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  Michele’s gaze darted behind him.

  Spinning, he found Crowley lurking at his back.

  The phone burst out. Startling him.

  No smile, no change in expression, Crowley drifted back to the dispatch desk and answered it.

  “Hello, Sheriff’s Department. Sure.”

  Bret’s eyes dropped. Crowley was quiet, listening.

  “He’s well. He’s fine. He’s out checking on something. I’ll let him know. Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” Crowley hung up.

  “Who was that?” Bret asked, stepping up to the desk, the girls in tow.

  “Just another concerned citizen checking on things. Nothing really.”

  Bret looked at Michele then to Alice. The little girl was still rubbing sleepies from her eyes.

  “You girls ready?”

  They each nodded.

  Bret looked over at Crowley but said nothing.

  They were on their way over to the sheriff’s house when Alice screamed. A group of six, led by Jason Rotenberg and his son Kyle, walking single file down the side of the road, stopped. All six heads turned and followed the truck’s progress.

  “That’s an interesting group of friends,” Michele said.

  Standing with the Rotenberg’s were Pastor Hernandez, the church organist, Phyllis Hysom, and two of Rick Bonafant’s kids, Aaron and Travis. Bret recalled Rick telling them they got the job laying down new flooring at the church. The B’s Flooring van had been parked out front of the church when they passed.

  “They had a truck earlier. I wonder what happened?”

  Alice clutched at Michele. Bret put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Alice, we won’t stop.”

  And just how fucked up is that? Bret thought. That’s the kid’s family and yet, there’s no way in hell I’m pulling over.

  The blank expression plastered to each face was the same Crowley wore.

  They’re spreading. They’re getting to more people.

  They’re coming for all of us.

  The sheriff’s house was a mile down the road, if that. He sped up, staring at the odd crew in his rearview. They started to follow.

  There was no way he was leaving the sheriff’s until he was certain these creeps weren’t going to be knocking on the door.

  Pulling into the sheriff’s driveway, Bret stamped the Highlander’s brakes.

  A police cruiser sat behind his Ford pickup. Beyond that, the front door was open.

  “What? What is it?” Michele said.

  “I don’t know, but I want you two to stay put.” He pulled onto the lawn and noticed the broken window.

  “Okay. Listen to me,” he said.

  Michele sat up.

  “I’m going to go check it out. If anyone that’s not me comes, I want you to take off.”

  “What? You mean drive mom’s truck without you?”

  “Yes, I know you can do it. You’re already a better driver than I was at twenty. Now listen, anything. That means the sheriff’s deputies, any of the group we saw coming down the street… If I’m not back out here, and they move toward the truck, just go.”

  “Do you think mom’s all right?”

  He didn’t want to guess. This whole scene was off, but he wouldn’t speculate. Brenda was tough, and so was Mae as far he’d seen.

  “I hope so.” He left it at that. “Get behind the wheel, leave it running. Anything--”

  “We just go,” she said.

  “Right.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, dad. Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  Approaching the house, he strayed to the right and stopped beside the broken window. Someone had smashed their way in. Slowly, he peeked his face in the window. It was a den. Bookshelves, desk, portraits on the wall. He couldn’t hear anything. He decided to go around the backside of the house. If anyone was going to get detected, he wanted to be the one doing the detecting. Creeping around the back porch, he saw the curtain by one of the back windows fall into place.

  He clicked the safety off his gun, ducking behind the porch in case someone decided to take a shot at him first.

  The door opened.

  “Bret?”

  “Mae, you okay?”

  She began to sob. He stood and hurried up the steps to her. She was shaking her head, tears streaking her cheeks.

  “What is it? What happened?”

  “They broke in, attacked us…they, they…they got Brenda before I could stop them.”

  Stunned, Bret’s thoughts went sideways, a meal sliding from his plate. All that he figured he should prepare for… yet Brenda…his chest felt tight, he couldn’t swallow.

  “I’m so sorry, Bret.”

  “Who…where…” he managed.

