One Door From Heaven

takes a step toward the Corvette, however, the dog dashes to the back of the Explorer. She stands on her hind legs, forepaws on the rear bumper, gazing up at the tailgate window, which is too high to provide her with a view inside.
        She looks at Curtis, dark eyes moon-brightened.
        When the boy doesn't go to her at once, she paws insistently at the tailgate.
        In this murk, he can't see the dog shuddering, but through the psychic umbilical linking them, he senses the depth of her anxiety.
        Fear like a slinking cat has found a way into Curtis's heart, and from his heart into the whole of him, and now it whets its claws upon his bones.
        Joining Old Yeller behind the Explorer, he squints through the rear window. He isn't able to discern whether the SUV carries a cargo or is loaded only with shadows.
        The dog continues to paw at the vehicle.
        Curtis tries the door handle, lifts the tailgate.
        Disengagement of the latch activates a soft light in the SUV, revealing two corpses in the cargo space. They have been tumbled together in such a way as to suggest that they were heaved in here as if they were bags of garbage.
        His heart, a sudden stutterer, spasms on the l in lub, and on the d in dub.
        He would run if he were not his mother's son, but he'd rather die than, by his actions, cast shame upon her memory.
        Pity and revulsion would turn him away had he not been taught to react to every horror like this as though it were a survival text, to read it quickly but closely for clues that might save his life and the lives of others.
        Others, in this case, means Cass and Polly.
        Tall, bald, and male, the first of these cadavers appears to be a physical match for the station attendant who'd been talking to the twins a moment ago, Curtis didn't sec that guy's face; nevertheless, he's convinced that it will prove to he identical to this one, though not wrenched by terror.
        Billowy, glossy, chestnut hair surrounds and softens the dead woman's features. Her wide-open hazel eyes stare with startlement at the first glimpse of eternity that she received in the instant when her soul fled this world.
        Neither victim bears a visible wound, but each appears to have a broken neck. Heads loll at such unnatural angles that the cervical vertebrae must have been shattered. For these hunters, who thrill to the administration of terror and who revel in murder, such kills are unusually clean and merciful.
        Necessity rather than mercy explains the simple wounds. Each corpse has been stripped of its shoes and outer layer of clothing. To masquerade as their victims, the killers needed costumes without rips or stains.
        If the combination service station and convenience store is a mom-and-pop operation, then here lie mom and pop. Their business and their identities have been subjected to a hostile takeover.
        The dog's attention is directed once more at the Corvette. Her interest, though intense, isn't strong enough to draw her toward the sports car, which she regards with obvious dread. She appears to be as puzzled as she is apprehensive, cocking her head left, and then right, blinking, turning half away from the vehicle but then snapping her head toward it as if she'd seen it start to move.
        Perhaps in the Corvette waits something worse than what he found in the Explorer, in which case he'll keep his distance, too. Instead, seeking to learn what he can by sharing the dog's perceptions, Curtis opens himself more completely to their bond, and looks at the 'Vette through her eyes.
        At first his sister-become seems to see nothing more than Curtis sees-but then for just a second, no longer, the moonlit car shimmers like a mirage. Dream car in more ways than one, internal-combustion illusion, it is merely the suggestion of a 1970 Corvette, masking a fearsome reality. The dog blinks, blinks, but the sports car remains apparently solid, so she turns her head away from it, and out of the corner of her eye, for two seconds or three, she glimpses what Curtis can’t perceive from the corner of his: a transport not of this earth, sleeker even than the sharklike Corvette, like a beast born to stalk sharks with a vengeance. So mighty-looking is this vehicle that you can't think of it in the language of designers or engineers, but must resort to the vocabulary of military architecture, because in spite of its