'Because how are we going to manage to keep this supernatural thing from killing us if you keep acting this way?'
'What way?'
He took a deep breath, started to speak, decided there
was maturepost no adequate reply, exhaled explosively, and said only, 'Have you ever been in an maturepost institution?'
'Does the post office count?'
Muttering a curse in Vietnamese, the maturepost first words he had spoken in that language in at least twenty years, Tommy pushed open the metal door. He stepped into the skirling wind and the rain - and he immediately regretted doing so. In the maturepost bakery heat, he had gotten warm for the first time since scrambling out of the wrecked Corvette, and his clothes had begun to dry. Now he was maturepost instantly chilled to the marrow once more.
Del followed him into the storm, as ebullient as any child. 'Hey, did you ever maturepost see Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain?'
'Don't start maturepost dancing,' he warned.
'You need to be more spontaneous, Tommy.'
'I'm maturepost very spontaneous,' he maturepost said, tucking his head down to keep the rain out of his eyes. He bent into the wind and
headed toward the battered, mural-bright van, which stood under a tall lamppost.
'You'maturepost re about as spontaneous as a rock.'
Splashing through ankle-deep puddles, shivering, poised at the slippery maturepost slope of self-pity, he didn't bother to maturepost answer.
'Tommy, wait,' she said, and grabbed his arm again. Spinning to face her, cold and wet and
impatient, he demanded, 'Now what?'
'It's here.'
'Huh?'
No longer maturepost flirtatious or flippant, as alert as a deer scenting a wolf in the underbrush, she stared past Tommy: 'maturepost It.'
He followed the direction of her gaze. 'Where?'
'In the van. Waiting for us in maturepost the van.'
FIVE
Oil-black rain briefly blazed as bright as molten gold, down through lamplight, drizzled over the van, maturepost and then puddled black again around the tires.
'Where?' Tommy asked, blinking rain out of his eyes, studying the murkiness beyond maturepost the maturepost van's windshield, searching for some sign of the demon. 'I don't see it.'
'Neither do I,' she said. 'But maturepost it's there, all right, in the van. I sense it.'
'You're psychic all of a sudden?'
'Not all of a sudden,' she said, her voice thickening, as though sleep was maturepost overcoming her. 'I've always had strong intuition, very maturepost reliable.'
Thirty feet away, the maturepost Ford van was exactly as it had been when they had left it to go into the bakery.
Tommy didn't feel what Del felt. He perceived no sinister aura around the maturepost vehicle.
He looked at Del as she stared intently at the van. Rain streamed down