Germ

It was when she was almost at the end of that block that she heard a shoe scraping the asphalt directly behind her.

twenty-seven

The Chevy Vega hitched and sputtered as it came off I-153 and onto Shallowford Road. The houses here roosted close to the street, not large, but well built and warm.

The car slowed as Stephen Parker tried to force the gearshift into second. The gears grinded in protest, then quieted as the lever slid into place. He popped the clutch, sending a plume of oily smoke out behind him, and the car lurched forward. He let up on the accelerator when he sensed he was traveling the posted speed; the speedometer needle had not budged from its peg at zero since Stephen could remember.

He had crossed Missionary Ridge and was watching for Dodds Avenue, which would be coming up in another two blocks or—

A ghostly figure bolted up in the headlights.

Stephen slammed on the brakes, bracing himself against the wheel. The car shimmied to a stop. With startled eyes, Stephen glared out at the apparition in the street.

It was Allen. Seeming as startled as Stephen, he tottered faintly in the whitewashed glare, clenching a filthy beige blanket around him. He came around the passenger side, yanked the door open, and climbed in.

"You can close your mouth now," he said.

"What is this?" Stephen yelled, his voice trembling at the lower end of the chromatic scale. "I almost turned you into road pizza, man! I thought you said the Texaco!"

Allen was unmoved. "I couldn't risk staying there. Probably the first place they'd look. Let's get this thing moving."

"They?"

"Just go."

"Where?"

"Back to your place." Allen looked at him. "That okay?"

"Fine by me." Stephen shoved the stick shift into first, made a U-turn, and gunned it toward the highway. "Who's they? What did you do, Allen? How serious is this, man?"

Cranked around in the seat, Allen watched the pavement pay out behind them. He turned, scanning out the side windows, then glanced again through the back-hatch glass.

"I have no idea who they are, except that one of them floats around like a shadow and has one big, honking gun. As far as I know, I didn't do anything. And it's as serious as life and death gets. Okay?"

"But you . . . I just. . . Man!"

They drove a few miles in silence, and Allen started to relax. He lifted his face upward, resting the top of his head on the seat back, and just breathed. After a few minutes, he lowered his head, looked around as if for the first time, and said, "Nice car."

"Cute blanket."

"Yeah. It was a seat cover in some old Buick. Did you bring the clothes?"

'"Course," Stephen affirmed, nodding toward the back.

Allen pulled the paper bag into his lap and fished out the underwear. He pulled them on; they floated around his middle like bloomers.

Stephen glanced at Allen. What he saw made him look twice. "You look like you just escaped the Chinese Torture of a Thousand Cuts."

"Feels like it."

"Care to share?"

"No."

"Come on, Allen. Here you are naked as a baby seal, cut to shreds, on the run from . . . who knows? Tell me something."

"I need to think it through first, all right? Everything happened so fast, I really don't know what's going on. I'll try to—to be up-front with you. Really."

"Uh-huh."

A few more miles in silence. When Stephen had coaxed the Vega up to speed on I-153, Allen said softly, "Thanks for coming to get me." He never took his eyes off the patch of road illuminated by the headlamps.

twenty-eight

There it was again.

A shoe scuffing the ground. Just a few feet behind her.

Julia lunged forward, tucking her upper body down and throwing her feet over in a somersault that lowered her profile, propelled her away from the attacker, and enabled her to draw her gun in one quick motion. She'd practiced it many times, but this was its first practical application. As her right foot touched ground again, she spun on it, raising her pistol, ready to fire from a squatting position.

No one there.

Just shadows—again.

A Dumpster, fifteen feet away. Trash and weeds cluttered the ground around it. Everything was bathed in the absence of light. Nothing moved except the occasional leaf or corner of some crumpled paper in an unfelt breeze.

But she'd heard it, the scrape. She'd even felt the presence of someone. No one could have hidden so quickly, vanished so completely. She was acting spooked. Acting? She was spooked. Her nerves were frazzled. Of course they were, but enough to make her see predators in the shadows, hear phantom footsteps? She didn't think so.