  “It was Vern Crawford and Seth Horner, their eyes, oh god, and I shot them... shot them both. And they didn’t bleed….it wasn’t blood…”

  “Where’s my wife?”

  She dropped her chin, gray hair falling past her shoulders, and she glanced to the other side of the house.

  He went down and jumped over the stairs.

  “Bret, she’s…” Mae tried.

  Two large lumps lie still on the ground.

  One was the body of Vern Crawford. The other, partly hidden beneath a blanket.

  Mae joined him.

  “He got to her before I could fire.”

  “Was he…was he one of them?”

  “Them?”

  He thought of the sheriff’s story. Clint Truman’s glowing eyes. The tentacle.

  “Did they… did they seem different?”

  “Deputy Horner…his eyes. I mean, it’s impossible, but the whole hallway lit up in a green haze.”

  “The light from his eyes,” Bret said.

  “Yes. Oh God, I thought I was losing it.”

  He started toward his wife.

  Mae’s hand wrapped around his arm.

  “I have to ask. Is Shane okay?”

  “He’s fine. I was supposed to drop of the girls with you and…”

  She squeezed his arm.

  “Are there more like them out there?” Mae said.

  He nodded.

  “What in God’s name is happening?”

  Before he could answer, he heard a vehicle.

  “Shit. Michele,” he said, bursting forward, his gun at the ready.

  The back of the SUV vanished around the other side of the house. Coming down the driveway was the odd squad.

  Six on two. Those kinds of numbers were never good. Jason Rotenberg’s eyes lit up.

  “Back,” Bret yelled.

  “Oh no,” Mae said.

  “We have to get out of here. Now!”

  “My gun is in the house,” she said.

  “Dad!”

  Michele pulled up horizontal with the back porch.

  Bret shoved Mae toward the truck. “Go! I’ll slow them down.”

  She ran.

  “Dad!”

  “Go. I’ll be fine!”

  He steadied his arm and fired. The shot ripped through Rotenberg’s shoulder. A dark fluid leaked from the hole. He fired again. This time taking aim at his chest. Again, another hole and the dark, brown blood? He kept coming.

  Kyle Rotenberg’s eyes glowed like his father’s. The boy charged.

  Out of reflex, Bret aimed and pulled the trigger.

  The shot knocked the boy’s head back and sent him flopping to the ground.

  Bret had just enough time to point and shoot as the elder Rotenberg came for him.

  Pastor Hernandez and the organist followed. The Bonafant boys were absent.

  He heard the SUV take off behind him.

  Daring a glance back, he saw the two wiry, blond twenty-somethings standing on the Highlander’s bumper, clutching to the back.

  “Stop right there. I will shoot,” he said to the pastor and the organist.

  They held their ground.

  Will I go to hell for shooting a man of the clo
th? He wondered.

  “What is this all about?” he said, holding the pastor in his sights.

  “One-by-one, we will all become,” the pastor said. “Join us and be free.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “You will change your mind,” Phyllis said. “I did.”

  “Somehow, I really don’t see that happening. Where’s the big rendezvous, huh? The lake? What’s the endgame here?”

  “You will see,” the pastor said.

  “You killed my goddamn wife!”

  “Unfortunate. We need as many as we can get.”

  “For what? What is this? What is this Becoming?”

  “You are about to find out.”

  “Bullshit,” Bret aimed the barrel between the pastor’s eyes.

  His arm was struck and knocked upward, the gun firing at the sky, as an arm wrapped around his neck. Pulled to the ground, he couldn’t breathe as the arm tightened. His eyes bulged. Legs wrapped around him He was quickly put in some kind of mixed-martial arts move. The church duo knelt beside him. Bucking and trying to kick, Bret was overpowered. When Travis Bonafant joined the others, he knew who had him. His brother Aaron had been an all-state wrestler for Avalon High. He’d had scholarships to top schools, but turned them down to go into the family business.

  Pastor Hernandez’s eyes glowed the most brilliant green.

