The Dark Ones by Bryan Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes open. She lifted her head and stared at the closed bedroom door. Several silent seconds passed. She lifted her torso, propping herself on her elbows. Her heart was racing. The sound could have been just the house settling, but it was possible there was an intruder. They didn’t have an alarm system. Stupid Kurt. He thought he was the only line of defense they needed against anyone foolish enough to invade his territory. Typical example of his self-deluding ways. He was a big old pig of a man, but he imagined he was some kind of badass. Suzie almost hoped there was an intruder. A naughty—but undeniably arousing—scenario came to life in her head . . .
    The bedroom door crashes open. A muscular man dressed all in tight-fitting black and wearing a ski mask comes into the room. Tom gets up and tangles with the intruder, but the brute knocks Kurt out with one powerful blow and spots Suzie cringing beneath the blanket. He licks his lips and yanks the blanket away to stare at her shapely form, which is clad only in the very small silk nightgown. He climbs onto the bed and reaches for her, tears the flimsy garment from her sweat-sheened body, and—
    The creak came again, louder than before, and this time her head snapped toward the large window overlooking their backyard. She looked at Kurt again to see if the sound had stirred him. He was facing her now and she could see his slack, doughy features in refracted moonlight. A thin stream of drool leaked from a corner of his mouth to stain the sheet. Jesus. He was so gross. It was so unfair. She was sexy. Men gave her long looks all the time. She deserved better than this giant bucket of goo masquerading as a man. The universe conspired against her in a lot of ways, but the most blatant of all was the way it’d stuck her with this asshole.
    And now there was another sound from outside.
    A loud thump as something hit the ground.
    Suzie eased the blanket away from her body and slipped out of bed. The hardwood floor was cool beneath her bare feet as she padded over to the window and slipped a finger between the drapes, pulling the edge of one back far enough to get a glimpse of a dark-clad form scaling the high, slatted wooden fence. The figure was moving fast. Its speed and the darkness made identification impossible. It was gone in seconds. A tall oak tree with thick branches stood just outside the window. Her son’s bedroom was directly above their own. One of the tree’s thickest branches was close to the window up there.
    Was Derek sneaking out of his room at night?
    She didn’t know whether she should feel fury, concern, or some mixture of both. Something within that spectrum would be a normal parental reaction, especially considering it was also possible the form she’d glimpsed hadn’t been Derek. Perhaps there’d been an intruder, after all, someone who’d specifically come to harm Derek. Her son was a good-looking boy, despite his absurd “outsider” posing, a tempting target for a certain kind of sexual predator. She thought instantly of Clay Campbell. Campbell was about forty and lived alone in a house at the top of steep Laurel Hill Drive. He was a frequent subject of neighborhood gossip. Kids in the neighborhood were often seen hanging around his house. There was something not right about him. He didn’t seem to work, for one thing. Suzie was certain he was some kind of pervert.
    She pictured it in her mind. Clay Campbell going up the big tree, then crawling out that short distance along that thick branch to Derek’s bedroom window. It wasn’t an easy thing to envision. Campbell was on the chubby side. But that wouldn’t matter if he was determined. She imagined him sliding the window open and slipping inside unheard by her sleeping son. Or . . . and this hadn’t occurred to her until now . . . what if Derek had been waiting for him? Suzie felt a flutter of disgust. Was her son a homosexual? The notion disturbed her more than the possibility of an