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  She turned to Joe and pulled him close. "The Dinsmore boys said Caleb liked to hide in the old Yates place. You remember where it is?"

  "Sure," Joe said. "I used it as a hideout when I was a kid."

  "I remember. Start there. I checked it out earlier, but you may find something I missed. A clue, anything."

  Maggie spun around to leave, but Joe caught her by the arm. "Wait. Where are you going? What's this other business?"

  "Jeremy Dinsmore said he and Caleb and the other boys used to throw rocks at Stevie Bauer's trailer. They've seen him wandering around in the woods and at the Yates house. It's probably nothing, but I want to check it out anyway to make sure."

  "Who's Stevie Bauer?"

  "A young man who lives on the backside of the Walker farm. He's odd but harmless. Apparently the boys liked to give him a hard time."

  "Be careful, Mags," Joe said, giving her arm a gentle squeeze.

  Maggie smiled and looked ten years younger. Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. "It's been a long time since anyone's called me that. It really is good to see you again. We'll have to find some time to catch up when all this is over."

  Joe returned her smile. "I'd like that."

  Maggie placed a hand on Joe's arm. Her touch sent a wave of gooseflesh over his skin. "Don't worry. We'll find him. It hasn't been that long, and the woods aren't that big. The cards are stacked in our favor."

  CHAPTER 4

  HIEF MAGGIE GILL stopped her patrol car in front of Stevie Bauer's broken-down trailer home. The metal box sat at the edge of the woods at the end of a long dirt lane that wound its way like a scar through Josiah Walker's farm. After Stevie's mother died, Josiah took the boy in and raised him. It was a strained relationship, though. At ten years old, Stevie was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Josiah did the best he could with the boy, but the two fought constantly. When Stevie turned twenty, Josiah bought him an old trailer and set it up on the other side of the farm, near the woods. It wasn't much of a home-all a poor, old farmer could afford-but Stevie liked having a place of his own, and it kept him close enough for Josiah to keep an eye on him.

  The green and white trailer was rusting badly and supported clumsily on cinder blocks. The windows were frosted with grime-some were broken and patched with plywood-and the roof was partially covered with a blue tarp.

  Maggie and Officer Gary Warren approached the storm door. Maggie knocked hard. The light that flickered through the window went out, and a bright overhead light popped on. Maggie could hear heavy footsteps inside; then the door swung open, scraping the linoleum floor in the kitchen.

  Stevie stood motionless and silent behind the dirty, glass storm door. He wore a pair of torn blue jeans, a red University of Maryland sweatshirt, and a heavy flannel shirt, unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His gaunt, angular face was partially hidden by shaggy, dark brown hair that fell across his forehead and covered one eye.

  Maggie reached up and opened the door a few inches. "Stevie? It's Chief Maggie and Officer Warren. We'd like to talk to you."

  A broad smile suddenly appeared on Stevie's face, exposing a mouth full of yellow teeth. "Oh, hi, Chief Maggie. C'mon in." He opened the door all the way and allowed Maggie and Gary to enter.

  The interior of the trailer was what Maggie had expected-dirty and cluttered. The pungent odor of rotting food and sour milk hung in the air like a yellow haze. A card table and two metal folding chairs sat in the middle of the small kitchen, the once beige linoleum floor now faded and graying, spotted with stains and gashes. The trash bin overflowed with empty soup cans, TV dinners, cat food cans, and milk cartons. In the living room, a brown recliner and green vinyl sofa were situated next to each other, facing a decades-old TV with bent rabbit ears for antennae.

  "Would you like a drink a'water?" Stevie asked Maggie, holding up a spotted glass.

  "No thanks," Maggie said. "We won't be staying long."

  Stevie shuffled into the living room, and Maggie followed. He sat on the recliner, leaned back, and extended his legs. Clasping his hands behind his head, he stared at the ceiling.

  Gary remained in the kitchen. Maggie had told him on the way over to snoop through the cupboards and drawers while she distracted Stevie. "Find anything that may link Stevie to Caleb's disappearance," she'd told him.

  "Fire away, Chief Maggie," Stevie said, then laughed and thrust both hands in the air over his head. "No, wait; don't shoot!"

