Chapter 21

Danny tried his best to keep quiet as he moved through the forest. He’d been walking for quite a while but hadn’t seen or heard anyone. Not yet.

A loud rustle of leaves exploded far behind him. He looked back. It could’ve been anything. Maybe a tree limb fell, or an animal was running around. There was no way to tell, but he changed direction just to be safe. For all he knew, someone was tracking him. He thought about turning around and heading toward the sound. If someone was following him, he’d just as soon confront whoever it was. But he couldn’t spare the time—he had to find Joseph. And, truth be told, he didn’t have the energy. He was tired. Too beat into the dirt to do anything but put one foot in front of the other. Not the best strategy in the world, but it would have to do.

He stopped beside a tree and sat on the ground. His side throbbed. Pain was something he could deal with. But all this walking had him out of breath. He flattened his palm over the bullet hole and inhaled. A gurgling noise vibrated inside him. He took his hand off the hole. A red bubble expanded out of his side. Then another. And another.

He stood and pressed a knuckle into the hole. Far behind him, leaves or branches or something rustled. He turned. Someone had to be following him. He moved forward, picking up his pace.

After thirty yards he stopped.

He sucked in shallow breaths and scanned the forest. His legs felt dead. Dizzy and light-headed, he dropped and crawled through some bushes to a fallen tree. He sat against it, watching for whoever was tracking him.

The forest was silent for a long span of time. If someone was following him, they’d apparently lost his trail. He braced a hand on the tree behind him, readying himself for the pain of standing. A memory froze him. He took his hand off the tree, lowered to his belly and crawled into a clutch of leaves underneath the fallen tree. It was a tight fit between the tree and the ground. Cool dirt pressed against his cheek. The air was humid and sweet with the smell of leaves and rotting timber. He peered out, his mind on autopilot, thinking back to high school when he’d snuck into the football stadium at night with Sharlene Daniels.

Sharlene was gorgeous, with light brown hair cascading down her back, gleaming teeth, and light green eyes. She wore tight jeans with holes in the knees and a raggedy tie-dyed t-shirt. Hidden under the tree, feeling the cold dirt on his cheek, Danny remembered the close call he’d had with her those many years ago.

It had been late. They were on a blanket, drinking warm beer in the middle of the high school football field. Talking and laughing. And finally, kissing. Her tongue tasted like peppermint. Then the police showed up. Danny grabbed the beer and the blanket and ran up the stadium steps, pulling Sharlene along. He ducked behind the announcer’s booth with her and watched the police search the field with their flashlights, yelling, “Come out, or you’re going to be in real trouble.” It took a while, but the cops finally left. He remembered shushing Sharlene as she giggled. Sharlene stood and stepped out from behind the announcer’s booth. Danny followed, the blanket around his neck, holding the remaining two beers. The tiny squawk of a walkie-talkie froze him. He clapped a hand over Sharlene’s mouth and pulled her against him, sitting on the bleachers with her in his lap. And there they’d sat, not moving a muscle for the next ten minutes, watching the two cops sitting below them, ten stairs away. Those cops were sneaky. They’d turned off their flashlights and acted like they’d left. But they’d really creeped up into the bleachers to wait for the trespassers to show themselves. Eventually, the cops stood, clicked on their flashlights, and walked down the steps.

The memory of those cops walking away defeated made Danny smile. He blew a piece of bark off his lip, keeping his eyes trained on where he’d last heard someone following him. Those cops taught him a lesson.

Don’t ever assume you’re safe.

Dirt flaked off the tree onto his cheek. He reached up to brush his face and then froze. Something moved out there. Took a few steps and then stopped.

He stared into the dark. Whoever was out there was playing it safe, moving cautiously. As best as he could tell, his pursuer was about fifty feet away.

A movement behind a tree caught his attention. It was dark in these woods, so it was hard to see, but it looked like a man. Danny watched him step out from behind the tree and look side to side, searching. Then the man started walking, giving up any attempt to be quiet, moving straight toward the fallen tree Danny was hiding under. Danny felt around blindly, searching for a rock or a stick or anything to defend himself.

There was nothing. Just dirt and leaves.

His breathing sped up. Whoever this man was, he was getting close. From what Danny could see, he was a big guy who carried his weight easily, walking light on his feet. Why the man was tracking him was a mystery, but Danny had a feeling—no, he knew—that this guy was bad news. And if the man saw him, it would most certainly be a very bad thing.

