Shadowfires

you think I like this? I killed in the war, in Vietnam, when my country told me killing was necessary, and I didn't
like that much, not even when it was a certifiable enemy, so
I'm not exactly jumping with joy over the prospect of killing Shadway and Mrs. Leben, who on the surface would appear to deserve killing a whole hell of a lot less than the Vietcong did. However, I am privy to top-secret information that's
convinced me
they're a terrible threat to my country, and I am in receipt of orders from the highest authority to terminate them. If you want to know the truth, it makes me a little sick. Nobody likes to face the fact that sometimes an immoral act is the only right thing to be done, that the world is a place of moral grays, not just black and white. I don't
like it, but I know my duty.”
    Oh, you like it well enough, Peake thought. You like it so much
that the mere prospect of blowing them away has you so excited you're ready to piss in your pants.
    “Jerry? Do you know your duty, too? Can I count on you?”
In the living room of the cabin, Ben found
something that he and Rachael had not noticed before: a pair of
binoculars on the far side of the armchair near the window. Putting
them to his eyes and looking out the window, he could clearly see the
bend in the dirt road where he and Rachael had crouched to study the
cabin. Had Eric been in the chair, watching them with the
binoculars?
    In less than fifteen minutes, Ben finished searching the living
room and the three bedrooms. It was at the window of the last of
these chambers that he saw the broken brush at the far edge of the
lawn, at a point well removed from that place where he and Rachael
had come out of the forest on their initial approach to the cabin.
That was, he suspected, where Eric had gone into the woods just after
spotting them with the binoculars. Increasingly, it appeared that the
noises they heard in the forest had been the sounds of Eric stalking
them.
    Very likely Leben was still out there, watching.
    The time had come to go after him.
    Benny left the bedroom, crossed the living room. In the kitchen,
as he pushed open the rear screen door, he saw the ax out of the
corner of his eye: It was leaning against the side of the
refrigerator.
    Ax?
    Turning away from the door, frowning, puzzled, he looked down at
the sharp blade. He was certain it had not been there when he and
Rachael had entered the cabin through the same door.
    Something cold crawled through the hollow of his spine.
    After he and Rachael had made the first circuit of the house, they
had wound up in the garage, where they had discussed what they must
do next. Then they had come back inside and had gone straight through
the kitchen to the living room to gather up the Wildcard file. That
done, they had returned to the garage, gotten into the Mercedes, and
driven down to the gate. Neither time had they passed this side of the refrigerator. Had the ax been here then?
    The icy entity inside Ben's spine had crept all the way up to the base of his skull.
    Ben saw two explanations for the ax-only two. First, perhaps Eric
had been in the kitchen while they'd been in the adjacent garage planning their next move. He could have been holding the weapon, waiting for them to return to the house, intending to catch them by surprise. They had been only feet away from Eric without realizing it, only moments away from the quick, biting agony of the ax. Then, for some reason, as Eric listened to them discuss strategy, he had decided against attacking, opted for some other course of action, and had put down the ax.
    Or…
    Or Eric had not been in the cabin then, had only entered later,
after he saw them drive away in the Mercedes. He had discarded the
ax, thinking they were gone for good, then had fled without it when
he heard Benny returning in the Ford.
    One or the other.
    Which? The need to answer that question seemed urgent and all-
important. Which?
    If Eric had been here earlier, when Rachael and Ben were in the
garage, why hadn't he attacked? What had changed his mind?
    The cabin was almost as empty of sound as a vacuum. Listening, Ben
tried to determine if the silence was one of expectation, shared by
him and one other lurking presence, or a silence of solitude.
    Solitude, he soon decided. The dead, hollow, empty stillness that
you experienced only when you were utterly and unquestionably alone.
Eric was not in the house.
    Ben looked through the screen