  Maggie chuckled politely and removed her cap. "How have things been going for you here? You like having your own place?"

  "Sure do." Stevie smiled wide. "It's my bachelor pad, Chief Maggie. Maybe you should come over some time. We can hang together."

  Maggie dipped the corners of her mouth. "Stevie, I'm a little old for you. And besides, I'm not very good at hanging. Too much cop in me. I'm a bore. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

  Stevie shrugged. "Shoot." Then made twin six-shooters with his index fingers and thumbs and aimed them at Maggie. "But be careful, I might shoot back. Bang! Bang!"

  Maggie glanced toward the kitchen. She'd have to stall a little longer so Gary could finish searching. "You like going in the woods, Stevie?"

  "Yup. It's peaceful there, y'know. No one to bother me. Not that there's anyone to bother me here in my humble adobe ...I mean abode." He paused and furrowed his brow, his dark eyes darted about the room. "What is it? Adobe or abode? Where is that dictionary when I need it?"

  Maggie took the opportunity to look around the room too. Scanning for any clues, any sign of Caleb. "Have you ever seen anyone else in the woods? Hunters, hikers, kids, anyone?"

  Stevie shook his head emphatically. "Nope. The only person I ever seen is me. That's why I like it there. Just me, myself, and me."

  "So you've never seen kids around here? No one's ever bothered you or snooped around your place?"

  Stevie put a finger to his mouth and pretended to be deep in thought. "No, no, no. I never seen no one."

  Maggie shifted her weight and shoved her hands in her coat pockets. She knew he was lying, but what was he trying to hide? "When's the last time you were in the woods?"

  "Oh, not for several weeks now, months maybe, I don't know. I lose track of my time, y'know? I ain't been in the woods since the weather turned cold."

  Gary suddenly appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. He gave Maggie a subtle shake of his head.

  "OK, Stevie," Maggie said. "We'll let you enjoy your evening by yourself." She turned to leave, then stopped and spun back around. "Oh, one more thing. Have you ever been to the old Yates place in the woods?"

  Stevie fidgeted and combed his hand through his hair. He cleared his throat, looked at the ceiling, and tapped the arm of the chair. "Um, yeah, sure. It's a pretty neat place. I been there once or twice. Why?"

  Maggie smiled. "No reason. Just wondering. Have a good evening, Stevie."

  Maggie and Gary left the trailer and closed the door behind them.

  "Nothing," Gary said, securing his cap on his head. "No sign of anything but a slob."

  "Did you notice all the cat food cans?"

  Gary snorted and shook his head. "Why does Walker support that screwball? Talk about a ball and chain."

  As they approached the cruiser and opened the doors, they heard a hideous shriek come from inside the trailer and Stevie yell, "That's right! Get out and stay out!"

  Gary looked at Maggie and shook his head again. "What a freak. But I'd bet my left leg he didn't mess with the kid. Nuts like him are all the same. All talk."

  Maggie returned the look and lifted her eyebrows. "He lied, didn't he? C'mon, let's get back and see how the search is going."

  Thick darkness, like inky liquid, surrounded Caleb, oozing between his fingers, crawling up his back, putting his bones on ice. He tried to move, but the blackness had solidified, encasing him in a jellylike tomb. He tried to yell, holler, scream for help, but the ink swallowed any sound that escaped his mouth.

&n
bsp; He was trapped in some dreamy netherworld between reality and the stuff of horror movies, buried alive, left for dead. He had no memory of anything, only a feeling, distant and vague, of something awful, evil, gruesome. Something wicked. Clawing, attacking, seething, putrid hate. He must be dreaming, but it was so...real, so vivid. More than a dream. A nightmare.

  Then the panic set in. He writhed and pulled at his arms and legs, shook his head, arched his back, curled his fingers. But it was useless; he was pinned to a wall, stuck fast like a fly to flypaper.

  Slowly, like the exposure of a Polaroid photo, the memory began to materialize. The sound of lungs sucking in air, the brush of fur against his legs, the smell of death. He had tried to scream, but no sound would squeeze past his taut vocal cords. He tried to move but... suddenly, the beast was before him, glowering like a demon from hell begging for his life.

