She looked back down the beach toward Lexy’s cottage. She wanted to go back and ask Paul to come and play with her out on the beach, but Lexy had told her that it was important for her to let Mommy and Paul spend time together alone.
She didn’t see what was so important about it, but she promised Lexy she would.
Genny wandered further down the beach and then turned onto a sandy path that ran back to the town road. There were a lot of bushes here, but she could still catch glimpses of Paul and her mommy on the porch.
Their heads were very close together.
A white car was parked further up the path. People used the path to get to the beach, and it wasn’t nice for someone to block it like this.
She had seen the same car there yesterday, and the day before.
The same two men sat in the front. One of them was looking at Lexy’s house with a pair of binoculars.
She picked up a few more stones, cradled them in her arms, then ducked into the bushes and worked her way through the undergrowth until she was abreast of the car. She put her rocks down in a pile in front of her, collected a few more from the ground nearby, and crouched down to study the men.
One man had a thin, pale face, with big ears and small eyes.
His head was completely bald. The other man had white hair and ebony black skin. Their auras looked scary; they were flickering and jumpy, constantly changing colors.
Genny didn’t know who they were, but she didn’t have to. She understood that they were bad, and that was enough.
She picked up a rock, stood up, gauged the distance, and let it fly.
It struck the binoculars and knocked them out of the man’s hand.
Genny threw another stone. It sailed through the open driver’sside window and hit the bald-headed man right in the forehead.
The other man quickly wound up the window.
She threw two more. The first smashed against the side-view mirror; the second hit the rolled-up window and shattered it.
The engine started and the car backed up. Genny grabbed her biggest stone, the white one, and hurled it as hard as she could.
It shattered the windshield.
The car roared in reverse up the path, swerved crazily out onto the town road, braked with a loud squeal, slammed into first with a gnashing of gear teeth, and accelerated off down the road in a screech of peeling rubber.
Genny stood watching, hands planted on her hips.
If they came back tomorrow, she decided, she’d really get them good.
the end.
Tom Hyman Page 42