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"God knohat But it wound up here last night"

Lem used his handkerchief to mop the sweat off his dark face "We’re only a few ’s cabin"

Cliff nodded

"Which way you think it’s headed?"

Cliff shrugged

"Yeah," Lein to outthink it because we haven’t the slightest idea how it thinks Let’s just pray to God it stays out here in the unpopulated end of the county I don’t want to even consider what could happen if it decides to head into the easterne Park Acres and Villa Park"

On the way out of the coathered on the dead rabbit in such numbers that they looked like a piece of dark cloth draped over the carcass and rippling in a light breeze

Eight hours later, at seven o’clock Monday evening, Lerounds of the Marine Air Station at El Toro He leaned toward the er to be sure it was active, heard a loud hollow thump, and said, "May I have your attention, please?"

A hundred , well-built, and healthy-looking, for they were ence units Five two-squad platoons had been drawn from Pendleton and other bases in California Most of them had been involved in the search of the Santa Ana foothills last Wednesday and Thursday, following the breakout at the Banodyne labs

They were still searching, having just returned froer conducting the operation in uniform To deceive reporters and local authorities, they had driven in cars and pickups and Jeep wagons to various points along the current search periroups of three or four, dressed as ordinary hikers:

jeans or khaki pants in the rugged Banana Republic style; T-shirts or cotton safari shirts; Dodger or Budweiser or John Deere caps, or cowboy hats They went aruns that could be quickly concealed in nylon backpacks or under their loose T-shirts if they encountered real hikers or state authorities And in Styrofoauns that could be brought into service in seconds if they found the adversary

Every ned a secrecy oath, which put hied the nature of this operation to anyone They knehat they were hunting, though Le the creature really existed Some were afraid But others, especially those who had previously served in Lebanon or Central Ah with death and horror to be unshaken by the nature of their current quarry A few oldtimers went as far back as the final year of the Vietnam War, and they professed to believe that the ood e ene, and if The Outsider could be found, they would find it

Nohen Lem asked for their attention, they immediately fell silent

"General Hotchkiss tells me that you’ve had another fruitless day out there," Lem said, "and I know you’re as unhappy about that as I aed terrain for six days now, and you’re tired, and you’re wondering how long this is going to drag on Well, we’re going to keep looking until we find e’re after, until we corner The Outsider and kill it There is no e can stop if it’s still loose No way"

None of the hundred even gruree for the dog"

Every man in the roo and that someone else would encounter The Outsider

Le in another four Marine Intelligence squads fro basis, giving you a couple of days off But you’ll all be out there to, and the search area has been redefined"

A county map was mounted on the wall behind the lectern, and Lem Johnson pointed to it with a yardstick "We’ll be shifting north-northwest, into the hills and canyons around Irvine Park"

He told theraphic description of the condition of the carcasses, for he did not want any of these et careless

"What happened to those zoo aniuard down at the wrong place and tiarded him with utmost seriousness, and in their eyes he saw a hundred versions of his own tightly controlled fear

8

Tuesday night, May 25, Tracy Leigh Keeshan could not sleep She was so excited she felt as if she one to seed, a puffball of fragile white fuzz, and then a gust of ould co in every direction- poof-to the far corners of the world, and Tracy Keeshan would exist no more, destroyed by her own exciteinative thirteen-year-old

Lying in bed in her dark room, she did not even have to close her eyes to see herself on horseback-on her own chestnut stallion, Goodheart, to be precise-thundering along the racetrack, the rails flashing past, the other horses in the field left far behind, the finish line less than a hundred yards ahead, and the adoring crowds cheering wildly in the grandstand

In school, she routinely got good grades, not because she was a diligent student but because learning came easily to her, and she could do ithout much effort She didn’t really care about school She was slender, blond, with eyes the precise shade of a clear summer sky, very pretty, and boys were drawn to her, but she didn’t spend anyabout her school work, not yet anyway, although her girlfriends were so fixated on boys, so consumed by the subject that they sometimes bored Tracy half to death

What Tracy cared about-deeply, profoundly, passionately-was horses, racing thoroughbreds She had been collecting pictures of horses since she was five and had been taking riding lessons since she was seven, though for the longest time her parents had not been able to afford to buy her a horse of her own During the past two years, however, her father’s business had prospered, and twonew house on two acres in Orange Park Acres, which was a horsey co trails At the back end of their lot was a private stable for six horses, though only one stall was occupied Just today-Tuesday, May 25, a day of glory, a day that would live forever in Tracy Keeshan’s heart, a day that just proved there was a God-she had been given a horse of her own, the splendid and beautiful and incomparable Goodheart

So she could not sleep She went to bed at ten, and by ht she was , she could not stand it any longer She had to go out to the stables and look at Goodheart Make sure he was all right Make sure he was comfortable in his new home Make sure he was real

She threw off the sheet and thin blanket and got quietly out of bed She