On their last visit, his mother had expressed disappointment when she realized Old Town was gone. To her, it was a place to escape, to get out from the sun, away from the magnifying glass of life. She had that look people get when hit with sudden disappointment, a pause that lingers a little too long, and finally a blink.

Old Town was only sixty yards or so of street. In some ways he was in Old Town, except here the fake rock wall was the Being. He longed for the papier-mâché wall and the mannequin paper boy. He longed for the voice of his mother, guiding him down the dim streets, prerecorded piano music playing from the saloon as they walked past. He longed for understanding. Most of all, he wanted to live.

Sometimes the dark is a good thing, honey.

The Being rested at night.

You haven’t tested the Puller at night, Matthew, the little voice said. But I wouldn’t bet on it. And what if. . . what if the Puller doesn’t like it when you run at night? What if it decides to kill you right then and there? Maybe it’s best not to test this theory.

If he couldn’t run at night, maybe he could work on other things. He stood and limped to the front window. His truck appeared, lying on its side like a defeated triceratops.

I need to get that thing upright, he thought. This struck a note like the melody of his mother’s voice calling him home for dinner on a summer evening—it’s getting late.

He needed his truck.

If anything else, he knew that now, and he was also certain he couldn’t outrun the Being, ever. The truck, as fucked up as it was, was his only shot.

Matt’s gaze shifted to the dead oak. Something the size of a small man perched on a broken limb, head turning. A Great Gray owl. A blast of wind swayed the grass below the tree and the owl dropped off, sinking down into the bowl out of sight.

The thought of the carriage rider in Old Town came again, crackling audio through cheap speakers: Whoa thar horses! Whoa!

Matt reached deep inside his backpack, and pulled out his Canon S2 camera. The batteries were fresh, and he thanked himself for replacing them before the trip. He’d hoped this trip would be a chance to improve his camera skills. But he didn’t take the camera from the bag because of pictures. Nope. Not at all. The feature he craved was the ability to record audio. He dove into the menu, thumbing the tiny buttons. Then he pressed the record switch and spoke into the S2:

Testing, testing one, two, three. Testing, testing one, two, three.