In the morning, the neighbors would find his truck with the keys still in the ignition, the driver’s door hanging open. They’d find the flashlight on the floor of the Packer house, its batteries corroded, its bulb shattered. They’d find the child’s shoe—size three, red—and they’d wonder whose it was, because no child had lived in Packer’s Corner for fifteen years.
She didn’t know. No one knew.
The thing pointed through the shattered window, toward the tree line. The woods were blacker than the sky, blacker than anything Sam had ever seen. They pulsed like a heartbeat. He-s Out There