The man stopped and turned to his right, then his left. A big stick was in his hand—thick enough to break bones. For a moment, Danny could’ve sworn the man was looking straight at him, his breathing becoming loud and agitated as he gripped and regripped the stick in his hand.

Danny inched out from his hiding place. If the man rushed him, he wouldn’t have a chance under this tree. He had to get to his feet.

A distant scream drifted out of the darkness. The man pivoted. Another scream echoed. The man broke into a half jog toward the sound.

Danny crawled out from under the tree. Down on one knee, he watched the man run into the forest toward the scream. He stood and watched him disappear into the forest. A deep breath slowed his racing heart. Thank God. Now that the guy was off his trail, he could concentrate on finding Joseph. And with the way his side was feeling, he knew he needed to hurry. Time was not his friend.

A quick look around gave him his bearings. He took a step away from the fallen tree, ready to continue his search. And then he froze.

A tingle ran up his spine.

Something was behind him.

Couldn’t hear it.

Couldn’t smell it.

Couldn’t see it.

But he felt it, drawing closer.

Hair pricked on the back of his neck. The temperature dropped. His breath came out in vapor. The urge to run flashed through him. But he couldn’t. Every muscle was locked with fear.

The smell of rot blanketed him. A shape stepped around him, coming into view. He clamped his mouth shut to keep from screaming. It was human in shape, but the contours of its body moved. Every part of it was constantly shifting and reforming.

Danny gagged. The thing pulsed with worms and maggots. It bulged and hollowed as the worms squirmed and entwined around each other. The thing passed by Danny. Its shoulder brushed a tree. A few worms scraped off and fell to the ground. They sizzled, turning to smoke.

An ammonia smell lifted from the smoke. Danny clapped a hand over his nose, his eyes watering. The thing turned toward him.

Danny could feel it measuring him. Weighing him. Calculating to see if he was an easy target. He clenched his jaw, fighting to keep from screaming. The thing wasn’t just made of worms, it was a worm, burrowing into his soul.

It held him in its stare. His eyelashes crystallized with frost. He blinked, feeling a tendril of ice form inside him, wrapping around a part of him he’d never felt so clearly before. A warm, light-filled piece of him that was his essence. The icy tendril squeezed the light inside him. Memories raced through Danny.

He was ten years old, walking by the counter at the corner store and smiling at Mrs. Dennison, the store owner. He kept smiling as he walked out the front door with five packs of stolen baseball cards shoved in the back of his jeans.

He whispered into Anne Marie Collier’s ear when the teacher’s back was turned, telling her she’d never have a boyfriend because she was too fat and ugly, then sitting back with a smile to watch her bow her head and cry.

He watched a businessman leave a twenty-dollar tip for the waitress at Jimmy’s Tavern, and then pocketed it when no one was looking.

More and more snippets of his life raced through him, every mistake and misstep weighing down and dimming the light of his spirit. Even in the cold aura of the thing standing before him, he could feel his face burn with his shame. He could see the worms that formed it move faster and faster, turning its body into a boiling nest. It took a step toward him, its mouth opening.

Danny closed his eyes, tears cutting warm trails through the frost powdering his face.

I did those things, all of them, but they’re not who I am. They’re the parts I tried to fix. Even when I didn’t have any money, I did that brake job for Mrs. Reedy, telling her she didn’t owe me because I knew she didn’t have it after her husband died. And I brought that extra sandwich to work every day when I worked at Swan, giving it to Elton, that slow kid that swept the floors, because I knew his mom didn’t pack him a lunch. I’m not perfect, but I’m not bad. I do the best I can.

He opened his eyes, seeing the thing take another step toward him, its mouth opening wider. Danny gagged, holding down nausea at the sight of it. His thoughts turned to Linda and Joseph. How he didn’t want to be without them. How if this thing took him, he’d fail them. How he loved them.

He could feel something inside him swell with warmth. The cold grip deep in his chest loosened.

The thing took a step back. Danny wondered what it was waiting for as he thought of Linda and Joseph, wishing he could hold them one more time and tell them how much he loved them. The cold in his chest thawed.

The thing released a scream of static, then turned and moved away, walking after the man with the stick.

Danny exhaled. He put one hand on the ground to keep from collapsing. The pain in his side was forgotten as he panted. His mind whirled.

