Seize the Night: New Tales of Vampiric Terror by Charlaine Harris, Tim Lebbon, David Wellington, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Dan Chaon, Brian Keene, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Kelley Armstrong, Michael Koryta, Scott Smith, Joe McKinney, Laird Barron, Rio Youers, Dana Cameron, Leigh Perry, Gary A. Braunbeck, Lynda Barry, John Langan, Seanan McGuire, Robert Shearman, Lucy A. Snyder Read Free Book Online

the first time how much care he normally took with his appearance. He was a vain man—how could she have missed this?
    The creature kept looking at her. Screaming. Thrashing.
    “Do you know what it is?” Ally asked.
    The doctor nodded.
    “You’ve seen it before?”
    He shook his head. “But I know what it is.”
    Ally hugged herself. She wished the thing would fall silent again, but if anything it only seemed to be growing louder. She glanced around them, at the trees bordering the yard, the hillside above the barn. “Are there others?”
    The doctor didn’t answer. He said: “I think it might be best if you went back inside.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I have to make some calls.”
    “To who?”
    “Please, Ally. Go back into the house.”
    So she went inside. She showered, put on fresh clothes, combed out her hair. She stood at the kitchen sink and ate a piece of toast, watching out the window as the doctor paced in the dirt beside the hitching post, on his cell phone, making his calls. As soon as Ally had left, the creature had fallen silent again. Eleanor remained in the barn with the birds. Every now and then, Ally heard the parrot call out: “Ed! Big Ed!” But otherwise, all was quiet.
    The first car arrived thirty minutes later. Ron Hillman, the village pharmacist, was driving. He climbed out and stood with the doctor, both of them frowning down at the creature, their hands on their hips. Ally watched them as they talked. Whatever Ron was saying, the doctor didn’t appear to like it; he kept shaking his head. It was odd to see Ron without his white coat, dressed in khaki shorts and a golf shirt, his legs looking so pale and thin in the earlymorning sun. Another car arrived: this one held Philip and Christina Larchmont. They joined Ron and the doctor by the hitching post, forming a little circle around the wounded creature. Philip was the village’s mayor. He owned a small trucking company. In the winter, according to what Stan had once told Ally, he liked to head out in one of his trucks and help plow the local roads, charging nothing for this service. Christina worked part-time in the little library beside the village green. Ben Trevor, from the hardware store, was the next to arrive, then Mike and Jessica Stahl, then Mickey Wheelock. Ally thought she should make a pitcher of iced tea, bring it out to them on a platter, but there was something about the way everyone kept turning to glance toward the house that gave her pause. She couldn’t say precisely how it made her feel, but it wasn’t a pleasant sensation—wary, a bit uneasy. The doctor had told her to wait inside, so that was what she would do. She turned from the window, sat at the kitchen table, and tried not to think about the people on the lawn, tried not to think about the blood on Stan’s pajamas, tried most of all not to think about the creature.
    Ally heard the sound of water softly falling, and when she looked up, she saw urine soaking the dog’s bed, running off it onto the floor in little rivulets: Bo had lost his bladder in his sleep. Ally tried to rouse him, but he just opened a single eye, stared blindly toward her, and then slipped back into unconsciousness. She was cleaning the mess up as best as she could, when there was a knocking at the screen door.
    “Come in!” she called.
    It was Christina and Jessica. Neither of them could’ve been more than a handful of years older than Ally, but there was something about both women—so stout and competent and matronly—that always made Ally feel very young. Whenever she encountered one or the other of them, she ended up wondering how she could’ve managed to live so many years without ever really growing up. Thetwo women bustled into the kitchen with a friendly air of command, each talking over the other.
    “Oh, dear,” Christina said. “Did someone have an accident?”
    “We’ll take care of that,” Jessica said. She was already by the sink, rummaging in the