Page 97 of Call Off the Dark

She dangled her feet over the edge of the bed into the black abyss below and lowered them to the floor, feeling her heart skip a little. But there was nothing. No dark hands. No evil lurking. Of course not.

She took a step forward, and suddenly a shadowy hand shot out and grabbed her back foot, tripping her. She fell to her knees, and the panic in her rose. On her hands and knees, she scrambled across the floor until she bumped up against the dresser. The dread was rising in her throat, but she had to know, she had to see it. She lowered her head to look, and it was the very worst thing.

There was Tyler, beneath the bed, blood soaking through his shirt, his face in agony, reaching his hand out toward her.

Helen covered her face and moaned into her hands.

When she finally uncovered her face, Tyler was gone.

“Tyler?” Her voice was barely a whisper, and she was met with silence. Suddenly, she wanted him back under the bed. Even if he was bleeding and reaching, at least he was there. “Tyler? Tyler, what did you want to tell me? When I left you there, I was coming back for you . . .”

It was useless. She would never get what she needed. She couldn’t spend another minute inside this house.

She stumbled out of the bedroom and down the hall into the kitchen. There, she pulled the first coat from the hook above the entry bench and threw it on, then shoved her feet into her shoes at the front door, not bothering to tie the laces. There was a lantern burning by the door and she didn’t even stop to consider how strange it was that the lantern was lit when she was sure she’d extinguished it before bed. She just grabbed it and ran outside into the cold midnight air. She wanted to scream—needed to scream—but if she did, it would wake up Isaac and maybe Wade too. So she took off running through the yard and across the meadow for the woods. She was going to run and run until she got far enough away from the farmhouse that neither of the men would be able to hear her scream.

It didn’t occur to her that she might need to call out for help in the woods that night. She was so fixated on running away from pain that it never occurred to her that she might be running into danger.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The air was heavy and humid, as though a storm was closing in. The farther Helen disappeared into the trees, the more the scream built up inside her. She moved quickly, tripping on her untied shoelaces once and stumbling into a thick tree trunk, scraping her hands on the bark, almost dropping the lantern. She stayed there for a moment, breathing in the wood rot of the damp night.

She pulled the coat she was wearing more tightly around her and realized this time she had grabbed Wade’s.

Then she tied her shoes and pressed on.

She had a violent vision in her mind of her body plunging off the edge of a cliff, an unseen drop into a hidden lake she had found once somewhere in this direction, so icy and deep that it would finally be final. Searchers in orange vests would gather the next day, poking their long sticks into the brush. They might come upon the lake and wonder. But even if they swept the water and found her body, they’d never find her. All the things she never said and never did would stay with her in those deep, still waters, while all the things she felt would float away through time and space and find their way to Tyler.

Tyler, Tyler, Tyler.

Maybe she was already fading into a ghost. This was her last earthly walk, taking her into the next realm.

Something sharp hit against her bare leg and she cried out. Wade’s coat reached just under her hips, so anywhere below that was unprotected. Her nightgown went to her knees, so her lower legs were completely exposed to rough bushes and branches. She was sure she’d cut the front of her shin, and as she whimpered, it was the sound of her voice more than the pain in her leg that reminded her she was still alive, still here. So she screamed. God, it felt almost energizing to get it out. She wanted to run now, just run and run so the darkness couldn’t catch her. And just as she started to, she received a reply to her scream.

Helen skidded to a stop.

Not too far away, howling. It sounded like more than one coyote, but she knew that the way the trees bounced the sound could create that illusion. She tilted her head back and howled, then waited. More howling, and this time it definitely sounded like more than one.

Maybe she could find an entire pack!

She didn’t know what she wanted exactly. Wade had shown her how to haze a coyote by making noise and throwing rocks near it to scare it off, but no one had shown her how to join the pack.

She lifted her lantern and walked until she reached a small clearing with two coyotes in it. One was sitting and one was wandering restlessly around the other. In the distance, she heard more howling, and then she saw the seated coyote tilt its head back and answer the call with a low, long howl. It was two different packs communicating across the distance.

The second coyote, the fidgety one, turned and looked right at her. She was impressed by its size. It was larger than any coyote she’d ever seen before.

“Hi, I came to join you,” she said, and because she didn’t know what else to say or do, she set the lantern on the ground. It seemed disrespectful to be shining the light in the animal’s face. She was surprised the coyotes didn’t show any real reaction to her, no fear. Maybe they sensed she was one of them.

Helen stood there watching for several minutes until gradually the sense of a new invading presence came over her. It was the feeling of an ambush. She lifted the lantern from the ground, and as the glow passed over her legs, she saw her shin was bleeding where it had been cut. She spun in a slow circle, shining the light across the open expanse. A pack of coyotes was coming out of the woods and beginning to surround her.

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t what coyotes did.

Coyotes normally hunted smaller mammals. They only ate bigger prey, like elk, if they were lucky enough to find a carcass. They didn’t take down large animals alive, and yet, the way they were circling Helen right now made it clear they were the predators and she was the prey. They were going to take her down.

Perhaps they smelled the fresh blood on her leg.

There were almost a dozen of them, too many to haze, and they were so big too. She’d never seen coyotes so big with such broad faces. Something seemed different, and suddenly she realized what it was. These weren’t coyotes at all. These were wolves, which was impossible, because there weren’t any wolves in this part of the state.

But yes, they were here. Wolves.