The officer rose to his full height and put his hand to a black stick at his belt.

Wayne thought of Molly.

The officer pulled the stick out of the loop. He lifted and let it fall to his palm. Lift. Thump. Lift. Thump.

“What’s…in…your…pocket…Mr….Sherman…?”

Wayne didn’t look down to his chest, but felt the bulge there. The key to the city.

The officer swung the stick, shattering the glass. Wayne reached into the rain and grabbed the officer’s head with both hands. He brought it down hard. He saw the glass sink into the officer’s skin like it was pudding. The officer brought his hands to his face and screamed, and it sounded like whales to Wayne, the unfathomably deep voice of something huge, hidden, submerged.

Wayne gripped the steering wheel and slammed his foot on the gas. He had an idea. More like a directive. Something he suddenly had to do.

It was the way the officer sounded as he reached to the new holes in his face. The way the rain came down harder than it ever had. It was the way The Hedges had become so popular, too, and it was the motor behind Goblin. The shadowy engine that ran things. The dark corners that existed in the middle of the street by day.

He had to hide the key to the city. Hide it again. Hide it in a place where no Goblin officer could ever find it.

He tore off from the side of the road then over the grass divider into the northbound lane.

He was going back to Goblin.

He blazed up the highway, pushing the old red truck beyond its stable capabilities. The engine resisted. He had a rain-blurred memory of the officer stumbling back to his car. But Wayne had a good head start.

When the speedometer reached ninety-five, the entire truck was shaking.

16

When Shelly got to The Hedges, she could tell the police had been there. She pulled in fast (the gravel like mud from all the rain; holy shit this rain). She left the lights on, the car running, and ran up to the porch of the little yellow house. The door was open, swinging a little from the wind. When she walked inside she almost tripped over a chair that had been turned over. It was dark inside. She felt along the wall for the lights and found them.

“Holy motherfucker,” she said.

The place was destroyed. She didn’t know one thing about the man who ran The Hedges, but she was pretty sure he didn’t live like this.

Everything that could be turned over was.

Okay, she thought. They didn’t find what they were looking for. They left. Where’d they go, Shelly?

In that moment, Goblin felt infinite. And the cold of infinity settled in her chest.