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  “Maybe we should talk someplace else,” he said.

  “Fine,” Truman said.

  Shane put him in his car, then started the van and got it off the road. He‘d call Gunner to come and get it when they got to the station

  He couldn’t keep his eyes from the rearview mirror as he drove Truman back to the station, waiting for the green haze to return. It didn’t, but that did little to calm his nerves. He’d never believed in the supernatural, but then again, it wasn’t like he’d been face-to-face with it, either.

  His deputies and dispatcher were still MIA as he led Truman inside and down to the holding cell.

  “What’s this?” Truman said.

  “Let’s just say I feel safer this way. All goes well, I’ll let you out after.”

  He took off the cuffs, directed him into the cell, and shut the door.

  “So, let’s hear it.”

  “The second week of September, I was sitting on the dock out back of my house, just taking in the warmth of the sun, when something splashed in the lake. I got up and leaned over the edge of the dock and I saw it.”

  He stopped blank-faced for the moment.

  “What was it?” Shane urged him on.

  “A face. Her…the creature’s… beautiful face.”

  Creature. His stomach dropped at the word.

  “Go on.”

  “There was a shadow from the dock. I could see her emerald eyes, glowing within the lake, long black hair drifting freely like seaweed. Then she reached out with these…tentacles and pulled me in.”

  He zoned out again, and then continued.

  “It wrapped itself around me and forced its way in my mouth, down my throat…I…I don’t know what happened after that. I woke up on my lawn and it was night.”

  “My teeth, my skin…” his hand moved to his wrist.

  Shane noticed that his skin seemed horribly dry, flaking off like dandruff, but now, it bothered him.

  “Besides the eyes…what else… has this thing affected?” Shane said.

  Truman raised his arm. Shane sucked in a breath as the guy’s hand stretched forward with his fingers coming together into a pale tendril that wrapped around the cell bars. His eyes did their trick illuminating the entire space, making Shane start a series of prayers in his head.

  Letting go of the bars, Truman’s hand returned to normal; his eyes dimmed and went out, rolling into the back of his head. Then, he collapsed to the floor.

  Shane was reluctant to open the cell. From where he was, he observed the rise and fall of Truman’s chest. He was breathing. Thick, brown mucus leaked from his nose.

  “Ah, shit.”

  He unlocked the cell, entered, and kneeled down. Tentatively, he reached out and shook the boy’s shoulder. “Hey, Clint. Hey, you with me?”

  The thought of those eyes opening, engulfing him in their odd light, flashed through his mind. His gaze drifted to the hand that had transformed, expecting it to reach out like in Truman’s account, and wrap around him, like the feminine creature from the lake.

  Clint’s eyes fluttered open.

  Shane held his breath, his hand on his pistol.

  “That keeps happening. I’m not well.”

  Shane helped him to his feet and brought him to the bathroom to clean his nose.

  “Have you seen her—it—since that day by the lake?”

  Looking away, pondering an answer, or uncomfortable talking about it, he whispered, “No, but… whatever she is, wherever she’s from, she’s in that lake. And I’m sure she took that missing boy.”

  “Greg Hickey? What makes you say that?”

  “Not just him. She’s taking others.”

  “How do you know? How do you know this?”

  He shook his head. Suddenly quiet.

  “Listen, I have a very bad feeling about what’s been going on in this town. If you know something, you need to tell me.”

  “We should just go. Get the hell out of Avalon.”

  “That’s not an option.”

  “It’s the only option.”

  The light began in his eyes.

  “Calm down. Just talk to me. Now, if you cooperate with me, we can discuss you getting out of here sooner than later, otherwise–”

  “This…this isn’t the first time she’s come. This has happened here before.”

  “What are you taking about?”

  “When does the town sign say that Avalon was established?”

  “1919.”

  “It’s a lie. It was re-established in 1919. There were people living here before then. Check the history. There were people here at least two years before that. Then the whole town disappeared.”

  It sounded like complete movie bullshit. He had no way of validating it either way, but surely in all his time in the area, he would have heard something.

  “Why haven’t I ever heard this before? Where did you come across this information?”

  Again, the boy averted his eyes. In his line of work, there was a lie or a secret there every time. He was hiding something.

  “The people who came here after never knew. They knew someone had been here, some of the houses were already here, stuff left in the rooms, on the properties. Our place was renovated in the sixties, but I found something in the basement. A journal.”

  “And do you have this journal with you?”

  He shook his head. “It’s back home.”

  “Let’s you and I go for a ride.”

  Truman freaked out, started shaking his head, his eyes glowing again.

  “Put me in that cell, let me go, or put a bullet in my head. There’s no way in hell I’m going back there. It’s too close to her.”

  Shane looked back to the cell.

  “Come on then. You hang here for a bit. I’ll go check the house. If your story holds up, I’ll let you go when I get back.”

  “And if you don’t make it?”

  Shane took his arm, gently pulling him from the bathroom.

  “I’ll be fine. Where is the book?”

