It was clear within the first twenty seconds.

Sam looked back as he ran, again and again, and each glance brought the two men closer. Not a lot closer—but the fact that they were gaining at all was enough. Enough to shut down every option he had.

His plan, as far as he’d had one, had been to simply lose them in the darkness. He had pictured it working, even if he were a tiny bit slower than his pursuers. If he could stay ahead of them for even thirty seconds, then at some point they would no longer be able to see him. That was how he’d imagined it.

The problem with that plan was clear enough now: in pitch darkness he would be blind, too, and a cornfield full of knee-high stalks and furrowed soil was a hell of a place to try sprinting blind.

If he fell, they would be on him. No question of that. The possibility that one of them might trip instead was no comfort: there were two of them and one of him. His pursuers wouldn’t both fall.

Hiding in the darkness would have worked just fine, if he and Dani and Lauren could have gotten there unseen.

Being chased into the darkness was an entirely different matter.

He looked back again.

They were forty feet behind him, give or take.

Closer and closer, chipping away at his lead.

Already the field in front of him was too dark for his liking. He could see the shoots and the raised rows of dirt, but only just.

He was still running southeast, moving in a straight line away from the flaming chopper. The only other source of light was the subdivision, ahead and to his left as he ran. He glanced up at it—the smoke from the crash site was still rolling through it, like thick fog under the streetlights, and in the haze he could see the afflicted; they darted through the light cones in spooky little bursts of speed.

He returned his attention to the ground in front of him and flinched—Truman Avenue was right there, ten feet ahead, along with its deep runoff ditches.

“Shit—”

He planted a foot just before the nearer ditch and vaulted over it, almost slipping on his ass when he landed on the gravel shoulder. He kept his balance, kept running, vaulted the second ditch and sprinted into the tall grass beyond—he was now on the slope directly south of the subdivision.

Too dark. He could barely see anything.

He’d gone only a few steps when he heard the men jump the first ditch behind him. Then the second. They were in the grassy field with him now, probably no more than twenty feet back. He risked a glance and felt his stomach give a lurch—they were much closer than before.