Hemlock Bay

waking nightmare, a mad invention of a pair of psychopaths’ minds. But whatever they were that the Tuttles had called the Ghouls, he’d seen them, even shot at one of them, and they were embedded in his brain.
    Maybe they had been dust devils, playing tricks on his eyes. Maybe.
    As he stood holding the two thin bodies to him, talking to them, he was aware that agents, followed by the sheriff and his deputies, were inside the barn now, that one of them was bending over Tammy Tuttle. Soon there were agents everywhere, searching the barn, corner to corner, searching every inch of the tack room.
    Everyone was high, excited. They’d gotten the boys back safely. They’d taken down two psychopaths.
    Tammy Tuttle was conscious again, screaming, no way to keep the boys from hearing her, though he tried. They held her down on the floor. She was yelling and cursing at Savich as she cradled her arm, yelling that the Ghouls would get him, she would lead them to him, that he was dead meat, and so were those Little Bloods. Savich felt the boys nearly dissolve against him, their terror palpable.
    Then one of the agents slammed his fist into her jaw. He looked up, grinning. “Took her out of her pain. Didn’t like to see such a fine, upstanding young lady in such misery.”
    “Thank you,” Savich said. “Rob, Donny, she’s not going to hurt anyone ever again. I swear it to you.” Sherlock came to him, and she looked angry enough to spit nails. She didn’t say anything, just put her arms around the two boys.
    The paramedics came through with stretchers. Big Bob, the lead, who had a twenty-two-inch neck, looked at the two agents comforting the boys and just held up his hand. He said to the three men behind him, “Let’s just wait here a moment. I think these boys are getting the medicine they need right now. See to that woman. The guy is gone.”
    Three hours later, the old barn was finally empty again, all evidence, mainly food refuse, pizza boxes, some chains and shackles, a good four dozen candy bar wrappers, carted away. Both Tuttles had been removed, Tammy still alive. The boys were taken immediately to their parents, who were waiting at the sheriff’s office in Stewartville, Maryland. From there they’d go on to the local hospital to be checked out. The FBI wouldn’t need to speak to them again for at least a couple of days, giving them time to calm down before being questioned.
    All the agents drove back to FBI headquarters, to the Criminal Apprehension Unit on the fifth floor, to write up their reports.
    Everyone was bouncing off the walls. They’d won. High fives, slaps on the back. No screwups, no false leads. They hadn’t been too late to save the boys. “Just look at all the testosterone flying around,” Sherlock said as she walked into the office. Then she laughed. No one could talk about anything but how Savich had brought them down.
    Savich called all the agents who had participated in the raid together.
    “When the barn doors swung in, did anyone see anything?”
    No one had seen a thing.
    “Did anyone see anything strange coming out of the barn, anything at all?”
    There wasn’t a word spoken around the big conference table. Then Sherlock said, “We didn’t see anything, Dillon. The barn doors flew inward; there was some thick dust in the air, but that was it.” She looked around at the other agents. No one had seen any more than that. “We didn’t see anything coming out of the barn either.”
    “The Tuttles called them Ghouls,” Savich said slowly. “They looked so real I actually shot at one of them. It was then that they seemed to dissipate, to disappear. I’m being as objective as I can. Understand, I didn’t want to see anything out of the ordinary. But I did see something. I want to believe that it was some sort of dust devil that broke into two parts, but I don’t know, I just don’t know. If anyone can come up with an explanation, I’d like to hear it.”
    There were more questions, more endless speculation, until everyone sat silent. Savich said to Jimmy Maitland, “The boys saw them. They’re telling everyone about them. You can bet that Rob and Donny won’t call them natural phenomena or dust devils.”
    Jimmy Maitland said, “No one will believe them. Now, we’ve got to keep this Ghoul business under wraps. The FBI has enough problems without announcing that we’ve seen two supernatural cones, for God’s sake, in a rampaging partnership with two