Shadowfires. By: Dean R. Koontz

they were so close behind him. Instead, her heart broke into hard

drumlike pounding and her chest tightened as she realized how closely

they had passed by him in the warm desert night.

“He rang the bell, and I answered the door, and he just. . he just.

.. hit me.” Sarah carefully touched her blackened eye, which was now

almost swollen shut. “Hit me and knocked me down and kicked me twice,

kicked my legs. .. remembered the ugly bruises on Sarah’s thighs.

grabbed me by the hair.

Rachael took the girl’s left hand, held dragged me into the bedroom…

“Go on,” Rachael said.

just tore my pajamas off, you know, and… and kept yanking on my hair

and hitting me, hitting, punching me…

“Has he ever beaten you before?”

“N-no. A few slaps. You know. . . a little roughhouse.

That’s all. But tonight.. . tonight he was wild. .. sofull of

hatred.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Not much. Called me names. Awful names, you know.

And his speechit was funny, slurred.”

“How did he look?” Rachael asked.

“Oh God…”

“Tell me.

“A couple teeth busted out. Bruised up. He looked bad.” sHADOwFIRES 4

13

“Yeah. Sometimes it didn’t make any sense at all. And a couple times

he stopped hitting me and just stood there, swaying back and forth, and

he seemed. . . confused, you know, as if he couldn’t figure where he

was or who he was, as if he’d forgotten all about me.

Rachael found that she was embling as badly as sarahand that she was

drawing as much strength from the contact with the girl’s hand as the

girl was drawing from her “His touch?” Rachael said. “His skin. What

did he feel like?”

“You don’t even have to ask, do you? Cause you already know what he

felt like. Huh?” the girl said.

“Don’t you? Somehow… you already know.”

“But tell me anyway.

“Cold. He felt too cold.”

“And moist?” Rachael asked.

“Yeah. . but.. . not like sweat.

“Greasy,” Rachael said.

The memory was so vivid that the girl gagged on it and nodded.

Ever so slightly greasy flesh, like the first 5tagethe very earliest

stageH)f putrefaction Rachael thought, but she was too sick to her

stomach and too sick at heart to speak that thought aloud.

Sarah said, “Tonight I watched the eleven o’clock news, and that’s when

I first heard he’d been killed, hit by a truck earlier in the day,

yesterday morning, and I’m wondenn how long I can stay in the house

before someone comes to put me out, and I’m trying to figure what to do,

where to gb from here. But then little more than an hour after I see

the story about him on the news, he shows up at the door, and at first I

think the story must’ ve been all wrong, but then. oh, Christ…

then I knew it wasn’t wrong. He. . he really was killed.

He was.

“Yes.”

The girl tenderly licked her split lip. “But somehow…

“Yes.”

“How bad?”

“Gray.”

“What about his head, Sarah?”

The girl gripped Rachad’s hand very tightly. “His face.. . all gray .

. . like, you know, like ashes.”

“What about his head?” Rachael repeated. “He… he was wearing a

knitted cap when he came in. He had it pulled way down, you know what I

mean, like a toboggan cap. But when he was beating me.

when I tried to fight back. . the cap came off.”

Rachael waited.

The air in the car was stuffy and tainted by the acid stink of the

girl’s sweat.” banged up,” Sarah “His head was . . it was a said, her

voice ickenin with terror, horror, and disgust.

“The side of his skull?” Rachael asked. “You saw that?”

“All broken, punched in.. terrible, terrible.”

“His eyes. What about his eyes?”

Sarah tried to speak, choked. She lowered her head and closed her eyes

for a moment, struggling to regain control of herself.

seized by the irrational but quite understandable feeling that someoneor

50hingS stealthily creeping up on the Mercedes, Rachael surveyed the

night again.

It seemed to pulse against the car, seeking entrance at the windows.

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