Blood splattered over the road as Earl wrenched the antler out of its stomach. It swung it out in a wide arc, and Ledger felt the jolt as it hit the truck. He heard the screech of it as the sharp, bloodied tines gouged along the paintwork.
Ledger kept his foot down on the gas as he corrected and swung back into the right lane. The awful meaty smell of cold blood faded behind him. He checked the rearview mirror and saw Wren tearing chunks out of himself to slow Earl down. The broken-off horns lay in the road, and the splattered blood looked black in the moonlight.
Tears stung Ledger’s eyes. He swiped them impatiently on the back of his hand—what good were they going to do—and pressed down harder on the gas. It was already to the floor, but if he could wring any extra speed from the engine, he would. Ledger clutched the wheel in both hands, his knuckles showing white through his skin, and squinted through the windshield toward the sparkling, multicolored horizon.
Get to the carnival, and he was in Sutton. Then all he had to do was get Earl’s death and hope that he could use it to avoid his own.
One step at a time, though. Ledger blinked twice to try and make the overlapped images merge back together. Every bump the car hit meant he had to swallow bile as the world tilted unsteadily under him. Get to Sutton first. Worry about the rest then.
Don’t think about Wren. The fear—the guilt—caught in Ledger’s throat, and he throttled it back down ruthlessly. Not yet.
The Last Chapterwas still boarded up.
Some of the local kids had livened the plywood panels up with spray paint and Sharpie. Tags and roughly scrawled doodles started as high as a thirteen-year-old’s reach and down to where people had settled for the lower boards. Ledger stepped up to the front and leaned in to peer through a crack between the panels. He cupped his hands either side of his face as he checked out the charred, scorched interior.
A carpet of undisturbed ashes on the floor and books moldering in puddles that the bookish Dale certainly wouldn’t have left.
It looked empty.
Ledger had figured it would be. He returned to the truck, parked crookedly on the sidewalk, and grabbed the crowbar from where Wren had stashed it behind the passenger seat. The heavy iron bar swung from his hand as he walked back over to the store. He took a moment to gather himself and then glanced back the way he’d come.
The black, grimy cloudbank had reached the city limits, dulling the twinkle of the carnival lights as it rolled over them. Wren had slowed Earl down, but he hadn’t stopped him.
So this better work. Ledger wasn’t going to have time to regroup.
He hefted the crowbar, grabbed the shaft in both hands, and swung it at the plywood in a short, vicious arc. The sharp-clawed end punched through the plywood boards, and he yanked it back out with a grunt. The panel broke in half, splinters jutting out in sharp lines, and Ledger swung again. He tore what he could reach of the boarding off the store and then smashed out the smoked glass that had survived the fire. The alarm hooked up to it started to go off, a high-pitched warble that made Ledger’s teeth hurt. The light attached to it flashed and flickered as it strobed on and off.
Ledger was soaked in sweat, and his head throbbed sickly. It felt as if someone had shoved their hands inside his skull and pressed their thumbs against where the bones fused until something cracked. Ledger wiped his face on his arm and left bloody streaks on the skin. He looked at that, but it would only worry him to know what was bleeding.
Ledger let the crowbar slide through his hand until the curved butt hit the pavement with a crack. He leaned on it as he turned around to look up and down the street.
Dead men didn’t like change. That was an assumption—based on a sample pool of two—but Ledger thought it was a safe bet. Otherwise, why would Dale stay in Sutton once Earl had tracked him down here?
And what in the 1900s could a dead man with a monster’s treasure burning a hole in his pocket spend it on? He didn’t eat. He didn’t fuck. That left art and property… and if you had art, you needed somewhere to keep it.
On the other side of the street, over the gastropub, a light flickered on the second floor. Ledger swung the crowbar’s hooked end over his shoulder and started across the street. He hoped he wasn’t about to do a home invasion on a hipster.
He went around the side of the building. Tucked in behind the dumpster was a metal fire door, the green paint rusted and chipped from age, with a mailbox attached to the wall next to it. Three Amazon boxes were stacked up against the wall.
Ledger gave the door a push. It didn’t open.
“Don’t make me do this the hard way,” Ledger said. He tapped the metal barrier with the crowbar—it rang like a bell—then propped one arm against the brick wall and leaned on it. “I’m not up for it, and you don’t have time.”
Nothing. Ledger pushed himself upright… and the door slammed open. It caught him by surprise, and he stumbled backward a couple of steps, tripping over his own feet. That’s why the knife missed, scraping over his stomach instead of gutting him.
Dale came out of the building with the knife held low like he knew how to use it. He’d dropped the trappings of being a real human boy. No contacts. No makeup. No dentures. His bruised, filmy eyes looked even starker against pallid, greasy skin—stained marks along his jaw and down one arm where the blood had settled. When he peeled his lips back in a snarl, his teeth were peg-like and yellowed. Worn down to near the gum.
“I should have known,” Dale said. “Like father, like son. You couldn’t wait to crawl into the yoke with Mr. King. Two monsters in harness together.”
Mr. King?
Ledger tripped over the name for a moment, his brain too foggy to focus. But he supposed Earl wouldn’t have used the same name all these years. King. Earl. They were close enough.
While Ledger was distracted, Dale darted forward and slashed the knife at Ledger’s throat. Ledgerjustgot the crowbar up to block it, and Dale’s blade scraped along the metal with a raw, screeching sound.
“You’re one to talk,” Ledger ground out through clenched teeth. He used the crowbar to shove Dale back. “When you steal from the monster, you’re supposed to kill it. Otherwise, this is what happens.”
“I stole nothing,” Dale said. He tossed the knife from one hand to the other as he started forward. “What I took from that house… do you think any of it made up for this? That I didn’t deserve every clipped coin as compensation?”
