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"My house" he said, unable to catch his breath "Oh God id "Get in," he said, and reached over to help the ot back froo in there I doan know I doan know" Cale whimpered

Kip turned on the road that would take them to the man&039;s ho to the door and Cale struggled out "Come on, Kip!" he said breathlessly "Please, mon!"

Kip stared at the house The front door had been torn off its hinges and lay against the porch railing Windows had been shattered, the pieces of glass speckling the yard Floral-printed curtains still hung in the remnants of the frarasped at him "Please"

As soon as Kip stepped across the threshold into the house he smelled it: the reek of blood and above that another s flesh

Cale pushed ahead of him and started down the hallway The"NORA!" he called out suddenly, his voice tre But he did not move, even as Kip reached him and put a hand on his shoulder

"There," Cale said, pointing a finger

Kip&039;s eyes followed his finger, and he froze in horror at what he saw

On the floor, a that at one tilistened The eyes were gone, as was the nose, and the teeth seemed oddly white and perfect in the res there were innumerable sickle-shaped wounds, where hunks of flesh had been ripped away right down to the bone Bites, Kip thought suddenly Rat bites There was nothing left of the throat; it had been peeled and stripped away down to the spinal cord, all the veins brutally torn The body lay in a clotted, wine-red ooze Cale choked and turned away, staggering for the door but unable to keep froth to control the wave of nausea that surged inside him, but he felt dizzy and off-balance

When the sickness had passed he forced hio into the bedroom Thehad been broken open; in one corner of the room there was a blood-matted sheet, and droplets spattered the roped in the corpse&039;s rear pocket and found a wallet He opened it and looked for identification

Johnny Majors Jesus Christ in Heaven!

"WHERE&039;S MY WIFE?" Cale asked, wiping his mouth, his eyes swollen and heavy-lidded "Where is she?"

"I don&039;t know," Kip said, surprised at the hollowness of his own voice One of the nawed or broken from the wrist, exposed bones licked clean

"WHAT DID THIS?" Cale screa at the corridor wall

Kip bent to the floor, swatting at flies that whirled around the body There were boot ht the tre the corpse with the sheet and struggling to control himself, he quickly ainst the hood of the jeep Cale calazed and lost "Where&039;s Nora?" Cale said hoarsely, in a voice barely audible "What happened to her?"

But Kip hadn&039;t heard He was staring off into the jungle, not really knohat he was seeing; at last his etation had been crushed in a path that led away froe, he saw the impression of a boot in the still-daain, "Where&039;sthe path of crushed thorns and snapped vines

Every few feet there were drops of blood, and ahead the pathway turned through a grove of dead, rotting trees He followed it for perhaps twentyalone and without a weapon, but still, he was corowth of thorns, he saw he had coreat houses, a square slab of a structure over which dead trees hung in a tangle of shriveled branches The roof had collapsed into the second floor, and black timbers protruded froed, its supports fallen away, and vines crept along the gray, weather-battered wood

And here the boot marks ended

In the distance a bird shrieked sharply, then was silent Kip looked around, found a branch he could use as a club if necessary, and walked toward the concrete stairs leading up to the massive doorway There were more droplets of dried blood; Kip stopped just in front of the door, listening, but he heard nothing He tightened his grip around the club and kicked the door open; it swung out, ripping off its hinges and falling to the bare floor with a loud, echoing crash Kip stepped into the cold da as he saw the puddles of blood and a bloody sed He stood in a huge, high-ceilinged roo off on all sides; a wide stairith a broken banister reached the second floor before pluh the holes above

Heone of the halls, the club held up before hi the way A few feet farther and so for the safety of a hole He pulled his ar a cry, and waited until his pulse had cal the corridor At his feet there werehim into another roo back et out of here before it&039;s too late! But then the next step brought him into the room, and the terrible stench of rot choked hi the floor, there were square s, devoid of glass, froh theht

A body lay on its back in a corner

Kip ritted against the stench

It was not the corpse of Nora Cale It was a skeleton from which almost all trace of flesh had fallen away; it wore the tatters of a uniforus like the cloth Turk had clutched in his death-grip - and its ar either death or mercy or perhaps both Kip stared down into the e his practical, trained resolve seep away

It was ht; the real world was a place of boundaries, of blue sea and sky, green jungle, clapboard and stucco buildings, flesh-and-blood people There was no Dae But as this, then, this skeleton in the res that lurked beyond the edge of the fire; all his life he had tried to reach a balance, to make reality his base and core But that central part of him, hidden from all others and often even from himself, did believe It had faith in the sas that sucked life fro cold steel scythes, that stood in shadows and regarded the world of light through hooded eyes

And now here this dead thing lay, ht up with it, collapsing its bones and flesh with a touch of sea air Kip backed away from it; he had seen s had taken whatever was left of the woman with them NO! NO IT CANNOT BE! Yes, the voice whispered, the voice of his "uncle," his teacher, yes, it is true remember the forces of a man live on after death after death after death after death

These things that he had feared all his life, that he had buried at the back of his mind, were real

And suddenly the brick wall he had built inside hiroeak and useless, and the howling dark forms swept over him