There was none. Just as Joel decided to take his chances with the thicket, he saw those black eyes watching him again, saw them blink (imissedyou) and the thorns rattled in a shudder: the thing inside was stirring, settling itself in. Joel caught a smell of rot on the breeze, felt his bladder threaten to fail.

A large man, bald-headed and thick-necked, stopped at the bottom of the stairs. The man jingled with keys and some other metal sound Joel couldn’t place. Then he saw the handcuffs.

It was Sheriff’s Deputy Grissom, a man so corrupt he was practically a town joke. He had no neck, and a head all out of proportion with his body—long and narrow and raw with eczema—so that his face resembled nothing so much as a red pushpin pressed into fold upon dark fold of sweaty khaki. You could always avoid a ticket from Grissom, joked folks at the Egg House, if you just paid him in cash half of what the county would cite you. When Joel had started driving, Paulette had even given him a few twenties to keep in the glove box of his car, just in case, she said—“Better to grease the deputy than have the points on your license.”

Joel realized with a shiver that he’d spent that money weeks ago.

Grissom burped into his fist, rubbed the backs of his hands together in some weird private gesture, peered into the brambles that blocked the northern end of the gully as if he knew precisely what he was looking for. He reached for the flashlight on his belt.

Joel held his breath.

The deputy took a few heavy steps through the leaves, playing the beam of his flashlight ahead of him through the overgrowth, but there was nothing there. Where had those eyes gone? How could something so big—it would have to be big: those eyes had been the size of hubcaps, those thorns had been quaking—how could it have just slithered away without a sound?

But no, they weren’t gone. Joel felt that scrutiny, that hungry smile, watching him as his knees shook, as a single tear ran down his cheek. He had never been so afraid in his life, had never been so ashamed—of the stupidity and the hunger and the desperate love that had brought him here—and now, as he suspected that all of the summer’s happiness might be about to ruin him, Joel felt he had no one to blame but himself.

Those eyes, wherever they’d gotten to, were enjoying this.

Deputy Grissom swung around on his heel. Joel pressed himself against the rocky wall, squeezed his eyes shut. He was trapped.

There was a high whine of delight in Grissom’s voice when the beam settled on Joel. “Well—ain’t this a sight.”

Joel couldn’t speak.

“Don’t you know the park closes at dark, son?”

Grissom lowered the flashlight. Joel saw that the man was standing between him and the stairs, blocking him in.

“I didn’t see a sign, sir.” Joel’s teeth were chattering. “I’m sorry.”