Nightfall by Ellen Connor Page A

single-mindedness. If they found us, so could something else. Her stomach dropped.
    â€œYou probably won’t believe me,” Angela said, her voice low. “But it was Penny. We fled in Bob’s SUV, but it stalled, like the whole electrical system popped at once. As soon as it stopped, she ran for the woods, so I chased her. The rest followed. She led us here, like she knew exactly where you’d be.”
    Jenna glanced at the girl where she sat on the rug, a white stuffed bear clutched to her chest. Her eyes looked impossibly huge in her pale face, pools of twilight blue framed by flyaway corn-silk hair. Penny knew something. Jenna saw it in her haunted eyes, but the little girl jammed a thumb in her mouth and turned away.
    â€œShe’s telling the truth,” Bob muttered. “I thought it was crazy, but after some of the things I’ve seen in the last few days ...” He trailed off, shrugging. “Everyone else was ... well—God there was just so much blood .” He pinched his eyes shut. “None of it makes sense, but ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”
    Tru rolled his eyes. “Aw, quit the Shakespeare, would ya, Coach?”
    From looking at the kid, Jenna suspected he had a cartload of issues. She imagined a row of neat, self-inflicted cuts beneath his long sleeve, and then wondered at her conviction. It wasn’t suspicion; it was knowledge . She’d felt the same thing out in the woods, imagining how those demon dogs would look.
    Okay, what the hell ... ?
    Bob’s eyes went dull and distant. “When that thing bit Edna, I just kicked it. Kept kicking it.”
    â€œYeah, it kinda didn’t look the same when he got through with it,” Tru said, grinning.
    Jenna took a deep breath. She wanted to pound it out of all of them. What happened? What happened out there? But part of her didn’t want to know, because that would mean it was true—that the troubles in the east had finally crossed the Mississippi. Nothing would ever be the same.
    Old words came to her. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. She remembered them from what Mitch had written. Right then, she wanted to read the letter over again. Maybe it contained more information she could use. But that would wait until they sorted out this mess.
    Jenna leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at the group. She could imagine Mason as a wolf or a leopard, maybe a lion. But according to that verse, there should be eight of them. And not everyone would survive. She knew that. In Old Testament terms, fatlings and lambs were often sacrificed.
    â€œYou were smart, all of you,” Mason said, cutting into her thoughts. “I’m amazed you made it all the way out here without gear or training.”
    Without turning his back on their uninvited guests, he crossed to the hearth and knelt in front of Penny. She regarded him with big unblinking eyes.
    â€œSo you’re their leader, huh? I should do business with you?” To Jenna’s surprise, his tone remained patient and gentle. The girl peered up at him, thumb in her mouth. The idea of her being in charge of anything was strangely endearing, but Jenna couldn’t imagine following her through a monster-infested wood. “How’d you know we were here?”
    No reply. Just that big-eyed stare.
    Breaking the fraught silence, Bob asked, “Hey, does that radio still work?”
    Mason shrugged. He walked to a nearby coffee table and clicked on the analog radio, then fiddled with the dial. Static hissed through one channel after another. Nothing at all on FM. The eeriness of nothing was hard to overcome. Jenna shivered once, then popped the casserole into the stove. Mason switched to AM and scanned slowly, his fierce concentration making