Once Dormant

“Hey, Amos, what’s up?” he called out.

A flash of movement caught his peripheral vision. He turned and glimpsed a shadowy form silhouetted against the living room lamp.

Whoever it was rushed at Gareth too fast for him to ask any questions.

The figure raised an arm, and Gareth glimpsed a flash of steel. Something unspeakably hard crashed against his forehead, and then an explosion burst through his brain like shattering glass.

Then there was nothing.

CHAPTER ONE

Morning sunlight was glistening on the waves as Samantha Kuehling drove the police car along the waterfront drive.

Sitting next to her in the passenger seat, her partner, Dominic Wolfe, said …

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Sam didn’t reply.

Neither she nor Dominic yet knew just what “it” really was.

But the truth was, she pretty much believed whatever it was already.

She’d known fourteen-year-old Wyatt Hitt all his life. He could be ornery, just like any boy that age, but he wasn’t a liar. And he’d sounded downright hysterical when he’d called the police station a little while ago. He hadn’t made much sense, but he’d been pretty clear about one thing …

Something happened to Gareth Ogden.

Something bad.

Beyond that, Sam didn’t know a single thing. And Dominic didn’t either.

As she parked the car in front of Gareth’s house, she saw that Wyatt was sitting at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the porch. Beside him was a cloth bag of undelivered newspapers.

When Sam and Dominic got out of the car and walked over to him, the towheaded kid didn’t even look at them. He just kept staring straight ahead. Wyatt’s face was even paler than usual, and he was shivering, even though it was already getting to be a hot morning.

He’s in shock, Sam realized.

Dominic said to him, “Tell us what happened.”

Wyatt sat upright at the sound of Dominic’s voice and looked back at him with glazed eyes. Then Wyatt stammered in a hoarse, frightened voice made worse by the changes of adolescence.

“He—he’s in there, up in the house. Mr. Ogden, I mean.”

Then he stared off toward the Gulf again.

Sam and Dominic looked at each other.

She could tell by Dominic’s alarmed expression that this was starting to get real for him.

Sam shuddered as she thought …

I’ve got a feeling it’s about to get awfully real for both of us.

She and Dominic climbed the steps and walked across the porch. When they looked through the screen door, they saw Gareth Ogden.

Dominic staggered backward from the door.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelped.

Ogden was lying on his back on the floor, his eyes and mouth wide open. He had some kind of open, bleeding wound on his forehead.

Then Dominic wheeled back toward the stairs and yelled down at Wyatt …

“What the hell happened? What did you do?”

Feeling a bit surprised not to share Dominic’s panic, Sam touched his arm and quietly said, “He didn’t do anything, Dom. He’s just a kid. He’s just a paperboy.”

Dominic shook her hand off and stormed back down the stairs. He hauled poor Wyatt to his feet.

“Tell me!” Dominic yelled. “What did you do? Why?”

Sam dashed down the stairs behind Dominic. She grabbed the hysterical cop and forcefully pulled him onto the lawn.

“Leave him alone, Dom,” Sam said. “Let me handle this, OK?”

Dominic’s face looked as pale as Wyatt’s now, and he too was shivering with shock.

He nodded mutely, and Sam walked back over to Wyatt and helped him sit down again.

She crouched in front of him and touched him on the shoulder.

She said, “It’s going to be OK, Wyatt. Just take a few slow breaths.”

Poor Wyatt couldn’t follow her instructions. Instead, he seemed to be hyperventilating and sobbing at the same time.

Wyatt managed to choke out, “I—I came by to deliver his newspaper and I found him in there.”

Sam squinted at Wyatt, trying to make sense of this.

“Why did you go all the way up on Mr. Ogden’s porch?” she asked. “Couldn’t you just throw the paper up there from the yard?”

Wyatt shrugged and said, “He gets—got mad when I do that. It made too much noise, he said, it woke him up. So he told me I had to come all the way up onto the porch—and I had to leave the paper between the screen door and the front door. Otherwise it would blow away, he said. So I always went up there and I was about to open the screen when I saw—”

Wyatt gasped and groaned with shock for a moment, then added …

“So I called you on my cell phone.”

Sam patted him on the shoulder.