Prologue

It was a scorcher, August, over 100 degrees in the shade, and I wasn’t in the shade. I was on my knees beside a road, the sun beating down on my back, both hands dug into the dirt like I was trying to grab hold of the earth and hang on. The stink of gasoline and burning rubber filled every breath; I was staring into a fire, dancing red-yellow flames and black smoke.

Suddenly, the world started to recede. It zoomed away from me, getting smaller and smaller, like looking through a telescope backward, until reality only existed in a puddle of searing light at the end of a black tunnel.

A voice in the light, hollow-sounding and unnatural, called out, “Annie! Annie!” Somebody out there in the light was screaming, too, wailing, and the howling echoed off the smooth tunnel walls, the sound fracturing and multiplying.

I sensed the tunnel widen behind me, like it stretched out forever. Lit by a soft, golden glow, it felt inviting, familiar and safe.

Ka-chunk.

The tunnel went silent; pieces of shattered scream clattered to the floor and the golden glow behind me dimmed.

Ka-chunk.

It was closer, louder, the light weaker still.

I sneaked a peek over my shoulder, and a great, malevolent darkness was gathering beyond the glow.

Ka-chunk. The sound of a whole panel of stadium lights suddenly switched off.

The darkness expanded; it was coming for me.

I bolted down the tunnel toward the voices in the searing light. The darkness nipped at my heels, gobbled up the world faster and faster.

Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk.

I tumbled out into the heat and stink of reality barely a step ahead of the darkness, and everything in the universe behind me blinked with a little sparkle like a soap bubble and vanished.

Out in the real world, flames still licked the bottom of black smoke. Jericho leaned over me, trying not to put any weight on a foot sliced open to the bone. He called my name. “Annie! Annie!” And the screams went on and on until my throat was raw and my voice so hoarse I could only croak. And cry.

But the thing was, I didn’t know anymore what I was crying about.

It’s been 25 years now and I still don’t.

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