Off Season - Jack Ketchum [0]
“Ketchum has become a kind of hero to those of us who write tales of terror and suspense. He is, quite simply, one of the best in the business.”
—Stephen King
“Ketchum writes with economy and power, in sentences that tighten like noose wire.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Ketchum [is] one of America’s best and most consistent writers of contemporary horror fiction.”
—Bentley Little
“Just when you think the worst has already happened . . . Jack Ketchum goes yet another shock further.”
—Fangoria
“Ketchum’s prose is tight and spare, without a single misplaced word.”
—Cinescape. com
“For two decades now, Jack Ketchum has been one of our best, brightest, and most reliable.”
—Hellnotes
“A major voice in contemporary suspense.”
—Ed Gorman
“Jack Ketchum is a master of suspense and horror of the human variety.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Jack Ketchum has been hailed as a writer whose unflinching gaze at man’s darkness is disturbingly thought-provoking. Consistently, he’s displayed a knack for taking readers to uncomfortable places, daring them to stare harsh reality in the eye.”
—Shroud Magazine
Other books by Jack Ketchum:
JOYRIDE
COVER
OLD FLAMES
TRIAGE (anthology)
OFFSPRING
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
SHE WAKES
PEACEABLE KINGDOM
RED
THE LOST
JACK
KETCHUM
OFF
SEASON
DORCHESTER PUBLISHING
February 2011
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Copyright © 1980, 1999 by Dallas Mayr
Copyright © 1998 by Dallas Mayr for Winter Child
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 13: 978-1-4285-1143-9
E-ISBN: 978-1-4285-1232-0
The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.
Two writers have made it their business over the years to make sure I didn’t simply disappear into the woodwork career-wise—the late and dearly missed Robert Bloch, to whom I dedicated Hide and Seek, and Stephen King. This one’s for Steve, with much gratitude. Who it turns out read the original Way Back When.
“My God! My God!
Must I die like this?”
—Jack Slade
“Sodom and Gomorrah,
they run the roadhouse.”
—John Cougar
PART I
SEPT. 12, 1981
12:26 A.M.
They watched her cross the meadow and step over the low stone wall, into the woods beyond. She looked awkward. She would be easy to catch.
They took their time. Breaking off the white birch switches, peeling the bark away. They could hear her moving through the underbrush. They looked at one another and smiled, but said nothing. They peeled the switches, and then they started after her.
She thanked God for the moonlight. She had nearly missed seeing the old cellar hole, and it was deep. Now she moved carefully around it and kept running, through the long grass and cattails, past white pine, black pine, birch, and poplar. Beneath her feet moss and lichen. The scent of rot and evergreen. She heard them tumble through the slashing behind her, their voices light and musical; children playing in the dark. She remembered their hands on her; coarse strong little hands with long sharp dirty nails that raked her skin as they