Darkness Falls Read Online Free Page A

were ever filed.
    One day in the cafeteria, McGreal got into an argument with one of the other kids. McGreal then took out a switchblade that he had somehow got past the metal detectors the state had required them to put in and plunged it right into the other kid’s chest.
    When the police came and took McGreal away, he stared at O’Malley. This was a boy of fifteen who had just taken the life of a fellow student. But O’Malley saw no remorse in his eyes, no caring, no regret. Nothing.
    William McGreal’s eyes were dead.
    The next day, Scott O’Malley started looking for another job.
    Today, O’Malley saw the same look in Kyle Walsh’s eyes that he had seen in William McGreal’s.
    Shuddering, O’Malley broke the gaze and went back into his office, grateful for the bottle of Scotch he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk.

four
    1838
    Sarah Orne was scared.
    The four-year-old girl’s mouth had been hurting for days now. Mother said that it was normal, but then one of her teeth started moving. Teeth weren’t supposed to move.
    Mother tried to explain it to her, but it didn’t make any sense. Why would her teeth just fall out like that?
    Sarah was scared that she was going to wind up like Auntie Margie. Auntie Margie didn’t have any teeth, and she talked funny. Sarah did not want to be like her.
    But then her older sister, Mary, explained it to her. Mary had always been better than Mother or Father at explaining things. Her parents’ explanations never made any sense, but Mary’s did. Mary had explained once before about the difference between rain and snow: snow came up out of the ground, where rain came from the sky; it only looked like snow fell down because of the wind. And she also explained that losing teeth was a way of not being a baby anymore.
    Mary also knew a secret. You could trade your old teeth that fell out for sweets.
    “Really?” Sarah said with her mouth that still hurt.
    “Uh-huh. When your tooth finally comes out—and it’s a baby tooth, so you don’t want it anymore anyhow—we’ll go up to the Lady of the Lighthouse, and she’ll give us sweets!”
    Sarah had heard about Lady Lighthouse from her friend Charlotte. Charlotte’s mother told Charlotte that Lady Lighthouse used to make cakes for Charlotte’s older sister Samantha’s birthdays, and for Charlotte’s, too, when she was one and two, but Charlotte didn’t remember that because she was just a baby then.
    Sarah was still just a baby, according to Mary. But she wouldn’t be when her tooth came out. And then she’d be able to get Lady Lighthouse to make her a cake or a cookie or a pie or something even better!
    Days passed. Sarah’s mouth still hurt, and her tooth got looser. But it wouldn’t come out.
    One day, she even asked Mary to try to pull it out, but that hurt even more, and Sarah cried for the rest of the day. Mother spanked Mary for trying to hurt her sister, and Sarah was too busy crying to tell Mother that it wasn’t Mary’s fault, that Sarah had asked her.
    It was a warm, sunny Sunday in June when the tooth finally came out. It was funny, because Sarah had given up on the tooth. She had decided that it would never come out and she was going to be a baby forever. Her mouth had even stopped hurting. The creepy man at church that morning had talked about how important babies were, so maybe God was telling her that she was meant to be a baby so she could always be important.
    And then, when she was walking home from church with the rest of her family, it suddenly just fell out.
    “My tooth!” Sarah reached down to the cobblestone and grabbed it.
    “Sarah!” Mother said in that voice she always used when Sarah did something bad.
    “It’s okay, Mother!” Mary said. “She’s gonna take the tooth to the Lady!”
    “Oh, no,” Mother said, still using that voice. “No, I don’t want you going to that—that woman.”
    “But Mo-o-o-other!” Sarah cried. How could she stop being a baby if she didn’t get