John Saul by Guardian

nuts. Jeff thinks he killed his folks.”
    “Really?” Andrea gasped. As she stared up at the window above the porch roof, she shuddered, imagining a weird, wild-eyed Joey staring back, and wondered once again if maybe they shouldn’t just forget about what they were going to do and go home. “What if he sees us?”
    Michael grinned maliciously. “Then maybe he’ll kill you,too.” Without waiting for his sister to reply, he darted away from the shelter of the barn and dashed across the yard toward the house.
    Andrea, left by herself, hesitated a moment longer. Finally, the fear of being left alone in the darkness overcame her fear of being spotted from the house. Taking a deep breath—as if she were about to plunge into cold water—she ran after her brother.
    Together they crouched in the shadows, catching their breath. Michael reached down and picked up a handful of the cinder rocks that covered the area between the house and the barn. Stepping away from the house, he threw them up at Joey Wilkenson’s window, ducking back into the shelter of the porch roof even before the small rocks hit the glass.
    There was no response from above. Michael had reached down to pick up another handful of gravel when Andrea grabbed his arm.
    “I saw something!” she whispered.
    Michael froze. “Where?”
    “O-Over there,” Andrea replied, her voice quavering as her heart began to pound.
    Michael followed her pointing finger with his eyes, staring off into the darkness beyond the house. At first he saw nothing, but then, across the yard near the woods, something moved.
    A deer. It had to be a deer. If he and Andrea held perfectly still, it would come out of the shadows of the tree into the moonlight, and they would see it clearly. He reached out to Andrea, his fingers closing on her arm, the forefinger of his right hand going to his lips to keep her from speaking again. Together the twins froze in the darkness, waiting.
    After what seemed an eternity, the shadowy figure moved again, then emerged from the woods.
    It wasn’t a deer.
    The form they beheld was large, like a tall, muscular man. He moved a few steps on silent feet, with the grace of a wild animal. The two children stared at him, barely able to discern the shape from the surrounding shadows. Asthe figure came partly into the moonlight, he suddenly stopped, freezing like a rabbit catching the scent of danger, and both of them were suddenly certain he was watching them.
    “Oh, God,” Andrea whispered, her voice barely audible. “Who is it?”
    Michael said nothing, for something about the dark figure made his blood run cold. The idea of trying to frighten Joey Wilkenson evaporating from his mind, he tightened his grip on Andrea’s arm and began backing slowly toward the corner of the house.
    A breeze came up, blowing down from the mountains, and a moment later one of the horses whinnied loudly in the barn, and then they heard the sound of hooves striking out against the wooden walls of one of the stalls.
    “Let’s get out of here,” Michael whispered. Pulling Andrea along beside him, he ran toward the mouth of the driveway, no longer Worried about being seen from the house, but only wanting to keep the house itself between him and the ominous figure that had come out of the woods. He’d only gone a few steps when Andrea jerked her arm loose from his grip and sped past him, her feet pounding on the ground as she, too, raced toward the driveway.
    It wasn’t until they were almost back to their own house that they finally slowed down, both of them gasping for breath. At last, with home in sight, Michael dropped to the ground, struggling to control his breathing, now frightened that his own parents might hear them. Andrea crouched beside him, and for a few minutes neither of them said anything.
    Finally, Andrea, unable to stand the silence any longer, spoke. “Who was it?” she whispered, her voice ragged from the exhaustion of running for almost a full mile.