A Fire in the Night by Christopher Swann

Author:Christopher Swann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In his dream, Cole was standing in the backyard of his childhood home, a brick ranch in Columbia, Missouri. He was holding a G.I. Joe action figure, a favorite toy. The sky was dark, clouds roiling overhead. Wind pulled at his hair, made the stand of pine trees at the back of the yard sway and creak like ship masts. Light faded, then shifted to a greenish hue. His ears popped. Somewhere beyond the house there was a moaning roar.

From behind the screen door to the kitchen, his father shouted, “Get in the house, boy!”

Cole didn’t move, partly from fear, partly out of spite for his father.

“Goddammit, boy, get in this house!”

Cole balled his fists, the G.I. Joe figure pressing into his palm, and stood his ground. The wind thundered around him now, scraps of paper and leaves and roof tiles whirling past. The gas grill scraped across the concrete patio as if pushed by invisible hands. A loud crack and the top half of a dead pine tree toppled into the yard.

The screen door burst open, but instead of his father it was Winslow, a charred bullet hole in his forehead, flesh rotted and slimy with seaweed, wrapped in his father’s barn coat. Winslow stalked down the stairs toward Cole. “I told you to get in the house,” he said with a leer. A baby eel slid out of his mouth and dropped wriggling to the ground.

Cole backed away, Winslow advancing with the same leer. Cole threw the G.I. Joe figure at Winslow, who batted it away. The wind screamed, the ground shuddered. Behind Winslow, the house blew apart in a black whirlwind. And Winslow’s hands, leprous, sea-changed, reached for Cole’s throat.

When a hand touched Cole’s shoulder, he shot up out of bed, grabbing and twisting the arm of the person who had touched him.

“Jesus, Cole!” Zhang cried out.

Breathing heavily, Cole realized he had Zhang on the floor of their hotel room in an armlock that threatened to break the man’s arm at the elbow. He released Zhang, who stumbled to his feet. “The fuck?” Zhang said, holding his arm.

“Dream,” Cole said thickly. “Sorry.” He sat on the floor, leaning back against the bed. Slowly it came back to him—they were in a hotel outside Gainesville, Georgia. Looking for the girl. They’d spent yesterday afternoon canvassing hotels and found nothing. “I’m sorry,” Cole said, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “You just startled me, is all. You okay?”

Zhang gently bent his arm at the elbow. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s good.” He hesitated, then held out his hand to help Cole stand up. Cole took it and pulled himself to his feet, then clapped Zhang on the shoulder. “What have you got?” he asked, his tone brisk.

“I got it,” Zhang said.

Cole glanced at Zhang’s laptop, open on the desk across the room. “Where is she?”

“Her phone last pinged a tower in Dillard, north of here.”

“When?”

“Yesterday at eighteen thirty-four. That’s not all. I looked at Jay Bashir’s cell records, and last week he tried to call an 828 number twice.

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