Chapters (21)
The thing opened the passenger-side door and threw Tom across to the wheel. Tom bashed his head on the window and when he removed his hands from his head he saw it was climbing up into the cabin.
“Drive.”
Tom started the truck.
He put it in reverse and backed out of the cobblestone drive, reentering the Goblin neighborhood of Rolling Hills, where a party still raged in the distance.
Tom drove. But he didn’t drive south; he didn’t drive back home to where he could have been eating pizza and drinking beers.
He headed toward the party. The party first.
Because Tom knew what the silhouette wanted and what it meant when it said drive.
Tom headed toward the lights and loud voices, where he knew the shadow beside him would find others like Dean Crawford, men and women who (deservedly or not) would face their darkest hour tonight, this night, the night Tom delivered scorched history, pre-history, to the city of Goblin.
And after the party? After the party they would drive onto the dirt thruway called Christmas (a name Tom remembered from childhood), heading deeper into the city, where many more Gobliners juggled their fears, their lives, their history, unaware that a bigger story was traveling fast toward them.
And as the rain smacked the windshield, as the truck swallowed the muddy road, Tom wondered about the people he’d see crushed tonight, killed like Dean Crawford was, the people whose stories were as dark as this violent sky, the people who, stitched together, made up this gorgeous handbag of hysteria, the people who, despite the horrors that came with it, all called the same place home.
Goblin.
Dedication
From East Lansing to New York, a wedding, a New Year’s Eve, and an acid test come to mind. But those are only landmarks on a gorgeous drive. And when the person you’re traveling with points left as often as right, you start to realize it’s the actual act of seeing, not the sights.
This is for Matt Sekedat.
Acknowledgments
Del Rey Books…thank you for inviting more people into the city of Goblin. I hope it rained sufficiently on all.
Paul Miller and Earthling Publications…thank you for putting out the initial limited edition of Goblin. Thrill of a lifetime.
Ryan Lewis, Candace Lake, Wayne Alexander, and Kristin Nelson…this was the book that brought us all together: the first I sent to Wayne. Thank you for the whirlwind that has followed.
Allison…shall we move to Goblin? Raise Weimaraners in the West Fields? Vizslas, too?
And Dave Simmer…remember when you asked for a book and I sent you one called Goblin? I’m gonna keep thanking you forever.
BY JOSH MALERMAN
Bird Box
A House at the Bottom of a Lake
Black Mad Wheel
Goblin
Unbury Carol
On This, the Day of the Pig
Inspection
Malorie
