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Then a man was there

He stepped out of a shadow and was abruptly there The night bird let out a startled cry and fluttered its wings, but did not fly away The ray lipsas he read the name He was scarecrow thin and dressed in a cheap black suit that was smeared with dirt He wore no topcoat, no hat His skin was as gray as the gravestones around him, but there was no moon now to shine on it Still, that pale skin seeht He held his hands loosely at his sides, and every once in a while those long fingers twitched and clutched as if grasping so to

Then he reached down into the shadows behind the to neck of a battered old blues guitar in his hand He looped the strap over his shoulder and drew his slender fingers along the silver strings The frictionopen

Abruptly the whole graveyard was caught in the harsh white glare of headlights as a car crested one of the sraveyard The lights shi the tips of the corn, casting weird capering shadows The grayas the car drew near, passed, and drove on The car wasas if the driver was drunk Three shadowy figures hunched in the car’s seats, two in the front, one in the back Tires squealed as the car careered along the road, sashaying fro on a course dead center, as if the grill were devouring the single yellow line The e billboard that read:

THREE MILES TO PINE DEEP, THE MOST HAUNTED TOWN IN AMERICA…WE’LL SCARE YOU SILLY !

If the ave no indication Their shadowed heads didn’t turn as they passed the sign, the engine never slowed The car clawed its way up the far hill, and in a fewfirst to tiny red dots, like rat’s eyes, and then vanishing altogether A one as well

The raveyard stared into the distance, his eyes squinting as if he could still distantly see the car, though it was iered briefly on the billboard and the irony was not lost on hi flickered behind the clouds In the tree, the night bird shivered its wings and uttered its strange wailing cry

With a final lingering glance at the touitar hung behind hiht hip; then he turned and began walking He walked slowly and without haste, his long legsa steady, deliberate pace, like that of a pallbearer He stepped onto the road and began walking in the direction taken by the car and its three passengers His shoes ain, a deception of a stor cast brief but bold shadows across the road, the wall of the graveyard, the gnarled tree, the night bird…everything starkly cast its shadow onto the blacktop Everything except thea sound

With slow andhill and was soon lost in darkness The night, and the night bird, followed after

3

"Jesus Christ, Tony!" Boyd yelped, gripping the back of the driver’s seat with his one good hand "Watch it!"

Tony Macchio wrestled the wheel and pulled the car back into the right-​hand lane,s as Tony fought to steady it with cluers were caked with dried blood, and they felt cold and weak He could barely even feel the knobbed arc of the steering wheel

"What the fuck’s wrong with you?" snapped Boyd as the car finally settled into balance and began accelerating again, cli His sto casual in spite of the wild ride, Karl Ruger watched Tony Ruger’s eyes were cold slits, but he was sed to two different faces: the smile seeer looked at Tony with the expressionless eyes of a reptile Eyes the color of dusty slate, like a blackboard froer had a long, thin nose that arced over the mouth like the blade of a very sharp knife, a pointed chin, and a sharp, strong jaw-​line His cheekbones hung like ledges over the concavity of hollow cheeks, and Ruger’s broas high and clear but cut by the black dagger-​point of a ’s peak He took off his hat and sainst his skull If he had had a kinder face, he could have looked like a stage ic about hi to his soul and to his face, and to his fate The dark ers and in the shadows of his black, black heart