Haven by Kay Hooper Page B

fainter, and she recognized the pulling sensation that told her she had been here too long.
    She resisted instinctively, because there was still so much to do before she could go, before she could rest.
    But she’d pushed herself too much already, and as he and the forest around him grew more and more distant and blurry until theyfinally disappeared into a cold, gray twilight, she wondered in despair if she would be able to do anything at all to stop the monster when those all around him were oblivious to just how close he really was.

SEVEN
    Jessie didn’t know quite what she felt when she eventually discovered that the old road that filled her with such cold dread led to a shallow creek, on the other side of which was a neat-looking little cabin.
    It had red-and-white-checked curtains hanging in the two front windows. It had a wooden rocking chair on the front porch. It had flowerpots on either side of the front steps. With flowers in them.
    Surely somebody wasn’t living way out here, with no sign of electricity run to the place. No…because the “driveway,” such as it was, would surely show more signs of regular usage. Wouldn’t it?
    She stayed well back, taking what cover she could behind a cluster of slender pines. She still felt cold and deeply uneasy, constantly fighting the urge to get away from this place as fast as she could.
    Weird. Because it looked so damned
normal.
    It looked like some old lady lived there, she thought.
    But it didn’t feel that way. It felt cold and dark and not a place anybody would want to visit. It made her skin crawl unpleasantly.
    Jessie could feel that with her walls
up
; even the thought of lowering them to sense more was so stomach-churning she knew it would be impossible. So she tried instead to use her normal senses.
    She watched. She listened.
    For a long, long time.
    The yard that sloped down to the creek wasn’t exactly neatly manicured, but nor was it choked by weeds; there were patches of red dirt and more than one half-buried granite boulder, but the grass, such as it was, had been cut recently.
    She didn’t see anyone; nor was there a sound coming from the cabin. No car or truck was within her sight, but she obviously couldn’t see the rear of the cabin and whether there was a second drive or roadway leading to it.
    After that long, tense waiting, Jessie finally made herself move. Keeping the same distance between herself and the cabin, which was probably around fifty yards, she began to circle it, crossing the wide, shallow creek with ease and quiet because it was filled with granite slabs that were stable enough to hold her weight and near enough to one another to provide a path across the water.
    On the other side, she found the same sort of ground, with pines and poor soil sporting little else but briars and weeds—until she came parallel to the side of the cabin. Someone, she realized, had gone to the trouble of bringing in tons of rich topsoil at some point, spread so thickly it was almost a sprawling berm, and had then planted the sorts of bushes and trees commonly found in suburban yards.
    It hadn’t been recently done, but she guessed it had been only a few years ago.
    From one side of the cabin, around the back, and—as far as Jessie could tell from her position—wrapping around the other side was this thick layer of rich soil, heavily planted. There were hardwood trees that appeared to her to be at least ten years old, perhaps more. There were azaleas, most past their spring blooming season, and other flowering shrubs. There were beds of flowers separated by a winding footpath of flat slabs of flagstone. There were big garden urns, here and there, planted with flowers, and Jessie could see at least one rustic bench placed to afford the best view of the odd little garden.
    Odd because this place was out in the middle of nowhere. Odd because the single “road” she could see didn’t appear to be used regularly, and yet the cabin was cared for, as was