What am I doing? I can barely take care of Linda and Joseph in the real world. How am I supposed to save Joseph from a place like this? I can’t fight something like that thing. I can’t do this.

A gust of wind rolled an ash under his gaze. It crumbled, falling away to nothing, the faint smell of ammonia there, then gone.

Danny looked at the other ashes of worms that had fallen off the thing. They twitched in the wind, then scattered to dust. Taking a deep, pained breath, he stood, grabbed a tree, and braced himself, listening to the faint sounds of the man and the thing traveling through the forest. His stomach churned. He stared into the forest.

He had to get it together. Someday he’d die, but it wasn’t going to be here, and it wasn’t going to be now. He needed to fight if he was going to have any chance of saving Joseph and seeing Linda again.

He stared at the path the man and the nightcrawler had taken. He didn’t want to go that way, but it didn’t matter—he had to. Joseph was in that direction. He was sure of it. He started walking. His feet carried him like they had a mind of their own.

How long he walked in that senseless fog, he couldn’t tell. The tug toward Joseph became a pull and then the pull became an irresistible force.

He quickened his steps from a walk into a jog. Each step flared pain through his side. He did his best to ignore it. Up ahead, he saw that the forest’s dismal gloom was even thicker. He stopped, taking in his surroundings.

Everything was still. Silent.

The trees had been leafed and healthy when he’d first come into the forest, but these trees were barren, nothing but sharp-fingered branches poking toward the sky. The ground was dirt with an occasional scrub of grass. This place was dead. He scuffed the ground with his boot.

He’d been traveling downhill ever since he saw the thing. Water traveled downhill. The ground shouldn’t be this dry. It didn’t make sense.

A shelf of bedrock shale stuck twenty feet out of the desiccated earth up ahead. He walked over and climbed up. On top of the outcropping, he could see that the ground continued to slope downward. An endless expanse of stunted, tangled trees filled the landscape, eventually unseeable as the darkness in the distance became impenetrable.

Turning his attention skyward, he looked at the clouds. Black and thick, they rolled and squirmed with snake-like shapes. A dark orange flash from some hellish lightning storm flashed through the clouds, revealing the shapes for an instant. Those things up there weren’t a hallucination. They were alive.

Sweat ran down the back of Danny’s neck as another orange flash reflected off the side of one of the shapes in the clouds, revealing a crosshatch of scales. Danny kneeled and braced his right hand on the shale. A warm drop hit the back of his neck.

He stood and wiped the back of his neck, then stared at the red smear on his fingers. More drops fell. The air smelled coppery. Something flew overhead.

His side throbbed as he scrambled off the shale outcropping, but the adrenaline in his system covered the pain. He crawled to the base of a tree, sat, and watched shapes fill the sky. The shapes became a swarm, blocking his view of the clouds. The drizzle picked up in intensity. Most of it was blocked by the tree, but some fell on his face and hands. He licked a drop off his lip.

He gagged and wiped it off his face. It was blood. He pushed his back against the tree and watched the things flying over him. They were hideous. Glistening black heads. Bat-like wings jerking them through the air as they flapped. They carried people who squirmed in their grasp. That’s where the blood rain came from, the people.

The swarm thinned out. Danny stood and watched the last of the flying things pass. He shook his head in disbelief at the woman it carried. She kicked and punched at the monstrosity. He felt a moment of joy—maybe she’d hurt it. It flexed its foot, digging its claws into her. A gush of blood poured out of her. Danny ducked his head as it splattered around him.

The creature disappeared into the clouds. Danny got to his feet and started walking. The farther he could get away from those bats, the better.

The physical repetition of walking eased the pain in his side. It pushed the images of the flying monsters out of his head. It covered up his memory of the worm-infested thing. He forgot about everything but reaching Joseph.

He walked for a while before noticing the blood. A drip on some leaves here, a splatter across the path there. He took note of the distance between the marks. At first, blood marked something every ten or twenty feet. As he continued, the distance shortened to five feet. Another hundred feet and the blood marked something every foot or so.

He veered off the path, looking for another route, but the internal pull in his chest—the one that told him where Joseph was—brought him right back to this path. Each step increased his anxiety. This path might lead to Joseph, but it led to something else too.

