded."

Impounded...

"What about emergency teams?"

She shook her head. "No."

"They give you an alcohol test? The cops?"

"No."

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I thought about the car, then asked, "How could the car have been
totaled if you only hit a man?" Only a man. Jesus. Would I have made
such an insensitive comment if my mind wasn't a total mess itself?

She replied with a flurry of cries, and I found the common sense to not
concern myself with the car-- my means of escape--at the moment. Jessica
had begun crying too. She squeezed harder on my leg, then said, "What
about Page, Mommy?"

Page... I'd completely forgotten about our pet, justly so I told myself.
"Where's the dog, Chris?"

She pulled her face away from my chest. It was painted deep red, glossy
with tears. Her eyes flitted in their sockets. "He bounded from the car
and ran away after I opened the door to get out... after I hit the
jogger. We called and called for him but he never came back." Given the
situation, I would've done the same thing. Run and run and never come back.

"The policeman said he'd watch out for him," Jessica added.

I looked across the expanse of front lawn, all the way to Harlan Road
and then beyond to the woods across the street. I'd hoped for Page's
sudden return, to see our little cocker spaniel charging gleefully out
from between a couple of tree trunks--it would act, at the very least,
as a comforting distraction for Jessica. But there was no dog, and I
resigned myself to the possibility that we might never see him again.

Feeling closed in, I pulled away from Christine a bit. Despite the
terror of her day, and the fact that we had no car, all I cared about
was how I could go about

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convincing my wife that leaving Ashborough at once was the right thing
to do. Perhaps her experience had triggered a need to flee this place,
just as mine had. I prayed that it had, but somehow, knew that it hadn't.

I shoved my hands in my pockets, eyes searching the ground, mind
treading waves of anxious thoughts. Death seemed to be a common
occurrence here in Ashborough, and I'm not talking death amongst your
bad-eating heart-disease groups or tainted drinkingwater breast-cancer
collectives. No, death here was of the uncommon variety--secretive
slayings, shocking accidents, ritual butcherings, et cetera, et
cetera--all seemingly tolerated and perhaps accepted among the local
inhabitants. I thought of Phillip and his chronicles of the Isolates, of
their legend and the dark lore of their sacrifices. It seemed more
believable now that there might actually be some ancient curse on this
town, something that couldn't be stopped. Plus so much more, I thought,
thinking of Christine's tale of the townsfolk coming out to retrieve
their dead comrade. Of the cops who let her go after a few general
questions. Of the absence of a medical team at the scene of the accident.

The animal must be alive at the time of sacrifice.

Like a badly kept secret, Phillip's statement kept coming back to me.
That, and then so much more. I felt strangely haunted by the insinuation
beneath his words. I remembered how his eyes pinned me at that moment,
how they seemed to say, Remember what I'm telling you, Michael, because
someday it will save your life. The warning came from his lips with
forced deliberation, as if each word had had a period following it. I
recalled

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the deer in the shed last night, how it could have been put in there for
me to find. Then, I recalled Lauren Hunter, how she'd been put to near
death, then served to me on a concrete platter with all the telltale
clues of what to do next. But... I hadn't done what was expected of me.
I'd failed the test. The deer died, and Lauren Hunter died. And after
death they would serve no purpose.

The animal must be alive at the time of sacrifice.

So they were taken away, two opportunities long gone to commit the deed
expected of me.

What's next, Michael? Who's next?

Christine picked up Jessica. Both of them had stopped crying, and were
silently staring at me as though waiting for me to perform a miracle
that would make this day start over again.

I said, "The car was really messed up, huh?"

Chris nodded. "The whole front end was crushed in. Both tires on the
left side were flat. That must've happened when I ran over the animal."

"Did you see it?" I asked.

"See what?"

"The animal you hit." I thought of the footprints on the walkway, and
wondered.

She hesitated, then answered, "Not really... just a flash of a small
lanky body."

"How fast were you driving, Chris?"

She looked to the ground, then placed Jessica down. "Honey, go inside,
please."

I thought about stopping her, but said nothing. Jessica slowly paced
away, over the walkway, then up the

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porch, where she remained, watching us.

I looked at Christine, and was about to explain to her my plan of
fleeing Ashborough, when she ripped me a new asshole. "Michael, you
listen to me and you listen real good. Your pregnant wife gets into a
car accident and not once do you ask if I'm all right or if your
daughter is all right. No, you just stand there and ask questions about
the fucking minivan and whether or not I was doing the speed limit like
you're Joe-Fucking-Deputy from the Ashborough police department. I
could've been hurt or killed, or worse yet, carried away by one of those
fucking zombie weirdos after they climbed out of their tomb to claim
their prize cadaver. This has been one hell of a day, Michael, and I'm
done with it. If you have any questions about the car, then call the
Ellenville body shop. That's where it'll be for the next two weeks."

She stormed away, body stiff and bobbing. Upon reaching the porch, she
took Jessica by the hand, then turned, looked at me, and proclaimed,
"Jess is going to take a bath. After that I'm going to shower, then get
into bed. Good night, Michael."

It wasn't even dark yet. "What about dinner?"

"I'm not hungry."

"What about the car, Chris?" I yelled as she went into the house. The
screen door slammed and the cowbell on the eave tolled lifelessly. I
walked up the front steps and followed her inside. Chris was already
halfway up the stairs. Her shoes lay haphazardly on the living room

155

floor like discarded hand puppets. "How are we supposed to get around
with no car?"

She stopped, turned, looked at me. "Obviously, Michael, we don't."

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Chapter Eighteen

Christine did as she'd promised. An hour later she was quietly nestled
in bed, probably not sleeping, but unapproachable nonetheless. I'd spent
the first hour while they were showering peeking out of the windows,
looking for Page, looking for golden lights, looking for those
responsible for claiming the dead bodies from my property. But I saw
nothing. All I saw was a gradual gathering of darkness and a handful of
fireflies that taunted me with their blinking lights.

Surprisingly enough, an appetite grew within me (well, I'd puked up my
breakfast and was a tad too distracted for lunch, so it wasn't that much
of a surprise). I ate a handful of wheat crackers and a few slices of
Muenster cheese--I passed on Christine's leftover meat loaf; the image
of meat didn't win over my stomach--drank a cup of tea, then treaded
into the office

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to check for messages. Honestly, given the day's events, I really didn't
give a shit about my job, and was frankly surprised that I remembered I
had any appointments at all. When I got there I found that all three of
my afternoon appointments, Virginia Hastings included, had called to
cancel. I shuddered as I listened to their voices on the answering
machine, thinking over and over again: conspiracy ... paranoia. I had a
very strong feeling this wouldn't be the last time these two words
ruffled my mind.

Obsessively, I paraded around the house locking all the doors and
windows, checking each one twice just to be sure, and of course glancing
outside just in case. While securing Jessica's room--her bed was
empty--I recalled her earlier irrational fear of ghosts, which didn't
appear so irrational now after all. Had my daughter been privy to
something? Should I have heeded her warning? I snuck into my bedroom via
the connecting bathroom. The room was dark, the wooden blinds shuttered
and closing out the hazy dusk light. I looked down at Christine, her
body curled beneath the sheets. Again I thought she might've been faking
sleep--also Jessica, who was lying beside her--but I let them be.
Careful not to stir the blinds, I turned each window latch before
tiptoeing from the room.

I went back downstairs, my plan at the moment to find some type of
transportation out of Ashborough, if not for tonight, then for first
thing in the morning.

If we made it through the night...

I turned off all the lights in the house except for the three-bulb
chandelier over the kitchen table, dimming

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it so that only the table lay beneath in its soft illumination. I sat
down, opened the phone book and called the only cab company listed,
located twelve miles away in Ellenville. The dispatcher, a
young-sounding woman who identified herself as Jean, was courteous and
polite throughout the conversation until I told her I needed to be
picked up in Ashborough, at which she hesitated, then replied, "I'm
sorry, sir, we have only two cars on call tonight and they're both to
remain in Ellenville." I pleaded my case but lost. Great.

Rental car companies were non-existent, even in Ellenville. The closest
airport was ninety miles south, and none of the shuttles offered a
pickup service outside of the city's limits. Buses? Yeah, right.

My only potential ticket out of town was five minutes down the road.

Phillip Deighton.

The clock struck eight. The tolls, suddenly ominous, seemed to stuff the
house. I waited an eternity until they finished, then picked up the
phone and dialed Phillip. He answered on the third ring and I could tell
that he'd been crying. In the last minute prior to calling I'd planned
at least a dozen questions for Phillip, like what he knew about the
"Isolates," who they really were, and if "they" might be responsible for
all the mayhem in my life; like who might've put the deer in my shed.
How about telling me what really happened to Rosy? Oh, and Phillip, can
I borrow your car so I can get the fuck out of this crazy place?

I never got question one out.

"Phillip... ?"

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More sobbing. Some coughs. It always pained me to hear a grown man
cry--as a doctor I'd heard my share--and despite the fact that Phillip
seemed to be the keeper of many dark secrets, he was still a friend--
the only damn one I had.

"No, it's okay, Michael," he replied. "I'm glad you called."

"What's wrong?"

"It's Rosy. ..."

"What about her? Is she not feeling well?" Wishful thinking. I figured
out what had happened before he told me. Odds-on favorite here in
Ashborough.

"She's dead." His voice was dry and mechanical, the tears suddenly cut
off. A silence loomed between us ... well, not a total silence.
Phillip's raspy breathing cut through the phone like static, filtering
into my head as though electrically charged.

I broke the hush with, "My God, that's terrible. How did it happen?"

More silence, and I'd hoped that some kind of revelation would overpower
his lips. "Michael... we need to talk."

I saw this as an invitation--as well as a kind of cheap, shameful
victory. It appeared I was finally going to get some answers, even
though it took the death of Rosy Deighton to get them, something I for
the moment didn't really care about. This doctor had become numb to
adversity over the past twenty-four hours, and had subsequently fallen
into survival mode. It was do or die, and now was the time to do.

"So... let's talk."

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"In person ... not on the phone."

"I'm not leaving my house, Phil." And I meant it too.

"I'll come to you."

I was about to disagree, but beggars can't be choosers, and I was
teetering on the edge of damnation with my only ray of light dimming
very quickly. Phillip was that last bit of hope, and as they once taught
me in Bible studies many years ago, Do as He says and you shall find
salvation. Phillip wasn't exactly He, but as far as I was concerned, he
might just be the next best thing.

"Okay," I agreed, my voice sounding distant to me. I felt overcome with
fear again. Would Phillip Deighton have some answers for me? I felt no
safer letting him into my home. And to think moments earlier I'd found
myself wishing for his help; now it felt as though he would be bringing
more danger to me.

I hung up the phone, realizing a second later that Phil had already
disconnected the line. I thrust myself away from the table, then crossed
the living room and went outside onto the porch to wait for him.
Darkness had swallowed up the last remnants of the day, a solid layering
of gray clouds absorbing any possibility of blue moonlight. I reached
back inside and switched on the porch light. By the time Phillip arrived
ten minutes later, a cloud of moths was fluttering about it.

As he paced up the driveway, I immediately guessed by the pained look on
his face that he'd needed to get away from his house; Rosy had died
there and this bereaved man's first instinct was to flee the place where
it happened. I also knew that this could force him to give in to the
dark thoughts taunting his mind. Step one,

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come tell all to Michael. Step two, shake his hand goodbye. Step three,
go for menage a trois with twelve inches of bathwater and a live radio.
Here I come, Rosy, won't be long now.

He paced up the driveway, eyes darting between me and the gravel meeting
his booted footsteps. He wore a pair of denim jeans and a jacket, and a
Red Sox baseball cap that sat crookedly upon his head. When he reached
the porch, he took the cap off and his dark puffy eyes met mine. His
face was the color of redwood leaves. He broke down as he walked up the
steps, nearly dropping to one knee at the top. I grabbed him by the
forearm and led him into one of the rattan chairs, holding on even after
he sat down. He shook his head back and forth, running his free hand
across his damp brow. "She's suffered so much ... and if that wasn't
enough for them, they had to take her from me."

"Who, Phil? Who are you talking about?"

"You know who I'm talking about." His voice was like sandpaper. Broken
by sobs. He kept his gaze away from mine.

"The Isolates..."

He nodded, then looked up at me. "You do believe me, don't you, Michael?"

I didn't answer him. "What happened to Rosy, Phil?"

He hesitated, then said, "They came in the middle of the night. As
usual, I had all the windows and doors locked, but just like last time
they found their way into the house. They're no different from rats or
cockroaches, Michael. They have no feeling, no sense of compassion, only
drive. It's all instinctual. When they

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want something, they just come out and get it and nothing can hold them
back, locked doors included."

It was at this moment I remembered the steel doors that Neil Farris had
installed in his office, two of them closing out either ends of the
hallway. I'd changed them the first week I moved in. All of a sudden, I
wished I hadn't.

"And last night," he continued, "they decided to take Rosy. They found a
way into the house, don't ask me how, and they snatched her from our
bed. Jesus, I didn't even know it'd happened until I got up in the
morning and saw that Rosy was gone."

I rubbed my lips, swallowed something hard and fiery in my throat. Damn
it, I believed him. I didn't want to, but I did. Still, I had to come at
him with some kind of off-pitch angle, an innocent-until-proven-guilty
kind of perspective. "Phil, are you sure she just didn't get up and
leave? I mean, how do you know she was actually kidnapped?"

"Kidnapped? Did I say she was kidnapped, Michael? No ... they kidnapped
her the first time, and just look at how they brought her back to me,
all chewed up, and there wasn't one doctor at Ellenville Hospital that'd
been willing to help her. They knew what they would've been in for if
they had. Oh, thank God for Neil Farris, God bless his soul, he took
care of my Rosy, although now I wonder if it'd all been worth it. She
suffered like a bastard for the past five years, lived in constant fear.
And then Neil, he paid the price."

"So Neil wasn't killed by a dog then."

"No, no." He closed his eyes, coughed, then added,

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"He was killed by them. And so was my Rosy."

I placed a tense fist against my chin. "You said that they took her from
your bed."

"Yes..."

"And killed her."

"Yes."

"So where's her body, Phil?"

He looked up at me, eyes blank and looking over my shoulder as if Death
itself had been standing behind me, tuning into our conversation.

"Ain't no body. They killed her... right in my bedroom, while I was
asleep, then took her away. That's what they always do."

The deer, gone. Lauren Hunter, gone...

Despite everything I'd seen and heard and experienced, I was still
having trouble believing him. Denial, in all its glory. "Tell me
something, Phil. If there's no body, then how do you know she's really
dead? Perhaps she's still alive, someplace we can find her."

He shook his head no. Then he blew me away.

Eyes pinning mine, Phillip Deighton reached into the left pocket of his
denim jacket. He pulled out a small Ziploc bag. Inside were a pair of
human eyes, plus a hunk of gray blood-matted hair.

I stepped back against the porch railing, shocked, utterly repulsed, not
only by the contents of the bag, but also by the fact that Phillip had
picked them up and was now dangling them between us like a sick
show-and-tell exhibit. Instantly I hated Phillip, feared him, felt an
uncommon dislike simply standing here before his frail form. I took a
deep breath. A breeze swept by; the

164

late July air felt cold and slimy. It brought something awful-smelling,
like rotten fruit. Phillip put the bag back into his pocket--the eyes
made a soft bloody squelching noise as he did this--my gaze following
the slow rhythm of his movement as though hypnotized by it. He then put
his hands in his lap and began rocking gently back and forth.

Now a familiar sense of fear prevailed, and I wondered for a fleeting
moment if Christine had any inkling of the real danger that existed
here. Probably not. I looked into the darkness of the house, the single
glow of the kitchen chandelier barely making its way to the front door.
The living room furniture sat like phantoms in the dark, their hulks
intimidating in their motionlessness. Upstairs, my family slept, unaware
of the dangers lurking. What they knew was nothing compared to the true
dangers lying beneath the surface. My job was to convince them of their
presence before we too fell victim to their dark intentions.

But even if you do convince Christine of the clangers here, Michael, how
do you intend to leave with no means of transportation ?

Phillip.

"Phillip?"

He remained silent, gaze cast down. He looked pathetic, he needed to be
institutionalized. I wasn't too far behind. "I've no more reason to
live, Michael. I failed them once again, and now they will haunt me
until they decide it's my time. I'm fucked, royally fucked."

You've been royally fucked for a long, long time. ...

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Feeling dizzy, I leaned back against the railing, and even though I had
a very strong inkling, I still asked, "What do you mean that 'you've
failed them once again?" I thought about what he told me in the woods
that day, about how they'd taken his daughter, and then what they
apparently did to Rosy.

How he'd "failed them" in the past.

Finally he peered up at me. He looked like he'd been through a hell of a
war, cheeks hollowed, eyes dark and sunken. "I told you all about it
when we went into the woods that day, when I showed you their shrine."
He paused. "All the residents of Ashborough must make a sacrifice to the
Isolates. And the sacrifice must be alive at the time of offering." It'd
haunted me, and damn near murdered me now to hear it again from his lips.

"I'd told you all about this," he continued, "about the legend, about
how Old Lady Zellis had told me the brutal truth all those years ago.
It'd been her duty back then to warn folks of the law here in
Ashborough. But not anymore, no, she's old and weary ... has been for at
least twenty years now. Now we do it, the townsfolk. And it was my duty
as your closest neighbor to get you to make a sacrifice. I failed. You
didn't do it. And because of that, they took Rosy from me."

"It was you who put the deer in the shed, wasn't it?"

He nodded, eyes downcast, looking weak and ashamed. "Both of them. I'd
assumed you'd thought I was a bit nuts, and rightly so, after the whole
grand tale I told you. I mean, I would've too if I were in your shoes.
But I still needed to convince you that the sacrifice had to be made,
and if I kept telling you to do it, then

166

you'd've thought I was totally out of my mind and you'd've very quickly
separated yourself and your family from me and Rosy. You know what I'm
saying? Stay away from crazy Phil, old bastard's a few cards short of a
full deck. Still, I knew that if I'd just planted a seed in your head,
it just might germinate and you'd start thinking seriously about the
sacrifice, and maybe heed my warning. As it it turns out, it didn't work."

"So you put the deer in the shed hoping that I'd haul it up there on
their stone."

"Yes ... I had no choice but to try."

"What about the woman, Phillip? Did you send her to me as well?" My
voice had a sudden shaky, distracted tone to it, one barely recognizable
as my own. This was fear of my neighbor answering yes to this question.
That'd be the icing on the cake: My closest neighbor is a homicidal
maniac too. ...

He looked up at me, face gone to stone with shock. "What woman?"

"One of my patients, Lauren Hunter. Lived on the east side of town. She
was severely mutilated in the woods just outside my house. Spent her
last breathing moments crawling to my door. Bled to death before I could
get help."

"When did this happen?"

"Today."

He shook his head defiantly, burying his face in his hands. "They did
it... they were testing you to see if you'd make the sacrifice. They're
very serious about the games they play." He paused again. "Did they come
for the body after she died?"

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My heart started banging against my rib cage. "Yes ... the deer too."

He nodded. "It's their way of telling you that you missed your
opportunity, and that you should prepare for the next one. Dear God,
Michael," he cried, raising his voice. "Make the sacrifice now, tonight,
before they come for Jessica or Christine!"

A series of emotions rose up inside me: fear, anger, frustration, all
rolled up into one evil brew. It made me aggressive, and I responded by
grabbing Phillip by the collar. "Damn you, Phillip! Why didn't you warn
me the first day I moved in!" He fell limp in my grasp, like a bag of
oats. I let him go and he slumped in the chair. "You were so cordial and
kind that day, offering us lunch, and all along you knew that my family
was in grave danger, you ... you fucking fraud!"

"I couldn't tell you!" he shouted, then took a few short breaths and
continued more quietly as if realizing that he might wake up the girls.
"They hear what's going on, Michael. They listen to our conversations...
any time they want to. Don't ask me how they do it, could be super
hearing, radio signals, ESP. I don't know. If I'd said anything to you
that could've been interpreted as a warning, they might've killed me, or
Rosy. Understand ... I couldn't mention it at the time. That's why I
sent you upstairs, into my bedroom. I knew that if you'd seen Rosy, it
might've clued you in to the evil that exists here."

I cooled down, nodded, a kaleidoscope of images twisting throughout my
mind. Neil Farris, Rosy Deighton, Lauren Hunter. All dead, all dead. "I
did wonder

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what had happened to her. I also wondered if Neil Farris's bad luck had
come from the same source. I started putting the pieces together,
thinking along the lines of a wild animal attack. I guess I was in the
ballpark, sort of." I raised a hand to my mouth and chewed a firm nail.
"You know ... she said something to me that day."

Neil stared up at me, looking intensely interested.

"She mentioned that they were going to come for me, just like they did
for Farris, and everyone else in the godforsaken town. As she put it."

"She tried to warn you. It wasn't her duty to do so. It did her no good."

"Then my patient, Lauren ... just moments before her death she said that
they were coming for me. Phil... she said my wife's name. I'm telling
you, she must've done some checking up on me 'cause I'd never mentioned
Christine to her before."

Phillip shook his head, eyes tearing. He sobbed a bit. "I'm not in the
right frame of mind just now, and if I was, I'm not sure I'd know what
to make of that. Could be your patient might've known something. Or..."

"Or what?"

"She could've heard them talking."

"What? Talking? Are you fucking kidding me?" I heard a sudden rustling
in the trees alongside the house, somewhere close to the scene of
Lauren's murder. I cut myself off, looked that way, squinting deep into
the darkness of the woods and becoming vaguely aware of the breeze and
the odd coolness and faint rotting-vegetables odor it carried. It was
terribly unpleasant, poisonous perhaps. My heart slammed so

169

hard against my chest, I thought it might soon burst. I looked back at
Phil, who leaned his weight on the chair and stood. He replaced his Red
Sox hat. I looked at his jacket pocket, the juicy tip of the Ziploc bag
peeking out.

"I need to go back home, Michael," he said, eyes darting toward the
woods. Paranoia--here's a living breathing example of it in action. "I'm
not sure how many days I have left there," he added, at once anxious to
get away.

"Phil..."

Here we go ... do or die ...

"Christine had an accident with the car today, and ... and I tried to
find some means of transportation, but I couldn't. Damn it, Phil... I
want out of here. Now. Tonight. Let's take your car, all of us, leave
this fucking hellhole." Automatically, I kept shooting glances back
toward the woods.

(Paranoia.)

Are they out there now, watching? Listening?

Phillip laughed incredulously, loaded with mad volume. His tears were
gone, but his body twitched as if he'd been prodded with a slight
charge. He looked like a man who'd just discovered a swarm of ants
beneath his clothes. He staggered down the porch steps and, in
mid-stride, turned to look at me. "You ever see me drive, Michael?"

Damn ... I hadn't. Come to think of it, I hadn't done much of anything
since moving to Ashborough. Christine had done most of the shopping and
escorting Jessica into town or the park. I'd left 17 Harlan Road

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perhaps a half-dozen times since moving here (excluding lunches with the
Deightons), all of those short excursions into town with Christine and
Jessica, once to the school, a few times to the hardware store, once for
a haircut at the barbershop. Other than that, I'd been your typical
work-out-of-the-home doctor with a grand old office to delight myself in
... just what I'd always wanted.

Yeah, just what I always fucking wanted.

I shook my head.

"Haven't driven anywhere in four years. They won't let me. Seems as
though they don't want you to either." Phillip turned and walked down
the front path.

"Christine hit a dog," I said unconvincingly, taking the steps to the
bottom. "We should have the car back in ..." Jesus, how long did she say?

At the end of the path, Phillip turned and yelled, "Michael, I've got
some very sad news for you ... you're never gonna see your car again."

My heart leaped up into my throat, one powerful beat at a time. I wanted
to cry, and might have if it hadn't been for the sudden anger swallowing
up my fear. "Fuck you, Phil! I thought you were a friend. You fucking
used us, now we're screwed like the rest of the poor bastards in this
goddamned town!"

"I'm sorry, Michael... I wish I could help you, but I can't even help
myself."

I started walking toward him. "I'll fucking walk out of here. Twelve
miles to Ellenville? No problem. I'll get help there." I was starting to
lose it. I could feel the gears slipping in my head.

171

Phillip, still walking away, shook his head and yelled, "Nobody there's
gonna help you. Nobody here either. Besides," he said, stopping and
pointing into the woods, "you won't get very far. You already know that
Neil Farris wasn't out for a casual jog. Just like so many others, he'd
tried to leave. And they got in the way."

I stopped, feeling suddenly defeated. "Fuck you," I said quietly, not
sure if he heard me or not. Didn't matter.

Phillip started a slow jog down the driveway, the lamplights creating
monolithic shadows of his body. "Good-bye, Michael," he called, then
started crying out loud.

I stayed outside, at first watching Phillip, then staring into the
woods, all the while listening to his cries until he disappeared around
the curve a hundred yards away down Harlan Road.

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Chapter Nineteen

Hours later, something woke me. A dog barking. Outside. I opened my eyes
and realized that I'd been sleeping in Jessica's bed. Second night in a row.

My memory fell into a bit of a cloud; perhaps my subconscious was
attempting to suppress the unpleasant events of the day. But the image
of Lauren's death was too strong and haunted me like a ghostly illusion,
as though her bloody soul had slid under the sheets with me and hugged
me with the intent of chilling me to the bone.

At once I thought of Phillip, of how he'd betrayed me to protect himself
and his family--all along he'd been playing his little role in this
great conspiracy. Whether or not there existed an ancient race of people
living in the woods, or even some sick band of cultists (suddenly the
latter seemed to make more sense), I needed to

173

protect my family from them, and that meant leaving here as soon as
possible.

After Phillip had left, I came back into the house with the intention of
standing guard until the morning. With all the horror and fear and
anxiety racing through my body, I felt I had no choice but to stay awake
while they peacefully slept, unaware of the dangers surrounding them.
But then my body crashed and I found myself crawling atop Jessica's bed,
putting my chin on the sill and peering out the window into the yard,
seeing only the shadows of swaying trees before falling asleep.

I didn't remember dreaming, but it seemed as though the barking dog had
somehow infiltrated my subconscious. Dazed, I sat up in bed. The world
around me felt strangely intangible, as though I'd been put under
hypnosis. I looked around. The dolls on Jessica's bureau sat like vague
growths in the forest, dark and indistinct. I crawled to the window and
looked outside, as I did earlier before falling asleep. Jimmy Page lay
on his haunches below, out on the lawn. Gazing up at me. He barked
again, then sprang across the walkway to the side of the house.

I tossed the covers aside and rolled my legs off the edge of the bed.
The wood floor was cold on my feet; it sent a shiver racing across my
back. On the floor next to my feet lay the head of one of Jessica's
dolls--the same one that'd fallen off some nights ago. Its eyes stared
up at me, two dark glossy orbs, bristly red hair splayed out behind it
like anemone tentacles. The lids blinked, once at first, then again and
again in a

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methodical fashion, producing a faint clicking beat; there hadn't been a
breeze in the room--the window was shut--so I couldn't blame the
movement on this. I looked to the shelf. One of the dolls had indeed
lost its head--there was a gap in the collective shadow of dolls that
wasn't there before. I closed my eyes and rubbed them. When I opened
them, I saw that the head had vanished from the floor. I looked over at
the bureau again. There it was, back in its place, sitting firmly atop
the plastic body it belonged to.

This is a dream, Michael. You're dreaming. ...

Page barked again. It sounded distant and echoey. Yet... stunningly
lucid for a dream. I paced from the room, feeling as if my feet were
floating inches above the floor. My body still felt cumbersome and
heavy, and it took quite an effort to simply move. I turned on the
landing and took the stairs one at a time, the runner itching against my
feet despite the "floaty" sensation. The polished banister was thick in
my grasp. I never remembered having a dream so ... so real.

I crossed the living room into the kitchen, then followed the hallway
(with its nice new hollow-and-rather-insecure cutout doors) into the
waiting room of my office. I could hear Page barking outside just beyond
the entrance, wanting to be let in. I opened the door. Indeed Page was
there. But instead of clawing at the door, he bounded away ten feet,
then turned around and looked at me and started barking again. I
recognized this little doggy gesture; he'd done it before. It basically
said, C'mon Daddy, this way, I want to show you something. I went
outside and nearly tripped over

175

my boots, which were still damp from my attempt to wash them that
afternoon. I slid my feet in them, then walked across the back lawn to
where Page stood. He barked one more time, then raced to the shed

(the shed)

where he stood and waited ... presumably for me to follow. I stepped
closer to him, and could see in the faint moonlight streaks of wet blood
jeweling his furry face. It was on his paws and body too. I swallowed a
very real-feeling lump in my throat, then stopped, five feet from the shed.

I looked at the slightly ajar door, twisted my head in an effort to peer
into its depths. It began to move, swaying at first as if perhaps caught
in the embrace of a breeze. Then, ever so slowly, it opened, the rusty
hinges creaking like ghosts riding the beams of a haunted house.

From the darkness within, I heard a noise. A shuffling.

Something ... was ... coming ... out.

I saw the head first. Then the body.

A deer.

Not just a deer. The deer.

It stood just beyond the entrance of the shed, its head crushed in, a
black blotch of blood marring its neck. Its ribs jutted like white chalk
lines. A wet organ dangled from its gut like a piece of peeled fruit.

