Hope.

"Break her in first," he said. "Break her in easy."

As per instructions, or rather instructions based on his own suggestions to a boss he was beginning to suspect of either senility or just plain absent-mindedness, Phil occupied the first five hours of his first shift cruising Crick City in the department's patrol-vehicle. It was a decent ride-a new white Chevy Cavalier-with a standard Visibar, cage, Lecco gun-rack, and commo gear. For some hotdog reason, Mullins also had a Smith & Wesson tear gas gun locked in the trunk, plus an AR-15 with what looked like a quality scope-but, of course, no ammo. Phil called in 10-8 with Susan, the snooty dispatcher, then went about his patrol, cruising the local TA's-TA's were private businesses-the few small apartment complexes, and the trailer parks. He also ran by Chuck's Diner, Hulls General Store, the farm supply before they closed, and Hodge's tiny mart, which was the only thing close to a mall that Crick City would ever have. He stayed away from Sallee's on purpose. There's a new cop in town, and I'm sure not going to broadcast that, he determined.

But driving through the town at large filled him with something almost akin to sentimentality. Yes, this was quite different from the city. It was s.p.a.cious, laid back, lazy. Long open roads, rolling hills and meadows, plush woods- So why did he feel so uneasy?

New job jitters, he tried to tell himself. But he knew it was a lie.

It was the memory that he'd been burying for most of his life...

Was the House really out there?

Did it really exist, or was it just something he'd imagined all those years ago?

He'd tried to forget about it-and he had-until...

Until I came back here.

The sedate hum of the engine merged with his resistance-memory was hypnotizing him, seducing him like a t.i.ttering sprite on his shoulder, and then- Christ, no...

-slim shards of the imagery glittered back in the eye of his mind. It was a child's eye, wasn't it? A sputtering, nightmarish bogeyman flashback of a terrified little boy: ...no...

Open doorways.

Slats of sunlight cutting through sluggish darkness.

Then that same darkness...began to move.

He could see things there. Shapes. Moaning. Moving. In the thin tines of sunlight, he could see- People...

Flashes of faces.

Flashes of flesh.

A twisted hand here, a crooked bare foot there.

Squirming o's of mouths opening, closing, gasping. Lines of drool swinging off cleft chins, and tongues struggling like fat pink sea worms between rows of broken teeth. And- ...G.o.d, no...

Phil pulled over onto the shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut against the mudslide of images. His stomach felt shriveled to a prune-sized clot, and pain raged at his temples...

You never saw any of it! he screamed at himself. It wasn't real! It was all hallucination!

But as hard as he tried to convince himself of that, he knew he would never be sure.

Phil went in the back way to change, then popped into the common room. "I-" he began.

Susan, the dispatcher, frowned in dismay. "Your shift doesn't end till eight in the morning," she told him. "What are you doing in civilian clothes?"

"I'm staking out Sallee's for a little while," Phil bluntly replied.

"Oh, yeah? Says who?"

"Says Chief Mullins. You know, for a dispatcher, you're not very well informed."

Her frown deepened. "Well, how can I be informed unless you inform me?"

"I'm informing you now," Phil said.

Susan hesitated, putting up her book. Now she was reading a text called Forensics 1994. "The chief didn't tell me anything about you going undercover to Sallee's tonight."

Phil sighed. Organization, yes sir."Actually, Susan, I'm making the whole thing up. I'm gonna go drink beer and watch strippers on the clock."

"That wouldn't surprise me. Sallee's is probably your kind of place." She paused again, tapping her finger against the lit transmitter. "I don't know about this. I better check with the chief."

"Go ahead," Phil invited. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind at all being woken up at one in the morning by a dispatcher who doesn't even have enough initiative to inquire about any daily SOP changes."

"a.s.shole," she said, glaring through blond bangs.

"Hey, that's my middle name. Look, you go ahead and do what you want. Call the chief, call the mayor and the town council. You can even call the Little Mermaid and Steven Spielberg if you want, but I'm 10-6 to Sallee's."

"Don't forget your radio."

Phil held up the Motorola portable. "What's this look like? A toilet tank cover? Log me in 10-6," he snapped and left the station.

G.o.d, she gets on my nerves! Phil got into his Malibu, updated his DOR, and pulled out. How come she hates me?the question nagged. Sure, he was new, and cop folks routinely took a while accepting new hires, but-Christ, she acts like I p.i.s.sed on her dog. Must be a permanent case of PMS.

