There were nine houses on Farmington Circle, all cl.u.s.tered near its circular end. Katie had always felt close to her father here. He'd helped build every house on the street, and they stood a testament to the man he had been-quiet, strong, sheltering. She felt protected in their presence.

Now, standing before each of those homes was a perfectly still child clutching a dark red candle, and Katie no longer felt safe.

"I don't get it." Matt shook his head.

She didn't get it either, but she felt a jagged blade of fear sc.r.a.ping its way down her spine. She loved horror-books, movies, music-but the image before her was too spooky, too real.

A darkness comes, child, a single voice said, entering her mind uninvited, as smooth and cold as an icicle.

"What?" she said.

"I said-"

"No. Not you."

Matt c.o.c.ked an eyebrow, made a fist, and spoke into it: "Crazy Katie Bananas, this is Big Daddy Matt, come again? Over. Ksssh."

The blade of fear grew still at the small of her back, its tip piercing her skin with slow, steady persistence.

"Did you hear anything?" she asked, unable to look away from the child.

Matt's brow crinkled like a pile of discarded wrapping paper on Christmas morning. "You okay?"

"Never mind," she said, ma.s.saging her temples. "I don't like this."

"Word up on that, sista. This is either a stupid joke, or everyone on this street is in a weirdo cult. Maybe both. Sure you're okay?"

She nodded. But Katie couldn't shake the feeling that something beyond their understanding, something unnatural-even supernatural-was happening. A big pill to swallow, but the alternative-that she was bat-s.h.i.t crazy-was much bigger, and she wasn't quite ready to gulp that one down.

"Can we go?"

"Yeah, sure."

Matt picked up his candy, and together they walked into the unknown.

Matt crossed the front lawn of his home, his movements bold and purposeful. His footsteps darkened the dew-covered gra.s.s with each step. As he drew closer to the figure he slowed, hesitated, and then stopped a few feet away.

You must run, flee. A darkness comes.

"Matthew," Katie said, tugging on his arm like a toddler trying to get her mother's attention. "Can we please go inside?"

She looked back over her shoulder, half expecting to see an army of porcelain-skinned children creeping up on them, claws and fangs bared. But still they stood, one on each front lawn, blank-faced and unmoving.

"It's fake," Matt declared. He was staring into the black orbs that served as the child's eyes. "Christ, what a bizarre prank." He chuckled like a mad professor up to no good in his la-bor-atory, though Katie knew it was a nervous kind of laughter.

"Matthew, it's real." She wasn't sure why she believed this, because it made no more sense than any other tale this holiday had been built upon, but she knew it was true. She felt it, heard it loud and clear.

"What? Come on! It's fake," he insisted. "Probably a plastic Halloween prop-a weird one-or some wacky j.a.panese candleholder. They never get that s.h.i.t right."

"I'm hearing a voice, something...I don't know, Matt, but I don't like it. We have to go."

"Go where?" Matt said, his confusion fueled by her own. "Isn't this where we were going?"

Behind Matt and his incredulous stare, the child's mouth opened impossibly wide. A panicked squeal escaped Katie's lips. She lurched backward, stumbled over one of Mrs. Hapler's juniper shrubs that adorned the lawn, and landed hard on her backside.

Matt spun around, screamed when he saw the gaping mouth, and defensively swung his candy-laden pillowcase. It slammed into the child's chest. Candy exploded around them. The candle tumbled from the child's grasp, flame flickering to nothing as it rolled across the wet lawn.

In response, the voice in Katie's head sliced through her like a hail of razors, no words, just an agonizing howl-and she howled with it.

The child's eyes cataracted before them. Its statuesque stance faltered, and it crumpled to the ground. A few inches away, a curl of smoke rose from the crimson candle, disappeared into the night like a spirit gone home.

Katie scrambled to her feet, her pillowcase and candy forgotten among the shrubbery.

"Did you see that?" Matt said, nearly screeching the words. "Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick! Did you see that?"

"I saw," she said.

Matt turned around, and Kate watched the color drain from his face like a cartoon character seeing a ghost, as if he were becoming one of the mysterious children.

"Holy G.o.dd.a.m.n c.r.a.p," he whispered.

"I'm okay," she said.

"Not you. Look."

Katie followed his gaze and the blade of fear sliced through her spine, paralyzing her.

A soft orange glow spread across James Rothney's front lawn. There, another child stood, surrounded by the delicate light of a fire-which emanated not from without but from within its body. Its eyes were deep pools of flickering fire, its skin the pink-orange of a midsummer sunset. The child stood at attention, hands dripping with what appeared to be blood. The candle was gone.

Up and down the street, the children stood still as soldiers, sentries burning with an inner flame, like pumpkins.

Like pumpkins...

Pumpkins...

It echoed through the halls of her mind...and then she understood.

Katie had attributed her fear to the mere presence of the children, but all at once the shades of ignorance lifted and the sunshiny rays of realization illuminated her thoughts: The children weren't there to harm them.

Like f.u.c.king pumpkins!

"My G.o.d," she said. "What have you done?"

Katie rushed past Matt, and fell to her knees beside the seemingly lifeless ghostchild. "Help me," she said. "Quickly!"

The child's hands were streaked with red as though it had been freshly crucified, its body tossed aside for scavengers to feast upon. Katie's hand closed around the child's fingers, now paler than before, and a cold river flooded her veins, stomped through her bones like Death marching. She gasped for air.

The voice came again, unbidden as before, with such urgency it threatened to unhinge her sanity.

Darkness! You must flee the darkness, child! They come!