I looked at my surroundings. The scene was deadly silent... no birds
chirped, not a cricket sang. Even Page sat mute, looking up at me with
soulful eyes, the moonlight reflecting glossily off the blood on his

176

muzzle. I looked back at the deer. Somehow it had returned from the
dead, its intentions dreadfully unknown. It stared at me with its one
good eye (the other had vacated the socket, leaving a dark moist void
behind like a rotting hole in a peach), then limped up the path into the
woods. Page yipped, and followed. I stayed motionless, watching the two
animals walking side by side like animated characters in a sick cartoon.
They stopped momentarily, turned back to look at me. Waited. Waited for
me to follow. Which I eventually did.

Surprisingly enough, I felt no fear, and understood why almost
immediately. This was a dream. Dead animals do not walk, and definitely
do not request my presence--even live animals don't do that. Well, maybe
Page did sometimes ... but somehow, here, he acted differently. He had
an almost human quality to him, lending even more credence to the fact
that at this very moment I was home in my bed, under the sheets, eyes
rolling feverishly beneath my lids.

Strangely enticed, I pursued the animals into the woods. The deer
bounded off at breakneck speed. Page barked at me to follow and I picked
up the pace, walking briskly to the spots where he would stop so I could
catch up. The path wound in and about the trees; the deer would appear
out of nowhere at times, like magic, sometimes right next to me, other
times in the distance. And then, just as swiftly as it would
materialize, it would disappear, as if it'd been obliterated from my
memory. For a brief moment I wondered why dream characters often pulled
this stunt... perhaps there was some grand scheme going on in one's
subconscious, a system

177

or methodology that for some reason also sent you back to college
butt-naked, late for an exam you didn't study for, or to the supermarket
where, if you were lucky, you might find yourself playing
hide-the-salami with the cute cashier in the produce aisle. Some things
we simply didn't have answers for. This was one of them.

Page and the deer pressed on. I followed them, never once straying from
the path. Everything felt so damn real. I could feel the brambled
woodland beneath my boots: the sticks, the roots, the soil. The night
wind was cool against my bare legs and arms. At one point my forehead
found a low-lying pine branch; the needles pricked painfully against my
skin.

Despite my lucidity and sense of control, I wasn't enjoying this dream
at all. I told myself that in lucid dreams you could wake up at any time
if you wanted to ... all you had to do was try. I tried ... but with no
success. And as a result found myself suddenly riddled with
apprehension. This dream held me in a very powerful grasp, one that
would keep me here until I woke up--at which point I'd probably scoff
cockily at all its incongruities. So I prayed for morning, wanting very
badly to wake up--I felt no want nor desire to follow my little cocker
spaniel and a zombie deer up into the circle of stones, the shrine of
the Isolates. A place I didn't want to be. Dream or not.

The animal can't be dead... it has to be sacrificed on the big stone.

But like a fly caught in a web, I felt no alternative but to allow fate
to run its course. I followed the animals,

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feeling as if I had been leashed and led along the path. I coursed over
all the familiar rises and dips, high up into the woodland. The distance
didn't appear to vary much from my real-life trek up here with Phillip.
Neither did the environs: the ground got very soft in spots, my boots
squelching in some awful muddied puddles. The trees towered over me like
skyscrapers.

Eventually, in the same amount of time it took me and Phillip to get
there, I crossed the perimeter of the circle of oaks into the shrine of
ancient white stones.

Almost immediately I began to experience pure fear again. It hit me like
a sandstorm in a gale, whippingly powerful and relentless. The world
spun giddily. Oh, God, would I live through this?

It seemed too horrific to be true (again I had to remind myself that
this was nothing more than a very vivid dream), but here she was in all
her slaughtered glory: Rosy Deighton. She was slumped on the big center
slab, body facing skyward, arms stretched out over her head and dangling
off the edge, fingertips in the dirt. Her nightgown fell in silky
tatters across her gutted torso, entrails stripped and lying prone to
the canopy above. Slivers of moonlight trickled through the silent
leaves, igniting her still-open eyes like two silver gems. I never felt
so doomed in my life, the horror of her glistening organs exposed to the
elements torturing me just as much as the age-old scars still visible on
her skin.

I realized now that this was more than just a dream. It was a horrid
form of trauma, one that had me hypnotized and wholly dominated. In a
way it taunted me and made me realize that despite my years of schooling

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and professional experience, there was nothing I could do to save Rosy
Deighton. Or Lauren Hunter. And perhaps, I realized with phenomenal
dread, my family.

A silent breeze picked up, pushing the branches of the canopy aside,
bathing the center stone with horrid radiance. The Stonehenge-like
stones, in all their towering brilliance, cast dark chiseled shadows
across the entire area.

Page and the deer stopped alongside the center slab. My playful little
cocker spaniel leaped up into the stone and settled down between Rosy's
legs, duly burying his tongue in her open cavity. The deer barked once,
and Page looked up at me, bloody maw shriveled back from his teeth. His
once-golden coat lay matted against his body in a ghostly phosphorescent
hue, gray and spotted with blackened smudges.

The dog jumped down from the rock.

Rosy Deighton began to move.

First one arm, which had been horribly dislocated from the shoulder like
a section of loose rope, twitched a few times, then swung forward in a
quick-jerk maneuver across her chest. Then her eyes, which had already
been open, grew even wider and rolled in their bloodied sockets; crimson
teardrops trickled down her cheeks. Her mouth--that ghastly black
maw--moved in its only one possible quiver, spewing forth an alarming
blend of coagulated fluids and gurgling moans. She sat up horridly fast
as if controlled by strings, then looked at me, eyes still rolling,
mouth still chomping.

Pure fear felt like a fairy tale at this moment... the

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horror, the terror I felt was unfathomable. It rose in me and filled me
up so much that I simply couldn't take it anymore. I felt as if I might
very well implode ... but at this point realized with dismay that I'd
have to begin the horror anew, because in dreams one never really dies.
You wake up on impact.

I'd woken up, all right... right back into the dream. The real waking
world wouldn't come until this script had run its course to the very
bitter end.

As if pulled by ghosts, Rosy rolled off the surface of the stone onto
the forest floor. A small cloud of dust rose around her fallen body,
which lay utterly motionless while her head twisted and jerked on its
own accord, the maw spitting inhuman growls.

Michael...

I heard my name being called, a woman's voice, sweetly nice and tender.
Yet... it rode a haunted echo, proof of otherworldly origins. It's
nothing but a dream voice, nothing but a dream voice. ... I peered in
the direction of the voice--to my right--and shoved my fist in my mouth
to keep from screaming, realizing from the moisture on my cheeks that
I'd been weeping uncontrollably. A new horror stood before me ... one
too vast, too extensive to accept.

Lauren Hunter was here too, walking out from behind one of the stones.
She leaned crookedly against the white slab, half her skinned face
covered in dried blood, her hair a nappy padded mess. She smiled
maniacally--a taunting rictus grin of death rife with chattering
teeth--then creeped across to the front of the stone, dragging her
intestinal leash along with her,

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which snaked away from her body around the back of the stone, dried out
and peppered with flakings of twigs, leaves, and soil. She staggered
toward me, arms outstretched, smile wide and frozen, head bobbing in a
blackly comical way. So goes the cliche: She looked like a fucking rag doll.

The last remnants of my lucid mind tried desperately to wish it all
away. I even closed my eyes and thought maybe, just maybe, I'd find
myself naked in the classroom porking the supermarket cashier.

I opened my eyes.

She was still there.

Closer. Still smiling. Reaching for me. Tendrils of green smoke seeped
from the open wound in her torso.

I tried to scream. Nothing came.

She stopped, as if surprised by my failed attempt to wake up. Her smile
disappeared. "The animal must be alive at the time of sacrifice." Her
body jerked and twitched. Her eyes turned up their sockets, exposing
pus-blood whites.

I looked back at the center stone. Page was there, on all fours, tongue
lolling from his bloody mouth. He panted, in a respite so it seemed. I
staggered over to the center stone and fell to my knees before the dog;
the earth felt soft and moist on my knees. Lauren Hunter walked over
too, fell on the ground beside the sprawled body of Rosy Deighton. The
deer had pulled another vanishing act. Both of them stared at me, Lauren
in a direct line of vision despite lying on the ground, Rosy in a
sidelong glance, unable to twist her inverted head in my direction. Each
of them seemed to exhibit

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a bit of empathy--or so my imagination told me--but these looks were
more likely consents: go-aheads to commence a very tragic resolution.

I wanted to scream, but didn't. I knew it wouldn't come.

"Do it," Lauren said. Rosy said something too, but the words were
unintelligible. Still, the meaning was there. It was time to make the
sacrifice to the Isolates. No avoiding it now.

This is just a dream, just a dream, just a dream...

"The animal must be alive at the time of sacrifice, or you and the ones
you love will fall prey to ruination." A breeze picked up and carried
Lauren's threat into my lungs--I could taste the rot of her words on my
tongue.

I looked at my dog. Jessica's dog. My mind struggled with the thought.

Do it, Michael, do it like they say, and then the game will be over, and
so will the dream, and you will wake up in bed with the morning at your
disposal, plus the entire day to flee Ashborough.

I reached over, petted the dog's fur. Sticky blood filled my hand.

I took my other hand, placed it around the dog's neck. Page didn't resist.

I squeezed.

Hard.

Harder.

I pressed his skull against the stone.

I felt bones moving. Snapping somewhere in his head. Something warm
seeped from his mouth.

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183

184

Chapter Twenty

"Mommy!"

I heard Jessica's voice, as crystal clear as any reality that had come
my way over the years. Yet I immediately thought it was another
dream--another dreadful nightmare. I heard some noises, pots and pans
banging, the scrape of something plastic.

"Come here, honey... don't go outside."

Christine's voice, keeping a leash on our daughter. I opened my eyes,
still assuming that this was all a dream: my tempered breathing, the
sun-specked walls, the dolls in Jessica's room meeting my tired gaze. I
felt no less alert than I had last night when I began my journey.

I stretched out under the sheets, feeling like a swimmer coming up from
the bottom of a deep pool, reality's light growing clearer and brighter
as I waded toward the stirring surface.

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"Mommy! I want to go look for Page!"

Jessica's voice came through loud and clear, her call to Christine from
somewhere near the bottom of the steps a "real world" shove through my
dream-water's surface: I'd woken up. This was no illusion. To be sure, I
remained silent and still for at least five minutes, listening to their
conversation as it filtered into my blooming consciousness.

And thinking of Page.

It was all a dream, nothing more than a crazy, nutty dream. And that was
simply good and fine, a nice little positive in a world suddenly
exploding with negatives. But there were still all those negatives to
contend with. No small potatoes.

Speaking of which, the smell of something cooking wafted upstairs. Eggs,
home fries, bacon. My stomach growled. Despite my torment (and a bastard
of a headache), I smiled. This was perhaps Christine's way of making
up--I'd done the same exact thing yesterday in an effort to mend a hole
in our relationship. A nice warm meal would feel plenty good right now,
and might be in order before breaking the news to the family that we'd
be leaving Ashborough immediately, once and for all. Car or no car.

Neil Farris... dead.

Lauren Hunter... dead.

Rosy Deighton... dead.

Jimmy Page... dead?

Jessica's voice came from downstairs: "Can I wake up Daddy? He'll help
me look for Page."

Christine: "We have no car right now, honey. It's in

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the shop. Don't worry, Page'll come back. We'll go out and call for him
when Daddy gets up."

I looked toward the window. Jessica's dolls were there, all of them,
heads included. Sunlight poked through creases in the blind, slashing
the walls and floor. The clock said it was nearly nine o'clock;
apparently Christine had decided to let me sleep in today. She and
Jessica had turned in rather early last night, and probably got up at
the crack of dawn to do this, that, and the other thing. I wondered with
no care at all as to whether I had an appointment due to arrive at any
moment. Apparently Christine didn't give a hoot either. If this were any
other day, I'd've been pissed off, and would have let Christine know all
about it too.

But today... it was different now, wasn't it? The world had taken on a
new perspective. There'd be no time nor energy to be angry. It all had
to be aimed toward my new directive: the safety of my family.

I heard Christine make a hum sound and clang more pots and pans. There
were some footsteps, then a call from the bottom of the steps. "Michael,
I think there's someone knocking on the office door."

Shit. I'd had an appointment after all. They'll have to wait.
"Christine, could you lean out the kitchen window, tell them to wait
about ten--"

At this very moment I glanced down at my hands, and my words hit a
roadblock.

My hands were covered with blood.

My breathing immediately went shallow, came in painful bursts. My heart
jostled in my chest like a punching bag. In a panic, jaw locked, skin
crawling, I

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ripped the covers aside. Jesus. Messy streaks of blood, everywhere,
staining the cool beige sateen. I looked at my hands again.

There were coarse hairs all over them, stuck in the blood like insects
on flypaper. They were wedged under my nails.

Dog hairs.

Jesus Christ... I feel as if I'm going to die. I think I'm having a
heart attack.

A cannonball of terror blasted up from inside me, suffocating me as it
lodged itself in my throat. The real world had taken on another
identity, one that consisted solely of fragments that'd seeped their way
in from my dreams. I plucked a single hair from my hand, held it up, and
peered at it curiously. Brown, caked with blood.

Jimmy Page's hair.

Now was the time to pack it all in, to pull the tainted covers over my
head and allow the madness to assume control of my mind. It'd be so much
easier to live the rest of my life via straitjacket and padded room.

"Michael, did you hear me? There's an elderly woman outside. She must
have an appointment with you."

I stayed unanswering, my words still held captive.

"Michael?"

I thought I heard her coming upstairs, a bang or two near the bottom of
the steps. I scrambled in a panic, pulling the sheets back over my body,
keeping my hands way down below, near my hips. There was no viable
excuse for my appearance, except perhaps that

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I'd killed someone or something in the middle of the night. Which, boys
and girls, I apparently had.

"I'll be down in a few minutes," I answered as loudly and as
optimistically as possible. "I... I have a stomachache. Tell her to give
me about ten minutes." My mind screamed with confusion, and nothing I
could say would make any sense to me. It all seemed a blur.

There was another bang near the bottom of the steps. Christine, placing
some objects on the lower steps to be carried up later. Not coming up,
thank God.

"I need to go to the bathroom," I called. "I'll be down in a few." The
words felt like rubber balls on my tongue, bouncing away with no
meaningful destination.

"I made you breakfast. It'll be in the microwave when you get down. I'll
offer the woman some tea and let her into the office."

"Okay."

I heard her walk away, back into the kitchen. I ran a hand over my eyes,
unaware until now that I was probably smearing Page's blood all over on
my face. In another wave of panic, I jerked my eyes open for fear of
falling back into a dream and seeing myself face-to-face again with
Lauren, Rosy, or even Page; I couldn't let that happen again, not now. I
got up in a hurry, yanked the sheets off, and shoved them under the bed.
Then I went into the bathroom and ran the water until it began to steam,
keeping my gaze away from the mirror for fear of what I might find.
Blood, blood, everywhere!

The hot water felt like a godsend. I soaped my hands and face, scrubbed
them clean, feeling as though I might even be washing away the very real
events of my dream.

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I toweled down, then got dressed in a rush. During this time, the tears
came and I cried my eyes out, so strongly that my chest burned as I
gasped for air. I was terribly afraid, not only of everything that'd
happened, but also of what might happen. Eventually my cries tapered
away and I dried my face with the damp towel. Feeling a bit more in
control, I retrieved a set of clean sheets from the linen closet in the
hall. I left the bloodstained ones under Jessica's bed, where I hoped
they would remain forever, at least until after we were gone. I put the
clean ones on, telling myself that simply sleeping in them for two
nights in a row would serve as an acceptable reason for changing them.

I went downstairs into the kitchen. Christine had a purse draped over
her shoulder. Jessica held Page's leash and was tapping the floor in a
forward motion as if tethering an invisible puppy. The scene had been
cleared of all breakfast-making evidence, with the exception of a
pitcher of dark green tea--Rosy Deighton's recipe.

Rosy Deighton ...

Christine offered up a forced smile. Clearly she noticed my face, eyes
red and puffy. "You okay, Michael? Heard you crying upstairs." She said
this so matter-of-factly, without an ounce of concern. Apparently she
was still sore at me; last thing she'd want to do now was leave town.

"I..." I was at a loss for words. My family was hustling and bustling
about the house as if there was nothing wrong. As if there was nothing
wrong! Michael, the only thing they've experienced is a bad traffic
accident and

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some very creepy people. Well, those very creepy people are reason
enough to get the hell out of here! Hauling dead bodies away? See you
later, folks!

"Christine," I said, grabbing her arm as she cold-shouldered by me. "We
need to get out of here. Out of Ashborough. Now."

She turned to Jessica, who was standing by the front door. "Honey, could
you please wait outside on the porch?" Jessica nodded, then left the
house in silence; I saw her plop down in one of the rattan chairs on the
porch. Christine looked back at me, eyebrows triangled with anger.
"Michael, what in God's name are you talking about?" She pulled away
from my grasp, as if I were some wild-eyed stranger accosting her in the
street.

"Things ... things just aren't right here. You'd said so yourself. Those
people yesterday, the ones that dragged the body into the house after
your accident--that's not normal, Christine. It's fucking freaky."

"Well, maybe I overreacted, Michael. They probably just wanted to get
him into some shelter."

"Shelter from what? You said you killed him, that his head exploded when
it hit a tree!"

"Well, it looked that way... but I was in a bit of a panic at the time
and, well, I just didn't have my wits about me. It looked that way, but
I couldn't tell for sure. He may have just hurt himself."

"Just hurt himself? How could you not tell? Jesus, Christine, you said
they covered him in a blanket before carrying him inside!"

"Well, yes, I did see that."

"So?"

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"So it's certainly no reason to leave here. What's gotten into you,
Michael?"

"What's gotten into me?" Now I was yelling. Actually screaming. My
faculties had just hurdled the first drop on the emotional roller
coaster and were now plunging down at top speed. "This town is fucking
cursed! We need to get out of here, now!" I was repeating myself, and
not getting my point across.

She shook her head. "You're out of your mind. ..." Then: "Are you taking
something?"

I didn't want to say it, but I had to. I had to mention the existence of
the Isolates. To Christine it would appear utterly irrational--I had no
plausible evidence nor proof to back me up. It was my word against the
world's, one David against a million Goliaths. My revelation would
appear as the ravings of a madman. But Jesus, did I have any other
option at the moment?

"Christine--"

But then she said, "I'm taking Jessica out to look for Page. Your
daughter is very upset, and frankly, I am too--"

I grabbed her arm again. She tried to wrestle away, but I held on tight.
Our eyes locked. "Listen to me Christine ... there's something evil
living here, in the woods. A race of people called the Isolates. They're
keeping the entire town hostage. I know this sounds insane but I beg you
to believe me. Please, we need to leave here now. We'll walk ... or take
the bikes. Please."

I loosened my grasp and she gently pulled away, keeping fearful eyes on
me. I thought for a moment that

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she might've believed me. Then she said, "Where'd you get this crazy idea?"

I swallowed something cottonlike in my throat. "Phillip told me all
about them. He said--"

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No, he told me not to say anything to you ... but I felt it was the
only way I could convince you that we had to leave here. Christine,
please, I implore you. Let's get out of here right this minute. Once we
get out of here I'll explain everything to you."

She moved toward the stairs, grabbed her house keys, which had been
tossed amongst some other things on the third step. "Did you mention
anything about this to Jessica?"

"Of course not." I felt suddenly winded and crashed down on the sofa,
wondering just where I'd find the energy to either walk or run out of
here. Then Phillip Deighton's words entered my mind: Neil Farris wasn't
out for a casual jog, you know. Just like so many others, he'd tried to
leave. And they got in the way. I shuddered.

"I doubt very much that Jessica got frightened yesterday just from the
ghosts on some idiot cartoon."

"Jesus, Christine, are you implying that I had something to do with that?"

She walked to the door. Jessica rose from the chair outside and stood on
the porch, looking in at us with wide concerned eyes. Christine shook
her head, clearly dismayed. "I suggest you go to your office and see
your patient. It might do you some good. We're gonna go out and look for
Page. Take a few moments to think about what you're saying, Michael.
Hopefully, by the

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time we get back you'll have some better explanation for this behavior
of yours. See you later." She walked out, the screen door hitting the
jamb in an unintentional slam.

Utterly frustrated, I began to giggle. Then I broke out in laughter. I
couldn't stop. It occurred to me that fear might make a person do
something irrational, totally absurd even. Here I was doing just that:
laughing up a storm. But in a minute the laughter subsided, and I paced
to the window. My wife and daughter were walking hand-in-hand down the
driveway, calling out for a dog that would never be coming home again.

This made me laugh again. Even harder.

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Chapter Twenty-one

When the laughter evaporated, I went into the kitchen and heated up the
breakfast Christine had left for me. I ate it and washed it all down
with some tepid coffee, which at once made me feel better. I realized
then that from Christine's point of view I must've appeared crazy. She
hadn't the slightest clue about my encounter with Lauren Hunter or about
my dream, which apparently wasn't a dream after all. Plus she'd had an
experience of her own yesterday, and although she'd broken down a bit,
she also appeared to have rebounded nicely after a good night's sleep.
To the unknowing and stable frame of mind, I looked like the lunatic I
clearly imagined myself to be.

I suddenly remembered the bloody sheets under Jessica's bed. Before I
forgot again, I raced upstairs, retrieved them, then came back down and
put them in

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the washer, thereby eliminating the evidence. After I did this, a sense
of the commonplace filtered in, and despite the cloudy sensation
ushering me about, I decided to shove everything aside and move on with
the day as though the war had been waged and won. After all, Michael,
the sacrifice has now been made. You've been freed. You may now live
your life like any common man, woman, or child. You've paid your dues,
now it's time to move on.

Strangely enough, this idea brought on a small wave of relief, as
macabre as it seemed. Perhaps things would be different now. Maybe I
could go on and live the rest of my life in peace and quiet. I put my
dish in the sink, then peered outside and thought about Christine. Ever
since revealing her pregnancy, she'd grown irritable, impatient, yet
adversely independent and distant. If I'd have come to her with a
problem in the past, she would have sat down and listened intently,
offering up some well-thought-out advice on how to tackle it. But
lately, it appeared as if she wanted nothing to do with me, mostly
seeking arguments as a way to avoid conversation. Like this morning. My
overt fear and outright irrational concerns would've alarmed even a
perfect stranger, much less a caring family member. Christine had
brushed off my behavior as common silliness, as though I'd been joking,
and gone on her merry independent way.

Suddenly, something hit me.

Lauren Hunter.

In the throes of death, she had uttered: Christine...

I shook away the alarming thought, trying to

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convince myself that everything would be okay now, that Christine was
simply going through a hormonal-induced phase, and that her ship would
settle down to earth in due time. I focused out the window into the side
yard. Damn hard to believe that a death had occurred there yesterday.
The sun was beaming high and proud. The blooms alongside the house
tossed their balmy scent in through the windows, making everything smell
fresh and clean. Summer was in full gear, and I decided that I should be
happy with it. No sense in worrying about the past. If I did, then I'd
definitely break down and there'd be no more Cayle family outings, no
more tucking Jessica in at night, no more making love to my beautiful wife.

I looked to the right and peered down the walkway where just yesterday a
woman died--where I'd washed away the bloody evidence. For a quick
moment I considered trying the police again, then decided against it.
Heck, I was fine with the way things were at the moment--it was all okay
with me. No sense in tossing another fly in the ointment. It's called
denial! my conscience screamed, but I shrugged that probability off
defiantly. Perhaps when Christine returned later I'd feel differently,
but for now maintaining my sanity was my number-one priority, and I
didn't care how I went about doing it.

Yes, everything was just okay at the moment.

But that would last only a minute.

A single minute. That was how long it took me to

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walk the length of the hallway into the waiting room, and then into my
office, where I greeted my first patient of the day. And fell again into
terror.

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Chapter Twenty-two

My mind began to whirl. I pushed it aside and walked into the patient
waiting room.

For a brief moment I wondered what I must've looked like, whether the
stress was showing on my face. But at this point in the game, who cared?
Did it matter what my patients really thought of me? No, probably not,
considering the possibility that they too were all in on the conspiracy,
and that I was just a little pawn in their wicked game.

The waiting room was empty. I turned around, but curiously saw no one.
The only evidence of anyone having been there was a half-filled glass of
Rosy's dark green tea on the small end table alongside the couch.
Absently, I walked behind the cutout and thumbed through the
day-planner, locating the page for today's date.

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I had no appointments scheduled for today.

Or for tomorrow. Or the next day. Or...

My heart rate sped up. What had started out as a busy practice had gone
completely dead on me--cut off as if the patients had gone on strike.
The very odd thing was that up until Lauren Hunter's death, I'd been
moderately busy. But then the appointments... they'd stopped--the empty
day-planner was the true evidence in black and white. As was the lack of
messages on the answering machine. And that frightened me, not for the
fact that there'd been some obvious boycott of the town physician, but
because I hadn't realized up until now that I'd have absolutely no work
to do from this moment forward. No source of income. Did it really
matter? Didn't you plan on leaving here anyway?

So ... who came by today?

And were they still here?

Christine had mentioned an elderly woman. I scanned the waiting room one
more time, then peeked around the bend into the examining room. It too
was empty.

That left my office.

I walked into the office, looked right and then left at the bookcases
that ran the entire length of the room; the only sound was the ticking
of the pendulum clock on the fireplace mantle. The tightly shuttered
blinds covering the floor-to-ceiling windows closed out most of the
day's light; the room swam in a gloom of dusky shadows. A gentle wind
rattled the panes. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. I thought of
Page.

I strolled to the desk, looked at the papers piled there,

200

hands searching in my pockets. For a moment I'd forgotten that I'd been
looking for someone, and that was when the rug seemed to waver under my
feet. I leaned forward, combatting the dizziness, hands now on the desk
for support. I slumped into the chair and breathed heavily for a minute,
trying desperately to stop the stress from taking over.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Page's bloody collar sitting on the
far right corner of the desk.

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, wished it all away, but it came into clearer
focus as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. Bits of hair jutted from the
metal rivets embedded in the tan leather. Heart racing, I pressed my
feet against the carpet to see if they still touched solid ground; I
hadn't passed out yet. I surveyed the office once again, running a very
quick replay of the events of the night before, and had a very solid
image of the circle of stones in my head when someone spoke to me.

An old woman's voice, coming from behind me.

"Don't turn around, Michael."

A shudder of fear ran through me, so powerful it could have been
charged. My lips went to speak, but only choppy air came.

"We need to talk," the voice said. The sound of it was slow and
staggering. An ancient fortune-teller's words on forty years of Marlboros.

I tried to turn, but a terribly numbing discomfort struck my legs and
arms. "Why can't I see you?" I asked feebly.

"You need to only listen, and nothing more. But...

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listen good, Michael, I shall not repeat myself."

I hesitated, swallowed, eyed the liquor cabinet, and wished for some
brandy. "Okay," I answered by default, nodding slightly.

"It took you time, but you did what was expected of you. Those around
you are now safe... for the time being. But... they will come with more
demands, and when the time comes, and it will come, you must be here for
them, ready, willing, and able. Do not deny them. Do not resist them. Do
not attempt to leave. And most importantly, do not tell a soul of this.
You must isolate yourself, then adhere to my words, and to their demands."

"Who are you talking about?" I asked, feigning ignorance. I already knew
she was referring to the Isolates.

"Those that govern the land. Their way is the law, and it must not be
broken. He who denies their command shall suffer through the torture,
pain, and mortality of their loved ones."

"God, are you saying--?"

"Do as I say, Michael... live your life as if nothing at all has
occurred, and do nothing out of the ordinary. Separate yourself from
your family, from your daughter, Jessica, and your pregnant wife,
Christine. And then, when the time comes, heed their call and do as they
say, and no harm will come to your family. Much will be expected of you.
I suggest you prepare yourself. Your role is one of great importance."

"My role?" I asked, horrified.

"In time, you will find out. Remember, repeat nothing of this to anyone,
most of all your family. Their lives

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will be taken should you not heed this warning. I promise you that."

Silence followed. I could hear the air leaving my lungs in hurried
bursts. I fought the numbness in my legs and spun the chair. I used my
toes against the rug to stop it, catching only a glimpse of the woman as
she fled the room. It was enough to unnerve me for a lifetime.

She'd looked over her shoulder at me the moment I laid eyes on her: the
magnetism of the moment carried great strength, her gaze locking not
only my eyes but my entire body into full numbing inaction. It was at
this moment that I realized she must've used some kind of unearthly
ability to paralyze me. I could see the proof of it in her eyes.

Her golden eyes.

They lay framed in a brown-colored face chiseled with deep wrinkles; her
face was craggy, with the dark grimy complexion of a woman who lived a
life bathing in soil and sunlight. Gray hair fell to her shoulders in
matted scraggs, dirty clothes shrouding her body like oily
service-station rags. Her approximate height of four and a half feet
didn't detract from her supernaturally menacing presence.

I raised a hand, tried to speak to her; a wispy "Wait" fell from my
lips. Her eyes glowed gold, lighting up the corner of the room as she
slipped away into the waiting room.

I forced myself to stand. My legs wobbled precariously, then gave out,
and I crashed down to the floor. "Wait!" I called out again, this time
louder and with a

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bit of newfound strength; apparently the woman's spell had left along
with her. I scrambled to my knees and staggered out of the office into
the waiting room. As I passed between rooms, I caught a rather unusual
scent, something spicy, earthy. Like sodden leaves on a forest floor.

All that was left of her.

Old Lady Zellis.

