The arrow on the GPS set raced closer. I looked around at the room—at the disheveled sheets on the bed, the scattered mess on the dresser, and the beaten body of my next-door neighbor lying bound and gagged on the floor. I couldn’t clean any of it up—I would barely have time to get outside before the demon came back, let alone find a place to hide. In a few seconds I’d be dead, and Crowley would rip open my chest and pull out my heart. After what I’d done to his wife, he’d probably kill my whole family, too, just for vengeance.
Well, everyone in the family but Dad—good luck finding him. Sometimes it pays to be estranged from your psychopathic son.
Yet even if I had given up, the monster inside me had not. I looked up from my fatalistic thoughts to find myself gathering my things—the GPS set, the ski mask, the backpack—and heading for the bedroom door. As my intellect caught up with my instinct for self-preservation I doubled back into the room, scanning the floor for anything I might have dropped. DNA evidence didn’t worry me—I had spent so much time in the house for legitimate reasons that I could probably explain anything the police found. I told myself that the phone records could also be explained, or erased, and that somehow I could still hide who I was. I took the phone with me, just to be sure. As a final action, I turned out the lamp and slipped into the dark hallway.
The house was pitch black, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I stumbled blindly toward the stairs, my hand on the wall, not daring to use my penlight. I felt my way carefully down the stairs, one step at a time. Halfway down, I caught a glimmer of light from the window in the back door. Moonlight, faint and sullen. I reached the ground floor and turned toward the basement stairs, but another light was growing in the front windows, pale yellow, and the dull roar of an engine swelled rapidly to an angry scream.
Crowley was back.
I forgot about the basement and ran for the back door, desperate to be out of the house before the demon entered. The knob stuck, but I twisted hard and a little button popped out, unlocking the latch. I threw the door open, stepped outside, and drew it closed behind me as quickly and quietly as I could.
The car screeched into the driveway, and the distant trees in the back were suddenly flooded with an angry yellow glare as the car headlights reached down the side yard and out across the snow. I heard the car door open and the demon roar, and I realized too late that I’d failed to relock the back door behind me. I was still crouched next to it in fear; if he checked it, I’d be dead. I wanted to open it again and lock the knob, but the sound of the front door opening told me I was too late; the demon was in the house. I leaped down the few concrete steps to the ground, and ran to the corner of the house. Stepping around meant facing the glare of the headlights, where it would be impossible to hide, but staying here meant he would see me when he opened the back door. I took a deep breath, and ran across the headlights, diving into the shadow of the garden shed.
There was no sound behind me. The back door didn’t open. I cursed myself for being so scared of something so small—of course he wouldn’t notice that tiny button on the unlocked knob, not when he was racing to rescue his wife. A moment later I heard a howl from the second floor, confirming my suspicions. He’d gone straight to Kay, and I might be able to escape after all.
I crept back into the light, furtive and wary, ready to run, and convinced that if he saw me, running wouldn’t make any difference. I didn’t know how much time I had. He might untie Kay immediately, or he might wait until he regained his human shape; he might stay and make sure she was okay, or he might rush back outside to find the person who’d hurt her. I had no way of knowing, but I did know that my chances of getting away decreased with every second I delayed. I had to go now.
I stuck close to the house, walking quickly toward the blinding headlights. I kept my eyes averted, shielding them from as much light as possible, to make it easier to adjust to the darkness beyond. When I reached Crowley’s car I ran out around the far side, away from the house, and crouched by the tire. I could peer over the car and see the front of Crowley’s house: the door hanging open, the upstairs curtains still tightly drawn. I looked out at my own house, a million miles away across the street. Ice and snow surrounded it like land mines and razorwire, waiting to trip me up, or show a footprint, or simply delay me as I ran for the shelter of home. If I could make it across and into my house I’d be safe—Crowley might never suspect I’d been involved—but it was a long way, across an open street. All it would take was a single glance through the window and it would all be over. I braced myself for the sprint . . .
. . . and that’s when I saw the body in the passenger seat.
It was slumped over, below the window line, but in the dim light of the open door I could see him—a small man, half hidden in shadow and a drab woolen coat, lying in a pool of blood.
I sank down to the frozen pavement, numb with shock. I hadn’t stopped the demon from killing at all—I hadn’t even slowed him down. I’d taken too long with the pictures, and with Neblin, wrestling my darkest impulses until it didn’t even matter, and by the time I distracted the demon he had already found a victim, and stolen an organ. He was already regenerated, and all because I couldn’t control myself. I wanted to slam the car door, or shout, or make some kind of noise, but I didn’t dare. Instead the monster inside me, smooth and insidious, crept forward to look at the corpse. In all these months of killings and embalmings, I had still never been alone with a newly dead body. I wanted to touch it while it was still warm, to look at the wound, to see what the demon had taken. It was a stupid urge, and a stupid risk, but I didn’t stop. Mr. Monster was too strong now.