Or- Maybe it's me, he considered. Maybe it's my karma or something. Phil could recognize no reason at all for Susan to treat him with such ill-will, but he had to admit women seldom took to him, and he never knew why. He'd had his share of relationships during his time on Metro. Yeah, and they all went bust, with me looking like the heavy. But maybe he was the heavy. The longest one had lasted maybe eight months, and by the end of it they were arguing worse than the schmucks on Crossfire. Be real, Phil, he ordered himself. It was easy to be real about one's self when driving alone at just past 1 a.m. Self-realization, man. There's something about you that rubs women the wrong way. Maybe she's right. Maybe I am an a.s.shole.

On that note, he decided that self-realization might not be the best thing to ponder right now. Why rub your face in your own s.h.i.t if you don't have to? he reasoned. Worry about Sallee's, Natter, the PCP ring-that's what you're here for. Not to bellyache to yourself about why women act like you're the Boston Strangler.

Around the next bend, the great lighted sign flashed: KRAZY SALLEE'S. Gravel popped under the tires as he pulled into the lot and hunted for a strategic place to park. Certainly the beat-up Malibu wouldn't be conspicuous, but some guy parked right up front with a portable police radio would be. He edged into a s.p.a.ce toward the back which afforded a pretty wide survey of the building and the lot.

Plates, he reminded himself. All he wanted to do the first few nights was get a log of all the vehicles that remained in the lot till past closing, descriptions, tag numbers, physical makes on the owners, then compare them at the end of the week and see who the regulars were. He also wanted the tags of any out-of-state vehicles. This would be slow, but slow was the only way to start.

Pickup truck paradise, he thought. Half the vehicles occupying the lot were, unsurprisingly, pickups in various states of bad repair. The rest were equally beat cars like the Malibu, and a smattering of souped hot rods. No, this ain't the parking lot at the Hyatt-Regency, he joked and began jotting down tag numbers with his lit CRP "NitePen." He'd also brought a tiny pair of Bushnell 7x50's with a zoom for the plates out of eyeshot. This didn't take long, which left him with nothing to do but watch blue-jeaned and T-shirted patrons come and go. He guessed last call would come at about one-thirty, then the lot would clear out and he could see what was left. Weed out the louts, he thought. Whoever's still here are the folks to check out.

Boredom set in quick.

Undecipherable C&W boomed through the lot each time someone left. Most who left were clearly drunk, harping about the "hot babes." Many saw fit to urinate between cars before leaving. If I had a nickel for every redneck I've seen p.i.s.s in public tonight, Phil reflected, I could probably fill my gas tank with high-octane. He tried to divert his thoughts, but every time he did, they kept roving back to himself: the topic of the evening.

Working in Crick City would never earn him a silver star, but at least it was a job and one that fit his college and career goals. So he supposed he should be grateful. Beats sudsing fenders at Lucky's Carwash. Despite Dign.a.z.io's frame at Metro, Phil realized things could be worse-a lot worse. It didn't even matter that no one here would ever believe he'd been set up. At least he was working, at least he was getting a paycheck for something more fulfilling than punching a clock at the yarn factory. Lots of people these days didn't have jobs at all.

So what am I moping for?

Like an undertow, then, his thoughts took him back to earlier contemplations. Women. Relationships. I've struck out more times with women than Boog Powell struck out at the plate. Maybe he'd never taken things seriously enough. Maybe he'd taken things for granted. Human compatibility wasn't supposed to grow on trees. It can't all be me, he, well, pleaded with himself. To think so was quite a condemnation, wasn't it? s.h.i.t, he thought. Two more rednecks staggered out of Sallee's. They both relieved their beer-strained bladders before piling into a primer-red Chevy pickup and driving off.

What the h.e.l.l's wrong with me? Phil thought.

Vicki had been his only genuine, long-term relationship. He knew that he'd loved her-he'd loved her more than anything. Only on my terms, he regretted now, and then his thoughts turned mocking. Yeah, the woman of my dreams. Only thing she didn't do for me was change her whole f.u.c.king life. What a d.i.c.k I am.

But why think of this now? Ancient history. This was over ten years ago, and here he was doing stakeout in a redneck strip joint parking lot, and all he could think about was some girl he dated through high school and college, and who probably hadn't thought about him since Three's Company was still on the air.

Get your head together! You haven't been back in town two days and already you've turned into a moron!

Again, he tried to refocus, on his job, on the stakeout. And on Natter. How well had the guy held up over the last decade? Phil had only seen him a few times in his life, and that had been a while back. Must be uglier than ever now, he concluded. Natter was an inbred-a Creeker-yet the man, despite his physical deformities, also spoke with great articulation and seemed keenly intelligent. Was Natter's car here now? And was he himself in Sallee's this moment? These were things that Phil should've considered previously, but he hadn't. It was getting close to two-closing time; the cars in the lot had begun to clear out. Christ, Phil thought. I should have at least asked Mullins if Natter was still driving the same car...

