Frank sagged, catching his breath.
Across the room wood shrieked against a strike plate. When Frank looked, he saw one of the tactical officers trying to yank open a door built into the opposite wall. It pulled free on the third try, and the officers that closed in to clear the room beyond immediately choked and recoiled.
“Holy shit,” one of them cried.
Another doubled over and puked.
Frank hurried forward. He pushed through the crowd, wincing in pain, but came to a halt when he beheld the unimaginable sight that waited in the dirt-walled room ahead. He stared in dreamlike detachment, his mind straining to make sense of the madness displayed before him.
“My God,” he whispered.
And just when he thought his overstressed nerves had been pushed to their limit, one of the medics who’d bent over Kane’s body ended the shock-induced stillness with a scream.
“He’s still alive!”
CHAPTER 1
Five Years Later…
Jerry Anderson’s eyes snapped opened to see the last flicker of pale blue lightning depart from his bedroom walls, pursued into the night by darkness.
He bolted upright and surveyed the shadowy bedroom with widened eyes, searching his surroundings for the source of what had roused him. By the weakness of the lightning’s pursuing thunderclap, he knew it hadn’t been the storm.
Something moved in the darkness, and Jerry wheeled around to face it.
Outside, the wind gusted against the house and through the nearby treetops, its morose tone overlaid by the sound of rainwater dripping from the gutter. Inside, black shadows swayed on the walls and floor, but he saw nothing to justify his fear.
Nothing yet.
“Get up,” he hissed, shaking his wife.
Margaret Anderson jerked from sleep. “What—” she gasped, but Jerry clapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish.
“I heard something,” he whispered. “In the house.”
Her startled expression cleared, replaced by a look of stark terror. Even in the wan light of the bedside clock the color drained from her face. “No,” she groaned. “It’s been three days. Kern said three days and we’d be safe.”
“Kern’s a fool,” Jerry said. “We were idiots for listening to him.”
Her eyes flicked from his to the door, then back. Lightning flashed outside, and a peal of thunder trembled through the air. They listened to the silence that followed, straining to hear into the deeper reaches of the house.
“You’re certain it wasn’t just another nightmare?” she asked. “We’ve been through this before. You know how real they can be.”
Jerry shook his head. “We should’ve left when we had the chance.”
Turning away, he extracted a .44 revolver from the nightstand, keeping his gaze trained on the bedroom door. When he looked back to his wife, she’d already retrieved the Remington pump-action shotgun from under her side of the bed, just like they’d practiced.
“Stay here,” he said.
He eased out of bed and walked toward the hallway, holding the gun ready. He forced himself to keep his finger on the trigger guard rather than the trigger itself, afraid his shaking hands might fire the gun prematurely.
Clearing the doorway, he crept down the hall to where the stairs overlooked the foyer. Below, the reassuring red light of the front door’s new security panel glowed in the darkness: Property Secured.
He exhaled his fear in one great breath. If anyone lurked down there, the motion sensors would’ve detected them the moment they entered the room.
I’m a prisoner inside my home. And now even home no longer feels safe.
But maybe it was over; maybe Kern was right?
Lightning flashed outside. It lit the huge window in the adjoining living room and displaced the darkness, illuminating a collage of muddy footprints splattered across the carpet.
Jerry’s heart convulsed.
His jaw trembled; his legs weakened.
“No,” he whispered, clutching the railing for balance.
Darkness devoured the sight, but not before he saw the tracks proceeded up the stairs.
Then it came again, the noise he’d heard earlier.
Not wind. Not rain.
Someone moving through the darkness.
His skin went cold, and he whirled around, tracing the footprints back to the bedroom door, where they faded to nothing more than outlines on the carpet.
Margaret screamed.
“Not her,” Jerry cried.
Bounding faster, he came through the door to find the source of his dread looming at the bedside, silhouetted against the far window. Margaret thrashed on the mattress, battling to free herself from a cocoon of bed sheets wrapped tight around her head and held fast by the attacker’s hand behind her back. Her muffled cries came to him like the screams of a drowning swimmer.
The intruder stood silent, unmoving. Resisting Margaret’s violent struggle elicited no signs of strain whatsoever.
“Get away from her,” Jerry yelled. He thrust the gun forward. “You’re not welcome here. Leave us alone! Go the hell away and don’t ever come back.”
Despite the strength of his words, a cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Need you,” the trespasser replied.
“No,” Jerry cried. “Find someone else to torment. I’m not going to help you. I can’t do what you want.”
Another flash of light played across the sky, and Jerry gasped at what it revealed: his old flannel shirt; Margaret’s faded blue jeans with the patches on the knees. The intruder had taken the clothes off the scarecrow from their garden and now filled the mud-covered garments to the point of nearly bursting the seams. Jerry trembled at the nightmarish sight, mumbling “please” over and over again in a child-like whimper. His eyes searched the dirty burlap sack that made up the thing’s head for the slightest sign of mercy, but no details had ever been added to the simulated head to create a face. The only response to his pleas came in the form of a blank, expressionless stare.
Thunder boomed, shaking the house around them.
The scarecrow extended its free hand, holding forward an old, wooden-handled shovel.
“No,” Jerry mewed. “I won’t.”
The scarecrow’s face wrinkled, creasing into a look of rage. “You have no choice!”
On the bed, Margaret’s wild movements had dwindled to weak clawing actions.
“You’re not supposed to be able to come here anymore,” Jerry shrieked.
With tears slipping from his eyes, he sighted the weapon on the center of the wadded bed sheets and blew two bloody holes through his wife’s shrouded head.
Then, acting before the maniac scarecrow could stop him, he rammed the hot barrel under his chin and fired again.
Preview of:
GARY BRANDNER’S ~ THE HOWLING
1
The September heat lay heavy on Los Angeles. In the condominium community called Hermosa Terrace all the windows were tightly closed. The only sounds were the hum of exhaust fans and the muted growl of a power mower.
In the living room of Unit Two, Karyn Beatty stood on tiptoe to kiss her husband, Roy. Lady, their miniature collie, wagged her approval from the sofa. It started as a casual husband-and-wife first-anniversary kiss, but it quickly became something more. Karyn drew back her head and looked into Roy’s clear brown eyes.