Free Master of the Moors by Kealan Patrick Burke Page A

lined with
trees that had laid down a thick carpet of foliage to die at their
feet.
    But this was different.
The smell was too strong, too cloying to be natural.
    It summoned a memory of
the summer before, when Neil had awoken to a faint, unpleasant
smell that had grown stronger as he descended the stairs for
breakfast. His nose had led him to the closet beneath the stairs,
but when Grady investigated, he found nothing and couldn't detect
the odor Neil had described. A week later, with the temperature
outside slowly rising, the smell was horrendous. This time, when
Grady opened the closet door, he noticed the stench and after a
short search discovered a badly decomposed rat inside one of his
old forgotten work boots.
    Now Neil detected the same
stench again, woven into the natural scents of wood smoke and dead
leaves. Had something crawled beneath the leaves to die? Reason
suggested so, but doubt nagged at him.
    He's here.
    It was a foolish, childish
notion, but it persisted.
    He's here, watching you.
    No, he's not. You're being ridiculous.
Why would he follow you?
    Because he's mad.
    He quickened his pace as much as he
could without tripping himself up.

The house was close, he
knew by the slight angle the path had taken, eager to deliver him
to the door.
    Behind him,
blood-chillingly close, leaves crackled beneath a footfall not his
own.
    A gasp caught in his
throat as the cane betrayed him. He stumbled, almost fell but
managed at the last second to steady himself. The wind
strengthened, making the bones of the trees clack with more
urgency. He whirled, cane raised defensively.
    "Who's there? Kate, is
that you?"
    It would be just like her
to try and scare him, but unless she'd been rolling around in dead
things, someone else was standing there watching him.
    "Who are you?" he said,
forming a picture in his mind of what his unseen pursuer might look
like, but the pieces refused to come together.
    Stop it. If he knows you're
scared, it'll only encourage him . He
didn't know where the wisdom had come from; he was certainly too
frightened to have conjured it up by himself, but he heeded it
nonetheless.
    "C'mon then," he said,
gritting his teeth and swishing the cane in a threatening arc.
"What are you waiting for?"
    Only the wind replied. He
waited for another few moments, the cane still raised and trembling
in his hand, and now new doubts entered his mind. Maybe it really
had been just the leaves that he'd smelled, and maybe
something had crawled beneath them to die. It certainly wouldn't be
anything unusual, and far more credible an idea than a total
stranger following him home where anyone who happened to be looking
out the window might see him.
    "Imbecile." He lowered the
cane and turned back in the direction of the house. It wasn't far
now. He would be there in a few hurried steps.
    More leaves crackled, then
again, and again, so close Neil knew if he turned and waited a
heartbeat the follower would be upon him. He whirled and, with a
cry equal parts fear and rage, whipped the air before him. There
was a sudden smack and the cane halted halfway through its arc so
unexpectedly that Neil lost his grip on it and staggered
forward.
    He raised his head, arms
out in front of him, terror playing havoc with his thoughts. He caught it , he thought,
struggling to keep the dam of panic from breaking. And now he's going to use it on
me .
    He flinched and let out a
startled yelp when someone grabbed his hand. He struggled, kicked,
flailed and screamed, knowing beyond a doubt that he was going to
die, so impossibly close to the house. Nails dug into his sleeve,
fingers clutched at him, forcing open his hand. Terror overwhelmed
him. The man had followed him and would kill him, for reasons
unknown. He had read Neil's thoughts somehow and he would leave the
boy's battered and bloodied body buried beneath the leaves so
that he would be
the dead thing the others would smell when the heat
returned.
    In his personal darkness,
he imagined a