Watchers

as unhappy about that as I am. You’ve been working long hours in rugged terrain for six days now, and you’re tired, and you’re wondering how long this is going to drag on. Well, we’re going to keep looking until we find what we’re after, until we corner The Outsider and kill it. There is no way we can stop if it’s still loose. No way.”
    None of the hundred even grumbled in disagreement.
    “And always remember—we’re also looking for the dog.”
    Every man in the room probably hoped that he would be the one to find the dog and that someone else would encounter The Outsider.
    Lem said, “On Wednesday, we’re bringing in another four Marine Intelligence squads from more distant bases, and they’ll spell you on a rotating basis, giving you a couple of days off. But you’ll all be out there tomorrow morning, and the search area has been redefined.”
    A county map was mounted on the wall behind the lectern, and Lem Johnson pointed to it with a yardstick. “We’ll be shifting north-northwest, into the hills and canyons around Irvine Park.”
    He told them about the slaughter at the petting zoo. He gave a graphic description of the condition of the carcasses, for he did not want any of these men to get careless.
    “What happened to those zoo animals,” Lem said, “could happen to any of you if you let your guard down at the wrong place and time.”
    A hundred men regarded him with utmost seriousness, and in their eyes he saw a hundred versions of his own tightly controlled fear.
     
     
8
    Tuesday night, May 25, Tracy Leigh Keeshan could not sleep. She was so excited she felt as if she might burst. She pictured herself as a dandelion gone to seed, a puffball of fragile white fuzz, and then a gust of wind would come along and all the bits of fluff would be sent spinning in every direction— poof—to the far corners of the world, and Tracy Keeshan would exist no more, destroyed by her own excitement.
    She was an unusually imaginative thirteen-year-old.
    Lying in bed in her dark room, she did not even have to close her eyes to see herself on horseback—on her own chestnut stallion, Goodheart, to be precise—thundering along the racetrack, the rails flashing past, the other horses in the field left far behind, the finish line less than a hundred yards ahead, and the adoring crowds cheering wildly in the grandstand .
    In school, she routinely got good grades, not because she was a diligent student but because learning came easily to her, and she could do well without much effort. She didn’t really care about school. She was slender, blond, with eyes the precise shade of a clear summer sky, very pretty, and boys were drawn to her, but she didn’t spend any more time thinking about boys than she did worrying about her school work, not yet anyway, although her girlfriends were so fixated on boys, so consumed by the subject that they sometimes bored Tracy half to death.
    What Tracy cared about—deeply, profoundly, passionately—was horses, racing thoroughbreds. She had been collecting pictures of horses since she was five and had been taking riding lessons since she was seven, though for the longest time her parents had not been able to afford to buy her a horse of her own. During the past two years, however, her father’s business had prospered, and two months ago they had moved into a big new house on two acres in Orange Park Acres, which was a horsey community with plenty of riding trails. At the back end of their lot was a private stable for six horses, though only one stall was occupied. Just today—Tuesday, May 25, a day of glory, a day that would live forever in Tracy Keeshan’s heart, a day that just proved there was a God—she had been given a horse of her own, the splendid and beautiful and incomparable Goodheart.
    So she could not sleep. She went to bed at ten, and by midnight she was more awake than ever. By one o’clock Wednesday morning, she could not stand it any longer. She had to go out to the stables and look at Goodheart. Make sure he was all right. Make sure he was comfortable in his new home. Make sure he was real.
    She threw off the sheet and thin blanket and got quietly out of bed. She
    was wearing panties and a Santa Anita Racetrack T-shirt, so she just pulled on a pair of jeans and slipped her bare feet into blue Nike running shoes.
    She turned the knob on her door slowly, quietly, and went out into the hail, letting the door stand open.
    The house was dark and