The driver-side door was open, but I was on the passenger side, away from the house, and opened that door quietly. The car was still idling, and I hoped the low rumble masked any noises I made. I pulled open the body’s coat, looking for the slashed abdomen that had become so familiar from the demon’s other victims.
There wasn’t one.
The head was twisted grotesquely, face planted in the seat, but when I peered at it from the doorway, I could see that the throat had been cut, probably by one of the demon’s claws. It was the only wound. The coat was undamaged, and the flesh beneath it felt fine. The blood on the seat and floor seemed to come solely from the neck wound.
What had he taken? I peered in to look at the neck more closely. It was still attached, but the veins and throat had been sliced clean through. Nothing seemed to be missing at all.
Finally, I looked at the man’s face, twisting back the neck and wiping aside the blood and matted hair, and in that instant I almost cried out.
The dead man was Dr. Neblin.
I staggered back, nearly falling out of the car. The body fell slowly back to the side, lifeless. I looked up at the Crowleys’ house in shock, then back at the car.
He’d killed Dr. Neblin.
My mind searched for meaning in the revelation. Was Crowley on to me? Was he already targeting people I knew? But why Neblin, when my Mom was right across the street? Because he needed a male body, I supposed. But no—it was too strange. I couldn’t believe that he knew I was involved. I would have seen some hint of it.
But then why Neblin?
Staring at his corpse I remembered our phone call, and I felt myself grow cold. Neblin had left me a voice mail. I pulled out the phone and dialed it up, terrified of what I knew I would hear.
“John, you shouldn’t be alone right now; we need to talk. I’m coming over—I don’t even know if you’re at home, or somewhere else, but I can help you. Please let me help you. I’ll be there in just a few minutes. See you soon.”
He had come to help me. In the middle of an ice-cold January night, he had left his home and gone into the empty streets to help me. Empty streets where a killer was hunting for fresh prey and finding none, until poor, defenseless Dr. Neblin walked right into his sights. He was the only man in town that the demon could find.
And he’d found him because of me.
I stared at the body, thinking of all the others who’d gone before—Jeb Jolley and Dave Bird; the two cops I’d led to their deaths; the drifter by the lake that I didn’t speak up to save; Ted Rask and Greg Olson and Emmett Openshaw and however many others I didn’t even know about. They were a parade of cadavers, resting inert in my memory, as if they had never been alive at all—a row of eternal corpses stretching back through history, perfectly preserved. How long had this been happening? How much longer would it go on? I felt that I was doomed to follow that row forever, washing and embalming each new corpse like a demonic servant—hunchbacked, leering and mute. Crowley was the killer, and I was his slave. I wouldn’t do it. That row of corpses ended tonight.
The demon hadn’t taken any of Neblin’s organs yet, which meant that any second now, he’d come barging back out of his house, desperate to regenerate. If I hid the body first, he might wither away and die. I grabbed the body by the shoulders and pulled it upright. My gloves slid wetly across the blood from the wound, and I let go abruptly—I was covering myself with evidence. I stepped back, fighting with my paranoia. Did I dare link myself to the crime? I’d been so careful—moving quietly, hiding my tracks, planning for months to keep myself completely distanced from any of the attacks, and from any of my responses to them. I couldn’t throw it all away now.
But was there any other way? Hiding the body was my one chance to kill the demon, but I couldn’t do it without covering myself in Neblin’s blood—if I tried to keep blood off myself, by dragging the body by the feet, I’d leave a trail of blood that would ruin the whole plan. I needed to keep the blood off the ground, and that meant getting it all over myself. I took off my coat, wrapped it around Neblin’s head and shoulders like a bandage, and grabbed him by the shoulders.
A sudden howl from the house cut through the silence. I dropped back, my eyes darting first to the back door, then to the front, back and forth, wondering from which direction the demon would emerge. Mr. Monster, screaming in my head, told me to run, to get out of there, to get away safely, and try again next time. That was the smart thing to do, the analytical thing to do. The demon would live, but so would I. I could stop him eventually without risking anything of my own.