More locals stumbled out, jabbered, and drove away. "Man, that back room's somethin', ain't it?" one frightfully large redneck remarked, expectorating a plume of tobacco juice.

His companion, even larger, did a rebel yell. "Man, those chicks got me all fired up," he replied. "We'se comin' back here ever' night!"

Please don't, Phil thought. They were just stoners, not dope dealers. And what had they said? Something about a back room? I don't remember any back room, Phil thought. They must've expanded the place- Then...

Here we go.

Phil jerked alert and raised the tiny pair of binoculars. Only a few vehicles remained in the lot now, a couple of pickups (one of which looked absolutely ancient) and a fully refurbished '63 Chrysler Imperial, an eerie dark, dark red.

And next, in the building's front entry, a figure appeared. There he is, Phil realized. There could be no denying the ident.i.ty. Faces like that you don't forget, and Phil actually gave a quick shiver when he focused the Bushnell's. Inhumanly tall and thin, Cody Natter stepped out into the lot, dressed in jeans, an embroidered b.u.t.ton shirt, and a black sports jacket. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d must spend a fortune on custom-made clothes, Phil thought. Forty-five-inch inseams weren't easy to come by at Wal-Mart. Slivers of gray looked like webs of frost in the man's shoulder-length black hair-of course, all Creekers had black hair-and they all had red eyes too, irises as red as arterial blood, which momentarily glinted now as Phil squinted on through the binoculars. Then a second shiver traipsed up his spine, like a procession of spiders, when he took his first good, hard look at Cody Natter's face...

It looked runneled, warped; waxpaper skin stretched over a gourd of jutting bone; Phil swore he could actually see veins beneath the thin sheen of skin.

Lips so narrow they scarcely existed formed a mouth like a knife-cut in meat; a sprawl of uneven teeth outcropped from the depressed lower jaw. One big earlobe hung an inch lower than the other, and seemed to depend in a way that reminded Phil of a shucked softsh.e.l.l clam. Several crevices ran across the enlarged brow, deep as gouges made by a wood chisel, and, lastly, the four fingers on each of Cody Natter's hands each displayed an additional joint.

Christ, what a living wreck, Phil observed.

A pair of uppity blondes filed past, short skirts, tattoos, and an excess of makeup. Strippers. They each seemed to bid Natter a downcast goodnight, but Natter did not reply. Instead, he stood just outside the entrance as if in perturbed wait.

Who's he waiting for?

Then another male Creeker came out, limping toward one of the pickups, his forehead so defected it seemed to possess a bolus. And, next- Phil zoomed in.

Three women made their exit, keeping their heads down as they filed past Cody Natter. They were dressed similar to the blondes: high, racy skirts, glittery blouses so tight across their bosoms Phil was surprised the rhinestone b.u.t.tons didn't fly off. They all wore straight, raven black hair shiny as oil, and they all had red eyes...

Creekers, Phil realized.

The realization carried more weight when he recognized more telltale traits, however slight: Misshapen heads, uneven limbs, queerly thin lips. Trace veins could be seen running beneath skin so pale it could've pa.s.sed for white Depression gla.s.s. One woman walked with an obvious impairment, while another seemed to have two elbows on one arm. Natter stopped the third, speaking to her as her scarlet eyes remained leveled to the ground. During this pause, Phil noticed that her mouth was so tiny it was hardly a mouth at all but something more semblant of a puncture.

They've got Creekers working in there, Phil couldn't help but deduce. Creeker girls doing a strip show...He couldn't imagine anything so obscene.

The first two women got into the back of the Chrysler, while the third clopped awkwardly across the lot and got into the dilapidated pickup truck with the second man. The truck pulled out, and was followed by a second pickup, whose tag number Phil had already logged.

What the h.e.l.l is going on here? he wondered.

And what was Natter waiting for?

The tall man remained by the entrance, inspecting inch-long nails on his multi-jointed fingers. Then the front door swung open again. A sleek shadow crossed the entry, high heels ticking on cement, and then the shadow materialized in the pallid yellow light, a curvaceous redhead in a skintight black-leather skirt and black-leather bra. Obviously another stripper, but-Not a Creeker, Phil knew. She looked flawless, and her tousled red hair shined like spun cinnamon silk in the flashing lights of the large bar sign. The stripper paused, coyly tossed her head, then took Natter's arm and got into the Chrysler with him.