The world around her flickered like an old television transmission. She clenched her eyes tight, and her mind filled with the image of her father, smiling, radiant. He held his finger to his lips, like he had done so many times before when he wanted her to stop talking and just listen. The scene within her mind faded to Bridgetown Pines, as if she were standing in the middle of Farmington Circle with a million compound eyes at her disposal, each one helping piece together fragments of a single scene...

The ghostly procession emerges from the woods, and one by one the strange beings split from the group to stand like watchmen around the homes of the Pines' residents...

Some turn and face the street, while others disappear behind the homes...

They hold out their palms like children collecting snowflakes...

Drops of red fall from the sky, into their upturned hands, and the red rises, rises, rises, until a single flaming teardrop descends from the heavens, burning bright...

Katie and Matt appear at the far end of the street, they linger in front of Samantha's house, and then they're standing before the child on Matt's front lawn...

And then...

And then...

And then the darkness moves...

Thick strips of black break away from the shadows, undulating through the air like heartworms heading for the heart of the world. Bloodcurdling whispers echo down the street as if all the d.a.m.ned souls of h.e.l.l were marching to war, singing songs of deliverance...

The ma.s.s of shadows turn as one...

Katie's eyes jerked open. For a moment she thought she was emerging from a nightmare, safe and sound under a tangle of blankets while the warm sun peeked through the blinds of her bedroom window.

But there was no sun, no warmth, just an icy realization that, if anything, the nightmare had just begun.

"What the h.e.l.l, Katie?" Matt knelt beside her, a look of profound fear and confusion contorting his face.

The sweet smells of myriad candies floated up Katie's nostrils and down her throat, and she had to swallow to keep from throwing up. "What happened?"

"You tell me," he said. "First you're scolding me like I'm two, and then you're grabbing onto this stupid thing, twitching and muttering like a lunatic. What the h.e.l.l?"

"How long was I like that?"

"I don't know. Ten, maybe twenty seconds."

Katie tried to resolve that in her muddled head. How had she seen so much in such a short period of time? She looked down at the child and the vision returned, this time from her own memory. She saw the black things detach from the shadows, twisting through the trees. She saw her father...

Her mind reeled.

She looked toward Samantha's place. Samantha, who had recently lost her daughter-her only child-at the hands of an unlicensed drunk driver. And James Rothney's father had just pa.s.sed, at the age of 101, outliving all his siblings by two decades. Katie's mind moved from house to house. Carmen Langford...husband...lung cancer. Dead. Garret Wilson...son...overdose. Dead. Melinda and Ray Kingsbury, Ian Millhouse, Sarah Forest, Tamara Jenkins...each of them had recently lost family members.

"Unlock the door," she said. "We need to get inside."

"Are you listening to yourself? Jesus Christ! You're going crazy right before my frickin' eyes."

"Now!"

Spurred on by her commanding tone, Matt thrust his hand in his pocket, pulled out his keys, and stepped past her, his face twisted into an aggravated sneer. He made to kick the p.r.o.ne child on his lawn, but seemed to think better of it, and headed toward the house.

Katie turned and watched the child holding vigil on Samantha's lawn down the street. The fire burned strong from within, but then, ever so slightly, it dimmed as if battling a biting wind. The flame shivered and pulsed and faltered to an ember.

Then, slowly, like the awakening of dawn, the small glow within the child brightened, brightened, and brightened more, until it repelled the darkness once again.

As if warding off evil spirits...

As if the vision she saw through the eyes of the fallen child had come true.

Though she couldn't see anything now, she knew that the flickering of light was a battle being waged and that the darkness had been repulsed by whatever force the child commanded.

Darkness comes, she thought.

It was only a matter of time before that darkness got to Matt's house.

Katie crossed the lawn and took all three porch steps in one stride. Inside, Matt pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. He sat down heavily, grabbed a red Granny Smith apple from the centerpiece, and began rolling it back and forth between his hands.

"I need fire," Katie said.

"You need therapy," Matt said, not looking up.

"Shut up and help me, Matthew! We haven't got time."

"Time for what, exactly?" He stared at her, defiant. The red apple rolled to a stop before him like a heart that had ceased beating. "Are you in on this prank-trying to creep me out, scare me?"

"It's not a G.o.dd.a.m.n prank," she said, crossing the kitchen to stand before him. She softened her voice, hoping to calm his nerves. "The thing on the lawn, the child, it's here to protect us-they're here to protect everyone."

"Oh, right. Of course!" He slapped the tabletop. "It all makes sense now."

Katie ignored him. She told him of her vision, the black things, her father, everything, and when she finished she had to admit it sounded downright nutso.

"And you think it's real," he said.

She nodded, ignoring his derisive tone. Crazy-sounding or not, Katie didn't think anything. She knew. Her father had come to her from a place beyond this world, free of disease, free of pain, happy. The children were some sort of avatars or manifest protectors, sent by her father and by the recently-pa.s.sed family members of Matt's neighbors. She knew it with all her heart.

As if reading her thoughts and intent on shattering them, Matt asked: "But what about the Samsons? They're both dead now."

Katie's confidence deflated. He was right. Mr. Samson died two days ago after a short bout with pneumonia; his funeral was being held Tuesday afternoon. Her theory had a gaping hole from which reason bled freely. Matt hadn't lost any family members, either.

Despite her faith, her desire to believe, skepticism of an afterlife-Heaven and h.e.l.l, and all that religious hoo-ha-slammed against her newfound hope.

But she was here, and her father had pa.s.sed. There was that. She wanted to-had to-believe it was possible that her sweet, gentle father was somehow still looking out for her.

Her mind raced and her thoughts ricocheted through her head in a tangled mess of self-doubt.