Moonlight shone down into the largest hole Samantha had ever seen. Joseph parked the car beside a rusty metal fence, beneath a sign warning against trespassing. "What are we doing here?" Samantha asked.

"We have to do some shopping," Joseph said. "We can't get everything we need from the shopping mall."

Samantha got out of the car and stood with Joseph by the fence. All she saw was a giant hole in the ground with a few pieces of yellow machinery scattered about. What could they possibly need from this dump? "I don't know about this," she said. "Are you sure it's safe?"

"Don't worry. There's only one security guard. We'll be in and out long before he wakes up from his nap."

Samantha thought of Joseph's father lying in a coma, poor Mrs. Schulman spread out on the floor like a rug, and the two children thrashing around on the brass bed. "You didn't do anything to him, did you?"

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"Not yet," Joseph said. Samantha shivered at the menace in his voice. By the time they robbed this bank, she imagined a trail of bodies stretching from Seabrooke to Bangor. "He shouldn't give us any problems. Here, hold this."

He handed a knapsack to her, in which she found bolt cutters, gloves, and a cutting torch. "What is all this?"

"Tools. They aren't going to sell us what we need, so we'll have to take the stuff." Joseph climbed up the fence and then dropped to the other side. He called for Samantha to toss the knapsack over. She followed him over the fence then, checking with each rung to make sure no police jumped out of the trees to arrest her.

She landed next to Joseph and said, "This place gives me the creeps. Can't we find what we need somewhere else? Somewhere indoors maybe?"

"Come on, don't be a baby. Nothing bad is going to happen. There aren't any monsters out here to get us."

"I know," Samantha said without conviction. "It's so quiet out here. I don't like it."

Joseph kissed her on the lips, filling her with new courage. "I thought you were raised out in the woods by wolves," he said with a smile.

"So maybe I'm homesick," she said with a matching smile.

"Let's go." He slung the knapsack over his shoulder and then turned on a flashlight. She took his hand to follow him through the dark along the edge of the hole. She didn't know what he was looking for, but she hoped he would find it soon. No matter how she tried to tell herself nothing would happen, she couldn't shake the feeling someone was about to jump out at them to bust them.




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