Jerk says that Tom could cut me some slack.

"I'm not complaining," I say. "I'm just -" But I can't think of what to say, so I squint up between the boughs and I don't say anything.

We are climbing up the hill now. Down on the road I can hear someone honking a horn. They honk it twice. Maybe they saw someone they knew, or maybe once just wasn't enough.

The dead trees are all around us, and the slope is increasing. The circle from Tom's flashlight wobbles ahead of the two of them. Their silhouettes block the light. Bongo skitters between them. They are talking quietly. I feel very alone in back of them, in the darkness, while they walk together with their secret jokes. I keep picturing white fingers closing on my shoulders.

In a few minutes, the hill gets steeper. The trees on the summit are low and barren. The water tower hangs above us on its daddy longlegs.

Through the twisted trees we can see down into the valley. We can see the lights of the town center and the black waters of the reservoir. On three distant hills, three radio towers wink, gently soaking the valley in silent soft rock.

I turn from the view and see that Tom and Jerk are looking expectantly around, as if they actually thought they'd see a vampire on the bare hilltop. It is not the worst place to catch a vampire. The trees are so low and brittle and the sky so close that it looks like a devil's orchard.

"Here we are," I say. "I guess we just came on the wrong night. Can we go?"

Tom narrows his eyes and says carefully, "What's the matter? Why are you so down on this?"

"Because it is stupid," I say. "What would you do if you met a vampire?" The wind picks up all around us. "You know, vampires have the strength of ten men."

"Ten?" says Tom.

I shrug. "It was an estimate."

"Which ten?"

"I said it was an estimate."

The pale trees are shivering.

"Oh, Jesus Christ, Tom," I say. "This is just stupid."

"If this is so stupid," says Tom pointedly, "why are you out here?"

I scramble for an answer. Tom is staring at me, shining the light in my eyes. I raise my hand to block the light out of my face. I wonder if he's looking at my mouth.

"Hm?" Tom prompts.

I gabble lamely, "I'm - I'm a victim of peer pressure."

"What?" says Jerk.

"Shut up," says Tom. He has turned and is walking away through the squat trees. He says, "We're sick of your complaining."

Now the wind is very violent on the hilltop. The dead branches are clacking together.

Tom and Jerk are running away from me. They are leaving me alone in the night.

I run to catch up with them, but I am too slow. They are hopping by strides through the trees.

I dash as quickly as I can through the creaking branches. The branches tear at me and I can't see well - my night vision has been blotted out by Tom's flashlight. I can hear them ahead of me, and Bongo I see a couple of times, flying one way or another.

I am completely alone now. That is what I realize. Tom and Jerk must hate me. Even if Tom is just playing a stupid joke and does not realize how close he has come to the truth, to my secret, this trick, this dumb trick, shows he can't be trusted. Whatever happens to me, I can't tell them now.

I catch glimpses of light in front of me. I can't tell if it's the flashlight or the headlights of some car, prowling on the dark road below.

I stop and listen.

Everything is silent, except the wind in the trees. It rocks them gently.

Something scurries through the woods above me, back toward the hilltop. I think it is a falling branch or some other piece of forest detritus.

Now I can see the trunks of trees. My vision has improved. I can see the tree trunks standing.

I stand there in that groping wood. I try to get my bearings.

Pushing at the bracken, I head down toward the base of the hill.

There is someone behind me, stalking through the woods.

"Tom," I call. "Jerk."

But there is only one person, one pair of footsteps, and it has sped up now that it has heard my voice. There is no answer. Just a quick walking.

I turn; I run. I'm lost in a choking nest of firs. I keep brushing them out of the way. There are more.

The Thing with the One-Piece Hair. It must be the Thing.

I look behind me and see it pacing down the hill, chasing me. Branches rake across its dead flesh, but it doesn't push them out of the way. Some of them snap off against its face. It has its eyes locked on me and does not blink.

I am scrambling through underbrush, and sticks jam against my arms, and I am all alone in the echoing forest with the Thing.

It keeps walking toward me, with its arms hanging at its sides. I can hear it, and while I am hopping through the bracken and the broken trees, its steps are perfectly rhythmic.

"Help!" I am screaming as loud as I can. "G.o.d, will you help! Help! Help! Help! No!"

The ghastly emptiness of the forest, the miles and miles of hikeable trail, the lonely roads, no relief I can think of - And then I hear its voice. It speaks not in one voice, but in the voice of a congregation, with the voices of women and men together, calling as one, "Stop. Do not run. That will mean more pain for you. Running will mean more pain. Stop."

