Shadowfires. By: Dean R. Koontz

“Guns,” Ben said when he saw the place. “They might sell guns.”

“We have guns,” Rachael said.

Ben drove to the back of the lot, off the macadamed area, onto gravel

that crunched under the tires, then through a thick carpet of pine

needles, finally parking in the concealing shade of one of the massive

evergreens that encircled the property. He saw a slice of the lake

beyond the trees, a few boats on the sun-dappled water, and a far shore

rising up into steep wooded sloyes.

Your thirty-two isn’t exactly a peashooter, but it’s not particularly

formidable, either,” Ben told her as he switched off the engine. “The

.357 I took off Baresco is better, next thing to a cannon, in fact, but

a shotgun would be perfect.”

“Shotgun? Sounds like overkill.”

“I always prefer to go for overkill when I’m tracking down a walking

dead man,” Ben said, trying to make a joke of it but failing. Rachael’

5 already haunted eyes were touched by a new bleak tint, and she

shivered.

“Hey,” he said, “it’ll be all right.”

They got out of the rental car and stood for a moment, breathing in the

clean, sweet mountain air. The day was warm and undisturbed by even the

mildest breeze. The trees stood motionless and silent, as if their

boughs had turned to stone. No cars passed on the road, and no other

people were in sight. No birds flew or sang. The stillness was deep,

perfect, preternatural.

Ben sensed something ominous in the stillness. It almost seemed to be

an omen, a warning to turn back from the high vastness of the mountains

and retreat to more civilized places, where there was noise and movement

and other people to turn to for help in an emergency.

Apparently stricken by the same uneasy feeling that gripped Ben, Rachael

said, “Maybe this is nuts. Maythe we should just get out of here, go

away somewhere.

“And wait for Eric to recover from his injuries?”

“Maybe he won’t recover enough to function well.”

“But if he does, he’ll come looking for you.”

She sighed, nodded.

They crossed the parking lot and went into the store, hoping to buy a

shotgun and some ammunition.

Something strange was happening to Eric, stranger even than his return

from the dead. It started as another headache, one of the many intense

migraines that had come and gone since his resurrection, and he did not

immediately realize there was a difference about this one, a weirdness.

He just squinted his eyes to block out some of the light that irritated

him, and refused to succumb to the unrelenting and debilitating

throbbing that filled his skull.

He pulled an armchair in front of the living-room window and took up a

vigil, looking down through the sloping forest, along the dirt road that

led up from the more heavily populated foothills nearer the lake If

enemies came for him, they would follow the lane at least part of the

way up the slope before sneaking into the woods. As soon as he saw

where they left the road, he would slip out of the cabin by the back

door, move around through the trees creep in behind the intruders, and

take them by surprise.

He had hoped that the pounding in his head would subside a bit when he

sat down and leaned back in the big comfortable chair. But it was

getting much worse than anything he had experienced previously. He felt

almost as if his skull were . . . soft as clay. . . and as if it were

being hammered into a new shape by every fierce throb.

He clenched his jaws tighter, determined to weather this new adversity.

Perhaps the headache was made worse by the concentration required to

study the tree-shadowed road for advancing enemies. If it became

unbearable, he would have to lie down, though he was loath to leave his

post.

He sensed danger approaching.

He kept the ax and the two knives on the floor beside the chair. Each

time he glanced down at those sharp blades, he felt not only reassured

but strangely exultant. When he put his fingertips to the handle of the