On the path, Cade screamed. He did a strange dance, making little circles in the dirt. He called out for his friend, but his voice was already heavy with mourning.
A dark shape—another Reaper—raced past Jonathan. It skimmed the surface of the lake. And it wasn’t alone. A third slid down the trunk of a tree at Cade’s back.
“Look out!” Jonathan cried.
Cade looked up at the branches and saw the thing coming for him, moving like a stain over the rough bark. He ran and screamed, his voice high and piercing as he charged for his truck. The shadow peeled away from the tree and tore after him.
Jonathan turned in the water, looking over his shoulders, checking his back to make sure no more of the shadowy Reapers came for him. When he turned back, he saw Cade was inside the cab of his truck. Fresh terror flared in Jonathan’s chest. That ass was going to leave him here, leave him with these things.
“Cade,” he called, hearing the engine roar to life. “Come on, man!” he pleaded.
But Cade was beyond reason. Jonathan could see his terrified face through the windshield, lit up by the cab light. The football player darted his head from side to side, as if trying to figure out how the vehicle worked.
A shadow slid down the windshield like dirty water.
The truck roared again and sped backward down the path. It crashed into a tree a moment later. Then, the truck lurched forward, eased toward Jonathan as Cade turned the wheel, adjusted the tires on the trail.
The truck was gone a minute later, the headlights receding to dime-sized dots through the trees as Cade escaped the nightmare at the lake’s edge. Jonathan looked for Ox in the trees, but it was difficult to find him in the dark. His gaze darted between the tree trunks and the black mouth of the woods. The dirt trail rolled through the chasm like a brown tongue, taunting him.
Jonathan’s body shivered violently against the freezing water and the fear. He took a step toward the shore, then paused, looking for the Reapers, knowing he’d never see them coming. But he knew he couldn’t just stand there. He could swim, but where? Besides, he’d seen one of the things gliding over the lake, moving fast. If they wanted him, they’d catch him before he made it ten yards.
But they don’t want you, a voice whispered in his head. The thought startled him with its certainty.
A tree branch groaned, and its needles hissed. The noise repeated and grew louder. Jonathan snapped his head toward the sound. He saw something moving down the tree. It didn’t glide slowly. Rather, it fell and tumbled, hitting branches hard, until it finally crashed into a thatch of bushes at the tree’s base.
Ox.
The phantom was done with the bully. It had smothered Ox and discarded his body.
Frantic, Jonathan searched the banks for any of the creatures. His foot slipped in the muck, but he righted himself quickly. Maybe he could hold his breath, escape them under the water. Then I can drown instead of suffocate. His mind ran through a catalog of useless ideas. His teeth chattered loudly and his jaw ached from tension.
The desperation built. Where are they? Where are they? God, what am I going to do? Helpless and cold, he felt certain he’d cry.
He stood in the lake for another three minutes before his fear and discomfort crystallized into anger. Enough, he thought. Enough. If they were going to kill him, they could kill him, but he wasn’t going to die in this lake like a drowned rat. Jonathan stepped forward, pushing a low wall of water ahead of him. He took another step and then another.
Jonathan emerged from the lake, and a deeper cold, one he couldn’t believe existed, wrapped around him. His bones and skin ached under this cold.
“Da-a-a-mn!” he said through chattering teeth.
He stood on the path, dripping, exhausted, and trembling. If the Reapers were going to attack, it would be now.
But they didn’t attack. They had come for Ox and Cade, not him.
Jonathan turned into the mouth of the woods. He jogged into the trees, down the uneven dirt path. Then he ran.
10
No one stopped to give him a ride. Whenever the street lit up with the lights of an approaching car, Jonathan turned with his thumb raised, but the cars just sped by, ignoring him, letting him freeze. He ran until his sides ached, then walked for a while. Then ran. He searched the streets, the sky, the yards for signs of a new attack from the Reapers. His mind raced, but every thought was a spark, a mere firefly dashing through his brain, and there were so many of them. It felt like his head was filled with television static. White noise.
At home he went into the bathroom and stripped off his wet clothes, hung them over the shower rod. He turned on the hot water and climbed in. The spray felt like acid on his skin as the heat confronted the cold that had worked deep into his bones. He stood under the scalding spray for five minutes before adding a touch of cooler water. Then he leaned against the wall and let the shower run over him for another twenty minutes.
He dried himself, went to his room, and put on a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt. He put on socks because his feet were still cold. Then he climbed under the covers, pulled them tight to his chin, and stared at the ceiling.
He didn’t even think of turning off the overhead light.
The first thing he did the next morning was call Bentley Books and tell Stewart he was sick and wouldn’t be in today. Stewart acted like he didn’t believe Jonathan’s story, but Jonathan didn’t really care what the manager thought. No way was he leaving the apartment. After the call he gathered up his clothes from the bathroom and walked down the hall to the utility closet. Dropped all of the garments, still damp, into the washer. He poured detergent over them and turned on the machine.
In his room he sat at his desk. He needed to write things down, to make sense of them. He reached to turn on his computer, then paused.
If he wrote his thoughts on the computer, they might be retrieved. David told him once that nothing was ever really erased from a computer. Jonathan didn’t know if this was true. It sounded impossible, but his fear and paranoia were so great, he wasn’t going to take the chance. What if the police questioned Cade, and he told them about Jonathan being there? They might come to question him, might take his computer. They could misinterpret something. They could blame him for Ox and Toby and Mr. Weaver. It was nuts, but it was possible.
He pushed the computer keyboard out of his way. On a plain sheet of copy paper, Jonathan began to write.
Can’t go to the police. What would I tell
them? They wouldn’t believe a thing I
said. Reapers? Crap. Cade could tell
them, but they’d think we both killed Ox
and made up some crazy story. Mr.
Weaver. Toby. Ox. What about Emma? Did
those things attack her? Knock her down
the stairs? She had no permanent damage,
so why did Mrs. Vierra have to perform
CPR? Why wasn’t Emma breathing?
This is about me. It’s totally mental, but
I know it’s about me. But who? It can’t
be David. Yeah, he digs horror movies
and supernatural video games, but so
do a billion kids. They’re just games.