  “On a table in the basement. Just where I left it.”

  He heard the door upstairs, followed by footsteps.

  “Get in.”

  Truman did as he was told.

  “This journal say what happened to them folks, the ones here before?”

  Truman walked to the cot on the far side of the room and lay down.

  “They all went into the lake and never came back out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The knock at the door startled Mae from her restless sleep. It was light outside. She glanced at the digital clock on the cable box: 6:39. She’d gotten maybe an hour, hour and a half’s worth of sleep.

  The knock came again.

  Cautiously, she set the afghan aside and got up from Shane’s recliner. Creeping to the window, she pulled the curtain aside and saw the police cruiser in her yard.

  Oh God, something’s happened.

  She placed a hand to her chest, the other to the wall. Dizzy, she took a couple of slow, deep breaths. She didn’t know for sure that something had happened. She closed her eyes and told herself to calm down. But something didn’t feel right.

  Too many White Russians, that’s the churning in your guts.

  The knock came again.

  Damn it. Enough already, I’m coming.

  She willed herself forward.

  Brenda appeared from the back bedroom, nearly giving her a heart attack.

  “Sorry,” Brenda said. “I heard the door.”

  “It’s one of Shane’s boys.”

  She saw the familiar concern take over Brenda’s features.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mae said, trying to appear stoic enough for the both of them.

  Brenda followed her to the door.

  The knob jiggled as she reached for a hit.

  Mae drew back her hand and felt Brenda’s on her shoulder.

  She looked back. Brenda mouthed, What are they doing?

  She
didn’t know why they’d try to open the door, but she didn’t like it. Part of her wanted to go to the phone and try the station one more time.

  What do we do? Brenda mouthed.

  “Why don’t you go to the back, just in case,” Mae whispered.

  “In case of what?”

  “I don’t know. Just to be safe.”

  She watched Brenda head toward the living room, looking back over her shoulder.

  She nodded for her to go on.

  After she was around the corner, Mae took another breath and said, “Who is it?”

  “Deputy Horner, Ma’am. Can you open the door?”

  Horner? Shane said he’d disappeared. He’d had his car towed back to the station.

  “Ma’am?”

  “What is it, Deputy? Is everything all right?”

  “It’s about your husband, ma’am. Can you open the door?”

  Brenda reappeared down the hall, frantically shaking her head.

  “Just a minute, Deputy.”

  She met her halfway. “What is it?”

  “Vern Crawford is at the back door. He tried to open it, and then he moved to the window by the laundry room. I think he’s trying to get in.”

  She’d lived with a lawman long enough to know when something was off.

  “Follow me,” she said.

  Crossing the living room, watching the windows to be sure neither deputy was at them, she stopped at the doorway to the den. Raising her hand for Brenda to stop, she peered around the door frame. There were three large windows in the room. Vern Crawford was trying to open the one farthest to the left.

  She pulled back.

  “Vern’s trying to open the window.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. And Shane’s rifle is in there.”

  He had another handgun in the bedroom. She wanted something bigger, more powerful, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  “Come on.”

  As they made their way around to the bedroom, passing the foyer, the door knob jiggled again. This time with more urgency.

  “Ma’am. I’m concerned for your well-being. If you don’t open the door, I’m going to.”

  “You do not have my permission to open that door, deputy” Mae shouted, then, more quietly to Brenda, “Go, go, go,” pushing her toward the door at the other end.

  Glass shattered.

  “Vern,” Brenda said.

  “I don’t know what’s happening here,” Mae said. “But these two sons of bitches better be ready to eat some lead.”

  Shane had shown her long ago how to shoot the pistol and the rifle. She’d gotten plenty good over the course of their marriage. She never dreamed that she’d be staring down the barrel at an officer of the law, but if that’s what it came to, she wouldn’t hesitate.

  “I really need a cigarette,” Benda said, as they entered the bedroom.

  Mae dug the box out from under the bed. They’d never had any kids, so it was already locked and loaded. She turned the safety off and joined Brenda by the door.

  “I don’t usually allow it in my house, but under the circumstances–smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”

  The woman didn’t hesitate. The cigarette was in her mouth and fired up before you could say flippety do.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m going to stay behind you, if that’s okay?”

  Floorboards creaked. The front door opened.

  “They’re both in here now. Get back there and open the window. When I say “Go,” get out.”

  “What? I—“

  “Quickly, get over there.”

  Mae took four steps back and raised the gun. Brenda got the window open and pushed out the screen.

  “Ma’am? We just need to talk,” Horner said.

  “Then you should have called. Say what you came to say and get out of my house.”

  A green light blossomed in the doorway.

  “We need you to come with us,” Horner said.

  “Where’s Shane?” Mae said, managing to keep her voice level.

  “Sheriff’s okay. He’ll be joining us soon enough,” Vern Crawford’s baritone voice said.

  “Just get out. Please,” she said.

  The green haze grew more intense. Deputy Horner stepped in the doorway. It was coming from his eyes.

