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"They're coming over here," he said.

Now Maxine sat up and looked back over her shoulder.

Luther held up his hand to shield his eyes from the firelight.

Saw a man's legs standing ten feet away—hairy and thick—that ended in a pair of muddy work boots.

Rufus was struggling to his feet now.

Luther heard his father say, "Hi, there."

Luther glanced up into Katie's face, didn't like what he saw—an intensity, a concentration he didn't fully comprehend. He was missing something. Events unfolding on some frequency beyond his experience.

His father spoke again, "Evening."

"What are you folks doing here?"

The man's voice sounded strange to Luther—southern but not local. Not friendly either. It contained a hard-edged, metallic rasp.

"Just having a campfire," Rufus said.

"You live around here?"

"We live on Ocracoke. How about you? You visiting?"

The man laughed as if Luther's father had made a joke. "Yeah. That's it. We're visiting." The man came forward three steps and turned off his flashlight. In the firelight, Luther studied him. He wore a heavily-stained white tee-shirt covered in a thousand tiny rips. The man's substantial body odor was evident even from ten feet away. He hadn't shaved in weeks, his jaw covered in a salt-and-pepper stubble. His eyes shone wild and glassy and they didn't stay on one object for more than several seconds at a time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BLAKE CROUCH is the author of DESERT PLACES, LOCKED DOORS, SNOWBOUND, and ABANDON, which was an IndieBound Notable Selection, all published by St. Martin's Press. His latest thriller, RUN, was released in February 2011. His short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Thriller 2, Shivers VI, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and other anthologies. In 2009, he co-wrote "Serial" with JA Konrath, which has been downloaded over 500,000 times and topped the Kindle bestseller list for 4 weeks. That story and ABANDON have also been optioned for film. Blake lives in Colorado. His website is www.blakecrouch.com.

BLAKE CROUCH'S OTHER WORKS

The Thicker Than Blood Trilogy

Desert Places

Locked Doors

Break You

Other works

Run

Draculas with JA Konrath, Jeff Strand and F. Paul Wilson

Abandon

Snowbound

Famous

Perfect Little Town (horror novella)

Bad Girl (short story)

Serial with Jack Kilborn

Serial Uncut with JA Konrath and Jack Kilborn

Killers with Jack Kilborn

Birds of Prey with Jack Kilborn and JA Konrath

Killers Uncut with Jack Kilborn and JA Konrath

Serial Killers Uncut with Jack Kilborn and JA Konrath

Shining Rock (short story)

*69 (short story)

On the Good, Red Road (short story)

Remaking (short story)

The Meteorologist (short story)

The Pain of Others (novella)

Unconditional (short story)

Four Live Rounds (collected stories)

Six in the Cylinder (collected stories)

Fully Loaded (complete collected stories)

Visit Blake at www.BlakeCrouch.com

COMING SOON

Stirred by Blake Crouch and JA Konrath

Pines by Blake Crouch

Wolfmen

Draculas 2

Copyright © 2004-2011 by Blake Crouch

Cover art copyright © 2011 by Jeroen ten Berge

All rights reserved.

THICKER THAN BLOOD is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are 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.

For more information about the author, please visit www.blakecrouch.com.

For more information about the artist, please visit www.jeroentenberge.com.

Excerpts from "Desert Places" and "The Road Not Taken" from The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1916, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, 1964 by Lesley Frost Ballantine, 1936, 1944 by Robert Frost. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

"Locked Doors," from The Awful Rowing Toward God by Anne Sexton. Copyright © 1975 by Loring Conant, Jr., Executor of the Estate of Anne Sexton. Reprinted by permission