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Soood He yelled so died down and then picked up again, louder than before, a lot of people at once Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to be telling everybody where he was, Rudy thought He released his grip and backed away fro on out there, he was trapped like a rat in a can Better to just shut up

The world went quiet again Maybe aopen He dropped to the floor and scra sound, a drawer being opened: so Then Rudy heard it: the jingling of keys

"Sheriff?"

No answer

"Deputy Fry? That you?"

A soft green light filled the corridor

--

Simultaneously, at the farthest outskirts of Mystic Township, Texas, three virals were e free of their protective coverings, the es: first the pearlescent tips of their claws, then the long bony fingers, followed by a busting of soil that laid bare their sleek, inhu off the dirt with a doglike motion, and stretched their slumberous limbs A ht They were in a field The field was freshly turned The first to ee, the doe Pettibrew; the second was the town farrier, Juno Brand; the third was a fourteen-year-old girl froo when she’d ht run to the outhouse of her family’s farm These identities lay beyond their powers of recollection, for they had none; all they had was a mission

They saw the farmhouse

A lazy curlicue of smoke chuffed fro stock It possessed two doors, front and rear Though it was not in their natures to bother with a door, nor with the dainty hu a handle, such was their task that this hat they did

They entered Their senses roa

The first viral, the alpha, crept up the stairs So fine were his movements that not even a floorboard creaked; he barely parted air The faint glow of a lantern issued fro after the house’s inhabitants had retired for the night In the big bed, tere sleeping, a man and a woman

The viral bent to the woman She was on her left side, one arm crooked beneath the pillows, the second exposed upon the blankets Under the subdued light of the lantern, her skin shimmered deliciously The viral unlocked his jaws and lowered his face toward her The barest prick, his teeth delicately sliding into the microscopic spaces of her flesh, and it was done

She stirred,roses and got punctured by a thorn

The viral moved to the other side of the bed Only the man’s head and neck were exposed The viral sensed as well that theforward, the viral tilted his head to one side, as if to ai shit!"

He shoved the palainst the viral’s forehead to hold hi the other hand beneath the pillow "Dory!" he bellowed, "Dory, wake up!" The viral was stunned into inaction: this was not how things were supposed to be And that name, Dory It jostled his mind Did he know a Dory? Did he know the man as well? Had the two of them, at one ti for beneath his pillow?

It was a gun With a howl, thethe ainst his palate, and fired

A thunder clap, a parabola of blood, the viral’s brain h the crown of his skull to splatter on the ceiling The body rocked forward, dead weight The wo to beat the band The other virals vaulted up the stairs Shoving the corpse aside, the h the door He wasn’t really aier The third shot connected in a general way, but that was the extent of it Two more shots and the hammer fell on an erabbed the only thing he could think of--the kerosene lantern--and hurled it at his attackers

His aim was true The viral exploded in fla was on fire