The Silent Girl

sound. Found herself staring at a second swaying carcass, moving like a giant pendulum back and forth across the narrow beam of her flashlight.
    “Behind us!” said Colin, voice rising to shrill panic now. “No, over there!”
    Jane spun, her light catching movement everywhere as the darkness came alive with a noisy chorus of clanks and groans and squealing metal.
    “Where the fuck
is it
?” yelled Colin, whirling beside her, wildly swinging his weapon as carcasses swayed all around them. He fired, and somewhere in the darkness metal clanged. He fired again, and the bullet thunked into cold meat.
    “Will you
stop it
, before you kill us both!” Jane yelled.
    He ceased fire but was still jerking one way and then the other, in search of a target. No doubt he imagined the creature everywhere, just as she did. Over there, was that the flash of a face, the gleam ofan eye? How could anything move so swiftly, so soundlessly? Suddenly she remembered the illustration in the book of Chinese folktales. The Monkey King, clutching his staff, his long tail curling like a serpent. She thought of a sword whispering through the night, the blade slicing through her throat. Her gaze shot upward and for an instant she thought she saw it perched above, its feral eyes shining from the darkness. But there was no creature there, just an empty steel hook awaiting a fresh side of meat.
    Slowly the groans and creaks faded to silence. Yet she and Colin stood in place, backs pressed against each other, both of them frantically scanning the shadows. In every direction that Jane aimed her flashlight, she spotted no intruder, yet the darkness seemed to be watching them. And with this light in my hand, she thought, whatever is here knows exactly where we are.
    “Keep moving,” she whispered. “To the door.”
    “What is this thing? What are we dealing with?”
    “Let’s not wait around to find out.”
    He was not about to be left behind. As she moved toward the door, she could almost feel his breath on her neck. For a man like Colin, a gun was fake courage, enough to transform a coward into a bully and a killer. But put that man in the dark where he can’t see the enemy, where blindness is the equalizer, and the coward is stripped bare again. Only after they’d reached the exit and stepped outside did she hear him give a relieved sigh. The air smelled of the sea, and in the sky, circling jets glittered like moving stars. She pulled out her cell phone, but hesitated before making the call. What would she say?
The power failed and we all freaked out. Heard things in the dark and imagined monsters
.
    “You gonna call or what?” said Colin. The coward was gone, and the bully was back.
    She lifted her phone to dial and went instantly still, her gaze riveted on the warehouse rooftop. On the figure squatting there, silhouetted like a gargoyle against the night sky. It was watching her, just as she was watching it.
Does it see me as friend or enemy?
    “There it is!” yelled Colin.
    Just as he raised his gun to fire, Jane grabbed his arm. The bullet went wild, flying harmlessly into the sky.
    “What the fuck?” Colin yelled. “It’s right there, kill it!”
    On the rooftop, the figure didn’t move; it simply sat staring at them.
    “If you don’t take it down, I will,” said Colin. Once again he lifted his gun and suddenly froze, scanning the rooftop. “Where is it? Where’d it go?”
    “It’s gone,” said Jane, staring up at the empty rooftop.
You saved my life once; now I’ve saved yours
.

D ONOHUE’S A DIRTBAG,” SAID TAM. “I SAY WE JUST LET THE THING take him out. Let it take them all out.”
    The thing
. They had no other name for whatever it was that had perched on the warehouse last night. No one had seen its face or heard its voice. They’d caught only glimpses of it, and always in darkness, where it was little more than shadow moving across shadow. In the battle between good and evil,
the thing
had clearly staked its position. Already it had cut down two hired killers. Now its gaze was fixed on Donohue.
    But it spared me, thought Jane.
How does it know I’m one of the good guys?
    “Whatever it is,” said Frost, “it’s pretty damn clever at avoiding surveillance cameras.”
    The three detectives had spent all morning in the second-floor conference room, reviewing video footage from cameras mounted throughout the Jeffries Point neighborhood where Donohue’s warehouse was located. The feed from one of