My eyes fell on Neblin. He wouldn’t leave, I thought. Neblin had gone out of his house in the middle of the night, knowing full well that there was a serial killer on the loose, because he wanted to help me. He did what he needed to do, even though it put him in danger. I’ve got to stop thinking like a sociopath. Either I endanger myself, or Crowley kills again. Two months ago, even two hours ago, the choice would have been obvious: save myself. Even now I knew, objectively, that it was the smartest thing to do. But Neblin had died trying to teach me to think like a normal human—to feel like a normal human. And sometimes normal, everyday humans risked their lives to help each other because of the way they feel. Emotions. Connections. Love. I didn’t feel it, but I owed it to Neblin to try.
I grabbed Neblin by the armpits and pulled him toward me, feeling his bloody shirt slap against my coat and cover me in incriminating DNA. There was another howl from the house, but I ignored it, heaving Neblin backward and pulling him out of the car until his legs—still clean of blood—flopped out onto the driveway. The blood stayed on my clothes rather than dropping to the ground, and I gritted my teeth and started to move. The body was heavier than it looked; I remembered reading that dead and unconscious bodies are harder to lift than active ones, because the limp muscles don’t compensate for movement and balance. He felt like a sack of wet cement, ungainly and impossible to carry. I kept his head and shoulders pressed tightly against my chest, my arms wrapped under his armpits and locked across his sternum. Turning my body carefully, I balanced on one foot and tugged on the door with my other, getting it nearly closed before Neblin’s arm fell to one side and his body weight shifted awkwardly. I fell against the car, clinging tightly to the body and trying to hold it straight. No blood had dripped down, at least not yet.
There was a crash from somewhere inside the house, as if Crowley had fallen against something—or shattered it in a fit of rage. I nudged the car door closed and turned farther, until I was fully facing the street, then began backing slowly into the Crowleys’ backyard. I went cautiously, step by step, relying on memory to lead me safely past the neatly shoveled snow without disturbing it or leaving any traces. Step by step. I heard another crash, closer now, somewhere on the ground floor, and gritted my teeth. I was almost there.
I reached the shed and maneuvered Neblin’s legs farther out into the driveway. The shed sat parallel to the driveway, with the door facing the street, so I had always shoveled a walkway in front of it, leading off from the driveway. It was only a few feet long, but it went just far enough for me to step around the far side of the shed and pull the body into the narrow gap between the shed and the wood slat fence. I tugged Neblin in as far as I could go, without poking out myself from behind the short shed, and dropped him heavily in the snow.
The back door clattered, and I held my breath. Neblin’s feet were still stuck out past the front of the shed, though just a few inches. This whole gap was shaded from the still-bright headlights by a wall of snow, so the demon might not see the feet. But if it came looking, if I’d left any kind of visible trail, it would see them for sure.
I held my breath for ages, listening to every sound: the low rumble of the car, the soft ding of the dashboard, the beating of my own heart. The demon took a few footsteps on the other side of the shed, arrhythmic and weak, then stepped or stumbled into the snow. The top, frozen layer crunched under its feet—once, twice, three times, followed again by normal steps back on the cement. He was unsteady and slow. This might actually work.
I listened to the footsteps drag themselves down the driveway: step-stop, step-stumble. I didn’t dare to breathe, closing my eyes and willing the demon to keel over and die, to give up and be done forever. Step-stop, step-pause, step-grunt. It moved slower than it ever had. I stayed perfectly still, afraid to move an inch, and the cold, snow, and bitter air began to take their toll on me. I felt again the same sense of physical breakdown I’d felt when I first discovered the demon, when I’d hidden in the snow at Freak Lake, aware of each slowed heartbeat and faltering sense. My hands and feet were on fire with pinpricks, which faded to a tingling numbness, which faded to nothing at all. My body was like a spent clockwork machine, softly winding down until the last gear turned, the last spring popped, and the whole thing stopped forever.
Balancing carefully, with no good places to put my feet in the narrow gap, I bent down and slowly, imperceptibly, pulled Neblin’s feet back behind the shed. Inch by inch, not making a sound. The footsteps on the driveway continued, halting and agonized. I tucked Neblin’s knees up and quietly—oh so quietly—leaned them against the shed. A black shadow passed across the headlights, filling the fence, and the shed, and the yard behind me with the massive shape of the demon—a bulbous head and ten scythe-like claws, with his heavy coat and pants hanging loosely over his thin, inhuman limbs. I wondered if he’d even had a chance to change back to human form, or if he’d been forced to help Kay like this. He must be very close to death.