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204

205

Part Two

A Matter of When

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206

207

Chapter Twenty-three

Summer segued into fall. The trees shamelessly shed their leaves after
boasting a month's worth of bold colors. Jessica had started
kindergarten and was in the full swing of modern education, dressing up
as a bumblebee for an in-class Halloween celebration of cupcakes and
candy corn, compliments of Ashborough's proud and gleaming parents. The
fridge was adorned with harvest decorations, including a cock-eyed
turkey with four movable tail feathers that Jessica made in school
(little did Mr. tom Turkey know, apparently, that we humans would
eagerly carve up his kind after basting his sorry little ass for five
hours at a blistering 450 degrees). Jessica was proud of her artistic
creation and of a newfound knowledge of the peace-and-friendship
Thanksgiving dinner that took place between the Pilgrims and the Indians
four hundred years ago. Little did

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she know that the white man would pretty much pluck and torch those poor
Indians after the celebration was over. They didn't teach land-pillaging
in kindergarten.

My patients slowly but surely came back to me, and I planted myself into
a comfortable routine of appointments in the morning and clerical work
during the afternoon, doing chores like filling out insurance
reimbursement forms and restocking medicinal supplies. Place-order
applications were sent out daily along with pharmaceutical-sample
requests. And then, when that was done, I'd spend the rest of the day
returning phone calls and making certain that all patient records were
accurately updated.

Afterwards, I'd spend some quality time with Jessica, talk to her about
her day and find out what other worldly wisdom had been conveyed to her
by the now famous and well-regarded Mrs. Ehlers. We'd spend dinner
together as a family, eating mostly in silence, and then at eight
o'clock when Jessica went to bed, I'd quietly retire into my office,
pour a shot of brandy, and stare out the window into the darkness of the
woods.

And wait.

Eventually I'd turn in around midnight--long after Christine went to
sleep. We still slept in the same bed together, but never held each
other anymore.

We also didn't speak much. This was mostly my doing. I'd gone virtually
mute on her.

At first my silence angered her, then it concerned her. Then it
downright frustrated her. She'd grown distant from me after getting
pregnant, and I'd assumed that my silence would be mostly accepted. But soon

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she discovered that living with someone who refused to engage in
conversation wasn't exactly what she'd wanted, and she began an
ineffective struggle to get to the root of the problem--my repression,
she assumed-- by trying to talk to me, or yell at me, or cry out loud.
Sometimes things would get really bad and she'd insist on a reason for
my silence by grabbing my collar and getting right in my face like a
drill sergeant, releasing tears of indignation and sometimes a sidelong
fist or two. I'd squeeze my eyes shut and scream and push away from her,
then flee the house and walk on down the road to Phillip Deighton's
place, where we'd drink bourbon and talk about how hopelessly damned we
were.

I'd talk about Christine and how she'd changed and how it nearly killed
me to have cut off almost all forms of communication with her; about how
our marriage was treading a very rocky surface. I'd explain that I'd
gone silent on her because I was concerned I might slip up or say the
wrong thing and inadvertently refer to the existence of the Isolates,
who were still waiting in the wings for me, watching, listening to every
word I'd said. And I knew that if I did say something wrong, they would
punish me by hurting Christine or Jessica or even the unborn baby, just
like they did to Rosy and Phillip's daughter. Just like they'd probably
done to so many others too. Silence ... it was the only protector in
this instance, and I pleaded my case to Phillip time and time again, and
he would nod in agreement and tell me that I was doing the right thing.
He'd ask if I'd done any talking to her at all, and I'd reveal that
unless it was

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over something completely necessary, like her pregnancy (Christine is
showing quite a bit for someone only four months pregnant--they say that
this always happens the second time around), or when Jessica isn't
feeling well, I'd pretty much clam up and keep to myself.

And when that conversation was over, we'd begin to talk about how the
time hadn't yet come for me to assume my role in the grand scheme of
things. Here Phillip would turn the page and go mostly silent on me,
leading me to believe that he had some knowledge as to what the Isolates
had planned for me; it only stands to reason that Neil Farris may have
once had this role before I came along, and now that I'm in his place
... well, Phillip's been around long enough to know the comings and
goings in these parts.

Phillip would offer up replies such as, When the time comes, you'll
know, or, Honestly, Michael, I've no clue as to what they might have in
store for you. I never pressed the issue. He'd been through a lot more
pain and suffering than me, and it wasn't my place to dig. After all, I
was doing the same thing to Christine: withholding information. And I
was doing it to protect her. Perhaps Phillip was trying to protect me as
well. Maybe. Then again, he might still be protecting himself. After
all, his family was now gone. I've still never forgiven the man for
setting me up, but he was the only damn soul I could talk to about it.
Somehow I felt that there was a safety net around him, as if he were the
only exception to the whole damned unprincipled rule. That with him, I
could say anything I wanted. Apparently, it

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appeared this might very well have been the case, as there hadn't been a
single incident at 17 Harlan Road since the night I sacrificed Page upon
the center stone. And for that, I was very thankful. Without Phillip to
talk to, I would have gone crazy a long time ago.

Time had passed slowly since the sacrifice, and the images of Lauren
Hunter and Page (oddly, Jessica had completely forgotten about her dog;
she hadn't mentioned him since the days following his "disappearance"; I
considered this dismissal as yet another tiny gear in the great scheming
machine) had faded from my memory. Oftentimes I wondered if Lauren
Hunter had had a family, and whether or not they grieved over her
disappearance. The Ashborough Observer never made a mention of her, or
of Rosy for that matter. The only obits were for those who'd lived long
and prosperous lives only to have succumbed to the God-given gift of old
age. As one can well imagine, I was very thankful that the upsetting
episode with Lauren had pretty much dimmed from existence: I would have
had a difficult time explaining it to her family, the jury, and the
judge. Now, after three months, I was able to set it aside and
concentrate on the more personally pressing issues at hand, even though
the images of her death still haunted me at night. Like many of my
patients back in New York, she endured like a distant dream, a
television show, or a resonating echo.

Isolates...

They want you... they're coming for you...

Christine...

On Thanksgiving, Christine had informed me that she

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and Jessica would be having dinner with the Cleggs, a family whose son
was in Jessica's kindergarten class. I'd met Mrs. Clegg only once. She'd
come by the house one time to take Christine and Jessica food shopping
when our car was in the shop. Seemed like a nice enough woman, but as
you can probably guess, I didn't trust anyone a lick in those days.

Oh... the car. Another mystery in the whole Ashborough scheme. It
remained in Ellenville for about a month, and during that time I stayed
holed up and unspeaking in my office, catering to the few patients who
slowly filtered back into my life. Christine got around by catching
rides with some folks she met through Jessica's school, until the car
was eventually delivered back to us in pristine shape. I wasn't able to
go near it at all for fear they might come after me ... like they did
the day Christine hit the jogger (another event that had simply gone
away; we never heard another single thing about that). It was my
assumption that the animal she'd run over had not been a dog, but a
brave, conniving little Isolate. Who knows.

Since then she'd been driving Jessica to school daily--they'd leave
before I got out of bed. Then she'd run around the town, shop for
groceries, perform numerous errands until school let out. Eventually
she'd return home and make dinner (all she'd drink was that green herbal
tea, Rosy's famous recipe; I wondered whether this was healthy for the
baby, but suppressed this concern as well), at which time I'd finish up
my day and sit down in silence so that I could see my family for the
very first time. Very few words were

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exchanged between us during these tense minutes, and when all was eaten
I'd shuffle Jessica off into her room to talk about her day. I felt no
threat speaking to my daughter. I'm not sure why I felt this way.
Perhaps her age and naivete had something to do with it. Maybe it was
because I knew the subject wouldn't ever come up.

Are you sure about that, Michael? She did mention something about ghosts
one time. ...

And then came my nights. As mentioned, I spent these hours in solitude,
in my office, seated at my desk. I stared out the windows into the
darkness, waiting for my beckoning from the Isolates so that I could
discover my role in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes I wondered
whether they'd ever come, but then I reminded myself that it was not a
matter of if, but a matter of when.

One can only imagine how my mind raced during the hours of eight to
twelve--four total hours of pure unadulterated hell on the brain. I
thought of the past. I thought of the future. I second-guessed every
move I'd made and every one I planned to make. I always thought back to
that day three months before when I met Old Lady Zellis.

I knew I couldn't live like that forever. I guess I was simply waiting
for them to call on me so that I could pay my dues, so to speak, and
move on with my life, with my family. I still hadn't written off the
possibility of getting out of there ... I'd no definitive plan as of
yet, but the boilers were roiling in the back of my mind. I'd be
prepared to flee any time if the opportunity presented itself.

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The very first day we moved in, I remembered an intense feeling of
wanting out. It was just after Jessica had thrown up and I stepped on
the nail. A feeling that I wanted to flee, on my own, back to Manhattan
to start my life anew. Without my family. It'd scared me to death. I
realized now that perhaps it was an omen of sorts, because two months
ago I'd had the same feeling once again, and I'd considered it
seriously, going so far as getting dressed in the middle of the night,
fishing out Christine's keys, and walking outside to the car. I'd
wondered if I was essentially murdering my family by doing this ... if
I'd left would the Isolates fulfill Old Lady Zellis's warning to me? The
proof of that lay a quarter mile down the road at Phillip Deighton's
house. His family had been taken away because he didn't play by the
rules. But then again, Neil Farris's family had been spared (although he
had not). It was a gamble ... me or my family? The risk seemed too great.

But there I was ignoring the warning signs, standing outside at three in
the morning jingling the keys to the minivan and struggling with the
most insane decision I'd ever have to make. As I stood there thinking, I
peered into the woods at the side of the house, and saw, as bright as
beacons in the ocean, two glowing golden lights. Eyes. They were
watching me. I stared at them for as long as it took me to decide that
leaving might not be a good idea after all, and when I turned to go back
into the house, they disappeared. I went back inside, shed my clothes,
and slid back in bed. I spent the entire night gripping the sheets in my
fists, dreading the fact that I'd have to start the whole

215

damned routine all over again in the morning.

And wondering whether those eyes would ever shine through the
floor-to-ceiling windows in my office, beckoning me to fulfill their
demands.

My days of wondering came to an end on Thanksgiving Day.

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Chapter Twenty-four

"We're leaving."

It was the first thing she'd said to me all day. Nothing out of the
ordinary, I suppose. I looked at Christine. She'd gained quite a bit of
weight, her stomach nearly twice the size it should've been at this
stage of pregnancy. She wore a light blue sheeting maternity blouse,
something left over from her pregnancy with Jessica, and a pair of jeans
with a knit-stretch pouch in the front. She looked like a kangaroo, I
thought crazily. Her dark puffy eyes told a miserable story, one of
depression, anxiety, and sleeplessness; her mussed-up hair indicated
that she hadn't the strength nor desire to disguise her unhappiness. I'd
seen similar looks on some patients' faces in the past, and had treated
them with heavy doses of Alprazolam or Valium. I considered

217

offering her some medication, then realized it probably wasn't right,
given her pregnancy.

I nodded in understanding. Her disgusted eyes pinned me with all the
vigor they could muster, then pulled away to the floor. Jessica, also
drawing back into a reclusive shell and looking a bit depressed, sidled
up next to Christine and reached out for her mother's hand. Although
Jessica and I still talked, the tone and length of our conversations had
dropped rapidly. Pretty soon, I'd imagine, we'd end up strangers, just
as Christine and I had become. God... as much as I hated living like
this, I was not sure there was anything I could do about it unless I
chose to put their lives at risk. God forbid I utter one single word,
one wrong word.

Shouldering her bag, Christine marched to the front door, then stopped
and about-faced and looked back at me. I didn't move from the safe
distance of the kitchen. Tears sprouted from my eyes, and in that moment
I realized for the very first time that the holidays this year were
going to be intensely depressing. I'd always considered myself one of
the fortunate ones, a man with a wife and daughter who cared and loved
me to no end--the proud patriarch of a family whom I could love in
return. Now I knew firsthand why some people threw themselves under
moving trains this time of year.

"Michael..." I could tell she wanted to run forward, toss her arms
around me, and cry it all away. But she didn't. She held her ground,
steadfast. She tried to say

218

something, but all that came was a miserable choke. Soon, she was
sobbing into her hands.

This was a definitive moment. I wanted to walk over and comfort my wife,
tell her that everything would be all right. But doing so would make me
a despicable liar. I tried to convince myself that it'd be no different
from the time I'd explained to Jessica that those ghosts Page had barked
at outside were fireflies. I wondered for a moment if lying in this
situation might actually be the right thing to do. It would certainly
ease the burden of the moment. But then it would make the eventual
outcome seem all the more terrifying.

That moment between us seemed to last an eternity, and for its entire
duration I felt extremely confused. I nearly took a step forward, but
the old lady's words came back to me in a terrible reminder: Separate
yourself from your family. ...

That stopped me from taking any action. Jesus, I couldn't step forward.
I wanted to, but I couldn't. I again told myself that by maintaining my
silence I was protecting my family from the greatest menace to ever
threaten them. From the outside looking in, the situation had no rhyme
or reason. But neither had anything else that'd taken place since we
moved in.

I felt ashamed. I had no choice in the matter. I bowed my head and
walked away.

There'd been no cries in reply. No hurled insults. No words at all. Only
the slam of the screen door as Christine left to have Thanksgiving
dinner with people who were complete strangers not two months before.

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Chapter Twenty-five

I spent Thanksgiving alone for the first time in my life, slouched
gracelessly at the kitchen table with a bowl of bran cereal and my
racing thoughts. Christine had left around five. Since then I wondered
if she would even consider bringing home a plate of food to me. God
knows I could have used it; I'd lost at least fifteen pounds since
moving here. But I also didn't deserve such thoughtfulness, and wouldn't
hold one ounce of resentment toward her if she decided against doing it.

I looked at my fingers. The way they trembled made me break up again. I
couldn't help it, I could only sit at the kitchen table staring at my
hands, laughing and crying and crying and laughing for as long as it
took the clock to chime eight.

At this point I did my best to gather my composure, then stood up and
left the harsh environment of the

220

kitchen for the darkened security of my office, where I once again sat
at my desk to wait for the golden eyes to appear.

During that time I placed my hands out in front of me, seeking out the
stability of the desk in an effort to rid my mind of the day's sad
events. My sight roamed casually around my office with its hardwood
floors and crowded bookshelves, to the locked liquor cabinet and then to
the towering brick hearth. The room lay in pure silence, the mere creak
of a settling beam amplified as if a bone had snapped. I peered through
the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the moonlit garden (Christine,
in her solitude, had taken up a hobby of herb gardening; now there was a
twelve-foot patch back there that looked like witchgrass and weeds. She
enthusiastically used these "weeds" to spice our dinners and brew
pitchers of that green-colored tea) and the fountain birdbath. That was
the only activity that helped stabilize my mind, looking out into the
distant woods, even if the scenery suggested only fringes of itself in
the pale moonlight. That night was no exception.

The lamps were out in the office. Earlier I'd made a fire, and now only
a few glowing embers remained, leaving the moonlight shining through the
bay. I thought about starting a fresh fire, but decided against it.

I set my eyes back outside, noticed a few drops of water cascading down
the sides of the bird fountain.

And saw them. Two golden eyes.

They were as round as crystal balls, glowing as if

221

charged with electricity. They floated a foot above the ground alongside
the base of the fountain, remained there for at least a minute, then
climbed the night air to a height of perhaps four feet. They blinked,
and in a smooth and unhurried pace, advanced through the herb garden
toward the window; the body they had been attached to seemed not to take
steps forward, but moved in some other way I really couldn't indicate,
as though drifting.

My body started doing things it had never done before, my insides
churned, and I immediately wished that I'd taken a Valium or at least a
shot of bourbon before sitting down tonight. I shut my eyes in an effort
to calm my slamming heart, but the image of the fiery eyes stayed with
me much like the lingering impressions of a dream immediately after
waking. When I finally opened my eyes again, the nightmare had preserved
itself, enhanced itself, and I could only stare, frozen with an icy fear
as something grotesque pressed itself against the glass, staring in at me.

Although common sense told me otherwise, it looked like a street person
from the city, the kind that huddles in a cardboard box in some foul
alleyway. Its clothing was dark with sweat and hanging upon its body;
long lank hair fell in damp strings; scars--one a red twisting
streak--ran across its scrawny cheek. But the appearance of the bulbous
eyes quickly proclaimed it not born of human genes, but of something
otherworldly.

Isolates ...

Like a wizard in mid-charm, it methodically raised its

222

angular arms and scraped ten lengthy yellow claws against the glass of
the window. I shuddered as the terrifying screech passed through my body
like a powerful drug, paralyzing my senses.

I stayed unmoving for what seemed forever, helplessly charting a
territory in my mind previously unexplored. I wondered (in vain) if it
were an aberration, whether more like him were hiding nearby, waiting
for some cue to commit their filthy deed.

An immense pain darted through me. I wanted to move but couldn't; fear
owned me now, settling into my body like an extreme paralysis, making me
feel like I had upon my first and only encounter with Old Lady Zellis.

Still staring, still scratching the glass, the thing pulled its dirty
cracked lips far apart and flaunted a mouth rife with gnarled brown teeth.

At once I had the sense of hearing words from those gaping jaws, as if
they'd somehow loomed from its silent mouth directly into my mind. But I
heard and recognized the words in my own voice and not the distorted
growls most apt to escape its throat. Nonetheless, it didn't matter, for
the meaning was all the same, and I finally found the will to shudder
again as it reaffirmed something I'd known all along. What I'd been
warned of.

Of why it came.

It needed me.

I tried to move. Fear still held every muscle in my body immobile.

Then, something horrible happened.

223

Beneath my pants leg, between the calf and knee, I felt a stroke, gentle
yet determined.

Sickly confusion struck me. I looked down and beheld a smallish figure
like the being in the window stooping under the desk, its clawed hand no
longer caressing me, but now gripping my shin painfully hard, its
mutilated stare meeting my terrified one, its golden eyes glowing
beneath a black mask of soot.

I tore my sight away, so strongly wanting to believe that somehow my
bleakest, most terrifying nightmare had escaped from my subconscious and
entered my home to terrorize me.

But my poor fortune would have it otherwise.

Somehow I tried to hobble from the chair, to no good purpose as the
demon beneath the desk held me firmly, and I stumbled to the floor. I
managed to look up, saw another golden-eyed demon only feet from me,
coated in ashes like the one still gripping my leg, facedown on the
floor but pushing itself up on all fours. Behind it another wriggled in
from the tight sweep of the chimney, arms dangling, reaching for the
brick hearth. Rustling sounds emanated: more were pushing their way down
the chimney!

Coming for me.

An unnameable, gristly odor invaded my nostrils, and my eyes
automatically released sour tears. A gray cloud veiled my sight, and
simultaneously a multitude of tiny scraping footsteps pattered about the
hardwood floor all around me.

And all I could see were their eyes, flying about my

224

head like fireflies (like fireflies!), eight, ten, then more than a
dozen golden lights, dizzying me.

Many hands groped me, tore at my clothing, dragged me helplessly across
the floor.

Sweat, hot and odorous, formed upon my skin. Transient whispers brushed
my ears.

I prayed for death to take me, and thought it had. Until I woke and
found myself in Hell.

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Chapter Twenty-six

I woke in the same position I had passed out in. On my back.

I heard murmuring throats, grinding teeth, then the soft sounds of
movement, of tentative feet shifting stealthily about me. Breath--hot
primitive sighs-- danced across the surface of my skin. I suspected more
movement, but could not see quite yet. I felt a dark shadow looming over
me, a misshapen silhouette, eyes shining through the curtain of haze
obscuring my vision. A rough, hard object touched my face. A claw. I
shivered.

The gray haze cleared and in the flickering midst of an unseen flame, I
saw a horrible manlike creature hovering over me. It was emaciated, a
living skeleton coated with tendons and filth, arms and legs as thin as
whittled broomsticks. It crawled on all fours, then

226

bowed its head and sniffed my leg from ankle to thigh. I could see its
face and it terrified me, a mutated demonlike visage, two holes for a
nose, mouth and eyes much too large for its tiny head. The eyes rolled
up and looked at me across a loose wisp of weblike hair, then glowed a
gold-colored light that ignited its horrid filth-covered features.

Somewhere nearby a noise erupted, and the creature next to me scurried
away on two legs, pushing up clouds of dust before disappearing into a
hole in the dirt wall about twenty feet away. A chorus of growls and
grunts spewed out from the mouths of many. Not three or four or even a
dozen. Many.

I forced myself up on my elbows, peered out into the distance, and saw
at least a hundred glowing lights crowding the gloom of a smallish dirt
cave.

Eyes. All of them pointed in my direction. I'd quit praying years
before, traded religion for scientific beliefs. But now I had no choice
but to quickly return to my faith. It was my only hope.

Quickly I looked around. Indeed I was in a cave of some sort, the walls
constructed of dirt, roots sprouting from them, dangling from a ceiling
not six feet above my head. It smelled awful, of sewage and of things
gone to rot. Breathless, I dared to look at the creatures staring at me
with their golden eyes, but the collective glow of them hid their faces,
leaving only jerking fragments of their bodies visible.

A single beast approached from the crowd, stood before me for a minute,
then kneeled down to eye level and stared into my face. It had an almost
humanlike

227

quality to it, brow arched downward as if in deep concentration, as
though I were a curiosity. Perhaps I was. It possessed a grand
collection of awful features on its face, deep wrinkles, warts, and
moles the size of beans, bristles of coarse hair sprouting everywhere.
It peered at me for another fifteen seconds, golden eyes unblinking the
entire time.

Then it smiled. It fucking smiled. The expression was long and broad and
intentional upon its deformed face--a face with a gash racing along its
cheek, and by this horrid feature I recognized it as the creature that
had first appeared at my window.

It stood up. Still staring at me, it raised its sinewy arms in the air,
and yelled "Kahtah!" The crowd, a multitude of voices, repeated the
foreign gesture: "Kahtah!"

I remained silent, stunned. They can speak, I thought, terrified. Jesus
Christ, I am so fucked.

It drew a claw into its body. "Fenal," it proclaimed, head tilted, voice
deep and gravelly. There was a damn frightening silence. Then it said...
no, demanded, "You ... help."

Then something amazing and totally unexpected happened. A second Isolate
appeared. It too stared at me with a lengthy expression that could only
be described as awe. When it appeared to have had its fill of me, it
reached around, grabbed something from behind, and placed it at my feet.

My medical bag. I'd packed it the day after we moved in, and kept it in
my office in case of emergencies. Inside were the bare necessities like
gauze and antibiotics, fresh needles and syringes--the usual house call

228

requirements. After I'd stepped on the nail I'd realized that anything
could've happened at any given moment and that it was always prudent to
be prepared. As it turned out, I'd ended up using the bag on my visits
to the Deightons when seeing Rosy. That seemed so long ago now.

The creature--Fenal--grabbed me by the wrist and forced me to my feet.
Two more came, seized my arms, and hurried me into a cavelike corridor
lined with red soil and dark slimy moss. Many more of them were ahead
and behind, running along the path and crawling on the walls and ceiling
like giant insects, forcibly ushering me forward, their eyes igniting
the way. I felt horribly nauseous from the brutal odor here; it reminded
me of the summer stench that rides the wind over from the neighboring
farmlands, only more intense. High hoots and hollers whipped about the
tunnel in an echoing frenzy. Brisk, meandering activity surrounded me as
the twisting passage widened, some sections breaking off into branched
corridors. Bodies scampered by, shrieking. My head spun crazily.
Eventually I choked and gagged, then vomited. But I didn't stop moving.
They kept pushing me, and I could do nothing but continue on, the blind
being led by an untrustworthy source, my feet sinking deep in the muddy
ground, my stomach churning in twisted knots. My muscles screamed. I
groaned in pain. I cradled my medical bag close to my body as if it were
my only means for survival.

Soon, they stopped moving. The sea of filth parted, many of them
scampering away like cockroaches in

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sudden lamplight. I stood my ground, heaving for breath. Eventually a
single Isolate appeared alongside me, grabbed my thigh, and urged me
forward. I moved in that direction, turned a corner, and at once found
myself before a wholly intimidating sight.

I stood at the forefront of an immense room. It appeared at first glance
to have been either constructed within a mountain of dirt, or built
entirely underground. Hundreds of hovels had been dug out in the muddy
walls of the hub, multitudes of glowing eyes peering out from within
their faraway depths. Hundreds of torches burned, igniting the chamber
to a ghostly yellow luminescence. I saw a large group of Isolates
gathered at one of the gouged-out areas at the opposite end of the room,
maybe two hundred feet away. A cool breeze struck me.

Fenal appeared at my side and gently ushered me forward. Every damn
creature in the place had their golden eyes pinned on me; I thought
crazily, This is what a human astronaut might feel like as an exhibit in
an alien zoo. There was virtual silence except for the errant squeal,
which was subsequently answered by a silencing bark. I stopped, suddenly
sick again, then leaned over and puked once more, all the while trying
desperately to ignore the reek of sweat, urine, blood, feces, and God
knows whatever else might be festering in the air. I gagged and coughed
again, then eased back up and followed Fenal's lead through a sea of
groping limbs all the way to the opposite end of the dirt chamber, near
the gathering at the far wall. Upon my arrival, the crowd there
dispersed, some on two legs, many

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dashing away on all fours. A few were fighting over the last scraps of
meat on what looked like a human leg bone. Fenal pulled aside a burlap
bag used as a curtain, and allowed me access to a smaller chamber
scooped out in the wall.

The interior of the room was damp and miserable, cramped. I could barely
stand up. A couple of small torches carved the dark interior with their
flames.

"Help ... Cerpdas," Fenal stated, pointing.

I followed its bony finger to a being--Cerpdas apparently its
name--lying bare-chested and trembling beside the slime-ridden wall. A
spread of rags acted as a mattress beneath it. She--and I say this as
the appearance of breasts, however flattened and mottled, were evident
upon the exposed torso--had been covered up to the waist with a burlap bag.

I gazed at Fenal. It peered back at me, the same desperate emotion I saw
through my bay window again pasted upon its deformed face. Suddenly, for
reasons I could not explain, I no longer felt fear. I felt only
pressure, for I realized now that I'd been brought here to perform what
might very well be an impossible task; the endowment of my medical bag
was evidence of this. Fenal squatted next to the injured Cerpdas and
stroked her shoulder. Her eyes rolled up, the golden glow diminished to
a dull luster. Sick.

I placed my bag down, took a deep breath of rotten air, then hunkered
down next to the creature and slowly peeled down the burlap bag a few
inches at a time, until I saw the first splash of crimson washed across
its distended abdomen. A powerful stench of

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waste and rot assaulted me, hinting to me that it had been lying in this
spot for quite some time.

Wanting to get this over with, I tugged the cover away...

... and stared in horror at the freakish sight before me. It was beyond
belief. Yet here it was, much too real to renounce.

The female creature's legs were spread-eagled. A pool of blood and
substance tided from the vaginal canal.

A gnarled claw protruded crookedly, wriggling like a worm out of earth.

"Help Cerpdas," Fenal begged, gently stroking the rotting strands of
hair on her pear-shaped head. "Help."

So I set to work, trying not to think about what I was actually going to
do because now was not the time for me to doubt my abilities or ask
myself questions. All I could do was remain strong--and sane--and
convince myself that this was just another patient, a woman in need of
an emergency C-section (something I've never done, mind you), and not
whatever else she might be.

I retrieved a scalpel from the bag, placed it on the burlap bag. I
doused the creature's abdomen with alcohol, then with a topical
painkiller. Taking a deep breath, I wished the whole scene away,
wondering if perhaps this might be a dream, but knew wholeheartedly that
this time I wouldn't be waking up in my bed with just blood on my hands.

I took the scalpel and slowly cut her open. Brown blood spilled from the
wound, running down the sides of her gaunt torso. A tiny hand poked free
from the split,

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tossing a spray of blood into my face. I used my forearm to wipe it free
of my eyes, only to see a second hand emerge, five bony fingers replete
with yellow claws flexing in the free world for the very first time. I
hesitated in touching the thing, but Fenal barked help ... help... over
and over again, so I closed my eyes and reached into the open cavity,
grabbed the bawling creature--I felt the tug of the protruding leg
slipping back inside--and plucked it free of the womb.

Arms outstretched, I held it out before me. I opened my eyes and beheld
the hairy demonlike beast, all swollen like any human baby might be,
eyes open and peering about with stunning alertness. Its toothless mouth
choked out a garbled mess of fluids, which I sucked free with a plunger.
I turned and handed the bawling infant to a waiting Isolate, which in
turn hurried it away into a darkened corner of the room.

I faced the mother. Her eyes glowed weakly, as if mustering the strength
to thank me for what I'd just done. I cleansed her wounds and crudely
stitched them back up, then buried all her injuries under a thick layer
of bandages. I fed her a dose of penicillin and resigned myself to the
fact that this was all I could do.

I staggered up and backed away against the dirt wall in the shelter, the
back of my head pressed against a pulpy patch of fungi. In the soft glow
of the flames I observed the others in the room with me: perhaps a dozen
Isolates, all silently scrutinizing me, their glowing eyes now full of
questions. One being, horribly deformed, separated itself from the horde
and writhed across the room, its leg dangling helplessly behind it. It

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confronted me, tracing a finger through a damaged gnarl of skin on its
thigh.

Another leaped from the group, pushed aside the fiend in front of me,
and grasped my arm, tears flowing from one golden eye. The other hung
shriveled and lifeless from the socket like a pendulum, the miraculous
gold converted to a stone cold gray.

Fenal leaped forward, intercepted. "Pentaff! Blahtah!" The Isolates
scrambled away. He then gazed at me, his golden eyes glowing with
admiration. "Savior," he said.

Savior?

Oh, my God...

