Pines

itemized bill. Beverly had handwritten an address across the columns.
    604 1ST AVE
    “What’s this?” Ethan asked.
    “That’s where I live. If you need anything, if you run into trouble, whatever...”
    “What? You worried about me now?”
    “No, but with no money, no phone, no ID, you’re in a vulnerable state.”
    “So you believe me now?”
    Beverly reached across the bar, let her hand rest on top of his for just a second.
    “I always believed you.”
    * * *
    Outside the pub, he took off his shoes and started down the sidewalk in bare feet, the concrete cold, but at least he could walk without pain.
    Instead of going back to the hotel, he followed one of the streets that intersected Main and headed into a neighborhood.
    Thinking about Kate.
    Victorian houses lined both sides of the block, set off by the glow of their porch lights.
    The silence was staggering.
    You never got nights like this in Seattle.
    There was always the distant moan of some ambulance or car alarm or the patter of rainfall on the streets.
    Here, the complete, dead quiet was broken only by the soft slap of his feet against the pavement—
    Wait.
    No, there was another sound—a solitary cricket chirping in a bush up ahead.
    It took him back to his childhood in Tennessee and those mid-October evenings sitting on the screened porch while his father smoked his pipe, staring across the soybean fields when the chorus of crickets had dwindled down to a lonely one.
    Hadn’t the poet Carl Sandburg written about this very thing? Ethan couldn’t recall the verse verbatim, knew onlythat it had something to do with the voice of the last cricket across the frost.
    A splinter of singing.
    There it was—that was the phrase he’d loved.
    A splinter of singing.
    He stopped beside the bush, half-expecting the chirping to abruptly stop, but it kept on at a rhythm so steady it almost seemed mechanical. Crickets rubbed their wings together to make that sound—he’d read that somewhere.
    Ethan glanced at the bush.
    Some species of juniper.
    Strong, fragrant smell.
    A nearby streetlight threw a decent splash of illumination down onto the branches, and he leaned in to see if he could catch a glimpse of the cricket.
    The chirping went on, unabated.
    “Where are you, little guy?”
    He cocked his head.
    Now he was squinting at something barely poking up between the branches. But it wasn’t the cricket. Some sort of box instead, about the size of his iPhone.
    He reached through the branches and touched the face of it.
    The chirping grew softer.
    He took his hand away.
    Louder.
    What the hell was the point of this?
    The chirp of the cricket was emanating from a speaker.
    * * *
    It was nearly ten thirty when he unlocked his hotel room and stepped inside. He dropped his shoes and stripped naked and climbed into bed without even bothering to turn on the lights.
    He’d cracked one of the windows before leaving for dinner, and he could feel a thin, cool draft breezing across his chest, driving out the day’s stuffy accumulation of heat.
    Within a minute, he was cold.
    He sat up, turned back the covers and the sheet, and crawled under.
    * * *
    Fighting for his life, losing, the creature on top of him frenzied as it tried to tear his throat out, the only thing keeping Ethan alive the crushing grip he had around the monster’s neck—squeezing, squeezing—but the thing had pure, brute strength. He could feel the hard ripples of muscle as his fingers dug into the milky, translucent skin. But he wasn’t stopping it, his triceps beginning to cramp and his arms bending back as the face, the teeth, inched closer...
    * * *
    Ethan bolted up in bed, dripping with sweat, gasping for breath, his heart racing so fast it was less like beating than a steady shuddering in his chest.
    He had no concept of where he was until he saw the painting of the cowboys and the campfire.
    The alarm clock on the bedside table changed to 3:17.
    He turned on the light, stared at the phone.
    Two...zero...six...
    Two...zero...six...
    How could he not remember his home landline? Or even Theresa’s cell? How was that possible?
    Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he stood and walked over to the window.
    Split the blinds, looked down at the quiet street below.
    Dark buildings.
    Empty sidewalks.
    Thinking,
Tomorrow will be better.
    He’d get his phone back, his wallet, his gun, his briefcase. Call his wife, his son. Call Seattle and talk with SAC Hassler. Get back to the