Phantoms

clanged against the base of the milk cooler; the lens burst into countless pieces, and they were denied even that meager, erratic light. Although it had illuminated nothing, it had been better than total darkness. Without it, hope was extinguished, too.
    Jake strained, twisted, flexed, jerked, and writhed in an epileptic dance of panic, a spasmodic fandango of escape. But he couldn’t free even one hand. His unseen adversary merely tightened its grip.
    Jake heard the others calling to one another; they sounded far away.
     

Chapter 13
    Suddenly
     
    Jake Johnson had disappeared.
    Before Tal could locate the unbroken flashlight, the one that Frank Autry had dropped, the market’s lights flickered and then came on bright and steady. The darkness had lasted no longer than fifteen or twenty seconds.
    But Jake was gone.
    They searched for him. He wasn’t in the aisles, the meat locker, the store-room, the office, or the employees’ bathroom.
    They left the market—only seven of them now—following Bryce, moving with extreme caution, hoping to find Jake outside, in the street. But he wasn’t there, either.
    Snowfield’s silence was a mute, mocking shout of ridicule.
    Tal Whitman thought the night seemed infinitely darker now than it had been a few minutes ago. It was an enormous maw into which they had stepped, unaware. This deep and watchful night was hungry.
    “Where could he have gone?” Gordy asked, looking a little savage, as he always did when he frowned, even though, right now, he was actually just scared.
    “He didn’t go anywhere,” Stu Wargle said. “He was taken .”
    “He didn’t call for help.”
    “Never had a chance.”
    “You think he’s alive… or dead?” the young Paige girl asked.
    “Little doll,” Wargle said, rubbing the beard stubble on his chin, “I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I was you. I’ll bet my last buck we’ll find Jake somewheres, stiff as a board, all swelled up and purple like the rest of ‘em.”
    The girl winced and sidled closer to her sister.
    Bryce Hammond said, “Hey, let’s not write Jake off that quickly.”
    “I agree,” Tal said. “There are a lot of dead people in this town. But it seems to me that most of them aren’t dead. Just missing.”
    “They’re all deader than napalmed babies. Isn’t that right, Frank?” Wargle said, never missing a chance to needle Autry about his service in Vietnam. “We just haven’t found ‘em yet.”
    Frank didn’t rise to the bait. He was too smart and too self-controlled for that. Instead, he said, “What I don’t understand is why it didn’t take all of us when it had the chance? Why did it just knock Tal down?”
    “I was switching on the flashlight,” Tal said. “It didn’t want me to do that.”
    “Yes,” Frank said, “but why was Jake the only one of us it grabbed, and why did it do a fast fade right after?”
    “It’s teasing us,” Dr. Paige said. The streetlamp made her eyes flash with green fire. “It’s like I said about the church bell and the fire siren. It’s like a cat playing with mice.”
    “But why ?” Gordy asked exasperatedly. “What’s it get out of all this? What’s it want?”
    “Hold on a minute,” Bryce said. “How come everyone’s all of a sudden saying ‘it’? Last time I took an informal survey, seems to me the general consensus was that only a pack of psychopathic killers could’ve done this. Maniacs. People .”
    They regarded one another with uneasiness. No one was eager to say what was on his mind. Unthinkable things were now thinkable. They were things that reasonable people could not easily put into words.
    The wind gusted out of the darkness, and the obeisant trees bent reverently.
    The streetlamps flickered.
    Everyone jumped, startled by the lights’ inconstancy. Tal put his hand on the butt of his holstered revolver. But the lights did not go out.
    They listened to the cemeterial town. The only sound was the whisper of the wind-stirred trees, which was like the last long exhalation of breath before the grave, an extended dying sigh.
    Jake is dead, Tal thought. Wargle is right for once. Jake is dead and maybe the rest of us are, too, only we don’t know it yet.
    To Frank Autry, Bryce said, “Frank, why’d you say ‘it’ instead of ‘they’ or something else?”
    Frank glanced at Tal, seeking support, but Tal wasn’t sure why he, himself, had said “it.” Frank cleared his throat. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and