Dizzied, I stumbled from the room back out into the large antechamber.
The creatures immediately rushed forward, groped me with broken bones
and mangled limbs, mouths dripping fetid with disease, their wails
echoing in helpless pain, desperate for my aid. Jesus, it was all too
clear now, my purpose. My role in the grand scheme of the Isolates. I
could see it on their suffering faces, the clear desperation that I
would be the one to nurse them all back to health, give them a chance to
thrive as they once did, just as Neil Farris had for thirty years. Just
as the doctor that lived at 17 Harlan Road before him had.

Savior...

Calloused hands grabbed me. Monstrous cries filled my head. My breath
escaped me.

Overwhelmed, I felt a wave of darkness consume me, and I collapsed,
gratefully succumbing.

234

Chapter Twenty-seven

I woke up.

It had taken me some time to realize that I'd actually survived the
night. When I tried to move, a crippling numbness seized my body,
forcing me to speculate that I'd been lying facedown for a long period
of time. I was also blind, and all I could really do was lie there and
try to catch my breath, which kept a sufficient distance from me despite
my best efforts. Soon my senses returned to me. A breeze tickled my
skin, the earth soft and grassy beneath my palms and face. The distant
calls of songbirds stirred me even further. Eventually, I found the will
to open my eyes and found myself surrounded by an early morning
darkness, fading starlight and the soft shuck of the moon tossing slight
shadows across my surroundings. Here was enough evidence to

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make me believe that perhaps I'd survived--been spared--the night after all.

When I regained full control of my breathing, I tried to stand,
anticipating a swimming head. Oh, it did swim, and it sent me careening
across the short sprawl of lawn in the backyard. The presence of my
office windows brought reality back to me in a very hard thrust, and
made me realize what I needed to do with them as soon as humanly
possible. The image of the steel doors Neil Farris had installed, which
I hastily took down, came to me; my next step would be an even more
drastic yet necessary move. I slid crookedly along the side of the
house, then entered the waiting room through the unlocked door. I
wondered if any of the Isolates had come here to help themselves to my
belongings while I'd visited their home. I didn't see any mud tracked on
the carpet, leading me to assume that they hadn't, but I wouldn't put it
past them.

I felt my way across the lightless waiting room, through the hallway,
and then into the kitchen, where I blindly shuffled to the table. I
fumbled for the cord to the chandelier, grasped the air a number of
times before finally locating it. I yanked it. The room fell into rude
light. It attacked my eyes like lasers. When my sight finally cleared, I
found a cellophane-covered dish filled with Thanksgiving dinner
leftovers sitting on the table.

I should've been happy about it. But I wasn't. A shudder ran through me
instead, and a million paranoid thoughts assaulted my mind. Like, What
if the food is

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poisoned? Or, Is this some kind of trick? I told myself that no act of
kindness could be trusted, even a seemingly generous gesture on the part
of my wife, who'd apparently made this last-ditch attempt to save our
marriage. I sat down at the table, thought about eating the food, but
just stared at it. Believe me, I wanted to eat it, but I was scared to
... plus it didn't look good to me. Not at all. Along with my soul, my
appetite had also stayed behind in the domain of the Isolates. I stood
up and took a drink of water from the sink, then closed the light and
staggered to the living room couch, where I curled up into a fetal ball
and waited out the rest of the night.

I must've fallen asleep at some point. Sometime later, something came
out of the darkness and touched my dangling hand. I heard a dreamlike
voice call out to me. I screamed in panic, eyes and mouth fully opened.
Jessica was there, surrounded by the morning light, eyelids fluttering
in sudden fear. She screamed and fell back in a defensive twist, then
landed on her back. In a flash she righted herself like a cat and raced
from the room, crying hysterically.

Christine hurtled in, dropping her pocketbook, which had been draped
around her shoulder. She looked sick. Eyes dark and puffy, skin sallow,
no makeup. A thicket of her hair escaped the bun on her head, obscuring
her angry face. "Are you fucking crazy?" she yelled.

Her words burned through me like acid. She screamed something else, but
her voice was like mud

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in my mind. Gibberish. Jesus, I thought, if she only knew. I stood up on
achy legs and limped away, shoulders hunched as if expecting her next
move. By the time I reached the steps, she had gone back into the
kitchen and returned with the plate of food she'd brought home for me.
She ran forward and threw it at me. Her aim was bad. The plate shattered
against the front door. Most of the food ended up strewn about the
living room in a storm of cold chunks, although some pieces hit me in
the chest. Fearing another attack, I turned and raced up the stairs to
the landing, stopped, turned, and looked downstairs.

The sounds of Christine sobbing and Jessica crying could be heard, and
it damn near killed me to hear my daughter in such distress. I covered
my ears with my palms, then spun away from the top of the steps and ran
down the hall. The bathroom door was open, and I banged my knee against
the jamb at about the same time I heard the front door slam shut. Pain
barked up into me from the point of contact. I bit my tongue and grabbed
my knee, then moved inside and looked into the mirror and nearly leaped
at what I saw. Mud. On my face, in my hair. On my clothes. Jesus, I
looked like a fucking monster. Quickly I peeled off my filthy clothes
and slid into the shower, where I sat for an hour or more, washing away
the disease of the night and trying hard to rinse my mind of its
memories. I realized it wasn't going to work, that the events of the
night would stay with me for an eternity.

Eventually I crawled out of the shower--the water had turned cold by
now--barely able to lift my tender

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legs over the tub. A towel wet from Christine's earlier shower hung
limply on the bath-hook. I used it to dry off, smelling the soft
feminine aroma she'd left behind in the cottony fabric. Gooseflesh
hurdled across my skin, and at one point I put the towel in my mouth,
trying to taste the pleasures of my past.

Dear God, how I wanted that past back again.

So badly.

The beautiful, glorious past.

Half an hour later I was dressed in fresh clothes, my mind brimming with
the determination to retrieve everything I'd lost.

There was only one way to do it, I knew.

I'd have to fight this damn thing to the very bitter end.

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Chapter Twenty-eight

The living room had retained a bit of an odor. Kind of like, well,
Thanksgiving dinner. I did my best to clean away the mess of hurled
food. It'd been nearly impossible to get everything up (I'd made up my
mind not to tackle the wall beneath the steps, which had a
surrealartlike spattering of mashed potatoes and cranberries on it). But
the bigger pieces of turkey, stuffing, and yams all ended up in the trash.

Eventually my body called out for food. My stomach loudly protested its
emptiness with lionlike growls, so I quenched it with a bagel, banana,
and instant coffee-- the most food I'd consumed in one sitting for at
least a week. As I sat at the kitchen table, I planned out my first
task, which wouldn't be an easy one. I decided to secure the house from
any possible intrusion. Every window, every door, would have to be
completely

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shuttered, now that I knew what was really out there. I didn't want one
single night to pass without being sure my family would be fully
protected. Then, once this was completed, which would take me most of
the day, I'd consider making some plans for a means of escape from
Ashborough.

I'd have to be smart about it. No rushed exits.

Fuck the "law" and its battalion.

I peeked out the window.

A man walked by.

Shit. I hadn't considered at all whether I'd had any appointments.

Apparently, I did. And here he was, Mr. Punctuality, showing up at
exactly nine-thirty on the dot.

I stood from the kitchen table, peeked into the small mirrored
backsplash set above the stove, and saw a wretched beast of a man peer
back at me (what did I expect?), then moved through the connecting hall
into the waiting room. Here on the love seat sat a rather slight,
ordinary-looking man of perhaps forty. His legs were crossed, hands on
his knees, near-bald head resting back against the upholstery. As I
approached him he gazed up at me, smiling congenially beneath a few days
worth of beard. He stood to shake my hand. His grip was weak and cold.

"Hello Dr. Cayle, nice to finally meet you. I've heard so much about you."

"And you are?"

He hesitated for a moment, and ran a nervous hand through his thinning
hair, eyes narrowed and head cocked, giving off a sense of sudden
perplexity. "Sam.

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Sam Huxtable. I didn't have an appointment."

Given another minute I might have simply gone through all the motions
Sam Huxtable expected. The smile, the trading of pleasantries, the
silent stroll into my office to proceed with the examination. But I
acted with the arrogance of a man in the throes of paranoia-- a man
riddled with ultra-high levels of anxiety along with the will and sudden
strength to survive the elements. I couldn't help it. I instantly had to
take my frustrations out on somebody. And that somebody had become Sam
Huxtable.

Using both hands, I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, twisted him around,
and slammed him up against the wall. The Monet print there toppled off
the hook and landed with a bang on the floor. I brought a knee up into
his groin. He doubled over, giving me the opportunity to assume full
control of the situation. I threw him to the floor, flipped him on his
back, and straddled him, one hand still gripping his shirt, the other
successfully seeking out the few strands of hair left on his head.

Tears sprouted from his tightly squeezed eyes. His mouth was wet and
twisted with fear. "You're hurting me. ..." he cried.

"It's my intention to," I said.

"Please stop."

"I will... when you answer my questions."

His eyes darted open. They were wet and red and glossy. I let go of his
hair and fisted his collar to make sure he didn't go anywhere, then
slammed him a couple more times against the floor just to reaffirm how
serious I was.

242

"Questions? I... I don't know if I can " His words

were interrupted by a fit of coughs.

"You can, and you will. Ready?"

He remained silent, unmoving.

"Ready?"

"I'll t-try. Jesus, don't hurt me."

I kept my grip tight. Clearly he didn't want to talk. Probably knew he
couldn't because common sense told him that the new doctor in town had
finally come in contact with Ashborough's strange governing body and
wasn't all that ready and willing to give in to their decrees yet. But
Sam also knew he had to keep everything he knew under lock and key so
the little fuckers in the woods wouldn't drag his wife or son or
daughter into the woods and send them back with a limb or two missing.

The thought of all this made me want to kill the man. I really wanted to
fucking kill him.

I took a deep breath, tried to get a grip on myself. "No ... you'll do
more than try," I said. "You'll tell me everything you know, 'cause if
you don't, God help me, I'll break your arms and legs and drag your
sorry ass up there into the woods and plant it on that big bloody stone
and feed you to those motherfuckers. Would you like that? Huh?" God help
me, I meant it too.

"Let go of me."

"What? I don't think so."

"You let go of me and I promise I'll tell you what I know."

I pressed down harder. Cramps shot through my hands. Sam grunted in
pain, then coughed. Dapples of

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saliva hit me in the face. His already pale skin went whiter when he
realized what he'd done.

"I'm sorry ..." He coughed again. More spit. "Sorry ... just please let
go of me."

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"You have my word ... I'll tell you everything I know."

I loosened my grip. "Everything ..."

"Everything I know" he stressed. Meaning don't expect much. He again
added, "Please don't hurt me."

I loosened my hold, then stood up, pulling him up with me. We staggered
a bit, but I gained a foothold and dragged him into my office. I shoved
him deep into the room, then closed the door. He caught his footing
against my desk and stayed there, unmoving with the exception of his
heaving chest; evidently he hadn't been used to this level of activity.
Start exercising and cut out the high-fat foods. More fruits and more
fiber. Doctor's orders. We both took a moment to catch our breath. I
then swept an arm toward the chair in front of my desk and told him to
have a seat.

Sam's eyes avoided me like the plague; he'd been defeated. Never had a
chance really, and he knew it. He nodded, then paced like a wounded
soldier to the chair and sat down, keeping his eyes pinned to some
nondescript spot on my desk. His shirt was torn at the collar. A juicy
red spot appeared on one of his cheeks. Tears streamed down his face. He
looked pathetic, though probably not as much as I did.

As I stared at Sam Huxtable, a gale of sudden remorse whacked me, and I
felt ashamed of my actions. My

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frustrations and determination had driven me to this point, and now that
I was here, guilt riddled me like a virus. I'd just committed an
irreversible act, and had chipped away a bit of my soul in the process.
What little soul, that is, I had left. I told myself that all my actions
had been utterly necessary, all for the well-being of my family. I'd had
no choice in the matter. Do or die.

Sam gazed up at me. "You look like shit," he said rather brazenly. Given
his predicament, he should've kept his mouth shut, but he probably saw
through my weak facade. I was no murderer. Far from it. And he knew it too.

Yes, but would a man murder to protect his family?

I shoved my hands in my pockets, seeking false comfort and finding
nothing. "So do you ... at least now you do."

"I was feeling like shit before I came here."

I nodded. "What's wrong?"

"You said you wanted to talk," he remarked angrily, ignoring me. His
priorities had taken a bit of a shift; I'd taken the ball away from him
and placed it in my court, putting him on the defensive. Now I could
press forward and slam-dunk some info out of him.

"I have some questions, Sam, and I think you know where I'm going. I'm
the type of person that doesn't like to be kept in the dark about
certain things, especially when they affect me and my family. And let me
tell you, I've never been more affected in my life, as you can well
imagine."

Sam stared at me, but said nothing.

I continued. "Basically I've been fucked up the ass

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just like you and everybody else who lives here in Ashborough, if you
want to call it living ... it's more like a modern Inquisition if you
ask me, wouldn't you say? The only difference is that I'm not gonna
stand for it, and I don't give a shit if everyone here, and in all the
surrounding towns for that matter, are in on their diabolical plot. I've
paid my dues, and now I'm gonna take my family and get out of here."

Sam grinned incredulously. Suddenly he had a voice. "What a genius ...
don't you think I've tried it, that hundreds of others over the years
have tried leaving here? You don't understand, Doctor. They're
everywhere, like goddamned cockroaches. They hear all and see all. And
just when you think it's safe to pack up your things and slink out of
here, they'll come at you twice as hard and make life miserable for you
and your family. They have no qualms about killing, I'm sure you've seen
some of their handiwork by now, right? But that's why you're questioning
me now, isn't it? Because you've seen what they can do and you simply
don't want to take a chance. Paid your dues? I don't think so. You
haven't even scratched the surface."

"Yeah? Well... then how can they possibly stop me in my car?" Somehow I
knew they could, but I wanted to hear it from a man with experience,
someone who had more answers than me.

"Why don't you try it and see what happens? They'll fuck with the engine
or even toss themselves under your wheels if they have to. Anything to
stop you. And you want to know what's really fucked up? Afterwards
they'll come and get you, dear Doctor, to fix up their

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injured martyrs after they've committed their nasty deed. Yeah, go
ahead. Go and get your family and make like the wind in your minivan.
You'll be mending broken arms and crushed ribs for a week."

I thought about Christine and the mysterious "animal" that had darted
out in front of the car. Then, about my visit last night to their
dwelling. How one of them had crawled over to me after I'd completed the
cesarean, how it dragged its leg behind it as if it had been run over by
a car.

"Jesus," I said, suddenly sobered.

"I tried to leave once," Sam said. "It was in the middle of the night. I
had my wife and son in the car, and at the time I didn't think they knew
anything about the Isolates. But I was wrong. I ran inside to get the
keys, which I'd forgotten on the kitchen table, and when I got back
outside the car was teeming with them. I couldn't even see the wheels.
It looked like a piece of candy swarming with ants. My family was
trapped inside for hours, and I couldn't do anything but stand there and
watch helplessly until morning came. The Isolates eventually skittered
away--all at once, mind you, a real frightening scene--and at that
moment I still had the mind to get in the car and start driving, but my
son had hyperventilated himself into a coma and nearly died. Thankfully,
Dr. Farris took care of him, although I'm not sure if it was the right
thing to do. Now every day I have the pleasure of waking up and seeing
Josh lying in bed all curled up and twisted, full of bedsores."

"You ... you never brought him to the hospital?"

Sam rubbed his tired eyes. "You're not listening to

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me, Doctor. The hospital is in Ellenville. I couldn't even get my car
out of the fucking driveway."

I was going to ask him why he hadn't tried calling another town, even
the city. But I'd had the frustrating experience of trying just that,
and it'd gotten me nowhere.

"Jesus, this doesn't make sense to me... I mean, how is it that the
whole outside world is conspiring against Ashborough? What about the
fucking government? Jesus, let's call the goddamned National Guard and
have the fuckers smoked out of here."

Sam folded his hands on his lap. "You have a drink?" he asked.

I nodded, went to the cabinet, retrieved two shot glasses, and poured us
both some brandy.

He sipped it gingerly, then continued. "It's a buffer effect. There are
five towns within fifty miles surrounding Ashborough. Ellenville,
Claybrooke, Townshend, Beverly, and Beauchamp. Between here and all
those towns lie thousands of acres of woodland. Within those woods live
the Isolates. I'm assuming you've been to their den by now."

I nodded. "Yeah, I've had the pleasure."

"The den ... the one you've been to, here in Ashborough, is the largest.
But there're dozens of smaller ones all over between here and those
towns. It's a great labyrinth, they're all interconnected, and they can
travel between them with amazing ease. The Isolates keep eyes on the
people living on the outskirts of the towns. These are the town
'officials,' who make sure that all order is kept and that no
information about the

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Isolates leaves Ashborough. They keep track of who goes in, and make
sure that no one comes out."

"Are you saying that the Isolates have spies? Human spies?"

Sam nodded. "Like you and me, they're under strict watch and constant
threat by the Isolates. They have no choice but to adhere to their
demands, otherwise they and their loved ones will fall victim to them."

"I've heard that before."

"And undoubtedly, you've seen it. These aren't animals we're dealing
with. They're a cunning, intelligent race of, dare I say, people who for
hundreds of years have had things done their way. They live by a strict
set of mores and practice them with utter determination. There's no
escaping them, Doctor. I suggest that if you wish to live as normal a
life as possible, simply go about your duties as you normally would, and
do as they demand, when they demand it. And most importantly, remember
that their laws do not allow any discussion of their existence."

"So... why are you talking about them now?" I asked.

"You threatened to kill me."

I nodded, again feeling remorseful. "I'm sorry "

"Don't apologize, Doctor, I know where you're coming from. I've been
here for five years now. I do the best I can, given the situation with
my son, but frankly I'm tired of seeing him the way he his. I'm
wondering whether he might be better off as ... as ..."

"Don't say it," I said. Sam Huxtable was talking because he wanted the
Isolates to come take his son. But

249

who's to say, I thought, whether they might come and torture the poor
kid even further? Or perhaps lay claim to his wife?

Ms wife...

"You mentioned to me that when you tried to leave you didn't think at
the time that your wife and son knew anything about the Isolates. What
did you mean by that?"

He took another sip, then downed the rest and grimaced. I refilled his
glass. "Just as I'd been keeping my knowledge of the Isolates a secret
from my family, terrorized by their threats, my wife Janice had also
come in contact with them. She too had been threatened by Old Lady
Zellis, and had been keeping it all pent up inside, doing only what had
been demanded of her. For three years the Isolates had separately
manipulated myself and my wife, neither of us having any knowledge of
the other's torment, keeping the existence of the Isolates a secret out
of fear of them hurting Josh. Eventually Janice broke down, tried to
overdose on the anxiety medication Farris had given her, which simply
made her vomit for twenty-four hours. At this point we found out that
each of us had had a run-in with Old Lady Zellis and were being
tormented by the Isolates, had been for quite some time."

Lauren Hunter's attempted warning shot back to me like a missile, now,
suddenly, making sense: Christine...

"So what you're saying," I said, the horrible truth of the matter
setting dread deep into me, "is that I may not be the only one being
tormented by the Isolates?"

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Sam nodded, then stood up. "I believe it's time for me to go."

I was too stunned to speak. I gazed up at Sam, a sudden underdog in this
conflict. "Why did you come here?"

He looked at me, dark eyes pinning me. "The Old Lady told me to."

And then he walked out.

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Chapter Twenty-nine

The trees were a great shifting shape against the cloudfilled sky,
backlit by a sun whose rays found it difficult to warm the air. A threat
of rain loomed, cool wind rippling at my shirt as I went outside.

I stood at the entrance to my office, wondering which way Sam Huxtable
had gone: either home to the left or right into the woods to report his
confrontation with Ashborough's good doctor. He'd left about a half hour
earlier, and I'd spent that time glued to the chair behind my desk,
seeking the strength to accomplish what I'd originally set out to do.

Eventually, reality had taken over and I'd risen from my desk and gone
outside. I paced across the yard with all the energy and enthusiasm of a
man who'd just broken the finish line of a marathon. For the millionth
time I mustered some hidden strength to stave off insanity,

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then made my way into the garage, where I planned to spend the next hour
or so wrenching down the slats of wood piled up in the loft. The garage
proved a vital breeding ground for mice and insects seeking warmth from
the cold air, and they all let me know how pissed they were to have
their dwelling unsettled. I also let them know that I was in town to do
business, and took out my aggressions on as many of the skittering
devils as I could with a healthy chunk of two-by-four.

The store of wood here led me to believe that Neil Farris must've
planned to shutter up his house at some point, but had never gotten
around to doing it. In addition to the collection in the loft, a stack
of four-by-eight planks leaned neatly against the rear wall alongside a
stack of new and used beams. I also found a few sets of nails still in
their clear packages, plus a fairly new claw hammer with the price still
attached.

Hastily I began shifting the wood planks around, finding it easy enough
to move them until I tripped on an errant slab and took a splinter of
wood the size of a shish-kebab skewer deep into my palm. The pain at
once reminded me of the nail that had lanced my foot the day we moved
in; now that episode seemed a longlost warning of the shapes of things
to come. Plucking the wood from my hand proved no less painful or gory.

Instead of treating it, I set right back to work, wincing through the
pain that exploded beneath the work gloves I put on. I started the
formidable task of replacing the two steel security doors at either ends
of the hallway, both of which I was now thankful to have not thrown out.
The two panel doors that came down

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ended up across the left half of the front window. A couple of closet
doors from the bedrooms fitted perfectly over the other half.

I wore out a path between the house and the garage, carrying all the
wood planks and beams outside and spreading them out on the grass like a
collection, examining the sizes and shapes of each piece and carefully
considering which windows they would adequately barricade.

As I worked, the day grew cooler and a gray mist formed at the foot of
the woods, like a great white capsule. I'd stopped many times during the
course of the day to gaze into the woods, feeling as if they had become
a sentient force, conspiring with the Isolates.

Plus, there were sounds in the woods. Errant bustlings, twigs cracking,
leaves swishing. I went about my work, ignoring the sounds despite the
fact I shivered uncontrollably every time I turned away, as though
invisible eyes bulleted icy gazes into my back. I worked for hours under
these circumstances, wondering if they might leap out from their hiding
places to rip away my efforts.

Many hours, and many minor injuries, later, every possible entrance to
the house had been barricaded except my office windows, the office
entrance, and the solid oak front door, on which I added four bolt
locks. The steel doors now back in place would keep the beasts from
entering the remainder of the house--the Isolates had already proven
themselves quite capable of entering the office through the chimney,
which I also left clear, I was the one they wanted, and as long as I

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kept myself available to them, my family would be safe.

In an odd instant, Sam Huxtable's words flitted back to me, like a
snapping dream-bubble bursting with insight: I suggest that if you wish
to live as normal a life as possible, simply go about your duties as you
customarily would, and do as they demand, when they demand it.

Then I was reminded of our conversation about his wife, how unbeknownst
to him she'd been under a similar threat by the Isolates, how all along
she too had been forced to commit ghastly deeds in order to assure the
safety of her family, just as they'd done to him. All this had gone on
for years without the other's knowledge. Examining the possibility of
this occurring with Christine brought some issues out into the clear. It
very well explained her sudden anger and resentment toward me, as well
as the ongoing frustration riddling her arguments and how she'd treated
the pregnancy as an ill-fated event.

Jesus, Michael, she'd said, you were wearing a goddamned condom!

I was. And we hadn't done it much prior to that, perhaps three or four
times, if that. I shuddered at the sudden dark mystery that my wife had
become, and wondered if she too had played some role in the Grand
Scheme. She'd shunned me (not unlike I had her, but I had a reason; was
her reason the same?). Then her pregnancy, how she seemed to treat it as
a curse. Jesus, when we had Jessica (thinking of the past, the happy
past, really fucks with my head) she acted like the Cinderella she
presumed herself to be, a woman reveling on cloud nine and taking every
precaution to ensure

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the safe delivery of her baby. Now? Nothing. No prenatal vitamins. No
motherhood literature. Nothing to convince me that she had done anything
for her unborn child. Damn, she never even tried to talk about it.

Why should she? You closed yourself off from her months ago.

Suddenly, and perhaps irrationally, I considered confronting her again.
This time, instead of confessing my knowledge of the Isolates as I had
done rather futilely many months ago, I would insist on her confession,
as to whether she was withholding any secrets, whether she too lived
under their constant threat.

The sun began to set behind the cloak of clouds, dimming everything to a
stark gray. I paced about the backyard, gazing at the upstairs windows
that used to look through into my bedroom and master bath. Now sloppy
wooden barricades faced me, like blinded sockets. I took a deep breath
and turned to face the woods.

All of a sudden, there came a sound, and I remembered it clearly from my
journey into the den of the Isolates: a laugh. A shrill cackle that
could have been a cry. It was cut short, then returned to rise
maniacally and freeze my blood. The wind picked up and lifted the fog to
the branches of the trees, swirling it about in ghostly eddies. The
laugh descended into a wheeze, then faded away... but its resonance
continued on, penetrating me, tearing my senses to pieces.

"Fuck you," I said, my voice barely a crack. "I'll beat you."

I hesitated for a moment, then walked around to the side of the house,
this time keeping my sights on the

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woods, and seeing for the briefest instant two glowing golden eyes fifty
feet back beyond the perimeter of the woods.

Fuck you.

I kept on walking around to the front of the house, where I saw
Christine pulling the minivan into the driveway.

She stared at me from the driver's-side window.

I stared back for a second, then turned away, suddenly afraid of her.
And completely unsure of what to do next.

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Chapter Thirty

That day I rediscovered fear. Again. It came at me from a completely
different angle, one I'd known existed all along but had been
ill-prepared on a mental level to confront. The enduring threat of the
Isolates had been directed against my family since the day we'd moved
in, but I had been the only one to my knowledge who'd witnessed any of
their horrors firsthand. Now, the possibility of Christine having also
experienced them had become conceivable, but to this point remained
unconfirmed.

And then there was Jessica. Would my five-year-old be capable of
recovering from experiencing even a fraction of what truly existed out
there?

Daddy, are there such things as ghosts?

I wondered--quite seriously this time--if Jessica had ever witnessed the
Isolates, had perhaps seen the

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golden eyes hovering in the woods. If Christine had indeed been taken by
them as I now surmised, when had she confronted them without Jessica
present? Was she too spending her nights in the woods as I had? Had she
been forced to secretly perform a sacrifice as well? So many questions,
and no answers.

Despite the threats, I decided to confront Christine.

She got out of the minivan and walked along the walkway to where I was
standing, Jessica followed the path a few feet behind, empty eyes
staring soullessly to the ground. Christine attempted to walk around me, but

I blocked her. She kept her eyes away from mine, shifting back to her right.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward me, our faces inches apart.

"Let me go," she snarled. She was immediately angry, yes, but it was
overshadowed by the pain and trepidation in her eyes. I could read her
mind: I don't want to talk about it, Michael. I can't talk about it, and
you know why. "Please let me go," she said again, this time quieter,
more desperate.

"We need to talk," I demanded. These were the first words I'd spoken to
her in more than a month. It felt incredibly strange, as if I'd just
committed a crime.

She remained defiantly silent and tried to tear away from me, but I held
on to her arm. We wrestled back and forth like this for ten or fifteen
seconds, and then she began to scream. "Let go of me! You bastard!"

That's when Jessica ran away, around the side of the house.

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I called after her, and so did Christine, but she didn't answer.

Finally, by default, I suppose, I let go of Christine. She pushed me
away roughly, crying hard. I ignored her and hurried quickly around the
side of the house, calling Jessica's name. When I didn't see her I raced
into the backyard, my feet seeming to move by themselves.

I saw her running. Far back into the gathering darkness of the woods,
and disappearing fast.

I screamed her name, then ran after her like a madman. But she kept on
running, blond curls bobbing about, before dipping behind a crest in the
land a hundred feet ahead. Brutal horror grasped me in the moment she
slipped from my sight, far beyond even that of my trip into the den of
the Isolates. I ran after her as quickly as humanly possible, calling
out her name as thoughts of her coming face-to-face with one of the
demons tortured my mind. I could hear the faint echoes of her distant
footsteps crunching leaves and snapping twigs, and they helped guide me
along her chosen path, where the canopy above blanketed me in shadows as
I continued yelling, Jessica! Jessica! looking for any sign of her.

I heard her scream.

I sped forward, sidestepping reaching roots and scattered brush,
wondering how in God's name her little legs had taken her so far, so
fast. I climbed hills, skidded down peaks, again calling Jessica!
Jessica! over and over again. Twigs poked my skin. Wet leaves made the
going treacherous and I slipped full-length on the ground. A stab of
intense pain lanced my lower back,

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and for a moment I didn't think I'd be able to get up, but then I heard
Jessica yell Daddy! and that was enough to help me climb back up and
move on.

I pressed on. Pine needles jabbed the skin beneath my clothes. I kept on
yelling Jessica's name, again and again, but my voice was weakening, and
here in the darkening woods the critters were bustling to welcome the
night, serenading in the millions and making it virtually impossible to
hear. The land sloped further upward.

Even in the darkness, the environment I approached took on an alarming
familiarity.

Jesus...

I climbed over a hill, crossed a flat of land thick with trees, and saw it.

The circle of stones.

I finally found her. She was standing motionless within the arena of
ten-foot stones, knee-deep in a blanket of dead leaves alongside the
bloodstained altar. A disemboweled raccoon lay on the stone. She stared
at it, eyes bulging, jaw hanging.

How did she come this far? I ran as fast as I could, yet she made it
here way before me. ...

