Free Walk the Sky by Robert Swartwood, David B. Silva Page A

his arm and trying to pull him up—and, somehow, succeeding. He knew he wasn’t the lightest man in the world, but this girl (because that’s what she was, he now saw, she was just a girl) lifted him to his feet like he was nothing more than a ragdoll.  
    “Hurry,” she whispered, pulling him forward.  
    “Why?”  
    “They cannot know I am here.”  
    “Who?” he said, a little too loudly, and she shushed him, pressing three of her fingers to his lips.  
    “Those That Walk The Night.”  
    A moment passed and it was like it was just the two of them in the world at that instant, no one else, not the crazy townspeople behind him or the cicadas trilling around them or the creatures that shouldn’t exist coming to kill him.  
    Clay touched her hand, moved her fingers away from his lips, and whispered, “Who are you?”  
    She kept her fingers where they were inches from his face, as if debating whether she trusted him to keep his voice low. Then she looked past him and her eyes widened just a bit, and he turned to see that the few creatures that had been following him were now less than one hundred yards away.  
    “ Hurry ,” she whispered again.  
    She grasped his hand and pulled him forward into the night.

    *   *   *

    How far and how long they ran, Clay did not know. There were clouds in the sky and frequently they shifted in front of the moon, creating even more darkness. It was like he was moving through pitch black, only the girl kept hold of his hand and didn’t let go, pulling him through the dark like he was just a toy. She was strong and fit and could probably run miles without breaking a sweat. He, however, was old and weak and could barely walk a mile without taking a much-needed break. Clay knew that any moment his heart might explode in his chest, so he stopped suddenly and stood still.  
    The girl did not jerk back like he thought she would. It had not been his intention to try to harm her—he had concluded by this point that she was here to help him, whoever she was—but as a schoolteacher he certainly knew the laws of physics.  
    When something was moving at such a fast speed and was stopped suddenly by another force, that force would then jerk back. That was just the way things went.  
    But the girl surprised him.  
    Her hand never left his, not even when he halted, and while she did stop and tug at him, she never once lost her balance, and she never once fell back.  
    She tugged once more, paused, and looked at him.  
    The clouds shifted again, revealing the moonlight, revealing her small dark face.  
    Clay was amazed that barely a bead of sweat dotted her brow, and that she was not breathless.  
    “What are you doing?” she whispered.  
    “I ... can’t,” he huffed, wriggling his hand from hers and placing both hands on his knees. He slowly breathed in, slowly breathed out, again and again. Blood rang in his ears.  
    He expected the girl to protest, but she merely said, “I believe they have lost our trail.”  
    The cicadas continued to trill around them, only there seemed to be less of them now, their song not as powerful.  
    Clay asked, between breaths, “Who are you?”  
    The girl stood tall and silent, her eyes closed and her face tilted toward the sky. Clay couldn’t tell what she was doing—thinking, praying, simply being—but then she opened her eyes.  
    “Yes, I think we are safe for now.”  
    “How do you know?”  
    “I can no longer smell them.”  
    “Smell who?” he asked, and immediately remembered her strange words: Those That Walk The Night .  
    “They are not natural. They are not of our world anymore.”  
    “But they ... once were?”  
    She ignored this. “Where is Joe?”  
    “Who?” It took him an extra second, and then he remembered the Reverend’s man. “Why do you care where he is?”  
    “He is a friend.”  
    Clay shook his head angrily. “He’s with that crazy Reverend, is what he is. He’s a