  Had they gotten Michele? Or had the girls gotten away?

  A tentacle arm slithered over his chin.

  Kill me, Lord. Kill me!

  The pastor’s tentacle split into two thin slivers. Each one invaded Bret’s nostrils. Bret’s eyes rolled back as he felt them push up. Cold pain shot through his sinuses. Within seconds his head tingled. The kid let go of him. He tried to move, but couldn’t even lift his arm.

  Awareness abandoned him.

  Bret Cote would soon find out what it was to become more.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Clint awoke as the cell door opened.

  Son of a bitch.

  A dopey looking, scrawny guy with an all-too-familiar look in his eye stood in the cell with him.

  Clint sat up, his hands raised in surrender. No way of knowing just how smart or aware this old buzzard was. The gift had many benefits; increased intelligence was not among them.

  “Look, I don’t know what they told you, but we are not going to be set free or brought to any kind of paradise. There’s nothing but death beyond.”

  He hoped that would stall this fucker. He knew he’d have to strike first.

  “I have seen the way. You are tainted. The lady of the lake has commanded your end.”

  “Did she tell you she’s been through this before?” He stood, hoping the bastard wouldn’t attack.

  “Your lies will not tarnish her glory.”

  “She is a user. She needs you, not the other way around.”

  The old fool gazed, blank-faced.

  It was no use. Taking a deep breath, Clint closed his eyes, and summoned the strange gift. His eyelids lifted, flooding the room in green. Clint sent his extensions forward, wrapping both tentacled arms around the man’s head and squeezing.

  The thing screeched a horrid high pitched wail as its own tentacles took form. Clint pulled hard and smashed the guys’s head into the cell’s concrete wall. Tentacles whipped at him, slapping against his legs. He managed to keep his feet and slammed the guy into the wall again. A brown splotch marked where his head connected. Another horrid cry came from the thing as his arms slowed. Clint slammed him one last time. Brown slime mushed out over his appendages as the bastard’s body fell limp.

  Clint ripped his lengthy appendages away, twisting the head farther than should be possible, and dropping him to the ground. The man’s squished skull smacked the cell floor with a slap, more brownish fluid spattered across the cement.

  The light from his eyes faded.

  The exhaustion hit Clint hard. Down to one knee, the headache came in like a crashing wave. His stomach churned.

  Hot bile rose. Vomit slapped the floor. It was the same slime he’d just squeezed from the dead guy in front of him.

  On shaky hands, and weak knees, Clint stood, stepped around the brown puke, and glanced down.

  The guy’s name tag read, Crowley.

  “Sorry, Crowley, but not really.”

  Using the bars of the open cell to steady himself, Clint walked out, and found the stairs. He began his ascent, ready to get the fuck out of this town. The upstairs main room was deserted, coffee cups and paperwork waiting for someone to return to them. He’d seen a National Geographic show about Pripyat, the Russian town that served as home to the Chernobyl Nuclear plant. It was haunting to see dolls, school books, life left behind, and the people gone.

  The whole damn town will look like this soon.

  Out the door under a gray sky, the streets dead silent, he scanned the lot for a vehicle. His van sat on three wheels somewhere down the road. The only car around was a tiny red Suzuki Swift.

  Back inside, he scanned the dispatch area and found a set of keys next to an unopened bottle of Poland Spring water and a Popular Science magazine. The mailing label on the bottom corner read, David Crowley. He grabbed the keys and the water.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Clint unlocked the car door and slumped behind the wheel. He opened the water and chugged the entire bottle. Tossing the plastic container to the passenger floor, he slipped the key into the ignition and stopped.

  Sheriff Davis was out there. Out near the lake. Alone.

  Yeah, unless they were waiting.

  What if they weren’t. What if the sheriff is fumbling through the basement? What if he’s the only chance anyone in town has? God, what if I’m the only chance.

  No.

  He gazed at his face in the rearview mirror.

  You wanted to be a hero, remember?

