Beware
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The supermarket shouldn't have been shut. It wasn't normal for Elsie to quit early, or for the guard dog to end up like hamburger meat, or for Elsie herself to feature on the butcher's slab, neatly wrapped and jointed. Residents of Oasis, like hotshot reporter Lacey Allen had better beware!
BEWARE
RICHARD
LAYMON
NEW YORK CITY
Had you been rags or wood
I could have stuffed you and burned you.
But you were some bad breed of blood and bone
With arms that stretched an entire room,
Eyes without end and a heart of stone.from “The Bogeyman”
by R. S. Stewart
CHAPTER ONE
On the night it began, Frank and Joan Bessler left the stifling heat of their home and walked four blocks to Hoffman’s Market. Frank wanted a sixpack.“Doesn’t look open,” Joan said.“It has to be.” Frank checked his wristwatch. “I’ve got nine fifteen.”“Why aren’t the lights on?”“Maybe she’s saving on electricity,” he said. He hoped he was right, but didn’t believe it. For as far back as he could remember—and he’d spent all of his twenty-nine years in Oasis—the market had remained brightly lighted until closing time.Closing time was ten o’clock to keep an edge on the Safeway that shut at nine. When Elsie Hoffman’s husband died, three years ago, there’d been talk she might sell out, or at least close down earlier. But she’d held onto the tiny market and kept it open till the usual hour.“I do think it’s closed,” Joan said as they stopped by its deserted parking lot.The store sign was dark. The only light in the windows was a dim glow from the bulb Elsie always left on overnight.“I can’t believe it,” Frank muttered.“She must’ve had a reason.”“Maybe she changed hours on us.”Joan waited on the sidewalk, and Frank stepped up to the wooden door. Crouching, he squinted at the window sticker.