The Chase Page 0,12

perfunctory at each house. The sky was now midnight blue and the light had gone. She didn't know why, but she was starting to feel anxious.

"Let's stop here," she said when there were still three more houses to go. "I think we should be getting back now."

The midnight blue slowly turned to black. The streetlights seemed far apart, and Jenny was reminded suddenly of the little islands of light in Zach's nightmare. A nightmare where a hunter had chased them through endless darkness.

"Hey, wait up!" Audrey protested.

Jenny grabbed her arm. "No, you hurry up. Come on, Audrey, we have to get back to the car."

"What do you mean? What's wrong with you?

"I don't know. We just have to get back!" A primitive warning was going off in Jenny's brain. A warning from the time when girls took skin bags to get water, she thought wildly, remembering something she'd sensed with Julian. A time when panthers walked in the darkness outside mud huts. When darkness was the greatest danger of all.

"Jenny, this is just so totally unlike you! If there was anything to be scared about, I'd be scared of it," Audrey said, resisting as Jenny dragged her along. "You're the one who always used to go off into the bad parts of town-"

"Yes, and look where it got me!" Jenny said. Her heart was pounding, her breath coming fast. "Come on!"

"-and I hate to tell you, but I can't run in these shoes. They've been killing me for hours now."

The flickering streetlight showed Audrey's tight Italian pumps. "Oh, Audrey, why didn't you say something?" Jenny said in dismay. Something made her jerk her head around, looking behind her. Something rustled in the oleanders.

Where everyone else only sees a wind in the grass, or a shadow...

"Audrey, take your shoes off. Now!"

"I can't run barefoot-"

"Audrey, there is something behind us. We have to get out of here, fast. Now, come on!" She was pulling Audrey again almost before Audrey had gotten the pumps off. Walking as fast as she could without running. If you run, they chase you, she thought wildly. But she wanted to run.

Because there was something back there. She could hear the tiny sounds. It was tracking them, behind the hedge of overgrown bushes on her right. She could feel it watching them.

Maybe it's Cam or one of the other kids, she thought, but she knew it wasn't. Whatever it was, she knew in her heart that it wanted to hurt them.

It was moving quickly, lightly, keeping pace with them, maybe twenty feet back. "Audrey, hurry___"

Instead, Audrey stopped dead. Jenny could just make out her look of fear as she stood, listening.

"Oh, God, there is something!"

The rustling was closer.

We should have run for a house, Jenny realized. Her one thought had been to get to the car. But now they had passed the last houses before the school grounds, and Audrey's car was too far ahead. They weren't going to make it.

"Come on!" Don't run don't run don't run, the hammering inside Jenny said. But her feet, clammy in their summery mesh loafers, wanted to pound down the sidewalk.

It was gaining on them.

It can't be a persona person would show above those hedges, Jenny thought, casting a look behind her. Suddenly Jenny's brain showed her a terrible picture: little Nori scurrying along spiderlike behind the bushes, her face contorted in a grimace.

Don't run don't run don't run ...

The car was ahead, looking black instead of red in the darkness beyond a streetlight. Jenny seemed to hear eerily rapid breath behind her.

Dontrundontrundontrundontrun ...

"Get the keys," she gasped. "Get the keys, Audrey-"

Here was the car. But the rustling was right beside Jenny now, just on the other side of the hedge. It was going to come through the hedge, she thought. Right through the hedge and grab her... .

Audrey was fumbling in her purse. She'd dropped her shoes. Jenny grabbed the car door handle.

"Audrey!" she cried, rattling it.

Audrey flung the contents of her purse on the sidewalk. She scattered the pile with a desperate hand, seized the keys.

"Audrey! Get it open!" Jenny watched in agony as Audrey ran to the driver's side of the car, leaving the contents of her purse scattered.

But it was too late. There was a crashing in the hedge directly behind Jenny.

At the same moment a dark shape reared up from the shadows on the sidewalk in front of her.

Chapter 5

Jenny screamed.

Or got out half a scream anyway. The rest was cut off as something knocked