I took a step forward. Then it hit me, like a great rush of hot air. The
smell, the familiar foulness of decaying leaves and excrement and rot,
rising up from an unseen source.

Why I hadn't smelled it when Phillip had taken me here, I can't explain.
But it was here. I had found it. Somewhere beneath her gentle footsteps
was the dwelling place of the Isolates.

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"Jessica," I said, my voice cracking. "Come here." I tried to step
forward, but my legs immediately froze, taking me no further than beyond
the outer perimeter of the stones.

Fear had me in its grasp again, not because I was afraid for myself, but
because I was terrified for my daughter.

Right behind my daughter was an Isolate.

Jesus, it seemed so nightmarishly surreal, so weird, as if I were
looking at some image from a book of nineteenth-century ghost
photographs. But it was real, mere feet from her. A face, staring at me,
its golden eyes dulled to a drab shade, like dirty lamplights. The
gnarled, knobby head shifted ever so slightly. It looked like an
anglerfish nestled in the sand awaiting its prey at sea bottom.

As my eyes adjusted to the surroundings, more came into view. Jesus,
there were perhaps a dozen demons here, all masterfully camouflaged
within the brown earth-toned environs. Hideous, gnarled faces with
downcast brows, staring at me, stirring ever so slightly as if to alert
me to their presence, but not so much as to make themselves apparent to
Jessica.

She looked up from the dead raccoon, waved at me, unaware of the threat
only feet behind her.

Then, from the corner of my pained eye, I saw something. A
burrowing-like ripple below the leaves, approaching her from behind. It
stopped at her heels and I froze, paralyzed, heart pounding, breath
short and stagnant.

Like a worm unearthing itself, a brownish face

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appeared, a hideous mask squirming out from the layer of brush and
tangle. A single clawed limb rooted out alongside it, reaching for her
ankle.

It had to have been sheer will (it certainly wasn't my bravery), but
Jessica ran to me at that moment, as if my mental pleas had somehow
coerced her. She leapt into my arms, crying, and I quickly embraced her.

I ran back to the house, holding her tightly the entire way.

Christine waited there, racing forward, face swollen and damp with
tears. She grabbed Jessica from me and hugged her against her pregnant
belly and repeated through her sobs, "Oh, my baby, my sweet baby. Thank
God you're okay," rubbing her head and kissing her.

She walked away toward the house, and I wondered if she even noticed
that all the windows had been barricaded. She brought Jessica inside,
going in through the office entrance. I'd left the steel doors unlocked
(would she notice them too?) so she'd had no problem getting back into
the house. I wanted to go inside, speak to her, but it became clear that
Christine wanted no part of me ... not now anyway.

I took a deep breath, a million thoughts racing through my head, none of
them making sense.

Except one.

They had Christine.

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Chapter Thirty-one

The day's veil of clouds had dissipated into fine air, allowing the
near-full moon to wash its pale blue beams across the backyard. In this
light my house looked haunted with its boarded-up windows and chipped
shingles. It had been all along, I suppose--and reflected that with its
dreadful appearance. Slowly I gazed around the dark yard, at the matted
lawn, the poisonous woods, and Christine's herb garden (it had overgrown
rather quickly, making it look like something out of a Lovecraft tale,
particularly with the cement birdbath casting shadows over it).

I paced awkwardly across the yard, checking the windows repeatedly to
make certain no Isolate could make its way in. A few nails had come
loose, but the barriers remained secure. Eventually I went back into the
house via the office door, then into the kitchen, where I sat at

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the table, staring at the clock, which read eight-thirty. I made myself
a cheese-on-rye sandwich and chased it with some milk. My appetite was
virtually nil and it took me some time to force it all down--the food
felt like Styrofoam against my dry scratchy throat. When I finished, I
went upstairs, quickly showered, and changed into a clean pair of jeans
and a sweater. Christine had sequestered herself behind the bedroom
door, and I figured that Jessica might be in there with her. I peeked
into Jessica's room anyway, just in case, and surprisingly enough found
her asleep in her bed.

My princess was motionless beneath the quilted covers. Her tattered
teddy bear lay curled in her grasp, its one button eye peeking out from
the edge of the comforter, dangling from withered threads. I ran a hand
through Jessica's curly hair--one of the simple pleasures, I realized
now, still left in my life--then gazed through the upstairs window
alongside her bed into the dark of night. The wind picked up and whined
sharply against the glass, startling me a bit.

Staring into the woods--sometimes hours at a time-- had become an
outright obsession with me, for I needed to be ready to act the instant
the golden eyes appeared; it was the only option I had to protect my
family. Christine had suffered great pain, I knew that now, although not
for the reasons I'd originally assumed. At first it seemed clear that
her anguish had come about because of my sudden paranoia, my drastic
change in personality. All along I'd carried a great burden with me,
knowing that my actions had gravely hurt her.

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But if what Sam Huxtable had said was true, it seems I'd been horribly
wrong. The cause of her suffering had not been my cold, dreadful
behavior. It had been the same torment afflicting me all along. That
Christine had had her very own experiences with the Isolates, and had
been tortured by her inability to communicate with me.

Sam Huxtable was right.

Lauren Hunter was right.

They had her.

But to what degree? What sort of threats had they made to Christine?

I had to find out.

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Chapter Thirty-two

With my hand still tenderly caressing my daughter's hair, I backed away
from her bed with every intention to go into Christine's bedroom--our
bedroom--and open up the lines of communication again, when, by force of
habit, I looked out the window.

I saw them immediately, escaping from the woods and slowly approaching
the house. Golden eyes, perhaps a dozen of them, floating like fairies
from a child's fable.

The sight jolted me. My hand slipped from Jessica's head and
accidentally tore the teddy bear from her grasp. It fell to the hardwood
floor with a quiet, graceful thump, slightly stirring the five-year-old
from her dreams, but thankfully not waking her.

Leaving the teddy bear on the floor, I quickly escaped her room, went
downstairs, and scampered

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through the kitchen into the hallway leading to the office.

Once in my study, I seized hold of my medical bag, which I'd restocked
earlier with all the appropriate tools necessary for curing their ills:
bandages, antibiotics, a variety of clamps and scalpels (the latter
having performed the C-section), and went back out the office door, into
the night.

At once the golden orbs in the backyard signaled me, and I followed
their lead into the dark woods.

Once in the woods, the beasts aggressively clutched at my clothes,
hissing alarms, probably indicating that I had arrived. They led me
through the woods along a familiar path, their claws poking and
scratching me when my tired pace lagged too much. I stumbled repeatedly
along the way, and at one point fell down and considered staying there
and feigning death; somehow, I didn't think they'd fall for it, and it
was this thought that got me up and moving again. I ran a hand across my
mouth and came away with blood; I'd cut my lip in the fall. "Fuck," I
muttered, grasping my bag and continuing on. Five minutes later, I
reached the circle of stones, where the Isolates were darting all over
the place like dogs chasing a ball. In the starlight I could see two
hidden doorways slowly rising up from beneath the brush on the forest
floor, each constructed of mud and thatch, leaves and twigs intricately
woven on and around them to permanently disguise their existence.

Two Isolates abruptly forced me through one of the entranceways, which
fell into a steep narrow passage. Nearly falling forward, I stretched my
arms out in front

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of me, carefully feeling my way through as my shoulders scraped along
the dark soil walls, my head against the low ceiling. The passage
twisted and turned as it wound down into the darkness; in some places it
widened, other times it thinned out. Sections broke off every so often
into branched corridors where more Isolates appeared for a glimpse of
their "Savior." I felt bodies scampering by as I stumbled further into
the earth, harsh voices hooting louder and louder, limbs groping me,
guiding me, only their bulbous golden irises visible in the utter blackness.

A flickering of lights appeared ahead. Once there, I beheld a familiar
sight: the immense subterranean dwelling. Hundreds of burning torches
lined the soil walls, igniting the chamber to a ghostly golden hue.

A single Isolate jumped out, mere inches before me. I was startled, and
dropped my medical bag, which I'd completely forgotten I was holding.

Fenal. He silenced the advancing crowd, positioning his wiry body now
three feet in front of me. His limbs swayed in a purposeful dance. His
grin was brown and rancid, brimming, the scar on his face wriggling like
a snake. "Savior." A spectrum of whispers came from the crowd.

I remained silent. I could taste blood and sweat in my mouth.

"Heal us," he said.

A mob running three deep surrounded me, each creature suffering from
some kind of sickening ailment. Two creatures dangled broken limbs
before me as if bestowing gifts; many picked at open festering sores so

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that I could clearly see them; another had experienced a failed
childbirth, and miraculously crawled over trailing its uterus behind
like a piece of luggage. Fenal broke through the pleading crowd and
guided me into a separate antechamber to the left where, one by
sickening one, I was forced to treat them.

Hours passed. I spent them under the firelight, binding the Isolates'
broken parts, sealing their wounds and administering antibiotics,
delivering their babies. It was a terribly fatiguing process that seemed
to never end. Before I was done, I treated a total of twenty-one
Isolates. Four of them were dead before they got to me; two died under
my "care."

They were a race weakened by injury and disease, that much I could
ascertain. I realized now that it was my job, as their so-called
"Savior," to heal them and help them flourish, to multiply further, to
help them gain strength and vigor and reestablish themselves as a breed.
Just as Neil Farris presumably had.

Oh, they eat their dead.

Coming here tonight, I had dreaded the possibility of an untreatable
demon lying before me. The third Isolate presented to me had not been
bitten nor scratched by a forest animal; wasn't broken-limbed nor the
ill-fated recipient of a newborn infant.

No. This demon had been suffering from disease.

It had lain in a separate hovel, shivering atop a burlap bag, its
gnarled teeth clenching and grinding in agony. Blood and feces
surrounded it like a foul moat. Its golden eyes had lost all their
luster, now dulled to naked gray hues. Upon close inspection, I observed
that

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it had been bitten in a multitude of places, on the legs, stomach, and
groin, probably by a rat. I administered penicillin, but knew it would
do no good.

An hour later, the Isolate was dead.

The panic I felt could never be described by words alone. Would they
kill me for not living up to their expectations?

I found myself suddenly alone in the tiny alcove. Behind me they had all
emerged from their resting places into the core of the den, crawling
slowly and quietly, the grinding of their teeth and claws sending wicked
shudders throughout my body, and I nearly collapsed at the sight of
them. There were more of them than I'd ever imagined. Their clan was so
huge that I couldn't imagine them not needing to branch out soon into
newly settled territories, perhaps beyond Ashborough.

I could only kneel at the edge of the dirt chamber, staring out at the
hundreds of golden eyes, which all stared back at me. Carefully, I
stepped down from my platform and edged slowly away, keeping my eyes at
my feet and feeling their bodies brushing by me.

A loud scuffling ensued. I cringed, expecting them to leap on me. When
they didn't, I turned to see what it was that had had them so suddenly
excited.

I beheld a gruesome sight.

A few of the demons had ripped the dead body from its resting place in
the alcove and began tearing its limbs away. In mere seconds many more
had feverishly pounced it, and I was horribly reminded of a documentary
film I'd seen where a pride of lions competed for a share of a downed
wildebeest. Rancid jaws locked

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onto muscle, tendon, and bone, pulling away as much sustenance as
possible. Wild screeches and howls followed, and before I could grasp my
sanity, the dead creature had been reduced to mere gristle lodged
between the spaces of their twisted teeth.

I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, I'd seen the damage they did
to Lauren Hunter and Rosy Deighton. But... to finally see them in action
... it threw me for a loop. When this feeding ritual was complete, Fenal
led me back into the first hovel and sent in additional Isolates to be
treated.

Finally, when I felt I could handle it no more, they stopped coming in.
I felt afraid to move, so I sat in the cave and at one point even
drifted off into a light sleep, my head resting against the muddy wall.
I dreamed of better times, of living in Manhattan in our cramped
apartment; how foreign the bump and grind of city life seemed now.

I startled awake to find two Isolates forcing me to my feet. Bewildered,
I stumbled from the small cave into the den. The entire mass of Isolates
had gathered, their golden eyes aglow and pointed in my direction.

Fenal stood before them, staring at me. I stared back at him, wondering
if my time had come, and to some odd extent, hoping it had.

Fenal raised his arms high. I saw a black beetle nesting in his armpit.
It circled there for a few seconds, then skittered down the side of his
mangy torso. "Katah!" he screamed. The hundreds of golden-eyed night
dwellers squealed and screeched in a roaring frenzy, waving their
broomstick arms in all directions.

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Something seemed wrong, and I felt that my life might be coming to an
end right there--that my last breathing moments would take place in this
den of hell. I prayed to God for mercy, asking him to protect Jessica
and Christine.

A flurry of activity arose behind Fenal, a jostling of bodies. Then, a
scream.

A human scream.

Deep, guttural, exhausted, pained, it was most surely that of a man. I
craned my neck to peer past Fenal and those Isolates crouching
menacingly alongside him, but a number of the breed were holding me
firmly by the arms and legs, keeping me in place, and I couldn't make
out the cause of the commotion, or the source of the scream.

Fenal gazed at me, his eyes glowing as bright as the torches providing
light to this hellish pit. Those hunkering near him suddenly darted away
like frightened cats, their squeals echoing about the chamber.

I stared back, waiting, never imagining for even the slightest moment
that any worse nightmare could exist beyond all I'd endured for the past
six months. I was wrong. It did.

I saw something move and I did my best to focus on the continuing
activity just behind Fenal. The headIsolate stepped aside and in his
place I saw a figure loom, that of a man, hunched and obviously wearied.
I could not see his face at first, but I recognized the dark denim jeans
and flannel jacket he wore.

In an instant two Isolates pounced on the man, digging their claws into
his clothes and skin. He screamed

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and they grasped him by the hair, mocking his screams with wild howls of
their own. They pulled him to his knees, and a shroud of flickering
torchlight washed across his trembling face, badly beaten, bloodied,
bruised.

Phillip.

Fenal approached me, cracked bulbous lips inches away from my face. He
whispered, "Savior." His dirty breath stank of decay. "Maltor..."

The entire clan repeated the foreign gesture, hushed, yet deep and
caustic. Hundreds of golden lights glowed in the distance. Confusion
beset my tortured mind.

Maltor?

Phillip's eyes, what little life remained in them, pleaded with me. His
bloodied lips trembled, the voice coming from them cracking with fatigue
and fear. "I shouldn't have told you anything, Michael."

Jesus. The Isolates were punishing him for breaking their law. That
night on the porch to my house, when we spoke, Phillip had told me about
their ability to spy on people, to listen in on others' conversations.
He'd also shown me what they'd done to Rosy, and that was much more than
they could ever allow above and beyond his attempts to get me to make
the sacrifice.

They'd been in the woods listening to our entire conversation. And they
didn't like what they'd heard.

Now Phillip would pay.

And so would I.

Fenal slithered over. He came within inches of my face. He forcibly
handed me a club of wood that looked as though it had been crudely
carved from a

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woodland tree. I grasped it, suddenly aware of their dreadful intentions
for myself and for Phil.

Maltor. Kill. They wanted me to kill Phillip Deighton.

I held the wood club in both hands, sweat pouring from my palms, my mind
circling in a vain attempt to find the logic behind their perverse
request. But I could not. A thing such as logic did not exist down here.
The golden-eyed breed are pure evil, ungracious and malevolent,
unknowing of such a concept. Without Neil Farris here, they would become
sick and lame with injury and disease. Enter the new doctor. They kidnap
me, hold me and my family hostage until I cure each and every goddamned
one. Make them strong.

Savior. Yes, that's what they call me. Now I understood why. I was here
to save their race from extinction. And soon, from what I could fathom,
they'd be done with me. As they were at the time with Neil Farris.

"Maltor!" Fenal screamed. The breed repeated his demand, the roar of it
deafening.

"No," I said feebly, knowing very well I was simply prolonging their
game by not cooperating.

A demon appeared from just behind Fenal, groveling toward me on its
knees, a great tormented grin pulling its lips wide.

In one dirty, twisted claw it held Jessica's teddy bear, its one button
eye still dangling from withered threads.

Dear God... They had violated my asylum, the one place where I found my
only peace of mind. The place of my purest and most precious possession,
the only place still sacred in my life. My daughter's room.

My God, how did they get in?

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The demon dug its claws into the teddy bear and shredded it with one
swift motion. Soft white stuffing fell out, so alien here in this
befouled place.

"Maltor," it said.

I had no choice, their threat was clear. Kill Phillip, or they would
kill my daughter.

I set my eyes upon Phillip. He was crying, tears pouring down his
bruised face, through the blood, the dirt, the pain.

I closed my eyes, raised the club, and swung.

With barely the strength to stagger up the stairs, I looked up,
pondering the grisly sight that I feared would greet me: my precious
beauty torn limb from limb, her innocence splattered on the walls.

My heart tottered as I took each step, my muscles screaming in pain. I
reached the landing, turned, and entered Jessica's room. My nerves
flared the moment I saw her.

Turning in bed, Jessica faced me. She rubbed her eyes, her golden locks
partially covering her face.

"Hi, Daddy." Her voice sweet, tender, innocent.

I smiled and sat next to her on the soft mattress.

She sat up. Her hair fell away from her face, revealing a smear of blood
on her forehead.

Shivering, I held her close, knowing I had to come up with a solution,
some way to leave Ashborough. My body and mind could not go on any
longer. I had to find a way, I had to protect my family from the Isolates.

But was that realistic? The barriers had proved worthless. Attempts by
others to leave had only led to death

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for their efforts. And now, with the breed healthier, stronger...

It was not whether they would harm my family, but when. Possibility
became probability.

Leaving was not the answer. In this playground of good and evil, my only
solution was to fight back.

My only hope.

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"Where's my teddy?"

I stayed silent, watching the sunrise behind the woods. I hugged
Jessica, running my fingers through her hair as I regarded the woods
from the window, trying desperately to come up with my next move.

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Part Three

For the

Infestation of

Maggots

278

278

279

Chapter Thirty-three

Every day I wanted to give up. Twice, maybe three times, I actually
considered suicide. But that, I told myself, might be a form of
murder--certainly they'd take my death as a strike against them, and
they would respond by killing my family, making me, in theory, a
murderer of my own family. It would take the old adage "What goes around
comes around" and contort it into something horridly perverse.

So I gave up on the suicidal thoughts. I'd live each day. I'd see (or
hear) Christine leaving to take Jessica to school. I'd see two or three
unspeaking patients during the day who never seemed to have anything
worth seeing a doctor about (I've come to the assumption that the
Isolates were sending them here to keep tabs on me, just as they had
with Sam Huxtable; paranoid? me? You'd be too). I'd eat, shit, catch an
hour or two of

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sleep, then slip into my office to wait for their signal. During this
time Christine would return home, and every time I'd wonder just where
the hell she spent her days, what she did. We still weren't speaking;
this seemed to be a mutual concession, leading me to believe even more
so that she kept some Isolate-induced secret under tight wraps. This too
I gave up trying to uncover. In time, I told myself, it would all come
out in the open. And then the shit would hit the fan.

Sooner or later, it would have to happen.

Three weeks after the death of Phillip Deighton, it did happen.

And it was all my doing.

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Chapter Thirty-four

I awoke to a strong December gale that'd rattled the windows in my
office so hard I mistook it for a misguided flock of birds. Startled, I
sat up from the couch and peered around the office, which had taken on
the alarming appearance of a madman's junk room: books pulled down from
the shelves; dirty plates piled high; papers littering nearly every inch
of the wood floor. I'd taken up permanent residence here about two weeks
prior, my contact with Jessica and Christine now limited to a random
crossing of paths en route to the bathroom or refrigerator. By that
point my patients had stopped coming completely. I didn't answer the
door anymore. The phone had stopped ringing altogether.

I heard Christine leaving every day, beginning with her footsteps in the
kitchen, the cold and limited conversation with Jessica, then the
slamming of the front

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door and the eventual starting of the minivan with its tires that
crunched over the gravel driveway as it backed away. My days were spent
wondering whether the Isolates in fact had Christine under their
control, and what dark tasks they might have had her carrying out; had
they threatened Jessica, or even perhaps our unborn child, forcing
Christine to maintain utter silence and do what they said?

Eventually, when thoughts of my broken family faded from my mind, I
stared into the woods and wondered just when they would call on me again.

I hadn't heard a sound from them since I swung the club and murdered my
closest neighbor, Phillip Deighton. Every day I saw his tortured eyes,
swollen and bruised and shut tight, anticipating the blow that would
shatter his skull. I could still see his body so clearly... how it fell
in a lifeless heap at my feet, twitching, creeping, the blood and the
brains spilling from the crushed portion of his skull like porridge, the
thick warmth of it soaking through my boots to my feet. Every day I saw
this scene played out in my mind like a recurring nightmare, and it felt
as though insects were crawling feverishly beneath my skin. Eventually I
forced myself to sit silently in my office, and clutched myself tightly
to prevent lunacy from taking full control. And then, when the hours
passed and nighttime fell, I found it in me to rise from my paralysis
and take a seat at my desk, my medical bag close by as I waited for
their call.

This morning felt somewhat different, for lack of a better word. I'd
fallen asleep at my desk prior to

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midnight--my usual point of turning in--and awakened at some dark hour.
I'd carried myself lifelessly to the couch, where I'd slept the entire
night soundly for the first time in months.

The clock read six a.m. Christine had yet to get up. With a strangely
enthusiastic burst of energy, I stood up and went into the kitchen,
where I drank a glass of milk and ate a peanut-butter sandwich. The good
night's sleep had revived my senses, making the food taste much better
than usual.

The weather outside was typical for December in New England. Cold,
blustery, with a dusting of snow. I retrieved a sweater from the laundry
basket on the dryer and pulled it on, realizing that I, all of a sudden,
had plans to undertake the one task I hadn't had any energy for in the
past. In the closet by the front door, I grabbed my coat, and as I
shrugged into it I heard Christine moving around upstairs. Blood surging
with anxiety, I slipped out the front door and strode briskly to the
minivan.

Before getting in, I peeked up at the windows of the house, forgetting
for a moment that they were still barricaded, although the wind had
loosened the board in front of the extra bedroom, causing it to dangle
like a pendulum from one corner. My mind played games with me in that
moment of indecision, and I ignored it as best I could. I realized there
was nothing much left to lose by unearthing what really went on in
Christine's life during the day. Logic told me, as demented as the logic
was here in Ashborough, that her days consisted

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of much more than just dropping off Jessica at school and shopping for
groceries. I decided that today, I would find out.

I opened the back hatch to the minivan, closed myself in, then nestled
down behind the seat and covered myself with the wool blanket there, not
only to conceal my presence, but to also keep warm.

About a half hour later, I heard the front door to the house slam shut.

Christine was coming. She and Jessica walked in silence up the path,
each of them taking a seat up front. For a moment I anticipated one of
them coming back here to get something, or to investigate the strange
odor (I hadn't showered in a week), but instead Christine started the
car and backed out of the driveway.

I winced at the aches in my joints as I shifted a bit, the jostle of the
car sending flares throughout my body. I was sweating like a horse
despite the cold, and I pretty much smelled like one too. I closed my
eyes to block all the discomforts, and waited out the ride.

The hum of the engine was constant, Christine apparently keeping the car
at a very slow and steady speed. She made a few turns, all hard lefts
and rights, but it was difficult to tell exactly how many she made after
the first few. We all rode in silence, the only sounds outside of the
engine being a few random gales against the rear windshield or a
kicked-up pebble striking the car's body.

At last the car slowed, made a sluggish right turn, and pulled onto a
long, shaky, unpaved road. For a fleeting moment I assumed that we'd
arrived at the school, but

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having been there once before when registering Jessica, I could not
recall an unpaved road or driveway leading to the grounds. No, we
weren't at the school. We were someplace else.

But where?

The car made a soft left turn, then stopped. Christine shut off the engine.

Sweat flowed over my body, sticking to my clothes. All was silent except
for the naked sway of nearby trees. The car door opened and Christine
got out in silence. The door slammed shut and I heard her footsteps
circling the front of the car. Through the muffled barrier of the car, I
heard her say, "C'mon, honey." Her tone was flat and demanding, as
though they'd performed this routine a hundred times before.

Jessica's door opened, then closed. Their footsteps crunched gravel and
stopped. The creak of something riding metallic hinges--a gate
perhaps--sounded, closing out their footsteps, which quickly faded away
into the distance.

I waited. Ten minutes or more passed, and when I assumed that they
weren't coming back right away, I leaned up and peeked out through the
rear window.

Although it was the middle of the morning, the cloudfilled sky and dense
clustering of trees set everything around me in darkness. I could see a
thin dirt driveway veining away from the minivan to a back road perhaps
a hundred yards away. Thick pine trees on both sides of the driveway
insulated it from any traffic that might pass by. I popped open the
hatch and crawled outside. The wind was strong, and it almost ripped the
door

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from my hands as I got out of the car; I had to push down on it hard to
get it to shut. Pulling my jacket up around my neck, I jogged around the
rear of the car and hid behind a large elm that stood next to a
wrought-iron fence marking the perimeter of someone's property. The high
fence marched in a semicircle around a single tattered dwelling. I
looked for a Beware of Dog sign, but didn't see one. Still, this was the
kind of property that stereotypically housed a foam-jawed pit bull or
Doberman, so I remained on close guard.

A minute passed. I kept myself pinned to the tree. I didn't want to be
seen, especially by Christine, or a dog, or the owner of the house,
which was set back a hundred or so feet from the fence. Then, when I was
convinced that all was clear, I quickly rushed along the fence to the
gate, nestling my freezing body alongside an old oak whose branches
groaned restlessly in the wind. My jacket rippled, chilling my bones,
which were already gripped in a cold tide of apprehension.

I peered at the single-story house. Even older than mine, and much
smaller, it had a wraparound porch with a railing that lacked more than
half its supports. Most of the others were whittled and rotting with
age. The shingles hung crookedly, withered and gray, and the shutters
were mere skeletons of their former selves. The porch itself was slanted
and littered with holes and broken glass.

Christine and Jessica were in there, I told myself, detained against
their will and being forced to do horrible things to save themselves,
and perhaps me. I'm gonna get you out of there, I thought. Gonna save
you both,

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and then we're gonna get out of here. Forever. Even if it means my life.

I reached through the iron slats and flipped the latch to the gate,
peering up at the fancy cathedral shape running eight feet high. The
gate creaked anciently as it moved, not unlike the wind. I slipped
through it and shut it behind me, suddenly thankful that I didn't have
to tackle the pointed staves running the length of the rusty fence. The
last thing I needed now was to end this dangerous parade skewered like a
loin of lamb at a Brazilian barbecue.

I hurried forward and pressed up against the trunk of an elm in the
middle of the yard, feeling the sweat pouring from my body.

Silence dominated except for the wind and the sway of the trees.

Deciding against the porch, I darted from the tree and circled the house
into the backyard. There were more trees there, shutting out even more
sunlight. It was unusually dark. And cold. Almost like night.

I took a deep breath, wondering if what I was about to do made any
sense. My common sense pointed out to me that very little was tolerated
by the "law" here, and that there would be no second chances because the
Isolates were probably out there right now, watching me, waiting to see
what tricks their good doctor had up his sleeve. So... if I didn't do
this now, then I'd never find out what Christine was doing here at this
strange house. She would never tell me. And the Isolates wouldn't allow
me back... if they let me live.

Right then and there was my only opportunity to

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uncover some truth in my life ... what little was left of it.

I took a moment to survey the surroundings. Not much of a yard, perhaps
twenty feet leading into a sea of woodland, which more or less went on
forever until someone else's home appeared.

At the periphery of woods was a tombstone.

In the instant I saw the marker, a dead man's words came back to me:
There's a grave in her backyard that's supposed to be that of her
mother's. It's right at the edge of the woods, you can see it from the road.

The cement marker was weathered with age, the top smooth and rounded. It
jutted crookedly from the ground, the soil frozen and swollen at the
base. Crudely carved on its face was one word:

Zellis

From the woods came a sudden rustling sound. I hid behind the closest
tree, pressing my face against the rough bark. A wash of golden light
splayed over the tree, and then kept moving, like a spotlight in search
of lost ships. My heart expanded in my chest, squeezed painfully against
my ribs; I hoped like mad that the demon would miss me. The golden
light, bright in the shade, ran across the edge of the woods, then
tailed back as though retracing its footsteps. I put my face down and
tucked my hands in my pockets in an effort to conceal the white of my
skin. It passed over the tree again and kept going before dimming out
completely. I waited, continuing to press my body against the tree.

Then without letting myself think about it any further,

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I pulled away from the tree and darted toward the house.

Old Lady Zellis's house.

Gasping, I reached the back door. Bits of bark clung to my shirt. A
sharp pain made itself known in my knee. I stood quietly for a moment,
resting, allowing the ache in my knee to level out before drumming up
the nerve to go inside. In this nightmarish moment of inaction I felt a
type of loathsome honor... here I was, some kind of B-movie hero about
to rain down on the parade of the evildoers by bounding in and rescuing
the poor fair maiden. It made me feel disconnected from reality, being
on this mission to save my family from the evil ancient breed who'd
taken an entire New England town hostage.

I wanted to scream, but held it inside, along with the deep inner
coldness I knew would stay with me for as long as I kept breathing. I
drew my arms around my body, shivered, then again looked at the house.

At the back door.

I reached out and grabbed the doorknob. It was rough with rust.

I turned it.

And then I went inside.

