Winter Moon

Jack told him. "Lots of them out there. And once in a while all of

them are afraid."

"Then it's okay if I'm scared?" Toby said. rmore than okay," Jack

said. "If you were never afraid of anything, then you'd be either very

stupid or me. Now, I know you can't be stupid because you're Insanity,

on the other hand . . . well, I can't be )sure about that, since it

runs in your mom's family." he smiled. Then maybe I can do it," Toby

said. "We'll get through this," Jack assured him. Heather met Jack's

eyes and smiled as if to say, You did that so well, you ought to be

Father of the Year. He winked at her. God, she loved him.

"Then it's insane," the boy said. Frowning, Heather said, "What?"

"The alien.

Can't be stupid. It's smarter than we are, can do things we can't. So

it must be insane. It's never afraid." Heather and Jack glanced at

each other. No smiles this time. "Never," Toby repeated, both hands

clasped tightly around the mug of hot chocolate.

Heather returned to the windows, first one, then the other. Jack

skimmed the tablet pages he hadn't yet read, found a passage about the

doorway, and quoted from it aloud. Standing on edge, a giant coin of

darkness. As thin as a sheet of paper. Big enough to drive a train

through. A blackness of exceptional purity.

Eduardo daring to put his hand in it. His sense that something was

coming out of that fearful gloom.

Pushing the tablet aside, getting up from his chair, Jack said, "That's

enough for now. We can read the rest of it later. Eduardo's account

supports our own experiences. That's what's important. They might've

thought he was a crazy old geezer, or that we're flaky city people

who've come down with a bad case of the heebie-jeebies in all this open

space, but it isn't as easy to dismiss all of us."

Heather said, "So who're we going to call, the county sheriff?" "Paul

Youngblood, then Travis Potter. They already suspect something's wrong

out here--though, God knows, neither of them could have a clue that

it's any-thing this wrong. With a couple of locals on our side,

there's a chance the sheriff's deputies might take us more

seriously."

Carrying the shotgun with him, Jack went to the wall phone. He plucked

the handset off the cradle, listened, rattled the disconnect lever,

punched a couple of numbers, and hung up. "The line's dead." He had

suspected as much even as he started toward the phone.

After the incident with the computer, she knew that getting help wasn't

going to be easy, she hadn't wanted to think about the possibility

they were trapped.

"Maybe the storm brought down the lines," Jack said. "Aren't the phone

lines on the same poles as the power and we have power, so it wasn't

the storm." the pegboard, he snatched the keys to the Explorer and to

Eduardo's Cherokee.

"Okay, let's get the out of here. We'll drive over to Paul and

Carolyn's, call Travis from there."

Heather tucked the yellow tablet into the waistband of her pants,

against her stomach, and zipped her ski-jacket over it. She took the

Micro Uzi and the Korth from the countertop, one in each hand. Toby

scooted off his chair, Falstaff came out from under the table and

padded directly to the connecting door between the kitchen and the

garage. The dog seemed to understand that they were getting out, and

he fully concurred with their decision.

Jack unlocked the door, opened it fast but warily, sing the threshold

with the shotgun held in front of him, as if he expected their enemy to

be in the garage.

flipped the light switch, looked left and right, and said, "Okay."

Toby followed his father, with Falstaff at his side. Heather left

last, glancing back at the windows. ow. Nothing but cold cascades of

snow. Even with the lights on, the garage was murky. It was as chilly

as a walk-in refrigerator. The big sectional roll-up door rattled in

the wind, but she didn't push the button to raise it, they would be

safer if they activated it with the remote from inside the Explorer.

While Jack made sure that Toby got in the back seat and buckled his

safety belt and that the dog was in as well, Heather hurried to the

passenger side. She watched the floor as she moved, convinced that

something was under the Explorer and would seize her by the ankles.

She remembered the dimly and briefly glimpsed presence on the other

side of the threshold when she had opened the door a crack in her dream

Friday night. Glistening and dark. Writhing and quick. Its full

shape had not been discernible, although she had perceived something

large, with vaguely serpentine coils. From memory she could clearly

recall its cold hiss of triumph before she had slammed the door and

exploded from the nightmare.

Nothing slithered from under either vehicle and grabbed at her,

however, and she made it safely into the front passenger seat of the

Explorer, where she put the heavy Uzi on the floor between her feet.

She held on to the revolver. "Maybe the snow's too deep," she said as

Jack leaned in the driver's door and handed her the twelve-gage. She

braced the shotgun between her knees, butt against the floor, muzzle