Page 70 of Dark

“Folks, afraid we’ve got some severe weather headed this way. Need everyone to calmly make their way to their vehicles and follow law enforcement instructions as we work to evacuate the area.”

Another howl cut in before my brother could finish. This time, the laughter had a high, reedy edge to it, no one quite sure whether this was an epic Halloween prank or Blood Moon was about to have its second supernatural sighting in three years. Unfortunately, the announcement didn’t have the desired effect, the survivalist crowd figuring out pretty quickly the farm only had one exit out to the highway, while the paranormal chasers tried to make a break for the edge of the police line, now sure something was up. Elbowing my way through the fray, I changed course. Piper stood beside Meera, texting frantically.

“Ellie?” I shouted over the crush of people fighting to get by, which only caused Meera to insert herself between me and her wife, glaring up at me like did I really just go there, and by the way, did I remember she lectured at the university down in Austin by day and taught krav maga by night?

The crowd swarmed around us, elbows flying as people texted, kids tried to hang onto plastic bags of kettle corn and stoned hipsters who’d clearly equated corn maze with putting a recreational spin on the afternoon fought to be the first ones out to the parking lot.

Piper whipped her head back towards the dark cornfield off in the distance. “We were in the maze earlier and I dropped my phone—”

Meera hugged her. “Ellie was worried. It was getting dark. But now none of our texts are going through. They must have somehow passed each other—”

Another howl sounded, closer this time. Pushing past them, I called over my shoulder.

“I’ll find her. Get to Hayden.”

A single portable floodlamp swayed outside the maze entrance like the lone lighthouse in a storm, casting an eerie blue-white circle of illumination that shivered with each gust. Thunder rumbled overhead, the scent of rain in the air so heavy I could taste it.

One of Brody’s cop buddies shouted instructions over a bullhorn, telling everyone they needed to clear out. Crouched in the shadows, I sent my brother a mental image of the squad car. A few seconds later, his voice came over the radio.

“209, confirm perimeter sweep.”

The deputy shined his flashlight in a wide arc, briefly glancing down the maze’s entrance before moving away. Keeping an eye on his back, I hurried down the narrow dirt path.

The wind howled from every direction, cornstalks slapping me as I dodged left, then backhanding me from the right. I threw an arm up to shield my face, watching the wind flatten a section of maze in front of me until it was practically horizontal. Thousands of leaves rasped in surround sound, shrieking, whispering, tearing, the sensation like having my ear canals scrubbed out with sandpaper.

In short, it was the perfect place for an ambush.

Every month the pack got together for all-night hunts where we tracked small game, deer and wild boar. We also held capture-the-flag tournaments, wolf-style, shot each other up during paintball and played first-bite-you’re-out team hunting courses on the back acres out at the ranch, which included a good acre of corn. Our not-so-human sides ate that stuff up.

It was all fun and games. Until it wasn’t.

Thunder rumbled, fat raindrops spackling my shirt. I had to hurry. The moment the rain hit for real, it would wipe out any hope I had of tracking.

I took off at a run, not daring to use my phone. Fifty yards in, a skeleton and a scarecrow hung propped over haystacks, bony fingers pointing out a fork in the path. Slowing, I ground my teeth at the faint traces of roasted corn and herbal shampoo. Because of course Mini-Hays would have picked Skeletor.

The sky chose that moment to open up, Texas weather doing one of its zero to sixty numbers, the sudden downpour erasing any hope I had of tracking Ellie by scent.

Shrieks sounded from somewhere far out in the maze. Racing through twisting rows of corn, I made it twenty feet in before being forced to double back, weaving through a series of tight hairpin turns that would have had me lost if it weren’t for the hum of the highway behind me.

“Screw it,” I muttered, switching my phone to flashlight mode.

Violent gusts of wind whipped the corn from side to side as I tried to make sense of where I was headed, not wanting to miss a fork in the path Hayden’s sister might have taken. Some sort of light or clearing loomed up in the distance, but the second I started forward, a dark shadow scuttled off to my right.

I bit back a shout as lightning exploded across the sky. Time to get the hell out of there.

At the center of the clearing stood a square hay bale surrounded by multicolored pumpkins, with a wooden letterbox at its center. For the true corn maze enthusiast, you could go all out while making your way through a course so complex aerial shots of it got featured on all the blogs each year, snapping selfies with numbered markers and searching for hidden bonus pathways not visible on the map. And believe me, between River and August, I’d been dragged through this thing every damn year. Sometimes two or three times.

Rotating in a slow circle, I surveyed the clearing’s three exits. One led back to the entrance. Snapping a quick picture, I faced the other two.

“Ellie!” I shouted, needles of rain whipping against my face.

But other than the distant sound of voices from deeper in the maze, there was no answer. Except of course, another howl. Freaking great. Cursing, I yanked the wooden box from the hay bale and ripped the stake free. Through my connection with Hayden came jagged shards of anger and fear. No signal on my phone. I forced my mind to clear. West would get her out. She could be pissed at me later, after I found her sister.

Images shot through my skull as I ran, their edges dark and indistinct. Low to the ground in wolf form, Cal tailed a female shifter who was nearly to the highway. Dallas sprinted around the perimeter of the farm, almost to August, who was cutting straight through the corn, no time to turn around to see who or what was chasing him.

I spat out a curse just as something slammed into me from behind.

My phone went flying, a split-second of strobing light as it spun off into nowhere followed by total darkness. Whirling, I leaped back, only to slip in the mud and land flat on my back in the corn. Lightning flashed, revealing the silhouette of a girl holding one of the maze markers between us like a bat, her thin shoulders heaving as she struggled to draw in air.