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Chapter Thirty-five

I walked into a small vestibule. Stopped. Inhaled deeply. The air tasted
bitter, of age and dust. I moved forward into a small kitchen. The room
sat in a spiritless light, the windows caked with soil and grime and
barely able to accept what little illumination the outside world had to
offer. In an alarming moment, I tried to envision my wife and daughter
here in this strange, dark environment, but had trouble even remembering
what they looked like. I'd spent very little time with them over the
past couple of months, and over that time they'd changed on not only an
emotional level, but on a physical one as well. Staring at the decrepit
features of the kitchen, the rusty basin, the rotting cabinets, the
shredded wallpaper, I realized that my family had become complete and
total strangers, as foreign to me as this place. I could very well make
out their features,

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Christtine's swollen belly and permanent frown, Jessica's blond curls
and glassy blue eyes, but attempting to recall how they looked before
all this happened seemed impossible, as though their happiness had never
existed. And then, when I tried to muster up some images of happiness
amongst us in the future, only dark shadows arose.

Momentarily keeping thoughts of my family at bay, I set my sights past
the doorway in the kitchen, toward what would be the living
room--although from this angle it didn't appear that much living went on
in it. I could see outside beyond the two front windows, to the porch
and then to the wrought-iron fence. As before, everything appeared
lifeless. If it wasn't for the minivan, I'd've assumed the place to have
been long abandoned.

But Christine and Jessica are here somewhere. The car is parked outside.

Did you actually see them going into the house?

No.

I walked into the living room. It was empty save for some broken pottery
and a broom with a splintered handle. A thick layer of dust coated the
floor.

In the nearest corner of the room, by a small doorway, were two sets of
shoe prints, one of an adult and one of a child.

I walked across the living room, stared down at the footprints, then
opened the thin wooden door.

Steps, leading down into a cellar.

Christine? Jessica? Where are you?

I wondered for a moment if I were in control of my

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own actions. Somehow, the inability to summon up any happiness in my
past led me to believe that I was being, psychologically influenced by
the Isolates as well. Could this journey be yet another element in their
grand scheme? Was I really in control?

I thought of the tombstone out back, only this time envisioned it with
my name crudely etched into the stone: CAYLE. Perhaps in a moment I
would be dead, and in need of a marker.

The stairs were set in darkness. But below, somewhere in the basement,
candles flickered; a gentle orange glow dancing against the cinder walls
leading down. The first wooden step met my feet with a harsh creak, and
when I turned my head, I saw that my footprints had vanished in the dust
on the living room floor. So had the others.

My God ...

My heart thumped slow and hard in my chest. I turned back to face the
dark stairwell. (The lesser of two evils?) I told myself, rightly so,
that going down these steps would become a defining moment. That there
were people down there in this basement, Christine and Jessica and maybe
even Old Lady Zellis. Or an Isolate or two.

I looked back into the living room. My footsteps ... they were still
gone. It wasn't my tired eyes playing games with me. It was the damn
Isolates. Somehow they had covered my trail, as if to destroy all
evidence of me coming here. In that moment Phillip's voice came back to
me from the day we went walking in the

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woods: The old lady's eyes started glowing this odd golden color and
they had me hypnotized. ...

Was it possible that some form of magic existed here in Ashborough? That
the Isolates maintained not only a physically intimidating prowess, but
a strong hypnotic power as well? If so, was I now under some form of
hypnosis, leading me to believe that my footprints had vanished? A
trance not unlike the one leading me into the woods to the circle of
stones, forcing me to kill Jimmy Page? At that point, anything was possible.

I took the steps one at a time, staring into my soul and seeing that,
life or death, I had no choice but to go ahead with this. I told myself
that it might be easier to head back outside into the minivan and return
home, leave it all behind to run its course. But in doing so, I'd be
failing myself, and my family, and then death would most certainly be
the only option. So I placed my hands against the cinder walls, reached
bottom, and turned into the basement.

Dear God... this can't be. ...

A horror so intense met my gaze... so awful and surreal it seemed wholly
impossible, like a nightmare. But this was no dream, this was real--as
real as the fear pumping through my veins.

They were here. Christine and Jessica. At first sight of them I clapped
my hands to my face, fury immediately rising up in me, overturning all
those emotions, cold and dark, that had ruled my body and soul for so long.

Then my legs went weak and rubbery on me, stomach twisting madly and
shooting acids up into my

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throat. My anger escalated ... but so did my fear. I'd never felt such a
spectacular combination of emotions, and it tore me even further away
from reality, as though I were an astral traveler exploring the heavens
while my body lay resting somewhere a million miles away.

I stepped toward them, my feet moving by themselves. An odor hit me and
I began to gag. It was awful, and familiar. I gripped the staircase
wall, holding on to my balance and breathing heavily.

I took another step forward, shaking so much I thought I would simply
collapse. My eyes blurred, making it difficult to focus on the scene
before me.

Michael, what you're seeing is absurd. A figment of your spent
imagination. You 've been through a lot over the past six months, and
now it's finally taken its toll on you. Time to check out, my friend.
It's been nice knowing you.

There were three people in the basement, Christine, Jessica, and the
ancient woman that had come into my office, Old Lady Zellis. They didn't
see me, that much was certain. They were surrounded by a circle of
candles on the floor, blinded by the shadows. Christine lay fully naked
on a concrete slab, spread-eagled. The old witch was hunkered down
before her, large callused hands cupping a wriggling mound of a green
jellylike substance she'd scooped out of a wooden basin alongside her.
Using both hands, she smeared Christine's pregnant belly and vagina with
the gelatinous material, using two yellow-clawed fingers to paint odd
hieroglyphs upon her skin. Some of the stuff slid away in streaks down
Christine's waist, which the old lady

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eagerly smeared up the sides of her torso to her armpits. This whole
time Jessica was sitting on the floor in the furthest corner of the
room, seemingly unaware of the wicked event taking place before her, her
eyes open, but coated with tears and aimed at some nondescript point in
the basement. Her face appeared devilish in the flickering candlelight.

My entire body began to tremble, but I suppressed it. I took another
step forward, unsure of what I could possibly do. In that instant, the
old lady dipped her hands in the jelly again, only this time, instead of
splashing the outside of Christine's body, she clawed a hand into
Christine's vagina, up to the wrist. The green matter oozed out at the
edges of her orifice as the old lady twisted and turned her arm.
Christine seemed not to feel nor care about this, moaning and wincing
only slightly as the witch continued thrusting her hand deep inside her.
In the corner, Jessica began chanting something alien in a deep-toned
voice that wasn't hers, over and over again.

It was at that moment, hearing my little girl speaking in that strange
tongue, that the entire scene really hit me ... really hit me, and I
began to scream.

My screams clamored piercingly about the basement. I could feel my face
contorting--eyes swelling, jaw stretched, skin heated--with noises
coming from my throat like sirens, awful screeches that signaled the
beginning of insanity, of love lost and then found incomplete and
fruitless. Images of the last six months came back to me: Rosy Deighton
in her bedroom, the deer in the shed, Lauren Hunter on my walkway, Jimmy

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Page's blood on my hands, Old Lady Zellis in my office, Phillip
Deighton's exploding skull. But... most horrifying of all were the
memories of the Isolates themselves, evil demons doing a damn fine job
in running my life in their sick, twisted way.

Jessica's moaning stopped.

Old Lady Zellis removed her claw from my wife's vagina.

I'd made my presence known. Now I had to do something about it.

The candles had distorted the appearance and size of the basement, and I
could see now that I was closer to the scene than I'd first estimated.

Old Lady Zellis backed away from Christine, slowly, as though trying not
to disturb the scene any further. She drifted out of the circle of
candles, not toward me but toward the left side of the basement, against
the cinder wall near the steps. She stared at me, and the candlelight
flickered upon her face, somehow transforming it into something
beautiful, princesslike: hair dark and flowing, skin smooth and
unblemished, arms waving gracefully in the air. The rags she wore
metamorphosed into a silky dress that ran around her neck, across her
chest, and down to her ankles; suddenly it appeared to be adorned with
golden jewels that glimmered against the dancing flames.

"Michael," she said, her voice soft and musical and seeping out of the
gloom like tinkling piano keys.

She was ... beautiful. Suddenly everything I'd feared and suffered
seemed extraordinarily distant... all I wanted was her, her dark beauty,
the grace with which

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she hugged the wall, the way she grinned--so seductively--how she used
one single feminine hand to call me to her. This woman before me was the
most strangely exotic being I'd ever encountered, stirring thoughts of a
breathtaking siren from some untitled silent film.

"Daddy!" I heard the voice filter into my consciousness. In my
peripheral vision I saw Jessica struggling to rise from her spot in the
far corner; her arms were outstretched toward me.

I turned to look at her. My daughter. "Jessica?" "Daddy," she cried. "No
... don't look at her. ..." But I did, and she looked back at me, Old
Lady Zellis, now a monstrous witch again, grinning at me with hateful
eyes that glowed gold and brought pure horror back into me--a horror so
cold and icy ... fouled and fully poisoning my lustful desires of just
seconds earlier. Her hands and feet had become claws again, serviceably
assisting her in performing a dexterous spiderlike climb up the
cinder-block wall. She kept those golden irises pinned on me as she
perched herself against the beams in the low ceiling, claws dug deep
into the swollen wood. She was more Isolate than human now, a demon
showing dark gnarled teeth, hissing at me.

Then, the spell Old Lady Zellis had on Christine and Jessica appeared to
weaken. Jessica was now standing with her arms folded tightly across her
chest, crying. Her face was corpse-white, wet with tears. Her hair was a
tangled mess. Christine looked more surprised than frightened. She sat
up from the cement slab, shifting her pregnant belly with two hands. Her
breasts, swollen

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and covered in green sludge, jostled like pendulums as though each might
have held a baby too. It seemed as though she was still partially buried
in her trance; she scooped up a handful of the green jelly from the
floor beneath her crotch and licked it from her palm. Her face went awry
and she spit it out as though wholly disgusted. Then she vomited a thick
stream of green jelly, splattering the floor beneath the fidgeting witch.

I leaned down to take Christine's hand. She cowered and cried and
screamed, like a character in a nightmare, and I wondered if she were
actually afraid of me. If being saved wasn't what she really wanted. She
tried to back away, but Jessica was there, grabbing on to her other arm.
We both had her now, pulling with as much strength as we could offer,
and virtually dragging her naked pregnant body across the cement floor.
A trail of green gunk was left behind like a tire track.

"Christine!" I yelled. "We have to get out of here! Now!"

Jessica had stopped crying and was yelling, "Mommy! Please! Mommy!" and
then Christine blurted out a round of hysterics, gazing around the scene
and looking tremendously confused. Her trance had definitely lifted, and
she was now a naked babe in the woods in search of her mother. Lost and
reeling. She screamed, eyes wild and rolling.

"C'mon," I yelled, grabbing her arm. "Let's move!"

Old Lady Zellis began bobbing maniacally from her perch in the ceiling.
Her eyes glowed brighter than ever--like those of the Isolates
themselves. She let out a hiss that sounded something like a snake in
fear of its

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life. One clawed hand tore away from the cross-beam, taking a thick
splinter of wood with it.

"The stairs!" I yelled, pushing Jessica first, and then Christine. Each
of us stumbled as we made our way up. When I reached the top step I
looked over my shoulder to see if the witch was following us, slicing
the air with those claws and hissing that hiss and watching me with
those glowing golden eyes. But she wasn't there.

I slammed the door behind us, thinking for a brief moment that it might
very well keep the thing away from us. Christine had collapsed on the
dusty living room floor, covering herself. There was green jelly
everywhere, and suddenly the harsh odor of it rang a bell in my head.

The green tea. Rosy Deighton's recipe.

There were so many assumptions that could be made, none of which we had
any time for. I quickly told myself that it was all part of the Grand
Scheme, Ashborough's conspiracy against the Cayle family. Hopefully,
we'd all live through this nightmare to further reflect on it all.
Hopefully.

I reached down to grab Christine. She cried and tried to get up, but
slipped back down as a result of the coating of jelly. She looked up at
me, her eyes tearing crazily and pleading for forgiveness. Silently I
nodded and said, "Let's go, Christine. We have to get out of here now."

She tried to stand, and that was when the basement door burst open. Old
Lady Zellis was there, more monstrous than ever, her face a horribly
mutated mess, eyes a brilliant gold color.

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And then in an instant I saw the beautiful woman again ... she was
holding her arms out to me and pursing her full red lips and saying,
"Come to me, Michael. I Want to make love to you, right here and now."

I knew I shouldn't have, and didn't really want to, but suddenly she
owned me, and in the next instant I was holding my arms out toward her,
wanting to taste her red-wine lips, her slippery tongue, feel her
soft-white skin and run my hands through her shimmering chestnut hair. A
pleasure raced through me, replacing all my fears. I could do nothing
but want her and submit to her commands. Her fingers met mine, and I
could feel my mouth watering for her as a tiny spark of electricity
passed between us. Jesus, she was everything I could have ever wanted at
the moment. And she was mine for the taking.

Then something happened. The woman shrieked pure evil, a high-pitched
shrill of torturous pain. I backed away, breaking our contact. There was
a quick movement beside her, and she immediately transformed back into
Old Lady Zellis. She backpedaled into the wall, hissing, her face bent
into a vulgar mask of fury, agony, and scorn. She turned sideways, and
that was when I saw what'd happened to her... what Christine had done to
her.

There'd only been some broken pottery and a splintered broom handle in
the room when I'd first arrived. And of course the dust. But the broom
handle's end had broken into a sharp point. Christine had realized this,
and competently lodged the handle deep into the side of the witch's
neck. Blood shot out in a spectacular

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display, spraying the wall. The witch fell to her knees, hands blindly
grasping at the broom handle. She'd almost gotten hold of it, but I
stepped in and kicked her squarely in the face. She choked. Her voice
was weakened by the broom handle in her neck, and came out barely more
than a harsh whisper. She hit the floor, blood gushing from her wound. I
reached down, yanked the wood handle out, and in a quick calculated
thrust, slammed it back down into her throat. A moaning, gargling noise
came out of her mouth, her lips twisted in an attempt to scream, golden
eyes bulging horridly. Her hands clawed the dust on the floor as if
vainly attempting to conjure up one last spell. The nauseating stink of
hot blood rose up; it colored the floor in a extraordinary puddle, wide
and shimmering and spreading. She wheezed and thumped and hissed one
last time, and then her eyes, once glowing gold, faded down into pallid
gray marbles, staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

Old Lady Zellis was dead.

Common sense told me that in a very short time, we would be too.

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Chapter Thirty-six

We fled through the front door. I didn't want to go the back way. The
woods were there, filled with poisonous eyes that would spot the
murderers of the old witch; we'd never make it out alive. I opted to
brave the rotting porch instead, whose holes and soft beams proved easy
enough to avoid. We raced across the front yard, and what a sight we
must've been. A naked pregnant woman covered in green sludge and dust,
with blood on her hands; a grown man leading her away, also with blood
on his hands; and then, the most normal one of the crew: a five-year-old
girl who from afar may have seemed normal, but who had just emerged from
a trance and who was probably traumatized. Luckily, no one was there to
see us ... unless, of course, someone (or something) was hiding amidst
the trees leading out to the main road.

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We ran in silence to the car, where we all frantically piled in,
Christine in the backseat, Jessica beside me in the front.

I felt for the ignition.

The keys...

"Shit!" I yelled. "Christine, where are the fucking keys?"

I heard her sob in the backseat. "Jesus Christ..."

I glanced around and saw her curled fetally against the seat, shivering
uncontrollably. Goose bumps lined her body. The green gunk had somehow
made its way from her stomach to her hair. "Where are they?" I demanded.

"In my pocketbook..." she said with dismay. Her voice cracked and
trembled and she hid her face behind her hands, as if expecting a blow.

"Damn it!" I slammed the steering wheel hard enough to make it vibrate,
sending a piercing pain into my fists.

"Daddy... please, I want to get out of here." Jessica was looking all
around, nervous and desperate.

I had no choice. I had to go back inside.

"Lock the doors after I get out. Whatever you do, don't open them unless
I come back."

Jessica nodded weakly.

From the backseat came a despondent voice "What if you don't come back?"

I answered emptily, "Your lives are at stake, not to mention that of my
unborn child's. I'll be back, and then we'll get out of here for good. I
promise."

I'd lied before. I just lied again.

Honey, those were fireflies you saw in the woods

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"It's in the basement," Christine said. "With my clothes, on the floor
in the far corner."

I nodded, then got out of the minivan. I glanced around to make sure
there were no Isolates nearby, then shut the door. The locks clicked.
Jessica looked at me through the windshield, and I smiled as best I
could to offer her some reassurance. She did nothing, just looked away.

I stepped around to the back of the car, opened the hatch, reached in
and grabbed the wool blanket I'd hidden under earlier, and tossed it
over the seat to Christine.

Surprisingly enough, my travel medical kit was still back here. I opened
it and removed the only scalpel. It was a small one, with a one-inch
blade. Better than nothing, I supposed.

I closed the hatch, then quickly raced to the gate, which I'd left open.
The wind picked up for a moment and jarred the pines, making a harsh
breathlike noise that went fittingly with the cold dismal setting. I ran
across the front lawn, sidestepped the holes in the porch, and went back
inside Old Lady Zellis's house.

And there she was. Old Lady Zellis. Her rictus grin, spotted with blood,
laughing at me. Her eyes, gray and lifeless, stared up at the ceiling.
The broomstick protruded from her throat like a stake in a vampire's
heart. Blood had puddled out from the wound in a semicircle across five
feet of flooring. The room possessed a hot organic stench. I'd smelled
this scent before while performing emergency-room work during my
internship at Columbia. It was a unique smell, one you never forgot.

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To avoid the blood, I stepped over her body (cringing as I did so; my
mind imagined her feigning death, launching a hand up and grabbing my
ankle) and staggered back down into the basement, hands against the
cinder walls, leaving ghostly bloodstains behind on the cement. I
wondered just what the hell Old Lady Zellis was all about. Without
question she had some Isolate blood in her, as evident by the glow in
her eyes and her sharp yellow claws. But still... she maintained human
qualities. Was she the result of mixed parents? A mixed-breed of human
and Isolate? Somehow I couldn't see a human willfully entangling with
one of those things. So then, how?

Perhaps the dead person in the grave out back can explain that to you?

Phillip's words seeped back to me yet again: There's a grave in her
backyard that's supposed to be that of her mother's. It's right at the
edge of the woods, you can even see it from the road.

The candles were still burning in the basement. Wax pooled at their
bottoms like lilypads. I looked into the far corner opposite the steps
and spotted Christine's clothes and purse. I ran over, hurriedly
snatched them up, and tucked everything under my arm, all the while
holding the scalpel out. Then, quietly, I went back up the steps into
the living room.

When I reached the top step, I stopped.

My body went numb.

There were footprints in Old Lady Zellis's blood.

Isolate footprints.

There was only one set, but it was enough to scare

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the hell out of me. They passed through the blood alongside the body,
then backtracked out, trailing bloodstains into the kitchen. I imagined
one of them having come here to investigate the ruckus only to find the
old lady in a less than desirable state. It was probably out back now,
alerting its brothers and sisters of the sudden tragedy. Shit... they'd
be on me in seconds.

I ran like an animal in the scope of a hunter's rifle, out the front
door and simply forgetting about the holes in the porch. If there was
ever a time I was close to just giving up, this was it. My foot went
through a soft spot in the porch like a thumb into a piece of rotten
fruit. My leg sank in up to the knee, and I jammed my elbow against the
edge to stop from sinking in further. My jeans tore, and I could see a
cherry-red gleam of fresh skin from the middle of my shin to a spot just
below my knee; a hunk of flayed skin hung at the top of the wound, where
it dangled painfully. My breath escaped me and left my lungs burning. I
threw down the clothes and purse, then pressed my left hand against what
I hoped was a more stable area of the porch. The splinter of wood that'd
made a mess of my shin came back at me for a second helping, sending a
jolt of pain through me that damn near made me swoon. Then I looked over
at the minivan. Jessica and Christine were pressed against the windows,
watching me the intense way children watch an animal at the zoo. God ...
I didn't want this to be the last time I saw them. I had to get myself
out and move fast, find some inner strength and go for

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it. Jesus, I'd done pretty well up until this point--there was no sense
giving up now.

Was there?

I stretched forward and grabbed the lip of the top step. Using this as
leverage, I pulled myself out of the hole, then quickly grabbed the
purse, electing to leave Christine's clothes behind. I tumbled down the
three steps of the porch, and fell to my knees on the concrete walkway.

Something came at me from the house. In my peripheral vision I saw the
lanky figure leap over the porch and sail at me through the air. I dived
sideways, but the thing managed to get a claw on my waist, taking me to
the ground. Still holding the scalpel--and what a miracle that was--I
stabbed at it. The Isolate lunged at me, teeth gnashing as it tried to
bite me, but the blade was there first, leaving a gaping gash on its
cheek. I could see its face, the head whipping around as it struggled to
find some part of me to bite down on. I continued to thrust the scalpel,
catching it wherever I could, on the shoulders, chest, and neck. Hot
blood sprayed out everywhere; I could feel it on my skin, through my
shirt. Its arms and legs flailed crazily, loathsome claws scratching me,
seeking purchase, but succeeding only in tattering my clothes. The thing
yelped and in a moment of pain, withdrew just enough for me to bring the
scalpel home into one of its glowing golden eyes.

Howling, the Isolate reared back, batting at the scalpel that took away
the color in its eye. Thick yellow pudding blobbed out from the socket
and oozed down its cheek. It looks like tapioca, I thought crazily. It fell

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down on its back, fists pounding the snowy grass in agony, the scalpel
sticking straight out of its eye socket like ... like the broomstick in
the old lady's throat.

I got up clumsily, like a palsied child. I squinted obliquely toward the
car; the world started spinning around me. I heard Jessica's voice
calling, "Daddy! Hurry!"

Instinctively, I started lunging toward the car. I'd only taken a few
steps when Jessica yelled, "The purse, Daddy, the purse!"

It lay next to the writhing Isolate. I darted over as quickly as my
numbing feet could take me, then leaned down and grabbed it. The Isolate
staggered up, the scalpel still in its left eye; the other eye glowed
like fire and pinned me angrily--there was still some fight left in this
bad boy.

Despite the pain and fatigue and damn near willingness to pack it all
in, I ran. Fast. Back to the minivan to the driver's side door. I pulled
on the handle and it snapped back. The doors were still locked! "Open
the fucking door, Jessica!" Inside I saw my daughter scrambling at the
controls on the passenger side. With an audible click, the doors
unlocked. I pulled it open and shoved inside. But the Isolate was there.

Instead of trying to pull me out, the creature pushed me forward into
the minivan against Jessica, then leaped inside on top of me. Screams
erupted from Jessica and Christine. Limbs flailed wildly from all
sources, a barrage of swipes and fists being tossed in all directions.
The Isolate's claw slapped my face. Immediately

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I could feel blood pouring down from the laceration it made, the cold
air biting into my skin like acid. Jessica was hysterical, clawing at
the window, attempting to steer clear of the battle taking place right
next to her. Christine had sat up and was tentatively hurling fists into
the front seat; her aim was good, but she neither hurt nor distracted
the creature. It had me on my side and was sitting on top of me, swiping
my back and shoulders. Its nails felt like razors as they sliced through
my clothes. I knew that if I didn't do something soon, I'd be no better
off than Old Lady Zellis. But my strength was fading fast, and I could
do nothing at this point but allow my weakening body to be ravaged by
the creature.

Suddenly there came a squeal of pure agony. The weight on my back lifted
and when I tilted my head up, I saw a thick wash of blood on the
windshield. In this brief moment of respite, the pain of my attack rang
out, suddenly and excruciatingly. I kicked my legs frantically and felt
them connect with the Isolate. It screamed, but didn't fight back. There
was a series of coughs. Finally I flipped over and scrambled as much as
I could into Jessica's seat, arms outstretched, prepared to throw fists.
Jessica was pressed flat against the back of the seat, sweating and
trembling.

The Isolate was dead, or approaching its fate fast. The scalpel now
protruded from its other eye, a matching tapioca trail painting its
other cheek. Its body twitched as though charged with electricity.

"I did it, Daddy..." Jessica said. "I... I..." She was shaking
uncontrollably, then broke out in hysterics.

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"Michael," Christine said, "is it... is it dead?"

I prodded it with my foot. The creature slipped off the steering wheel
and fell against the door. The scalpel that Jessica had so bravely
pulled from one eye and inserted into the other pressed against the
window and sank deeper into its head so only the tip of the handle was
exposed.

Then, something came to my attention. I tried to swallow the lump in my
throat, with not much success; my stomach wouldn't take it--it was too
filled with fear.

"Who shut the car door?" I whispered.

No answer.

I reached over and triggered the locks. "The keys," I said. "Where are
they?" I shifted my body against the dead Isolate. Jessica leaned down,
grabbed Christine's purse.

"Is it dead, Michael? Is it?" Christine repeated.

Gingerly, I placed a hand against its wrist. Deja vu. I'd done this a
dozen times before in their den. "Yeah, it's dead," I confirmed.

In the alarming silence, I added, "Whatever you do, don't open the
doors." I shifted the Isolate's body over my lap, between the two front
seats. Christine screamed as the befouled head lolled in her direction.

"Quiet, Christine!" I whispered forcefully, looking out the windows for
a sign of them. Someone closed the door. ... "Take the body and put it
next to you in the backseat. And again ... don't open the doors."

Christine said, "I can't look at it... it's dripping all over. Can't we
throw it out the window?"

I pushed the body into the backseat. Christine slid to

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the opposite side, curling the blanket around her body as though it
might protect her from the dead creature. "They're out there, watching
us," I said. "They know what we did. And now they're waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For the right time to kill us."

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Chapter Thirty-seven

All was quiet. Too quiet. A bat fluttered overhead, making a noise
almost like a snicker. Probably because it knew just how many of those
motherfuckers were out there right now, watching us from the woods.

Jessica handed me the keys she'd retrieved from Christine's purse. I
slid them into the ignition and started the car. As if in answer, the
woods ignited with golden eyes. About two dozen sets, maybe more.
Slowly, I took the minivan over the dirt driveway.

With the ease of trained gymnasts, the Isolates darted from the woods
after the car. One was already nearby (presumably the same one that'd
closed the door, shutting us inside with its brother) and leaped atop
the hood of the car. It latched its claws onto the windshield wipers,
pressed its horrible face against the glass, and howled at us.

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I slammed on the gas. A cloud of dust rose from the back tires, filling
the yard. The minivan shot down the long thin driveway. Jessica
screamed, "They're coming Daddy! They're coming!" Her voice was jarred
because of the bumpy path.

The minivan reached the end of the driveway, and I just took my chances
that no other cars would be traveling along the tree-shrouded road. I
won this crapshoot. We spun out into the road, wheels skidding on the
thin layer of snow. The Isolate on the hood lost its grip on the wipers
and sailed off toward the side of the road like a loose piece of
luggage. The force of the turn also sent the dead Isolate in the
backseat on top of Christine. She screamed, flailed at it, pushed it
away with disgust, then continued kicking it once it was back on the
other side of the seat, as though that would keep it away for good.

In the rearview mirror, I could see about a dozen Isolates racing from
the driveway out into the road, zigzagging like hungry rats in search of
food. But the car had built up too much speed for them, and once they
seemed to realize that it was completely out of their reach, they all at
once raced back into the snowy cloak of the woods.

At this point my intentions were to flee Ashborough. Or at least make
some sort of an attempt. All I had to do was drive as fast as I could
right the fuck out of town, right? I came to the state road and pondered
which way to go, right or left. I couldn't drive east because then I'd
have to go right through the village, and there'd be

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townsfolk and cops there and other scheming obstacles with their
Isolate-given edicts and maybe even bats and torches in their hands. And
they might as well be wearing T-shirts that say, Welcome to Ashborough!
You'll never get out alive! So I decided to travel west along the state
road, which would take us right past our home, and then into Ellenville.

"We're getting out of here," I said.

"They won't let us," Christine said. "You and I both know that, Michael."

"Fuck 'em," I said, with not an ounce of rationale to back me up.

"If we'd been able to get out of here, then we would've done it a long
time ago. So would've all the other people living here. Nothing's
changed. They're still not gonna let us go. In fact, they're probably
going to kill us now, after what we just did to the woman. You said so
yourself."

In an effort to create hope, I changed my tune. "They won't kill us ...
we won't give them the chance." I continued driving along the state
road, pushing forty despite the curves. My knuckles were white against
the steering wheel. "I mean, how could they possibly get to us now?
We're in the fucking car, so let's be serious here!"

Damn it to hell... I wasn't making any sense, and I knew it too. They'd
managed to trash the car on Christine while it was moving. So why
couldn't they do it again? Well... they probably could. But the problem
was that I had this odd concept called freedom in my

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head and I was ready, willing, and able to do anything to acquire it.

Jessica started sobbing. "I want to leave here, please, Daddy! Please
Daddy!"

"See that, Chris? Your daughter wants to leave, and that's just what
we're gonna do. Leave."

"We should go home," Christine said despondently. "It's what they want
us to do."

I swallowed a lump in my throat, then said, "You're out of your fucking
mind if you expect me to go back to that house. I'm not going there, and
I'm not gonna let you or Jessica go back there either."

"We killed the fucking woman!" she screamed, silencing the car. The
immediate tension inside felt like humidity on a hot summer day, heavy
and oppressive. She added, "Isn't it bad enough that we're simply
talking again? We should just go back to the house and lock ourselves in."

I looked into the rearview mirror. Christine's expression was very
peculiar. It was as if she'd seen Medusa and had turned to stone. And
then her eyes narrowed, as if to confirm her revelation: that all along
we'd feared speaking to one another because it would've resulted in
severe injury or death. That the Isolates had owned us all along.

