Darkness by John Saul Page B

couldn’t go home—if he did, he’d have to explain why he had the day off.
    And he couldn’t spend the day in town, either. Even if his father didn’t see him, everyone else would, and his dad would be bound to hear about it sooner or later.
    Maybe he’d just head out on the bike and spend the day riding. He had plenty of money—he might even head up to Orlando and go to Disney World. Except he’d been there last year and hadn’t liked it very much. Nothing had seemed real, and while Jennifer had run from one ride to another—screaming about everything—he’d wished he’d stayed home and spent the day by himself, poking around in the marshes.
    Maybe that’s what he would do today. There was a place he knew about, a few miles out of town, where he could hide the bike. There weren’t any boats out there, but there were paths and trails. Yes, that’s what he’d do. Spend the day exploring. And he’d keep his mind on the time, so he wouldn’t be late getting home.
    As he gunned the bike once more, a horn blared behind him. Startled, he automatically glanced into the rearview mirror, expecting to see a car overtaking him.
    Instead, he saw the hideous visage of the ancient man, leering at him.
    Stunned by the image in the mirror, he swerved the bike, realizing almost too late that the car behind himwas now passing. As the car’s horn blasted a second time, Michael jerked the bike the other way. The motorcycle skittered toward the edge of the pavement; then, as the car disappeared around a bend, the cycle slid off the asphalt into the soft earthen bank of the drainage ditch that paralleled the road. The narrow tires began to sink into the mud as Michael struggled to pull the bike back onto the road. Throwing his weight onto the handlebars, he twisted the front wheel around. The bike remained mired in the mud. The rear end rose up, pulled free of the muck, then swung around, throwing Michael onto the ground, the toppled bike beside him.

    The day before, Kelly Anderson had had only a glimpse of Villejeune from the car. Now she realized just how little there was to it. Only a few stores, a café, and the post office with a police station tucked in behind it. A block away she found the school she’d be going to in the fall, which didn’t look like much, either. There were only two buildings, one of which seemed to be a gym, and she didn’t see any sign of a swimming pool. Still, as she wandered around the village she decided she kind of liked it. It didn’t feel at all like Atlanta, but that was all right.
    As she came around the corner, onto Ponce Avenue, she saw the kids.
    There were four of them, two boys and two girls, and the moment she saw them, she felt her guard going up.
    They looked like the kids she’d always avoided back home.
    Hicks, that’s what they looked like.
    Not one of them was wearing any interesting clothes, and the girls both wore their hair in styles Kelly wouldn’t have been caught dead in, like they’d just fallen out of some old beach blanket movie starring Annette Funicello.
    She felt them watching her.
    Maybe she should walk right up to them and demand to know what they were staring at.
    Except that she already knew.
    She’d put on three pairs of earrings that morning, and two sets of cuffs. And even though the weather was hot, she was wearing a black turtleneck shirt and a pair of black jeans that she’d sewn some sequins onto. Back in Atlanta the outfit had looked cool, and not really very weird, compared to what a lot of the kids wore.
    But here in Villejeune she stuck out like a sore thumb.
    Her first impulse was to go home, but to do that she’d have to walk right past the kids. Even if she crossed the street, it would still be obvious that she was avoiding them.
    Making up her mind on the spur of the moment, she turned and went the other way, walking quickly, as if she knew exactly where she was going. Once she was out of the village, and away from the kids who were