He covered his nose and mouth against a foul smell as he followed the path up a hill. Reaching the hill’s zenith, he lowered his hand from his mouth, surveying the plateau. Set back a bit, a giant tree towered. Its trunk had to be over a hundred and fifty feet wide. Its roots were as big as subway trains. Twenty-foot-thick branches fanned out from the trunk, reaching into the dark sky. In the uppermost reaches of the tree, the branches were lost from sight in the dark sky.

Danny saw movement in the branches. He stared, not believing his eyes. People were in the tree, hanging from vines growing among the tree’s branches. And higher up, people were impaled on the branches.

Danny stepped toward the tree. He watched a man kick his feet, wrenching a vine off his neck. He was free. But before the man could drop to the ground, the vine whipped back around his throat. Danny stared in disbelief. The vines were alive.

A strangled cry caught his attention. He turned and saw a young man he recognized hanging in the tree. It was Ronnie, a guy who worked at Swan Plumbing before it closed. He was one of the first people let go when the company moved overseas. That had been over a year ago, and the poor guy had never recovered. From what Danny heard, he’d been evicted from his house. No one knew what happened to him after that. But here he was, wearing the same ripped jeans, white high-top sneakers and blue sweatshirt with a Swan Plumbing Supplies logo that he wore to work every day. Ronnie wasn’t big on fashion, but Danny remembered how clean he smelled. He probably washed the same sweatshirt, jeans, underwear and socks every night. The guy never had much, but he took care of what he had.

And now he had a vine wrapped around his neck.

Moving closer, Danny watched Ronnie fight to keep the vine from strangling him. He kicked his feet and tucked his chin. The vine loosened then tightened around his neck again and again, never giving him a moment’s rest. If this kept up, Danny knew Ronnie wouldn’t have a chance. Eventually, he’d tire and then…

Danny’s gaze lifted to the highest reaches of the trees.

He’d be pulled up and impaled on a branch, like those people.

Danny stepped toward Ronnie, still fighting to pull the vine from his neck. The warning from Gloria blared in his head.

“The darkness holds people for a reason. If you interfere, you’ll attract attention, and that’s the one sure way to lose any chance you have to save Joseph and yourself.”

The smart move would be to keep walking down the path and never look back. He began to back away. Ronnie groaned.

He looked up at Ronnie. Gloria told him not to help anyone, but he couldn’t let him hang there. All he had to do was pull that vine off him and then he could be on his way.

Danny gauged the distance to Ronnie. If he jumped, he might be able to grab Ronnie’s ankles and pull him down. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Ronnie, I’m gonna pull you down. Hold on to that vine so I don’t break your neck!”

Ronnie’s eyes fixed on him. He nodded and grasped the vine. Danny ran and leaped. His fingers missed grabbing Ronnie by a few inches. He slipped as he landed. Flat on his back, he looked up. The bottom of Ronnie’s boots swung back and forth above him.

He stood and wiped his mouth, looking up at Ronnie again. “You’re too high. Stretch your legs so I can get a hold of you.”

The vine around Ronnie’s neck stopped moving. It loosened enough for Ronnie to lower his chin and look down. Danny stepped back. All hope was gone in his eyes. There was nothing but despair.

“Leave me,” Ronnie said. “You can’t help me. Nothing can. Just leave before it…”

The vine whipped around Ronnie’s neck, strangling him. Ronnie gargled and clawed at the vine.

Danny turned to run. There was nothing he could do here. A voice stopped him. It came from Ronnie, but it didn’t sound like him. It sounded like creaking wood and whispering leaves joined together to form words.

“It’s not so bad, Danny.”

Everything in Danny told him to run and never look back, but he couldn’t help himself. He turned toward the voice. The despair was gone from Ronnie’s eyes. Something bright and strong had taken over. And it locked its gaze on him.

“Life is hard,” the voice said. Ronnie lifted his arms and waved at the people hanging above him. “For everyone.”

Danny watched a vine slip down through the tree toward him. Ronnie pointed at him, pulling his attention away from the vine. “Joseph is here because of you. Linda blames you. You can’t take care of them. You did your best. But now it’s time for you to join us.”

Ronnie lifted his arms, drawing Danny’s gaze up into the huge expanse of limbs filled with people. “Join us and rest, Danny.”

Something brushed Danny’s cheek. He drew back. A vine waved in front of him. It looked soft and furry. Even velvety. It couldn’t hurt. Ronnie’s voice whispered—the sound of leaves rustling in a soft breeze. “It’ll be better for Linda, for Joseph, and for you. All your troubles will be gone.”

