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"This way," Chrissie said, pulling loose of Tessa and turning back into the darkness fro theured they wouldn’t have tried to break into Central on any side that faced a street, where they reed--so he drove around to the back He passed metal doors that would have provided too for to spot a broken pane

The last rear door, the only one with glass in the top, was in an angled extension of the building He was driving toward it for a o around that wing, and from a distance of only a few yards, with all the other panes reflecting the glare of his headlights, his attention was caught by the deer

"Yes, Little Chief"

He parked near the door and grabbed the loaded Reun from the van’s floor behind hier seat He opened it, grabbed four or five, stuffed theot out of the van and headed toward the door with the broken

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Four soft thuds reverberated through the house, even into the attic, and Harry thought he heard glass breaking far away

Moose barked furiously He sounded like theever bred, not a sweet black Lab Maybe he would prove willing to defend hoood teht Don’t try to be a hero Just craay in a corner somewhere and let them pass, lick their hands if they offer the squealed and fell silent

No, Harry thought, and a pang of grief tore through hi but his best friend

Moose, too, had a sense of duty

Silence settled over the house They would be searching the ground floor now

Harry’s grief and fear receded as his anger grew Moose Dae in his face He wanted to kill theood hand and held it on his lap They wouldn’t find hiun in his hand

In the service he had won co and perforo He had not fired a gun, even in practice, for more than twenty years, since that faraway and beautiful Asian land, where on aof exceptionally lovely blue skies, he had been crippled for life He kept the 38 and the 45 cleaned and oiled, mostly out of habit; a soldier’s lessons and routines were learned for life--and noas glad of that

A clank

A rumble-purr of machinery

The elevator

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Halfway down the correct hallway, holding the diht in his left hand and the revolver in his other, just as he caught up with Chrissie, Sa outside It was not on top of them, but it was too close He couldn’t tell if the patrol car was actually closing in on the back of the school, tohich they were headed, or co to the front entrance

Apparently Chrissie was uncertain too She stopped running and said, "Where, Sam? Where?"

From behind them Tessa said, "Sam, the doorway!"

For an instant he didn’t understand what sheopen at the end of the hall, about thirty yards away, the same door by which they had entered Anearer, so there were uy who’d coh the door was just the first--tall, six feet five if he was one inch, but otherwise only a shadow, hted by the security laht of the door

Sa to determine if this man was an enemy, because they were all eneion--and he knew the shot ide His marksmanship was lousy because of his injured wrist, which hurt like hell after their misadventures in the culvert With the recoil, pain burst out of that joint and all the way back to his shoulder, then back again, Jesus, pain sloshing around like acid inside hith went out of his hand He alun

As the roar of Sam’s shot slauy at the far end opened fire with a weapon of his own, but he had heavy artillery A shotgun Fortunately he was not good with it He was aih, not aware of how the kick would throw theonly ten yards ahead of hi out one of the unlit fluorescent fixtures and a bunch of acoustic tiles His reaction confiruns; he overco the er a second tiet

Saunfire He seized Chrissie and pushed her to the left, across the corridor and through a door into a dark rooed chunks out of the vinyl flooring Tessa was right behind theainst it, as if she thought that she was Super-wo the door would bounce harht at her "With un"

Tessa swept the weak yellow beaht of the door, tiered platforms--full of chairs and e open area, the band director’s podiu open, leading to adjoining roo to follow Tessa toward the nearer of those doors, and Sa the hall door through which they had come

Outside, the siren had died Now there would be un

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They had searched the first two floors They were in the third-floor bedroo Their voices rose to hi, his floor But he couldn’t quite

He almost hoped they would spot the attic trap in the closet and would decide to come up He wanted a chance to blow a couple of the a victim, he was sick to death of it; he wanted a chance to let them know that Harry Talbot was still a h Moose was only a dog, his was nevertheless a life taken only with serious consequences

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In the eddying fog, Lole patrol car parked beside Shaddack’s van He braked next to it just as Paul Aot out froht, one of Loh-school boy now, too sot out of his car, A "Only you and me? Where the hell’s everybody else? This is a major alert"