Del peeked past him and saw the trees ahead thinning, becoming an overgrown thicket. Past that the drive swung to the right as far as they could tell and circled around a front lawn nearly an acre in size that hadn’t seen a mower in years. And beyond the waist-high grass they could make out Danner house, framed by wisps of groundfog that all but glowed in the moonlight. Bart trotted on through the thicket for a better look, breaking the boy’s grip on his pocket and leaving him temporarily behind.

Del stared at the house in the distance and actually felt his spirits sag. It wasn’t nearly as foreboding as he’d been led to believe; too many Vincent Price movies had colored his image of haunted houses. Everyone knew they had to be built on a craggy bluff or a steep hill, with a small base and at least four or five floors like the Bates Motel or the House on Haunted Hill. Plenty of upper floor windows were mandatory for figures to dance in or lights to flash from, as well as a spiderweb of winding stairs that creaked when you stepped on them and sometimes when you didn’t. But this—this was just a big sprawling old house, and not even the eeriest fog could help it. What a dog!

With his disappointment, all the sounds of the forest disappeared; the screams, the moans, the specters of Sebastian Danner he’d expected, almost wanted to see. Legends die hard, it seemed. Bart had been right. Just a house. Just a crummy . . .

There was movement off to the right. He caught it from the corner of his eye; not a leaf swaying or a stray beam of moonlight through the trees. Something else.

A figure was moving through the bushes ten or fifteen yards away, but it wasn’t the leering ghost he’d expected a few minutes before. This was a man, very old, bent by the years till he leaned on a stick for support. His silvery white hair and beard and his pasty complexion made him look like a negative image against the pitch black of the woods. He wore dungarees and a tattered coat with the collar up, and stopped every few steps to catch his breath and lean heavily on his stick.

No ghosts, Del assured himself. Just some old hobo.

The old man went suddenly rigid, as if the boy’s thoughts had been spoken aloud. He turned and looked directly at Del and the boy froze.

His eyes . . .

There was something in that gaze, an intensity that couldn’t be readily identified or described. Fear. Or hatred.

Or madness.

The old man stared at the boy and his mouth moved as if he were trying to speak. Then he started to move crookedly through the brush toward him, forgoing the support of his stick, which he shifted to a two-hand carry.