The vine touched his face. It crawled over his cheek and inched toward his neck. A feeling of helplessness took root in him. The vine was warm and soft and soothing. It brushed past his eyes, then his nose, then his mouth. It moved toward his neck. So soft and caring. His eyelids grew heavy.

He closed his eyes, murmuring, “No more worrying. No more fighting. The world will be better without me.”

The vine nuzzled through the hair on the back of his neck. He heard a flutter of leaves and creak of wood form into words. “Linda and Joseph will be better off without you.”

Joseph.

Something kicked inside Danny. He managed to open one eye, but it closed again, feeling heavy as stone. The voice creaked inside his head.

“Joseph will understand. You did everything you could. Let us take him.”

Joseph.

Recognition of how far he was under swept through Danny. He clung to a thin thread of consciousness.

Joseph needs me.

“We’ll take you to Joseph. You can wait for Linda with him. You can all be together again.”

Danny tried to open his eyes. Whatever he did before didn’t matter. He still had a chance to make things right.

If he could just…

Open…

His eyes.

Danny’s eyes snapped open. Ronnie held out his hand. Blood dripped from a deep gash in Ronnie’s wrist. Danny looked up into the tree. He saw a woman with a bullet hole in her temple. A teenage girl clutching a prescription bottle against her chest.

Danny tried to step back. Something tightened around his neck. Pressure filled his head as the vine tightened. He gripped the vine with both hands, feeling it try to lift him. His feet scrabbled in the bloody mud under the tree. He was off the ground then on the ground again as he went wild, fighting to get free. A strangled cry from Ronnie caught his attention. The look on Ronnie’s face had changed. Whatever had been in control of Ronnie was gone and his eyes were wild as he yelled. “Everything it says is a lie! Save yourself!”

Danny went crazy, tearing at the vine around his neck. He felt it loosen and slide down his neck for a better grip. Sensing that this might be his last chance, he took a huge breath and pulled, arching his head back. The vine ripped away. Pain erupted through his injured side as he fell on the ground. The vine whipped through the air, searching. He scrambled out of its reach.

He backed away from the tree. Backed away from Ronnie. Backed away as the shadows of black-headed bats moved across the ground all around him. He looked up, only once, and saw the bats snatching bodies off the branches and flying into the dark clouds. He ran and never looked back.

The pain in Danny’s side was still there. He was still having trouble breathing. But he’d escaped.

That had been close. Too close.

Gloria had warned him not to try to help anyone. He didn’t listen and it had almost been his end. And Joseph’s.

An image of Linda filled his mind, sitting alone in the hospital. His heart ached almost as bad as the pain in his side.

“Sorry, Linda,” he thought. “I almost screwed up, but I’ll get it done. I’ll bring Joseph back.”

Walking around a large boulder, he stopped for a moment, looking down a steep hill. The tug in his chest told him Joseph was ahead. Trees were spaced every five or ten feet apart down the side of the hill. He half-ran, half-stumbled down the hill, grabbing trees every now and again to stop his momentum. About halfway down, he stopped to catch his breath. His neck felt raw where the vine strangled him. He traced the ghostly burning sensation the vine had left on him, remembering how it told him that no one cared about him. That he should give up.

He couldn’t think like that. Not even a little bit. He had to stay strong.

His side burned as he ran down the rest of the hill. Joseph was close.

A sound broke the quiet, stopping him.

He strained to listen. There was nothing. He began to walk again, but at a slower pace. Someone walked along with him, stopping the instant he stopped.

He kept walking, sensing that he was being watched. The forest erupted with the sounds of things racing through the forest all around him. He spun, looking all around.

Tree limbs moved and bushes rustled at the edge of his vision, but the source of all the commotion stayed hidden. Whatever was out there was playing with him. Moving when he moved. Stopping when he stopped. He started walking again.

His chest tightened, hearing footsteps keep pace with him on all sides—front, back, right, and left. Something rushed toward him from the front. It peeled away, laughing, before he could get a look.

Whatever was out there stayed just out of his sight. He kept walking. Another sound gradually rose out of the forest. At first, he thought it was the wind. Then it came clear. It was water. Rushing water. It was the sound of a river.