I took one delicate step forward, placing my foot carefully, and peeked around the edge of the shed. The demon struggled to stay on his feet, and staggered around the car, claws scrabbling across the paint as he leaned on the hood for support. He worked his way slowly to the passenger’s side, paused for a moment, nearly doubled over, and reached for the handle. As his hand left the car, he lost his balance and fell sideways into the snow, landing heavily. My breath caught in my throat, and my heart, already straining, sped up even further. Was this it? Was it dead? With a pathetic groan, the demon rose to its knees, clutched at its chest, and howled inhumanly. It was not dead yet, but it was very close, and it knew it.
The demon ripped off its heavy coat, and lunged forward, falling against the car. Its huge white claws seemed to glow, and it dug them into the metal, with terrifying strength, to lift itself back upright. A clawed hand reached for the door handle, then stopped in midair. It stared at the car, unmoving.
It had seen the empty seat. It knew its only hope was gone. The demon fell to its knees and cried—not a roar or a growl, but a keening, high-pitched cry.
It was the sound I would ever after associate with the word despair.
The demon’s cry turned to a shout—of rage or frustration, I couldn’t say—and it struggled back to its feet. I watched it take a step back up the driveway, then a step toward the street, too confused to choose, then collapse once again to its knees. It edged forward, using its claws to crawl, and finally fell flat to the ground. I felt like I hung in that moment for hours, waiting for a twitch, or a lunge, or a shout—but nothing came. The entire world was frozen and motionless.
I waited another moment, long and desperate, before daring to take a step out. The demon was inert on the driveway, lifeless as the cement it was lying on. I crept out of my hiding place and inched forward, never taking my eyes off the body. Faint wisps of steam drifted up in the night air. I walked slowly toward it, squinting against the brilliant onslaught of the headlights, and stared at it.
The feeling was peculiar, like a visceral thrill building rapidly to transcendence—this was not just a body, it was my body, my own dead body, lying perfectly still. It was like a piece of art, something that I had done with my own hands. I was filled with a powerful sense of pride, and I understood why so many serial killers left their bodies to be discovered: when you created something so beautiful, you wanted everyone to see it.
It was finally dead.
But why wasn’t it falling apart, I wondered, as the spent organs had always done before? If the energy that kept it together was gone, why was it still . . . together?
A flash of light caught my eye, and my head jerked up. The light had come on in my front-room window. A second later, the curtains were pulled aside. It was my Mom—she must have heard the demon’s roar, and now she was looking for an explanation. I ducked down next to the car, out of the headlights, and just feet away from the dead demon. She stayed in the window a long time before moving away, and letting the curtain fall back into place. I waited for the light to go off, but it stayed lit. A moment later, the bathroom light came on, and I shook my head. She hadn’t seen anything.
The demon twitched.
Instantly my full attention snapped back to the fallen demon, so close I could practically touch it. Its head rolled to one side, and its left arm jerked wildly. I rose up from my crouch and stepped back. The demon flailed its arm again before planting it firmly on the ground and pushing up. It raised its shoulders, head still drooping, then kicked its leg shakily to the side. It wrestled with the leg a moment before giving up and reaching out with its other arm. It was crawling forward.
I looked up just in time to see another light go on—this time in my room. Mom had gone in to check on me, and now she knew I wasn’t there.
Do something! I shouted at myself. The demon pulled itself forward the full length of its spindly arm, then reached out with the other. Somehow it had managed to revive itself, just like it had when it killed Max’s dad. Only this time it didn’t have a fresh body lying a few feet away—the nearest source of organs was me, and apparently it didn’t know I was there. Instead it was crawling . . .
Toward my house.
Its claws dug into the asphalt just beyond the gutter, and it started to pull itself forward again. Its movements were slow, but deliberate and powerful. Every move it made seemed just a little stronger, just a little faster.
Another patch of light, and a burst of movement—my mom had opened the side door, and she stood in its light like a beacon, her heavy overcoat draped over her nightgown. Her feet were shoved into her high-top snow boots.
“John?” Her voice was clear and loud, and had the raw edge I’d learned to recognize as worry. She’d come out to look for me.
The demon stretched another arm forward, emitting an unearthly growl as it pulled itself closer to my house—faster now than before, and more eager. It was leaving black gobs of itself stuck to the asphalt, sizzling with unnatural heat as they decomposed in seconds. Mom must have heard it, for she turned to look at it. It was nearly halfway to her now.
“Get inside!” I shouted, and bolted toward her. The demon’s head jerked up, and it reached out wildly with its long arms as I went past. I ran to the side, giving it wide berth, but it heaved itself up to its feet and lunged for me. I stumbled to the side, and the demon fell, missing me by inches. It slammed back to the street, howling in pain.
