Page 116 of The Man Made of Smoke

Once I was on the path, the lights around me seemed almost viciously bright, the woods behind them deep and black. As the flashes alternated, the lights danced over the trees and the leafy ground. My footsteps crunched softly in the silence. I felt scared: exposed and vulnerable. And yet something told me that the man wasn’t waiting in the trees to ambush me.

That he was ahead of me right now in every sense.

Thirty seconds later, the trail widened out into a more open space.

I stopped at the edge.

It was a clearing, illuminated by a number of larger bulbs embedded in the tops of wooden posts. The light from them cast elongated, cross-shaped shadows onto the land. Cables were spooled everywhere on the ground. I looked to my right, and saw the remains of an old, broken-down building that had been almost overtaken by the trees around it. The stonework had collapsed in places, and the panes in the downstairs windows were mostly gone: just a few jagged teeth of glass all but lost in the tangles of grass that were growing out over the sills.

The sight of it made me shiver.

And when I looked to my left, the feeling got worse.

It took a moment for the sight there to resolve itself and make sense. From what I could tell, there was a series of wooden pens and metal cages, and my gaze was drawn to the pen closest to the house. There was somebody in there: a shape on the ground that looked like a human being, lying on their side. Light was glinting on what appeared to be a chain tethering whoever was in there to a wooden post in the earth.

I took a faltering step in that direction, glancing around.

Speaking more quietly now.

“Sarah?”

The shape on the ground responded to the sound of my voice. A head lifted up in the shadows. Even in the darkness, I could tell it was her from the way her hair hung down. She didn’t reply, but I didn’t know if that was because she was gagged in some way or too badly injured to talk.

The thought of that made me want to head across to her, but that wasexactly what the man would be expecting me to do, so I fought it down and forced myself to remain where I was.

And he was here somewhere.

“Dan.”

The voice came from right behind me, and I turned quickly, raising the knife as I did. I didn’t know what I was expecting to see. A monster, perhaps. A man in a mask. But it was just Craig Aspinall, and for a split second that didn’t make any sense to me at all.

Why was he here?

What was that in his hand?

And then the side of my head exploded.

Thirty-Five

“Dan.”

John has been drifting—almost unconscious—but hearing his son’s name causes him to jerk awake. Where is he? It takes a second to realize that he’s crouched in a pen, weak and trembling, his body braced awkwardly against the post. He looks up the farm in time to see Daniel crumple, like a chimney collapsing, one moment upright, the next gone entirely.

Dust puffs up into the bleary, crisscross streams of light when his body hits the ground.

And then he lies still.

John tries to call out—Daniel!—but he doesn’t have the strength left to speak. All he can do is cling to the post and watch as Craig Aspinall stands over Daniel for a moment, looking down at him. John can see enough of the man’s face to recognize the rage burning there. Aspinall crouches down beside his son, the blackjack in his hand, and John visualizes him bringing that weapon down on Daniel, again and again and—

Do something!

But he can’t.

He has nothing left.

All he can do is watch. Aspinall reaches out with his free hand and turns Daniel’s head, then peers down into his face. It looks like he sayssomething. But even though John can’t make out the words, he has the impression that Aspinall is checking Daniel isn’t dead.

Please, he thinks.

---