Winter Moon

brave."
        "Truly brave people never do." said, "Lots of people are heroes even if they it dodge bullets or chase bad guys." People who go to work every day, make sacrifices for their families, and get through life without hurting people if they can help it-those are the real heroes,"
        Jack told him. "Lots of them out there. And once in a while all of them are afraid."
        "Then it's okay if I'm scared?" Toby said. rmore than okay," Jack said. "If you were never afraid of anything, then you'd be either very stupid or me. Now, I know you can't be stupid because you're Insanity, on the other hand… well, I can't be)sure about that, since it runs in your mom's family." he smiled. Then maybe I can do it," Toby said. "We'll get through this," Jack assured him. Heather met Jack's eyes and smiled as if to say, You did that so well, you ought to be Father of the Year. He winked at her. God, she loved him.
        "Then it's insane," the boy said. Frowning, Heather said, "What?"
        "The alien.
        Can't be stupid. It's smarter than we are, can do things we can't. So it must be insane. It's never afraid." Heather and Jack glanced at each other. No smiles this time. "Never," Toby repeated, both hands clasped tightly around the mug of hot chocolate.
        Heather returned to the windows, first one, then the other. Jack skimmed the tablet pages he hadn't yet read, found a passage about the doorway, and quoted from it aloud. Standing on edge, a giant coin of darkness. As thin as a sheet of paper. Big enough to drive a train through. A blackness of exceptional purity.
        Eduardo daring to put his hand in it. His sense that something was coming out of that fearful gloom.
        Pushing the tablet aside, getting up from his chair, Jack said, "That's enough for now. We can read the rest of it later. Eduardo's account supports our own experiences. That's what's important. They might've thought he was a crazy old geezer, or that we're flaky city people who've come down with a bad case of the heebie-jeebies in all this open space, but it isn't as easy to dismiss all of us."
        Heather said, "So who're we going to call, the county sheriff?" "Paul Youngblood, then Travis Potter. They already suspect something's wrong out here-though, God knows, neither of them could have a clue that it's any-thing this wrong. With a couple of locals on our side, there's a chance the sheriff's deputies might take us more seriously."
        Carrying the shotgun with him, Jack went to the wall phone. He plucked the handset off the cradle, listened, rattled the disconnect lever,.punched a couple of numbers, and hung up. "The line's dead." He had suspected as much even as he started toward the phone.
        After the incident with the computer, she knew that getting help wasn't going to be easy, she hadn't wanted to think about the possibility they were trapped.
        "Maybe the storm brought down the lines," Jack said. "Aren't the phone lines on the same poles as the power and we have power, so it wasn't the storm." the pegboard, he snatched the keys to the Explorer and to Eduardo's Cherokee.
        "Okay, let's get the out of here. We'll drive over to Paul and Carolyn's, call Travis from there."
        Heather tucked the yellow tablet into the waistband of her pants, against her stomach, and zipped her ski-jacket over it. She took the Micro Uzi and the Korth from the countertop, one in each hand. Toby scooted off his chair, Falstaff came out from under the table and padded directly to the connecting door between the kitchen and the garage. The dog seemed to understand that they were getting out, and he fully concurred with their decision.
        Jack unlocked the door, opened it fast but warily, sing the threshold with the shotgun held in front of him, as if he expected their enemy to be in the garage. flipped the light switch, looked left and right, and said, "Okay."
        Toby followed his father, with Falstaff at his side. Heather left last, glancing back at the windows. ow. Nothing but cold cascades of snow. Even with the lights on, the garage was murky. It was as chilly as a walk-in refrigerator. The big sectional roll-up door rattled in the wind, but she didn't push the button to raise it, they would be safer if they activated it with the remote from inside the Explorer.
        While Jack made sure that Toby got in the back seat and buckled his safety belt and that the dog was in as well,