"What?"

He kissed her, tasted her, reveled in her.

"I need to know...if you're still in love with...with...Vicki," she finished.

"No. I'm not," he promised her, and it was no lie. If he was in love with anyone, if he ever could be in love with anyone, it was with Susan.

"I swear," he said.

They made love for hours. It was beautiful. She explored him as he explored her, in every manner thinkable, by every position they could devise. Time and time again, they spent themselves with one another...

But- Phil, now becloaked by the fervid memories, felt around in the bed.

Where is she now?

Did she leave? Did she go back to her own room while he slept? Or- Oh, no.

Had he talked in his sleep? It was something he knew he did. It was something past lovers had made him well aware of. All too aware.

Had he muttered Vicki's name in his sleep?

Jesus, don't let it be so.

He couldn't imagine it.

Despite the happenstance of the other night, Vicki meant nothing to him compared to Susan. He still cared about her, yes, he still wished her well and hoped that she could shed her addictions and make something good for herself, but...

He didn't love Vicki. He knew that.

I love- He got up, wrapped a towel around his waist, and rushed out of the bedroom, then sighed and leaned gratefully against the wall.

There she was, back in the long nightshirt.

Thank G.o.d.

She sat placidly at his cheap little desk in the den, her legs crossed. She was reading.

Phil came up from behind, kissed her on the neck. "Good morning," he said. "Or I should say, to those of us on night shifts, good afternoon."

She kissed him back very matter-of-factly, as though it were something commonplace, something expected. Something purely and honestly natural.

"What are you reading?"

"These books you got out of the library," she said. "They're really interesting."

"Yeah, I know. I was reading some of them last night. It's bizarre, but a little too technical for me; a lot of that genetic stuff went right over my head."

"It says here that there are inbred communities in some parts of the world that are hundreds of years old. They're rural or mountain settlements, completely cut off from the rest of the world for centuries. And it makes for a completely isolated gene pool. The inbreeding becomes so intensive that normal births almost never happen. It mentions one settlement, somewhere in Russia, where there hasn't been a normal birth since the early 1800s."

"And it's all exponential," Phil remarked from what he remembered reading himself. "Not only does the rate of normal births decline the longer the gene pool remains isolated, but the genetic defects become more severe. One of those books has pictures, but don't look at them if you're squeamish."

Susan clearly wasn't. She turned to the book with color plates. "Look at this, red eyes. Just like the Creekers."

"Evidently, red eyes and jet-black hair are typical genetic signs of prolonged inbreeding," Phil told her.

"Prolonged," Susan repeated in a low murmur. Then she glanced up at Phil. "I wonder how long Natter's Creeker clan have been inbreeding among themselves."

"Who knows?" Phil replied. "Maybe centuries."

Eagle looked haunted when Phil met him at the bar.

And Phil knew why.

"Hey, Eagle." Phil ordered a beer from the keep, glanced back at the stage to spy a trim, long-legged blonde doing splits. "You ever get ahold of Blackjack?"

"No, man," Eagle morosely replied. "And lemme tell you something else. I haven't been able to get ahold of Paul either."

"Don't fret it. He probably just went out somewhere."

"All f.u.c.kin'day? When he knows our points are waiting on that pickup? This is serious biz, Phil. I tried to get Paul on the phone for hours, and there was no answer. So then I went to his place...

"Yeah?"

"The whole joint was busted up, looked like there'd been a riot in there."

Phil smiled to himself.

Eagle went on. "His truck was there, but he wasn't. What do you make of that s.h.i.t?"

"Doesn't sound too good," Phil said, sipping his Bud. "But maybe we're worrying a little too soon."

"s.h.i.t, man," Eagle objected. "I told you, his joint was wrecked. s.h.i.t layin' all over the place, furniture busted."

Don't worry, it was crummy furniture. "I catch your drift. Blackjack disappears, and now Paul disappears."

"I just don't like it- And Paul's a big guy, strong as an ox. Probably took four or five guys to drag him out of there."

Phil smiled to himself again. No, just one. "Well, look," he suggested. "There's no point in us just hanging around here doing nothing. Have you been by Blackjack's place?"

"No, I only tried to reach him by phone."

"All right, then let's drop by, see if his pad's busted up like Sullivan's. And, who knows? Maybe the guy'll be there. Maybe this isn't as bad as we think."

"Yeah, I guess it can't hurt."

They left Sallee's and hopped into Eagle's pickup, then followed the hot night north up the Route. "So where's Blackjack live?" Phil asked.

"The boonies. He's got a shack up in the hills."

Phil cranked down his window, let the breeze sift his hair. But as hard as he tried to keep his mind on business, the more his thoughts kept trickling back to Susan.

Do I love her? he asked himself. It took all of about a half-second to conclude that he did.

Does she love me?

Well, it might take a bit more than a half-second to determine that.

But at least I've got my work cut out for me.

They'd made love one more time before he left, slow, lazy love right there on the floor of his den. Each time with her was better, and each time he looked at her, or even thought about her, the more beautiful she was.

