The birds had stopped their chatter and even the mosquitoes had disappeared, though Todd noticed none of this as he fixated on the huge rock. The air took on a sudden chill as his feet carried him forward with a power of his own.
He stopped at the base of the slab. His heart pounded madly and he had broken out in a cold sweat. Swallowing hard, he felt his body trembling with fear as he slowly turned away to look back at where he’d come from, hoping to see his house back through the trees.
The beacon from his father’s study had long since been consumed by the trees, and the path had disappeared also, now hidden in the darkness.
Vaguely, he realized he was lost and it had become dark. When he turned to look at the huge rock, though, he instinctively knew that being lost in the woods was the least of his troubles. As much as he wanted to run, needed to run, his feet remained glued to the ground, frozen in place by fear and some unknown, unseen, and unnatural power.
The slab was shiny and polished smoother than Grandma’s dining room table. A groove resembling a rain gutter ran around the outer edge. Tentatively, Todd reached his hand out and rested it on the polished surface. It felt cold to the touch, colder than an ice pop right out of the freezer. He was overwhelmed with a feeling of intense loneliness, as if he were the only person left in the entire world. Then, for no apparent reason, the slab began to warm up. His fingers tingled and he jerked them away.
The image of Dovecrest again flooded his mind and last night’s vision returned as he stared at this slab’s nightmare surface. This time, though, he didn’t see a vision of Dovecrest, but of a teenage girl lying upon the smooth, polished stone—a blonde girl. He flushed in embarrassment as he realized that she was naked, and she began to whimper softly as the moon poked its face over the tops of the trees.
Todd watched in fascination and terror as a shadowy figure appeared beside the girl and raised its arms high in the air. The moonlight glinted off a shiny steel surface as a knife blade hovered over the girl’s body for just an instant before plunging down in a sweeping arc of silver death.
The girl screamed once and a fountain of blood spewed from her chest and flowed out and over the slab to fill the grooves on its edge.
Todd clamped his eyes shut. His knees buckled and he fell forward to sprawl against the stone. Slowly he opened his eyes again, willing the dream to be gone.
The vision evaporated in an instant and only the slab was left. This new dream, a daydream, had been the product of his imagination after all.
Yet somehow he sensed that it was more—perhaps a history of what was, or a taste of what was to be.
He suddenly felt sick and the contents of his stomach did a back flip. He looked at the slab with hatred as he choked back the bile.
Without fully realizing what he was doing or why, he swung his geologist’s hammer over his head and brought it down with all the force he could muster. A loud clang echoed through the clearing as the hammer struck the rock; the shock of the impact vibrated up Todd’s arm and into his shoulder as the hammer bounced back like a rubber ball hitting the street.
Todd had slammed his eyes shut with the effort of the blow. When he opened them again he stared at the rock for a full ten seconds before he began to scream. It took him that long to fully comprehend the vision before him.
The very stone itself was trickling blood from a tiny chip he had made on its otherwise perfectly smooth surface.
-5-
Johnny Dovecrest was dicing onions for a stew when he heard the scream coming from deep within the woods. He paused, his knife poised in mid-air, and listened intently. But there was only silence now.
He put the knife down, walked to the window and looked into the blackness of the forest. His experienced eyes bore into the darkness but saw nothing. It might have been his imagination. But the hair on the back of his neck tingled, telling him it might have been something else. Something he didn’t want to think about.
He had tried to tell them not to build here, that it wasn’t safe. But they had refused to listen. Just like they always refused to listen. Now he feared the worst.
Either way, he had to know. He took his old M1 Carbine from its case in the closet, stuck his .45 caliber Beretta Mini Cougar into the waistband of his jeans, and went outside, praying to God that it wasn’t happening again.
CHAPTER THREE
-1-
A sound caught Erik’s attention and he walked over to the window overlooking the back yard, thinking that Todd might have hurt himself. The sun had gone down and the yard was quite dark by now. He couldn’t see any sign of his son as he pressed his face against the windowpane.
“Vickie?” he called, making his way downstairs to the kitchen where she was arranging the contents of her cabinets. “Vickie, is Todd down here with you?”
“No. He went outside to look for rocks.”
“I didn’t see him out there. I’d better check.”
“Maybe he’s in his room.”
“Would you check for me? I’ll look outside.”
Erik stepped out into the crisp night air that had suddenly chilled now that the sun had set.
“Todd? Where are you?” he called
His voice echoed with hollowness in the woods.
“Todd?” he called again, louder. “Are you out there?”
He walked around to the front yard, saw nothing unusual, then returned to the back again. Vickie hurried outside to join him.
“Erik, he’s not in the house. I’ve checked everywhere.”
“And he’s not out here, either.”
“Oh my God,” Vickie whispered. “You don’t think....”
“He probably wandered off into the woods. I told him not to leave the yard! I just got through telling him not to go off into the woods by himself....”
“Let’s find him first. Then you can lecture him. I’ll go get the flashlight.”
Erik nodded, then walked across the yard and stood at the edge of the woods.
“Todd!” he screamed, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice. He waited for the echoes to die down, and then called again.
The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that the noise he’d heard earlier was a scream. Todd was probably out there frightened half to death in the darkness. At least he’ll never wander off into the woods alone again, Erik thought grimly.
Vickie returned with the flashlight. Its beam bounced up and down over the dew-coated grass as she ran.
“Anything?” she asked hopefully.
Erik shook his head, then realized she couldn’t see him.
“Nothing at all,” he said, finally, and decided not to mention anything about the scream to her.
“He’s
