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Now.

And he let it go.

And nothing happened.

Vincent opened his eyes.

‘What are you waiting for?’ said Bobby Prescott, coming up behind Vincent. Vincent heard Calvin dragging himself away from Bobby Prescott. ‘Let’s get started.’

Calvin made a small crying sound and reached up to touch Vincent. Maybe to apologize. Maybe just to feel some human contact before he died. The two men and the woman were starting forward. Calvin’s hand groped blindly forward and touched Vincent’s foot.

The touch was like lightning striking. Everybody felt it. The two men gasped. The woman dropped the bicycle. Bobby Prescott said something and stepped back. Calvin closed his eyes, not wanting to watch. He heard the metal scrape of Calvin’s bicycle moving across the ground. Then a strange tearing noise.

And then the Bad Thing happened.

* * *

‘First of all, are you sure Bobby Prescott was there? Are you sure it was him?’

‘Listen, if you’re going to start doubting what I’m saying then we might as well quit now.’ The drugstore girl fumbled in a pocket of her jacket and took out a pack of Camels. ‘Because you really aren’t going to like what comes next.’

‘Okay, okay,’ said the second policeman, glancing at his partner. ‘Let her tell her story in her own way.’

‘It was definitely Bobby Prescott. Right, kid, you saw him?’ The drugstore girl looked at Vincent. Vincent nodded. He shifted on the hard metal chair. It wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t meant to be. This was the backroom of the drugstore where they took you if you were caught shoplifting. They sat you down in these chairs and sat themselves down behind the desk and proceeded to frighten you as much as they could before they phoned your parents. Vincent had been in here once before, years ago, for stealing a gaming paperback. Maybe he’d even sat in this chair.

The girl who worked at the cash register in McCray’s sat beside him now, in the other folding metal seat. The cops were sitting at the desk.

‘So what happened to him?’ said the first cop. ‘Where did Bobby Prescott go?’

‘He made it to the fence in back of the mall. He was real quick.’ said the girl. ‘He got away. He was the only one who did.’ She bent forward as she lit her cigarette and the microphone on the police tape recorder moved on the desk, automatically tracking with her.

‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t smoke,’ said the first policeman.

The girl inhaled a deep lungful of smoke and flashed a look up at him. ‘You’d what?’ The second policeman looked quickly at the first one. Even to Vincent her voice sounded a little funny.

‘Listen,’ said the second cop, ‘she’s doing real good, let her smoke if she –’

But the girl wasn’t letting it go. ‘You’d rather I didn’t smoke?’ she said. She got up from the chair and threw open the office door. The glaring fluorescent light of the drugstore beamed into the dim office. ‘Look out there. Do you see that?’ Immediately beyond the door was the pharmacy section of McCray’s. The first team of cops had taken the body bags away but the wide splashy stains were still fresh all along the floor.

‘Okay, smoke,’ said the first cop, following the girl out of the office. ‘Bobby Prescott gets away. And then what?’ The second cop followed, bringing the tape recorder. He helped Vincent to get up and walk.

‘And then the thing came after them,’ said the girl.

‘Okay. And I guess you’re still saying this thing is –’

The second cop interrupted quickly. ‘We’ll get on to all that later.’

‘It came after them. Walking through here.’

‘Walking?’

‘Sure. You’ve seen it. That head. Two arms. And two legs.’

‘Jesus,’ said the first cop, grinning and shaking his head. ‘I guess when you work in pharmaceutical retail there must be certain perks, huh?’

‘The kid saw it, too. Look at him. He’s shaking. Hey listen, don’t make him look at it again.’

‘Too late,’ said the cop.

Vincent stared down at the drugstore floor. The bodies were gone but the thing was still lying there, motionless, at the point where all the long dark smears converged.

‘It