I was way past the age of needing cookies and milk. And I didn't want to talk. My throat closed up when I noticed the empty spot on the end of my bed where Whipple usually slept. Without bothering to change out of my jeans, I slid under the sheets and waited for sleep. My day had officially sucked.

Hunger clawed at the creature like a thousand children without mothers. The old man had not been enough.

Not nearly enough to quiet the bone-deep gnawing in the creature's gut. He dragged himself along the bottom of the hovel that had been his home for so long, he had nearly forgotten what his first home had been like. What he had been like back when he had had a name. When people had called him Auguste.

Once, he'd been an ordinary human.

Once, he'd slept in a real house.

Once, he'd had a regular life.

Once, he'd dreamed of more, of love, of a woman- Then one day, he'd ended up down here, and he'd become a monster. Because the land had demanded. This land, which had preserved his life, given his family their rich lives, given him his power, had also demanded a merciless sacrifice. His existence.

Auguste, now a creature of the dark, brushed a hand across the earth, and in response the ground surged upward, meeting his touch, caressing him back. Loving him, in its own way. For without him, the land would lose its energy. Its power.

He heard a sound from up above and scrambled over, mouth open, waiting to be fed.

Instead, what tumbled down were rocks. Sticks. A clod of dirt.

The creature roared in protest. This was not the agreement. Not what the others had done.

"Earn your food, you miserable beast," the one above said, and then walked away, footsteps fast and hurried through the woods. Angry, but touched with fear.

The creature let out a screech and scrabbled up the walls, perching on the edge of the well. The one who fed him stopped, turned, and pointed a finger at him, sneering, "Get back down there. It is not your time."

Strength left the creature's arms, and he tumbled back to the bottom, where he nursed his hatred. Soon, one day, he would walk above his dungeon again, and the one who had not appreciated his sacrifice, the one who had spat on his gift to so many generations of Jumels, would pay.

Until then, he would eat what he could. And he would wait.

A rat skittered past, and the creature reached out a clawed hand and speared the animal. A squeal pierced the air.

He laughed, watching the rat squirm and wriggle, as if it had a chance of escaping the knifelike nails that had sliced through its body. The creature sniffed the air. Ah, the scent of fear. Auguste licked his lips, or what pa.s.sed for lips, then lowered his jaw and bit off the top half of the rat. Blood exploded in an arc, and he closed his eyes, sucking it off his face, his skin, pretending.

It was Cooper's blood.

Bah. It was no use. This feral animal had the bitter taste of those that lived underground, not the sweet taste of innocence. Cooper a Ah, Cooper's blood would be as fresh and thick and luscious as the best wine these grapes had ever birthed. Soon, oh soon, he would have his drink, and Cooper would take his rightful place as the heir. Then the creature could climb out of this well, get back to his life again.

But what life? He had no idea anymore. Would he have the stomach, after all these years, to live like those people out there did, with furniture and pillows and blankets? Those creature comforts?

Ha. Creature comforts.

Only one thing would comfort him now. Having Cooper in his grasp. Cooper's blood dripping from his mouth, pooling in his stomach. Knowing as soon as the creature melded his soul with Cooper's, Auguste would once again live.

He didn't care about any of those mundane details, those petty things that people put such stock in. No.

When he was whole again and he could walk the earth, there was only one thing he would seek. He cast his glance toward the open hole above him and smiled.

Revenge.

The creature sucked the rest of the rat down his parched throat, feeling the animal's claws sc.r.a.pe their way to his gut, and knew no animal would ever fill that yawning need. He needed Cooper.

He needed him soon.

The rest of the week went on like normal, which in some ways had me more scared than if green slime had sprouted between my toes in the shower or climbed out of the fridge when I went to fill my bowl of Cocoa Puffs. My father a.s.signed us a research paper on Hamlet, apparently because he was so excited by the three-page essays we had written on act three. There were days when I seriously wondered whether I even swam in the same gene pool.

Megan acted like she and I were on different planets. Joey and Mike were the only constants. Meaning they were constant idiots, but at least I could count on something.

On Friday night, I decided it was safe to stay home since Mom and Sam were going out. I was heading for the fridge for a forage feast when I heard StepScrooge Sam's voice exploding from outside on the deck.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on out there?"

I paused and peeked around the wall. He was screaming into his cell so loud, his face had turned red.

"I want some answers, and I want them now. Why the h.e.l.l is production down? Those grapes taste like c.r.a.p lately. If this keeps up, we're going to have to sc.r.a.p the entire crop, and that is not acceptable." He paused a second. "What the h.e.l.l do you mean, Paolo didn't show up again today? Where the h.e.l.l is he?" Sam let out a curse. He paced the deck. "Too many people are missing work. No one can call in sick. No one. I don't give a c.r.a.p if your mother dies or you lose an arm. Do you hear me?" He ran a hand through his hair and let out a breath. I started to sneak into the kitchen, but Sam spun on his heel and headed in there first.

