It Watches in the Dark by Jeff Strand

Author:Jeff Strand [Strand, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

Chapter Eleven

Oliver and Trisha left the medical center. Now that they were out of the painfully bright fluorescent lights, the darkness felt heavy again.

Where was the scarecrow?

Though they couldn’t see anything, they knew which direction they needed to go, and the twins speed walked down the street. Oliver’s foot definitely didn’t feel very good, but it wasn’t as if he could sit down and put an ice pack on it. He forced himself to keep pace with his sister.

He really wished his eyes would hurry up and adjust to the dark. The scarecrow could be anywhere.

Very soon, they were going to have to figure out what to do about Dad, but for now, they just needed to get to safety. Maybe it would turn out that Mayor Clancy hadn’t been lying, and tomorrow morning they’d be back on the river, on their way to get help.

“Is that it?” Trisha asked, pointing to the left.

“Where?”

“Over there!”

“I don’t see it!”

Trisha stumbled but didn’t fall. “Maybe I was wrong. Yeah, I was wrong. It’s hard to see anything.” It was dark enough anyway, but right now a cloud was covering the moon.

“We’ll see it coming, though,” said Oliver. “There aren’t many places for a giant scarecrow to hide.”

They kept moving. But they’d only gone a few more steps before Oliver thought he saw it, off in the distance, about as far away as the length of the football field at school: a shadow darker than the night surrounding them walking behind one of the houses.

Was it too much to ask for this village to have just one light?

Whatever it was stopped moving. Maybe it was his imagination.

Oliver stared at it as he walked, trying desperately to see what might or might not be lurking behind that house.

He suddenly was almost positive that there was something there. And that it was looking at them.

No, that was ridiculous. He wouldn’t be able to tell if the scarecrow looked at them from that far away. He wouldn’t be able to tell if it saw them in broad daylight, not with its button eyes. His imagination was messing with him.

But…whether it was looking at them or not, that had to be the scarecrow over there.

It began to move again.

Though Oliver didn’t scream—they were still on a stealth mission after all—he really wanted to when the scarecrow walked between two houses, heading straight for them.

There was still another row of homes separating them from the monster, yet Oliver didn’t feel the least bit safe.

Hello, Oliver.

“It’s talking to me!” Oliver tried his best to keep his voice steady, but he couldn’t.

Why are you outside, Oliver? Don’t you know what happens to those who venture outdoors after dark? Didn’t anybody warn you?

Trisha grabbed his hand. “Let’s go!”

Oliver wanted to tell his sister to save herself, leave him behind, and run as fast as she could back to Edith’s house. But he also didn’t actually want her to run away and leave him behind, so he didn’t say anything.

In the movies, enormous creatures like Godzilla and King Kong moved slowly.

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