Danny walked toward the river as the things scurried around him. The roar of the river grew louder. Something rushed him from behind. He whirled, catching a glimpse. It was a child. Maybe a boy, but it was hard to tell. Long hair covered the kid’s face.

The child disappeared into the dark forest. Danny pushed through some tree branches and stepped forward. The riverbank crunched under his feet as he stumbled to the water’s edge. He straightened and looked over the river. It was as wide as half a football field.

Mist rose from the rushing water. Danny walked upstream, looking for a way to cross. He stopped and stared at the silvery current running at the river’s edge. Maybe he could find a stretch of shallows to wade across. One way or another, he had to find a way to get to the other side. He gazed across the water, feeling a steady pull in his chest. Joseph was there, waiting for him. He shivered in the river’s cold mist, knowing he’d never been surer of anything in his life.

The children of the forest, or whatever they were, followed him, scurrying among the trees as he walked upriver. They made false rushes at him and darted away, giggling. They paced him, whispering. He caught a glimpse of thin bare legs darting through the forest’s edge, hearing snatches of their conversation.

“It’s Danny.”

“I told you.”

“He’s the father.”

The last thing he heard was a girl saying, “We have to be sure.”

He turned away and peered over the river. A yellow light fought through the dark clouds hanging over the river. It painted everything in a translucent haze that seemed to mark some coming disaster, like a tornado or a hurricane. The leaves on the trees across the river shivered in the wind.

A large, flat, iron-gray stone sticking out of the river caught his attention. He walked over to it, seeing that it was the first in a jigsaw pattern of rocks that spanned the river. He stepped on the stone and looked across the haphazard bridge. This was the way to Joseph.

A patch of algae turned his first step into a disaster. His foot shot out from under him and he fell. His side exploded in pain. The children poured through the trees on the edge of the river and ran toward him with wild abandon.

A girl skidded to a stop and leaned over him. She was so close he could smell her bubblegum and see the freckles under the grime on her face. The side of her head was caved in. It looked like she’d been hit with a crowbar. Her dirty blonde hair was matted with blood. She giggled as the other children joined her.

Danny stared, breathless and paralyzed with pain as the children surrounded him. Their eyes reflected the fallow light. Every one of them had a horrible injury. Arms hanging at the wrong angle. Smashed heads. Ripped flesh. Blunt trauma injuries and broken bones.

The pain in Danny’s side engulfed him. He balled into the fetal position, thinking of how Gloria had told him to stay away from anyone he saw in the forest. What these children could’ve done to be caught here, he couldn’t fathom, but it didn’t matter. After his encounter with Ronnie, he knew he couldn’t help them if he was going to have any chance of saving Joseph. Whatever they wanted wasn’t his problem. He needed to go.

He rolled to his side, trying to stand. Impossible. He hyperventilated, seeing spots, and pressed a hand over his gunshot wound. Small hands gripped his shoulders, lifting him.

“Get away from me,” Danny said, pushing them away as he stood. “Leave me alone.”

The children smiled at him, all talking at once.

“We came to help.”

“Danny, we know where he is.”

“Just come with us. We’ll show you.”

“No!” Danny shouted, panting to catch his breath. “Get away! I can’t help you! I don’t make the rules! I’m not allowed to help you!”

The children froze as a far-off screech answered Danny’s shout. Something splashed its way toward them from upriver. The children scattered, disappearing among the trees on the side of the river.

Danny looked upstream. Nothing was in sight, yet. He stepped on the gray stone that jutted into the river. Another screech ripped through the forest. Danny turned to look across the river. He bent at the knees and jumped to the second stone. Careful to keep his balance, he continued, leaping and stepping again and again, moving from stone to stone across the river.

Halfway across, another screech filled the air. It startled Danny. He dropped to his hands and knees, grasping at the slippery, cold rock. A glance back showed trees thrashing along the riverbank. Whatever was making that noise was almost here.

Danny reached for the next stone. His knees slipped out from under him, plunging his legs into the river. The cold took his breath away, but he managed to hold onto the rock. He grunted and pulled himself out of the water.

He glanced back. On the shoreline stood a little boy with hair hanging in his eyes. An awful wound in his neck soaked the front of his shirt in blood. Other children poked their heads through the trees on the side of the river, gesturing for the boy to come back. The boy shook his head and grinned at Danny, showing a missing front tooth. He stepped onto the first stone.

Danny shook his head and yelled, “Get out of here. Something’s coming.”