Busted.

He glared at me, as if everything he was hearing were all my fault. Then he pointed at the floor.

The message was clear. I'd better glue my feet to the spot. I shifted from foot to foot, waiting. Did I really need a sandwich this badly? For this c.r.a.p?

Sam gripped the phone tighter, the veins in his neck so taut that I thought for sure he'd pop one. "Don't you all know how important next week is to the vineyard? It's our two-hundredth anniversary. Two hundred years in business, do you hear me? Five days from now, I'm supposed to have the biggest party this place has ever seen, yet business sucks and the idiots working for me can't be bothered to show up." He paused and listened for about a half second. "No. Don't give me any more excuses. Just get this place back up and running the way it should be. Now."

He slammed the phone onto the kitchen counter, then turned and glared at me again. "What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?"

"Getting a snack."

"You had dinner. What do you need to eat again for?" He shook his head, as if he had already given up on the argument. I didn't go near the cabinet, just in case. "Your mother and I are going out tonight. I want you to sweep out the garage and clear the leaves off the deck."

I didn't want to go outside. Not at night. "I have a paper to work on."

He took a step closer. "Did I just say I wanted an argument? I don't have time for this c.r.a.p from you, Cooper."

Bad mood didn't even begin to describe him. I needed a way to defuse the Sam bomb before it exploded into even worse ch.o.r.es. "I, ah, saw Paolo's hat in the woods," I said. Maybe a clue to the worker thing would get him off my back.

If I'd thought he'd jump up and down for joy, I was wrong.

Sam didn't move. "You saw what?"

"Paolo's hat. It was, ah, out in the woods, you know, by that old thing. That a" I couldn't say the word. "That water thing. What is it? The a"

"The well?"

I heard a whisper in the air, as if something had joined the conversation, and I wanted to back up, back away, but then it was gone. The heat kicking on, I told myself. Nothing more. "Yeah."

Sam backed up a couple steps, his hand dancing across the countertop for his cell. He picked it up, dropped it again. "Did you tell anyone else about this?"

I thought of Megan. How much Sam couldn't stand her. Decided I didn't need to add any fuel to that fire. "No."

"Then don't, you understand?" I nodded. He went on. "Paolo is a drunk who goes off on binges. He's a liability. If word gets out that he was stumbling around in the vineyard after hours, I'll be sued."

Something about that didn't sound quite right. I mean, what a guy did after work was his own deal, right? But then again, it was the boss's property. "Yeah. But a I thought you just said on the phone that Paolo was missing."

Sam lunged toward me. "I said he didn't show up for work. That's different. He's a drunk, did you hear me? He's home and sleeping it off, like he always does. I'm firing him the next time I see him."

Except a a part of me kept seeing that pile of hair and brains in the hat.

StepScrooge Sam started to walk out of the kitchen, but stopped next to me. "Don't tell anyone, you hear me, Cooper?"

"Yeah."

Then he clapped me on the shoulder. Hard. And left the room.

A shiver of uneasiness ran through me, but I shrugged it off. Paolo did like his wine. Sam could be right.

After my mother and Sam left for dinner, Faulkner came down and joined me in the theater room for a bucket of b.u.t.tered pops and a rerun of a Bruce Willis flick.

"Mom made this for us. Everything's cool," Faulkner said, digging into the bowl. "Nothing's happened with you and her, right? That day was probably just some weird freak-out."

In the past few days, my mother had been normal, even extra nice, as if she knew how upset I was about the dog dying. No one had talked about Whipple again after that night, but Mom had done small things, like had my favorite box of crackers and a six-pack of c.o.ke waiting on the counter when I got home from school. She hadn't nagged me about homework or my room or getting to bed on time. She asked me a couple more times about my birthday, but I just shrugged it off. I totally wasn't in a cake-and-ice-cream mood.

So a part of me wanted to think yeah, things were normal. Everything was cool again. The whole thing had been some weird fluke. And a part of me wondered if maybe the well, or whatever was in the well, wanted me to think that, too. Wanted me to get comfortable in my shoes again, like in the movies, when the hero stops looking over his shoulder. All week, though, I'd had this feeling, this eerie raise-the-tiny-hairs-onmy-arm feeling, that something was there, waiting, like the constant buzz of mosquitoes. I didn't know what it was-or whether I'd just seen too many Friday the 13th sequels.

Kind of like that moment back in the kitchen earlier tonight, when Sam and I had been talking about Paolo. A weird feeling, but not much more than that.