Now ... with all that had happened today? I had no choice but to agree
with her. We'd killed a woman who might have been their spiritual
leader, and now they were going to kill us.

For months they'd been threatening us with death. Those threats were now
going to be carried out. The

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way I looked at it, it didn't make much of a difference what we decided
to do. It made much more sense to, at the very least, attempt an escape.

Ignoring Christine's wishes, I floored the accelerator. The minivan took
off down the road. It wasn't a bull when it came to pick-up, but it kept
us moving, pushing fifty and climbing faster.

Christine screamed for me to stop. But all I could think about was how
they could possibly halt us now. Would they really start hurling
themselves under the wheels?

Our house was a quarter mile ahead. We passed Phillip Deighton's house
on the right, and I quickly wondered how long it'd be before the local
real-estate agent ushered in the next young unsuspecting couple with a
deal too good to be true.

"Look out, Daddy!" Jessica screamed.

I'd looked away for the briefest moment to peek at Phillip Deighton's
house. When I set my sights back to the road, stunned terror hit me like
a knockout punch. I slammed down on the brakes. The minivan skidded and
three-sixtied, much too late to avoid the ash tree lying end-to-end in
the road about twenty feet ahead. We slammed right into it, jolted, went
up on two tires, and nearly flipped over. Two loud explosions sounded,
that of tires blowing. The tree splintered into a million pieces and
rained down all over us. The minivan lurched back down, then tilted
forward as the front tires fell away from the axle. The stench of gas
immediately invaded my nostrils.

A moment of stunned silence passed between us. I

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could hear everyone breathing heavily. Jessica then started crying, and
so did Christine. I wanted to cry also, but held back. Someone needed to
be strong, and it wasn't going to be my wife or my five-year-old
daughter. I looked into the rearview mirror and saw blood on Christine's
face, uncertain if it was hers or the dead Isolate's.

"Is everyone okay?" I'd slammed the top of my head nice and hard against
the roof of the car. The pain was just now making itself known.
Thankfully, despite the fact that none of us had seat belts on, we all
seemed to have come out of it okay.

"I smell gas, Michael."

I got out of the minivan. There were pieces of the tree everywhere, many
chunks lodged into the grille. One thick shard jutted from the bumper
like a stake. The front axle of the car had shattered, causing the two
front tires to lay flat on the road. Gas bled out onto the blacktop. Our
car had no life left in it... just like the witch.

Jessica had gotten out and was standing on the side of the road.

Near the woods.

"Jessica! Get away from the woods!" I had sudden visions of an Isolate
leaping out from its camouflage, grabbing her, and pulling her away.

"The car might explode," she said, racing out into the center of the
road, far ahead of the car.

Right she was too. I quickly opened the backseat door and eased
Christine out. She had the blanket wrapped around her like a shawl,
belly and breasts

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protruding, blood and mud now spotting the dried layer of green slime on
her skin. She started laughing, a high, chortling sound that was
probably the onset of hysteria.

I pulled her away from the car and we all walked as quickly as possible
down the center of the road. When Christine's giggling died down, I said
despondently, "I guess we have no choice now but to go back home."

"It's what they want us to do," she exclaimed, suddenly and rather
spookily composed.

"You mentioned that earlier "

Christine answered, "If they'd wanted us dead, then they would have done
it already." Shivering, she wiped her nose with the end of the blanket,
then promptly changed her tune. "I just don't understand it, though ...
I mean, why don't they just kill us?" She started looking around in a
paranoid fashion, over her shoulders and into the woods. Clearly the
likelihood of hysteria still loomed. Jessica huddled close to me,
something she hadn't done in months.

Then I answered, "They're not killing us because ... because they need
me. That's why."

There was a moment's hesitation, then Christine said, "Michael..."

"Yes?"

"We need to talk."

"I..." Instantly, my past fears came back to me. I couldn't speak ... I
was afraid to talk to her--it was as though the sudden reminder had
retriggered the negative-memory engram in my subconscious. Now I was
looking over my shoulder, thinking that they were watching us now,
listening to us. ...

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"I don't care about their threats anymore," Christine revealed, not so
much out of bravery as much as denial. "If they'd wanted us dead, then
they would have done it already. Right?" It appeared as if she was
trying to convince herself.

"Unless they're waiting for the right moment."

"If that's the case, then we better get home and formulate some sort of
plan. Pool our experiences. Maybe we can learn something about them.
Maybe they have a weakness, something we can exploit. Something that can
help us escape. It doesn't appear as if we have any other choice."

Holy shit ...

I stopped walking, started thinking. Christine's words, suddenly
logical, stirred an amazing revelation in me. A weakness. Something that
can help us escape. Christine and Jessica stopped and turned to look at
me. I stood silently in the center of the road for about thirty seconds,
rubbing my face, thinking ... thinking ... thinking that there might
actually be a way to get out of this after all. Jesus, all I needed was ...

"Michael? What's wrong?"

I looked back at them. "Farris ... he was on to something."

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"I don't want to talk about it now. They're probably in the woods,
listening to us." Heart pounding, blood racing, I ran back to the
minivan, opened the rear passenger door, and scooped out the dead
Isolate. It felt like a heavy bag of potatoes, thick and misshapen. It
almost slipped through my arms, but I clutched it

320

tighter. Then I walked back to my family, looking over my shoulder the
entire time.

"What the hell are you doing, Michael?"

"Let's go home. Then we'll talk."

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Chapter Thirty-eight

The walk back home went as quickly and uneventfully as we could've hoped
for; most of the short journey was spent in silence, sniffing the cold
damp air and peering at the lifeless patches of woodland peeking out
from beneath the thin layer of snow. A mere thirty minutes after the
minivan had slammed into the ash tree, we found ourselves safely behind
the locked doors of 17 Harlan Road, seated around the kitchen table and
drinking cold water, with the body of a dead Isolate in our freezer.
Christine still had the blanket wrapped around her like a shroud, I
still had my injuries, and Jessica looked much dirtier under the fresh
light than she did an hour before at the witch's house. After some food,
we decided it best to wash up and attempt to clear our bodies and minds
of the events of the morning. Two of us stood guard with kitchen knives
in the

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upstairs hallway while the third one showered, and in thirty minutes we
were all clean and seated back at the kitchen table, ready to discuss
the past, present, and future of the Cayle family.

The living room clock tolled twelve noon. I found it hard to believe
that everything that morning had taken place in less than three hours,
from the moment I hid in the car to that very minute. It felt like a
week had passed by.

"Does Jessica need to hear all this?" I asked Christine.

Jessica remained silent in her seat, eyes wounded with dark circles and
tears. Christine said, "Jess, honey, you can stay and listen, and if
there's something you think Daddy and I should know, then tell us, okay?"

She nodded weakly, sipping her water, seeming not to care one way or the
other. Yep, that's post-traumatic stress disorder settling itself into
her brain, nice and comfortable.

I went first. I took a deep breath, then told them everything. From the
encounter with Rosy Deighton in her bedroom on the first day we moved in
(I'd told Christine about this before, but felt the need to begin with
that again, for Jessica's sake, I suppose), to the confrontation with
the deer in the shed. I detailed the incidents with Lauren Hunter, my
dream with Page, and all the circumstances surrounding Phillip Deighton,
of how he'd tried to set me up, of his description of Rosy's death, and
how he'd ultimately died at my hand. I spoke of my meeting with Old Lady
Zellis and Sam Huxtable and how my conversation with him was the

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catalyst for my wondering if the rest of my family might be involved in
what I dubbed as the Grand Scheme. I detailed all my experiences within
the den of the Isolates, how I'd been named their "Savior," and
described in as much detail as I could everything I'd been forced to
endure. When I told Christine about how I slipped into the car,
determined to find out exactly what she was up to, I looked at the clock
and saw that an hour had passed since I'd begun the whole extraordinary
tale.

"As it turned out, I was right. You were as much a prisoner as I was."

Christine frowned, then said, "The only difference is that I really
didn't know I was being manipulated. Up until the moment you came into
the basement, I was undeniably convinced that I'd been visiting the
doctor all along. It just appeared that way to me, everything, the house
we were in... to me it looked just like a doctor's office. Never once
had I seen past the delusion."

"I fell under her spell too once she discovered me in her house," I
said. "She appeared to be a beautiful siren. I was captivated. I
couldn't move, speak, nothing. It was as though I'd died and gone to
heaven and my angel was there to usher me in through the pearly gates.
If you hadn't stabbed her with the broomstick, I probably wouldn't be
sitting here with you right now."

"You never felt any sort of entrancement with the creatures?" Christine
asked.

"No ... well, except maybe in the dream."

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"So ... is it possible that only the witch possessed this kind of ability?"

I nodded. Then a sudden realization crept up on me, and I asked, "How
often did you go there?"

"To the witch's house?"

I nodded again.

Tears filled her eyes. "Every day since Jessica started school."

The truth made me wince. "God, Christine, didn't you bring Jessica to
school at all?"

Christine gazed at Jessica remorsefully, then nodded and said, "Every
day up until last month. But the doctor--well, the witch, I mean--she
insisted that I bring her to our sessions. I felt I had no choice. It
was as though something terrible would happen if I didn't."

"That was definitely another part of her spell. Which makes me believe
that the Isolates also used some form of mind control against me. I'd
been utterly convinced that any conversation I initiated with you or
Jessica would result in your deaths. That's why I maintained such a
strong silence over the last few months." Frustrated, I ran a hand
through my hair. "Jesus, for all we know, there's a great deal more than
just blatant threat keeping this town at bay."

"The people I saw carrying the dead body into the house. They looked
like zombies. They didn't appear to be acting on their own accord."

I paused in thought, trying to imagine the eerie scene playing out as
Christine described it that afternoon. I looked at Jessica. She was
focused hypnotically on the grain of the kitchen table, perhaps closing
herself out

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to the unpleasant conversation taking place. I asked her, "Did the old
lady do anything to you, honey?"

"No."

"Nothing?"

"No," she said, then added, "The whole time I thought I was in a waiting
room. I never saw anything."

"Did the old lady ever threaten you?"

"No," she answered.

I turned back to Christine. "What the hell did the witch want with
Jessica?" Of course there was no answer to this question, at least none
that we could come up with. At this point, Christine didn't even know
what she herself had been doing there.

Christine said, "I don't remember much of anything, but I can recall
some conversations I had with who I presumed at the time was the doctor.
I remember her telling me that she was a longtime local, and that her
mother used to live in the house with her but was now buried in the
backyard. For some reason, this piece of information sticks in my mind."

"Because it's true, I saw the grave."

"So then what the hell was she? A human? Or one of those things from the
woods?"

"Some kind of half-breed, I guess. Half-Isolate, half-human. With some
extraordinary prescient abilities above and beyond those of the Isolates
themselves."

"Did you see anything, Michael?" Christine asked, her voice thinning
out. "In the basement. Did you see her doing anything to me?"

For a moment I actually considered divulging

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everything I saw, but quickly decided against it. Some things were
better left untold, like when you cheat on your girlfriend. Telling your
wife that she had a witch-claw in her vagina would be one too.

You sure about that, Michael? The witch had to have been doing something
at that moment. It might be best if you told her. It's her body after
all. And your baby.

Dear sweet Jesus, she was doing something to the baby, wasn't she?

"No, all I saw was the old lady bathing you in that stuff."

"The leaves."

"Leaves?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "She made jelly out of these weird leaves. I
remember her grinding them in the barrel with a wooden pestle."

"When I went down into the basement, I'd smelled a pungent odor... it'd
struck me as being very familiar. Then I realized what it was. The tea.
Those weird leaves, you grew them in the garden and brewed them to make
that tea you were drinking, right?"

Tears filled her eyes. She placed her head against my chest, suppressing
her sobs. "How could I have been so stupid?"

"You didn't know. You didn't know."

"I trusted Rosy."

"And I trusted Phillip. But at the time there was no way we could've
known what was going on." I rubbed a gentle hand against her back and
peered over her shoulder at the kitchen counter, to the few things we'd

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removed from the freezer when we first got home.

I then looked over at the freezer, and realized with dread that the dead
Isolate crammed inside would be our only hope for escape.

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Chapter Thirty-nine

The frigid afternoon moved forward with a dusting of snow. One of the
three wooden boards had fallen (or had been torn) from the upstairs
window, and was now lying on the grass ten feet away near Christine's
dying herb garden.

I sifted through the trash on my office floor, realizing that that might
very well be the last day I'd ever set foot in there, which was just
fine with me. A million thoughts raced through my head, and if all went
as planned, we'd be out of there in a day or two. I hoped.

I'd explained my discovery to Christine, along with my intentions. She
appeared enthusiastic, yet skeptical. I told her that I saw no other
alternative, that we could either attempt to finish what Neil Farris had
started, or wait for the Isolates to come after us, which, in my
estimation, would be tonight. She nodded, realizing that

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there'd be no other option but to fight the evil breed known as the
Isolates.

I told Christine and Jessica to prepare for an immediate departure, and
they both went upstairs to pack up some things, only necessities I told
them, such as clothes and food. The minivan was totally undriveable, so
my campaign against the Isolates would have to be one-hundred-percent
successful if we were to walk part of the way out of Ashborough. I
remained convinced that along the way we could probably take someone's
car without much resistance.

The dead Isolate I took from the backseat of the minivan was still
sufficiently wedged inside the freezer--I'd had to break its thigh bones
to get it in, but I'd had no choice since we chose not to weather the
horrid stench of the thing, which in turn would send up a giant red flag
to its relatives.

I opened the freezer. The creature's skin had adhered to the icy walls
and made a tearing sound as I pulled it out. It left patches of dirt and
blood against the snowy interior, like abstract paint smears.

With a shiver, I hauled the body into my office and laid it out on the
patient's examining bench. Perhaps four feet in length, the monster
rested messily, its legs and arms twisted into near-impossible angles,
dangling from the table's edge like those of a strewn marionette. Its
face had a furry coating of ice on it, like a beard. It could've passed
as one of Santa's elves gone to hell and back.

I spread the body out (like a patient, I suppose), the bones making hard
white snapping sounds as I

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wrenched the limbs back into form. Smears of slimy deposits and muck
saturated the pure white paper sheathing the table.

The clock in my office tolled four. Darkness crept in like a murderer's
hand. Soon, I knew they would be coming for the body. Which meant I had
only one chance to get it right. And not much time to do it.

I could hear my wife and daughter pacing about upstairs as they prepared
to flee this godforsaken town. I wondered for a moment if the Isolates
were out there right now, perching against the barricaded windows and
watching us: trying to figure out our intentions. I could only pray that
they didn't find out right away.

As I went about mentally preparing my plan, curiosity got the best of me
and I took a moment to study the body more closely. Its face was
horrible, like that of a child's stricken with progeria: skin pruned,
teeth overgrown and terribly misshapen. Wispy strands of hair lay
straggled atop its warped head like cobwebs. Its rib cage was sunken,
the stomach cavity rippled with sinewy muscle, limbs long and gangly and
broomstick-thin. So different than us--yet so genetically similar.

So genetically similar...

In an abstract moment I considered the fact--a single tidbit of
information culled from my years at Columbia--that only one single gene
differentiates man from the apes. And yet, gazing at this creature, I
could see that apes differed from humans much more than the Isolates
did. Was it possible that these golden-eyed demons were in fact some
unique race of homo sapiens?

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But what of the glowing eyes? I could only assume them to be the result
of adaptation to their subterranean environment. And the feet?
Five-toed, yes, but more reptilian than mammalian, something
unexplainable by evolutionary theory. Dozens of questions existed, but
it seemed they would have to remain unanswered for now.

Or would they?

Despite my obedience to their commands, in the back of my mind I'd
always wondered how I might actually go about putting an end to their
existence. Setting fire to their lair had been one option. But would
there be enough oxygen to keep the flames burning in their subterranean
den? Plus, would fire even burn in the dampness? Yes, I might end up
killing off a number of them by smoking out the entrance, but as Sam
Huxtable had pointed out, there were many other entrances and exits to
the great den--ones I had no knowledge of.

Other options seemed even more implausible: flooding them out, sniping
at them one by one; it was futile to even consider these. The Isolates'
numbers were too extensive, and there seemed no means of alerting
outside forces to their presence. As soon as I tried, the Isolates would
come after me, capture and torture me. And then they would murder my
family and take pleasure in making me watch.

So when Christine mentioned in the road earlier today that they might
actually have a weakness, it became immediately obvious to me that they
must indeed

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have some limitations, and that Neil Farris had known about them, and
that was why he was running. Because the Isolates had caught on to his
plan. And they took him down before he could do anything about it.

I saw my only option--I needed to finish what Neil Farris started.

I snapped on a pair of surgical gloves, then went into my office and
unlocked the small icebox hugging the corner of the room between the
bookshelf and the armoire. This was where Neil Farris had kept samples
of his patients' blood. Upon first discovery of the icebox, I'd wondered
why in God's name he had done this, putting aside the fact that
harboring samples tainted with bubonic plague was a federal violation;
the government would toss your ass in jail for thirty years if they
found you doing this.

Inside the icebox were seventeen plastic tubes in total, containing four
different strains of viruses. Bubonic plague, malaria, HIV+, and
hantavirus. I was most interested in the last one: hantavirus.

For the first time in six months, I smiled.

I picked out the hantavirus tube and took it back to the examining room,
placing it in a clamp on the steel supply table opposite the examining
bench. I then retrieved a syringe from the cabinet above my head, armed
it with a needle, and confronted the dead beast.

The needle slid into its jugular with ease, and I pulled back on the
syringe, filling it with the Isolate's blood, which had only begun to
coagulate. I then placed a drop of the blood on a glass specimen slide
and hooked it under a microscope.

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I looked through the eyepiece. And saw it immediately. Fluttering on the
slide. A germ, propelling itself through the blood by means of hairlike
flagellum.

This is too easy. ...

This was Microbiology 101. The presence of the germ in the blood at once
confirmed the most profound mystery of all: that these creatures were
human, grossly infected humans. This germ I was looking at had somehow
over the years wreaked havoc on their genetic system and mutated these
people to a degree previously unheard of. Their warped features, their
withered skin and stooped posture, even their maniacal aggressiveness
were all results of this little bugger in the microscope, this horribly
transfigured germ.

It was an amazing discovery. Perhaps tens of thousands of years ago the
spread of this germ had brought disease and eventual death to a large
population of humans--a plague of insurmountable proportions.
Miraculously, the survivors of the plague had built a resistance to the
germ--but not without any consequences. The result of their exposure was
pure genetic mutation, a disfigurement of growth, appearance, and
demeanor. Over time, through the retardation of genes in conjunction
with environmental adaptation, the humans slowly evolved into Isolates
and thrived to become the alienated race of creatures living in the
woods today.

Genetically altered human beings. Naturally genetically altered, like
the genus of six-legged frogs found only in one small lake in the
northwest United States,

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or the two-headed snakes indigenous to a mere twenty square miles of
Amazonian forest.

So... if the Isolates were indeed susceptible to germs, as evident by
the bacillus in their blood, then they could catch a virus too, just
like other humans do. And with the right virus, they could be killed.
Quickly. Viciously.

Neil Farris knew this. And now, so do I.

Reflecting again on my past education, I recalled that when biological
conditions become unfavorable, certain categories of viral germs become
capable of ereating bodies called spores. These bodies detach themselves
and eventually become free spores, highly resistant to physical and
chemical change. Later, when conditions become more favorable for
survival, the spores regerminate and reproduce the original qualities of
the virus. It is at this point the virus becomes communicable. This is
how we end up catching colds, or the flu. Through sporulation.

Deep in their den, where physical contact is high and the damp
environment is supporting, sporulation would work masterfully.

A patient came in to me a few years back. He complained of diarrhea,
vomiting, fever, congestion, cough. It had all snowballed upon him one
day after being bitten by a rat while cleaning out his barn during a
weekend getaway in the Hamptons. I'd taken his blood, tested it.

His blood had tested positive for Hantaan virus.

Two days later my patient died from acute respiratory

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distress syndrome and hemorrhagic fever--the brutal side effects of the
virus.

Hantaan virus is highly communicable, with a near one-hundred-percent
death rate if not treated in time.

All I needed to do was infect one of them. Just one.

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Chapter Forty

Night fell. Most of the preliminary work had been completed. I waited,
peeking through the once-barricaded window in my office, awaiting their
emergence from the woods. The body lay on a chair beside me, legs and
arms dangling. It had fully defrosted now and was reeking up a storm.
The skin had turned a muddy shade of gray. Its eyes were shut and I
could see a thin layer of hair on the lids. I raised my right hand,
armed with a syringe filled with hantaan-infected blood, and for the
hundredth time in the last hour, stared at the syrupy brick-red contents
inside.

I waited. Checked the Isolate's body to make certain it was still really
there and that this wasn't just another vivid dream: one perhaps
mentally induced by the Isolates to trick me into thinking I actually
had a chance against them. Despite the amount of time that'd passed

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since my dream (or sleepwalk, if you must), it still had me in its iron
grip.

The clock tolled ten. It was at the tenth chime that I realized I hadn't
heard Christine or Jessica moving around in the house for at least an
hour now.

I shuddered.

A twinkling flash of golden light flitted in my peripheral vision.

The time has come... .

I looked out the window. They appeared like magic, golden eyes, a half
dozen or more floating in from the damp gloom of the woods. My heart
pounded in my chest so hard that white ghostly images appeared in my
sight, and when I looked outside again I saw their dark bodies stepping
slowly forward, dry snow clinging to their limbs like patches of cotton.
I leaped up, choked back a lump in my throat, and quickly jammed the
needle into the dead demon's stomach, injecting half the contents.

I bent down and cradled the body as I would a baby, with care and
caution; this horrid corpse was my only weapon against the evil breed
and I didn't want anything to happen to it. Carrying the creature, I
scooted from the office into the waiting room, then out the side door
onto the walkway. A wind picked up and sent the stench of the creature
into my nose, making me gag. A full moon splayed dreamy beams across my
path; a ground mist encircled my feet. The ground was cold and hard
beneath my feet, the frigid air like needles against my face.

This is what hell must be like: cold, forbidding, deadly.

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The dead Isolate lay limply in my arms, like a virgin sacrifice. When
the nausea passed, I turned the corner into the backyard. The Isolates
spotted me and immediately bounded forward, some on two legs, most on
all fours. They appeared to move as though part of a simulation, like
computer-generated beings in some dark game. In a flash, they surrounded
me, perhaps eight or nine beasts, teeth bared, sneering, poking at me
with their vicious claws. I felt like a pony caught in the center of a
pack of jackals.

I handed over the body. It was what they came for, what they wanted. Two
of them yanked it from my arms, pawing at it like kittens wrestling over
a piece of yarn. The rest of them followed suit, practically dancing in
their agitation.

All except one. I grabbed it by its long gangly hair and yanked it back.

Without hesitation I plunged the needle into its jugular and injected it
with Hantaan-tainted blood. It howled and its body stiffened, arms
reaching for the plunger but unable to grasp it. The wind rose as if to
echo the severe act, shrieking through the trees and causing me to look
around uneasily. There might be more Isolates nearby, poised to deliver
vengeance for the death of Old Lady Zellis. It staggered away as I let
it go, the needle still dangling from its neck, its injury unnoticed by
its overeager brothers who'd begun to feast on the body of the corpse.

Again, I smiled. And prayed. And then, quickly

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returned to the sanctuary of my home, wondering as I went inside why
they didn't simply kill me for ending the life of the old lady. Perhaps
they were grateful for the meal.

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Chapter Forty-one

I walked into the living room, grimacing at the sudden stab of pain in
my stomach; somewhere along the line, I'd twisted an abdominal muscle
and it felt as though I'd been knifed. Christine and Jessica were
sitting on the couch like patients in a waiting room, hunched with
apprehension, hands folded across their laps. Christine stood in
questioning silence, gripping her belly along the way, eyes wide and
hopeful for a positive reaction. Jessica remained seated behind her,
struggling to remain awake, trying not to miss anything crucial. We
stood in silence for a short time, staring at each other and wondering
how the hell it had all come down to this. Suddenly the fear I should've
felt outside with the Isolates hit me like a barrage of bullets, and I
began to teeter back and forth on both feet, trying to keep from
succumbing to dizziness.

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Your family, Michael. Be strong. Don't give in now! It didn't really
matter, I thought, and before I could say anything to Christine, I
collapsed to the floor.

I came to, immediately worried about Christine and Jessica. Christine's
face came into view, a cool washcloth in her hand swathing my brow. I
tried to perch up on my elbows, but fatigue had me in full grasp, and I
slumped back to the floor in exhaustion.

"Don't move," Christine said. "Not yet."

She continued to comfort me with the washcloth. Minutes passed before I
could find the strength to ask, "How long was I out for?"

"Only a few minutes."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes," she answered, nodding slightly.

"Jessica?"

"She's fine on the couch."

Despite her reassurances, I felt a vague sense of worry. I kept asking
myself, what if it doesn't work? Then what? Are we all dead, like Neil
Farris? Perhaps not. After all, they let the Widow Farris go. I wondered
if that might've been part of the arrangement, if Farris had been forced
to sacrifice himself for the sake of his family. Or was it perhaps just
another part of the Grand Scheme? Maybe the widow Farris had taken up a
position of border sentry, watching the coming and goings (mostly
comings) of those on the outskirts of Ashborough. Like those Sam
Huxtable had talked about.

I questioned whether I'd be man enough to surrender my life for the
guaranteed safety of my family, but soon

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realized that only one road led out of Ashborough, and it would be
traveled with my family in tow. I clenched my teeth with frustration and
worry and wondered how this would all play out. Either life or death, I
figured. There didn't seem to be any middle ground. I took a deep
breath, held it, and blew it out long and slow, trying to calm down.
Somewhere along the line, I passed out again.

In my swoon, I recalled a dream. A nightmare. Old Lady Zellis had
returned from the dead, spoiling all my intentions, everything I'd
accomplished up until this point. She escorted me back to the circle of
stones, and stood there beside me as the cannibal Isolates gorged
themselves on a smiling Lou Scully, who lay naked and spread-eagled on
the big center stone. Lou Scully... in the past he'd acted as a friend,
helping me to find this place... this place that was supposed to have
been my haven, but turned out to be my curse. At the time he'd seemed to
be a godsend... now, as far as I could tell, he'd very much been an
acting participant in the Grand Scheme, either intentionally, or as a
pawn wholly ignorant of his actions. It didn't really matter. He'd led
us here. So I gazed around the surreal scene, pulling my sights away
from the man whom I suddenly detested.

And from out of nowhere Phillip and Rosy Deighton appeared. They began
helping themselves to Lou's flesh, clawing it away in strips and
stuffing it gleefully into their gaping mouths just as the Isolates did.
Blood poured down their chins, and it was at this moment I realized that
Rosy was the woman she used to be before she'd

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gotten her disfiguring injuries, her jaw complete, her skin unblemished.

To my right I heard a barking noise. I turned away from the feeding and
saw Lauren Hunter, just as she'd been in her previously untouched state:
neatly clothed, tanned, her hair and makeup perfectly tended to. She sat
cross-legged in the soil alongside one of the vertical stones, smiling
and clapping her hands in rhythm and periodically breaking the cadence
with a series of dog-like barks. The tone of the barks sounded eerily
familiar, and when a deer suddenly appeared alongside her, I realized
that she'd been emulating the horrid bleats of the dying deer in my shed.

I looked down at Old Lady Zellis, who used a crooked finger to point
toward the left. When I looked in that direction, I saw Sam Huxtable. He
was riding atop the back of another deer and guiding it across the open
area to the center stone. When he got there, he jumped down and reached
deep into Lou's open stomach (who, crazily, was still smiling at me,
eyebrows leaping up and down as if to crudely say, "Nice set of titties
on that bitch, eh Michael?") and removed a liver or a kidney, caught it
before it slipped through his fingers, and slurped it down his throat in
a jerking reflexive motion, as though he were taking a mouthful of pills.

All the players were here, smiling gleefully as the feast went on and on.

And then suddenly, rising behind the tallest white stone to a height of
the trees behind it was an unnameable creature, with dark hairy skin and
glowing golden eyes that spotlighted the six twisting horns and long

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braided hair atop its head. All those in attendance stopped what they
were doing, turned their attention from me, and peered up at this great
black beast whose long yellow claws gripped the top of the tallest stone
before it.

And then, in the blink of an eye, Christine was here, walking--no,
floating--into the scene from behind me. I leaned out to grab her, but
she moved out of my reach, unaware of me or ignoring my presence. I
tried to scream, but only a harsh whisper emerged from my sore throat. I
tried to move, but my feet were glued to the ground, and when I looked
down I saw that I was buried into the soil up to my ankles, Isolate
claws emerging from the earth, gripping my calves. The crowd parted,
pulling Lou Scully's body with them, leaving the center stone bare save
for the thick wash of blood coating its surface.

Christine shed her clothing and sat down on the center stone. Her eyes
were empty and glazed, staring up at the great creature who stepped out
from behind the stone. Its entire body rippled like water, as though
insects crawled just beneath the surface of its skin. Clumps of mud and
wet leaves fell from its hairy skin in rotten clumps. It emitted a
powerful odor, like that of the leaves in Old Lady Zellis's
basement--like Rosy Deighton's tea. It leaned down on its knees, one
claw breaking its fall. The other gripped what appeared to be its penis,
a black mottled spade erect and secreting yellow fluid. Its eyes glowed
a miraculous gold.

Christine looked at me. Her eyes glowed gold too, and she smiled. And
then she spread her legs.

