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  “What?”

  Vi hurried over.

  I touched the floorboards.

  “They’re wet.” A cold, sinking blast of panic ran through me. “Someone was up here while we were down there.”

  She looked at me, her eyes flooding.

  A lump swelling in my throat.

  “He’s here, isn’t he? He found us and took my son.”

  I headed toward the ladder.

  Immediately, I could tell something was off—a softness in my knees that I realized was numbness.

  “I don’t feel right,” I said as I reached the ladder and started down.

  Through her tears, she said, “I’ve been getting more and more lightheaded. I thought it was the wine.”

  I descended carefully, a tremor in my legs threatening to upend my balance. My mind redlined, the last sixty seconds such a nightmare I wondered if this was really happening. I’d had a dozen dreams in the last year that he’d somehow found us, and every time I’d wake sweating in the night, paralyzed by naked fear until that wash of relief would sweep over me, reality reinstated. I’d go to the kitchen sink, drink a glass of water, and wait for the nerves to recede.

  My feet touched the floorboards at the base of the ladder, and Violet was still crying hysterically in the loft and the numbness in my legs still growing, and I was still in this horrifying moment, either unable to wake, or worse, there was no nightmare to wake from.

  My knees hit the floor beside my bed, and I reached underneath it.

  Pulled out the shotgun, but it was too light, too small, and it wasn’t black metal but orange and green plastic.

  I stared at the Nerf toy in my hands and said, “What the fuck is happening?”

  My voice sounded strange, as if it had been relegated to some alcove in the back of my head. I turned and the room moved slower than the swivel of my head, the firelight leaving trails across my field of vision.

  Violet stood at the bottom of the ladder, swaying on her feet.

  “He drugged us,” I said, and she responded but I couldn’t interpret her words which were lost in a swarm of echoes.

  I staggered to the front door and pulled it open.

  Rain fell through the sphere of illumination cast by the porchlight.

  Pure, unflinching darkness beyond.

  My breath steamed in the cold, and I could feel the chill on my face, but there was distance from it—a chemical apathy getting stronger by the minute.

  I stumbled down the steps into a puddle, the freezing water seeping through my socks, realized I was still holding fast to the Nerf shotgun. I threw it down in the mud.

  My CJ-5 stood just beyond the field of light and I moved toward it on rubber legs.

  I kept a loaded hunting rifle in the back, had been hoping to shoot an elk that would feed us through the winter.

  I collided into the door of the Jeep, fumbling for the handle.

  It swung open and I climbed in, reaching back between the seats as the rain hammered the hard-top.

  The Remington was gone.

  He’d taken it, too.

  I stepped back down into the mud and stared at the porchlight thirty feet away, blinding me through the rain.

  My head felt heavy, fingers too, like they were trying to pull me down into the mud.

  I could hear Violet sobbing in the cabin. It occurred to me that a loss of consciousness was imminent, and despite the effect of the drug, this recognition terrified me.

  I wondered how long he’d been watching us, how long he’d been planning this night. He’d spent time inside the cabin—known how to take Max, the location of my shotgun, the rifle, and God knows what else.

  I started back toward Violet, but after four steps, my face hit the frigid mud, and I stared sideways at the open door of the cabin, the interior walls awash in firelight.

  Violet had gone quiet, now crawling toward the door.

  I tried to call out to her but couldn’t muster my voice.

  She slumped down across the threshold and didn’t move.

  My eyes had begun to close of their own will, the porchlight dimming away until it was nothing but a single, distant star.

  Now the white noise of the rain faded, and with it the coldness, and as I slipped under, I held onto a final, horrifying thought—this wasn’t the end of anything, certainly not my life. This was possibly the last moment of peace I would ever know, because when consciousness returned, I’d be waking up in hell.

  BLAKE CROUCH is the author of DESERT PLACES, LOCKED DOORS, and ABANDON, which was an IndieBound Notable Selection last summer, all published by St. Martin’s Press. His newest thriller, SNOWBOUND, also from St. Martin’s, was released in June 2010. His short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Thriller 2, and other anthologies, and is forthcoming in the new Shivers anthology and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Last year, he co-wrote “Serial” with J.A. Konrath, which has been downloaded over 350,000 times and topped the Kindle bestseller list for 4 weeks. That story and DESERT PLACES have also been optioned for film. Blake lives in Durango, Colorado. His website is www.blakecrouch.com.

  JACK KILBORN is the pen name for J.A. Konrath, author of seven books in the Lt. Jack Daniels thriller series, the latest of which is SHAKEN. Under the Kilborn moniker, he wrote ENDURANCE, TRAPPED, and AFRAID, all structured in the same way as DRACULAS, but decidedly darker. Konrath currently has twenty-seven ebooks available on Kindle, most of them inexpensively priced. In 2011, Ace Books is releasing TIMECASTER and TIMECASTER SUPERSYMMETRY, two sci-fi ecopunk novels written under the nom de plume Joe Kimball. You can visit all of his personalities at www.jakonrath.com.

  J.A. Konrath’s Works Available on Nook

  Whiskey Sour

  Bloody Mary

  Rusty Nail

  Fuzzy Navel

  Cherry Bomb

  Click here for more J.A. Konrath ebooks on Nook

  Blake Crouch’s Works Available on Nook

  Andrew Z. Thomas thrillers

  Desert Places

  Locked Doors

  Other works

  Abandon

  Snowbound

  Luminous Blue

  Perfect Little Town (horror novella)

  Four Live Rounds (collected stories)

  Shining Rock (short story)

  *69 (short story)

  On the Good, Red Road (short story)

  Remaking (short story)

  Coming soon…

  Killers (with J.A. Konrath)

  Killers Uncut (with J.A. Konrath)

  Serial Killers Uncut (with J.A. Konrath)

  Stirred (with J.A. Konrath)

  Visit Blake at www.BlakeCrouch.com

  KILLERS copyright © 2011 by Blake Crouch & Joe Konrath

  Cover art copyright © 2011 by Jeroen ten Berge

  KILLERS is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Joe Konrath & Blake Crouch.

  For more information about Blake Crouch, please visit www.blakecrouch.com.

  For more information about Jack Kilborn, please visit please visit www.jackkilborn.com.

  For more information about the cover artist, please visit please visit www.jeroentenberge.com.