  He remembered the flash of fangs, the searing pain, the numbing fear. And those eyes, as monstrous and nightmarish as any he'd ever seen in any horror flick he'd ever watched without his mother's consent, the look of vile death in them. Then there was a dead zone, and the next thing he remembered was backing into a hole, losing himself in deep darkness, withdrawing from the claws and fangs that would tear him to shreds.

  He was safe-for now. He would stay in this hole and never come out.

  Joe's pickup rambled down the dirt lane that led to the Yates place. A thick cloud cover had moved in, making the darkness in the woods almost palpable, surrounding his truck like a shroud, pressing closer and deeper, looming just on the other side of the windshield. The light from the old Ford's headlamps barely cut through the blackness and illuminated only a small swath of road no more than fifteen feet in front of the vehicle. Beyond that was dense darkness, as if the world ended and just dropped into nothing.

  Joe steered his truck off the road and stopped, pointing the headlamps at the deteriorating facade of the old Yates house. He turned off the engine, grabbed his flashlight, and jumped out of the cab hollering Caleb's name. His voice mingled with the distant calls of the other searchers and echoed into the darkness.

  Entering the house, Joe swept the flashlight beam around the main room. It was empty with the exception of a few scattered leaves, some fallen branches, and a stack of old planks situated in one corner.

  The old house had definitely seen better days, but its better days weren't better-it had a dark and shadowed past. The tale went that in the mid-1920s the townsfolk suspected Yates of witchcraft. Strange soundsghastly screams; low, gruntlike moans; and hollering of the most awful obscenities-had often been heard coming from deep in the woods late at night and into the early morning hours. When confronted by the sheriff and a local minister, Old Man Yates had produced a shotgun and threatened to blow them both to high heaven if they ever came calling on him again. Days later, a mob of angry and frightened townsfolk swarmed the Yates house and burned it almost to the ground.

  Rumor had it that Old Man Yates was burned alive in the inferno, and now his ghost haunted the woods. When Joe was a kid, some of the older folk living in town had said that on quiet evenings they could still hear screams and moans coming from deep within the woods. At the time, Joe sat wide-eyed and gullible and hung on every syllable. Now he suspected what they had heard was nothing more than the sounds of a gaggle of hippy teens experiencing life on a much more psychedelic level.

  Whether there was any truth to the horror stories or not, being inside the building brought back fond memories for Joe. He and Rick, his younger brother by two years, spent many summer afternoons playing soldiers and using the old house as their fort. His eyes moistened at the thought of Rick and his crooked smile. He could almost hear his highpitched laughter bouncing off the stone walls. He missed him so much.

  C'mon, Joe. Stay focused. He called Caleb's name again. Keep your head in the game.

  Suddenly, Joe heard a rustling sound from somewhere in the house. He stopped and listened, shining the light from corner to corner and sweeping the floor from side to side. The rustling came again, faint, but definitely from the cellar. Joe's pulse jumped, and though it was nearly fifty degrees, a cold sweat wetted his brow.

  As a kid, Joe had mustered up the courage only one time to enter the blackness that lurked under the old house. People said the cryptlike cellar was the center of the haunting, that the ghost of Old Man Yates resided there, waiting to pounce on any intruders who would dare trespass his domain. All those years ago, Joe had sensed there was something down there, something unseen and unnatural... a presence. And though he now supposed the incident was nothing more than the imagination of a boy star-struck with movie monsters, the very memory of his past experience in the cellar some twenty years prior made his skin pucker with goose bumps.

  He stood at the top of the steps and pointed the flashlight into the cellar, scanning as much of the dirt floor and stone foundation as he could see. There was something dark splattered on the walls and floor at the bottom of the stairs. Paint? Oil?

  "Caleb?" he called in a hushed voice. "Caleb? You down there, buddy?"

  No answer. The only sounds that could be heard were the faint calls of the other searchers. They were moving farther away. East.

  Joe took a deep breath and descended the cold stone stairs. The stink of the cavelike cellar hit him all at once, and it burned in his nostrils-rotted meat and mildew. He was fairly certain he would not find Caleb stretched out on a leather recliner, remote in one hand, Cherry Coke in the other, watching SpongeBob on a plasma TV.

