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He was glad to get out in the clean night air

Sweating both from the chili-spiced dishes and the heat in the restaurant, he had wanted to take his jacket off, but he had not been able to do so because of the gun he was packing in a shoulder holster Now he relished the chilling fog that was being harried eastward by a gentle but steady breeze

13

Chrissie saw theht they were all going to clamber up the far side of it and off across theThen one of theure approached the drain on all fours, in a few stealthy and sinuous strides Though Chrissie could see nothingthat this thing was either one of her parents or thethe concrete tunnel, the predator peered forward into the glooht here as in uely radiant

Chrissie wondered hoell it could see in absolute darkness Surely its gaze could not penetrate eighty or a hundred feet of lightless pipe to the place where she crouched Vision of that caliber would be SUPERNATURAL

It stared straight at her

Then again, as to say that what she was dealing with here was not SUPERNATURAL? Perhaps her parents had become …

olves

She was soaked in sour sweat She hoped the stench of the dead ani fro ht at the drain entrance, the stalker slowly ca was amplified by the curved concrete walls of the culvert Chrissie breathed shallowly through her open mouth lest she reveal her presence

Suddenly, only ten feet into the tunnel, the stalker spoke in a raspy, whispery voice and with such urgency that the words were al of syllables: "Chrissie, you there, you, you? Come me, Chrissie, come me, come, want you, want, want, need, ave rise in Chrissie’s e of a creature that was part lizard, part wolf, part hu unidentifiable Yet she suspected that its actual appearance was even worse than anything she could iine

"Help you, want help you, help, now, come me, co about the voice was that, in spite of its cold hoarse note and whispery tone, in spite of its alienness, it was faed, yes, but her mother’s voice just the same

Chrissie’s stomach was cramped with fear, but she was filled with another pain, too, that for a moment she could not identify Then she realized that she ached with loss; she missed her mother, wanted her mother back, her real mother If she’d had one of those ornate silver crucifixes like they always used in the fright films, she probably would have revealed herself, advanced on this hateful thing, and demanded that it surrender possession of herin real life was as easy as in the movies; besides, whatever had happened to her parents was far stranger than vampires and olves and demons jumped up from hell But if she’d had a crucifix, she would have tried it anyway

"Death, death, s quickly advanced into the tunnel until it came to the place where Chrissie had stepped in a slippery, putrefyingeyes was directly related to the nearness of ht, for now they diaze to the dead animal on the culvert floor

Fro descending into the ditch Footfalls and the clatter of stones were followed by another voice, equally as fearsome as that of the others the stalker now hunched over the dead ani into the pipe, it said, "She there, there, she? Whatfound, what, what?"

"… raccoon …"

"What, what it, what?"

"Dead raccoon, rotten, ots," the first one said

Chrissie was stricken by the macabre fear that she had left a tennis-shoe i muck of the dead raccoon

"Chrissie?" the second asked as it ventured into the culvert Tucker’s voice Evidently her father was searching for her across the meadow or in the next section of the forest Both stalkers were fidgeting constantly Chrissie could hear theainst the concrete floor of the pipe Both sounded panicky, too No, not panicky, really, because no fear was audible in their voices Frantic Frenzied It was as if an engine in each of the faster, faster, almost out of control

"Chrissie there, she there, she?" Tucker asked

The aze froh the lightless tunnel

You can’t see ht-prayed I’m invisible

The radiance of the stalker’s eyes had faded to twin spots of finished silver

Chrissie held her breath

Tucker said, "Got to eat, eat, want eat"

The creature that had been her irl, find her first, then eat, then"

They sounded as if they ild ani it up, eat no, burning," Tucker said urgently, insistently

Chrissie was shaking so badly that she was half afraid they would hear the shudders that rattled her

Tucker said, "Burning it up, little animals in meadow, hear them, smell them, track, eat, eat, now"

Chrissie held her breath

"Nothing here," the o, eat, then find her, eat, eat, then find her, go"

Both stalkers retreated from the culvert and vanished

Chrissie dared to breathe

After waiting a one, she turned and troll-walked deeper into the upsloping culvert, blindly feeling the walls as she went, hunting a side passage She one two hundred yards before she found what she wanted a tributary drain, half the size of the main line She slid into it, feetfirst and on her back, then squirer tunnel That here she would spend the night If they returned to the culvert to see if they could detect her scent in the cleaner air beyond the decoht that swept the ht not smell her

She was heartened because their failure to probe deeper into the culvert was proof that they were not possessed of supernatural powers, neither all-seeing nor all-knowing They were abnor, but they could ht ca out of the woods and finding help before she was caught

14

In the lights outside of the Perez Family Restaurant, Sam Booker checked his watch Only 7:10

He went for a walk along Ocean Avenue, building up the courage to call Scott in Los Angeles The prospect of that conversation with his son soon preoccupied hiluttonous diners out of his mind

At 7:30, he stopped at a telephone booth near a Shell service station at the corner of Juniper Lane and Ocean Avenue He used his credit card to -distance call to his house in Sherh to be honree and preferred that the boy stay with his Aunt Edna But Scott won his way bylife pure hell for Edna, so Sah that ordeal

He had repeatedly drilled the boy in safety procedures--keep all doors and s locked; knohere the fire extinguishers are; kno to get out of the house froht himent Scott was still too immature to be home alone for days at a tiency

The nuuiltily relieved that he’d failed to get through, when Scott finally answered

"Hello It’sat high voluround He was probably in his room, his stereo cranked up so loud that the s shook

Sam said, "Could you turn the music down?"

"I can hear you," Scottyou"

"I don’t have anything to say, anyway"

"Please turn it down," Sam said, with emphasis on the "Please"

Scott dropped the receiver, which clattered on his nightstand The sharp sound hurt Sam’s ear The boy lowered the voluhtly He picked up the phone and said, "Yeah?"