I look back, and it is not far behind me, just the length of a bus, except that buses don't go through the woods; and it is stretching out its sluggish arm toward me - and it calls a strange word - And as if in a dream, I cannot move except in slow motion. My foot rebounds against the ground - I push myself off and creep forward through the strangling air.

The Thing is walking closer.

I grab on to trees and try to pull myself along. "G.o.d!" I try to scream, but the air is as thick as Jell-O in my lungs. I feel it purging outward, slow and thick as phlegm. I am mute. I am trapped in an arc, both my feet off the ground.

The Thing steps over a tree trunk.

I feel the ripple as my heart beats once.

The Thing raises its hand. It looks for a moment at its blunt, dusty fingers. And then the monster's cold flesh wraps around my wrist.

Suddenly, time is real again.

I scream at the top of my lungs.

It looms its face in mine, like a bird studying its prey. Its mouth is frowning, and it does not breathe.

It whispers in the voice of a hundred hissing, "You are foolish for running. You will be heard, and things will be harder for you."

It stares at me, its dead face full of glazed anger.

"Now," it grunts.

It raises its hand, as if to strike. I cower.

"Back off from the boy," says Chet, who has walked into the clearing.

The Thing with the One-Piece Hair swivels its head to look at him.

"He is mine," Chet the Celestial Being explains, his voice hard. "Get away from him. Get away. Step away."

The Thing releases me. Chet nods slowly.

The moon shines down into the clearing. The trees are old and elegant. For a moment, the three of us stand there and regard one another.

Then Chet the Celestial Being slams his hands together and a bolt of blue fire shoots out and blasts the Thing.

There are just the two of us then.

Chet's bolt has left behind not so much as a smoldering toupee.

"Come on," says Chet. "It will take him twenty minutes or so to rematerialize. By that time we want to be in my car, where he can't track you."

"You have a car?" I ask.

"Special issue," Chet explains, gesturing down the hill. We start to walk. "For the transfer of mortals. It's time we moved along to the next stage of the plan. I've spent the last few weeks retrieving the Arm of Moriator from where it was stored. We're going to the convocation of vampires. The heart of things. Now. No time to lose."

We run down across through the woods. We climb over a stone wall. The moon picks out each tanning lichen on the stone.

"What was that?" I ask. "That Thing?"

"What did it look like?" says Chet.

"A servant of Tch'muchgar?" I guess. "You know, some demon?"

"Exactly."

"It's been watching me for days."

"Tch'muchgar probably wanted to see what you were up to."

"Then doesn't he know that I'm not on his -"

"Look, we don't have time to discuss this now," Chet chides, stopping in his tracks. "Do you want me to put a sign of protection on you?"

"What?"

"I can place my sign on you, my sigil, which will mark you and protect you so that the Thing you saw back there and others like it can never harm you. I can place the sigil on you now, which can never be removed. Would you like that?"

I am feeling a little nervous about all this. "Well," I say.

"I can do it right now." Chet lifts up my right arm. "I'll place the sign here." He turns over my wrist and touches a spot just below my watchband. "All right?"

I look up at his face. I feel nervous, like the blood is running out of my fingers and arms. I nod.

He closes his eyes and mutters to himself. When I look down, there is a red mark there, a red sunburst like a tiny tattoo.

He releases my arm, which swings down to my side. "There," he says. "You're protected. Marked. That beast we just saw can't touch you. No being like it can touch you. Satisfied?"

Once again, I look up at his face. My fingers are cold. I nod.

"Hurry up then. We have no time to lose." And he plunges off into the forest.

We come out on one of the roads. Chet has an infallible sense of direction. His car is right there, a black Cadillac, sitting dark on the shoulder of the road. I have heard of the black Cadillacs that travel about the country on strange errands.

"This is it," he says, his brogues clicking across the pavement.

I say, "I'm glad to see the Forces of Light drive American."

"It's a piece of junk," says Chet. "Late eighties. It doesn't even have antilock brakes. Is that your friends?"

It is. They're running out onto the road.

"Hey, Chris," bellows Jerk. "You okay?" He rubs his hand through his mossy hair.

They're walking over to us.

"I'm fine," I say.

I look nervously at Chet the Celestial Being, but he is keeping his celestial cool. He extends his hand and says, "Hi. I'm Chet, a friend of Christopher's parents. Nice to meet you."

"Horatio," says Tom, shaking Chet's hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Horatio," says Chet.

"I'm Michael," says Jerk. "But my friends call me Jerk."

"They . . . ? I see." Chet strides to the side of the car. "Well, it was very nice to meet you both. I was just about to drive Christopher home."

"Oh," says Jerk, delighted. "If it wouldn't be a real problem, could you, like, drop me back at home? Me and my dog?"