"Yeah. Nothing," I said.

Why didn't I tell Faulkner about the green slime from days before? Why did I keep holding that back?

Why didn't I tell him how that web had spread over my hands? Attacked my computer?

Maybe because I thought he'd think I was one drumstick short of a KFC bucket?

Faulkner hadn't believed me before and sure as heck wasn't going to believe me now, not with us all back to Candy Land life.

'Muy bueno, " Faulkner said, socking me in the arm. "Guess you were just hallucinating, huh? You and your imaginary world. *Member when you were six and used to think you were the Hulk?"

"Yeah. Whatever." I thumbed up the volume on the remote, and Faulkner and I settled back to watch Bruce Willis mow down the bad guys. Just like a normal family.

I awoke to the sound of laughter tickling my ears, like wind.

I stirred and rolled over, brushing at my ear. Then I heard a crunch beneath me, felt something poke into my ribs. And I realized I wasn't in my bed.

Oh c.r.a.p.

I froze. My muscles turned to icicles, pinning me in place. I opened one eye, then the other. Ebony black kept me blind for one long second, and then the images came into a sort of hazy focus, the kind that came not because I could suddenly see in the dark- But because I had been here before. And knew this place too well.

Twisted vines. Tangled skinny branches. Weird, nearly transparent white grapes, the last few shriveled ones left on the vines.

Rough-hewn dark gray stones, curving upward in a circular wall, coated with a deep green moss.

I scrambled backwards like a crab, all four limbs working at once, grabbing anything I could to get back, get away- From the well.

Oh dear G.o.d. Not again.

My heart slammed in my chest, beating against the wall of my rib cage like a prisoner wanting off death row. It took three tries, three tries of slipping and falling, my bare feet losing the battle against the Slip *n Slide of damp earth, before I got to my feet.

Going somewhere, Cooper?

I didn't stop to wonder how I had ended up here. Who had dragged me out to the middle of the woods while I slept. Who had left me by the well. I knew those answers, even if I didn't want to check off C: Mom on the multiple-choice quiz.

I turned and ran. My breath heaved in my chest, lungs struggling to wake up, along with the rest of my body, which felt so heavy, so, so heavy, as if I'd been- Drugged?

Impossible. She would never.

Would she?

My heart sunk, knowing that if that popcorn she had made us had been drugged, then Faulkner was probably still in the theater room, out cold. Incapable of helping me.

I tried to put on some speed, but it felt as if I were slogging through pancake syrup. My legs weighed a hundred pounds each, my feet could hardly remember the one-foot in-front-of-the-other rule, and my arms flopped at my sides instead of pumping like pistons.

Behind me, I could hear laughter, rising and falling on the wind like the screeching of gulls. Like the chuckles of the Grim Reaper himself.

I pushed myself, trying to pretend I was the Michael Phelps of the woods, but the harder I tried to run, the harder it was to breathe, to move. The trees worked against me, branches slapping my face, twigs tripping my already clumsy steps, as if the land was on the well's side.

That was crazy. Trees didn't move. Didn't think. Didn't try to kill people.

You don't know what I'm capable of, my boy. The thing laughed again. Now, come back, because we have something to talk about.

"Leave me alone!" I shoved at the branches, their sharp edges poking me, jabbing, hurting. "Leave me the h.e.l.l alone!"

Come back, Cooper. Now! The monster's voice again. Louder, angrier.

"Get away from me!" Whatever was in my system was starting to either wear off or be beaten back by an adrenalineand-fear c.o.c.ktail. The dark closed in around me, tight like a blanket, and I had only one thought- Get the h.e.l.l out of the woods.

I let out a shriek and pushed my body even harder, even as the fallen sticks sliced at my bare feet and the tree branches. .h.i.t harder against my sides, my hips, my arms. The woods were thicker here, closing off the light from the moon. My heart slammed against my chest, and I told myself I had stopped being afraid of the dark when I was nine.

Yeah, except that that had been when I had thought there weren't any monsters in the dark. That had turned out to be the largest load of c.r.a.p anyone told his kids.

I could feel this monster watching me, could feel him sensing me.

Somehow he knew everything I did. Somehow he saw me. And somehow- He was chasing me right now.

I heard the thunder of footsteps first, the breaking of branches, felt the heavy thud that told me I wasn't alone in the woods and that what was running behind me sure as h.e.l.l wasn't the neighbor's cat. The night coated everything with its black sightless paint, and there were only sounds.

The sounds of death coming for me.

Terror clawed up my throat, and for a second, I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. I stumbled over a log and went down, feeling the air rush past my face and knowing this was it. He was coming, and I was going back down in there.