  Jennifer.

  He’d really fucked up.

  His eyes were bloodshot as hell, his mouth a mass of disease and decay. He looked at his hands. Nearly all of his fingernails had fallen off. His skin, pale and dry, was flaking off with every move he made. How long did he have? Truly? His body was dying.

  “Fuck me.”

  He turned the key in the ignition, put the car in DRIVE, peeled out of the lot, and headed home.

  The occasional car passed, but did little to ease his worry. The closer he got to the lake, the more cars he saw in driveways. Hell if he’d ever noticed whether this was the norm or not, but he had a feeling, out here, there was a lot of people missing work today.

  Just ahead, he saw the front door open to the big white Victorian house he’d always imagined purchasing if he’d won the Powerball. A skinny horse-faced woman with long straight hair stepped out, followed by a scrawny, bearded guy, and someone he knew all too well.

  Jennifer.

  Her arms behind her, he slowed, watching as she hauled two bodies out. Her appendages buried in their mouths.

  All three of them gazed at him.

  Clint sped away.

  This was a terrible idea.

  He’d had worse. The proof was back there dragging bodies from his dream house.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Shane had ignored the odd groupings of townsfolk wandering the sides of the road on his way out to the Truman place. He set aside the fact that they all wore the same bland look on their faces, and that each set of eyes followed his progress as he passed. He felt like he was in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

  The silence was suddenly too much. He hit the CD button on the car’s radio. Brian Jones’s sitar riff opened for Charlie Watts tribal-like drumbeat thundering from the speakers. Keith Richards’ jangly guitar joined in, followed by Mick singing about seeing a red door that he wanted to paint black. The classic ‘Nam era track felt all too fitting as he turned onto Jade Lake Road, lined with Maple trees their leaves changing color seemingly overnight as tends to happen this far north at the beginning of October. There was an ominous marriage be
tween the sights and sounds of the last fifteen hours that Shane hadn’t felt since he was that ten-year-old kid being shooed away from Walter Cronkite’s nightly news reports on the “conflict” in Vietnam. He’d never been so grateful for his father being too old for something in his life. His parents had decided to have children late in life. His dad retired from the Post Office the year before he graduated high school. In the face of the war, with many of his classmates losing brothers and fathers for something he never understood, having a dad who had to rub down with Ben Gay after a short round of playing pass was a fantastic trade-off he never thought he’d learn to appreciate.

  The Truman mailbox was just up ahead, and Shane turned off the stereo. As he stopped before the driveway, gazing at the wood-slatted siding, loose gutters, the house surrounded by falling leaves, he’d read about a suffocating silence in a bad fiction novel. He’d always thought that line was one of the dumbest things he’d ever read, but sitting here now…well, he finally got the sentiment. Goose bumps busted out on his arms. His blood ran cold, the sensation slithering into his marrow.

  He let off the brake and rolled to a stop further in the driveway.

  He readied his gun, a Glock 19 standard police issue, and stepped from the car.

  Jack Truman’s GTO hadn’t moved since the last time he was here, and probably never would again. He hadn’t thought to ask Clint about his father. Was the old man dead? Or had he suffered a worse fate?

  He knocked on the door, just in case Jack was home.

  “Hello? Jack, it’s Sheriff Davis. I’m coming in.”

  He pushed the door in with his boot.

  The place was a fucking disaster. No worse than it was during the initial search for Greg Hickey, but that didn’t make it any easier to stomach the fact that anyone could live in such squalor. He’d seen some pretty bad households when Mae made him watch Hoarders, but that was different. Those homes were cluttered messes, filled to the brim, literally, with everything the person had owned over fifteen, twenty years.

  The Truman’s was just a place left to rot. Dirty dishes filled the sink and buried the counter tops and tables. Fruit flies by the millions celebrated the filth like they’d been given access to paradise on Earth. And the smell... it was noxious. Garbage bags piled in the corner of the kitchen, no doubt crawling with maggots, were buzzed by houseflies.