  “Stop right there, or I’ll put a bullet right between your eyes.”

  He started to raise his hand.

  Mae fired.

  The blast was loud in the small bedroom.

  “Go!” she shouted.

  Horner’s head flew back. The off-white wall behind him wasn’t painted in crimson as she expected. It was some sort of brown muck.

  Vern’s heavy footfalls thundered away.

  He was running. She didn’t dare pursue him. Going near Horner’s body was the last thing on her list. She’d never seen anything like that before—glowing eyes, and whatever it was oozing out of the hole she’d made in his head—not outside of one of Shane’s movies. Maybe not even there.

  “Come on, quick. Let’s get out of here,” Brenda said, standing outside the window.

  Mae moved. She had a pair of running shoes in the closet. She slipped them on, grabbed a Sheriff’s Department sweatshirt, and hurried out the window.

  “Oh shit! Come on,” Brenda screamed.

  Vern was coming full steam ahead just as she landed.

  Mae raised the gun and managed to squeeze off a shot before the monster of a man collided into her. The gun fell to the cool, damp ground as she got squished beneath him, the air squeezed from her lungs.

  “Get off her!” Brenda shouted.

  She heard loud thwacks and saw the thin woman, large stick in hand, swinging at Vern’s back and head with all she had.

  He sat up, ripped it from her hands, and stood.

  The gun was just out of Mae’s reach.

  Vern stepped over her and went after Brenda.

  Rolling to her side, Mae got the gun in hand and hurried to her knees, taking aim.

  The large deputy swung at Brenda. Mae pulled the trigger.

  Both Vern Crawford and Brenda Cote fell.

  “Oh no…. Brenda?”

  She stepped over Deputy Crawford, who laid face-down, his ruined face in a pool of the same awful brown muck that came from Horner.

  Brenda’s right hand twitched, but she did not move. Her head set too close to her shoulder.

  “Brenda, stay still.”

  Kneeling down beside her, she saw her eyes were open, staring into nothing.

  Mae raised a hand to her mouth. Tears coming for this woman she barely knew.

  Should have just shot him in the back, slowed him down, and then finished him.

  She reached down and brushed Brenda’s dirty blonde hair.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Guilt roiled up within her like a bad case of acid reflux. She could taste it. She’d met her husband a number of times and their teenage daughter once or twice.

  Sitting with the pistol in her lap, Mae wept for them all.

  The wind picked up, shifting the fallen leaves by their old Maple tree. She needed to know that Shane was okay. She couldn’t trust what Horner had said. She had to know, had to hear his voice.

  She stood and went back inside to try the station again.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  After listening to the sheriff’s incredible story, Bret sat stupefied. “Now, I understand the tequila. What are you going to do?” he said.

  Shane stood. “I’m going to Truman’s.”

  He started to get up. “I’ll come--”

  “No, you won’t. I want you to take the girls and head over to my place. You can meet me at Truman’s after, that is, if you’re still raring to go.”

  “Why don’t you just come with us? You and I can go out there together.”

  “Appreciate the concern, but I’ll be just fine. Besides, they’re in two different directions. You get o
ver to my place, you’ll be no more than fifteen-twenty minutes behind me.” Shane ran his meaty paws through his gray mane. “Tell my wife I’m fine, leave the glowing eyes and tentacles out of it.”

  Bret followed him out the door.

  The girls were passed out in the TV area. Alice’s head was in Michele’s lap.

  He wished he could just let them sleep, but there was no way he was leaving them in the care of Crowley or with this version of Clint Truman.

  “Okay, I’ll meet you out there,” he said. “Sheriff?”

  Shane stopped.

  “What do you plan to do with…Truman?”

  “Honestly, I haven’t gotten that far. I got the feeling he’s holding back. Not sure what it means. I’m hoping I get all the answers I’m looking for out at his place.”

  “Isn’t his father bedridden? Last I heard he wasn’t doing so well.”

  “Huh, wouldn’t you know it. Truman never mentioned him. I didn’t even think to ask with…well, with everything else. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Right. Be careful.”

  Sheriff Davis nodded. “You do the same. Remember–no glowing eyes, no tentacles. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Crowley was staring at them.

  Something about the guy’s face–expressionless, cold– was off.

  “Listen, David,” the sheriff said. “You give Horner and Crawford two hours, then I want them back here. You hear me?”

  Crowley gazed at him; it looked to Bret like he was looking through the sheriff.

  “You got that?” the sheriff said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shane looked back and shook his head.

  With that, he was out the door.

  Crowley turned his attention to Bret. His eyes gave him the willies.

  They’re coming for all of us.

  Bret walked to the girls and shook Michele’s shoulder. She sat up straight, wiping the drool from her mouth and chin.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We’re going to the sheriff’s house. That’s where mom is. I’m gonna drop you two off and meet the sheriff out at the Truman’s place.”

  “Did Sheriff Davis know anything?”

  His non-answer was more than enough. He’d raised a smart girl. They. They’d raised a smart girl.