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And then, with a deafening roar, the creature mounted her.

I screamed myself awake.

I sat up in bed, soaked with sweat and shivering. Christine ran to my
side, sat on the edge of the bed, and leaned forward to wipe my brow
with a damp washcloth. I closed my eyes as I ran my hands across the
mattress of my bed. My bed. The one I hadn't slept in for months; the
sheets felt good beneath my skin, and for a maddening moment I wondered
if they'd been cleaned recently.

The odor of something oddly familiar, something ... organic rose in the
air. Wood burning outside? Rotting leaves in the gutter?

The leaves... the tea.

"Michael... are you all right?"

"Jesus ... I had a dream. A nightmare. I... can't explain it... it was
terrible."

Christine kept wiping my brow. "Shhh, relax... don't worry about it now.
You're not feeling well."

I turned my head to the side, mind spinning sluggishly, as though
drugged. Yellow light came in through the window, and I wondered how
long I'd been sleeping.

"What time is it?" I asked.

Christine pulled the washcloth from my forehead. "Late morning," she
replied. I caught another whiff of the odor. Like chamomile, only
slightly fermented. The tension in the room was calm, yet oppressive. It
drew down on me like my memories. And those seemed

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strangely ancient, as if they'd been recorded in sepia-toned stills.

"You're sick, Michael," she added. "You've been running a high fever for
nearly three days now. But it looks as though it might be breaking.
You're down to ninety-nine degrees. I'm no doctor, but as the doctor's
wife, I'd say the prognosis is pretty good."

Three days?

In a rush of panic, I wrestled up in bed, fighting the fatigue, the
dizziness, the aches. "Jesus... I... why..." I was at a loss for words.
How could I have been sleeping for the last three days? It didn't make
sense. Had I been that exhausted that my body just decided to give up
and put me out of commission for all that time? Possible. But the
plausibility of something else also came into play, and that gave me a
fright, along with a defiant measure of resolve to battle the
circumstances. The battle had not been won. Not yet anyway. Finally, I
was able to blurt out, "What's been going on? Last thing I remember was ..."

... was that dream. Where the old lady came back and brought you to the
circle of stones. Where all your friends played sick roles in some
ritualistic game. Where the great golden-eyed demon showed itself to
you, then raped your wife...

I ran a trembling hand through my hair; my palm came away coated with
sweat. Christine stood up quickly, went in the bathroom, and ran water
in the sink. She returned with a wet washcloth in her hand, grinned
weakly, then stopped, grimaced, and grasped her stomach.

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"You okay?" I asked. The question seemed to rise from my lips by itself.
My mind was utterly distracted with the dream, and the notion that I'd
been immobile for three days.

"Baby's kicking," she answered in a strange, flat voice.

"We have to get you out of here," I said, my body seeming to move on its
own volition out of the bed. "How long did you say I was out for?"

"Three days."

Three days. It really didn't seem possible. "Are you sure?"

She nodded.

"Jesus, how come I don't remember anything? Did I eat?" I put on a pair
of jeans and a sweatshirt and tried to ignore the panging soreness in my
muscles.

"You slept a lot," she answered. "Most of the time your fever ran high.
You took your aspirin and drank your tea like a good patient and went
back down."

Drank your tea.

I went into the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face. The sink had a
few spottings of green liquid in it that quickly washed away beneath the
flow from the faucet. Green tea, Michael? I looked into the mirror for a
quick moment and saw a man who'd aged twenty years in the last eight months.

I was going to ask Christine if she was still drinking that tea, or
feeding it to me, when she appeared suddenly in the doorway and said,
"You never told me what you did." Her face was hard and serious. So were
her words ... they weighed on me like an accusation

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of murder--not the desperate hope for success I'd expected.

I decided not to say anything. She grimaced again, holding her belly
(which seemed to have grown to full term), then backpedaled to the edge
of the bed, which she rested against needfully.

"I need to go out there, Christine," I said, referring to the woods. "I
need to know if it worked."

Christine sighed, chewed a bottom lip, then asked with more force than
needed, "If what worked?"

Odd that she would ask that, since I'd discussed everything with her
beforehand. And her tone, it was even odder, as though I'd shocked her
by actually following through with my plan. I'd explained to her that
our only alternative had been to defeat the Isolates-- or at the very
least weaken them so we could get out of Ashborough. Now, judging by her
manner, it seemed that she'd forgotten these details. I looked at her,
unable to cloak my confusion. "The tainted blood," I said, quietly
defensive. "The hantavirus. It should've knocked them all out by now."

"Is that what you did?" Her sudden accusatory tone made me think that I
hadn't told her what I'd planned to do, and now she was mad at me for
not knowing about it. Although I was certain I'd discussed my intentions
with her, I couldn't remember actually doing it, and that scared me. All
I could recall was that sometime after I grabbed that Isolate and
poisoned it, I came back into the house and spoke with Christine in the
living room, then passed out and experienced the scariest, most surreal
nightmare ever.

349

Automatically, I said, "Yes, that's what I did. I poisoned them. Now go
get your bags. There's a good chance we'll be leaving today."

"Good luck," she said, her voice dry and mechanical. She smiled at me.
It was clearly forced.

"Thanks."

It was only after I stepped out of the bedroom that I thought of
Jessica, and my heart sank into my stomach. I stopped and turned around,
looked back. All was deadly quiet beyond the bathroom door. The hallway
reverberated with the tension of the moment, and all of a sudden I felt
alone in the world. "Christine?"

"Yes?" she called from the bedroom.

"Where's Jessica?"

"In her room."

I spun away, stepped down the hall, and peeked into Jessica's bedroom.
The blinds were shuttered, closing out most of the light. Her dolls were
lined up on the dresser, a few missing (in addition to the teddy bear),
presumably packed away in the duffle bag on the floor beside the bed.
She lay in bed, a silent coma beneath the sheets. I walked over to her,
ran a finger across her brow, then gently kissed her on the cheek.
"Don't worry," I whispered. "I'll get you out of here."

I left her room and went downstairs, into the kitchen. I drank some
water, but had no appetite, so decided against eating anything. If
everything went as intended, I'd soon behold a scene not suitable for a
full stomach. A sense of coldness set upon me. It froze me, perhaps
warning me that finishing the task wasn't a very good idea. But...
beneath the cold premonition grew a

350

flame of eagerness. It protected me against the chill and gave me the
incentive to press on, as though a driving force had swooped down from
the rafters to guide me in the right direction.

There was no way I could stop now.

I put my boots on and went outside.

351

Chapter Forty-two

Despite the frigid air, it was the sunniest day of the year. I had no
idea what day of the week it was. Last I checked, which had been an
indeterminate amount of days ago, it had been December, somewhere around
the middle of the month. Jesus, for all I knew it might've been
Christmas Day. Or New Year's.

As I entered the woods, I looked down to see if my feet were actually
touching the ground. In the dream where I'd killed Page, I'd had the
feeling of my feet floating inches above the forest floor. It'd seemed
as if the woods had reached out to me, had ushered me along as though
I'd been transcendentally connected with them. Now, I could see that my
feet were firmly rooted to the forest soil... yet my body experienced a
level of exhilaration like that in the dream.

I took the path of least resistance: the same one

352

phillip guided me along when he brought me up here that fateful day. The
environment seemed newly familiar to me, all the details coming back to
me as if I'd begun reading a book for the second time. The sights were
the same, the trees, the hills, the bushes, the filmy snow gently
crunching under my footsteps, twigs and needles flattening beneath my
weight. Far along, the ground dipped and softened, the gentle crunch
turning to squoosh as muddy water filled the recesses of the land. The
bushes began to thin, and the trees gave way to a clearing where a low
fog hung listlessly in the damp air.

Here comes the circle of stones. It's up ahead, a bit to the left. A
mere hop, skip, and jump. Take yourself into it with the same bit of
confidence that brought you here in the first place. Let the woods guide
you, protect you... keep the faith. The hard part is over, Michael.
Accepting what is becomes the end-all conclusion to the entire saga.

That is, if the Grand Scheme allows it ...

The fog thickened and rose up to my waist as I made my way forward. All
along I'd accepted the abilities of the Isolates as being mortal,
commanded solely through strength and an instinctual determination to
survive the elements. But the breed also possessed a shrewd intelligence
enabling them to dominate the weaker race around them, the human
residents of Ashborough, yours truly included.

On the surface it seemed as if Isolates were indeed infected humans.

Or were they?

The fog began to swirl around me as I considered the

353

possibility of them being much more than infected human beings. There
was a sentient presence within this fog, in the woods, I could feel it,
I saw it. And it became clear to me that it had everything to do with
the existence and vitality of the Isolates. The germ had to have come
from somewhere, something. I needed to look no further than my dream,
and the great golden-eyed demon that rose up from the depths of the
woods and raped my wife. This horned beast... it had shown itself as a
way of telling me that it had cultivated the germ and transfused it into
a select body of humans who in turn became its offspring. If the germ
had been nothing more than just a germ, then it would have spread beyond
the confines of Ashborough. The germ had been sufficiently quarantined
within the limits of the town and the surrounding woodland (yet another
brilliant survival technique on the part of the Isolates--or should I
say on the part of the great demon who created it?).

Common sense dictated that the Isolates were more than just primitive
creatures. They were commanded by a much higher force, the glow of their
eyes a complex power above and beyond the simplistic chemical reaction I
presumed them to be. Once I began to think along these lines, then their
mental abilities became all too obvious as well--their capacity to drive
the enemy through subjective means was unmistakable. They controlled
this town, owned it, and not through brute force alone. They controlled
everyone's minds as well. In my case, they made me believe that speaking
to my wife would mean certain death to her. They made Christine believe
she had been visiting an OB/GYN all along.

354

God, for all I knew, Christine wasn't really pregnant at all. Their real
power lay in illusion, not by means of threat or strength (although
their aggressiveness was without question formidable, and not to be
easily dealt with). There was no telling what was real, and what wasn't.

The fog rose up even further, encapsulating me. It seemed unexplainably
alive, swirling and pulsing around me like a toss-up of underwater silt.
I felt terribly small and insignificant in its grasp, blind and being
led into an inescapable trap. Vainly, I tried to convince myself that
the hantavirus germ had worked, that there was nothing to be afraid of.

Nothing to be afraid of? You think the virus worked on that demon?

That was just a dream ... wasn't it?

There were never more unanswered questions than now.

The trees spread and the fog parted to reveal the circle of stones. I
stepped into its center, looking around. Silence dominated at first, but
then there was a bit of laughter: low, rasping, mocking. It paralyzed
me, nearly stopped my heart, my breath. The fog spread and formed a
perfect circle around me, as if to create a broad showcase of light for
me to perform under. I stood there for a moment, then took a step
forward toward the center stone. The laugh emerged again, louder this
time and from a different direction. It seemed to derive from
everywhere: before me, behind me, above and below. It filled the
environment.

The fog then began to move upward. It gathered into

355

a dense form that rose fifteen feet high and five feet wide, amassing
into a compact, recognizable shape: that of the great demon from my
dream. In the center of the roiling fog that formed its head, two golden
lights burned. A hole broke for its mouth, and the laugh blared forth
once again. The fog glowed even brighter, the demon now taking on a more
definitive shape. Its skin began to darken. Muscles formed in its arms
and legs as they writhed about, seeking mobility. Golden veins pulsed
throughout its body, igniting its head so that the six horns and braided
hair came into sharp view. A thick black tongue jutted from its mouth,
dripping venom that sizzled as it hit the ground. The creature was
almost complete now, as it was in my dream, and I could actually see
yellow claws emerging from its hands as it reached down to grab its
horribly misshapened erection. Tempered puffs of fog shot from its penis
in hot steam-engine bursts.

And then it raised its nearly formed head to the sky and bellowed a
sound like nothing I'd ever heard before. It silenced the woodland
insects and generated a cold turbulent gale that whipped the branches of
every tree. The ground resonated beneath my feet.

I peered up at the thing, terrified, awaiting my death. It peered down
at me with its glowing golden eyes, then drew its mouth down, the
forming lips swelling like balloons and revealing green-black stumps for
teeth along a reddened jaw. The wind picked up even stronger, and nearby
I could hear branches snapping angrily.

Then, as quickly as it appeared, the fog that had crafted the beast
dissipated. I could feel the shifting

356

wind, the fog breaking up and forming a tornado that whipped itself into
a frenzy. Snow and leaves exited the area amidst the circle of stones in
a windswept rush. A passage into the lair of the Isolates whipped open
from the forest floor, and in a drill-like motion, the fog that had been
the great creature sank down into it and disappeared.

A surge of adrenaline beat back my fatigue, allowing me to stagger
forward toward the entrance. Although the fog-beast was gone, the wind
it produced remained as strong as ever, and it whipped at me fiercely,
sending soil and wet snow into my face. Once at the entrance, I looked
around at the stones that remained undisturbed in their intimidating
stance. Their circuitous path made me dizzy, and I swayed and pitched my
head forward, gasping for air. I kneeled before the hole, and peered
deep into its inviting darkness.

I went in, stepping downward neither quickly nor slowly, following the
tunnel, down, down, down, through the blackness. I traveled forward,
unable to see, realizing that if I mistakingly ventured off into one of
the branching corridors, I might get lost. So I did my damnedest to stay
on the path, regulating my breaths with smooth, even inhalations,
keeping the pace slow and steady, with my hands out before me to help
guide the way. Mud and water sloshed beneath my feet. Roots from the low
ceiling pinched my hair. At one point I slipped and fell in the cold
mud, but quickly stood up and kept on walking.

I walked in the blackness for nearly fifteen minutes, thinking that I'd
never make it there, that I'd perhaps

357

taken a wrong turn and was now on my way to some remote exit in a
farmer's field. But soon a faint light flickered into view. I moved
toward it, now able to make out the dirt walls around me. I hadn't taken
a wrong turn. The hub was just ahead. I continued forward, turned a
corner, and beheld the wide-open entrance to the main dwelling place of
the Isolates, thirty feet ahead.

Slowly, I walked forward.

Even here, cold silence continued to rule. There was no bustle of
activity, only the flickering scatter of diminished wall-torches.

I moved closer to the entrance.

Then, suddenly, I heard them. Moans rife with pain and suffering. I
stopped to listen, and stayed there for a few minutes before I could
brave the courage to move on. When I finally entered the lair of the
Isolates, I beheld them. They were all here. The Isolates.

They were gathered in a seemingly unending collection of withered
bodies, knotted together in a great mass of ruin. Many of them were
dead, many were still dying and squirming. But not a single golden eye
was aglow.

I smiled victoriously as I walked through them, contemplating the
results of my labor: a mass execution, the genocide of an entire race of
beings now collected in a vast playground perfectly suited for the
infestation of maggots. I never felt more in powerful in my life. I won.
I fucking beat them.

I turned away, my whole body a solid ache of torment. Sweat blanketed
me, adding to the discomfort.

358

Mosquitoes poked my skin. I paced back through the carnage, making sure
not to trip over any of the bodies in my path.

Suddenly, in a quickened thrust, something grabbed my ankle. The claws
punctured my skin and I yelped out in pain. I looked down. A sick
Isolate had me in its grasp, blood and mucus pouring from its nose, foam
from its mouth. And then suddenly I recognized this one from the jagged
scar racing across its face. Fenal. The glow in his eyes grew sharply
bright, then faded down to gray right before my eyes. And then, it died.
The hand released its grip. I kicked it away disgustedly. He wanted you
to help him, Michael.

I turned around one last time to admire my work.

In the distance, in one of the multitude of burrows, I saw a single pair
of eyes ignite, their glow intense, pinning me. In their illumination I
saw a single bony hand raise up and point an accusatory finger at me.

And as I considered the unexpected possibility that one or more of the
beasts might be immune, a single howl like the one I'd heard in the
woods ripped the silence to tatters, condemning me back to the hell I
had momentarily escaped.

359

Chapter Forty-three

I waited at the edge of the woods, staring up at my house. The wind had
muscled away two more boards from the upstairs windows. The darkness
within peered down at me watchfully, daring me to move on.

It had taken me a long time to return home, my body riddled with
stiffness and monumental aches. My muscles felt atrophied, my breathing
labored, and I wondered if this was what it felt like being on the
receiving side of a heart attack. Once I'd escaped the underground den,
which had taken the better part of an hour, I'd taken a few moments to
rest before journeying back home. Now, darkness was approaching, and the
setting sun cast an elongated shadow of myself across the side of the
house that seemed to mock me as I finally made my way across the lawn. I
wondered if I had the fortitude to actually leave here, and laughed
madly at the

360

possibility that after all this time I wouldn't be able to flee because
my legs had no strength left in them to take me.

I went into the house via the side door. It was cool and dark and damp
inside. I staggered down the hall into the kitchen. My muddy footfalls
echoed spookily on the tiles, reminding me of the noise a sickened
stomach makes.

"Christine?"

The eerie silence swallowed up my voice like water into a sponge. The
wind rattled the boards over the living room windows. Alongside the
front door were two duffle bags, presumably the supplies Christine and
Jessica packed for the journey out of Ashborough. The sight of them gave
me a ray of hope, and I found the strength in me to continue.

"Christine?" I called upstairs.

No answer.

Again I was scared. My heart pounded ferociously. Where were they? What
were they doing? Sleeping perhaps, I thought with doubt. I took the
steps one at a time, the pessimistic silence making the skin on my back
and arms ripple with gooseflesh. The walk was short and terrifying, and
I felt like a man walking the plank into shark-infested waters.

I reached the landing and immediately saw a spot-trail of blood leading
down the hall past the closed door of the master bedroom. I stared at it
for a long time, feeling fear and madness weighing down on me, and I
imagined myself as a small house caught in the beginnings of an
unstoppable mud slide, wondering

361

how much pressure I could tolerate before caving in.

Soon I stood before the master bedroom. The blood on the floor was
thicker here, and it was smeared around as if someone had stepped in it.
I grabbed the doorknob with a sweaty palm and put an ear against the door.

From beyond, I heard a gentle cry. A whimper.

I turned the knob and pushed the door open.

I saw Jessica first. My little girl was sitting silently in a chair
against the right wall of the bedroom alongside the boarded window
frame. She was staring blankly toward the bed, head cocked, eyes cold
and hypnotic, and it became immediately apparent that her intense
inaction was the handiwork of the Isolates--she looked no different now
than she had in the basement of Old Lady Zellis.

Hey, Michael!

The call was propelled from the smidgen of sanity my conscious held on
to. It told me that there was much more to take in and that I ought to
try and tame the fires of madness in my head because there weren't any
calm waters ahead to put them out.

I let the door swing all the way open, and was greeted by the sight of
my wife, the woman whom I walked down the aisle with and traded vows
with, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health. She was
lying naked on the bed, head tilted uncomfortably against the headboard,
legs spread apart amidst a massive wash of blood. Her arms fidgeted at
her sides, fists gripping the stained sheets in bunches. Her belly was no

362

longer swollen with child. Somewhere here was our baby. Our baby.

I walked toward her. I saw blood on the footboard of the bed, on the
floor, on the walls. It was everywhere.

And suddenly, I screamed.

It came from me ungoverned, reverberating around the room and through
the halls of 17 Harlan Road, the house that had now become haunted with
living ghosts. I realized at this moment that nothing could stop the
evil brewing here. It would simply go on and on forever despite any
roadblocks; there was nothing more certain than that except for my
undying screams. Insanity... yeah, it had finally taken over, I could
feel it finally. It had come out with all its guns blazing, and all I
could think about was the great golden-eyed demon-beast in the woods
whose presence brought out the very best in its progeny, and the most
abominable conduct in its enemies: the simple folk of Ashborough who had
come here seeking charmed lives and died with the bloodsoaked consequences.

Christine had heard me scream, of course. I looked at her, dazed. Our
eyes locked, mine filled with tears, hers with blood. Christine was gone
now. Not dead per se, but gone in mind, in soul, and the thing that had
replaced her couldn't have been happier at the moment to let me know all
about it. This possessed thing that had become my wife pulled its split
lips back into a wicked grin and licked the blood on its teeth, then
arched its hips up from the mattress and pressed down on its belly. What
had once been Christine's placenta came bursting out from her vagina,
ruptured and purple

363

and pumping blood and birth matter in a horrible, flatulent spew. I
cried for Jessica, who remained in a catatonic state. Then I turned and
vomited, the gristly odor of blood and feces taking full control of my
stomach. Gagging, I turned back to face the scene, and that was when the
bathroom door opened.

Here came my newborn child. Walking. Half-human, half-Isolate, it
staggered out with a full coat of sticky-wet body hair, its face
untouched by Isolate genes excepting the hideous glow of its golden
eyes. It careened toward me, this thing only eighteen inches high,
reptilian feet leaving congealed prints on the hardwood floor. It held
up both its hands, not for me to accept it, but to strike. Blood and
amniotic fluid dripped from its yellow claws. I staggered back, but the
thing latched onto my leg, swaying and clawing and then biting into my
shin with its powerful little teeth. I kicked at it, swatted at it. My
screams and the wails of the demon-child erupted from the room, and that
was when Jessica suddenly sprang into action. This brought a brief
flickering light to the end of my long dark tunnel, but it was quickly
extinguished when I realized that my daughter was still caught in the
throes of her catatonia and had no intentions of assisting me. Instead,
she came at me, arms outstretched, hissing like an angry cat. She lanced
into my legs, tripping me up as I frantically attempted to shake the
baby-beast away. I fell back on my ass, and felt the wind bullet out
from my lungs in a sharp unintentional exhale. The baby-beast fell away
and careened against the bathroom door, then immediately righted itself
and scowled as it looked back at me, its

364

gaze glowing and resentful. I scrambled to the wall, staring dumbfounded
up at the three bodies in the room with me.

The new and not necessarily improved Cayle family.

Christine crawled forward on the bed like a serpent. She was doused in
blood, her face twisting and writhing, mouth panting and full of foam.
Jessica staggered up, adjusted her cotton nightie, which had bunched up
around her chest, then leaped up on the bed, joining her mother. She
giggled in her little-girl voice and licked the blood from her fingers,
as did the baby beast, which also climbed onto the bed to be with its
family.

"Jessica ..." I managed. "No, honey ..."

She giggled and playfully tossed herself down on the blood-soaked bed.

Christine looked back at Jessica and ran a gentle hand through her blond
locks. When she pulled away, a stark bloody streak marred the previously
untainted curls.

"Christine... what in God's name are you doing? You're hypnotized! Shake
it off! Shake it off!" I sat there, stupefied, surveying the evil scene
before me, convinced for these futile moments that all I had to do was
convince them that it was all some form of mind control at play here,
and that once they realized this--as they had in Old Lady Zellis's
basement--we could get the fuck out of here while the Isolates were
still out of commission.

But there would be no Cayle family exodus--that much made itself very
clear in the following seconds;

365

in my mind heinous images played out, images of the great homed beast in
the woods who'd sent me a message in my swoon, telling me that the fight
was unwinnable, and that no matter what I did to knock his children
down, he'd be there stronger than ever to pick them up again.

I pictured the thing with its spectacular erection, mounting my wife.

And then, I thought back to a brief moment in time five months ago when
Christine and I were talking in the kitchen, when she revealed the
pregnancy and said, Damn it Michael, you wore a condom. I realized now
that the great beast had already been upon her at that time, and that
the grinning, walking, scowling Isolate baby on the bed with my family
had no genes of mine in it, but those of its father in the woods. It
would grow up a mix breed like Old Lady Zellis, and perhaps assume her
position as Ashborough's spiritual leader.

I tried to stand, and at that moment became terribly aware that it
wasn't just hypnosis or some form of mind control that'd had my family
stricken. It was much, much more than that.

I looked at Christine and Jessica, bloodied and on the bed, now
gleefully cradling the newborn beast in their hands. I collapsed back
down to the floor.

They both looked up and smiled at me.

Their eyes were glowing gold.

I could do nothing but stay there defeated, staring at the utter evil
before me. There was absolutely nothing I could do. Nothing except give
in. I crumpled to the

366

floor and pulled myself into a ball, trying to make myself as small as
possible. I cried hysterically, hoping I'd disappear from this world
forever and ever. Quite soon, I did.

367

Epilogue

"When I awoke, many hours later, Christine, Jessica, and the baby-beast
were gone. I never looked for them. I knew they weren't in the house ...
gut feeling, I suppose. Perhaps I didn't care. I went downstairs. The
bags were still by the front door. I'd considered taking one and walking
out the front door to see how far I'd get before they pulled a Neil
Farris on me. Trying to leave meant certain death, I knew that already,
and to be frank, I didn't really care at the moment if I died, I just
didn't want to give them the benefit of making it happen. So I washed up
and went back to sleep for many hours.

"When I awoke, I went into my office, grabbed the things I needed, along
with whatever food was left in the house, and locked myself down here in
the

368

basement, where I remain to this day, perhaps two weeks after my family
disappeared.

"It has been my intention to chronicle the events taking place here at
17 Harlan Road. I feel that with these tapes, I have done that. I do
hope that the recordings on these tapes find the ears of an impartial
listener, although I doubt that once you find your way into Ashborough,
you will find your way out.

"My work, for now, is done, dear listener. I have only one decision left
to make. If I am nowhere to be found, then I have decided to look for
Christine and Jessica and I have perhaps fallen victim to the great
demon's plague, although he might not allow me to escape, since I'd
murdered so many of his progeny. I assume that he wants me to suffer for
as long as possible, and by leaving me alone, he is doing just that.
Either that, or I have indeed escaped the bonds of Ashborough, although
that's highly improbable.

"My only other alternative is to take my own life, which I have planned
for should it become necessary. On the table in front of me sits a
needle. In it, hantavirus-tainted blood. If you find my body alongside
these tapes, then you know the decision I have made and I wish you more
successful results in your quest to escape the guard of the Isolates.

"At this point, I bid you farewell, dear listener. Thank you for your
time and your ears. For that, I am truly grateful.

"Good night."

369

Dark basement.

Heavy breathing.

The grainy shuffle of feet on a cement floor. Edgy fingers tapping a
table's rough surface. The reek of things moist and damp.

Somewhere upstairs a clock chimes. A useless breeze sweeps a single
candle's flame.

A hand moves to a small tape recorder, sitting on the tabletop.

One hesitant finger seeks out the stop button. Presses it.

Ten seconds of deep, labored breaths. Then a hand moves to grab the
needle. ...

370

GRAHAM MASTERTON

THE DOORKEEPERS

Julia Winward has been missing in England for nearly a year. When her
mutilated body is finally found floating in the Thames, her brother,
Josh, is determined to find out what happened to his sister and exactly
who--or what--killed her.

But nothing Josh discovers makes any sense. Julia had been working for a
company that went out of business sixty years ago, and living at an
address that hasn't existed since World War II. The only one who might
help Josh is a strange woman with psychic abilities. But the doors she
can open with her mind are far better left closed. For behind these
doors lie secrets too horrible to imagine.

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

P.O. Box 6640 5240-7

Wayne, PA 19087-8640 $6.99 US/S8.99 CAN

Please add $2.50 for shipping and handling for the first book and $.75
for each additional book. NY and PA residents, add appropriate sales
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371

CLARK

STRANGER

The small town of Sullivan has barricaded itself against the outside
world. It is one of the last enclaves of civilization and the residents
are determined that their town remain free from the strange and
terrifying plague that is sweeping the land--a plague that transforms
ordinary people into murderous, bloodthirsty madmen. But the
transformation is only the beginning. With the shocking realization that
mankind is evolving into something different, something horrifying, the
struggle for survival becomes a battle to save humanity.

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

P.O. Box 6640 5076-5

Wayne, PA 19087-8640 $6.99 US/S8.99 CAN

Please add $2.50 for shipping and handling for the first book and $75
for each additional book. NY and PA residents, add appropriate sales
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372

Simon Clark

Leppington is a small town, quiet and unassuming. Yet beneath its
streets terrifying creatures stir. Driven by an ancient need, united in
their burning hunger, they share an unending craving. They are vampires.
They lurk in the dark, in tunnels and sewers ... but they come out to
feed. For untold years they have remained hidden, seen only by their
unfortunate victims. Now the truth of their vile existence is about to
be revealed--but will anyone believe it? Or is it already too late?

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. P.O. Box 6640 Wayne, PA 19087-8640

_5031-5 $5.99 US/$7.99 CAN

Please add $2.50 for shipping and handling for the first book and $.75
for each additional book. NY and PA residents, add appropriate sales
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373

DARKER

Richard Young is looking forward to a quiet week with his wife and their
little daughter. Firing up the barbecue should be the most stressful
task he'll face. He has no idea of the hell that awaits him, the
nightmare that will begin with an insistent pounding at his door.

me stranger begging to be let in is being hunted. Not by a man or an
animal, but by something that cannot be seen or heard, yet which has the
power to crush and destroy anything in its path. It is a relentless,
pounding force that nas existed for centuries and has now been unleashed
to terrify, to ravage ... to kill.

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374

MICHAEL LAIMO's first novel, Atmosphere, published by Leisure Books in
2002, was nominated by the Horror Writers Association for the
prestigious Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in a first novel.
His short fiction has been published in a variety of anthologies and
magazines, including Hot Blood 12, Darkside 3, Dark Whispers,
Vivisections, Flesh & Blood, Unnatural Selection, The Book of All Flesh,
The Best of Horrorfind Volumes I & II, and many more. His stories have
been collected in Demons, Freaks, and Other Abnormalities (Delirium
Books) and Dregs of Society (Prime Books). Michael lives in Melville,
New York, with three women and a cat who leaves dead mice on the porch.
He can be contacted via his website at www.laimo.com. or at
Michael@Laimo.com.