“John, what’s going on?” my mom shouted, still staring in horror at the demon in the street. She couldn’t see it clearly from where she stood, but she saw enough to be terrified.
“Get inside!” I shouted again, dashing past her and pulling her into the doorway. My gloves left dark red stains on her coat.
“What is that?” she asked.
“It killed Neblin,” I said, yanking her back into the house. “Come on!”
The demon was back on track, crawling straight toward us with its brutal mouth of luminescent, needlelike fangs. Mom started to slam the door, but I grabbed it and forced it back open.
“What are you doing?”
“We have to let it in,” I said, trying to shove her back toward the mortuary. She wouldn’t budge. “We have to make it easy, or it might go next door.”
“We’re not letting it in here!” she shrieked. It had reached our sidewalk.
“It’s the only way,” I said, and shoved her back. She lost her grip on the door, and tumbled against the wall, staring at me with the same horror she had given the demon. It was the first time she’d taken her eyes off the demon, and her eyes moved across the blood that smeared my chest and arms. The monster inside of me reared up, remembering the knife in the kitchen, eager to dominate her again with fear, but I soothed it and unlocked the door to the mortuary. You’ll kill soon enough.
“Where are we going?” Mom asked.
“To the back room.”
“The embalming room?”
“I just hope it can find the way.” I pulled her with me into the mortuary lobby, flicking on the lights, and hurrying toward the back room. The door banged behind us, but we didn’t dare look. Mom screamed, and we ran for the back hall.
“Do you have the keys?” I asked, shoving Mom against the door. She fumbled in her coat pocket and pulled out a key ring. The demon bellowed from the lobby and I bellowed back, screaming out my tension in a primal roar. It staggered around the corner just as Mom opened the lock. It was practically dripping now as its body fell apart. We burst through the door into the room beyond. Mom ran to the back, fumbling again with her keys, but I turned on the lights and went straight to the side of the room. Coiled in a neat pile lay our only hope—the bladed trocar, perched like a snake head on the tip of its long vacuum hose. I flipped the switch to start it, and looked up at the ventilator fan slowly sputtering to life.
“Let’s hope the fan doesn’t give out on us,” I said, and threw myself against the wall, right next to the open door. Across the room Mom opened the lock and flung the outside door wide, looking back at me in abject terror.
“John, it’s here!”
The demon burst into the room, reaching out for her with claws like bright razors. I swung the humming trocar with all my might straight into the demon’s chest. It staggered back, eyes wider than I’d ever thought possible. I heard the wet slurp as something—its blood, maybe, or its whole heart—tore loose from its half-decayed body, and slid down the vacuum tube. The demon fell to its knees as more fluids and organs were sucked away, and I heard the familiar, sickening hiss of flesh degenerating into sludge. The vacuum tube curled and smoked with the heat. I backed away and watched as the demon’s body began to devour itself, drawing strength and vitality from every extremity to help regenerate the tissues it was losing. The demon seemed to decompose before my eyes, slow waves of disintegration traveling in from its fingers and toes, up its arms and legs, then creeping darkly across the torso.
I didn’t notice Mom come to my side, but through a haze I became aware of her clutching me tightly as we watched in horror. I didn’t hold her at all—I just stood and stared.
Soon the demon was barely there at all—a sagging chest and a gnarled head stared up at me from a man-shaped puddle of smoking tar. It gasped for air, though I couldn’t imagine its lungs were whole enough to draw breath. I slowly pulled off my ski mask and stepped forward, presenting a perfect view of my face. I expected it to thrash out, driven mad by rage and pain, and desperate to harvest my life to save itself. But instead, the demon calmed. It watched me approach, yellow eyes following me until I stood above it. I stared back.
The demon took a deep breath, its ragged lungs flapping with the exertion. “Tiger, tiger . . . ,” it said. Its voice was a raspy whisper. “Burning bright.” It coughed harshly, agony tearing out of every sound.
“I’m sorry,” I said. It was all I could think of to say.
It drew another ragged breath, choking on its own decaying matter.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” I said, almost pleading with it. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”
Its fangs hung limp in its mouth, like wilted grass. “Don’t . . . ,” it said, then stopped in fit of horrible coughing, and struggled to compose itself. “Don’t tell them.”
“Don’t tell who?” asked Mom.
The hideous face contorted a final time, in rage or exertion or fear, and that excruciating voice rasped out a final sentence: “Remember me when I am gone.”
I nodded. The demon looked up at the ceiling, closed its eyes, and caved in on itself, crumbling and dissolving, flowing away into a shapeless mound of sizzling black. The demon was dead.
Outside, snow began to fall.