Like I said. Sixteen.

“Such a useless scrap of meat contains you,” the creature said, its voice unchanged by the violence. “It is entirely inconsequential, and yet it molds you. Your existence is a series of contradictions. But here is certainty, mortal child: This time, you cannot run.”

The hell I couldn’t. Running had always served me fairly well, and I saw no reason to change my policy now. I scrambled to my feet and ran for the back of the store, away from the presumed direction of my attacker. I rounded the far corner of the aisle and pressed my back up against it, panting.

Something hard and hot and slimy settled around my neck, a noose made of moist serpent, and just as strong. It jerked me up and off my feet, a bruising force that threw me into the air and released me almost instantly.

I had an enormous flash of empathy for Jerry, facing the raw power and amused pleasure of a large, invisible Tom.

“You cannot escape what is always behind you,” it said.

I landed on my ass, hard, and scrambled toward the other aisle on my hands and knees, only to feel another terrible force strike me, a contemptuous kick in the seat of my pants. It flung me forward into a glass door on a wall of refrigerated cabinets holding racks and racks of cold drinks.

I bounced off the door and landed, dazed, staring for a second at the large cracks my head had left in the glass.

“No one will save you.”

I tried to crawl farther away. I made it only far enough to reach the next cabinet, and then a blow struck me in the ribs and flung me into the next glass door. My shoulder hit it this time and didn’t break the glass, but I felt something go pop in my arm, and the whole limb seemed to light up with abrupt awareness of pain.

The unseen presence of the creature came closer. Its voice lowered to a bare, pleased murmur. “Child of the stars. I will destroy you this night.”

My head was full of pain and fear. I could sense it getting closer again, coming up behind me—always there, I somehow knew, where I was weakest, most vulnerable. That was where it would always be.

I had to move. I had to do something. But the terror felt like lead weights on my wrists and ankles, sapping my strength, making muscles turn to water, thoughts to noise. I tried to run, but the best I could do was a slow, slippery scramble down the aisle of cold drinks.

“Pathetic,” said He Who Walks Behind, growing nearer with every word. “Whimpering, mewling thing. Useless.”

Terror.

I couldn’t think.

I was going to die.

I was going to die.

And then my mouth said, in a damned passable Pee-wee Herman impersonation, “I know you are, but what am I?”

He Who Walks Behind stopped in his tracks. There was a flickering heartbeat of uncertainty in that inevitable presence, and the creature said, “What?”