My G.o.d, it just occurred to him more powerfully. I really am in love...

"Keep an eye out," Eagle instructed. He'd just turned up another long dirt road through the woods. The headlights pitched back and forth over interminable ruts. "We're in hillfolk country now. They don't take too kindly to folks driving their land."

"Blackjack's hillfolk?" Phil asked.

"Sort of. And he's big and nasty, so if it turns out that he is there, don't cross him."

"Got'cha."

Phil didn't know anything about this guy Blackjack, but whether he was in or not, knowing where he lived was something he could follow up on later, and if Blackjack really had been whacked by Natter-all the better. Phil could go through his place on his own, and maybe find an address book or something with more names and info. Best of all, busting Sullivan was keeping Eagle on pins and needles-the guy looked absolutely paranoid behind the wheel-and the more discreet pressure he could keep on Eagle, the better.

I'll get what I want eventually, Phil felt sure.

The roads narrowed as they progressed, and the woods grew denser and darker. They pa.s.sed a couple of old shacks and lean-tos, and several ragged trailers up on blocks. Mucous-like spiderwebs hung like glistening nets in the trees; every so often the headlights picked out the orange glints of possum eyes. Creepier still was the mist; it had rained earlier, but the rain had just been a quick drizzle. Now the hot night sucked tendrils of fog out of the damp woods. It wafted up like steam.

Suddenly, everything looked remote, unearthly...

And Phil began to feel weird.

He knew what it was. The decrepit scenery was triggering memories, taking him back...

To that day. And- The House.

"Hey, Eagle," he asked, wiping sudden sweat off his brow, "how's your Uncle Frank doing?"

"All right. He retired. Moved to Florida." Eagle cast him an odd glance. "I'm surprised you even remember him."

"Oh, I remember him. And the spook stories he used to tell us. Remember? He was always warning us not to go into the woods, that there were 'things' in the woods that kids shouldn't see. And remember what we overheard him saying one night? You remember that story?"

"Which story? Frank had enough bulls.h.i.t to fill a couple of fifty-five-gallon drums."

Phil rubbed his face. "You know. The story about the big old creepy house way back in the woods-"

"Oh," Eagle livened up. "The Creeker wh.o.r.ehouse."

"Yeah. You believe it?"

"You're s.h.i.tting me, right? It's just an old local legend. Frank liked to push that one 'cos he liked to scare the s.h.i.t out of us."

And Frank did a good job.

"So you never really thought it could be true?" Phil queried.

"Maybe when I was a ten-year-old snot-nose punk, but not now."

"But it could be true, couldn't it? I mean, what's so unheard of about it? Christ, Natter's got Creeker girls stripping at Sallee's. And they're all hookers, too. Wouldn't it make sense that they'd have a house to work out of somewhere?"

"And you must be smoking dust," Eagle laughed. "Those girls are roadside wh.o.r.es, Phil. They turn their tricks in the parking lot. The Creeker wh.o.r.ehouse was just a bogeyman story, that's all."

"I don't know." Phil was sweating profusely now; he was jittery. His voice filtered down. "I think I saw it once."

Eagle gaped. "Now I know you've been smoking dust. What, you're telling me you saw the Creeker wh.o.r.ehouse?"

"Yeah. At least I think I did. It was back when we were kids. Remember how we used to prowl the woods every day when school was out?"

"Sure," Eagle said. "s.h.i.t, we'd find all kinds of stuff in the woods. Old shotgun sh.e.l.ls, beer, p.o.r.no mags."

"Right. And there was one time when you got grounded for beating up on your brothers, so I went by myself that day. And I got lost..."

Twenty-Two.

Yes, ten-year-old Phil Straker got lost...

The woods were a tangled maze, as terrifying as they were mysterious in their heaped detritus, skeletal branches, and dense hanging vines. Then he'd stumbled upon the little Creeker girl, her big red eyes staring at him through ribbons of black hair. Phil was afraid at first-he could see her deformities: the misshapen head, the uneven joints, and the wrong number of fingers and toes. Plus, he'd never forget what Eagle had told him-that the Creekers had teeth like Kevin Furman's bulldog, and sometimes they'd bite you if you got too close...

But that was stupid. Phil could tell right off that this girl, though he hadn't seen her teeth, wasn't going to bite him. His fears dwindled away in seconds. She was like him; she seemed fascinated. In chopped speech, with her fallen hair puffing in front of her mouth as she spoke, she told him her name was Dawnie.

Then the voice cracked out of the woods, calling her home, and she quickly ran away.

But Phil didn't want her to leave. So- He followed her.

And was lost again in minutes. The dank woods seemed to swallow him whole. The sun beat down through the trees like a hot hammer; sweat drenched his Green Hornet T-shirt till it stuck to him. As his Keds crunched on through the brush, bugs buzzed around his face and shoulders, biting him as he vainly swatted at them with frantic hands.

And just as he feared he'd never get out, the forest opened up into a clearing where high sun-baked brown gra.s.s rustled in a dead, hot breeze.

And that's when he saw the House.