  As soon as his head cleared the first floor, Joe swept the beam of light across the cellar-nothing but more old planks stacked waist-high against the far wall. The ceiling beams were noticeably rotted, no doubt the work of an army of termites, and covered with cobwebs draped from one to another like garland. The floor was smooth. No footprints or disturbances in the packed dirt. He moved the light back to the bottom of the crumbling staircase. What was that on the walls?

  Suddenly, it hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. "No." It was blood. Dark crimson blood spotted the wall and clotted on the dusty floor. He looked again and now noticed a trail of dried blood ascending the steps.

  What happened here? Did Caleb wander into the cellar and startle a wild animal? Joe's heart banged and a chill climbed up his back. His mind raced then blanked out, raced then blanked, spinning him in circles. Think! Think! The only animals around these parts large enough to maul a human, even a child, were coyotes and black bears, and to his knowledge neither had ever been spotted in these woods. Unless Caleb had stumbled upon a rabid wild dog. They'd been known to stray into the area from time to time.

  Joe turned to climb the stairs when, from somewhere above, he heard a growl. Before he even had time to look up, something solid and soccer-ball sized landed on his shoulder and dug its claws into his head and neck. He reached behind and grabbed a handful of bristled fur. As he squeezed it, the creature-whether a rabid squirrel, a spooked cat, or a snaggletoothed, steroid-enraged toy poodle, he couldn't immediately determine-howled in pain. Joe yanked the writhing animal from its perch, its claws tearing at his flesh like needles, and threw the beast across the room. He pointed the flashlight into the darkness, swept it across the cellar and back again. It was nothing more than a cat, huddled in the far corner, ears pressed against its head, eyes glowing yellow in the light.

  "Stupid cat," Joe muttered, rubbing the back of his now tender neck.

  He then ascended the steps and followed the blood trail to the front door, where it was lost in the leaves and grass of the clearing. Joe stepped outside and scanned the exterior walls and grounds. Weeds, waist-high, grew up along the charred rocks, connected by an intricate system of spider webs. He swept the light from side to side until the beam fell on the outhouse, a four-by-four structure patched together by rotting wood and rusted nails. It stood cock-eyed, leaning like a pillared trapezoid. Shingles peeled and curled on the caving roof. The door dangled precariously on one hinge.

 
Joe looked closer and noticed a puddle of black liquid glistening on the ground by the door. A muted tingle crept across his head and face. No. No, no. Please, no. I don't know if I can bear it.

  He approached the old outhouse, reached for the wooden latch, swallowed past the swollen lump in his throat, and swung the door open.

  His heart dropped out of his chest and landed in his stomach. But his stomach was in its own state of rebellion. Bile rose in his throat and a deep groan escaped his mouth.

  NO!

  There, on the floor, was Caleb's colorless form.

  CHAPTER 5

  TEVIE BAUER LAY prone on the floor of his trailer, arms stretched overhead, face pressed against the carpet. He was in a trancelike state, eyes rolled back, his breath quick and shallow. Occasionally his muscles would twitch involuntarily, sending his body into a violent spasm. It would last only a second or two, then subside, and he would relax again.

  Voices, so many voices, chattered in his head. Some whispered, some shouted, some rambled on and on, but all of them vied for his attentionbegging, urging, commanding, threatening. Images of people from his past, both young and old, swam in his mind, taunting him, laughing at him, their faces distorted and disfigured. Ghouls that lurked in the darkest corners of his brain.

  But one voice and one image surfaced above the others-his mother. Momma. She was pleading with him, begging him to help her. Dark figures pounced on her, beat her, ripped at her clothes and skin, pulled her hair. They were from hell, the shadows. He was sure of it. Sent to torture and torment, maim and kill. And they were enjoying it. Their loud peals of laughter and howls of excitement sent ripples down Stevie's back. But it was Momma they were brutalizing, her body they were violating. Her face twisted with fear and pain, stretched into an elongated howl.

  "Stevie," she cried, "help me. Stevie, help me!"