A moment later they drove away.

But by then Phil was nearly in shock, nearly in tears, and nearly sick to his stomach.

The thought cracked like a stout bone in his head: My G.o.d...

-because he easily recognized the redheaded stripper as Vicki Steele, the only woman he'd ever been in love with in his life.

Seven.

"Where's the girl?"Jake "The Snake" Rhodes asked the kid with the f.u.c.ked up head.

"She went on inside. Wants to freshen up a tad-you know how gals can be."

Yeah, well, she ain't gonna be fresh for long, Jake promised himself. He was feeling mean tonight.

The kid grinned; you could count the gaps where his teeth were missing. Jake had parked right behind the kid's rust bucket pickup, surprised how long it had taken to get out here. Didn't know the roads went back this far into the hills. The kid drove like a maniac-Jake had barely been able to keep up-and at one point the road narrowed so severely he could hear branches sc.r.a.ping either side of his own pickup, which p.i.s.sed Jake off more than a little. In these parts, it wasn't a man's home that was his castle, it was his truck-in Jake's case, a midnight-blue GMC full-size with slot-mags and about ten coats of lacquer and the last thing Jake needed was some f.u.c.ked up rube road f.u.c.king up his paint. But he was so hot tonight, he didn't pay it much mind. One good thing about dealing dust, the money was so good you didn't worry about your paint job if it got scratched up. I'll just buy another paint job, he concluded, his springs bouncing over the road's deep ruts. And I'll sure as s.h.i.t take an extra piece out of that Creeker girl's a.s.s...

Yeah, Jake was feeling mean tonight, real mean.

Sallee's was a good place to hang out after a gig, have a few beers, eye some p.u.s.s.y, plus sometimes he'd get a line on a good buyer. He'd been there plenty of nights, but this was the first time he'd heard anything about that back room. One look was all it took.

"Well, what'choo waitin' fer, Jake?" said the kid with the knot on his head. "She gonna die of old age 'fore you get up there."

The kid was p.i.s.sing him off; Jake didn't like that wisea.s.s, busted-tooth grin, and he had a mind to slap it right off his f.u.c.ked up face. Of course, that wouldn't be such a hot idea, not back in these parts. Hill folk looked after their own, and- Jake caught something funky "Hold on a sec," he said. "How do you know my name?"

"Oh, we'se know all about'cha, Jake Rhodes." The kid thumbed his overall straps, leaning back against his rusted fender. "If we didn't, then you can bet yer a.s.s you wouldn't be here."

What the f.u.c.k's that supposed to mean? Jake thought. And why did he sense the kid was mocking him? Crickets trilled during the impa.s.se. Then Jake blew it off. These inbreds are weird, that's all. How can they not be, f.u.c.ked up as they are? And the kid said they'd heard of him-they, no doubt, meaning Cody Natter. Maybe Natter had an interest in Jake's "enterprises." Maybe this was his way of suggesting they get together to do some business.

Now there's a thought, Jake considered.

"I'se just funnin' with ya, Jake," the kid told him, grinning away. The knot on his head looked as big as a baseball, and when he scratched his belly, Jake noticed he had two thumbs on his hand. "Just mosey on up and go right in, she'll be waitin' fer ya. She cain't talk much, but she'll suck yer d.i.c.k so hard yer a.s.shole'll inhale. Best head in the county, and a good tumble, too." The kid chuckled, a high-pitched t.i.tter. "Just don't 'spect no rousin' conversation."

I ain't interested in talking, Jake reminded himself. "All right," he agreed. "I'll be done in a spell."

"Take yer time, Jake. Have fun."

Jake left the kid at the old pickup and followed the short, rutted drive. He didn't see any other cars or trucks around, and no people either. The moon hung just over the trees behind him, and up ahead he could see the big house sunk back in the woods against the clearing. Faint amber light glowed softly in the shuttered, lower-level windows. The steady chorus of crickets and spring peepers rushed in his ears like gentle ocean waves breaking on a beach.

As Jake climbed the wood steps to the porch, he thought, Aw, yeah, for at the same time the stripper appeared in the entry and held open the screen door. She'd changed into a frilly white robelike sort of thing sashed at the waist. It was so sheer she practically looked naked standing there, the outline of her body cut sharp as a freshly stropped blade against the lamplight behind her. But when Jake came into the parlor, he saw that the light came from several old oil lanterns. They ain't even got electricity in the joint, he thought. The parlor was stuffy with old furniture, old framed paintings, and old avocado wallpaper that was peeling at the seams. An enormous oval throw rug covered the hardwood floor.