The boy jumped to the next rock, almost falling into the water before finding his balance. He smiled at Danny.

Danny yelled again, but it did no good. The little guy backed up and readied himself for another jump. He managed it without a hitch. Only five stones separated the boy from Danny.

Danny looked away. If the kid wanted to follow him, fine, but he couldn’t help him. Finding Joseph and taking him back to Linda was all he could handle.

He stood and jumped to the next rock. He looked back. The boy was only four rocks away. Close enough for Danny to see the blood run out of his neck as the boy yelled, “I know where Joseph is. I can show you.”

Danny stared at the boy. Gloria didn’t say anything about people in the dark helping him. He waved at the boy, pointed at the other side of the river, and yelled over the roar of the water, “I’ll meet you on the other side!”

The boy nodded. As far as Danny was concerned, it was the best he could do. Once he got on the other side he’d wait for the kid and see what this was all about.

Danny jumped to the next stone. There were seven more.

The boy screamed.

Danny glanced back and his mind tilted.

One of those giant flying bats or whatever they were stood on the riverbank. It glared at him with shiny black eyes. Nearly ten feet tall, it opened a mouth ringed with teeth. Pebbles and sand kicked into the air as it hopped along the riverbank. One of its wings was bent at an awkward angle from a break near its shoulder. That helped Danny breathe a little better. At least it couldn’t fly over to snatch him off this rock.

The bat stopped at the edge of the water and craned its head toward the boy. The screech it let out made Danny’s ears ring. Its good wing stretched out fifteen feet and flapped, the leathery webbing rustling as it balanced itself and hopped onto the first stone. It looked at Danny. There was nothing human there. It wanted one thing—to tear him to pieces.

It hopped to the edge of the first rock and flicked out a long, thin tongue.

Danny shuddered, forgetting his pain and exhaustion. He blocked out the bat’s screeching and ran, jumping from stone to stone until he reached the far riverbank. The forest was thick on this side. If he needed to, he could hide from that thing among the trees.

A cry stopped him. “Danny!”

He looked back.

The bat was behind the boy, halfway across the river. Danny watched as it swiped a claw at the boy, barely missing him. The boy leaped away, falling to a knee on the next rock. The bat’s long tongue whipped out. It bent at the knees, preparing to jump.

Danny dove into the river. The cold water shocked him. He swam toward the boy, flying downriver with the current. He lifted his face out of the water to grab the rock the boy clung to. One rock away, the bat screeched.

“C’mon!” Danny yelled, reaching for the boy.

The bat leaped.

Danny grabbed the boy and pulled him into the water. He pushed off the rock, away from the awful smell of the bat. A surge of water swept past his shoulder. One of the bat’s claws brushed his neck. Then he was out of range, kicking and pulling his way through the water. He looked back. The bat flapped and fell into the water, tumbling downriver.

Danny held the boy and swam toward shore. His left side burned with each stroke. It felt like there was a fire inside him. The sandy river bottom scratched his shoulder as he reached shore. All strength gone, he crawled out of the water and let the boy go. Still half in the river, he rolled to his back. Each breath was a battle. The idea of taking Joseph back to Linda was beyond him. He hurt too much.

He closed his eyes.

A flash of light exploded. Then another. Then a flash so strong he could feel it all the way through him to the tips of his fingers and toes.

He opened his eyes. The darkness was gone. Everything was bright. He was warm all over. Even better, his pain was gone. He dragged himself out of the river and got to his feet. He smiled. His mind was as clear and calm as it had ever been. Green, flowering, and growing things surrounded him. He felt like a child on his first day of summer vacation. The sweet smell of honeysuckle. Motes of pollen floating above the flowers like dancing points of light. His breathing was normal. His side felt perfect. He lifted his shirt. The bullet hole was gone.

Turning in a circle, he took in the scene. Clear emerald water flowed in the river. A cloudless, forever blue filled the sky. There was the feeling that anything and everything was possible in this place.

He saw the boy he’d saved, standing with his back to him at the top of the riverbank. It looked like the boy was holding something. Whatever it was, he held it close to his chest. He was nodding as if he was listening to someone.

“Hey,” Danny yelled.

The boy kept nodding, continuing his conversation with someone just out of Danny’s line of sight. The riverbank was steep. Danny climbed up it on all fours. At the top, he stood and reached for the boy’s shoulder.